Shannon Celebi's Blog

The post Small Town Ghosts appeared first on Shannon Celebi.

Download Small Town Ghosts Free for Kindle 

through Friday, October 13th, 2017

Friday the 13th is notorious for being the unluckiest day on the calendar. So much so, it causes 8% of our population legitimate terror–and not just due to those cheesy slasher movies starring the infamous hockey-masked Jason. The psychiatric term for fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia. No evidence could be found by this writer as to why this phobia was given two shrink terms. Perhaps it is just that terrifying.

However, in case you feel the need to put on your word nerd hat, timeanddate.com says, ‘Friggatriskaidekaphobia comes from Frigg, the Norse goddess of wisdom after whom Friday is named, and the Greek words triskaideka, meaning 13, and phobia, meaning fear. Paraskevidekatriaphobia is also derived from Greek: paraskeví translates as Friday, and dekatria is another way of saying 13.’

So why are so many people afraid of it?

Well, for starters, this one day and number has generated superstition for centuries. While the first real mention of it was in the late nineteenth century following the death of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini–who died on a Friday the 13th–some believe the day has been linked with mayhem since 1307, when the French king ordered the arrest of hundreds of Knights Templar on a Friday the 13th.

To further perpetuate our fears, some weird Friday the 13th shizzle has gone down in history.

The Aztec Empire fell on August 13, 1521–a Friday.

On Friday, October 13, 1972, a 45 passenger plane, including Uganda’s Rugby team, crashed in the Argentinian Andes, leaving only 14 survivors.

On Friday, August 13, 2010, an English teen was struck by lightning. He was 13 years old and the strike occurred at 13:13 military time, according to BBC.

On Friday, August 13, 1993, Thailand’s Royal Palace Hotel collapsed, killing 147 people.

And the list goes on.

All that stuff aside though, pop singer, Taylor Swift seems to have had amazing luck on Friday the 13th. Her birth date falls on the thirteenth and she turned thirteen on a Friday the 13th. Her very first album raced through the charts and landed on gold in 13 weeks. And according to MTV, Miss Swift claims that with every award she’s won, she was sitting in either the 13th seat, 13th row, or 13th section.

So, on that happy note, your Friday the 13th luck is about to go the way of Taylor Swift. This week only, through midnight on Friday the 13th, my book, Small Town Ghosts, will be available to download FREE for Amazon Kindle.

Click Here to Read Your Way to a Ghostly Friday the Free-teenth.

And stay safe out there this Friday. Statistics show that hospital rates from car accidents go up by 52% on Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th is notorious for being the unluckiest day on the calendar. So much so, it causes 8% of our population legitimate terror–and not just due to those cheesy slasher movies starring the infamous hockey-masked Jason. The psychiatric term for fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia. No evidence could be found by this writer as to why this phobia was given two shrink terms. Perhaps it is just that terrifying.

However, in case you feel the need to put on your word nerd hat, timeanddate.com says, ‘Friggatriskaidekaphobia comes from Frigg, the Norse goddess of wisdom after whom Friday is named, and the Greek words triskaideka, meaning 13, and phobia, meaning fear. Paraskevidekatriaphobia is also derived from Greek: paraskeví translates as Friday, and dekatria is another way of saying 13.’

So why are so many people afraid of it?

Well, for starters, this one day and number has generated superstition for centuries. While the first real mention of it was in the late nineteenth century following the death of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini–who died on a Friday the 13th–some believe the day has been linked with mayhem since 1307, when the French king ordered the arrest of hundreds of Knights Templar on a Friday the 13th.

To further perpetuate our fears, some weird Friday the 13th shizzle has gone down in history.

The Aztec Empire fell on August 13, 1521–a Friday.

On Friday, October 13, 1972, a 45 passenger plane, including Uganda’s Rugby team, crashed in the Argentinian Andes, leaving only 14 survivors.

On Friday, August 13, 2010, an English teen was struck by lightning. He was 13 years old and the strike occurred at 13:13 military time, according to BBC.

