Just keep submitting, just keep submitting…

On By aftheadIn childhood, Fiction, finish something, parenting, Publishing Process, Uncategorized, writingLeave a comment
Plush "bumblecat" sitting on a wooden fence, which was the inspiration for my short story.
Giant plush bumblebee on a fence

In July 2018, almost eight years ago, I finished writing the first final draft of one of my favorite stories, Bumblecat. I submit it to a journal and was rejected three months later. The timing worked out so that I could then submit to one of my favorite publications, Glimmer Train. They had a call out for their final issue, and I dreamed of being included. They also rejected me. Undaunted, I sent it to an online publication where I got my first ever negative rejection. I had paid for feedback from the staff reader. That was a mistake.

If this is sci-fi, it deosn’t pass the test of plausible science. If it’s an allegory, I’m not sure what of.

The opinion of this single person, who deosn’t even consider my feedback worthy of spellcheck and ends sentences with prepositions, was enough to make me quit. I mothballed Bumblecat.

Six years later, I was a different writer. I had three publications under my belt. I was a different person. My ten-year-old had grown old enough to drive. I had a longer view of motherhood. I had just ended my 20-year career supporting the Federal Government. My life experience meant I knew behind the scenes workings of scientific grants and technology commercialization. I knew how different facets of intelligence — scientific versus political — can conflict. I knew that being smart and being successful were not the same. I knew the conflicts between ambition and altruism. I was in an altogether better life place to tell the story of Bumblecat.

My first task in 2024, as a fulltime writer, was to rewrite Bumblecat, and develop a plan. I would submit to all the big magazines: the ones that won awards. An acceptance there would jumpstart my writing journey. Bumblecat got rejected six times in four months.

While “Bumblecat” isn’t quite right for us, many on our staff were impressed with your writing, and your submission merited additional consideration before we reached our final decision

I found this to be such a unique story!

I agreed with these rejections. It was good writing and a unique story, but why did everyone say it wasn’t a fit? Having exhausted my list of elite publications, I took the summer off from submitting.

My daughter is the muse for Bumblecat. I have this big puffy stuffed animal bumblebee. When she was little, she and I were lounging in my bed and one of us, I don’t know who, came up with this idea that my huge bee was a bumblecat. The story’s opening scene is an homage to that goofy mother/daughter chat.

During my summer submission hiatus, my family traveled the East Coast and Midwest searching for the perfect colleges and universities for my now seventeen-year-old kiddo to apply. Where would she go for her next life adventure? We looked at elite colleges, and they all felt icky. We looked at big state colleges, and some of them felt good, but not all of them. We looked at small business schools, and some of them felt good too. We made her application list not based on prestige, but based on where she thought she would fit. My daughter continues to teach me.

My first fiction publication was with Luna Station Quarterly (LSQ). They published Grork Dentist in 2019. I’ve been a loyal subscriber ever since. I love that they publish both online and on paper. I love that they focus on women writers. I’ve lurked in the editor’s Patreon long enough to be impressed with not just the stories Jennifer Lyn Parsons publishes, but how she’s handled the advent of AI, how she protects her writers, protects her own work, and has curated her publication. Maybe, I thought, she might appreciate some of the quirkier aspects of Bumblecat. My story is about a working mom balancing her family and her dreams while battling the establishment. Distilled down it’s about women experiencing the female condition. Could it be a perfect fit for LSQ? When they opened for submissions, I sent in my story. I got the best response.

LSQ would love to publish Bumblecat

I would love to announce that LSQ has published Bumblecat. I’m delighted to be back home between it’s covers and can’t wait to hear what you all think about the story, the characters, and the bumblecats.

The publication is available in a variety of electronic formats and in print. Be sure to check out the beautiful artwork by Sve Yurchenko, a Ukrainian artist, on the cover. I love it. It’s such a great match for Bumblecat. Read a few of the stories. Let me know which ones you love. I hope mine is one of them.

Feeling Rapturous

On By aftheadIn Tickles my afthead, Traditions4 Comments
Mountain rainbow

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the rapture. As a child, I had relatives who attended a church that occasionally predicted raptures. My earliest rapture memories are a general concern that my aunts and cousins might disappear and no longer be at family holidays. (They always were and are still on Earth today, so far as I know.) For the last rapture planned during my childhood, I was as a teenager. We were at my grandparent’s house and my mom and grandma were having a wonderful time discussing a specific detail of this particular rapture. My relatives were allowed to pack a single suitcase. What would they pack, mom and grandma wondered. As they debated, I thought about bringing my beloved books and saltines with me. (I love crackers.) In the end, my grandma decided she’d bring a suitcase full of booze and cigarettes, figuring with that she could barter for everything she might need in Heaven. She was a pragmatic lady, and it’s not surprising she was never invited into the rapture crew. I still ponder the mechanics of being called to Heaven, but thinking you could bring a suitcase. Were there weight limits? Size restrictions? What was stopping you from bringing a huge trunk with a non-believer stowaway inside?

