Family Wanted Please Apply Now

So, given the massive amount of people in my family who have left the mortal plane (also known as croaking), I am now feeling kind of family-less.

It is no fun being without a family. Okay. It is much more affordable to not have to buy Christmas presents and Hannukah presents and birthday presents and Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day presents and stuff, but who wants life to be affordable really? I think it’s much better to have to buy your dad a random tie or something.

Not like I would have bought my #1 dad a random tie. He would just have used it to tie back a lilac tree that had low-lying branches or something like that anyway. My dad was a little Hobbit. He appreciated food presents and tweed hats from Ireland and postcards from Hell (a place in the Caribbean – not the Lucifer hang-out). My mom just pretty much appreciated anything. My grandmothers were cool with flowers and vases and porcelain things. My grandfathers were a bit? Um. One was an adorable jazz drummer. The others were a bit. Cough. Odd.

I have already imported a grandfather, Devyn Burton, who is totally cool as a grandfather despite the fact that he is like 25 or something.

But there are a lot of other openings.

I always wanted to be from one of those super huge families that had 12 kids in it. But in my family everyone else was a lot older than me (14 years, 15 years and 17 years were the closest) so I felt like an only kid.

I still kind of feel that way.

And I always thought that I’d be one of those people who had like five kids to make up for it and I would live on a mountain in a log cabin in a field and somehow not have allergies. I would trade those allergies in for goats or something and a grizzly bear would visit and we would be friends and the grizzly would not want to eat any of my offspring.

Yeah. That didn’t happen either.

But I thought I’d at least have family barbecue events for forever (our at least after Covid-19) and people sending me birthday cards and calling me at inappropriate hours (prior to noon) to just say hi and complain about things like everyone else in the family.

So, if you would like to put in an application for sibling status, parent status, or kid status, or grandparent status, feel free. I promise to send you dorky birthday cards and the religious holiday of your preference cards. You have to do the same though or I’ll pout and tell all the other family members that you’re blowing me off and not invite you to Thanksgiving or something.

*Much thanks to Marie Overlock for once pretending to be my mother during my Subaru crisis. And to Devyn for always being my grandpa. And to Christine Allard Bristol for volunteering to be my sister.

FAMILY APPLICATION QUESTIONS:

1. Family Member Position you are applying for:

2. Reason for applying

3. Do you promise to never tell Carrie to stop snorting pixie dust?

4. Do you promise to never accuse her of taking the bigger piece of birthday cake? Or bowl of ice cream?

5. Do you promise to not think she’s a freak if she cries at pretty much every movie ever? If she can’t make it through WAR HORSE? Or any novel read on an airplane? Or, hell, any Charlaine Harris novel either?

6. YAY!

7. Do you promise to love her even if she says “YAY!” far too much for an old person?

8. Do you like dogs?

9. Do you promise to try to be more about loving people than be defensive about who you are?

10. Cats. How do you feel about cats? Manatees?

WHERE TO FIND OUR PODCAST, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE.

The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.

Join the 235,000 people who have downloaded episodes and marveled at our raw weirdness. You can subscribe pretty much anywhere.

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This week’s episode about archetypes and if your sex life was a hashtag. Cough.

This week’s bonus episode with Vivian Garcia Rodriguez about cosplay, book boyfriends, and being brave enough to get rid of people who hurt you. 

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COME WRITE WITH ME! 

I coach, have a class, and edit things. Find out more here. 

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NEW BOOK OF AWESOME

I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should. 

And if you click through to this link, you can read the first chapter! 

And click here to learn about the book’s inspiration and what I learned about myself when I was writing it.