ABOUT THE BLOG
It has been my blessing or my curse to take an aerial view of life. I like to see the big patterns. I don’t want to be told to turn right and turn left, I want to see the map.
People who follow directions are sensible people. I am not one of them. I’m a balloon on a long string. Getting older hasn’t made me any more sensible, it just lengthened my string and added the dimension of time to my overview.
Reading is a huge string-lengthener. You can’t read a lot and not understand that there are other ways of thinking besides your own.
When I try to point out in conversation things I’ve seen while hovering and divergent information I’ve been synthesizing into patterns people tend to get a glazed look in their eyes and suddenly remember appointments. Now what is she on about?
Important things! Things that cannot be summed up in tweets!
MORE PERSONAL STUFF
There are many fine reasons to read a lot, one of them being that when you’re reading people tend to leave you alone. I was raised in a family with an alcoholic and had to lay low a lot to avoid confrontation.
Just like my taste in reading (omnivorous), my life has been all over the place. I decided to major in Drama in college, but after only one term it dawned on me that with this alcoholic mom I really needed to major in something that had a better chance of letting me become financially independent, so I changed majors to something that seemed like a good idea at the time: Clinical Psychology. It wasn’t until my senior year that I realized people without advanced degrees were just as unemployable as Drama majors.
Thus began an eclectic career. I did computer service, sold art, worked in a social service agency, became a substitute teacher, then went to grad school but didn’t finish when my husband was transferred to Oregon.
I married a man who reads at least as much as I do. After we moved to Arizona we had a huge fire at our house and when we were let back in to see what was left I saw him poking around by the bed, and said, “What are you looking for?” and he said, “The book I was reading. What are you looking for?” “Same.”
After the kids were born I got involved with acting again and wrote and directed sketches. One of the scripts I wrote won the Best Comedy award from Christians in Theater Arts in 2002. Love Boot Camp is on this website.
A close brush with death made me get serious about writing a novel of my own.
I can be emailed at: bonnieballoubooks@yahoo.com
