Column #2 For The Santa Barbara Sentinel

Hot review from a hot rock 'n roll babe!

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"Tommie Vaughn nails it in her tale of a girl, her dream & her Hollywood.

I could practically smell the Sunset Strip in her delicious read & I raise my glass 

to the Frankie Spencer in all of us." 

~Lorraine Lewis, Singer from Femme Fatale / Creator-Producer of Ex Wives of Rock reality show

My first column in the Santa Barbara Sentinel

Book Two is Here!!

This feels pretty damn good!

American Girl

I'm practicing my short story fiction writing. Here is a little something/something I just wrote, Enjoy!

She knew she was leaving that town. No matter how much she loved it. With it’s sleepy seaside charm, filled with the quaint everyday people who loved her unconditionally, even though she was so very different from them, the very fact they would gossip about in the bank or the grocery store, right after seeing her walk by.

She knew she was leaving the day she met him. With his smoldering eyes that followed her as she shook her pom-poms for the pep rally, cheering as loud as her booming voice could, which was actually quite loud, as she was constantly being told to lower it by her teachers. No matter how much she loved the idea of him, it would never work out. He was the all-star quarterback and she was the head cheerleader for god sakes, they were crowned homecoming king and queen they were so perfect together. With his tall blond good looks and her mysteriously dark beauty, they radiated sex and youth and talent, everything that the small town hailed as royalty.

She had to leave. It was the life that she knew would be comfortable, the life her family wanted for her. He was good for her, they had said. He was steady. Her father had breathed a sigh of relief knowing that his eccentric daughter, with all of her wild fantasies, would be safe and taken care of. They knew he would go to State and she would too, just to be near him. The young lovers would become engaged in their third year after he accepted the football draft, sealing his deal with the majors. They would marry at a lovely outdoor ceremony on the beach with the entire town as guests and then move, wherever he was going, and she would be pregnant with their first child within the year.

It sounded oh so wonderful and every time he would talk excitedly to her about it, as they lay entwined in each other’s arms in the back seat of his mother’s Corolla, she would smile at him dreamily and in her mind she would pack another item in her suitcase.

As they neared graduation she began to distance herself from him. Her heart physically hurt when she told him that she couldn’t go out that night, or when he passed her a note in the hall, holding his hand out for hers only to come up empty, and especially when she missed his acceptance speech of athlete of the year at the awards assembly. He knew then, she really was leaving.

She had told him many times of her dreams, over the span of their three carefree years together. He would smile and pat her hand, or wink at her as she drove, singing at the top of her lungs, harmonizing perfectly with Tom Petty as he sung his ‘American Girl’. He had even covered her mouth once in jest. That was when she knew, he would never understand her. Never understand that she had a dream too and that her dream wasn’t just… Him.

Everyone thought she was crazy. How could she break up with him that day in their cap and gowns? They were the golden couple. There were rules. They would only leave town for him to be a big professional athlete and her, a wife and mother, and they would surely return years later after he retired from professional football to become the high school coach. That was the way it was supposed to be. They had counted on that story.

Sure, she was a pretty girl, everyone knew that, she had a captivating smile and a quirky way of dressing. What was it she wanted to be? An actress? A model? A singer? It didn’t matter. They all wished her luck as she drove away, then began talking amongst themselves about what a shame it was, and she really thought she was something didn’t she? Well good riddance to her. The big city was a scary place and for her to give up all of this perfection for a silly dream, well, she would learn the hard way wouldn’t she?

The music blared within the shiny red Volkswagen Beatle as the last light turned green and she drove out of that tiny New England town. She saw his mother’s car parked at the last parking lot to ‘their’ beach, with him leaning, arms folded, against it, his smoldering eyes watching and she slowed down to wave as the tears streamed down her smiling face. He waved back as she drove away, and he knew she was turning up her radio again, he knew that she was singing. He would hear her voice forever in his mind, and every time Tom Petty would sing he would close his eyes and remember her... His ‘American Girl’. His ‘American Girl’. 

~by: Tommie Vaughn

Insomnia strikes again

I'm nearing the end. This whole cooking a child within your womb process is (thankfully) coming to a close. At 37 weeks I am considered full term and can safely have the baby at any moment. That's when it seems every side effect of pregnancy will rear its ugly head.

Swollen feet? Like sausages. I stare at them in disbelief, like they belong to someone else, an alien appendage that attached itself to my slender long legs. They actually jiggle when I walk, feeling like I am carrying bags of water on the tops of my feet. It's totally gross to me but for some reason my husband thinks its hilarious. He's lucky I don't ask him to rub them, he would change his mind real quick.