My second rapture interaction was during the publication of the Left Behind series of books. In the late 90s, I was traveling weekly for work. One trip I found myself returning home having finished the book I brought. Facing a long flight with nothing to read was unacceptable, so I headed to the airport bookstore. At the front there was a display filled with a colorful series of science fiction looking novels. I read the back of the first one and was enthralled with the plot – rapture! How exciting! And there was a whole series to read, so if it was good I could keep reading them for weeks. The first one was okay, but they steadily got worse. I think I made it through the sixth one (there are twelve) before I realized these weren’t just a novel series, but propaganda. I often think of sweet little me in my twenties sitting on my airplanes reading the Left Behind series. It’s amazing I didn’t get picked up by some cult leader and indoctrinated.

Now, with the advent of the internet and social media, I pay attention whenever a rapture event is predicted. It gives me a chance to reconsider what I’d pack in my suitcase, miss my grandma, and marvel at how we used to not have online reviews to know if a book had an ulterior motive. Each new rapture event is unique in its details. Tomorrow’s predicted rapture has me pondering questions I’ve never considered before. For a worldwide rapture, does the gathering of the believers roll across the Earth or does everyone go up at once? People are reporting that New Zealand hasn’t yet experienced rapture, but is it like Santa Claus? Or is there a queue where you get pulled from the most worthy to least, just in case heaven fills up? Also, do pets stay or go? Why will there be piles of clothes? Were my relatives anticipating going up with their heavenly suitcase butt naked? I bet they packed clothes. I would have if I knew that detail. Or maybe yarn and knitting needles in case clothes were prohibited, but raw materials weren’t. There’s a lot to consider.

I’m planning on tomorrow’s rapture being another bust for those hoping to be swooped up to Heaven, but for me, it’s already been a success. My periodic rapture curiosity was exercised and fulfilled. But just in case, I know my grandmother’s heathen granddaughter will still be here tomorrow. If you get called up, drop me a note if you need your stove turned off or your plants watered. I’m assuming you can text me on your way up and will remember to bring your iPhone. Don’t forget a charger, just in case Heaven has plugs!

51 is not my Favorite Birthday

On By aftheadIn Meet Afthead, parenting, Rants, travel, Uncategorized, Work1 Comment
Who took this vacation picture? Was someone else here? We’ll never know.

Last year I was on the cusp of my life changing. Sure, I was turning 50, but I was about to take a year off to live my dream and write my first novel. Kamala Harris had jumped into the presidential race and was going to be our first female president. That meant I was going to come back to work inspired about working for a female commander in chief and having ample career opportunities to pick from. The self-improvement goals were numerous. I was going to get fit again and eat better. I was going to spend my daughter’s junior year being present, not be such a bitch at home, spend more time with my folks, and be a better friend. It was going to be glorious.

A year later, I’m feeling kind of (using an out of date gen-z word here) meh. I’m proud of my book, but a smidge disappointed in my early reader’s feedback. Now that I’m done writing, what do I do next? Do I take the terrifying step to polish it and try to publish, write the next book, or just quit knowing that the publishing world is cruel? The country is a hot pile of steaming shit for so many reasons, but personally I have zero future job opportunities: there is no work in electric vehicle charging, climate change, or green careers because Harris didn’t get elected. My ex-colleagues are all fired, quit, soon to be fired, or scared. My network is decimated. During our family summer vacation I refused to let my family take any pictures of me because I look like a chubby bridge troll with a permanent scowl and wiry hairs growing out of my mole. Someday we’ll look back on our nine days together and wonder if I was there. (Honestly, did the semaglutide botox fervor have to hit now? Many of my friends look better than they did in their 20s, but I’m terrified of a med spa injecting stuff into my body and face. Sigh.)

Poor me.

Yes. I know things could be worse. I know people are starving in Gaza. Shit’s about to get real in the United States as support benefits are crumbled by the Big Beautiful Bill. I saw the impact this administration is having even on the privileged as we toured colleges this summer: less emphasis on services, less emphasis on equity, less emphasis on choices, less emphasis on diversity, and the University of Delaware didn’t even mention that President Joe Biden was an alum. Meanwhile, I feel guilty because we are a rich white family so my kid will be okay even if we have to pay more tuition. Heck, she may be better off, because international students aren’t interested in attending school in a country where they might be being swept off the streets by ICE agents. (We toured Tufts right after Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested by a plainclothes agent off the street in Boston. Unsurprisingly, it was the worst tour we’ve been on. They were probably distracted.)

