I’d like to talk to you today about my relationship with my pants. No, you read that right: not parents (that relationship’s fine), pants.

I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes. (I suspect this shows.) If I drop $50 in one year on improving my wardrobe, that’s a pricy year. My closet, you see, is a burgeoning testament to the beauty of hand-me-downs.
From a young age, I was taught to embrace this phenomenon. After all, my older sister Kim is known for her keen fashion sense. So her hand-me-downs were a desired thing. Add to this my cousins, aunts, great-aunts, and my goodness, I didn’t have to buy a thing! As an adult, I’ve culled hand-me-downs from coworkers, in-laws, and most recently, my mother’s best friend, Noreen. Noreen’s castoffs are especially coveted, because she’s the only person on this list that I’ve mentioned so far besides my sister who isn’t short. When you get a pair of pants from Noreen, the hemline is guaranteed to actually fall below the ankle.

The hand-me-down process of refreshing one’s wardrobe is, admittedly, a flawed method. This is twofold: one, as I mentioned, is length. My mother’s family is filled with petites, and I am decidedly not. The other is size. The beauty of life is that people come in all sizes, and the castoffs that come my way reflect that variety. You’d think I’d turn down the stuff that doesn’t quite fit, but you’d be wrong. My weight has yo-yoed so much over time that I’ve worn everything from a size six to a size twelve in the past ten years. So if someone has a bag of twelves and I’m an eight, this doesn’t immediately exclude those hand-me-downs from consideration, because chances are good that I’ll be back in a twelve someday. As a result, I currently have exactly one pair of jeans that are actually my size (a gift from Kim).

My hand-me-down wardrobe is probably most evident in winter. I have one pair of winter pants that is close to fitting. The other twelve (because the beauty of keeping hand-me-downs until they literally disintegrate is that I have a lot of clothes) have earned me the nickname Droopy Drawers. I also can’t stand the way even the most modest of belt buckles feel, and have taken to using a bungee cord instead to hold my pants up. I suspect there’s a word out there for this style. (No, not “quirky.” Maybe “trashy.”) But there’s another bonus to wearing secondhand clothes: you quickly learn not to care what others think of your fashion acumen. Go ahead and judge me for my droopy corduroys and bungee cord: I’m warm and my pants are staying up.

Special occasions are when I break out the good stuff. Social events and public appearances call for Noreen pants. See, here’s the beauty of Noreen, besides the long pants: she shops at nice stores, and when she finds a style of trousers she likes, she buys them in a variety of colors. We’re currently close to the same size, and we have similar taste in clothes. So when she cleans out her closet, it’s a holiday for me: I know I’m going to get pants I really like, that fit, in a few different colors. So if you see me somewhere and I actually look kind of stylish, guaranteed I’m in a new-to-me Noreen outfit.

If you’re going to adopt the hand-me-down lifestyle, there are a few things I’d advise: one, you need to lose the ego. Sometimes, people will offer you their “fat” clothes after they’ve lost weight. The first time this happened, I was insulted. But the woman had started as a ten and dropped to a four, and the stuff she was offering was really cute, so I swallowed my self-esteem and agreed. Like I said, people come in a variety of shapes. Her “fat” tens were some of the best-fitting pants I’ve owned.

Two, you do need to learn when to say no. If the clothes being offered are more than ten sizes too big or too small, you have to politely refuse. There’s baggy, and then there’s ridiculous. Also, if this is the first time they’ve cleaned out their closet since 1974, it’s okay to decline the offer. Just because the outfits are free does not mean it’s acceptable to walk around dressed as an extra from the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. This is the bungee-cord-belt chick talking: have some pride.

Three, if you don’t do a little clothes-weeding yourself, you’ll quickly find yourself unable to wade through the trousers to get to your closet. Pay it forward. The only way to make room for new hand-me-downs is to get rid of some of the old ones.

I wish you luck in your hand-me-down endeavors. The practice has certainly served me well, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re truly lucky, you’ll find your own Noreen. Just don’t steal mine.

​I like coffee. A lot.

Coffee has been in my life for as long as I can remember. I come from a long line of women fueled solely by caffeine. My maternal grandmother served in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, and in our family, it is understood that though her love of country may have spurred her to enlist, it was Grandma’s love of coffee that kept her strong during those harrowing days. My mother taught seventh-grade students for many, many years, and no doubt it was those morning infusions of caffeine that kept her sane and those children alive. So I am well aware of the magical properties of the dark-roasted bean, and have upheld my end of our family tradition, pouring my first cup of java as soon as I get up, then switching to decaf in the afternoon once my hands start their caffeine-induced jangling, indicating I’ve had enough for the day.

Recently, however, I’ve had to reevaluate my intake for health reasons. Coffee can aggravate a condition I’m still dealing with, and though I’ve pretended I never read this little fact, therefore it doesn’t exist, it’s gotten to the point where I can ignore it no longer. I decided perhaps I should maybe track how much coffee I drink every day.

