My contribution to yourholidaymom.com

Dear Adopted Holiday Child,

It can be hard to know what to say to someone who doesn't have support from their family over the holidays. My own daughter has been pretty lucky for the most part.  She always knew, because I told her repeatedly, that I didn't care who she loved, as long as they loved her back.  I used to tell her, "Boy, girl, purple alien, whoever," and though it came to be a sort of family in-joke, she knew deep inside that I meant it.  Others of her peer group weren't so lucky, and I saw the negative results of family or friend rejection firsthand more than once.

Maybe you've experienced some of that yourself. I can't erase that memory from your brain, though I wish I could.  Maybe you're feeling some of that rejection from your family or coworkers or people you thought were friends right now. So let me tell you this: You really do have people out here who love you just exactly as you are. You matter, especially to me.  I know what it means to be lonely in a room full of laughing people, and right now, at this very moment, while you're reading this, I am thinking about you and wishing I could make hugs into something tangible I could send through the internet.

One of my favorite childhood traditions, which I continue as often as I can as an adult, is hosting single Airmen at our family dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The guys were usually young, sometimes away from home for the first time, unable to be with their own families. While it's not exactly the same situation, they shared a feeling of loneliness at a time of year when every single thing we hear is about families and sharing and happiness and love and joy, whether we like it or not.

In my own home, as an adult, everyone is welcome as long as you come hungry.  Can you chop celery or fry up some bacon?  Can you sit on the couch and watch TV?  Can you improve on my family's cornbread dressing recipe?  Can you drink soda or set the table or help with the dishes?  Can you debate the relative merits of Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5?  All of those things matter more to me than what you look like or whether you're loving an "acceptable" person. You'd be welcome in my home, as would anyone you'd choose to bring, and if you wanted one, you'd be entitled to a hug when you came in the door.

So remember that.  The inner me sees the you that's inside, with all your trippy little quirks and your hopes for the future, and I love you. I hope that helps make your holidays be merry in a whole new way.

Love, Mom Lucy

Definitely worth checking out, particularly if you are not sappy and prone to random weepiness like I am.  :|
YourHolidayMom

The Dark Side of the Moon

Well, not really.  But, yeah, kind of.

This is the time of year that what's left of my emotional stability takes a good, long look into the abyss and decides whether or not to take a flying leap for the rest of the year.

Some Decembers are really, really difficult.

Ramblings and stuff

Since the death last month of one of my daughter's classmates, and his memorial service, I've been in a heightened (deepened?) state of nostalgic melancholy.  I saw the classmate she'd been closest to at her freshman year, and that was almost as hard as being at Trey's memorial service, in some strange way.  G was a wonderful boy and he loved my daughter practically from the moment they met.  They became dance partners and oh, my kid was happy when she was dancing!

Then we moved, had to, leaving all her friends, including G, behind, and she really disliked me for a while.  I didn't have the money to drive back to C-Town very often, even if it was only twenty minutes away.  What?  I was unemployed.  I managed to keep the stupid cell phones turned on most of the time, and we had a place to live, so I kinda figured we were ahead of the game.  Driving back and forth so she could see her friends in person didn't seem like a necessity.

Anyway, I guess seeing G and remembering that one happy year of high school settled in and made some part of me wish that she could have stayed as happy as she was her freshman year, and that we could have continued to function as well together as we always had (with a few exceptions - no parent/child relationship is without tension).

Maybe it  mixed in with some belated empty-nest syndrome.  It's been a little over a year since she moved out completely, and all but stopped talking to me for a while.  Those first couple of months, while I was still packing and moving, weren't too bad, but I missed my grandson and talking to my girl every day something awful.  Then I couch-surfed for a few months, and being on my best behavior sort of meant not moping around about my kid or my dysfunctional family.

November was harder, because I was unable to make my annual trip to San Antonio to see my friend from high school and do Thanksgiving with her and host our Airmen and just in general be "home" with antiquing and breakfast tacos and Sonic drinks every day and all the Mexican food I could manage to eat.  I look forward to that recharge all year long, and though I understand her situation, I selfishly hated that it got in the way of my needs and wants.  I did my damnedest to sleep through Thanksgiving, since I had nowhere to go.