Bad Circulation? My hands are asleep right now as I try to type. My fingers tingle so badly it's painful and I must take a break every minute or so to shake out my hands so I can continue. It's more annoying than anything else and it only seems to happen at night, when I'm trying to sleep. Which brings me to Insomnia...

I am an insomnia professional. It doesn't even bother me anymore and I'm quite good at it after all these years. It began when I had my son three years ago and it is my nighttime bedmate daily. I consider an hour of insomnia a full nights sleep, while my regular seems to be somewhere between two to three hours of 'up time'. Studies say its a natural way for women to prepare themselves for childbirth and the sleepless nights of raising an infant. True, true. But what about when your child begins to sleep through the night and there you are, still awake while the snores of REM sleep have hit your husband and child over the head? 

Sometimes I just lay there and listen, thinking of my day, what I did, what needs to be done tomorrow. Sometimes I toss and turn, thinking that the ideal position will find me and sleep will immediately take over my body. Other times I just get up, knowing there is no rest coming for an hour or two so I might as well get some writing or editing done. I dabble on Facebook or Twitter, scroll through Instagram, catching up on my social media. I send emails or play with different photos I took that day in Snapseed. I stretch, look for raccoons or skunks that visit our backyard nightly, watching with delight when I do catch them passing through on the way to one of our fruit trees. 

And then, as the sun rises,  I waddle back to bed, sometimes getting a whole hour or two of solid sleep before the phone starts buzzing and its time for another day. 

It's that time now being 5:55am, and if I'm quick, I can get my active mind, my swollen feet and tingly fingers to settle down. Sleep is coming, so I'd better go. Wish me luck that I pop soon, I can handle losing my mind, I just really need my body back.

It's me!

Photo by Dara Blumenhein 

Confessions of a Pregnant Vegetarian

Well, more like a Pescetarian. But still... I have a confession.

I am anemic. I'm not just anemic, I am extremely anemic, caused by a severe iron deficiency. So much so, that in my third term of pregnancy, my doctors have sat me down and spilled the beans, so to speak, that my leafy green diet of yes, beans, and other yummy veggie products, are just not cutting it. That I am putting myself at risk, say if hemorrhaging should happen during birth, which it can easily happen, you know, the doctor said... the kind of thing that birthing mothers died from in the olden days.

Within my mind I begin to see and hear 'Live's song Lightning Crashes and it seems to follow me out of the doctors office, loaded with all the other information my caring doctor had bestowed on me. Basically, she told me the reason I have been craving red meat for the entire span of this pregnancy was because that sweet little girl inside me has taken all the iron she needs and has left me with nothing. That when you become pregnant your body creates 20-30 percent more blood and so you need extra iron and other vitamins to create hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to other cells in your body. Sounds normal right?

So why am I so far off, and at a higher risk? Well let's see...where do you get iron from? You get iron from green leafy veggies, red meat, beans, eggs, fortified cereals, and peanuts. Hmmm... so my diet is a bit lopsided when it comes to iron. And all this time I thought that as long as I took my prenatal pills, that this would not be an issue. It wasn't with my son, so I figured it wouldn't be with my daughter.

I am wrong. In the last few weeks I have experienced dizzy spells, fatigue, and general lack of hutzpa, which is very unlike me. Yes I have been pushing myself a bit too much and I know that, but I always push myself so that is really nothing new.

Therein lies my confession. My doctor suggested that I either go out and eat a burger (or some form of red meat for the remainder of my pregnacy) or else I am putting my whole life at risk. My whole life being... my family, my son, my unborn child, my husband, my creativity, career, all of it doing without me on this earth should something go bloody south.

You know what? I ate a fucking burger. It didn't kill me. And you know what else? I'm going to eat some home made meatloaf that one of my dearest friends cooked for me. (after she lovingly called me a selfish fool when I told her what the doctor said)

Because, I realized something as I stared into my almost three year old's beautiful blue eyes last night. I'm not leaving him motherless because I do not believe in the inhumane treatment of animals for mass consumption. Period. I have been a proud vegetarian for over six years now. I can always return to my plight after my daughter is born. But I have to be around to do so.

Much love and meat, 
Tommie Vaughn

I'm back

Or at least I will try to be. I have finished my second novel and shipped it off to my Editor and Publisher, so that being said you would think I have a bit more time on my hands. Well... I'm also about to give birth to my second child, so we will see how much free time I really have in a month when I am juggling two children, approving edits, and beginning to send out Advanced Reading Copies of my next book.

But I will try, and that's the best I can do for now.

Smile ;)