New York to Lori: You’re a Writer.

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend writing an article about Kari Bales, but this time it wasn’t for my blog; it was for the New York Times. As in, The New York Times.

Surprisingly, the best part of the whole experience wasn’t the moment I got the “it’s live” email from the editor and clicked as fast as my fingers could carry me to see the byline with my name staring back at me, the internationally recognized newspaper’s logo resting gently above it. The moment that still has me gobsmacked happened in my basement at my makeshift game-cabinet-turned-writing desk on a cold Sunday morning. I sat hunched forward, leaning into my screen, excising each word with bleeding precision. My legs were losing circulation and I was hungry and my eyes burned. I was still in my hideous bathrobe and I was stinky and I was freezing, sipping cold coffee. And I loved it. It was in that moment that I realized: I’m a writer.

I almost cried. It was as if I knew I would never again be a lawyer, a wife, a mother, a military spouse, a daughter, a friend, a blogger or even a woman. It was the moment I realized that, despite my best efforts to be something else, I have always been a writer first. I’ve always narrated life in my head, always embellished events as pieces of a continuing story rather than simply allowing them to occur in moments, always struggled to assign meaning and connection to the most trivial. Everything foreshadows something, leading to a climactic discovery that leaves me better off than wherever the story began, or tragically arcs into the next chapter of my life, looking for resolution. I’m a writer.

I was interviewed recently by freelance journalist Laura Goode for a piece in New York Magazine about beauty pageants. I spun my tale of woe about the terrible price of being perceived the dumb blonde and how I fought back with myself, winning a state debate tournament in high school, going to law school, becoming a prosecutor, steeling myself as the independent military spouse during my husband’s year-long deployment. The material wasn’t used in her story, but it gave me a moment to tell myself the truth: what I always loved about those things in which I excelled was the writing. Heck, I even won the essay contest in the pageant. I wasn’t overcoming the presumed stupidity of pageantism all those years; I was fighting the notion that I was a writer. Why?

Don’t Blink

Blink and you might miss it.

Our family will be on the CBS Evening News tonight for about two minutes. We were interviewed about the post-homecoming challenges faced by military families. It’s on at 6 or 6:30 in most areas, so check your local listings.

I hope you’re preparing a celebration this weekend that includes a remembrance of the men and women who gave their lives protecting this nation, and that you are cherishing the time you have with your own friends and family.

Here’s a link to the WLS post that went viral last year thanks to WordPress and their “Freshly Pressed” page: Memorial Day is Different This Year.

Update: here’s the link to the piece as it aired on the CBS Evening News.

So Fly Like a G-8

Sorry for all those who tuned in to CBS News tonight expecting to see yours truly. We were preempted by news about the G-8. Rumor has it we will be on next Sunday, and I’ll give you the thumbs up when it’s confirmed.

Milbloggie Voting 2012 is Now Open!

Voting is open for Military Blogger of the Year. Witty Little Secret is a finalist and I would be honored by your vote. Voting does not require a sign-up or login. Just clickiness. Just two little clicks!

Step One. Go to the VOTING PAGE and click on SEE NOMINEES for BEST U.S. MILITARY SPOUSE BLOG. There it is. In blue. But wait. There’s more …

Step Two. Find WITTY LITTLE SECRET and click! Right inside the pretty round circle. Now find another computer and do it again. Heh.

Step Three. Share Witty Little Secret on your Facebook page by going to your status update, typing “vote for Witty Little Secret!” and entering my website address (wittylittlesecret.com). Facebook will automatically direct people to this page.

NOW GO DO IT!

Thanks so much, everyone! Voting is open through Friday April 20th and the winners will be announced in Washington DC on May 11th. You can vote once from every computer you have access to!

Cheers!

New Friends

I’m on the road again today, and this time I’m on my way to 29 Palms, California. No gray capitol buildings for this girl today! Tomorrow I’ll  be part of a panel talking to military wives about the time I peed on my surfboard (in a self-deprecating but relevant sort of way).