Having nowhere else to go was stupid, considering that my parents live half an hour away.  Last January, after my stepmother bought me a car (one cannot really effectively job search or work without a car in DFW), she came out and said that she wanted me out of her life and except for sending her birthday cards I've completely respected that.  Last Thanksgiving, it wasn't a big deal, because of my annual trip to SA.  But I was not invited to their house at Christmas, not even for dinner.  Unfortunately, her need to see me gone means that I don't see or speak to my dad, either, and it hurts that he's made no effort to contact me.  This year was the first time in my entire life that I didn't get even an email or text message from my dad on my birthday.  I cried about that, you can believe it.  Yes, I'm 47, but I don't think a girl ever grows out of needing her dad to call her on her birthday.

I wished pointlessly that I had my own place, so that I could put a Thanksgiving dinner together and make it an open house or something, so that I could see other people and not be stuck in my own dark and dreary head/heartspace.  Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have a place to live that is not a box under a bridge, but it is just a roof over my head, and though he says I'm welcome to invite people over, I rarely do because this place has never felt like home to me.  I also hate the kitchen.  I mean, I don't like to cook anyway, but this kitchen in particular is definitely a relic from a bygone era.

I think I had a point to make, but if I did, I don't recall what it was, and I think I've rambled depressingly for quite long enough.  Gah!

On a more positive note, I am still madly in love with Battlestar Galactica 2003 and Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck.  I managed to get my hands on the first two seasons of DVDs and am really looking forward to seeing all those deleted scenes and other extras.  I'm trying to ration myself, though.  The distraction's gotta last through Christmas, because I just don't wanna think about another one without my family.

And on another bright note, my grandson, he is adorable!

My grandson

Ryan is not afraid to rock those stilletos and "help."  lol

I love that he's starting to say actual words now.  The other day, I got a video where he was yelling, "Honey!" at the computer.  Guess we know the favored term of endearment in my daughter's household.  :)

Book Review: Sold (The Auction) by Cheyenne McCray

Though I enjoyed reading it enough, it wasn't really anything special. There were about half a dozen grammar errors, mostly relating to tense, and in such a short work, those errors stood out more than they otherwise would have.

The auction to which the title refers was over fairly quickly, and the weekend at a resort which couples won was never referred to again. Too bad. It could have made for some intriguing situations.

Once the couple hooked up, there was too much time spent describing the toys and paraphernalia and his dungeon, and a lot of time on the female lead's intellectual responses, but hardly any time spent on how he was reacting, and very little time spent on actual sex. If I recall correctly, there are in reality only two sex scenes in the entire book, and most of both of them is spent talking about the toys and how gladly she is submitting to his will. I like to read about kink as much as anyone else, but this wasn't really very well done. I like to know that both people are enjoying the foreplay and the sex.

There's not really much buildup to the relationship, and the end of the story feels kind of tacked on, as if she'd run out of toys to describe and needed to end the book gracefully.

Someone else mentioned that this story was only good for eliciting a physical reaction. I didn't even get that much out of it. It really was an interesting concept/premise, one I wish the author had taken more time to explore.

This one was an Amazon freebie at the time I got it.

Book Review: Love Unscripted

I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley, for the purposes of reviewing.

Wow.  I haven't read a book in a long time that had so much extraneous information included.  I kept getting bogged down and outright bored with the play-by-play of where people were sitting or what they were wearing or the relationship state of someone unimportant to the overall plot.  The formatting sucked.  Quotation marks were used in place of apostrophes throughout, and that made this slow read even more torturous.  There were lines missing, or inserted two pages later, and lines breaks between chapters were frequently missing.  I'm hopeful that these issues are fixed in the actual published copies.

This book is written in first-person.  It's unusual, and not every author can make it work.  Though Taryn is theoretically 27 or 28, the book, particularly the beginning, reads as though she's just out of high school.  She's fixated on stuff that an older adult just wouldn't think too much about anymore, with totally juvenile thought processes about men and their relative hotness factors.

I really liked Ryan and Taryn at first.  They seemed to genuinely like each other and watching an actor fall in love with a "nobody" and vice versa was interesting.  Then, when Ryan left Taryn's city once filming was done, their relationship wasn't so easy and they each had issues with the other.  Ryan turned into an overbearing uber-jealous prick with anger control issues, and Taryn became a super-gullible untrusting brat, and it just went downhill from there.

The denouement was way over the top, though well-written, and then the end was just too treacly for words.  "I'm sorry."  "No, I'm sorry."  "I love you."  "I love you more."  "Let's live happily ever after."  Gag me with a spoon.  Yeah, I know.  The eighties called and they want their colloquialism back.

