Author Archives: Derelict Deb

On a normal Friday in the summer, I would make plans to spend the afternoon with Big Haggis (my hubby) and I would spend the morning prepping meals for the weekend so we could relax as much as possible and feast as much as possible with minimal of effort. Fresh chopped veg for snacking, skewers, and salads, perhaps a tuna salad or a guacamole that can be refrigerated and dipped into when needed. I love to have frozen fruit in the fridge for easy smoothies or boozy shakes, and I make sure that the protein is thawed, and sometimes even seasoned, ready for the grill, and (later in the summer) there is a fresh batch of my super-secret ShropHQ “summer mix”- that special summer batter into which I dredge green tomatoes, crab cakes, and/or okra to fry up as a summer treat to be served with fresh slaw (heavy on the sesame seeds), pico de gallo, a caprese plate, or a ceviche.

Hungry yet?

In short, this time of the year, Fridays usually see me slipping into the adult patterns of a summer weekend spent Relaxing and Recharging and Reclaiming.

This particular Friday though, I am hanging out in the Admirals Lounge of the Charlotte airport on a day pass; I had to purchase one with points because I’ve not had a 3+ hour domestic layover in 12 years. Evidently, my international life of the last 10 years only gets me access when traveling internationally. Who knew. Luckily, they did not ask me to wear a “Visitor” sticker (like they did in the Memory Unit where my G’mom Qtip used to live) or a ”Hello My Name is” name tag or any other Scarlet Letter identifier that alerts the other inhabitants of the lounge that I’m an interloper. 

Really, this laptop and the vodka cranberry cocktail are all I need to tell other travelers in the lounge that I “belong”. While 75% of persons in here are looking at a phone, only about half of those are actively chatting, with “I received your email” and “the policy states that” and “when I land I can send you those documents” . These people  make me question my life choices, as I am clearly not as successful or important as they are.

The other half of people on phones are playing games, watching tv shows, or talking a bunch of nonsense a little too loudly. Like the lady two rows behind me the connecting flight here; the poor bloke beside her as well as the front half of the plane all now know how best to navigate the North Carolina Zoo, including where to park and how to plan your day so you don’t have to walk uphill so much. She also prayed for the plane and the pilots. So there’s that.  

But back to my summer Friday reveries… Actually, no. 

My mind is in airport-lounge mode, shifting  to focus from journey to destination. Nancy.

For me, Nancy, as for many reading this post, is a bit of both. Journey and destination.

I am smiling, thinking of the Friday summers of my youth – circa 5^th through 8^th grades especially. The summers when Nancy and I would spend endless hours riding our bikes before the heat took us over. Many afternoons, I would head to the pool (I was a Lawndale Swim and Tennis pool rat)  and she would head inside for her soap operas, the updates of which she would give me later that night on the phone after dinner. I would hear of the Friday cliffhanger episodes of the Laura and Luke saga of General Hospital and other shows that I didn’t watch (I was strictly CBS) and then we’d make plans to go to the movies, or sleep-overs, and other summer shenanigans.

Other than nefarious soap opera plot lines, we worried about little more than the air pressure in our bike tires and the wrath of our mothers if we were home late to supper. We sang ridiculous songs – some from the radio and some we made up. We did creative projects, wrote in journals, and shared secrets. We were safe. We were grounded. When in doubt, we had each other. We watched for on-coming traffic; we waited when one of us sped down a hill first and the other needed to catch up. We ate cheese buns and pickles, watermelon slices and turkey sandwiches, P-B-and-Js and chips. And oh my. Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream.

Years later, the summer infertility treatments were wreaking havoc on my life, Nancy was there. With patience, she listened and asked if a pint of Baskin Robbins would help. It did.

The day she took a test and learned she was pregnant with Emma, I was there. We were on our way to a concert in LA and I split the duties instantly: “I’ll drink, you drive!” At that show, we danced and sang to the same songs (Jack Wagner!) that we did in middle school. And it was glorious, the warmth of new beginnings overlapping old familiars.

There are so many things we don’t know. What will happen next. On whose timetable we’re all living. Organized faith systems aside, what I do know is that I feel like Nancy is speeding down a hill, her wavy brown locks flying beautifully behind her as she maneuvers her bike in easy lazy curves.

And I feel myself, astride a sturdy 5-speed, following a distance behind, hollering for her to wait up for me. She is smiling, laughing even; she teases me.

Only this time, I feel that she won’t stop.