I know I’m a whiney old lady. I have had a year off. I have enjoyed quality time with my family and friends. I have delighted being available for my kid before she goes off to college next year. Having my mom and husband read my book (and enjoy it) has been a highpoint of my life. Financially we are doing okay, even without my year of salary, because somehow the chaos since election day hasn’t impacted our investments – see rich white family note above.

Tomorrow I will suck it up and be grateful again, but today is my birthday. Today I get to be frustrated at myself for my lack of willpower and becoming a dumpy old lady. Today I get to be aggravated because in less than a year I’ve gone from being a very successful career woman, who did things like meet Secretaries of Energy and Transportation and accepted invitations to the White House, to a worthless 51 year old woman. Today I get to be frustrated because there is so much work to do with my book, and my dozen this year (so far) for short stories, writing conferences, and jobs don’t give me any hope that I can write more than drivel, so what’s the point anyway?

Tomorrow I will celebrate my birthday with friends. Next week I will celebrate with my family. Today I miss the hope of turning 50.

Celebrating writing “The End”

On By aftheadIn Best Day Ever, Designing Your Life, finish something, Publishing Process, Work, writing3 Comments

This is really hard for me, so I’m just going to blurt it out. I am proud of myself. Whoa, honey. No one likes a braggart. Probably everyone is going to stop reading this post now, right?

When I walked away from my career last September I had one goal: to finish my novel and make it good enough for my mom to read. Why my mom, you ask? Because she’s a devourer of all types of books and no matter what genre I wrote, she would appreciate it. Because she’s an English teacher and could tell me if my book actually met standard and historical book criteria. I love books because my mom loves books and she encouraged me to read whatever I wanted my entire life. (She actually had to stand up to the elementary school librarian on my behalf for reading a “age inappropriate” books. Poor librarian.) I wanted to write this book, because it was a story I wanted to read and I wanted to share it with my mom.

On Friday June 13th I wrote “The End.” (Which is a totally fine date to finish your novel. No bad omens associated with Friday the thirteenth at all.) Then I read and edited and spell checked and edited some more until June 23rd when I printed out all 285 pages and presented it to mom. Part one of my goal accomplished.

(Mom took this picture of me and my book. We are at her kitchen table. I normally hate how I look in pictures, but not this time. Look at how happy I am.)

I’ve read many writing books. I think Stephen King is the one who said that writing is magic. In my head was a world, characters and actions. Part one of the magic is the transference from my head onto the paper. To the best of my abilities, I accomplished that. I’ve read my complete book twice since writing “The End” and I believe the story is there. Could it be better? Yeah. (The comma situation is certainly dicey.) Could the story be better? Maybe, but not from what my own eyes can see or my own brain can comprehend. Now I need to find out if I accomplished the second part of the magic: can someone else’s eyes and brain read the story and interpret it? I don’t know, but I’m about to find out. Feedback from my mom, my writing group, and my husband is coming. I’m trying to be brave.

I have little glimmers that give me hope. As they have finished, my writing group has sent texts saying “It’s wonderful” and “It’s a big wonderful book.” (At 107,000 words, it’s a bit of a behemoth.) Mom finished on July 7th and sent me a picture of the last page of my book. On it she wrote, “So good” underlined three times and “I got teary eyed.” I got teary eyed when she sent me the picture.

Mom’s “The End”

I’ve had a month to celebrate. A month to marvel at my accomplishment. I left 20 years of stability, a nice paycheck, and great benefits for a dream. That dream is now a physical hunk of word-filled paper big enough to cause death to a bug or pain to a foot if dropped.

No matter what the next few weeks of critique and discussion brings, I want to acknowledge that I achieved my dream and that’s pretty gosh darn amazing. (I can say that here, because everyone stopped reading after the first braggy paragraph, right?)

The End

My Country ’tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty?

On By aftheadIn politics, Rants, UncategorizedLeave a comment
An afternoon game at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado

I saw two white men kneeling on a brown man, forcing his face into the blacktop of the highway yesterday afternoon. Tonight, in the wee hours of July 4th, my country’s birthday, I cannot sleep because I cannot understand how we got here.

Five of us, two teenagers and three adults, were driving home from a baseball game on Interstate 25. Traffic slowed, and my daughter asked why there was a car facing the wrong way on the road. Sure enough, there was an empty SUV pointed north in the southbound lane. Strange, but we, and all the other cars, swerved around it and drove on. What were we going to do, stop turn the SUV around? Before the next exit, there were two munched cars on the side of the road. The people in that accident were out and about, so I assumed it was a normal highway fender bender. Maybe related to the backwards SUV? We kept driving.