For me, this book was just too long, stuffed with too much unnecessary information, and the way the relationship played out was unbelievable.  Taryn's physical attraction to Kyle was given far too much emphasis, considering she's in love with Ryan, and whether or not she was attracted to Kyle had no meaning to the plot.

On the plus side, there were parts of the book that were extremely nicely done and touching.  The early days of the relationship had many adorable and funny moments, and though packed with a lot of tell rather than show, were enjoyable to read.

Hot and Cold

Sorry.  I suck at subject lines, and I was listening to Katy Perry. 

Good - Voted.
Bad - no bad there, except for the 40-minute line.

Good - smoothie from Smoothie King
Better - next one's free

Good - dinner at Cheesecake Factory
Better - half of it was free thanks to a gift card I earned through MyPoints
Extra Super Good Bonus - even though my favorite item is no longer on the menu, my fantastic waiter asked the kitchen if they could make it anyway, and they did.  Also, I got a survey on my receipt, and by filling it out, I got a $10 gift card for next time.

Good - saw Taken 2
Better - free thanks to a movie ticket voucher from MyCokeRewards
Bad - though it was still good, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first one
Good again - saw another trailer for Die Hard 5 and for Skyfall.  I am an unabashed John McClane and Daniel Craig 007 fangirl, and I cannot wait to see these two.

Best - CF and the movie house are in the same "mall," so I only had to park once

Good - Movie Trading Company is having a Buy Two, Get One Free sale through Sunday, and it applies to almost everything.
Better - Season 1, 2 and 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica were available at MTC, so I scored big!  Obviously, this means I'll have to start again at the beginning, so I can watch all those deleted scenes and whatever extras tickle my fancy.  Damn the bad luck.  lol

So, I pretty much got to show myself a good time tonight for practically nothing.  The only way it would have been better is if I had company.  On the other hand, when I'm alone, I can read my book without having to make conversation.  lol

Book: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

When I first started reading Beautiful Disaster, I loved it. Big Man on Campus finds the one girl who seems immune to his charm and since he can't shag her, befriends her. Abby and Travis develop a lovely camaraderie, with hints of attraction and unresolved sexual tension, a friendship that serves them both well. The descriptions of campus life were fun and made me a little nostalgic for something I never actually experienced. The author dropped hints that Abby's life before was quite different from the life she is leading on campus, said prior life being pretty much her sole reason for resisting Travis' advances in the first place. Travis is in a fraternity, but is most assuredly not your typical frat boy, by far.

That love for this book lasted until Abby and Travis finally give in after a fraternity party and sleep with each other. You know it's just a matter of time, that it is going to happen, because this is a romance, right? Big Man on Campus Travis, the guy that all the girls are hot for, the guy that girls line up to go home with, doesn't even last five minutes, and makes no effort to satisfy Abby, sexually speaking. I can blame this on the author, because the entire episode lasted about a paragraph, but I still lost a little bit of the hero-love and respect I'd been lavishing on Travis. After that, I just couldn't see him the same way. By the way, the descriptions of the sex, while extremely mild and unsatisfying, were nevertheless graphic enough that I probably wouldn't suggest this for someone under fifteen to eighteen, depending on your personal line in the sand.

Even once they were sleeping together, things went pretty well for the couple, and they were happy for a little while. The big obstacle happens when Abby, her friend America, America's boyfriend Shep and Abby's Travis go to Las Vegas. It all goes downhill from there. Travis' reaction to the obstacle is just exactly wrong, and his inability or unwillingness to read Abby's body language about how important this is to her takes him even further down in my eyes. I also don't think much of Abby's unwillingness to tell Travis why this is so critical to her.

The resolution of this issue takes up pretty much the rest of the book, with Abby standing firm the vast majority of the time, and Travis spiraling down into what amounts to stalker territory. I was deeply disappointed by the change in Travis from the beginning of the book to the end, and felt like he was not even the same character. The book ends on a high note, but it was an unrealistic ending for me, too happy too soon with not enough effort on either of the characters' parts.

I did love the characterization, particularly of Travis' family when we meet them. Their immediate acceptance of Abby as one of them is really sweet, and the brotherly love and protectiveness is something she needs, I think, from men who aren't her boyfriend. America and Shep stand up on their own, and even the tertiary characters aren't cookie-cutter background characters for the most part.

I'm trying so hard here to review this book without saying what happens, because it's a big deal to the characters. I hope I've managed that. The first half to two-thirds of the book is really good, so I still recommend reading it. Your mileage may vary with the big deal and the group's reaction to it, so don't let me keep you from reading the book.