She will glide around the corner, green trees and summer blooms closing behind her.

There will be no squeaking of brakes, no skidding up next to the curb, no quick lock of the kickstand, no squinting into the sun, shielding her eyes to see how far behind I am.

I feel that where Nancy is riding now, I cannot go just yet, and I am sad about that.

But I know just as I am here now to soak her up and breathe her in, in the future, I’ll catch up.

I don’t have faith about much in this life, but I live every day with the burning love of a true friend, who existed – and does still – in spaces I hold dear. Spaces we might get to visit again – where we can ride bikes in a sunny summer afterlife filled with blooming crepe myrtles, barking dogs, and Baskin Robbins.

DocShrop NOTE:
I wrote this originally on Nancy’s Caring Bridge blog/site in June. I got to spend 6 days that last visit in California with her and her beautiful family. She died 4 weeks later.

This post is part Animal Planet and part house-arrest-drinking. So if you have no interest in Neighborhood Nature or Lockdown Liquor Drinks, then move on, sister, this is no place for you.

Fun Fact.

#QuaratineLife has made me a more tuned-in day drinker.

For me, day drinking – usually reserved for vacations, weekends, and Tuesdays that piss me off – has become less reckless-college-road-trip reminiscent and more of a subdued back-deck-bourbon event.

It has become somehow less taboo in a world in which no one can smell the contents of my cup.

I’m not looking for confessions in the comments, gang, but admit it. You’ve started some early ass cocktail hours since mid-March, haven’t you?

Hamish doesn’t judge. Much.

For me, it’s also become an interesting game I play with my dog, Hamish. He wisely does not snitch to those who flirt with him during conference calls, and I, in turn, allow his backyard shenanigans when I am on my third Quarantini.

I try to exercise a modicum of restraint; I do not watch any news while imbibing so as not to become belligerent, and I eat snacks to avoid being completely legless before 7pm.

Hamish would like to point out that my cigar habit is probably not the best one to broadcast during a pandemic of a respiratory virus, but for those of you wanting cigar and Quarantini pairings – you know how to get in touch.

I am only human. I have paused Zoom to cut more limes and used the mute button to cover the noise of the blender. Sunny afternoons, Hamish and I have been known to engage in existential day drinking discourse about his thoughts on the chipmunk he has been stalking since last weekend. (And he is, of course, relentless in his never-ending orations urging me to allow his furry ass on the couch. But on this policy, thus far, I remain steadfast.)

So persuasive.

Next Fun Fact.

I am enthralled with the way nature has responded to the lack of humans and humanness out and about in the world:

Probably looking for the late night club scene, wild boars roamed the street in Catalonia.

Hungry goats taking over a seaside town in Wales.

With a lack of ferry traffic, dolphins swam into ports near Sardinia.

Leopards are lounging about in temples in southern India.

Two deer walk into town, quietly judge a souvenir shop in Nara, Japan.

And here in the U.S., coyotes enjoy a day at the beach by the Golden Gate Bridge while wild turkeys are over-running Harvard’s campus with appropriate arrogance.

On a daily, I have found that in the quiet moments, watching nature has been a soothing balm that balances with my Merlot levels and aides with pandemic anxieties.

Brace yourself, I’m about to throw my inner hippie on you.  (If you have a turtle or wolf spirit animal, then you are zen with this and can probably just skip to the cocktail recipes at the end. Everyone else, keep reading.)

We have no trees (our house was built on open farmland) but we put out as many bird feeders as we can manage. We have three pairs of Cardinals who come to feed, bluebirds, chickadees, and all manner of finches.

It’s not a Marlin Perkins flashback and it’s not the Quaranpiña Colada talking. The flapping and pecking are raucous; the singing and chirping are nothing short of magical.

A quick search for the phrase birds are louder on Twitter reveals that I am not entirely alone in thinking: Are the birds chirping more fiercely these days, or do I need to drink less?

Sometimes, like a badly dubbed kung-fu movie, I give them voices and personalities to go with the flitting and flirting. The cardinals are loving and attentive, the finches are competitive. There is food enough to share, and they have all learned to fend off the asshole blue jays. I feel like there are lessons to be learned here, though I have no idea what those might be. That’s not the point is it?

Watching these birds, as well as the other critters in our backyard, has become a comforting activity in a weird house-arrest sort of way, when we don’t venture much beyond the fences.

