Author: Mimi DiFrancesca

Former columnist for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel covering metaphysics, she got to interview the likes of Brian Weiss, The Amazing Kreskin and Apollo 14 astronaut, Edgar Mitchell. Mimi’s love of words became obvious to her parent’s at age four during high mass as she stood on the pew seat to rally the congregation- “Hey! Let’s everybody sit down!” She’s been a tour guide out west and has *too many* years of tourism marketing consulting, designing promo collateral, commercial scripts for TV/Radio, freelance writing, resume and bio coaching and large event planning. A poet, artist, world traveler, mom of two phenomenal kids; in the wee hours she has three finished fiction manuscripts, a published book of erotica, and two blogs and is a self-confessed Pinterest addict. Owner of a fabulous destination wedding and event venue in northern Michigan and a board member of the Northport Chamber of Commerce and Leelanau UnCaged Music & Art Street Festival planning committee. Currently writing a non-fiction book of unusual blessings that her friend/agent is kicking her rear to finish. Member of RWA, MMRWA, CCWA and former CCWA Board. www.wordninjagirl.com

Tik Tok Slayed The Boomer

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When A Boomer Hits The Wall in 11 Seconds…

Collecting data on why the 2026 wedding season is so very slow, I found a mess of articles on couples rethinikng their plans, staying close to home and DIYing the heck out of the event by trying their hand at Pinterest inspiration boards. Why? Consensus from major wedding sites, publications and news outlets via poll data is this: Trump administration tariffs and government shutdowns and staff reductions plus fear of the stock market fluctuations cemented paranoia over what their money could buy when the wedding happens. Weddings book a year or more in advance so summer 2026 couples locked down their venues by late spring of 2025. 

Fun fact if it’s been a minute since you were around wedding planning; couples must obtain their marriage license no SOONER than 30 days prior to the wedding. Imagine a destination venue at the top of a beautiful peninsula where guests must secure lodging many months prior to beat the summer tourists to the limited lodging choices. And the deposits are non-refundable. And you may be calling your guests two weeks from the wedding date to say it’s cancelled because the few people left to process the marriage license say they can’t guarantee delivery of said license in time. 

If it was me, I would go ahead and do all the fun party stuff and then go back to my local courthouse and handle the civil stuff after the fact. But that’s not how couples think. To avoid the possible headaches and the loss of all their deposit monies for venue, caterer, photographer, cake baker, florist etc., they just decided to not book the destination dream venue at all. Fear of the wine, flower and other import tariffs making their event way more expensive than it would have been a year earlier had them cutting their plans in half and doing it hyper local to their homes. 

How to advertise in this new era- I’m already on Instagram and Pinterest and even here on Facebook, though the Facebook business feed is decidedly more the 60 and over crowd who might see us and share with their kids or grandkids. 

So where do you go to grab the attention of younger couples looking for their dream location for this year, now that they’ve exhausted themselves trying to make due with much less than they dreamed for their 2026 wedding? 

Answer: Tik Tok. It’s where all of my industry is currently being led to place our advertisements in front of our target demographic. So, off I went to Tik Tok land. Me. A 71 year old, fairly tech savvy broad braving the Internet passageway that is currently spewing streams of videos that hypnotize viewers for hours at a time. 

Got my account. Opened the hellmouth portal and stepped in. 11 seconds. That’s how long I lasted swiping up on post after post of the most random river of debris I’ve waded into outside of my fictional sojourns into my beloved sci-fi stories. Here’s what I escaped the portal with… 

Tik Tok is a chaotic vomitorium of fever dream fears and wishes; imagined beauty and horror and every random musing of attention seeking arrested adolescents. It is 10% joy and wonder and 90% post apocalyptic cyber punk dominance displays of desperate individuals who fear they will perish without feeding daily on the anonymous parasocial relationship ocean that would not even blink its eye if they disappeared altogether. It’s like walking into an Altered Carbon scene and trying to discern which is the door least likely to get you killed right after you open it. 

The dregs of waking dreams and the acrid scent of desperation clings to every post like the flop sweat brow of the 7 am Vegas gambler trying to win back the home they gambled away last night. 

I am too old for this shit. Boomer down. The Universe knows this and that’s why I’m gearing up to retire. Right now. Send help. And chocolate. Maybe a puppy too. 

And for the love of Thor, can we get that asshole and everyone tied to him out of the White House and far, far away from anyplace they can do further damage to this once great nation? An island perhaps? I hear there’s one available for cheap…

Eclectic Space

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Lucca Spaghetti

Eclectic Space

My home is a mish mash of books and art and plants. Leather and velvet and cozy throws, footstools and tiled end tables. Rugs with mad colors and black iron ceiling fans pushing air towards antique Mexican carved armoire cabinets filled with liquors and hidden chocolate bars and playing cards. The walls carry framed treasures from artist friends, my children and a lot of my own pieces of acrylics, oils, photography and mobile manipulation. And tucked between random stacks of books are pieces of glass in a rainbow of colors. Some with iridescence that speaks to the crow in me. And moving or not moving, depending on their inclination, are cats who own my heart. Those warm fur balls who stretch long in patches of light or curl tightly in their heated nests on frozen winter days. But best of all is when I commandeer the sofa for an afternoon nap with a soft blanket and they make their way up to nestle over my heart and dream of snacks waiting in that cabinet for after I join the waking beings again.  