Though I did love more than half the book, my lack of connection to Travis as the book went forward colored my like enough to take it down a notch. I'd give it a 3.5, but it definitely lost more than a point in my view. There were mistakes which could have been either typos or formatting errors, and there were many places where capital letters should have been and weren't.

Random McRandyPants

And that is actually a pretty apt nickname for me today.  Well, this whole year.  In fact, I think I shall change my internet nickname everywhere to Random McRandyPants.  :)

Not only am I finally reading a good book, but also it gets bonus points for the proper use of the word "alumnus" to refer to one male former student. More bonus points because it's a favorite trope and I'm enjoying it. Yay! The last three books have been just not right.  OK, two of them outright sucked and the third was just vaguely pleasant.  And then...we get to the sex.  I guess I have been spoiled reading good fanfic, because I was like, what?  He kisses her and then they're having sex?  Where's the foreplay?  Where's the making sure she gets hers?  This guy has a reputation and the girls line up to do him and he's all five minutes in the sack the first time he makes love to the love of his life?  Apollo he is not, for sure.  I mean, he at least apologizes for not lasting five minutes.

Tonight, at OTB, this girl sat at a table near me, and her jean skirt was so short, I was sure she was gonna flash the whole restaurant.  Then, when she and her date were walking away from the table, he puts his hand out, right behind her ass, but then decided not to, I guess. I thought it was funny because his hand immediately went to her ass area instead of the small of her back.  Then, "Oooooops.  We're at On the Border, not the local biker bar."  lol

Sold two things today, one on Amazon and one on eBay.  Yay!  Two more things out the door to new homes.  I wish I could figure out what days the mailman actually comes to our house.  This is the no-mail-gettingest place I've ever lived in in my life.  At least three days a week there is nothing in the mail.  He doesn't even slow down as he walks past our house.

Still haven't been able to get hold of my girlfriend to see if she and her husband are doing Thanksgiving this year.  When he's deployed, I don't even bother asking, I just show up, but since he's home again this year (and I'm happy he's out of Iraq, really!), I have to confirm, just to attempt courtesy.  I do hope they are, though, because I look forward to seeing those Basic Training Airmen every year and hearing their stories about their hometowns and why they enlisted.  And since I'm a dirty old lady, I look forward to checking them out.  I'll be honest.  :)  A girl's gotta have *some* fun.

Random stuff about me - possible TMI

This is random stuff about me, but if you don't want to read some personal stuff, just move along.  I'm not pulling punches because some stranger from the Ukraine doesn't want to read about *that.*

I am a perv.  I can make a verbal sexual innuendo out of just about anything someone says.  And even if I don't say it, my mind nearly always goes there.  This is why I sometimes giggle to myself out in public.

I have Native American blood, about three generations back.  This is really apparent in my father - he's got that black hair that's so dark it almost has blueish highlights - and in my brother - dark skin and black hair.  Me, I am about as white-skinned as a person can be.  I like to say that I have red-headed skin.  Didn't get the red hair, but the pale, pale skin and freckles definitely hit me, and boy, do I have a temper when riled.

The hair on my body is divided into zones.  Above the waist (including my arms here) shades from dark brown on my head to light brown, almost dirty blonde on my arms.  Below the waist, it's all black.  This was very embarrassing in the sixth grade, when all the other girls didn't have to shave because their leg hairs were all light-colored.  My leg hairs are seriously black.  There's no missing them or ignoring them.  lol

I have one of those, what do women call it on a man?  A treasure trail?  And yes, it's black.  Since I am a woman of a certain age, I have been in communal showers in school, and have been camping where the showers were more or less communal, if not co-ed.  I've been asked why I don't shave it or bleach it or something.  I just don't see the point.  If someone gets close enough to me to see it, and he (or she) is squicked out because I have a line of black hair on my belly, then there's something wrong with them, not me.

Despite my struggles with self-esteem, practically my whole life, I'm about the least vain person I've ever known, and I've never thought I was ugly.  I've never colored my hair.  Never wanted to.  I've actually always thought the color of my hair is beautiful.  I don't wear makeup.  Not only does it make my skin feel very weird, I look ridiculous wearing it, and have been complimented plenty (usually a backhanded compliment) on how I don't need makeup to look good.  Unless I'm going to a job interview, I dress for comfort, not for fashion or to impress anyone.  I just don't care what the current fad is, and I certainly don't dress according to those what not to wear shows.  I am just totally comfortable in my own skin.  That doesn't mean that I always like what I see in the mirror, more that I just don't care if someone else doesn't like what *they* see.  My one concession to appearances is that I won't leave the house to go somewhere public without a bra.  Still, this is more about me than anyone else.