Then I saw the third accident. A person with copper skin, an orange shirt, and kinky black hair was getting resuscitated by the side of the road. He was on the ground and a white man had his hands over his heart. I saw the white man doing chest compressions and I did that thing where I didn’t want to look for fear of the gore, but I looked anyway. And then I really saw. The man was not doing chest compressions. The man, a white man, was kneeling on the brown man. The white man had the arms of the brown man pulled behind his back. The white man wasn’t saving the brown man’s life, but pressing his body into the asphalt. The brown man’s face was smashed into the black asphalt on a 91 degree day. Next to the white man knelt another white man. Then we were past them. I’m humiliated to say we didn’t do anything. We just drove on and got ice cream, like we were planning. While a man was being pressed into the scalding highway we got ice cream.

We aren’t monsters. We talked about the scene. Four of us had the same life saving first impression, followed by an oh-shit moment. My daughter’s friend never doubted that she was seeing a white man kneeling on a brown man. We all agreed that the men weren’t police. They weren’t in uniforms. They were men, like my husband, forcing another man into the street. My daughter’s friend, the one with the clearest vision of the situation, commented that the white men had the brown man’s head awfully close to the oncoming traffic, like they didn’t care if he got run over. She wasn’t wrong. My friend wondered what she could do in retirement to make things better. On our way home, we drove past the scene, but traffic had cleared and the tableau was gone.

How did my country end up here? In my almost 51 years, I never dreamed I would witness such a thing. This was a story my dad would tell me from his childhood in Texas. After the fact, I wonder if I’d been alone, would I have stopped? If I’d been driving, would I have stopped? I’m CPR trained. If they were doing compressions I could have helped. If I had mistakenly stopped to help and realized what was going on, could I have made them see the man as a human being who should be treated with dignity? Should I have called someone? Later in the day, I logged onto the godforsaken Twitter app to check the Denver Police feed, but there was nothing. I checked the Facebook Colorado State Patrol feed and there was nothing. Nothing about a backwards car, an accident, or a public assault on a brown man anywhere.

I know there’s a phone number I’m supposed to call if I see ICE agents in our metro area, but I didn’t think of that until tonight. Do they want to hear about something that happened hours ago? I am ashamed of myself. I am a white lady and I need to do better. The country that exists in my head, where people stop by the side of the road to help people is gone. I’m ashamed of my reaction and my behavior. I have the same sick feeling I had when I learned that other families taught their kids how to be safe with the police, while I grew up in a bubble thinking all police would help me.

On our way into the baseball game, we followed a man whose shirt read “Gunpa, like a Grandpa but with more guns and more fun.” At the baseball game the Colorado Rockies were playing the Houston Astros, and I was aggravated by all the obnoxious Texas fans. I stood quietly during the national anthem, while the woman next to me held her hand over her heart and belted out the song. At the 7th inning stretch I remarked that I was grateful we no longer sang “God Bless America” after “Take Me out to the Ballgame.” Those little differences seem like they could exist in the same country. The kind of annoying disparities that make up a population of human beings. Meanwhile, the chasm between the country I thought I lived in, where men stop to do CPR on another man, and the country I actually live in, where men publicly assault other men on the highway, don’t feel like they should exist on the same planet. I need to learn to live in the reality that actually exists, as awful as it is.

An Open Letter to Donald Trump Regarding my Outstanding Concept of a Plan to Serve as the United States Egg Czar

On By aftheadIn Chickens, politics, Rants, satire, Tickles my aftheadLeave a comment
Five eggs in a variety of brown shades

Dear President Trump,

At the grocery store last week, I paid $14 for a dozen organic free range brown eggs. It was the only carton left. I realize you are busy writing executive orders and antagonizing foreign countries, so I wanted to offer my services as your new United States Egg Czar.

I own six chickens ranging in age from two to six years. Yes, the chickens have names: Shadow, Speckles, Acadia, Sequoia, Delaine, and Keeley. (I know! I thought the same thing. The last two totally sound like they could be your White House press secretary.) 

Having been a chicken tender for almost a decade, I am the expert you need.

Let me start by explaining how we arrived at this crisis point. It’s a problem you know well. DEI. In the 1970s, there were no brown eggs. Eggs came in a cardboard carton with 12 perfect white orbs. Today we pay extra for blue and brown eggs. That’s right. Colored eggs cost more. Absolutely offensive. My first act will end egg diversity. Let’s make eggs great again.

Wait, less eggs? Won’t that make the cost of eggs go up even more? No. Because the DEI issue runs deeper than shell color. The shocking truth is that the entire egg production industry is made up of girl chickens. Boy chickens are not included in this important work. Our country was so busy making opportunities for girl chickens under the auspices of equity they forgot about the roosters. We could double our egg generation capacity by stopping this woke practice.