So if any of you new followers are in that neck of the woods, come join me! I’d love to meet you in person. Maybe we can send Kari a picture. 😉

First Runner-Up

Last week my “Open Letter to Kari Bales” somehow became the news. I was very aware that Kari Bales was the queen and I was merely standing in as her first runner-up in her absence. But I was happy to do that, and honored to bring military spouses and their silent sacrifice into the momentary spotlight.

However, that honor and excitement turned to worry and dread when Miguel Almaguer and the NBC news crew came into my house for the interview. As the cameraman was making some adjustments I sat watching the crew erect foreign-looking paraphernalia in my kitchen. The lights flipped on and I was suddenly overcome by the enormous weight and responsibility of the words I was about to speak. It’s one thing to dump my soul into a computer processor; it’s another thing entirely to force the words to out of my brain into the lens of a camera, all while looking at a hunky reporter I’ve only watched in sixty-inch high-definition.

The big fuzzy microphone hanging over my head felt like the day I drove away from the hospital with my newborn daughter strapped into her huge car seat, looking like a cashew bundled in green fluff. I couldn’t believe they actually trusted me. I looked up and wondered if they might konk me on the head with the mic if I answered incorrectly.

“Okay, now I’m nervous,” I told Miguel. “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s just like having a conversation. You’ll be great.”

But it didn’t feel like just a conversation. It felt like I was speaking on behalf of military spouses everywhere: all ten million bajillion of them. I may have been First Runner-Up to Kari Bales, but I was suddenly Miss Military Spouse USA. The cameraman fiddled with various items in the background and it gave me a moment to breathe. Just breathe, I told myself. But it still felt more like an asthma attack than breathing.

As Miguel made one last call, my breathing finally slowed and I concentrated on the fact that the cold air rushing into my lungs was coming back out warmer than it had entered. This was evidence that I was still alive. Then, it hit me: this story wasn’t about me. In fact, it wasn’t even about my letter. It was about the national response to my letter. YOUR response to my letter.

Suddenly the weight to perform blew away as I exhaled, and I was amongst all of you. And I was proud of you. I’ve never felt such pride before, not even peering up into the night sky under fireworks on the Fourth of July.  Not even standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier cruising effortlessly under the Golden Gate Bridge. Not even watching sailors stop, one by one, to salute the flag before running down the gangplank to hug and squeeze their children, some of whom they were meeting for the very first time.

And then that pride, that warm air … it made me smile. YOU made me smile. At that moment the producer said, “Lori, look over here!” and she unwittingly captured that moment by snapping this photo:

So this is my thank you card to all of you. Think of it as my acceptance speech for being Kari Bales’ first runner-up. Because many of you have said thank you to me in your comments of support for Kari, but I hope what you realize is that by reading, forwarding, tweeting, and writing, you are the ones that made a difference in the life of a military spouse. You are the ones who shaped a national conversation. You are the ones who voted Kari Bales most likely to succeed.

To view the final result of that NBC Nightly News interview about you, my readers, go here:

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, “Silent Rank” by Miguel Almaguer ~ March 23, 2012

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you knew I would do something ridiculous. Well I’m not going to disappoint you by failing to self-report here as I always do. As Miguel laid his cell phone down on the table, I saw a picture of him under some spotlights looking somewhat like a ring-master taming a lion. Before I knew what was happening, I blurted out, “is that you – at the circus?”

Really? The circus? The circus, Lori? Uhhh. Hide your face. The CIRCUS!?

I smiled stupidly pretending not to notice how dumb I was. He chuckled, and I immediately recognized what appeared to be the White House in the background. The circus spotlights were actually floodlights on a big green lawn. The lion’s whip was a fat cord attached to a camera crew, trailing from his microphone. I cursed my lost glasses but kept smiling. He graciously answered, “No, but it’s a lot like a circus sometimes, I’ll give you that.”

Gah. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Circus. Jeesh.

This leads me to my conclusion, because no acceptance speech would be complete without a gratuitous thankyou to Carol Costello of CNN,  Miguel Almaguer of NBC,  Jesse Ellison of Newsweek/The Daily Beast , and all of their editors and producers working behind the scenes for chosing to cover this issue and bring the positive and human side of this story into the forefront. On behalf of my readers – on behalf of military spouses – thank you so much.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled program …