Category Archives: despair

Furiously Happy:
My brain hungered for humor. Was absolutely famished for fun.

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

I am very picky about the books I read, and it’s hard to find anything that doesn’t either piss me off or bore me. That might just be a product of having been an Indie Author, honing her craft for 30 years, or maybe it’s just me being too damn critical. But I never had problems in my younger years. Like say, my twenties and before. But then, I didn’t write my first book until I was 26. So maybe it really is that being an author affects my ability to enjoy reading other authors that aren’t top-notch. Garbage in, … Continue reading →

Two 2020 Mantras:
Adapt or die, Vote or die

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

ADAPT OR DIE. That’s the new mantra. Our world has changed, and don’t you believe for a hot minute the fairy tale that things will go back to “normal.” First, they haven’t been “normal” for the last three-plus years. Second, there is no way they ever will, because too much has changed, and there are things that SHOULD CHANGE. This is a flashpoint. A pivotal point in our history. We can take the opportunity now to implement all those things that got bogged down in various sociopolitical quicksands, and create a brighter future for us all. Or we can fuck … Continue reading →

Whole Brain Literary Food

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Recently, I posted a inquiry to my readers, about a publishing aspect of my work. All the responses were encouraging and thought-provoking, but one in particular touched upon some deeper themes. Here it is. TO MY READERS–A QUESTION: As authors, we want to please everyone, but that’s just not possible. For instance, on my newest novella, Saturation Point, I have 4 and 5 star reviews and personal messages and emails that tell me how much they enjoyed the introspective nature of this book, and the characters, but on one review, the reviewer was bored because there wasn’t dialogue on every … Continue reading →

To my readers: Be brave, be strong

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

  TO ALL YOU LOVELY READERS: There are formidable challenges ahead of us. This will be hard. So take some time to enjoy nature, to read, as you always do, if you need to get yourself grounded. But then do your part to make things better. If I’ve learned one thing by studying human nature and writing about it all these years, I’ve learned that the human spirit is also formidable. We’ll get through this. Be brave, even when you feel scared. Be strong, even as your hands shake. Smile and hug people. Show love and compassion and resiliency, even … Continue reading →

Stupid, Honorable, High-Road Seeking Fool

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

In a post from a few years ago (two posts, actually, under Going to Denver Because You’re Dead) I chronicled this transition of moving to Colorado to start a new life; again reinventing myself, with the hope of somehow finding my new place in this ever-changing, ever-challenging world.  I got rid of three-quarters of everything i owned, packed a U-Haul trailer behind my Cherryot, and off I went. A journey that lasted 30 hours on many days of little sleep. By the time I arrived in Denver, i was exhausted, lost, and had this sensation of being on another planet. … Continue reading →

The Fourth Betrayal

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

NOTE: So, in my seeking help when i needed it, for my recent betrayals and abandonments, the counselor i went to see called the next day to inform me she couldn’t see me anymore and for a really stupid reason. I tried to reason with her on the phone, but she had to stand by what she felt was her principals, but which was only LOFTY IDEAS getting in the way of her ability to give the actual care she had sworn to as a medical professional. Finally frustrated beyond words and feeling even worse, i hung up on her. … Continue reading →

Why not Me?

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author, Pearl S. Buck  said, “A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create~ so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency … Continue reading →

Letter to a Battered Heart

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Open letter to a friend whose heart is battered…. I remember that you were there for me when I was going through a lot and had no one. So I will do my best to be here for you, now. In this life, you have to separate your mental and emotional things, your habits, your beliefs–like laundry. Whites over there, colors over there, delicates there. You can’t throw them all in together or the colors will bleed and what was once pure and white is now sullied. Some things must be kept apart, some things put together, and you always … Continue reading →

Mid-Life Crisis, Much?

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ~Dylan Thomas If aging is hard for the average person, imagine how hard it is for someone who has no current social circle, no family, no children, who works at home, is an HSP, an atheist, and a single lesbian. The greatest of these challenges is, for me, being without a partner. I am not suited to singlehood. I hate everything about it. I need someone to cook dinner for when she comes home … Continue reading →

To Be or Not to Be

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Damaged people live among us. They deny, they lament, they scream, and think no one hears them. So they self-medicate, create grand illusions of fictive comfort, and when those fictions fail them, then finally, they descend into the abyss of helpless despair. When we hear our elders speak of “the good ol’ days”–we mustn’t dismiss the significance of those simpler times. They matter, because all those hordes of damaged people would have been fine in 1952, but now, they have to deal with chaos and war and complications and the economy and drugs and challenge and an ever-increasing onslaught of … Continue reading →

Things i don’t need.

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

  I don’t need ovaries, nor the monthly hemorrhaging that evolution has foisted upon me; this survival mechanism meant to perpetuate the species via progeny. I have not and will not ever experience life in my womb (apparently not even of the pleasurable, stimulating variety, if present is any indication of future). Even if i were young enough to bear children, I neither have the desire nor the likelihood of doing so as a lesbian who would never, by definition, sleep with a man, and could not fund the artificial process. I don’t need that lizard brain interpretation of the … Continue reading →

Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

Kelli Jae Baeli Posted on by

Okay, I know this is going to be less a blog, and more a journal entry, but whatever. Consider it the first in a series of brain dumps. <<–Look, i even made a graphic for it…. Onward…. I usually try to see the bright side of things, and when I can’t do that, I try to see the funny side. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. And often the dark side can be funny, if you know how to manipulate the data. But this morning, I think my brain is in some other gear….PARK, maybe. It hits me like … Continue reading →