Personally, I can tell you the female chicken problems are insidious. Remember I said I had to pay $14 for eggs, but then I mentioned I have chickens. Shouldn’t my girls be pooping out free eggs? They should. But my lazy hens laid a total of four eggs from Election Day to Inauguration Day.

It’s tempting to blame Shadow and Speckles, because old lady chickens stop producing eggs. But you and I know that the elderly deserve respect, even if they have limitations. My young chickens, Acadia and Sequoia, are the problems. At two years old, they are the equivalent of human teenagers. In November that young fertile duo decided their look was mid and dropped all their feathers. Thinking only of themselves, those selfish fashionistas ran around naked, knowing that chicken bodies can either make eggs or new feathers. This feather shedding even has a repulsive name: molting. No, the problem isn’t limited to my coop. All hens are vain.

Furthermore, experience tells us that hens do not lay eggs unless there is enough light. I hypothesize this is because chicken ladies are weak and afraid. They want to huddle together and gossip, not sit alone in the cold and dark producing food for humans.

Teenage boy chickens wouldn’t care about fashion. They wouldn’t be afraid. They’d strut around in their long shorts and hoodies and do their damn job. Let us start a program to get roosters in the egg production business and show these hens what real egg laying looks like. (Ignore the naysayers whining about biology.)

Ugh. The whining. Seriously, only an idiot wouldn’t see this price spike coming. I would go so far as to say eggs should cost $14 each given the discrimination, aging, molting, and darkness. No. $1400 each, all winter long. Only worthy billionaires should be able to afford luxuries like French toast casserole on Christmas morning. We live in a capitalistic society. This is basic supply and demand.

I know. Americans don’t care about poultry science or economic systems. They want cheap eggs. Too bad. Thankfully we are visionaries with multifaceted plans. We know how to justify expensive things. Tariffs. I don’t exactly understand how tariffs work, but who does? Let’s tariff the heck out of all French sounding foods then rebrand eggs as œufs (French for egg). Then if some “American” wants a meal of fried œufs with a side of brie, poutine, and escargot, bon appétit. It sounds disgusting and will cost them a pretty penny. (Oh, sorry, you got rid of pennies.) It will cost them a quality quarter.

Now for the pièce de resistance. This will all fix itself soon. There is a reason all springtime rituals include eggs. When chickens aren’t being vain and fearful, when their feathers are full and fluffy, and when the sun is shining, eggs flow like manna from chicken butts. It’s true. By Easter and Passover, Americans will have their $2 a dozen eggs. Really. Just yesterday I skipped out to my back yard and collected five eggs from my girls. Like magic, your campaign promise will be delivered. 

If anyone mentions the bird flu just ignore them. I’m sure it’s a hoax.

God Bless America,

Johanna Levene

Reflections: 6 months into my writing sabbatical

On By aftheadIn politics, Rants, stories, Uncategorized, writing4 Comments

It’s been 6 months and 6 days since I stepped away from my job supporting the US Department of Energy, US Federal Highway Administration, US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, and National Resources Canada where I helped build and document electric charging stations and alternative fuel stations around northern North America. When I left, the election hadn’t happened yet. Kamala Harris was 47 days into her campaign and people at work were confident in her presidency. I even had one of my bosses scoff at me when I mentioned that one of my reasons for leaving was the potential impact on our work from a Trump presidency. He insisted, “That’s never going to happen.”

It happened. One day shy of two months after I left my job supporting the Federal Government Trump won. Four and a half months after I left he took office, and since then I’ve watched from a distance as he’s demolished the work I spent decades building. It’s weird not being in the trenches with my old co-workers trying to salvage what we can.

I swear, if one more person asks me, “Aren’t you SOOOO GLAD you got out when you did?” I’m going to punch them. I’m sorry if it’s you, but I’m sick of it. I worked in public service because I believe in the importance of what the government does for it’s people. I built a team of smart, innovative, caring people who wanted to change the world and our country for the better. I left for a year, not because I wanted to be the first in the swamp drainage, but because I was tired and burned out from working and doing so much. My job consisted of managing 25 people with 30% of my time, and with the other 70% I supported a $16M portfolio, did business development, and managed five of my own projects where I was an individual contributor. I’m so fucking tired of hearing the bullshit about lazy government workers who do nothing. That was not my experience. I’m sick that my team and my projects are being demolished and I can’t help. But I also know that if I was still there, I’d probably be locked away in some padded room rocking slowly, because I was so far over capacity. I would have had no ability to continue working my ass off while the president and his cabinet destroyed our government.