One friend has watched a family of foxes drink water every morning from a broken bird bath lying on the ground. Another friend has a diligent wren who has built nests in his garden. The wren sings daily, diligently, to attract a mate but so far, no one has swiped right, poor fella.

We have a clutch of cottontails that live by one corner of the fence, and we hear coyotes sing some evenings. We have an elegant red tail hawk that lives nearby, and we see him hunting sometimes; I vacillate between which one I most identify with. I fear the coyote, respect the hawk, but some days I feel like the bunny.

Isn’t it ridiculous that we get so involved with our lives that we forget the world manages just fine without us in so many ways? That so many living things go on with their days, unseen and unnoticed because we are not still enough long enough to see them. My hope is that we’ll return to post-pandemic work and remember them every now and then. That we will think, “I wonder how that garter snake is faring today?” instead of “where should I go to lunch?”

In the meantime, as we all continue in this mad mad world, here’s wishing that you find some peace underneath the frogs invading your gardens, or in the birds flitting about the natural spaces in which you wander and wonder.

And, if you are lucky like me to have a backyard and a cool place to watch it, I hope you do it with your favorite drink to hand.

Here are the ShropHQ April Quarantine Cocktail recipes,
which have all been personally field tested.

(And are still tasty if you are sick of the nature
both in your backyard and in your living room!)

April’s Quarantini
*good any time of day
Over ice
Barefoot hard seltzer Pineapple and Passion fruit flavor
Sprite Zero

Or in a blender
combined with fresh strawberries!

Home-School Slushies – by subject
*Served in tall Tervis ½ way with ice – drink w straw

History
Truly hard seltzer grapefruit flavor
fill rest with pink lemonade

Math
chilled shots of El Jimador tequila

Arts
Truly hard seltzer berry flavor
with Gatorade Zero Glacier Cherry

Humanities/English
Platinum Vodka
Crystal light pink lemonade
Sprite Zero

Sciences
Truly hard seltzer wild berry
with Gatorade Zero Berry

Sunny Day Sippin’
Platinum Vodka
Sprite Zero
Crystal Light lemonade
Pomegranate juice
Drink outdoors w a good book and 15 SPF

Corona Coffee (AM)
fresh brewed coffee
Kahlua
Splash of half and half
Refill as needed

Corona Coffee X2
 *for AM Conference call with people you really don’t like
fresh brewed coffee
Kraken
Splash of half and half
Refill as needed

Typhoid Mary
* for conference calls with 3 or more people (better to make a pitcher and be prepared)
*no garnish. Make sure your tall glass/cup is not see-through
over ice
Platinum Vodka
Zing Zang Bloody Mary mix
pickled okra brine
Texas Pete
horseradish (in my case, loads)
Worcestershire
Smile after every sip

Afterschool or Recess Refreshments
over ice
Botanist or Gunpowder Gin
Food Lion Diet Tonic
three limes wedges
Drink with slow deep breaths

Quaranpiña Colada
*for only the truly devoted day drinkers or Saturdays with a chaperone
In a blender w ice
2 cups Chi Chi’s piña Colada mix (has rum in it)
2 cups Kraken rum
Garnish with pineapple if you have it
Hold on tight

KEEP CALM & BE KIND
Love,
Your Derelict Debutante

@DerelictDeb
#keepcalmbekind

There is a particular loneliness that comes when a cancer survivor mourns the loss of someone who has died from cancer. But today, I’ve talked with a few folx who are also feeling the solitary state of mourning, a sadness specific to the lockdown lives we are currently living.

Like many others, I’ve struggled with survivor guilt; it makes you itch all over and it overwhelms you, making you feel as there is not enough oxygen in the room. There is a place in the shadows where we survivors slip when this happens. It is a cool, dark, plum-colored silhouette into which we melt and wait.

We wait there for someone to ask for advice, to need a shoulder to cry on, to require someone to vent to. We are patient. Survivors are often asked to help – in the early days. We’re asked to translate doctors’ and nurses’ visits when a friend has been recently diagnosed and is managing the thoughts of the news and the fear and the next steps.

But eventually we aren’t a comfort. So we stay quiet. Because our voices don’t have the same weight anymore. A body going through chemo can’t help it; they will look at you with a film (of annoyance at the least, thinly veiled anger at most) because you have already come out the other side. You lived.

Kind souls never say it, but everyone thinks it. Why this one? Instead of another? It’s the unspoken How Dare You that makes a survivor retreat back into our safe purple shadow again. And we can stay there for days, bitches.

