Ailleann, Sail, and connie, you all sent me reeling in different directions, first thing in the morning.

Wrod.

Aileann, Sail, connie, those were amazingly powerful, as Cindy said, in different directions.

Sail, yours especially hit home.

Susan, I like your drabbling through your rocky bit, too.

I hadn't thought about Joe's mini-breakdown in years, then there was a brief newsclip about Nam and they showed the footage of the helicopters being shoved off the carrier decks as they were evacuating Saigon. I thought, "Joe was there," and it all came back.

Susan, I like your drabbling through your rocky bit, too.

Thanks! It's a tricky set of scenes, because while Jack and Anna are running on something close to pure adrenaline (and are in enough danger that they don't have time to pause for reflection), it's too long and too fraught with story significance for me to write it as sheer action. The trick is to weave in the brain/heart/gut stuff without slowing the pacing.

This is a great topic, Teppy--very fertile for excellent drabbling.

connie, these days, whenever I see someone else getting bit in the ass by an unexpected memory, I twing in empathy.

I still need to get started...

It's a pretty good memory, all told. That night kicked me partway out of my ignorance and isolation. People I knew could be affected by big things, it wasn't just something that happened on TV.

All's Well That Ends Well

A mountain, a car, a long hard fall. Also, thirty seven fractured bones.

A rare form of juvenile osteoporosis; without the mountain and the car and the long hard fall, they likely don't discover it until it's irreversible, and I never walk again.

It's cancer, stage one. LEEP surgery for you tomorrow.

I come out alive, and quit smoking. The quitting is painless. I'm stronger, healthier.

Goodbye, it's over, I can't cope anymore. I'll always hate you. I'll always love you. You'll run through me forever. It won't ever not hurt. Goodbye.

All's well? Really?

Can someone please define "well"?

Not the best writing of my life, but Hope Springs Eternal
I don’t know why I bother sometimes. Messing with this face, this body, seems the original “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” situation, but I can’t let my hair just flop like a cave woman’s, and mom’s got the good scissors out and unearthed my untended makeup. I feel more like myself when the air hits my neck, smart and ready to take on life. I’ve left my doubts in a fuzzy pile on the floor.Making up re-introduces me to a woman I don’t quite recognize, like running into someone from high school in the grocery store. I know I know her, but I can’t quite remember how, and she never used to have lips like that.