Blowback

I’m from a dot of a rural town called Oakland, Oregon. Our little city, population 927, is historically designated and full of original brick buildings from the 1880’s. The nearest movie theater was towns away and our television station (yes, just one!) played Hee Haw night and day, so I read, avidly. As in — twelve books a day — avidly.

When I ran out of books at the library, I started writing my own. It began with little “books” about horses in third grade, then transitioned to stories of science fiction, fantasy and chose-your-own-adventure, but...

I stopped writing when, at sixteen, my best friend was murdered by a serial killer.

The trauma from that experience drove me towards a self-destructive, adrenaline-fueled life full of misadventures. In my early twenties, a stint as a professional show jumper and horse trainer gave me three concussions and a broken collar bone. Then, I became a drug mule, although it took decades for me to finally figure out that I was working for drug runners. In my mid-twenties, I needed more adrenaline, so I started racing cars, just as an amateur, but the vintage Alpha Romeo Giulietta was my joy.

Nearing thirty, I decided to go to film school just to prove a boy wrong and found that I was pretty good at making films. After graduation, I moved to Los Angeles to edit, but I wasn’t done being an adrenaline junky.

One hot July afternoon, I found myself splayed out beside my twisted motorcycle on the scorching asphalt of Melrose Avenue. I suffered a broken pelvis and a compound fracture of my left arm. When I awoke from surgery, my arm was paralyzed. The surgeon had tears in his eyes as he told me I was certain to lose it.

But I didn’t!

My friends call me “The Bionic Woman” because I have twelve broken bones and two limbs made of metal. I’ve come out of all this damaged but alive, and I have a shit ton of stories to tell but...not the confidence.