Joyce > Recent Status Updates

This is a writer shouldn't do athletic things. Being physically frail is part of our job.

Climbing the tree did not help me figure out where we are, but the view from up here is amazing! You have got to come up.

Are you kidding? For me, trees are not for climbing - trees are for sitting under and discovering gravity.

How expensive can a daytime ghost tour be? Do ghosts even come out in the daytime?

Well, that's the question we're all seeking the answer to, isn't it?

Reginald: You're what, 30?

Zara: I know, I'm rather young. But I'm mature!

Reginald: No, you're too old! I'm not wasting my prime years on expired goods.

Michael (head waiter): Be like a shark!

Zara: Attack reckless white people?

Michael: Always be moving! You know what happens when sharks stop moving?

Zara: They find peace?

Michael: They die!

Must be nice to be retired.

I'm not retired. I'm just ... not working and bored.

Do I have beach waves?

More like "beach bird's nest".

"And no offense ..."

"Cue offensive thing!"

I know - it's no "War and Peace". But people actually *finish* romance novels!

The moment his tongue slipped inside, tangling with mine, my entire world seemed to flip. Upside down. Right side up. And just like my favorite photographs, the edges blurred until all that remained was Noah and me, in perfect focus.

Twenty-six-year-old Delylah Banks

“That was the first photograph I took that felt like capturing a real moment. No one was looking at the camera. No one forcing a smile or saying cheese. Nothing fake or posed. It was real.”

All my favorite photos were fuzzy at the edges to draw your eye to the focal point.

“I like real too. It’s the reason I love photography. My camera gives me a chance to capture real moments.” A smile gifted from a stranger. A tear rolling down a child’s face. A man staring at a woman he loved when she wasn’t looking. Moments that only existed for a heartbeat before they were swallowed up by a busy world. I hated selfies because they weren’t real. They weren’t raw.

“My favorite part is the kids,” he said. “I love that they are brutally honest. Every day is a gamble. They’re funny and mean and sweet, and sometimes, little assholes. But they’re honest with their feelings. Most haven’t learned to mask them yet. I like that they can be real with me, and I can be real with them.”

there’s only so much compartmentalizing I can do before I feel like a robot.

Noah had always doted on Emily when we were younger, but their dynamic had changed after the accident. Since then, he’d indulged her every request.

~~~~~

When she was a sophomore, he’d been driving her to volleyball practice when they’d gotten into a car crash. A woman on her phone had blown through a stop sign and T-boned Noah’s truck.

“She thinks a new relationship is the best way for me to get over an asshole. I disagree.” Dumping the asshole was my way to get over it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Carrying you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can walk.”

“And I can carry you.”

“I’m sorry, Noah.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I’ve had to deal with stuff like this before.” I’d had a couple of students lose their lunches, and I was the least squeamish teacher on staff at the grade school.

every shift of the light changed the landscape. This was a moment photographers chased with abandon. I couldn’t walk away, not yet. An idea sparked, a vision of a gallery wall with photos of these mountains evolving along with the storm. The contrast between my shots from New York and those from Montana would mark the change in my life. Past to present to future.

the idea of forensic photography was a lot more appealing than the reality. In the beginning, it had been a thrill. But there were only so many crime scenes a person could study without getting desensitized. At least for me. My faith in humanity was wavering. It was time to make a change before I resented my camera.

Still teaching fifth grade?

Now I’m teaching middle school. Seventh and eighth graders. The kids are obnoxious and loud and sweet and hormonal. They’re either laughing or crying. I love them. They make every day an adventure.

Noah was the boy of my teenage dreams, and someday, I’d meet the man who’d outshine the glimmer of his image. I just hadn’t met that guy yet. Even Peter, and we’d dated for a year. Noah Chappel’s pedestal was sky high.

Noah Chappel. My best friend’s older brother. My childhood crush.

(What a coincidence! This is the Hot & Bothered Reading Challenge! I wonder if this will be part of the reading list. 😃)

after four years of photographing crime scenes and dead bodies, it was time for a change. I wanted to take pictures of pretty places and people who still had a pulse.

Nothing more revealing about a person than the symbols they branded themselves with.

Spoiler?

Like most albinos, his eyesight is poor.

I may be a big bloke but I can float like a fairy when I need to.

carrot cruncher (plural carrot crunchers)

(chiefly UK, slang, derogatory) Someone from a rural background; a bumpkin.
(UK, slang) Such a police officer