On Friday, August 13, 1993, Thailand’s Royal Palace Hotel collapsed, killing 147 people.

And the list goes on.

All that stuff aside though, pop singer, Taylor Swift seems to have had amazing luck on Friday the 13th. Her birth date falls on the thirteenth and she turned thirteen on a Friday the 13th. Her very first album raced through the charts and landed on gold in 13 weeks. And according to MTV, Miss Swift claims that with every award she’s won, she was sitting in either the 13th seat, 13th row, or 13th section.

So, on that happy note, your Friday the 13th luck is about to go the way of Taylor Swift. This week only, through midnight on Friday the 13th, my book, Small Town Ghosts, will be available to download FREE for Amazon Kindle.

Click Here to Read Your Way to a Ghostly Friday the Free-teenth.

(Download Small Town Ghosts Free for Kindle through Friday, October 13th, 2017)

And stay safe out there this Friday. Statistics show that hospital rates from car accidents go up by 52% on Friday the 13th.

My identity has always been tangled up in my writing, long before the poetry unit in the first or second grade when my mother declared me a genius and I experienced my first intoxicating hit of fandom. Truth be told, I became a writer when I was four, the summer of some huge family crisis, when my Auntie Barbara, desperate to keep us entertained, enlisted her daughter to help my sister and me write songs.

They would be put to music, my Auntie Barbara promised. We would have a concert, she promised. So bellies down on the big cushy bed in the guestroom, we recited our compositions, my cousin, Johnna, as our trusty scribe.

I remember shouts echoing from the dining room, tears and drama and Auntie Barbara in a swirl of strapless black sundress and penny gold hair. I remember ice cubes clinking in glasses of bourbon, my grandpa storming off to feed his goats. And I remember my song, inspired from some nursery rhyme my mother sometimes sung. It went like this:

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

Then, outside the guestroom, as things began to settle down, Johnna took to creeping into the dining room, asking to go home. Six years older, her due diligence long spent, I imagine she was tired of us little girls, tired of our all-important entertainment. Yet in reply came only whispers, words my little girl brain translated as, “We’re not done. Go on back. The girls need you.” For that’s what we were, my sister and I. Always. The girls.

Johnna skulked back then, picked up her pen and notepad, asked us to hum her our tunes. Except I had no tune. Just words.

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

My sister, on the other hand, two years my senior and an expert at putting on shows, had melody, music, a drum beat she tapped on the side of her thigh. And Johnna’s attention. Johnna’s praise.

I longed to belong, as I always had and always would, a stranger in a strange land. But it was not meant to be.

Instead, I crawled beneath the covers as the crisis abated in the dining room, as my mother packed the car to leave, as my sister sung her song to all the aunties and uncles and grandparents who had gathered.

And when my Auntie Barbara came to find me, I was spent, a mass of rat tails and alligator tears. She made no mention of my agony though. She only pulled the covers aside, patted the edge of the mattress. “You didn’t give your song a tune,” she said, or something like that. And when I nodded, “That’s called a poem, you know? A song without a tune is called a poem.”

What I felt in that moment can be described as nothing less than enlightenment. I stared at the notebook in my Auntie Barbara’s hand as she went on, as cool as iced tea on a summer day, explaining how my character, Johnny Rebecca, was “androgynous,” both male and female, yin and yang. I listened with bated breath. Could that be right? Could that be what I meant? Yet she continued even so. “Johnny Rebecca is both upstairs and down,” she said. “Why? What is Johnny Rebecca looking for?”

I didn’t know. Nor did I know I was even capable of inspiring such profound concern. I only knew that I had moved my Auntie Barbara somehow, that I had caused her to ask questions she would have never asked on her own, no matter that later I would understand her attention as being something akin to putting a child’s artwork on the fridge with a coo of praise.

Later, as we drove back home, I pressed my face against the car window, remembering the drama that had risen from my grandma’s dining room, all those clinking ice cubes and echoing shouts and my Auntie Barbara’s swirling strapless dress, yet all I could think about was Johnny Rebecca going upstairs, and downstairs and all around. And all I asked myself was Why?

