Cat Pollock Writes

I'm back in school, and up to my eyeballs in research for a history paper due in a few weeks. It's a blessing and a curse. Seriously. As I am discovering for the nth time (seriously, I can't even remember how many times I've started and stopped at this school thing), it is everything I love and everything I hate combined. And in this discovering and rediscovering process, I'm becoming more and more aware of how many things in life are tied together in that way - A thing we love to a thing we hate. So as I'm watching all the social media posts churning out this month because it's Autism Awareness Month, I am painfully aware of another thing I hate attached to something I love. More specifically, some thing I hate to some one I love. Some one being my brother, James. James crashing a girls' night with one of my sisters a few years ago. There have been days this month where I've thought about putting up an away notice on my profile p...

The first time I ever experienced a lockdown (that I can recall), I was sitting in my sixth grade math class. It was approaching time to switch back to homeroom when the announcement came over the loudspeakers. There are a group of protesters at the district office, they said. We’re asking everyone to stay in their classrooms and teachers to lock their doors until we know what is going on. It mattered to our safety because the school district office was right next to our school, and a chain link fence was all that stood between these protesters and us. If things got ugly. By steve lyon from los angeles, ca, usa (Strike threat.) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) or CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons The person on the loudspeaker didn’t say it, but it was going through everyone’s heads. Our brains tend to go the worst case scenario in those types of situations, don’t they? So while my math teache...

Eighteen months. It's been eighteen months since my feet last rested on Kenyan soil. They're itching to be covered in that dust again. My ears are ready to hear the sound of school children's hysterical laughter as they scamper away at the prospect of being chased. And my eyes are ready to see some beautiful and familiar faces. The good news is that I get to go back this fall - two years after my first visit to them. It seemed a little bit rash to me even, but the words came flying out of my mouth anyway on that last Sunday morning we were with them. The commitment I made, that Rich affirmed, to come back to them in two years time. And I'm fundraising now in order to keep that commitment. You can get all the details you need through my GoFundME campaign ( https://www.gofundme.com/6kxcvbbv ). If you have any other questions, feel free to ask - here, on Facebook, on Twitter... wherever it is easier for you find me. In the meantime, I...

I love photos. I blame that on a set of grandparents with a deep-seated love of photography, whose visits to the photo department of the pharmacy/store to drop off and pick up rolls of film were frequent and fun. It helped that they were pretty good with cameras. I know that because I spent a lot of my spare time in college helping them scan their older photos for the family history. If something crazy happened like me getting sent back in time, I would know people and places simply because of my involvement with the family history project. But I digress - a little bit. I digress a tiny bit. For all my love of photos, there are some I struggle with looking at. Those photos are few and far between - which won't be such a huge surprise when I tell you they were taken at various points during my spiral into depression and suicidal thoughts. What also shouldn't be a surprise is how I managed to avoid being in so many photos by putting myself behind the camera. The photo t...

A few years ago, I took on a writing exercise where I had to write letters from characters I was writing about based on what was going on in their heads that they would never say.  I did this exercise base on an alternate story line for a series of novels I've been working on since the early 2000s, then forgot about it. But, as sometimes will happen when saving writing ideas, I stumbled into it again while working on the Traditions post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, and thought the three letters I finished for it were too compelling to ignore.  Below is the first letter - I'm not sure when or even if I'll post the rest of them. I leave whether that happens or not in your hands. Let me know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter! Owen: You know something? I think that college life is a far different story for me than it is for you. You got to stay at home. You never had to uproot yourself, move to a city you’ve never been to before, and live with someone you d...

Candlelight service. I know I wrote a lovely, nearly sappy summation of what I love so much about such things last year (read it here ). Sometimes they can feel that way, be that way - it really depends on the person responsible for putting the program together. This year, sappy is not the word I would use to describe what happened. I would have to use a phrase - specifically "The Joyful Comedy Hour." The order of the program was no different than the order of the program from last year. I know. I was the one to hear our pastor's extra-exuberant "All right!" from over my shoulder as I pulled up last year's slides. And the joy in those two words, "All right," made its way through the rest of the night. The pace was relaxed, and laughter was never far from anyone's lips. Which was a good thing, because when we readers failed to inspire laughter over mishaps adjusting (or readjusting) the microphone stand or word pronunciation, our au...

Wednesday night was our last high school group meeting before Christmas. After we did our normal prayer walk around the park across the street from church, as we walked back into the building afterwards, my star (translation: only) pupil posed a question that gets asked every year in some way, shape, or form by someone I know. Christmas traditions - what is one of your favorites? Breakfast - one of my family's Christmas traditions (less than flattering picture of me eating aside) My answer to him, along with a long story about other family Christmas traditions that only loosely tied to the place I was going, was this: One of my favorite parts of Christmas morning, was curling up on a couch or in a chair or sitting on the floor listening as Grandma or Grandpa or Dad or one of my older sisters read from either the account in Matthew or in Luke - Grandma's pick. None of the stockings were handed out, and none of the presents under the tree were distributed until we had...