I'm beginning to have liver spots on my hands, and it reminds me of my grandfather, which makes me feel kinda old.  But again, to the suggestion that it's time to buy the fade cream, I said, "Frak that!"

Next to my hair, my eyes are my best feature.  They're a hazel that ranges from green when I'm in a certain mood (yeah, that one) to yellow when I'm really ill.  Otherwise, they change from greenish to brownish to goldish depending on what I'm wearing and what my mood is and what the weather's like.  Both my parents eyes are/were hazel.  Interestingly, my sister's eyes are blue and my above-referenced little brother's eyes are brown.  Go figure.

My love languages are touch and acts of service.  I tend to use these on other people more than other people use them on me.  It's somewhat difficult to determine someone else's love language in a public transaction or with an acquaintance I don't see often.  And it's not like people wear signs.  "I like words of affirmation."  "Gifts make me feel loved."  And whatever the fifth one is.  I can't remember.

I fell insanely in love with Battlestar Galactica 2003 when I finally watched it in August and September.  So much so, that I'm having trouble keeping up with my current shows, because I just don't want to watch anything that's not BSG.

I like erotica and smut.  I still insist on it being well-written, using proper grammar and spelling words correctly.  Also, it really needs to be physically possible.  If his tongue is in two places at once, I better be reading a scifi story with an alien male in it.  Yes, I am a Grammar Nag who is also a Smut Aficionado.  I am a woman of contradictions.  :D

I'm not quite sane, but I'm high-functioning insane.  There are things that if people had experienced them firsthand, they'd probably be having some intensive inpatient therapy.  I say welcome to my life.

In my late teens and early twenties, I was um, indiscriminate, to put it delicately.  Thanks to guardian angels or something, I never got any communicable diseases, and I've only been pregnant twice.  Lost one, had one.  Now that I'm older, the pendulum has swung totally the other way.  Any sex I get is ALL in my head.  I'm totally ready for it to swing back to the middle, preferably in the next year or so.  lol

Now, I have to do something from my supposed to list.  Methinks it will not be read an assigned book.  I have had crap luck with the last two.

Book: Magician's Peril by Paul A Wunderlich

This was a freebie sent to me by someone who asked me to review the book.  I hunted through my email, but can't find the website name.

Magician's Peril is fraught with inconsistent place names, proper names that are difficult to pronounce, and words so big that even I didn't understand what was going on most of the time, and I used to read dictionaries for fun.  Frankly, it read like someone for whom English is a second language, someone trying to impress people with his command of English, and failing mostly because he's using the words incorrectly.

A sorcerer sent out an evil spell for some dastardly purpose.  It infected a town and killed a bunch of people.  The story is told in six parts, allegedly by the daughter of the "mayor" of this town.

I had a really hard time reading this book, in part because of the repetitive telling of events.  It has taken me well over a month to read it.  By the middle, I really just wanted to make myself finish the book, and by the end, I was thoroughly blissed out that I was finally done.  I can't even tell you how it ended, just that it finally did.

The characterization was just not compelling enough to overcome the overwrought language.

To the author, I offer an apology that your first review here on Amazon is not a more positive one, but I just can't rate it any higher.  I'll give you two stars for effort.  It could be a really great story under all that.

Book: Primal by Raven and Lain Bower

I'm going to point you at J. Westfall's review because s/he said pretty much what I think about this book.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RXNAAQQ9TJ0L/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0081C6CLK&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

In the beginning the poor writing, bad grammar and worse editing were not quite as apparent. As the book wore on, it all got worse. I was pretty much ignoring all that and was interested in the premise of the book, which was that of a person in Witness Protection who actually had some knowledge of paranormal creatures. It could have been really fascinating. Then, bam! The next chapter didn't have Wrey (previously known as Maria) and Arvon in it, but some other characters, apparently a bunch of thugs in the Rekin, some kind of mafioso.

It was evident to me from the first paragraph that this chapter had been written by a completely different person; wording, pacing, even editing were all of significantly less quality than what I'd read previously. Aside from that, it was boring. I took to skimming those sections and only reading the sections with Wrey and Arvon in them. By the end of the book, the better-written sections became not noticeably different from the thug sections in quality, and I kept forcing myself to keep reading. Not even the sex redeemed the story.