Because I had never asked myself such profound questions, because I didn’t know I could.

You see, it was never about the fandom. And it was never about the praise. Not Johnna’s nor my mother’s; I know that now.

It was all about the questions.

What’s interesting too, is that if you had asked my sister why she wrote, she would have told you the exact same story, from another perspective, but still… She’d tell you how we were always the girls, how writing with Johnna that day shielded us from the family drama unfolding in the dining room.

Now, writing is still a shield from the outside world, helping me understand the world and understand myself. And now writing, for me, is still a long song without a tune, asking the same damn question (in a voice that sounds remarkably like Auntie Barbara’s): Why?

As you can see, Johnna was always an expert entertainer.

My identity has always been tangled up in my writing, long before the poetry unit in the first or second grade when my mother declared me a genius and I experienced my first intoxicating hit of fandom. Truth be told, I became a writer when I was four, the summer of some huge family crisis, when my Auntie Barbara, desperate to keep us entertained, enlisted her daughter to help my sister and me write songs.

They would be put to music, my Auntie Barbara promised. We would have a concert, she promised. So bellies down on the big cushy bed in the guestroom, we recited our compositions, my cousin, Johnna, as our trusty scribe.

I remember shouts echoing from the dining room, tears and drama and Auntie Barbara in a swirl of strapless black sundress and penny gold hair. I remember ice cubes clinking in glasses of bourbon, my grandpa storming off to feed his goats. And I remember my song, inspired from some nursery rhyme my mother sometimes sang. It went like this:

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

Then, outside the guestroom, as things began to settle down, Johnna took to creeping into the dining room, asking to go home. Six years older, her due diligence long spent, I imagine she was tired of us little girls, tired of our all-important entertainment. Yet in reply came only whispers, words my little girl brain translated as, “We’re not done. Go on back. The girls need you.” For that’s what we were, my sister and I. Always. The girls.

Johnna skulked back then, picked up her pen and notepad, asked us to hum her our tunes. Except I had no tune. Just words.

Johnny Rebecca went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and all around.

My sister, on the other hand, two years my senior and an expert at putting on shows, had melody, music, a drumbeat she tapped on the side of her thigh. And Johnna’s attention. Johnna’s praise.

I longed to belong, as I always had and always would, a stranger in a strange land. But it was not meant to be.

Instead, I crawled beneath the covers as the crisis abated in the dining room, as my mother packed the car to leave, as my sister sung her song to all the aunties and uncles and grandparents who had gathered.

And when my Auntie Barbara came to find me, I was spent, a mass of rat tails and alligator tears. She made no mention of my agony though. She only pulled the covers aside, patted the edge of the mattress. “You didn’t give your song a tune,” she said, or something like that. And when I nodded, “That’s called a poem, you know? A song without a tune is called a poem.”

What I felt in that moment can be described as nothing less than enlightenment. I stared at the notebook in my Auntie Barbara’s hand as she went on, as cool as iced tea on a summer day, explaining how my character, Johnny Rebecca, was “androgynous,” both male and female, yin and yang. I listened with bated breath. Could that be right? Could that be what I meant? Yet she continued even so. “Johnny Rebecca is both upstairs and down,” she said. “Why? What is Johnny Rebecca looking for?”

I didn’t know. Nor did I know I was even capable of inspiring such profound concern. I only knew that I had moved my Auntie Barbara somehow, that I had caused her to ask questions she would have never asked on her own, no matter that later I would understand her attention as being something akin to putting a child’s artwork on the fridge with a coo of praise.

Later, as we drove back home, I pressed my face against the car window, remembering the drama that had risen from my grandma’s dining room, all those clinking ice cubes and echoing shouts and my Auntie Barbara’s swirling strapless dress, yet all I could think about was Johnny Rebecca going upstairs, and downstairs and all around. And all I asked myself was Why?

