News and Updates

First Day of Summer – Pale Girl Edition

Seeing as how today is the first day of summer, I feel it would be appropriate to celebrate this day by saying, omg, I can’t stand summer. I’m not a fan of summer for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I get SAD in the summer. Seasonal Affective Disorder (or its cutesy acronym SAD) is depression that occurs during certain times of the year. Most people who have the disorder get it in the winter because it gets dark and they get mopey and are all, Maaaaaan, I miss summer, and I’m like, Whatever losers! Woo Hoo! Dark and cold rocks! Let’s run naked through the woods! - right in their sad faces.

Writer’s Block – Existential Edition

I love being a writer... most of the time. Here's an excerpt of the type of conversation I have with myself pretty much every time I sit down to write. And, I'm a professional writer. So, this happens... oh, every day. Me: It’s time to update my blog again. Didn't I just do this?? I need something to write about….You know what? What’s the point? Why do we even write? Everything that needs to be said has already been said by someone, somewhere, at some point in time.

Poem: Parents

** Update: The audio track for this poem can be heard here: https://avalovehanna.com/spoken-word-parents/ I’m a poet. Well, I used to be…Well, I still am… I’m just writing more essays and less poetry lately. But, I paid a lot of money to study poetry at a private university, completed a 90 page Master’s thesis chock full of poetry,...

Optimus Prime vs the English Major

It was 6:30 am. 6:30 in. the. morning. It was dark outside. Birds were sleeping. I should have been sleeping… instead I was sitting in bed trying to shake off the delirium from having been awoken suddenly in the middle of a dream and trying to comprehend why I was holding a half transformed Optimus Prime toy. A few inches from my face were the big bright wide awake eyes of my four year old. “Do it mommy! Transform him back into a truck!”

Save the Limes!

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room eating a protein bar. Kai was eyeing it so I asked him if he would like one too. He’s five now, so of course his answer wasn’t just “yes,” instead he told me to wait there and he would go to the kitchen by himself and get his own snack. Of course. Because being five means that you do everything yourself even the things you shouldn’t attempt and of course all of the things that make his father and I think, oh my god why is he trying to do that himself doesn’t he know he’s only five?? Independence is awesome. Bull headed independence with no experience or wisdom to back it up is terrifying. Five might give me a heart attack.