Meet Schmidty

To understand why I started Schmidty Says, you’ll have to know where Shannon came from. My mother was a diehard hippie traveling the world in the late 70’s, trying to find herself. She had many exciting adventures during the three plus years spent overseas. She met my Australian father while they were living in a house boats off the coast of Sir Lanka. Once they broke up with their significant others, they planned to meet and spent three days traveling to Goa India for a sexy rendezvous. I was conceived in a fortress converted into a hostel on a cliff overlooking the ocean. After three wonderful days together, they split paths and never saw each other again.  Her psychic abilities were strong in the untouched world and months later a vision of her pregnancy appeared to her while meditating. She soon sold most her possessions and traveled home to Santa Monica California. My grandparents welcomed her back with open arms and two months later she gave birth to me.

Fast forward 4 years later and we were living with my new step father Ernie in the San Fernando Valley. He was an animation director at Filmation and work on projects such as He-Man and She Ra. Our lives were a constant party machine filled with art and decadence. Several years later, alcoholism came between my parents and they divorced when I was nine. Without my dad’s income, my mom and I could no longer afford our beautiful home and we were forced to downgrade to a questionable condominium. There I learned quickly that gullibility and kindness did not go very far in the real world (I was starting to grow up). Over the next several years I found trouble anywhere I could. My kind light-hearted spirit was crushed constantly by the hood rat kids I hung out with and I became angry. Then the earthquake hit and devastated everyone, we were two miles from the epicenter. Fortunately, GTE (my mom’s company) offered to buy our crumbling condo and move us to Grapevine Texas for a new job opportunity.

Grapevine was the worst thing that ever happened to me. After a full school year of mental and emotional abuse my mom decided to move us. I arrived in Bedford Texas, completely withdrawn, unhappy and extremely angry. I had completely lost my carefree attitude and trusting nature. I found the most unstable people at Trinity High school and followed them around for the next several years consuming every drug I could get my hands on. Somehow through all this I still went to school every day and managed to get good grades. I graduated high school early and continued on for my associate’s degree at Tarrant County College. After getting straight A’s for the next two and half years, my aunt and Uncle offered to pay for my college tuition at SMU (where I received a half scholarship). I truly believe they felt sorry me and thought I would never leave Bedford unless given a reason (they were probably right). I left for SMU an angry metal head child and graduated a fairly well-adjusted adult.

I spent the next several years trying to assimilate into the SMU world, but obviously with my background of art, metal and drugs I knew I wasn’t in the right place. I had to find a new life, MY LIFE! I spent so many years living in other people’s worlds just trying to be a chameleon and fit into the environment. But I never did, because I was nothing like those people!

During this time of confusion Schmidty, my alter ego, was born. I started escaping into a different consciousness to harness a stronger part of my personality that didn’t take shit from anyone. She’s the fun loving aggressive bitch that was nurtured by my old colleague Mike Hernandez (my gay husband). Soon I let Schmidty run wild at work to expend some extra energy.

Also, during this time I fell in love, and finally became in engaged in February 2010. At the time, I was 10 pounds overweight, still a little angry, and just completely lost. I made a vow to improve my way of life, myself and find a purpose. I also have to mention this was the time of my Saturn Return, which happens between the ages of 27-30 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_return).  In six months’ time, I lost the extra weight, let go of some unhealthy relationships (and habits) and looked for a purpose. I’ve always enjoyed writing, heck I majored in corporate communications, but I had never tried it recreationally. When shit hit then fan and I was forced to find another job in September of 2010 I started re-evaluating my life once more. I decided to make a clean start. I couldn’t carry over my bad reputation to a new company but I also couldn’t let go of Schmidty; she became a part of me. So I did the next best thing, I started a blog and combined my love for writing and Schmidty’s wild personality.

I’ve always been a storyteller, a writer and a party girl; I just never combined all three. But once I started writing for Schmidty Says back in November of 2010, I just couldn’t stop. I was addicted to the creativity and excitement. It gave me a good reason to embrace my wild side, and what’s better than that? It filed a hole in my heart that I had left empty for such a long time. Also, I was doing something for myself and no one else; I finally found my calling.

In my blog, www.schmidtysays.com I cover burlesque, art, music, food, and plain ole crazy nights in Dallas. I give people a taste of the sexy life from the perspective of an aggressive bitch that checks her inhibitions at the door. I try to laugh at my ridiculous behavior in the blog and I hope the audience laughs with me. Because my goal is to ultimately entertain you, anyway I can. As people experience my passions and adventures, I hope they get excited about all the fun activities in our town. So my husband created www.stufftodoinDallas.com and www.stufftodoinDFW.com to give people a source to find their underground party needs and a way to experience Schmidty’s adventures first hand. 

Recently, I had an idea for a book and looking for a way to profit from my experiences, I’ve decided to create another alter.  My love for burlesque, art and soulful music will not fade but I hope to spend less time on the blog and more time writing a fictional novel. That is the next step in this great journey of my life. Right now I’m trying to harness all my creative energy and use it to serve a higher purpose, by following the advice of my guru Ty Hudnall (http://www.sacredartthai.com/) and embracing the love all around me. Take the good with the bad and accept it at as a part of life without losing my patience. I know it will take some time but I am transforming myself into an enlightened soul. I will continue to learn from my mistakes and grow into the person I know I was meant to be. For now acceptance is the first step to cleansing my spirit. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it!