Sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways.  My childhood friend is engaged to a sweetheart of a girl who I have only met once in my life, as they live very far away.  Thankfully, we have been able to get to know each other as we both blog.  After hearing how sick I was my first weekend home from the hospital, she asked me to name a book she could send to me to make me feel better.  I instantly picked a book that would make me laugh, as that was exactly what I needed, and poof, my Fed Ex guy was here just days later with Are You There Vodka, It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler.  I read the book late Friday night in one sitting while laying in the world’s softest bed at my college BFF’s house.  Of course it made me laugh, and I was thankful for the first laughter I had in days.  I adore Chelsea Handler, and her show Chelsea Lately, but it is her books that make me laugh the hardest.  In Vodka, Chelsea writes about her life, but the first story killed me as it was about her childhood.  She basically got Goldie Hawn to send her an autographed picture after she wrote to her, asking for help in convincing her classmates that she was staring in Private Benjamin Two with her.  I stumbled upon Chelsea in 2006 when I heard her on my morning radio show years ago promoting My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One night Stands, and I have been hooked on her since then. 

The next day my friend suggested that I read a memoir that she had been telling me to read for months now.  We both love our memoirs!  It is by a new author who grew up with a crazy sexual mother, not unlike my own mother.  I finished that book Saturday night.  It is called Her Last Death: A Memoir and it is by Suzanna Sonnenberg.  It was very good, a bit slow at first, and then it read so fast my head was spinning from all of the stories and excitement, pain and dysfunction.  Not to mention all the sex in this book.  Wow!  While I went the virginal route due to my mothers open affairs, Ms. Sonnenberg followed in her mothers footsteps (In a sense) and learned how to use sex as a coping skill, educational tool, weapon, and pure pleasure fullfiller.  What I was intrigued by was her first affair, with her prep school English teacher, and how his wife allowed him to do this, even though she taught Suzanna as well.  Because of that affair, this writer got a world-class education in literature, and she was so darn Freudian to me I couldn’t help but be fascinated with her life story and her mother’s part in it.  Not only did she live a very interesting life with her mother, but she had her fair share of run ins with famous musicians, had a famous grandfather and lived in both New York and Montana, two places I dream to visit again.   

Yesterday I began reading the most fabulous book that my friend sent to me Wednesday as a surprise, a book so perfect for me that I don’t want to finish it, titled Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I love to travel, and write, and eat, and I have been searching for my own religion since childhood, as you may remember from an earlier blog post titled Angels & Demons – Why I Like How Dan Brown Makes Me Think About Religion which you can view here: http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/angels-demons-why-i-like-how-dan-brown-makes-me-think-about-religion/  This book really has me thinking about my life, and what I want to do with the rest of it.  Of course, the book is a memoir, and it is about a womans search for herself, for happiness, and for her religion, and she takes a year off and spends a year finding it (Hopefully, as I’m not done with it yet!) in Italy, India and Indonesia.  The book makes me long to travel, even though I’m getting laid off and I’m in bed, resting from major surgery, because when I am on vacation I feel like this freedom and inner peace I am unable to experience anywhere else.  When I’m on vacation I feel like I’m truly able to be myself and just live life like I should be able to year-round.  Traveling is a wonderful gift that I began to give to myself in my twenties, even though I was dead broke, attending college and working two jobs, as I needed to feel free to experience life and joy by taking my photographs, visiting nature, museums, and beautiful cities filled with culture, history, and romance.  I even journal about what I have learned and experienced on vacation.  I’ve been to forty states and twelve countries and surround my home with the images I took of all of these places, but that is not enough.  

If I was offered one wish from a magic genie, I know that I’d pick a career in both writing and travel (Because I am a compulsive hard worker and could never survive life without a job) rather than be handed a fortune or fame as a writer or even being magically cured of my illnesses, because I just simply want to create something that inspires people or just makes them happy.  I’ve always wanted to help people, and if I could do that by writing about my life and experiences while traveling, and open their eyes to the world, that would be a wonderful gift.  I’ve been a flight attendant and found a bit of joy in that.  I would jump at the chance of being offered a writing gig for a travel magazine or website, but would just croak if I was offered a book deal to write about my life and my travels along the way and how they helped me survive my life.  Perhaps if a little of my photography was thrown in I could die a happy woman.  But I have no idea how to go after something like this.  I have no degree in English or Journalism, just a Bachelor of Science, some masters credits in humanities and a PhD. in the school of life.  I have no internship experience in the business, no connections to the publication world, no experience as a writer other than this little blog.  And I live in Michigan, a state in crisis where there are no job openings, let alone writing job openings to people with little experience.  Michigan doesn’t have authors coming here to offer writing workshops.  Hell, you have to travel out-of-state just to see your favorite writers on book tours.  Despite all of this, I have the passion and desire to write for a living, even when the odds are against me.  How can I make this happen?  It is one thing to search for writing jobs on the internet, or to buy books on how to submit query letters, but how the hell am I going to make my dreams come true?  I wish someone could email me the answer to that question.  Even better, can you grant me my wish and make my dream of becoming a writer come true? 

Books have always been my passion, my salvation, my inspiration, my chance to escape and my affordable and sometimes free education.  I want to do for others what so many other people have done for me.  Am I ever going to be a writer who gets paid for their work?  I can clearly remember laying in my grandma’s back yard, surrounded by fruit trees, rolling around in the grass, smelling and experiencing the earth, while reading books, and just dreaming about writing myself one day.  I’m still that dreamy girl, just  a little older. 

Now would be the perfect time for that miracle.  I need it so much …  My life has never been easy, nor have I ever expected it to be, either.  But not once have I ever been cut a major break, in any aspect of my life.  I need a miracle to happen to me and maybe there is someone out there who can make it happen.  I wish I was able to do it by myself, but I fear I can’t after so many years of trying.  I am looking for someone right now who can help me do what I have wanted to do ever since I was a little girl.  I don’t mean someone who will spam email me an offer to buy their book on writing tips, either.  Spare me that.  I mean the real deal.  A genuine offer of help, without any money changing hands, just a soul who can help me just out of the goodness of their heart or out of appreciation of their enjoyment of the work I do here for free. 

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