There in the shadows, we can stay and hide from the expectations that the world wants from us. The cultural script survivors are supposed to follow. The world wants me to put on a smile and march down to the nearest Komen Pink 5K.

I don’t want to. You can’t make me.

Today I am mourning the loss of a friend who died from cancer. We were not particularly close. She was a sweet and soft soul; she was thoughtful and inspirational, always looking for ways to see beauty in the world. So (as you can surmise) we had little in common.

She was by all accounts an amazing person, and the list of adjectives used to remember her with love and affection is long and wondrous.

And as I mourn this sweet soul, there is that omnipresent accusatory murmur at the base of my skull  – the one that says How Dare You.

Well that voice can fuck right off.

If living through the shittiest parts of life has taught me anything, it’s that there is no right or wrong way to mourn a loss. We need space to do it, and we need to do it in a variety of ways. Whatever you feel when you’ve lost someone, own it; you are entitled to feel it. You need to cry? Scream? Run? Call someone? Take a long lunch and a long walk? Do it.

I’m not saying that referring to your husband’s balls at his funeral should be the new trend in memorials, but funerals are for the living. And we don’t always do a smart and proper job of it. And how to mourn someone in time of pandemic? When social distancing keeps us from holding the very people who need most to be held?

We put light into the world in honor of the light it has lost.

We do what humans do best. We improvise.

We will have time to gather and mourn in groups again, but for now, we send love through 5G. We call and text people we’ve not spoken to in years and we share stories of love and laughter. We reconnect with folx long out of touch but never out of our hearts. We create paintings, compose songs, and plant flowers inspired by the love we feel for someone who won’t get to experience them. We write words into blogs that we would most likely never share otherwise.

We reach out. Out of the shadows, no matter what created them, and we make ourselves available to mourn with our friends.

KEEP CALM & BE KIND
Love,
Your Derelict Debutante

@DerelictDeb
#keepcalmbekind

A friend of mine visited my blog site a few days ago and sent me, without pretext, this message:
“Bitch how derelict can you be? Your last post was almost two years ago.”

I had a handy, snark-filled reply at the ready, but then my inner Irish poked me and said, “Ah Feck sure she’s right.” I went to the site. And sure enough. March. 2018. I was writing about writing. And squids. And critics. And hearts.

Well, fuck.

In lieu of an apology for disappearing in the blog space, let me just say that I’ve been busy, bitches. My anxieties, doctoral research, and writing stresses were matched only in size and scope with my fervent accruing of frequent flyer miles.

NOTE: For those of you just joining, I left the U.S. in Sept of 2015 with my husband, who is now lovingly called BigHaggis. We lived as Ex Pats for 3-4 years as I completed my PhD. We adore Scotland. And Glasgow. And Brexit can go Fuck Itself (technically, I think it’s already trying…) but we still consider ourselves Weegie Refugees. AND NOW I’m about to cover 20 months in about 2000 words, so strap in.
Let’s catch up, shall we?

April 2018: Ireland
BigHaggis and I traveled to Dublin for a glorious 5 days of distilleries, breweries, cathedrals, crypts, and castles. Much fine Guinness was consumed. Many irreverent jokes were made. I was only removed from one pub and really? It wasn’t my fault. We made merry and adopted the phrase “fiddly diddly” from a traveling German and his drunk (but cute) girlfriend.

Also April 2018: Switzerland
While I lead a 2-day writing retreat of bright young talents, BigHaggis amused himself by loading his daypack with whisky, water, and cigars, and sending me photo evidence of his personal invasions (read: border crossings) into Germany one day and France the next. Neither country could be arsed to acknowledge these accomplishments, so he returned to our hotel in Basel each evening, a bit miffed. On our free day together we walked through some incredible museums and the Basel Kirche, drinking in the beautiful town and river all Disney-spotless and impossibly crisp…

Enjoying some glorious weather in Basel, Switzerland. Perfect for strolling along the river drinking QuikMart red wine in stolen coffee cups and smoking Romeo Y Juliet 875s. #livingourBestLife

PRO TIP: The bells will deafen you (think: Quasimodo) but the views atop the spires are worth the climb #goodshoes And if you ask nicely, you can borrow the keys to the Basel Kirche crypt (not on any tour) for a look-see. While we want to return one day (Geneva perhaps?) the whole country seems to be both pristine and expensive as fuck, so the jury’s out on that one.

