My 2nd daughter, Luna, was born on November 17th, 2020. It was a hard labor, and she and Kelly had to go through an emergency c-section. Luna's umbilical cord was connected to the amniotic sack instead of the placenta, so when Kelly's water broke, it became disconnected from Luna. They both lost a lot of blood, and Luna sustained moderate brain ( Read more... )

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room, killing minutes as 10:00 A.M. slowly rolls around. Kelly's speaking to her mom, Jo, on Face Time as Gaia's coloring in a notebook. She's kind of watching Mickey Club House on TV too. I'm sitting in a beige chair that rocks back and forth with a little matching ottoman in front of me. I'm still in my ( Read more... )

Hello, everyone. My name is John Beechem. You may already know that. I'm a writer from Louisville, KY. I publish my work, as well as the work of many other beloved artists, on my website American Fantastic (americanfantastic.com). It's a digital arts collective and one of my proudest accomplishments.

I'm also:

1) A husband to Kelly Shiflet

2) A dad ( Read more... )

 
( Does this kind of thing happen in other professions or other levels of teaching, i.e., collegiate? Anybody else think it's a shoddy way to treat a possible future employee? )

The Student Loan People are the people I pay my student loans too, and I once “enjoyed” paying them because I knew it would help people in the program, and even though it was a pain sometimes because I couldn’t set it up to pay them easily on-line, I didn’t mind.

Know my heart burns with the hatred of a thousand burning suns because of their ( Read more... )

http://www.theroot.com/views/barack-not-spock

This is a wonderful response to the recent media trend of comparing Barack Obama to the fictional character Spock from the Star Trek television and film series.

It's mostly just about Americans have to grapple with how to perceive him since he doesn't fall into any easy categories.  However, it does ( Read more... )

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/obama-national-archives-s_n_206189.html

This is a link to the speech Obama made today at the National Archives in Washington D.C.  He basically explains that even though terrorism is a threat, we can't rely on fear or an "ad hoc" approach to dealing with the problem, but must depend on our own values and ( Read more... )

Swine flu is in Seattle!

Okay, the jury is still out on this, but a kid from a school I subbed at Wednesday developed "flu-like symptoms" this week, and was in school on Friday when he was possibly contagious.  Now he's considered one of six Washington state residents possibly infected with swine flu (as of this morning).  This school is now closed ( Read more... )

I know it's silly to feel proud of something still so small, but one of the people who reads my stories on www.fictionpress.com gave me some good feedback on my website.  Accolades are behind the cut:

( I'm a human being who needs to be constantly validated. Not really, but it helps every once in a while. )

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/cycle-of-justice/Content?oid=1473551

The Seattle alternative weekly, The Stranger, published a story this week about a woman who had her bike stolen from her, and then used Craig's List to track him down.  Hell yeah, finally one for the bike thief victims.  I am just going to experience all of my justice ( Read more... )