Sandra Rose Hughes

Photo Credit: Brandon Muncy at Kvsun.com Sometimes I get the feeling that I am not in Kansas anymore. I was raised in the suburbs where semi-identical houses line up row by row. Everyone had a two-car garage, a little patch of lawn to mow and a small backyard area big enough for a pool and maybe a dog or two. My parent's house in Bakersfield was in a nice little cul-de-sac conveniently located near a good high school. Other children in the neighborhood were close to our age and many of our neighbors took their street very seriously. On the Fourth of July, neighbors would buy firework packs and everyone would sit together to watch while the teenage boys and adult men lit them. Spectacular Christmas light displays appeared the day after Thanksgiving and disappeared by New Years Day, like clockwork. On Friday nights in the summer, one of our neighbors would light a firepit in their front yard and the adults would bring out their lawn chairs and sit and talk while the children played

"Schools are going to be all run by computers now. It won't be long before everything is on that internet. What will you do instead of teaching?" My mother-in-law and I were driving to exercise class together. We had been discussing my neice's education in the car when she posed this question to me. I was a little taken aback. Linda is not affiliated with education in any way. She doesn't even have a computer, so I have no idea where she is getting this idea. I am a high school teacher who knows how to use the internet and I highly doubt the entire education systen will transition into completely virtual teaching any time soon. But there is no arguing with Linda, so I shrug and say, "I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom." "Oh, you won't want to do that forever, Sandy. You'll have to do something when the kids grow up." I sigh. Why is she making me think fifteen years in the future? I have enough to think about in this decade to wor

The following piece is one I have been working on as part of my nonfiction creative writing workshop through the Los Angeles Review. My white Dodge Shadow was parked at an angle outside the Bakersfield beauty salon. I'd always been a lousy parker. The chipped paint and the black gash on the passenger side made it stand out among the shiny new silver and white cars it shared the lot with. "Are you clean?" asked Renee, my mother's hairdresser. I stared at him, slightly offended. "When did you wash your hair last?" he said impatiently when I didn't respond right away. "Yesterday." I said. "So it's dirty. We'll have to wash it." With a frown, he led me to the sink and started washing my hair as my twin sister Carolyn waited nearby. She wore jeans and a button up shirt, but her hair was done already, and Renee had placed her veil perfectly on her head. Her cell phone kept ringing and she looked worried. "Sandy, it's

The Dream I Had Last Night. I found an adventurous man who fell in love with me on the way to the lobby after my twin Carolyn and I had gotten lost at 4 in the morning back on the way from the spa. He helped me find my way past the small chinese woman who was making clay slabs which my Carolyn had refused to stop sticking her hands into and who had given us directions which Carolyn ignored and then she danced away where I couldn't find her. The adventurous man helped me search for the white-towel clad twin of mine, but I do not think she wanted to be found. So instead he led me back down the lobby through all the hidden parts of the hotel where chinese laborers made clay tiles and wove bed linens and cast suspicious glances at my foreign eyes, as he explained that he could never leave the hotel. I was going to leave, with or without Carolyn, and so we kissed and kissed and kissed the tragic kisses of people who will never see each other again. I walked out of the hotel alone.

Well, I did it. I posted my first writing assignment for my writing workshop which I have been greatly enjoying. I spent all weekend thinking about what to write. I wrote my piece on Monday, let it rest for a few days and then revised it and posted it today. If you hear a high pitched keening coming from the Lake Isabella area, it's me succumbing to writing anxiety. Now here is the part of the blog where you choose your own adventure. If you don't want to listen to me whining, proceed to Roman Numeral I. If you want to listen to my whining, don't mind a repetitive use of the word "sucky," and would like to see a picture of Carol Burnett, proceed to Roman Numberal II. I. I am feeling a little bit of anxiety about my first writing assignment. II. You asked for it. I tried to make my writing evocative, uplifting, truthful, interesting, relatable, etc. But now that I read it after it's been submitted to the online forum where everyone else in the class has posted

Starting this week, I get to take a one-month online writing workshop hosted by the Los Angeles Review. The class is on the subject of nonfiction creative writing. I have had a lot of fun writing humorous nonfiction to be published in the newspaper or on this blog, so I am excited to see where this class will take me in the world of nonfiction writing. I hope my writing is not too hyperbolic. I do have a tendency to exaggerate or "stretch" the truth for dramatic effect. Maybe they will tell me this is bad...or maybe it's good? I don't know. It took a courage for me to sign up for the class. As soon as I heard about it, I wanted to do it, but I just...didn't. What if they think my writing is terrible? What if it's more work than I can do or will do? What if everyone else in the class has really amazing work and mine is just terrible? It's interesting because if this were a swimming class or a pottery class, I wouldn't even worry about it, because I know