Badass mama jama, storyteller, mental health advocate, and more
Hi, My name is Aimée Gramblin. I’m a veteran wife (18 years and counting), badass mama jama of two kids (a teen and a tween), a writer, a nature enthusiast, and a curious soul. I’m a first generation Oklahoman, in the United States. I’ve almost moved out of state three times, but got cold feet each time. We almost moved to Atlanta, Georgia; Memphis, Tennessee, and Swansea, Wales — all for school related opportunities. We ended up moving from Norman, Oklahoma to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we’ve lived for almost fifteen years now. It’s green, slightly hilly, a bit more progressive…
Take a whiff of this
Does anyone know where I can purchase a gasoline-scented candle?
Last Dog to Fart is a Rotten Egg
Early on it started — my head buried under the covers as I snuggled with my mom and we let our farts loudly rip. I inhaled the pungent scent of our mingling gases and enjoyed the nose-stinging assaults. I’d keep my head under the covers until the hot air and trapped farts became too intense for me and I’d emerge for a gulp of air before diving back into the pleasantly acrid bombs we produced.
When our dogs have gas, I’m impressed with the variety of odors they produce and until now secretly enjoyed the old egg aroma that sometimes…
Famous playwright scrapped the original script and started over
Playwright Neil Simon’s movie The Goodbye Girl holds a special place in my heart from watching the precocious 9 year old kid star, Lucy, when I was about the same age as her, living with my single mom. It turns out the movie’s backstory is as fascinating as the movie itself and offers a real-life example of writers knowing when to “kill our darlings.”
The writing advice to “kill your darlings” has been passed down to writers for centuries. …
First, assess the situation
Sometimes I feel suffocated
dryer than dirt in drought in Oklahoma summer
thirsty and forlorn
dusty and forgotten
downtrodden and angsty as a teenager who
hasn’t seen friends for weeks on end
Sometimes it feels like through my veins
run poems — words blooming lush
from well-watered gardens
torrential downpours
sweet sprinkles
devout
attention to detail, emotion, invocation
tending my vocation daily
burning words onto the screen
into my brain — read, read, read
Tornado tsunami hurricane lightning brain
Red button panic
overwhelm
My poetic body withdraws, runs dry
overwhelmed by stats, comments, claps, expectations, opportunities
environmental upheaval, clutter — my home…
It will calm it instead
Daily we are bombarded with productivity hacks, self-help coaches, and personal growth challenges. We are inundated with ads to lose weight, look younger, and gain more energy. We get on the American Dream Treadmill™ and reach Destination Burnout™.
It’s time to quiet your mind and kindly go inward to tap into your intuitive voice of inner guidance. Wisdom and knowledge are inside you, waiting to be accessed — by you.
As we become adults, at least where I live, in the United States, culturally we are expected to accept the current societal values with no questions or second-guessing. At 17…
This is a rant
If you write on this platform, you know what I’m talking about. For the last month-plus, tag bombing on this platform has been out of hand — and I’m not Tim Denning popular, you know?
I want to pull out my hair when I see notification after notification that I’ve been blanket-tagged in someone’s work, like this:
Call Me ‘Queen of Mean Mom’ From Now On
That I never had in the first place
My 10-year-old daughter metaphorically turned 13–21 when she literally turned 9 years old.
My 13-year-old son hit his angsty adolescence at about the same age.
They bicker and fight and bicker and fight and fight and bicker and yell and scream and rage at each other.
It is summer, after all.
It’s about 6 weeks into summer and I’m ready for the kids to go back to school. If that makes me a terrible mom, I’ll take it. If you empathize, I’m here to tell you, you aren’t a terrible parent. We all get sick of the ones we love…
A poet’s reflection on growing older
Growing decades-old
is a strange thing —
it feels good in waves
like a thunderstorm’s preamble.
Emotions seep out of our bone marrow —
tentative sprinkles to torrential downpours.
Sharing stories is our life purpose,
poet’s dream.
Sandy beach’s offering:
tumultuous stormy sea postscript —
sunkissed granules of warming reassurances
cradle our tense bodies while ocean waves
kiss our feet, lap our legs, our bodies
our immeasurable lives lived.
We survive as one microcosm —
separate together.
Our brain waves
cascade, collide
soothe, subside
immersed in the great learning
cosmic experience
milky way galaxy
moony night.
If life is but…
PUB CRAWL
Anxiety used to keep me from trying marijuana and now I use marijuana for anxiety and chronic pain
Pub Crawl is a cross-publication collaboration. More about it here. Content Warning: Discussion of medical marijuana.
Medical Disclosure: I am not a doctor. Consult a doctor before making any health changes.
I don’t remember the first time I smoked a cigarette but I do remember that it was in my last year of high school when I was a hybrid junior and senior. I finagled my way into “skipping” my junior year by taking junior English the previous summer.
It was a swisher sweet or a clove. I’m sure I wore dark red lipstick and felt cool as I inhaled…