I was disappointed at the spot in the plot where the author(s) chose to end the book. It's definitely not the end of the story for Wrey or Arvon. Unfortunately for the authors, I don't give a crap. Unfortunately for the publishing house, I didn't bother reading or skimming any of the previews they stuck in the last 30% of the book.      

This was a freebie at Amazon (not any longer) and I just can't recommend it to anyone.

Book: Summer Nights by Susan Mallery

I received a PDF of this book through NetGalley for the purposes of review.

Annabelle was a fun character, and the Stryker brothers all seemed like good guys. I believed the slow growth of friendship between Annabelle and Shane, but didn't really believe the sexual chemistry between the two. To put it bluntly, they were boring. I was much more interested in Charlie the firefighter's desire for and journey toward motherhood than I was in Shane and Annabelle as a couple.

I absolutely adored the relationship that grew between Annabelle, who was all but terrified of horses, and Shane's "killer horse" Khatar. Khatar found a kindred spirit in Annabelle, who despite her fear of horses, was never afraid of Khatar. He loved her from the moment he met her, and even protected her from a snake in a chapter near the end. Funny how the friendship between the horse and the girl was far more intriguing than that between the romantic leads.

Shane had issues, all based on his previous wife, Rachel, and because of one sighting of Annabelle at a bar at the beginning of the book, painted Annabelle with the same brush, even after he started sleeping with her. It took a couple of fights with his younger brother, Clay, to get his head on straight, and for me, his turnaround would have been too little, too late, after all that distrust.

While I liked the book fine, it didn't whet my appetite to read any more of the Fool's Gold books, unless there's going to be a book about Charlie. Her issues and her need to be part of a family might be interesting enough to draw me in.

I've enjoyed other of Ms. Mallery's books, and hope to enjoy more in the future, but this one just didn't do it for me.

What dreams may come

Yesterday, I dreamed about visiting my kinfolk in Oklahoma, and toward the end of the dream, my cousin Zack walked in the front door.  Zack was my favorite cousin, and he died more than ten years ago.  He was the only one of my cousins who really *got* me, maybe because he was, too: twisted, perverted, vulnerable, lonely.  Yet he was always a gentleman when it counted.  Maybe because we were both onlys for a good period of time before we became eldests.  I don't know what it was about him.  But it was so good to see him in my dream that when I woke up, I was nearly crying for how much I miss him.

You know how they say that a woman will tend more often than not, to marry someone like her dad?  I don't know about the marry part, because my ex was nothing like my dad.  But when I'm deciding whether or not to be attracted to a guy, there's some truth to that adage - strong, silent, alpha when he needs to be, completely dry sense of humor; more often than that, though, any man gets compared to Zack, at least subconsciously.  Aside from the familial relationship, he was my ideal.  He's how I knew that there was someone out there who would get me and love me just the way I was, warts and all, who wouldn't be put off by my sexual innuendos in the most innocuous of conversations, or by my innate ability to flirt with anything human.  Now, as I close in steadily on the "halfway" mark, I have to wonder where that person is, because I've never found whoever it is.  Granted, for the last fifteen years, I've been actively not-looking, but that's beside the point.  :)

Back to the dreaming thing.  This morning, I was dreaming something, and the dream morphed, as dreams are wont to do, and I was tied up, with Helo from BSG looking at me *that* way, and then the dream morphed again, into something else I don't remember.  When I woke up, I was still stuck on being tied up by Helo, with my brain whining, "C'Mon, man!  I can't even get any action in my DREAMS?"  Perhaps that particular bit of the dream was the result of too much BSG smut, as if there exists such a thing as too much smut of any variety.  lol

And yes, I did just share perhaps too much information.  Look at the labels.  :D

Days go by....

I've been really struggling the last few days - maybe the last few weeks.  I'm just so sad all the damn time.  I cry over the stupidest stuff, stuff that usually will at least bring back happy memories.  Last night, I was overwhelmed listening to an REO Speedwagon song, and just bawled for ten minutes.  REO is generally really happy memories - good friends, great concerts.

I'm thinking I definitely have to get to the doctor and get back on my anti-depressants, and hope like hell that works, because if it doesn't, I don't know how much longer I can hold out.  And for frak's sake, I'm not talking about suicide.  No, I'm talking emotional breakdown.  Loonybin.  Inpatient stuff.  Thought scares the bejesus out of me.

