Back in the day (let’s call it 2004), when you were just a twinkle in your parents’ eyes or maybe twinkled a bit yourself, several of my friends and family said, “you should write your stories!” And my ego said, “Heck, yeah!! Let’s do that! You’ll be like Molly Ivins or maybe her simpler, less funny, nosey neighbor or maybe that awkward gal she once bumped into on a street corner who mumbled to herself a bunch and kept walking into a wall. I had a dream! I had passion! and did I mention the ego? (Blame the appropriate folks – see above.)

I clearly needed a name, because you can’t commit to stringing together words for others’ amusement without a proper one – something that stands out. This is just science. I’m pretty sure. So, I settled on “The Big Blue Mess.” Why? Well, that’s thanks to my ex-husband. Bless him. We’ll miss him. He once decided it would be fun to critique my initial foray into painting with a sneer and by announcing, “that’s a big blue mess.” Well, thank you, sir! (Just an aside, it was a glorious blue that I decided should go everywhere! More = better! Math! Rhetoric! See, we’ll have all the basic school subjects covered before you run off. You’re welcome American Education System!) Fact/Absolute Truth (Philosophy): One way to take power away from something, like an insult, just lean into it. So, I did. The Big Blue Mess became a personal metaphor for those things I enjoy doing, that may come off as clumsy at times – they’re big, they’re often blue (the color, not the emotion – it’s my favorite color) and they’re going to be a mess.

Let’s talk about the “mess” part of my writing – the big blue messy elephant in the room. I am notoriously bad at editing my work. I try, and try, and try – each post combed over numerous times, and I still miss a lot of my goofs. To catch those and save me from myself, my friend David F kindly volunteers as my editor. David is an English professor in Japan. This will be important in sec. Fun fact: I never give David a heads-up that I’m posting. He’s a saint. I’m a jerk. So, with that in mind, if you see a post and you don’t want to shake your head a lot while reading, let it sit a day or two, because David just received a surprise and he’s about 14 hours ahead, so he may just be waking up, grabbing coffee, and having a big, “OMG! Beth!!!” moment as he scrambles to make me sound less like an idiot.

Now if you look through the blog, you’ll see I did a lot of writing pre-2016, then the posts became less humorous and more sporadic. That year I lost my second husband, my favorite person, my best friend, and whom I’d been with for 17 years, to suicide. I talk a little bit about that, and I do a lot of campaigning to help that cause. Mental health is an important topic for me, and if I can save another family from going through what we did, well then, I’ve managed to put a little more good back into the world.

Then there was 2020.

Ooft.

Anyway, that’s me – that’s this blog. I hope you enjoy it, and if you just winced a bit (or winced reading a post), I point you back to…

Blame my friends.
Blame my family.
Blame my 4th grade elementary school teacher, Ms. Herbert. (But kindly, she was a great lady and an incredible educator before she met us.)

It’s ok. I do all the time.