Because I had never asked myself such profound questions because I didn’t know I could.

You see, it was never about the fandom. And it was never about the praise. Not Johnna’s or my mother’s; I know that now.

It was all about the questions.

What’s interesting too, is that if you had asked my sister why she wrote, she would have told you the exact same story, from another perspective, but still… She’d tell you how we were always the girls, how writing with Johnna that day shielded us from the family drama unfolding in the dining room.

Now, writing is still a shield from the outside world, helping me understand the world and understand myself. And now writing, for me, is still a long song without a tune, asking the same damn question (in a voice that sounds remarkably like Auntie Barbara’s): Why?

What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert.

Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.

I could say it all began with my mother. When I was young she made a sugary milk concoction called girl coffee, though now that I’m grown I can say there was very little coffee involved.

I might claim instead that it had everything to do with my grandmother, who served coffee and pie at 6 p.m. sharp  after some gluttonous dinner, but that would be inaccurate; I have long since learned the coffee she served was decaf and it was the pie that brought the company, not the coffee after all.

Perhaps I could admit that my mother-in-law was the catalyst, the original Turkish diva, who taught me the how-to of the perfect Turkish coffee, all thick and rich and syrupy sweet served in Thumbelina sized cups with dainty diminutive stirring spoons.

Or my husband perchance? We met in a low budg coffee shop after all. But no. How can I write about a lover with my marriage vows in mind?

Instead, let me paint a picture of escape. A writer with no place to write, a traveler without lodging, a ship without a port, a cup of Yuban without creamer or some other sad cliché to say I needed space without the time continuum…and had none.

I was thirteen or fourteen when I discovered The Double Rainbow, not a metaphor, I assure you, but a coffee shop/ice cream parlor in the center of the strip mall better known as ‘The Hub.’ (Oh those clever real estate tycoons!) It didn’t hurt that the hottie behind the counter, aka ‘The Rainbow Guy’ (oh those clever teenage writers!), was well…a hottie.

I’d walk over after junior high, with or without the sister, and write until my yet-to-find-technology inflicted fingers were sore. Did the Rainbow Guy take note of me (or the sister)? No. But that’s another blog for another time. For this blog, may I simply mention the 90s Muzak (imagine Madonna’s Like A Prayer meets Kenny G on sax, or the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Suck My Kiss on a single melancholy piano). Suffice it to say the Yuban needed more than Coffee Mate.

Fast forward a year or so. Meet The Fresh Cup Cafe, the Rainbow Guy’s replacement, a black beret kind of joint that served alcohol after 10 p.m. Forget that it was the perfect place to spend my third period algebra class, a place where I could smoke and write and smoke some more without the distraction of Kenny G. The Fresh Cup was cheap, served French Roast by the gallon, and boasted the most awesome Poetry Slam this side of the Mississippi. I saw my husband there a time or two before he was The Husband (again, another blog post for another time) but there was always some weirdo trying to edge in whilst I was writing (or more importantly reading) and The Fresh Cup soon lost its awesome appeal.

Enter Coffee Time, so hot, so sexy, a place where I could really find my center. The joint served comfort food. (Need I say more?) It had my fricking heart.

I squandered endless summer nights in Coffee Time’s embrace, eclipsed by giant portions of mac n’ cheese and heaping plates of chicken fried steak. I ate more than I read; I read more than I wrote. But that’s love for you. Seven trips to the salad bar can replace all kinds of neuroses.

I gained 27 pounds before the love affair was over. And when I lost the weight at last, I found Newark Java, the pre-Starbucks Starbucks, that served extra-awesome joe with brown sugar or honey and sold a caramel macchiato that was truly a macchiato. Cupid’s arrow had pierced my heart.

I sat on the cold uncomfortable plastic chairs outside, reading Brett Easton Ellis and Anne Rice, and

considered myself an intellectual. I also read a book called Handbook for Drowning, which actually changed me somehow (still yet another blog post for yet another time). And at Java, I started writing my very first novel, A Woman In There Somewhere, (an homage to the great Tori Amos) which will never see the light of day.