May 2018: Scotland
End of the term marked the last of supervision for my PhD. Anyone who has gone through a doctoral program will have many words about the importance of not being left free-range chicken. I am no different, but let’s just say (here, anyway) that it was a challenge to both my sanity and my liver.

May-June 2018: Scotland
We hosted family for a 2-week holiday which included a day trip to Edinburgh, the Rosslyn Chapel, a relaxing highland cottage stay, the Hogwarts Express train, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, Isle of Arran, and all the coos my wee nieces could handle without exploding (thank you Pollock House). The glorious two weeks was marred only one day of rain, and one annoying royal wedding that forced folx to fly union jacks for ½ a day. (Stop rolling your eyes. No Scot gives a fuck about the British crown or who they marry, even an American beauty. Scottish Independence can’t come soon enough.) June saw more visitors (10 days of tour guide fabulousness) including serious saturation on the Isle of Islay, where woolen mill tales and flights of whisky and chocolate pairings were magic. The smell of the 30cmx30cm plot of land BigHaggis owns can be smelt in every bottle of Laphroaig.

The Smith-Shropshire crew walking the fields of the battle of Culloden, where many of my ancestors were killed.(ClanRanald of the MacDonald of the Isles). And (below) feeding baby Heiland Coos at Pollock House, near Glasgow.

July 2018: The Netherlands
BigHaggis and I travel to the metropolis of Enschede, to the University of Twente, an engineering, science, and technology university. (Think MIT or GaTech, but much much smaller. And their students speak Dutch + at least two other languages. And they build robots and drink really good beer.) In short, not a place I would ever have been accepted to study. But they were hosting a conference on the power of narrative, and a very cool woman who had heard me speak in Berlin (Nov 2017) asked me to run a writing workshop about narrative and identity, and even offered translation, because she thought my drag life and it’s research was part-academic-part-stand-up-comedy and something folx would enjoy it. How the hell do you say NO to that? (I didn’t. And I will brag a bit to tell you that 40 signed up for the workshop, slightly more than that attended, and the Fire Marshall gave someone an ear full afterwards.) On the 4^th of July, we toasted our Ex Pat lives coming to an end, in a beir garden in the Netherlands.

Also July 2018: Germany
Off to Dusseldorf to see Frau Dr Fabulous, a lifetime friend, musician, and all-around amazing human. We drank, we laughed, we walked the city and drank some more! We strolled through art shows and riverside festivals #alltheoysters, and even crashed a church service/violin performance. Standing in the front lawn of that church after the service, we watched as they assembled tables and tapped the first keg of beer, I almost found religion again. (Almost.)

Also July 2018: Monaco & Nice
We were hosted by old friends made new again. We partied like rock-stars on the Cote D’Azur and marveled at the crazy cool compassionate people in our lives. BigHaggis also discovered that copious amounts of Rose leads to him dancing on tables. (There is photo proof of these shenanigans!)

Also July 2018: Spain
Barcelona in the summer is a nightmare. Go any other time. The beaches are beautiful but like walking on the sun; the heat is only somewhat squelched by copious amounts of cold beer, but then you eat the tremendous (served in hot cast iron skillets) paella and say fuck it. I’ll just sweat until I get back to Glasgow.

August 2018: BigHaggis goes back to the U.S.
Without me. I am crushed, even though we knew it was coming. The GEE18 (Great European Exit tour of 2018) is over. He is returning to find FT work (Fuck you very much Brexit) and (hopefully) a place for us to live once I have submitted my dissertation. I made arrangements with Glasgow friends to check in on me and make sure I’ve not collapsed in the Cigarden and been set upon by hungry urban foxes. I go on a writing retreat in the Trossachs. I cry for 2 days, but then am cheered by pals at Katie’s bar and a long weekend on the Isle of Bute with fellow writers and my chin is up again.

September 2018: Glasgow
I keep busy. Mostly. I work on chapter revisions and allow a crazy woman to use my flat to film her horror movie project. I live in the Mitchell library and few pubs in our neighborhood. I binge watch Lucifer and X-Files episodes and eat tons of Tunnock’s sweeties. I crank out the 30-page bibliography of my dissertation and do nearly-naked happy dances in the wee hours in my flat. I have mini breakdowns over giving away our beloved fichus tree and when BigHaggis sends me flowers. I find someone to sublet our flat. Because after 8 weeks, I need BigHaggis. I rent a beach house at Oak Island, NC, so that I can see him on weekends. But Hurricane Florence shits on that dream setup, damaging it (and the whole island) badly enough that there are no toilets, no running water, intermittent power, and no Wi-Fi. The view was still amazing, though, the owner told me. I told him to fuck right off. I also had a hard time explaining to Scots what a hurricane is – and how large.