Today was a bad day, sort of

There were moments when today was just a regular day.  I woke up early, after a really good hunk of sleep. I didn't have a headache.  I wasn't even hungry when I woke up.  I was a little melancholy, thinking about how long it had been since I worked at Six Flags, but nothing too serious.

Then, this afternoon, something happened.  Randomly, for no reason at all, I'd just start crying.  It was confusing and distressing and I really needed a hug.  Or two.  A couple of hours ago, it finally quit and things were back to "normal," if that term can ever really be applied to me.

Tomorrow I get to replace the battery in my newly returned to me car, and go to an appointment in Addison.    I can hope that today's emotional weirdness will not repeat itself.  I hate crying, but at least today I didn't do it in public.

Book: Diary of a One Night Stand

Reviewed for Addicted to Books

In Diary of a One Night Stand, Weis employs one of my least favorite romantic tropes: cheating spouse.  As I began the book, I thought it was somewhat refreshing that the heroine was a woman of a "certain age" and that she was taking her happiness into her own hands.  Then, turn the page, not only does she have a daughter, but also a husband, with whom she climbs into bed when she gets home.  At that point, she instantly became less attractive as a heroine, in my eyes.  While I could empathize with her feelings and her dilemma, I couldn't really condone the circumstances of her extracurricular activities.

Kara's husband, Cal, was a lawyer, and worked too many hours, even while he was recovering from heart surgery.  He started the book as something less than a villain, but more than the stereotypical clueless husband.  Kara was a lawyer with a different firm, and also worked a lot of hours.  She met Scott at some sort of business function, and he pursued her for a week before she gave in and met him for a tryst.  Their "relationship" progressed unreasonably quickly from there.

I found Scott to be extremely overbearing - making decisions for Kara and for Kara's daughter, Simone, without regard to Kara's wishes or stated desires.  Whatever the physical package, and as written he was both handsome and fit, he would have turned me off pretty quickly had I met him in real life.  He was the kind of guy who thinks that his money can buy him anyone's affections, and Kara was not strong enough to set some boundaries for him; she just let him steamroll right over her.

New Orleans is a fascinating city and I generally enjoy almost any fiction set there, but there was little in this book to identify the setting as NOLA beyond the frequent use of the city's name.

By far the best part of the book was Simone, a ten year old, horse-loving girly-girl, who sometimes possessed a wisdom beyond her years.  Her childlike, uninhibited joy in things was a bright spot in an otherwise mostly dreary romance.

The end was abrupt and much too simplistic, and the epilogue made me wonder a little about Kara's sanity.  Really.

Obviously, your mileage may vary.

TV: Battlestar Galactica (2003)

Back when BSG was on the air, I didn't really get a chance to watch it.  It was during one of the times when I didn't have cable, and trying to consistently get a friend to record it for me was just too much trouble.  Besides that, I was still pretty into the two Stargates, and wasn't looking for a new fandom.

But a few weeks ago, I was skimming through the Amazon Prime streaming looking for something to watch and decided to see if BSG was on the free list yet.  I was thrilled to find out it was, and went on an unintentional binge.  I watched the mini-series, Razor and all four seasons.  Then the last episode was over and I was in shock.

I've watched a lot of TV.  I mean, a LOT of TV.  As a kid, I was allowed to watch Sunday nights, you know, Marlon Perkins and Wonderful World of Disney.  That was it.  Any other TV I got was at other people's houses, and was rare.  I've kind of made up for it since then, between a former subscription to Netflix and my current Amazon Prime.

Anyway, Battlestar Galactica ripped out my guts, repeatedly, and put them back in differently.  I've never seen another show that so perfectly resonated with me - characterization, visuals, music, plot, relationships (friendships and otherwise - relationships are the main reason I stick with ANY show), premise.  Over a week went by and I couldn't even think of watching something else.  I hunted down some fanfic to ease the taste of POOF out of my mouth - you'd have to see the very last episode to understand that one - and went on a little reading binge.  Then, I started watching it all over again.  I'm taking my time this second time around, paying closer attention, noticing different things, and I'm still in love with this show.

Part of me wishes that I'd been able to see it during its heyday, and gotten involved in the fandom.  A bigger part of me knows that had I tried to watch this while the Stargates were still occupying my screen time, I wouldn't have connected with this show in quite the same way.  I'm sad that it ended after four seasons and there's nothing more except fanfic.  That's a little hard to deal with.

Yes, I'm aware I'm talking about a TV show, and yes, I'm aware I'm a little strange.  And?

Book: Pushing the Limits

I received Pushing the Limits through NetGalley for the purposes of reviewing it.