Instead of having an insider’s perspective on the dismantling of the great experiment that was the United States of America’s constitutional division of power, I have been writing. I also left my job, because I had a dream I wanted to realize: to finish my novel. My first month I polished up a short fiction piece, that I love, called Bumblecat. I’m afraid it might never find a home because it’s been rejected five times since I started shopping it around, and it talks about the USDA, which may be dissolved any day. I wrote a second piece about becoming the United States Egg Czar. That one is quite funny, and was also rejected. (But the rejection said it was funny, so I know it is actually funny.) It’s going up on the blog this weekend, because it’s a timely piece and I don’t want it to expire. I hope you like it. The third piece, which will go up on my blog next week is a gut wrencher of a piece about my cat who died in November of 2024. It was also rejected and since it is outside of my normal satire and speculative fiction space and I’m not in the mood to research a bunch of new markets to reject me.

Rejection is my life’s theme right now. My daughter just got cut from the club basketball team she’s been playing on for 4 years, for her senior season. I’ve had 7 writing rejections in 2025. As a country, we are rejecting the values that I hold dear. Honestly, I feel like I exist in a universe that has no room for me.

Thank goodness I’m creating a whole new universe where I can escape. While I’m woefully behind where I’d like to be in my book, I really like it. The people are fascinating and their struggles are meaningful. When I left in September, I expected to have the manuscript done and ready to start shipping to agents by the end of this month. Ha ha. Turns out creative pursuits do not work like technical projects. I can’t lay out a Gantt chart filled with deliverables, milestones, and deadlines and make something like a novel happen. Thankfully after about 3 months of forcing myself to a schedule, I modified my approach and now have half of a book done. I’ve got a plan for the final half all written out with colorful pens on sticky notes stuck to a cardboard thing you’d use at a science fair. I know where I’m going and I’m excited about the direction. I’ve also got book 2 pretty solidified in my head, and book 3 keeps popping in to say “hello.”

The plan was to give this writing thing a year, and then go back to work. But right now, I don’t think there will be work to go back to. My expertise in electric cars and electric car charging has limited value in our country. My 20 years of experience working across the Federal Government is meaningless once the departments I know are dissolved. And everything I write gets rejected, so even if I get this book done, it’s unlikely to ever find a home. All I can do on a daily basis is kick all those worries down the road for future Johanna. Present Johanna still has 6 months of freedom to finish her dream of writing a book, and I try to push away the fear and worry to focus on creating a new world that doesn’t suck as much as this one. Hopefully you’ll get to read about it someday.

Why this Election Matters to Me

On By aftheadIn Meet Afthead, politics, Rants, Tiny Knit Presidential Election, Uncategorized1 Comment

January 2021 things were still strange in my world. I was working at home. My daughter’s school delayed their winter start, trying to figure out executing in-person and remote school, so we were both home. She was in sixth grade.

I’m a bit of a political junkie and January 6th, 2021 provided an excellent opportunity to witness something I’d never seen before. The counting of the electoral college votes. I had a light day of meetings and lots of busy work, so I decided to sit with my computer and kiddo to watch the process as an impromptu civics lesson.

MSNBC coverage of the simple process that was supposed to happen to certify the 2020 election

I knew shenanigans were planned for the floor. Republicans were going to protest the count and try to avoid certifying the results. A potentially additional lesson on how the foundation of our government, the peaceful transition of power, would be tested.

I can’t believe how badly we bombed our national test. I remember flashes from watching the news broadcast with my daughter. I remember the interns, young women in suits, protecting the electoral college votes and whisking them away from the mob storming the capital. In my memory the votes were in wooden chests that invoked the history and importance of their contents. My memory is not wrong. I remember watching a gurney rolled out of the capital building and my daughter asking me, “Did someone die?” With the sheet pulled up over the body, I could only respond, “I think so.” My memory is not wrong. Windows were broken in our capitol and men wearing dead animals on their heads walked the floor of the House and Senate. As a lover of dystopian novels, reality stretched the bounds of my imagination that day while I watched a mob vandalize and disrespect our capitol, our country, and our system of government. I watched start to finish. It was not a “day of love” and those people were not “patriots”.

Image of my television showing the January 6th riot. One man holds Trump flags while another holds a Confederate flag in the United States Capitol.

It was a civics lesson that would continue. I remember the day last year when my daughter came home from her AP US History class ebullient about the importance of the peaceful transfer of power. Her knowledge had finally caught up with her experiences and she went on and on about how January 6th was the antithesis of the principles that make our country special. In two years she’ll cast her first ballot, and she can’t wait. Already she’s a highly informed voter.