Haiku

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January 12th

Sun on snow drifts that

Lean on denim skies show me

Deer tracks from last night

An Ocean Full

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Grief is an ocean of memories

Some days 

I can stand on the sand 

and watch the day begin and end

with a sky of color 

achingly beautiful

and traitorous 

while shallow breath 

makes me feel a thousand things

about still being here

still breathing

still not giving in to the urge 

to dive in 

and never come out –

When the tide is low

and I can sit peacefully 

and watch 

the seabirds ride the air 

it almost feels like joy 

could make its way back

And if I bring myself to the shoreline 

in the dark of night 

in person 

or in dreams

the moon, without express permission

sends the water, 

filled with your voice 

and your smile 

and you’re whole big life

up and over me again

and I have to brace against the pull

of that dark cold sweet nothing 

where we swim together 

in collected moments 

of the life we knew

Marie Kondo Doesn’t Live Here

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There are these houses we enter with picture perfect placement of trendy furniture and spare but carefully selected items that echo the muted palette and the space feels more like a movie set with a false back wall that leads to a parking lot  and not the rest of a real home.


Conversations tight and timed like scripted moments of insta ready scenes and photo ops for the digital scrap book so it looks like easy flow but it’s really a regimented schedule of check list items meeting standardized expectations of life on Earth.  


And then there are these homes that start somewhere down the road in a community that reaches in all directions with neighbors who know their names and as we enter the dwelling we’re met with a colorful cacophony of motion and stillness and smells of plants and herbs and flowers, pets and perfume and leaves whirling outside the screen door that’s been left ajar to enjoy this rare fall warmth before the snows. 

And all around the space is proof of life with art  by the person who also picked that sofa draped in soft blankets and squishy pillows that cocoon us. And if you reach just a little there will be a cozy cup of tea at your hand and a plate of cookies baked this morning just for you because they hoped you would stop by to nest a moment and share a piece of this wild day as it unfolds before you. 

Poetry day: Factory Reset

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Let’s get those factories built!

the places we can send our parents, children and siblings and spouses and neighbors and co-workers and anyone else who we don’t understand.

the people who are old and have broken parts inside their minds and bodies

Those glitching, fucked up people whose operating programs were adapted along the way so they could survive in difficult situations

There shouldn’t be anyone out there who doesn’t do things the right way,

There should only be people who use the words that I want to hear exactly the way I want to hear them and exactly when I want to hear them

It doesn’t matter how or why they were broken.

It only matters how they are when they are in front of me.

I don’t need to know the story of their lives.

I just need them functioning the way I want them to, right now. 

Where are those damn factories?

There should be places where we can send them to wipe their hard drives and install a new, clean and efficient operating program so that I can finally, have the person that I want standing in front of me, saying what I want to hear the way I want to hear it and doing the things I want them to do exactly the way I want them done. 

Where are those god damn factories?

Poetry Day: The Waterway

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The Waterway

I am in the water

Just one drop

Yet a vital piece

of the world’s oceans

And when it’s my time

To return 

I will move with the wave

Back into the blue

To become the rain

The snow

The place

where ancient whales roam

And microscopic life feeds

All the creatures great and small

I will move back through the people

I love as cold relief on a hot day

And when I emerge

From that tight place behind your eye

As a tear

I will see what you see

And I will feel

The soul embrace you give

That sets me free 

To caress your face

Once again

poetry Day: Shame Sticks

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If you come to me

With your heavy heart

And your windblown thoughts 

I can be the quiet listener who will

Hold your confusion 

I’ll hold it up off your shoulders so you can get a full breath in and a little peace as you start to figure out 

the next step in your journey 

to whole and calm

Or I can be your guide if you tell me what you’ve packed in your duffle that you drag through life. You’ll need a swimsuit because we will be leaving the safe shore and diving deep. 

We will be on the hunt for signs and turns that you followed and we will sit in discussion until something wiggles loose from the tight bundle of shame sticks that you keep like secret offerings. 

You have used your finest ribbon to wrap those, as if they were the hallmark moments of your life and not the thousand times it all went perfectly and love and magic flew from your soul out into the world touching everyone who witnessed your glory. 

You’ll go home with words and songs and a new map to navigate what lies ahead

So be ready

Tell me who you need me to be for you right now

This

Is why I came to this world 

Right now

You only need ask

I am ready

POETRY DAY: THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE

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THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE

THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE

WHO ARE LIVING PORTALS-

WIDE OPEN DOORWAYS

TO THE GREAT RIVER

OF ALL THINGS THAT FEED OUR SOULS

IT’S NOT THAT THEY TRAINED FOR THIS JOB

OR

EVEN ASPIRED TO BECOME THIS WAY

THEY WERE CHOSEN

BY SOME

WINGED BEING

HANDPICKED

TO STAND AT THE GATE

TO THE DIVINE

THEY HOLD THE DOOR OPEN

SO THE REST OF US CAN

WARM OUR HEARTS IN THE LIGHT

THAT BLAZES THROUGH THEM-

ILLUMINATING THE DARKNESS

YOU

WERE ONE OF THOSE PORTALS

A GATEKEEPER

AND WE

ARE ALL BETTER

FOR HAVING KNOWN YOU

Poetry Day: Already Broken

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by the time we met

i was already broken

a thousand pieces

scattered round the world

like so much garbage

among the detritus

were some damn fine things

like

shreds of hope

bouquets of trust

boxes of wonder 

jars of light and joy

winds of change-

the same kind I’d already

weathered early on-

it pulled those pieces 

off the laundry line

where i was airing things out

planning to put them back in use

after cleaning off the

lies and betrayals

i’m on the hunt now

tracking down the things

that used to be mine

welding them back to my heart

and breathing life into them again.

again.

again.

by the time we met

i was already broken.