But when an actual Starbucks opened up across the way, my wandering eye got the better of me. So shapely. So delicious. A fake caramel macchiato is better than a real one after all, and the cheese danishes they served…ooo la la.

Begin my corporate sell-out days. Does it matter that Starbucks offers delicious free-trade beans? Competitive wages? A 401K? No matter. I purchased a frothy Starbucks brew every day on my corporate trek across the corporate bridge on my corporate commute to my corporate job. And while I read–by God, I always read–I forgot about writing. My days were daycare and work and sleep and the antidepressant I took because I couldn’t write. (Okay, another blog for another sometime; sorry.)

The bottom line was that I was in an abusive relationship. After my early morning danish and corporate Starbucks caramel mach, I drank cup after cup of Starbucks Sumatra every day at work. At the sole command of our CEO, I was in charge of the coffee supply. I was the love-slave of the java, God help me. I thought there was no hope.

Then the tech bubble popped. I lost my job. I was a junkie without a source.

Bereft, I left California for Oregon, found some hippy joint called Evos that boasted free internet and organic beans. I fell in love for a short time, but my junkie ways brought me back to Starbucks. I needed my fix and I couldn’t stop, despite the expense.

Except the expense was well…expensive. I bypassed Evos and Starbucks as well, opting for Folgers at home, a steaming cup of Safeway Select. And when my addiction was long last expelled, I searched for love.

I dated a drive-up called Dutch Bros for a time, then another called The Human Bean that served something like a frappaccino for almost a dollar less.

Finally, I found a place called The Beanery and we were happy for awhile: a little place the Ashland natives called home, with coffee that tastes like coffee, and a front porch designed for writers…and readers…and little lonely old ladies from the trailer park across the parking lot whose sole source of exercise consists of walking back and forth across the intersection whilst leaving her belongings on an outside table for me to watch (a.k.a a dog pillow and a cup and a dilapidated book). But what the hell? I finally found love outside my marriage.

My mother would be so proud.

And then The Beanery closed abruptly. No pomp. No circumstance.

And now I must drink coffee alone in my backyard. Just me and my husband and our Kuerig French Roast.

So I guess it all works out in the end.

I could say it all began with my mother. When I was young she made a sugary milk concoction called girl coffee, though now that I’m grown I can say there was very little coffee involved.

I might claim instead that it had everything to do with my grandmother, who served coffee and pie at 6 p.m. sharp after some gluttonous dinner, but that would be inaccurate; I have long since learned the coffee she served was decaf and it was the pie that brought the company, not the coffee after all.

Note the dinky Turkish coffee cup in my father-in-law’s hand.

Perhaps I could admit that my mother-in-law was the catalyst, the original Turkish diva, who taught me the how-to of the perfect Turkish coffee, all thick and rich and syrupy sweet served in Thumbelina sized cups with dainty diminutive stirring spoons.

Or my husband perchance? We met in a low-budg coffee shop after all. But no. How can I write about a lover with my marriage vows in mind?

Instead, let me paint a picture of escape. A writer with no place to write, a traveler without lodging, a ship without a port, a cup of Yuban without creamer or some other sad cliché to say I needed space without the time continuum…and had none.

I was thirteen or fourteen when I discovered The Double Rainbow, not a metaphor, I assure you, but a coffee shop/ice cream parlor in the center of the strip mall better known as ‘The Hub.’ (Oh those clever real estate tycoons). It didn’t hurt that the hottie behind the counter, aka ‘The Rainbow Guy’ (oh those clever teenage writers) was well…a hottie.

I’d walk over after junior high, with or without the sister, and write until my yet-to-find-technology inflicted fingers were sore. Did the Rainbow Guy take note of me (or the sister)? No. But that’s another blog for another time. For this blog, may I simply mention the 90s Muzak (imagine Madonna’s Like A Prayer meets Kenny G on sax or the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Suck My Kiss on a single melancholy piano). Suffice it to say the Yuban needed more than Coffee Mate.

