My interview with Shannyn Schroeder

Shannyn Schroeder is the mother of three and an author. Her book, More than This, just came out and is the first of six in The O'Leary Series. Learn about how she balances her real life and her writing, her movitation, and her musical playlist. Check out my interview with her here. . .

MFRW Spotlight presents Write on the Edge w/ host Wt Prater featuring Shannyn Schroeder

If I call myself an Ally, then I better act like one!

I am an open man. I am open about all aspects of my life. I tell people I am gay, kinky, married, a nerd, and other things that I am not ashamed of. But sometimes being so open causes me to forget open thing. . .other people aren't. And that, THAT is valid too. It is not my place to decide what information YOU should share. That is not an Ally. I do not judge in any way, but I forget that my openness is mine to share. it is not my place to "out" anyone else on anything that i haven't gotten direct permission to reveal.

Example . . .I'm talking to a group of friends, and i'm talking about Bob Johnson. Now, Bob told me that he likes diapers. And/or cross-dressing. And/or he's transgender.Now which of these "facts" are mine to talk about? NONE. Especially if I have not asked Bob if he is open with these things. I should probably assume he is not, and I shouldn't bullhorn (or even whisper) his life. Or things of a sensitive nature. Right?

That's just common sense, hopefully. If I am your ally, I am your protector, your friend. I should not expose your weaknesses or things you are working on, regardless of the intent. I shouldn't tell people your secrets or even possible discreet matters about you. That is not my place as your ally. If I'm not sure you've revealed yourself, I should take caution, and err on the side of SHUTTING MY FUCKING MOUTH.

So what is my role as an ally? To support, protect, help. Period.

And if you are my ally, please take heed of this cautionary note!!

The Real World:Nashville Edition

 As most of my readers will know I don't tend to share what is personally going on in my life. But with the most recent happenings it seems to be necessary to inform those who are curious as to what occurred. We shall title this adventure of Wt and Jule's "The Real World: Nashville Edition" So here's what happens when you take six people with vastly different personalities and have them stop being polite and start getting real...

It began with us moving out of our house and looking for a new living situation. One of our best friends (at the time) whom we shall name for this story Booby McRedHair approached us about getting a larger place because she was unhappy with the apartment she was living in. We understood that in accepting this arrangement along with her came her boyfriend Gamey McSlacker, and their two current roommates Gunny McPsycho and Casper the Gay Ghost. These names are not intended to be slanderous, but rather to bring humor to a time and situation that had been completely devoid of it.

We realized that moving into the living situation we were moving in six very different personalities: granted it was into a three floor townhouse so everyone had their space. The top floor had the master bedroom for Booby and Gamey and there were also bedrooms for Casper and Gunny. The middle floor was designated as Switzerland, one half the game room and the other half was the living room/dining room and kitchen. On the bottom floor there was a large room which we converted into our bedroom and there was the garage.

Now when we first moved in everyone worked day jobs except for myself since I was focusing on my writing which I mostly did at night. This worked for last than two months when both Gamey and Gunny both quit their jobs and began gaming almost 24/7. Now this would not have been a problem had it not been for the way gamey played, which was by yelling at the screen and constantly belittling the people he was online with. This became the source of our first major conflict.

By the time these issues had started to resolve themselves it was decided that Gunny would move into the gaming room thus allowing for two new roommates to move into his old room upstairs. This was decided without seeking our input or even meeting them prior to them moving in. With this move I began to feel very unwelcome on the middle floor and retreated into the bedroom where I stayed pretty much 24/7.

Even with all of this, we tried to see the positives in the situation. Julie and I had even discussed staying on another year beyond the one year mark. The Monday, mere days before "the incident", we had a household meeting in which we informed them of such. Looking back...well the signs were there, we just didn't want to see them.

That Thursday (Feb 21st) the power got turned off due to an old debt we were planning on finally taking care of literally the next week. But as luck would have it Booby, Casper, and Gunny were home. Now I should state that had they not both called in sick no one would have even known the power was off until it had already been restored. But as over-reactors would have it they decided to move the electricity bill into Casper's name. Meanwhile across town, my wife had left work early and was emptying out every account we had to pay the bill and get the power turned back on. Embarrassed and in tears, she texted everyone to let them know the situation had been dealt with and the power would be back on shortly.

The power came back on within six hours, but by then the damage had been done and the ball had started rolling. For the next day and a half no one in the household would speak to us. The hostility was palpable and culminated during the impromptu household meeting called the next day. The meeting began with them handing us an envelope that contained a threat stating that if we didn't get our finances in check that we could be evicted. We had never treated this as a landlord/lessee situation but as the six of them sat facing off with us. As Booby began to list off our many varied wrongs, I stopped her and asked a simple question “Do you want us to leave?”

Hemming and hawing around for a moment finally the answer was made of “Yes. We want you out.” We were then given the deadline of March 31st. As soon as we received this information we went through what appeared as the seven stages of grieving, which ended the next day...sort of...

Julie deciding that we were going to move out by the 1st of March and me agreeing to the challenge. We put out the call for places to stay and are now in the process of planning our next journey. At this point, we have some very good friends that have offered us temporary lodging. Where our destiny might take us is at this point unknown but we have received several offers within the Nashville area, one in Clarksville, one in Murfreesboro, and several well beyond Tennessee's boarders (Canada anyone?). By the end of March we plan to know more about where the spirits are leading us. but until then, we plan to keep it positive, learn from past experiences and as always Keep on writing.