I’m pretty sure, given my lifelong love affair for all things Duran Duran, that it’s no secret I grew up in the 1980s. It was a simpler, more fluorescent time then. So many things happened that influenced who Gen Xers are today. I’m not talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Reaganomics, or the development of the modern Internet. I’m talking about the fine selection of horror films being produced for consumption by young, impressionable minds during that time period. Here are some valuable life lessons we all learned from those instructive films:

1. To kill a leprechaun, you must slingshot a four-leaf clover down his gullet. However, don’t expect him to stay dead. He’ll be back, at least five more times, and he wants his gold.

2. Don’t build your home on a Native American burial ground. Also, stuffed clowns are a terrible birthday gift idea. You might as well put out a doormat that reads POLTERGEISTS WELCOME HERE.

3. Speaking of bad birthday gifts, put that Good Guy doll right back on the shelf. You can’t be sure the spirit of a serial killer doesn’t possess that thing. Need a good gift? That puppet master down the road had some cool toys in his window.

4. To kill a bloodthirsty, machete-wielding murderer in a hockey mask, you need to put an axe through his head, kill him with his own machete, chain him to the bottom of the lake where he initially drowned, drag him back to the bottom of the lake again after he escapes, blow him up with a grenade, stab him with a mystical dagger, freeze him in cryonic suspension, or eject him into space. Of course, he’ll still come back. You thought the leprechaun was bad? He was child’s play compared to this guy!

5. Things to avoid: April Fool’s Day, prom night, graduation day, sleepaway camp, trolls, chopping malls, Motel Hell, and critters.

6. Speaking of malls: if there’s a zombie apocalypse happening all around you, do not go to the mall. Also not recommended: living in an underground military bunker where a commander whose mental state is questionable at best is conducting experiments on zombies; living near a cemetery.

7.  If your dad is offered a job as caretaker for the winter at a Colorado hotel, try to talk him out of it. If he’s truly taken a shine to the place, maybe you can live with friends for the winter or something. I’m sure Isaac and Malachai have room.

8. To fight vampires, you need stakes, holy water, and two Coreys. Though really, why fight them? If Keifer Sutherland and Jason Patric taught us nothing else, they did prove that vampires are sexy.

9. When buying a home, maybe avoid Elm Street. You thought the hockey mask guy was hard to kill? Ha! The only way to avoid Freddy Krueger is to take hypnocil and move the hell away from Elm Street. What about that nice split-level ranch in Haddonfield?

 10. Anything can be used as a murder weapon. Paper clips, horsehead bookends, chalkboard erasers, an eggplant . . . the possibilities are endless.

Kids today have no idea how hard it was to survive an ’80s horror movie. These days, they think if something’s not working for them, they can just reboot it. 

Pinheads.

For many years, I struggled with trying to be a “good” person. I was nice to people I didn’t particularly like; attended baby showers and jewelry parties even though I didn’t care for babies nor wore fancy jewelry; even went to church when all I wanted to do on Sunday was sleep in. Even with these Herculean efforts, I still beat myself up that I wasn’t doing enough. Wasn’t nice enough. Could’ve offered to make the centerpieces for the stupid baby shower. That kind of thing.

I had a revelation last year that changed my life. I was sitting at a friend’s house, watching a wonderfully terrible B movie and taking notes because I had to review it, but losing my place in my notes because I kept laughing, when someone broke out the gourmet cupcakes. These things looked like manna from Heaven: plump, moist cakes in flavors like chocolate coconut chip and peanut butter fudge swirl, topped with perfectly sculpted sugary goodness (“frosting”), and my internal dialogue went haywire. You can’t eat that. There are more calories in one of those cupcakes than the average human being needs to consume in a week . . . but if you don’t have one, the person who brought them will be insulted. YOU should’ve brought them. Shame on you for not being thoughtful enough to bring gourmet cupcakes!

I know it’s stupid. Bear with me here.

As I sat on that couch, beating myself up and almost missing the line in Throg where the father hands the son a giant stone and says “Here’s the rock we found you under,” a new voice piped up in my head. A sane voice. A rational voice. And Rational Voice said: I want a cupcake. Let’s eat.

Negative Voice tried to pipe up. But the calori—

Shut up. The chocolaty wonderfulness that cupcake will infuse in our soul is worth every stinking calorie. I liked the way Rational Voice was thinking.

Are there enough cupcakes for everyone? You shouldn’t have one if there aren--

Negative Voice was drowned out by the sound of me stuffing my face with a cupcake. And it was good.

That was the very moment when I gave up on trying to be a better person. As I licked the chocolate-coconut frosting from my fingers, I realized that the one person who was constantly nagging me to improve on myself was me. Why couldn’t I just accept myself for who I was, flaws and coconut-chocolate smeared face and all? Wasn’t I good enough?

