The Creature Inside and Out

April 21, 2023April 20, 2023 / roughwighting / 88 Comments

“Stevie, I don’t have a creature inside me,” I insist. “In fact, there’s not much left to me at all,” I stare down at my decrepit body, hunched over from arthritis and age.

“That’s the point, Auntie!” Stevie exclaims. “The creature inside you is young. Vibrant. Viral.”

Readers: I’m Lucia, and my story began at the last post (https://roughwighting.net/2023/04/07/the-creature-within/) explaining that my brilliant nephew Stevie is convincing me to take a pill he invented that will help me become“the creature within.” At my old age, crooked with regrets, I decide to take the plunge, so to speak. Many of you guessed I will turn into a dragon, or a bird, a snake or a butterfly. Some of you even guessed I’d become a … well, wait, I’m holding the pill in my hand …

Continue reading →

The Creature Within

April 7, 2023April 2, 2023 / roughwighting / 108 Comments

I always liked Stevie as a kid. He was kooky, and so was I. But I was in my mid-40s when he was born.

By the time Stevie was a teen, his intellect was genius level, and his nerdiness disturbed his two straighter-than-an arrow parents, so they put him in an advanced program at MIT and crossed fingers he’d be accepted by the other odd souls that hovered in the halls of techno academia. Continue reading →

The Long-Ago Vow

March 12, 2021March 11, 2021 / roughwighting / 94 Comments

Ruth was a strange child. Her parents knew within weeks of her birth that she had neither David’s ginger hair nor Martha’s sassy smile. Instead, Ruth – named after David’s beloved great-grandmother, Ruby Ruth Ambrose – was taciturn and calm.

But all the same, Ruth was the favorite of her dad’s, even though parents aren’t supposed to feel more love for one child over another. Ruth’s older brother Robert was bright, cheerful, and even-tempered. A joy to have around the house.

But Ruth. David felt such a connection to his wide-eyed quiet daughter that he wondered if she had a spark of his great-grandma within her. (A New Realm) Continue reading →

How NOT to Ski in One Easy Lesson

December 12, 2014December 1, 2014 / roughwighting / 57 Comments

Halfway down a mountain overlooking Lake Tahoe, I think grimly: I will eviscerate him first. And then…then I’ll look for a den of bears. Bears must be hiding here in this bone-chilling Sierra mountain – and I’ll show them the way to my boyfriend’s (make that ex-boyfriend’s) body.

This occurs back in the time when my guy was a new guy in my life. Upon reading this memory, you may wind up amazed that he’s still my guy and not long gone.

You may think me cold and heartless to harbor such thoughts, but after reading about his insistence during our early romance to drive to Squaw Valley at Lake Tahoe where “I’ll teach you to ski – it’s easy. You’ll have it down in one easy lesson” – you’ll come away believing my hope to torture him with an electric prod rather tame. Continue reading →