My first election in 1992 I was a single issue voter. Straight democrat to protect abortion rights. When I was in my late teens and twenties unwanted pregnancies weren’t about a late term abortions to save the life of the mother. They weren’t about fetal abnormalities or ectopic pregnancies. They were about boyfriends who already broke up with you, and you didn’t want their baby. They were about being on the precipice of starting your own life and knowing your newly hatched dreams wouldn’t be possible with a child. They were about your parents, who wouldn’t understand. They were about getting loans from your friends for the $300 procedure, because if you couldn’t afford an abortion how were you going to afford a kid? They were about not wanting to be a mother and not wanting to join your life to a partner. That precious potential of young women was the most important thing in my world, and I voted to protect myself and my friends.

Now that protection is gone. Thank goodness pharmaceutical abortions were developed since my first election in 1992. When Dobbs took away our constitutional right I immediately ordered abortion medication. Not because I was pregnant. Not because anyone I knew was pregnant. But because I have had friends show up on my doorstep, needing help, and I wanted to make sure that help was available in the future. While mine and other woman’s rights to bodily autonomy are protected in my state, and hopefully will soon be in our constitution, I don’t trust that my country will continue to protect my right to choice.

My memory is not wrong. In high school I was told that abortion rights were protected by Roe and would never go away. Now I am told that January 6th wasn’t a riot incited by a Trump supporting mob. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees have revoked my rights as a human being. Trump’s followers desecrated our capitol and the ideals of our country.

I want to be able to remember how in 2024, we rejected violence and authoritarian control. I want to remember sitting next to my daughter and watching as we elect our first woman president. I want to remember what it’s like to have a leader who has lived in a female body with female vulnerabilities for 60 years and how that changed our country for the better. I want us to remember how to celebrate our differences and learn from each other again. I’m ready to remember the first moments of a Harris presidency.

An Extremely Belated Celebration

On By aftheadIn Best Day Ever, Favorite Lines, Uncategorized, writing3 Comments

2020 was a crazy year. In the midst of a global pandemic, I had a really good thing happen. But I never shared the really good thing on Afthead, because Afthead was a public place and the really good thing wasn’t necessarily something I wanted people to know about. Okay, I didn’t want my friends to know, because I was extremely frustrated with some of their COVID protocols, or lack thereof. To cope I wrote a satire piece about them and it got published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. This publication is a big deal in the humor world. McSweeney’s acceptance rate hovers right around 1%. It’s like getting into the Stanford-Harvard of magazines. I highly recommend checking it out.

Somehow, the idea of reaching out to all my friends whose food intolerances I’d fastidiously honored in the past and telling them that I was publicly mocking them seemed wrong. Also, I wasn’t in a good place with many of them when it was published. I was busy being lonely and angry while they were out camping without me, because I wanted to do ridiculous things like wear a mask. Or their kids were doing remote school together because it was so hard on them.

Four years in the future, several of those people are my friends again (and the ones who aren’t never really were). Most of us have talked about how we were all doing the best we could during those really hard times, and have forgiven each other. Or we just let it go.

But I still haven’t mentioned to them about the most popular thing I’ve ever written. I didn’t tell them that afterwards I got interviewed by The Writer magazine, featured in an article about getting COVID-19 stories published. I didn’t share all the emails I got from strangers telling me how they were struggling too. I didn’t forward the funny comment from Facebook, “Licorice has gluten?” I didn’t want to stretch those strained relationships any farther.

So why post this now? Why not just let the happiness stay quarantined? A couple of things have changed. First, I realized that the friends I was frustrated with don’t read this blog. They don’t see my words. Unless I print this out and shove it under their windshield wipers they won’t know. Also, I did tell lots of people. Work friends got a link. Family got a link. People who I know didn’t follow my exact protocols read it and enjoyed it. Finally, I’ve told everyone I’m taking a year off to write. If I’m a writer, I want to celebrate my writing successes. I decided four years was enough space. It’s okay to let out a little celebratory yay about this piece and say I’m proud of it.

The magical thing about this piece was that it all came out in a whoosh. Normally my writing has tens of drafts littering a piece-specific folder on my computer. (Even this post has 22 revisions!) For my McSweeney’s piece there’s not a single draft on my computer. I wrote it, edited it, and published it from one file. I remember showering and furiously crafting this letter I would send to my friends. I didn’t write a word until I had all the biting phrases worked out. It was like I’d birthed the story fully formed out of my fingertips. Such magic should be acknowledged.

The last amazing thing about this piece? I was in the middle of graduate school when I wrote it. I hadn’t had a creative urge since March 13, 2020 when we all got sent home from work and school to survive the end of the world. I was taking my last two master’s level classes before my capstone. I was working full time and helping my kid do school from home. I was terrified for my parent’s lives, and my support system was fractured and frayed because of my community’s disagreement on the pandemic. It was a horrible, horrible time, and I dealt with it by producing witty, poignant, biting satire. Looking back, I am in awe of myself.