Eight cups. And I use the term “cups” loosely—“mugs” would be much, much more accurate. I easily polish off a pot of coffee a day. Uh-oh. I might have a problem.

Some people out there would probably just quit coffee cold turkey. I, however, am not a quitter. Coffee has been part of my daily dietary intake since my early teenage years. A life without it would be as bleak and depressing as that made-for-TV movie from the eighties--The Day After, I think it was called—which was about nuclear war but could just have easily been about life without coffee. Only in my tragedy, a young Steve Guttenberg was not going to run after me with a full steaming cup of espresso and tell me everything would be okay. So quitting cold turkey was not an option. Cutting back, though . . . that, I could do.

My plan: reduce my coffee intake to three cups (okay, okay, mugs) a day. If the benefits (sleeping better, fewer digestive issues) outweighed the detriments (irritation, headaches, murderous intent), I’d try to reduce it to two, then one cu—mug—a day.

I was feeling optimistic at the start. Who doesn’t want to sleep better? Or maybe not have their eyeballs jitter right out of their skull? I felt smug and self-righteous that first morning.

That first afternoon, I was stomping around the house, yelling at the cat for using the litter box instead of the toilet. (Granted, I’ve never trained him to do this, but why doesn’t Pugsley just know? Stupid cat!) Keep in mind that I never clean the litterbox—that’s Jason’s job. But don’t even get me started on him. He had the nerve that day to try and hug me. I tried to break both his arms.

The next morning, I woke up with just a teeny headache. This had been a huge concern: I’d once tried to quit drinking coffee in my early twenties when a coworker gave it up when she found out she was pregnant. I thought it would be a touching show of support and solidarity to quit with her, but after dealing with caffeine-withdrawal-induced head pounding, I decided I didn’t like my coworker that much, and poured myself a huge, steaming cup of heaven. But that headache still stood out in my memory as the worst ten minutes of my life. So just having a mild ache on the second day of “Operation Reduce the Joyfulness in My Life” was a huge win. So far, so good!

The house was silent when I shuffled downstairs. Apparently, Jason had taken the cats with him on an all-day trip to the gym. That was weird, I guess. But probably a blessing, because SOMEONE HAD LEFT A BOX OF KLEENEX IN THE LIVING ROOM AND IT SURE WASN’T ME, BECAUSE I KNOW DARN WELL THAT KLEENEX DOES NOT BELONG IN THE LIVING ROOM! I poured my first mug, my temper boiling hotter than those precious drops of caffeine. I hated everyone and everything. Except that wonderful, wonderful coffee.
It was a quiet day. I called my sister and my mother to complain about how obnoxious a shade of blue the sky was that day. Both had to get off the phone quickly and didn’t pick up when I called back. I guess they were busy. I texted my editing partner to gripe about how ridiculously inconsistent the English language is. I suggested that we dig up the grave of Lindley Murray (largely cited as the father of English grammar) and punch his corpse in the face. And how “Lindley” a stupid name. My partner stopped responding. He was probably busy, too.

Jason came home around nine p.m., which was good, because I had such a bone to pick with him. Someone had put the toilet paper on the roll the wrong way and IT SURE WASN’T ME BECAUSE I NEVER CHANGE THE TOILET PAPER, YOU INCONSIDERATE BOOB! He immediately left again. Coward.

The “holy crap, is my skull bleeding?” headache came the next morning. I spent the day cursing God, yelling at New England for being cold, and texting someone I’d gone to high school with and hadn’t spoken to since, just to tell her she’d been mean twenty-five years ago. All of this activity must’ve worn me out, because I slept like a baby that night.

I took this as a good sign. Maybe I could reduce my caffeine intake even more. Surprisingly, my family, friends, and that mean girl from high school all argued against this. Cutting back from eight to three mugs was enough, they assured me. I’d already achieved so much. Why ruin that record?

They had a point. I had managed to chop my coffee consumption by more than half, and although you probably can’t tell from this blog entry, it really wasn’t easy. Maybe I could just live my life as a three-mug-a-dayer.
​
Maybe four mugs. We’ll see.

Back in the fall of 2005, I’d just moved back to the mainland after spending ten years living on an island. I was starting a new job at an ambulance service, and I was nervous. After all, I’d just left a community where everybody knew everyone, and I was walking into a workplace in which I knew not one soul and had zero experience in EMS. I had some concerns that I’d forgotten how to socialize like a not-crazy person. Also, I hadn’t gotten a real haircut in a couple of years, and my wardrobe was largely “island practical” and not “office professional.” I was proud that I’d remembered to shave my legs that day, like that was a big “normal” achievement.

Renee was the one who trained me that first day. She had an easy smile and a bubbly personality; I liked her immediately. It was her easy acceptance of the weird lady from Block Island that made me think I might do okay back in the real world.