For my non-U.S. friends: See the long narrow state whose arse is sticking out and clearly in the path of where Flo will make landfall? Yeah. That’s where this genius rented a beach house to be a writing retreat. FML

All of Scotland fits about 2X in (square footage of) NC & SC borders. So explaining that this hurricane was 4 times the size of Scotland to somenoe who’s never ventured out of western Europe – or even out of the UK? A challenge.

October – December 2018: North Carolina & the dissertation cocoon
BigHaggis started a new job with BigPharm and found us a wee house to rent. Heaven at first, but Ex Pat Limbo is not a sustainable life. Adjustments were hard for me. Free range writing and editing. The stress. The stress-eating. The stress-drinking. These months are an absolute blur. Holidays were had, even hosted, but not much of it stuck. I’m advised to edit 12000 words OUT of my dissertation. I struggle with homesickness and self-confidence, spinning in self-doubt and a desperate longing for my Glasgow flat and the Christmas markets I know are happening in City Centre without me. BigHaggis gets a promotion and can now work from home. We go to the animal shelter and adopt a scarred pit bull that is 38 pounds, 5 years old, and shy. We name him HAMISH. It’s maybe this that keeps me from derelict danger zones of depression.

We adopted Hamish on 18 Dec 2018 and our lives are so much richer for it #AdoptDontShop #PittiesRule

January 2019: Cocoon and Classroom (Elon University)
I teach a winter term course based on my research, which I call “Lip Sync for Your Life”. I have drag queens do a “Drag 101” in class and the students and the queens are all brilliant. I am hoping my transition back to teaching in the U.S. will be this easy. (It wasn’t.)

Jan-Feb 2019: Glasgow
Burns Supper with good friends. Dissertation edits, printing, and finally. Submission.
SUBMISSION. The tears. The whisky. More tears. More Tunnock’s. I get a new tattoo.

Feb – March 2019: Greensboro
Teaching. More Adjusting. Also, I sign up for dance lessons (more on that later) because the tango is fucking cool.

April 2019: Glasgow
3.5 years of research and writing and whisky. Conferences, workshops, retreats, and travel to 8 countries and countless cities, and so much of Scotland. 10 weeks of living apart. 3 intense weeks of VIVA prep. To survive a 2-hour 10-minute VIVA (oral defense of dissertation) and I AM A DOCTOR.

#DocShrop celebrations with many Harris Gins and shenanigans ensue for several days. I get a new tattoo. I cry off and on the entire plane ride back to NC.

Coffee mug BigHaggis got me for Christmas #hegetsme

May 2019: Greensboro
I finish my corrections and begin a new project – a collection of short stories that feature dogs. We shop for houses. The PhD limbo is over, and we are ready to stay put for a while. But first, many drams and celebratory gins and travel/graduation shenanigans must happen!

The #BigScotsHols crew at the seal boat landing of Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye. 

June 2019: Scotland
A two-week glorious holiday (ending at Hogwarts for graduation, of course) with my best friends in the world. Fryer Ted, Turner, and Gboy come with me and BigHaggis and we show them the country we love, the country that adopted us without reservation. Time is spent in the Highlands golfing, hiking, drinking, and fly-fishing. GBoy and I fish with flies Mackula tied for us more than a decade ago, when he dreamed in the last days of his life to see the Isle of Skye, and to go fishing with us in Scotland. There on the banks of the River Tweed, I heard his laughter in the running water, and I knew he was proud of me.

Me and GBoy, setting out to fly-fish on the River Tweed.

Two weeks of adventures and giggles races by and ends with a graduation day in my beautiful University, in my beloved city, shared with treasured friends. It’s almost too much. It is filled with champagne and a tremendous dinner at Curlers Rest and (appropriately) Lady Balls Bingo at one of our favorite bar/restaurants called the Hillhead Bookclub. My heart is full of love and my hair is full of glitter. The next day, I get a new tattoo.

#DocShrop’s entourage on Graduation.