If you want to take a trip back in time and see how September of 2020 felt, now’s your chance. It was a time before COVID vaccinations. We were on the cusp of a huge winter surge. 700 people were dying a day. Somehow I coped by crafting words like this:

People can have COVID and not know it, kind of like that irresponsible room mom last Halloween that didn’t know licorice has gluten. Mistakes happen. You might be laughing and shouting germs all over and never know until someone gets sick. Imagine how embarrassed you’d feel if you accidentally killed my parents. They say hi by the way.

The little masterpiece is still online at McSweeney’s if you feel like taking a trip down that horrific memory lane. Me? I’m going to go reread the acceptance note. It’s glorious.

Thanks for the submission. This is great. We will take it! It should run in the next few weeks. Would you mind sending me a photo and bio for your author profile? 

Would I mind? Uh, heck no! Yeah, I have an author profile on McSweeney’s too. Pretty cool, even four years later.

Taking back the red hat

On By aftheadIn politics3 Comments

This is my favorite workout hat. It’s a great sweat wicking material and it reminds me of my family’s trip to see the World Junior Hockey Championship in Edmonton in 2022. When we were vacationing in Canada it was a lovely hat. When I got home to the United States I remembered that red hats had been claimed by a demographic I don’t support.

In this latest election cycle, Democrats are reclaiming patriotism. They are claimed the flag at the national convention. I’m jumping on this wave of progressivism and taking back my red hat.

Let me be clear, my anti-red hat stance goes both ways. One, I don’t agree with the red hat folks on values or presidential candidates. I think that January 6th 2021 was an abomination: antithetical to one of the basic tenets of the United States of America — the peaceful transfer of power. Second, I am a middle aged white woman, and people who look like me are often right-wing Christian, forced birther, pro-authoritarian-white guy supporters. I don’t want my red hat to make me or other hikers uncomfortable – even as it’s wicking properties make my head super comfortable.

My first brave hike was with women, all in their 30s to 60s. We were in an area of Colorado where Trump won in 2020 by 7.1 percent. We saw a few folks in trucks and four-wheelers, but the only people we interacted with were two men taking down trees with chainsaws. They were friendly and joked with us. I don’t know if they felt camaraderie because of my red had, but I know it didn’t make them aggressive or violent, which is ideal when when dealing with chainsaw wielders, so this was a win for the hat.

Second hike was nondescript on the human front. I was solo and saw three sets of women – two with dogs and one with kids — no one commented on my hat. I also saw 14 amazing fuzzy caterpillars who had no hat opinions and was divebombed by one hummingbird, who though my hat was a giant flower. Total hat win. I like being mistaken for a flower. After the hike, I went by the grocery store and the clerk checking me out pointed to my hat and asked if I’d ever been to Canada. When I said I had, he started a litany of all his relatives who live in Toronto and asking if I knew them. Several minutes passed with me saying “no” to all the names he could remember, but the conversation was amiable, so a hat-neutral encounter.

The final hike was lovely. I was with my husband who wore his Colorado hat and Fleet Farm t-shirt. (Fleet Farm is another thing I would like to take back, if it’s been claimed by the right. Alas, the one we visit is in an area that Trump carried in 2020 by 19 points, but we still love it.) The trail was busy, but everyone was friendly. Some ladies horseback riding warned us of trail runners ahead who weren’t sharing the trail. By the time we got to the trail runners, they were sweaty shirtless walkers, and stepped out of our way. It would have been a completely neutral hat encounter, except I got to take this cute picture on a bridge of me with my controversial hat, my patriotic sunglasses, and tiny “Vote” earrings. (You can’t really see them in the picture, and they are upside-down anyway.)

There’s a chance that I blew this whole red-hat thing out of proportion. When I see the other red hat I get an instant rush of fight or flight, but that doesn’t mean those red hatted people are going to confront me. Or it doesn’t mean they are more likely to confront me than any other hat wearing person. I don’t go around espousing the advantages of Canadian Hockey when I wear my red hat, but I would recognize another Canada hat wearer. That’s my final concern. I’ve yet to see the other red hat in the wild while I’m wearing my red hat. I don’t want some Vance wanna-be to chase me down on the trails, thinking I’m a kindred spirit and then try to convince me to join his red hat clan. If I got trapped in a conversation around a women’s rights to bodily autonomy, or the guns used to kill children in schools, or the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or even school vouchers I would feel unsafe. Again, probably won’t happen, but there’s a reason the man versus bear meme exists. Anywhoo, tomorrow me and the red hat are going leaf-peeping, just the two of us. I’m cautiously hopeful that me and my head will be safe in the Colorado woods.