Three years later, Renee was one of my bridesmaids. And believe me, if you’re going to get married, you need a woman like Renee in your corner. She would call from Walmart when she found do-it-yourself invitations in the clearance aisle; text me when she found a garter in the bargain bin at Party City; and even sewed my wedding veil, hand-stitching seed pearls and ratting, while she was out of work after surgery.
Another thing happened the day of my wedding. Renee noticed that she had numbness in her palms and feet. It was weird, but didn’t stop her from dancing all night at the reception. A few weeks later, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Some people would feel sorry for themselves, but Renee is not “some people.” She immediately formed a team to walk in the annual MS Walk, and started fundraising for the National MS Society. I agreed to join the team, mostly to support her, plus I needed the exercise.

Renee’s family’s reaction to the MS Walk was amazing. She has four sons, who all walked that year, and brought their buddies, too. Her oldest, Chris, got a tattoo of the MS team’s name (Walkin’ Myelin and Myel-Out) across his forearms. Her youngest, Patrick, asked his friends to donate to the National MS Society instead of giving him birthday gifts. Renee’s mother made MS pins with little orange roses to give out to the team members. Everyone in the family pitched in to make food for a post-walk barbecue. Quite frankly, I felt like I slug compared to all of these people who were cheerfully working their butts off to support their daughter/mother/wife/sister/friend. I chomped on the chocolate mustache lollipops her son Matthew had made and thought about what I could do.
I’m not particularly talented when it comes to baking or tattooing or getting people to donate money. But I could do this one thing. See, I’m a writer. I could . . . write.

In 2015, I released My Mom Has MS, a children’s picture book intended to help young kids understand the illness. We used it to help fundraise for the MS Walk, and I continue to donate a portion of the net profits to the National MS Society. The book stars Renee’s family, and really focuses on Patrick. (What a good sport he is!)
Whenever I do events, I have My Mom Has MS with me, and it’s led to a lot of interesting conversations. So many people have been affected by the disease, and I’ve met the newly diagnosed, the long-coping, the relapsing-remitting and the secondary-progressive. All wonderful people. I met a young man at an event once who told me about an unusual MS treatment that involved parasites. For a horror writer like me, it was fascinating.

Now it’s 2017, and Patrick’s gotten older. (A lot older. Remember: I wrote the first book about seven years after Renee first found out she had MS, but set it when she was first diagnosed.) I’ve had a lot of parents ask me at events if I’d consider writing another book, aimed at an audience that was a little older.

Well, sure I would. After all, we’d need something to help fundraise for the 2017 MS Walk, right?

I’m proud to announce the release of My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess, available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and in select retail stores. But I did say I wanted to use the book to raise money for the National MS Society, didn’t I? If you visit my MS Walk page at http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/staceylongo and donate $20 or more, I’ll send you a signed copy of My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess to thank you for your donation.

A final note: I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Renee and her family are. Patrick hasn’t grumbled once about being cast in the starring role in both of these books. This fall, while writing this book, I had Renee texting her son Jonathan while he was deployed overseas to make sure I got his character details exactly right. Renee’s husband John, all of her boys, their wives, and even their former cat have all been rendered as crudely drawn cartoons and given dialogue and storylines at the mercy of my whim. I wrote these books for them, but the gift they’ve given me—their unconditional trust, most of all—means the world.

Enough of the mushiness. Donate HERE to get your signed copy today!

It’s not always easy coming up with a blog post each week, especially with other writing projects going on. I’m working on a short story, collaborating on a novel, and working on another piece which, incidentally, started out as a blog entry until I took a break and realized I’d already passed 3,000 words, with no sign of stopping. I toyed with a few topics this week, but found that none of them lent themselves to full blog length. For instance:

WHY I THINK OJ DID IT

1. Means
2. Motive
3. Opportunity
4. Victimology
5. Post-Crime Behavior
6. Forensic Evidence
7. Because Marcia Clark Proved It

See? Or this one, suggested by a friend:

ROCK AND ROLE: MY TOP FIVE DWAYNE “THE ROCK” JOHNSON MOVIES

5. Scorpion King
4. Fast Five
3. Central Intelligence
2. Fast & Furious 6
1. Faster*
*Note: This is not part of the Fast & Furious franchise. That would just be silly.
 
Along the same lines, I could’ve also done this:
 
BEST VIN DIESEL MOVIES OF ALL TIME:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Pitch Black

Lists are fun, right? The same friend that suggested the Dwayne Johnson list also suggested this:
 
THINGS I IMAGINE ARE IN THE DARK RIGHT AS I’M REACHING FOR THE LIGHT SWITCH:

1. Serial killer next to the bed
2. Serial killer under the bed
3. Satan

Or, for the more practical readers, this:

FOUR THINGS I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT:

1. Oxygen
2. Water
3. Food
4. Chapstick®

Well, look at that! My list of lists too short to fill out a blog has filled out the whole blog! Mission accomplished. I’ll leave you with this:
 
BLOG IDEAS FOR NEXT WEEK:

1.