Put On Your Widest Flares and Lace Up Your Platform Shoes

C'mon! You know you remember the disco days. Maybe you even have those shoes with goldfish in the heels. Not the original goldfish, I hope. Now...hear the intro...get ready...for Val's big announcement.

I'm coming out. I want the world my nine loyal readers to know.

Time to stop thinking of myself as a teacher. Those days are GONE! Not that I didn't enjoy (almost) every minute of it, what with having a captive audience for my daily stand-up routine, and learning something each day from kids who didn't even know that they were teaching me. Yes. Time to put that career to bed. Give it a cup of warm milk, tuck the covers up under its chin, blow a kiss from the foot of the bed, and softly close the door.

Kathryn Cureton, Writer.

That's the new me. Kathryn Cureton is the new Val. Sure, I'll keep using my alias. I kind of like it. But I'll no longer hide my true self here at the ol' cathouse. I'm not exactly putting my name up in lights. But it's no longer a secret.

I can do that, right? Call myself a writer? I've been published. I've won contests. I can put a sentence together. AND...let's not forget that I placed 89th in the 80th Annual Writers Digest Writing Competition, Memoir/Personal Essay category! You hadn't forgotten, had you?

Yeah. I was toying with a title of "Val is the Old Kathryn Cureton." But that title contains the phrase OLD KATHRYN CURETON. Not gonna happen. Not on my watch. No siree, Bob! Those school kids pegged my age at 18 YEARS below the truth. Okay. ONE time. As related to me by my son, who was in the class where it happened. And they were probably trying to fish the actual age out of The Pony. But for five glorious minutes after he told me, I was on Cloud 9. And NOT because I'm so old I'm closer to Heaven. Nor did Jesus sign my yearbook. And reports that my social security number is "1" have been greatly exaggerated.

Time to eliminate or get off the throne. Time to step up my game. Time to round up some more cliches and buckle down with my nose to the grindstone. Published stories don't write themselves, you know. Well, in my case, they kind of DO write themselves, like latchkey kids left to their own devices. But SOMEBODY has to submit them. And Kathryn Cureton is going to be that somebody. After all, in five short weeks when The Pony goes off to the University of Oklahoma, I will have nothing but time. I'll need something to keep me busy between bouts of uncontrollable tears. The page is about to turn on a new chapter in my life, and I'm determined to make the best of it.

Kathryn Cureton, Writer.

How about joining me in a little Celebration?