Fast forward a year or so. Meet The Fresh Cup Cafe, the Rainbow Guy’s replacement, a black beret kind of joint that served alcohol after 10 p.m. Forget that it was the perfect place to spend my third period algebra class, a place where I could smoke and write and smoke some more without the distraction of Kenny G. The Fresh Cup was cheap, served French Roast by the gallon, and boasted the most awesome Poetry Slam this side of the Mississippi. I saw my husband there a time or two before he was The Husband (again, another blog post for another time) but there was always some weirdo trying to edge in whilst I was writing (or more importantly reading) and The Fresh Cup soon lost its awesome appeal.

Enter Coffee Time, so hot, so sexy, a place where I could really find my center. The joint served comfort food. (Need I say more?) It had my fricking heart.

I squandered endless summer nights in Coffee Time’s embrace, eclipsed by giant portions of mac n’ cheese and heaping plates of chicken fried steak. I ate more than I read; I read more than I wrote. But that’s love for you. Seven trips to the salad bar can replace all kinds of neuroses.

I gained 7 pounds before the love affair was over. And when I lost the weight, at last, I found Newark Java, the pre-Starbucks Starbucks, that served extra-awesome joe with brown sugar or honey and sold a caramel macchiato that was truly a macchiato. Cupid’s arrow had pierced my heart.

I sat on the cold uncomfortable plastic chairs outside, reading Brett Easton Ellis and Anne Rice, and

considered myself an intellectual. I also read a book called Handbook for Drowning, which actually changed me somehow (still yet another blog post for yet another time). And at Java, I started writing my very first novel, A Woman In There Somewhere, (an homage to the great Tori Amos) which will never see the light of day.

But when an actual Starbucks opened up across the way, my wandering eye got the better of me. So shapely. So delicious. A fake caramel macchiato is better than a real one after all, and the cheese danishes they served…ooh la la.

Begin my corporate sell-out days. Does it matter that Starbucks offers delicious free-trade beans? Competitive wages? A 401K? No matter. I purchased a frothy Starbucks brew every day on my corporate trek across the corporate bridge on my corporate commute to my corporate job. And while I read–by God, I always read–I forgot about writing. My days were daycare and work and sleep and the antidepressant I took because I couldn’t write. (Okay, another blog for another sometime; sorry.)

The bottom line was that I was in an abusive relationship. After my early morning danish and corporate Starbucks caramel mach, I drank cup after cup of Starbucks Sumatra every day at work. At the sole command of our CEO, I was in charge of the coffee supply. I was the love-slave of the java, God help me. I thought there was no hope.

Then the tech bubble popped. I lost my job. I was a junkie without a source.

Bereft, I left California for Oregon, found some hippy joint called Evos that boasted free internet and organic beans. I fell in love for a short time, but my junkie ways brought me back to Starbucks. I needed my fix and I couldn’t stop, despite the expense.

Except the expense was well…expensive. I bypassed Evos and Starbucks as well, opting for Folgers at home, a steaming cup of Safeway Select. And when my addiction was long last expelled, I searched for love.

I dated a drive-up called Dutch Bros for a time, then another called The Human Bean that served something like a frappuccino for almost a dollar less.

Finally, I found a place called The Beanery and we were happy for a while: a little place the Ashland natives called home, with coffee that tastes like coffee, and a front porch designed for writers…and readers…and little lonely old ladies from the trailer park across the parking lot whose sole source of exercise consists of walking back and forth across the intersection whilst leaving her belongings on an outside table for me to watch (a.k.a a dog pillow and a cup and a dilapidated book). But what the hell? I finally found love outside my marriage.

My mother would be so proud.

And then The Beanery closed abruptly. No pomp. No circumstance.

And now I must drink coffee alone in my backyard. Just me and my husband and our Keurig French Roast.

So I guess it all works out in the end.

The post Small Town Demons appeared first on Shannon Celebi.