Post-Graduation: ShropHQ-to-date
(July 2019 – January 2020)
Life has been undeniably good. We’ve begun slowly unpacking our memories and filling our new home with them. We held a glorious graduation party so we could celebrate #DocShrop Stateside. We hosted family for the holidays, and it was glorious, even though it flew by. Family reunions, cooking, shopping, puzzles, Nutcracker ballet, homemade versions of “Nailed It!” (more on that later) and lounging on our deck in the warn sunshine #CackalackyChristmas). Hamish (now 59 pounds, healthy, and full of attitude) flourishes. (And by flourish I mean he is a spoiled rotten snuggler.)

Don’t let BigHaggis’s scowl fool you. He was having a “Highlander” moment at Eileen Dunan Castle.

I struggle some days to remember the anxiety attacks, the tears of frustration, and the meltdown stress of it all. But I find that the day in Berlin, when someone called me “the Drag Lady” and referred to me as an expert, is a stand-out memory. As is the first set of drag queen interviews I conducted, BigHaggis tagging along and ordering specialty cocktails with dirty names. And the sunrises on the Isle of Eigg as we walked lazily to the water’s edge, mesmerized by the colors above and below. The memory of BigHaggis blocking me so the Swiss Guard wouldn’t catch me taking photos of Drunken Moses in the Sistine Chapel.

Navigating Tesco deliveries and discovering that we could get whisky delivered. To. The. Flat. Being invited to Alasdair Gray’s home, where he poured us healthy drams with Mad Bastard Stevie, who took us to his whisky club in Edinburgh after a rugby game. And the snow falling and bells ringing in Vienna on Christmas night. Or watching a falcon land majestically of the arm of the man standing next to me on the grounds of Dunrobin Castle.

Smoking countless afternoons over books and music and playing backgammon in ourGlasgow Cigarden. Seeing whales jump next to a CalMac ferry boat. The first dinner BigHaggis and I shared in Curlers Rest. And the last. These are the memories that I mine. I get to decide which ones to share, but I could, if I wanted to, hoard them all to myself, curling up in them like a napping dragon.

Not everyone supported this grand expedition of ourse, and there were many rocky days, of course. But we fucking did it.

“Was it worth it?” is seldom asked of us. These days, it’s “Do you miss it?” Oh Yes. The homesickness for a Weegie Refugee is real. The stress is not forgotten, but it is overwhelmingly outweighed by the fabulous adventures. And the laughter. And joy. And pride. We did it. #teamshrop did it.

Not bad for a derelict debutante.

But what the hell.

The movie will be fun.

By 19, I was a fully formed tomboy debutante.  I liked to drink, dance, smoke, fool around, shoot, drive, read, write, swim, and laugh.  I still enjoy all of these things, actually.  I am not one of those people who “take stock” of their life because they are about to turn 40, becoming maudlin and annoying, bemoaning their age. I can’t believe I’m still here, much less that I’ve lasted this damn long.

I will freely admit that I have become a talented derelict, who has neglected her passion for writing in exchange for devotion to other, various, worldly pursuits, including the joys of lime and tequila, the consequences – both good and bad –  of my limited social filter, cars, travel, education, drag queens, movies, chlorine, a cure for cancer, a decent straight man, Hong Kong Phooey paraphenalia, an Elvis jello mold, babies, dogs, painting, cooking, and a reverent dedication to finding the world’s most perfect BLT, despite the fact that bacon is no longer my life-long friend.

For years I have been working on a memoir with the ultimate goal of publishing it and having a book tour in which I can enjoy crisp clean hotel sheets in the finest cities in America on someone else’s dime.  This is step one, right?

The problem is that I have pissed off a lot of people in my days and some of them are wealthy, some powerful, some mean, some crazy, some who write my paychecks, and some who are even related, so I let fear turn into overwhelming procrastination.

I am happy to report that I have procrastinated for so long that most of these assholes are mentally unstable, in rehab, jail, or dead.  So I am out of excuses.  Officially.

While technically not completely uninhibited by professional development or academic research (that I ought to be doing in order to keep my job) or domestic work (at which I refuse to excel or I will never be able to make my case for a cleaning lady), or philanthropic works (my caped identity is a teacher, so by definition I’m already a missionary), I am WRITING again.  (Watch. Out.)

So this trailer may suck, but I think you’ll find the blog entertaining.

Perhaps it needs more boobs?  A dramatic arrest scene?  Shit catching on fire?

Something should explode or there should be promises of earth-shattering sex?

I can do that…