This was while I was still married, before everything fell apart like a deer in the headlights. This was actually the column I wrote to start the column, it just got posted out of order. I called my column Bewitching Vagabond and I wrote it for a few years at the BackWash site. Nothing of it is left up there now. Someone took it all down though others have been up for ages, never updated.
A Real Live Alien
Sunday August 05, 2001Have you ever met a real alien? I don’t have green skin, antennae, a ray gun or a flying saucer. I’m a legal alien. Entirely different from the little green men.
I’m actually Canadian. Seems odd to be an alien when I’ve only come from Canada. I was born in Toronto, Ontario not all that many years ago compared to the life span of the Great Lakes or the Canadian Shield. Of course, those are pretty damn old some would say ancient. I’m 36; it just feels pretty damn old. I’m not really sure how I got this old.
I met my husband, the reason I became an alien, when we were 14 and began as penpals. Over the years we wrote on and off, somehow keeping in touch. Eventually, sometime after college and a few years working here and there, we met in his hometown in southern Illinois. Its a pretty small place. Quite a change for a city woman, like myself. I miss public transportation almost as much as my family. It was very nice to take a day and go downtown, see the museum, have a (not too) expensive lunch and walk around the malls, have good coffee and browse in the bookstore then dash back to catch the bus back home.
We went the K1 fiance visa route, with immigration. Its a frustrating process. Makes it very hard to plan a wedding no matter how much your Mother wants you to. We did find a great Yahoo Club for K1’ers. Its called the CanAm Connection. I highly recommend it. I’m still a regular reader even though we are now past the K1 phase and waiting for the big interview, the AOS (adjustment of status). Likely only a select few will know what I’m talking about at this point.
I went to college in the suburbs of Toronto, the Warden Woods campus of Centennial College. The course was two years, Corporate Communications. It involved writing, publishing, copy editing and graphic arts with a general run of courses like philosophy. I did really great in philosophy, surprised myself. I’ve always heard Sagittarius people like philosophy; I guess its true. I was born in the year of the dragon. I’m a wood dragon by the Chinese zodiac.
I’m working my way into freelance writing. Ultimately, my goal is to be a columnist, well known and well paid. Syndication is the key but before that I have to write, a lot. I’m currently reading a book from the Writers Digest series about being a columnist. I can recommend that too.
Wicca is an Earth religion. I tell that to everyone who asks me what it is. I don’t feel I’m a Wiccan, but it does make things easier to just leave it at that. I like the Earth side of things. Some how I don’t like the idea of worshipping anything and I think my “gods” would be the kind who don’t want to be worshipped.
So, now you’ve met an alien. Scary, eh?