Things changed after that. I was done trying to improve myself. Every morning, I used to beat myself up for drinking too much coffee. Now I know that four cups of coffee a day is a perfectly acceptable. You’re not shooting heroin, Rational Voice says. “Darn tootin’,” I reply. (Here’s the thing about Rational Voice: not only does she make me feel good about myself, she never picks on me for talking to myself, nor for using phrases like “Darn tootin’.”)

I made some other changes, too. I stopped accepting invitations to baby showers and jewelry parties and after-hours networking events and day trips to places that bore me to tears. I didn’t bother with excuses, I just said “No.” I cut some people out of my life that were toxic and parasitic. Whenever someone complains that we don’t talk on the phone or see each other enough, instead of apologizing, now I say “Well, you can visit with me now instead of complaining, or you can not see me at all. How about that?”

Perhaps it’s selfish. The thing is, women are raised in this society to think of everyone else but themselves. I’m tired of acting that way. Someone’s got to put me first. And who better than me?

I no longer try to be a “good” person. I’d rather be a happy person. So if you’ll excuse me (and if you won’t, it doesn’t matter anyway), I’m eating the cupcake.

On this Father's Day, I thought I'd share some wisdom that my father has been kind enough to impart on me over the years. Things like . . .

When fishing, choose your bait wisely. 
You're not going to catch stripers with a squid jig, that's for sure. If what you're hoping to attract is something slimy and tentacle-y and spits ink, then by all means, break out the colorful and wildly inappropriate jigs. Just kidding—you're not leaving the house dressed like that, young lady. Go get yourself a nice, sensible lure, preferably with a high neckline.

Do something you love, and don't apologize for it.
My dad is a farmer. He's been retired for years, but he's still a farmer. He loves animals, can identify every plant in New England by sight and/or taste, and by golly, you haven't lived until you've heard him describe the intricacies of artificially inseminating a cow. He never apologizes for any of this—he doesn't have to. The man knows his stuff. If you don't want to hear about frozen bull semen over dinner, eat somewhere else. It is because of him that I don't feel the need to apologize if I've taken twenty minutes to describe the intricacies of dependent clauses in sentence structure. Maybe you're bored, but I'm having the time of my life.

If you don't love it, quit—but have a backup plan.
I'll never forget the smile on my father's face when I told him I wanted to quit taking dance lessons. The idea that he'd never have to sit through a recital again, watching his daughter pirouette when everyone else was shuffle-ball-changing, didn't upset him at all. I told him I planned on taking art classes instead.
"Will there be recitals?" he asked. 
"No," I said, and Dad hugged me. "But you'll come to my art shows, right?"
Immediately, his face fell. Oh, well. Dad was never much of a hugger anyway.

Never stop learning.
One of the best things about my father is that he can do anything. I know people always say this about their dads, but in my father's case, it's totally true. Fix a car, skin a deer, build a solid investment portfolio, cook a gourmet meal using nothing but greens from the lawn and a random turtle, build a shed, repair a television using toothpicks, gum, and duct tape . . . my dad can do it. If he's never done it before, he'll learn how to do it. And then he'll teach his family. Turtle soup, anyone?

Never put your hand in a corn chopper.
Dad's all about making wise decisions. He was adamant that his daughters be safe when we lived on the farm, insisting that we stay away from blades, heavy machinery, and farm hands. My point: Dad is a big proponent of common sense. Don't stick your hand into a clogged chopper blade unless you *want* to be called Stumpy for the rest of your life.

There's no crying in baseball.
Was that Dad or Tom Hanks? Could've been Dad—he's not a big fan of tears—but I suspect it was Tom Hanks. Wait, I think what Dad said was "Listen to your mother." That certainly makes more sense.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Thanks for making the term "farmer's daughter" something to be proud of.

There are two types of people in this world. One is the sensible, rational type. They set realistic, achievable goals: grow up, get a job you like and are good at, meet someone awesome, get married and have two awesome children. My sister is one of these people. So is my sister-in-law.

The other type knows maybe what they want, which may or may not be sensible and/or achievable, and comes up with wild, perhaps unrealistic, ways to achieve those dreams. That’s probably me.

When I was a kid, I read a lot, played with the farm cats a lot, and I had the obnoxious tendency to correct other people’s grammar. But I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer.

That’s not entirely accurate. I wanted to be a writer and Wonder Woman. But when I found out that the job of Wonder Woman was already taken by Lynda Carter, I settled for just writer. So how did I decide to go about attaining that goal? Let’s take a look:

Idea #1:  Move to an isolated island where I can write all day.

Hahahaha! The naiveté dripping off of that sentence still cracks me up. After college, I moved to Block Island in an effort to be one of those reclusive writers that sits on the beach all day and writes about the waves and crap. Did it work? Ha! Here’s the thing: it is expensive to live on a resort island year-round. Bills need to be paid. I indulged my dreams of writing by churning out a weekly column for the local paper, but I worked full time for the town, took on bookkeeping jobs to keep the lights on, and was surprised when the publisher of the newspaper asked me if I’d moonlight as a proofreader. Hmm. That obnoxious “let me correct your grammar” thing had gotten me a side job. But none of these things really gave me time to write. It was time to move back to the mainland.

