I should probably explain myself.

All this happened, more or less.

Actually, no. The appropriate opening line should be: everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt—because none of these stories are true.

I have spent the better part of a decade handling legal and technical writing and research in the corporate world. I want to try something totally different that's only for me, and I want to emphasize that any stories, scenes, or people mentioned throughout this publication are fictional. We’re all stories in the end, a great Doctor once said.

Things that you will find here:

• A catalog of the 100+ books that I read every year;
• Oddly specific book lists;
• Book reviews that are probably way too honest;
• Creative writing exercises and similarly untrue vignettes.

Things that you will not:

• Specific stories about specific people;
• Specific anecdotes about specific workplaces;
• Exposés of toxic people, places, or situations;
• The absolute truth about any of it.

I have kept the different eras of my life fairly silo'd from each other, and I have had a whole lot of experiences with endless numbers of people. I have very recently realized that I'm terrible at keeping up with journaling, but it can be helpful to take the best or the worst parts of a moment, connect it to similar arcs in other parts of my life, and meld it all together with a color, with a feeling, or with movement. I also think that there's something really important about having the privilege of reading books that examine how other people have navigated similar situations, so it's also helpful to pull out a book that helps me through the feelings—and that's where the oddly specific book lists will come in.

If I put all of these things together, then I get this: meowderina is a cute lil username for a cute lil online persona. She is not real. Stories about her experiences are not completely true. meowderina is not even my innie or my outie—if anything, she's just a coping mechanism for a burned out thirtysomething who thinks that writing words is a lot like writing music.

Also, if you know me in real life, no you don't.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.