Theme Reveal YA Story and My First Job

My theme is a young adult short story. A double date in the 90's. An established couple sets up their best friends with each other, but it isn't going well.
 

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A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month.

March 7 – What was your very first job?

I started working as the night receptionist at a chiropractic office when I was sixteen. I had over 600 hours volunteering at the hospital before that. Check out the commercial I made for Nickelodeon about volunteering.

Blink

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 6 – What are you freakishly good at?

I have a useless skill. If we're watching something and I hit pause, the person on the screen is almost always in mid-blink. It's not on purpose. It's not something I'm trying to do. But it keeps happening. 

I'm also pretty good at reading someone's writing and then being able to "copy their voice." Which is how I got into ghosting. 👻 There are exceptions (🇨🇦 Andrew). This skill can be useful, especially in school if someone is willing to pay you to write essays that sound enough like they wrote them to go unnoticed, but are actually good enough for a B. (See, an A would raise suspicion.) It's mostly about noticing what tone they use, which synonyms they prefer, small bits of local dialect, what order they'll describe a new room full of people...  I'm far better at this in writing than I am in actual life. If you believe that different people learn best in different ways, it'll make perfect sense to you. (I learn best from reading. If I have to watch a video, I'll take notes so I can read them.) 

Shout-out to Jayden and Richard. They've probably prescheduled the month. But Hiiii! 

Bad Advice

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 5 – What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I have a respiratory condition. It started the morning of July 5, 2001. 

Not long after, I was still trying to live my life as normal, and FAILING with flying colors. 😬

I was with a doctor in 2002 and asking what to do when this and this and this and that caused respiratory attacks. (They didn't call them asthma attacks. And, given how incredibly bad they get, I don't either. It's not wheezing. I violently cough. My legs go out from under me. I lose the use of my arms. My senses fail one by one- vision, smell, taste, hearing, then touch. I'm told that, somewhere in there, I turn blue.) 

👨‍⚕️ The doctor said, "Don't do any of that until we figure this out." Meaning the respiratory problem. 

🤨 "Well what am I supposed to do?"

👨‍⚕️ "Just sit as still as possible as long as possible. Here's a note. You're not cleared to return to work until we have this under control."

That's the day I was put on short-term disability. But, because I never got a diagnosis (and "yeah, it's DEFINITELY something" didn't count), I couldn't go on long-term disability. But also couldn't get cleared to return to work. And my job told me that if I went to work elsewhere, I would be sued for the money I was given during my short-term disability leave. And then I lost my insurance because that job no longer covered it and I had no income for COBRA. Then I went bankrupt. 

I later got married and was put on my husband's plan. In July 2017, I saw 👩‍⚕️ Dr. Ribaudo-Kaufman (doctor 16 that is aware of my condition). I gave her my medical history.

"Who is 'we'?"

😶😳😶😮

There is no 'we.' There is no magical group of doctors sitting around figuring out my problem. This isn't House or Grey's Anatomy. No cure or treatment was coming. What's more, doctor 16 said that staying still had been the WORST thing I could have done. That it contributed to my rapid decline. But, then again, there weren't any meds that could have helped, but still, she felt that if more had been done, I wouldn't be as bad off as I am now.

Purpose in Life

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 4 – Are you living your life purpose — or still searching?

I feel like writing is the main purpose in my life. Or, more accurately, I am the only person on this world who cares if my characters exist and deeply desires for them to be remembered (fictionally). If I die, they go with me. Friends and family will be sad, but we keep living even if someone we love passes on. Dies. (Sorry. It's important for me to use that word.) But my characters? They can't currently survive without me. If I don't give them life on the page and share that, they'll stop existing. Neverending Story-- the Nothing will come!!! So there you go. 

Now if only that knowledge gave me the strength and energy to write more often. 🤦‍♀️

Magic

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 3 – Do you believe in magic? When have you felt it?

I immediately want to answer yes.

When have I felt it? I don't know. 

Maybe all the little things that science can't explain? 

Fear

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 2 – Do you have any irrational fears?

Irrational? I don't know. 

Most of my fears are things that legit could kill me. 

"A phobia is an irrational fear of something that's unlikely to cause harm. "

For example, here's what scared the 💩 crap out of me today:

Yes, I know how to take a screenshot. But as I read this, I had a panic attack. I messaged two friends to say I was having a panic attack. I took a picture of my screen to add to the message. And then sat here and cried as my chest felt like a 🚚 truck 🚛 was parked on me. 

I rescheduled my dental appointment for September. 

Sorry, Stephen King, but THIS is the scariest thing I've ever read in my life.

And if that makes me irrational... so be it.

A Sophisticated Answer

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. But I'm taking a crack at today.

March 1 – What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I've gotten a few over the years. But this one comes with a decent story.

In tenth grade, I had one of the humanity classes. There was an assignment one day. Everyone had an envelope to write their name on, and a stack of slips of paper. You passed the envelope to the next person. On the slip of paper, you wrote one nice word to describe whoever's envelope you had. Then pass along again until everyone in the class had put a slip in each envelope. Then we opened them and read them aloud.

My class partner, Mike, wrote "SOPHISTICATED" on my slip. (Yeah, I recognized the handwriting of my class partner.) No one had ever said that about me before. I really liked it. Maybe because he said it? I don't know. But it made me really happy, it made me feel good about myself to feel like I portrayed sophistication. 

To make this story more interesting, let me share my second favorite, the one that made everyone giggle. 

"COOL LIGHT-UP SHOES."

That was from Dave (RIP). I read it, people laughed and were like "what?" And Dave was all, "That one time in middle school, she had a pair of sneakers that lit up. I saw them in the cafeteria. They were freaking awesome! Do you still have those? You should wear them."

Three points here.

1- Dave was being genuine. He mentioned this to me more than once after this day. Dave was a bit of a clown, but he was also a good guy who stood up for people and was actually really nice. I don't know, maybe in another universe, we would have been friends or more. As it was, we were just two people in a smallish school who happened to have a handful of classes together.

2- Yes, I had a pair of L.A. Gear hightop sneakers. When you pressed the tongue it lit up for a few seconds. This and the Air Jordon pump was the height of sneaker technology in the early 90s and I'm sorry if you aren't cool enough to know that. Not everyone appreciated that my shoes did this. It resulted in some discussion as to if I should be allowed to wear something that could be a distraction. BECAUSE MY CLASSMATES WERE A BUNCH OF CATS WHO HAVE TO CHASE THE RED DOT. 🙄 Whatever. My mom got me a pair of Guess! sneakers that had artsy flowers on them, which I both loved and hated, depending on the day. They were not as supportive as my L.A. Gear ones, and thus my ankles turned more often. Such is life.

3- Dave was a senior. I was in tenth grade. I was the only tenth-grader in this class. In my high school, the only classes that were divided by your grade were English and History. The rest were all mixed based on what classes you were taking and how the schedule fell. Upon realizing I was the only tenth grader, I was called to the guidance office and given the chance to take a study hall instead and repeat the humanity class next year. Umm, no thanks. The guidance counselor worried that I would get bullied, that they'd be mean to me. REALLY? No. I was like the new kid sister. They LOVED me. Several of them stood up for me, even against teachers. They were super nice! Unlike people in my grade, who were mostly annoying at any given time. Plus, half of them were in a bunch of my other classes that year. What's one more class? It was fine. Better than fine. And yeah, I'm still friends with some of them on Facebook. (Which is how I know that Dave died. His sister told me.)