Idea #2: Open a bookstore so I can read and write all day.

Sounds perfect, right? In an era where independent and chain bookstores were failing every day, why not open a bookstore? I loved it. And I hated it. I was writing sporadically, reading even less, and I was doing things like reconciling accounts payable and receivable, doing taxes, and talking to customers all day. And, of course, correcting their grammar in my head. The business, and my writing, suffered.

Idea #3: Get a day job I like and am good at to support my writing habit.

Those sensible people of the world with realistic goals might be on to something. I’d worked in human resources in the past, but although I was good at it, I didn’t enjoy it. So what to do? What was I qualified to do that I could stand doing? And then one little line jumped out at me on my résumé--Proofreader, The Block Island Times.

Could I parlay that into a job I liked? Was it possible that someone would actually pay me to correct their grammar? The answer, I am happy to report, is yes.

To all of you aspiring authors out there, I recommend this: Sure, you can try the crazy stuff, like moving to an island or opening a bookstore. But if you want to write, find a day job you love. Mostly because it makes it a lot easier at night when you sit down at your computer if the power is still on, plus, you won’t be ready to jump off a bridge due to said day job. Maybe that job is in customer service, because you like people. Maybe it’s as a medical billing specialist, because you don’t like people. Or, if you’re like me, maybe you can take one of your most obnoxious personality quirks and turn it into a paycheck. Because I can tell you this: I am a writer and I am a copy editor.  No matter if I’m working as one or the other, I love what I’m doing. And sometimes, I even wear my Wonder Woman tiara while doing it.

I like to think that we never stop learning. I try to find life lessons in everything I see, read, or hear, and then pass on that wisdom like I came up with it myself. There is much to be learned from everything around us. For example, the movie Jurassic Park taught me a lot about life. (For you purists out there, yes, the book was better, and yes, it was different—don’t get on my case about how the kids’ roles were changed in the film. I’m working with what I think more people are familiar with here.) Anyway, here goes:

1.  If you want a job done right, send a woman to do it.

First of all, the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park were all born female. And I think we all can agree that the dinos were running the show in this flick.

Secondly, it was Dr. Ellie Sattler who rolled up her sleeves and dug into the dinosaur dung to solve the mystery of the sick triceratops. I didn’t see any of the men around her offering to help. Also, it was Ellie who dodged velociraptors in the maintenance shed to get the power primed to come back on. (Arguably, I can see why they sent Samuel L. Jackson first—I would think nobody, not even carnivorous death dinos, would want to mess with him, but those raptors were apparently even tougher than Samuel L. himself.) Impressive. Send in the woman!

Finally, it was teenaged Alexis ("Lex") Murphy who hacked the computers in the park and got things running again, and Lex who trapped the raptor in the walk-in freezer. Honestly, I don’t know what you guys would do without us.

2.  It’s fun to scare kids.

One of the most memorable scenes in Jurassic Park is when Lex and Tim are pigging out, and Lex’s spoonful of Jell-o starts shaking. Why? Because she’s scared out of her wits, which is hilarious.

Hee hee! And remember that kid from Nightmare on Elm Street V who was at Dr. Grant’s dig site? And Dr. Grant scared the poop out of him with that velociraptor claw? Priceless!

Also a good indication as to why I shouldn’t have kids.

3.  There will always be someone bigger or smarter than you. Just be yourself.

Sure, sometimes it’s nice to get a compliment like “clever girl” from the game warden right before you eat him, but we can’t all be at the top of the food chain. There will always be someone bigger than you, smarter than you, or more willing to spontaneously change genders to ensure the survival of the species than you. Don’t worry about them. Just be you.

Do you think the dilophosaurus was worrying about what the T. rex was doing or what the velociraptors were plotting as she went about her business? Heck, no. She just let her freak frills fly and slung poisonous phlegm like only she could do. And at the end of the day, that’s all that mattered.

4.  It’s okay to say no.

You don’t need to be a doormat to get people to like you. There will be times in your life when people will ask you to do things that you really don’t want to do. It’s okay to say no. The world will not end. And you’ll feel better for it. In the words of Dr. Alan Grant: “Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration, I’ve decided not to endorse your park.” And you know what? Mr. Hammond was okay with that.

5.  Things always work out in the end.

I know that life is hard. I have had many, many days in which it felt like the velociraptors had me trapped in the lobby of the visitors’ center, ready to serve me up for Sunday brunch. Did I give up? (Admittedly, yes, sometimes. There are days when I don’t even get out of bed.)  The point is, we shouldn’t give up. Whether you believe it’s God, or the universe, or karma, just when things look as bad as they possibly could, a giant T. rex will show up to snack on the velociraptors of life. (It’s a figure of speech. Just roll with it, okay?) It’s hard to keep the faith, I know. But when I’m really feeling down, I like to imagine that some well-fed T. rex somewhere is using the bones of my enemies as toothpicks.

There you have it: important life lessons, brought to you by Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, and me. Now go on out there and let your freak frill fly!