Echo and Noah are two very different teens whose lives intersect in the school counselor's office.  Collins is no ordinary school counselor, either; she's on loan from social services specifically to help at-risk kids.  Echo and Noah start out with very little in common other than being at-risk, for completely different reasons.

Echo is extremely depressed, trying to deal with the death of her beloved brother and an accident involving her mother, both the year before.  Noah's parents have both died, and he's struggling with how to get out of foster care and reunite with his younger brothers as a family and isn't sure that school is the best way to do that.

Collins assigns Echo as Noah's tutor.  Truthfully, he needs motivation more than tutoring and though at first they strike sparks, they begin to tentatively reach out to each other in friendship.

Echo and Noah begin to journey toward recovery, both separately and together, and the trip is poignant and funny and joyful and heartbreaking.

Secondary characters are lifelike, and one is the subject of a follow-up book coming out sometime soon - maybe late fall?

There are references to sex, without the ridiculous insistence on abstinence that is frequently so prevalent in books about teens.  Yes, some real teens practice abstinence, but there are plenty who don't, and this book is refreshingly full of regular teens of both kinds.

Pushing the Limits doesn't end Happily Ever After, and it would be a much poorer book if it did.  Instead, we get a glimpse of where Echo and Noah are, where they want to be, and how their individual struggles inform each other's progress toward health and happiness.

I loved this book, and am really looking forward to the following book.  Since I'm not a fan of the YA genre, I can't praise much higher than that.

So I somehow missed a whole month - money and health

I was looking at my blog statistics (I do that randomly because I enjoy seeing how far away people are from me) and noticed that it's been more than a month since my last blog entry.  Bad girl.  I'm not really into spanking, but if I were, this would be a perfect excuse.  Anyway.

I had a small windfall come in that has eased my financial crunch a great deal.  I mean, since I'm used to living on $50 or less a month, having several months' worth of income is like being rich!  I set up a budget to make sure I avoid spending it all in one place.  I've been there before.  When my mom died, I inherited a piece of land in Florida.  It took two years to sell it, and when I did, I just went crazy.  I didn't even spend it on important stuff, really, though I did buy myself a laptop and some educational courses online.  Mostly, it went to food (some groceries, but mostly dining out, a LOT), and clothes for the teenager.  When I think about how different the last four years would have been had I just put that money aside for a rainy day, I want to smack myself.  It was gone in less than a year, and I was right back where I'd been before, which wasn't terrible, but definitely wasn't great.  All that to say that I learned from that experience and from the last four years of having next to no income, and I've parceled out that money with a tight fist.  It's not nearly as much, but I bet it'll last longer.

My CPAP started sounding weird a couple of weeks ago, and I hoped like crazy that it would last me a few weeks until I could get in to see a doctor (which I can do now, more on that) and schedule a titration.  Unfortunately, it didn't last much more than another week, but I've had it eight years, and I've used it every single day without fail, so I guess I got my insurance company's money's worth out of it.  I plan to get it fixed so I have a spare, but in the meantime, I trolled Craigslist for a machine, and found one almost identical to mine that was only $100. Now a month ago, I would have been in a huge panic, because even that $100 would have been nonexistent, but I felt free to buy the used machine without undue stress because I'd "named" all my money (that's a Dave Ramsey thing, and some of what he says makes sense) and created a small emergency fund and a larger reserve fund out of that windfall mentioned above.  I went several nights without the CPAP and sleep sucked and so did the rest of my life.  I was muzzy-headed, I was exhausted all the time, and worst of all, I got heartburn.  I haven't had heartburn in nearly eight years.  Uck!  OK, maybe that wasn't the worst.  It also messed with my sleep cycle again, though frankly, that's so messed up that I never know when I'm going to be able to sleep at night or if it'll be daytime.  So I'm thrilled for several reasons:  I found a machine so much like the one I'm used to; I could afford to buy it; the person selling it was legit; my heartburn went away again.  Huzzah!

One of the first things I did when I had the money all settled was to rent a car for a week, so I could get some necessities completed on my own schedule.  While I had the car, I visited my storage unit and picked up a fairly substantial load from my storage unit.  I chose mostly my Amazon stuff, with an eye toward reactivating my Amazon store, but also fit other things into the nooks and crannies.  Then a week or so ago, a friend picked me up in her Tahoe, and we went to the storage unit again.  Between the two of us, we stuffed that Tahoe pretty full and got a really large portion of my stuff out of there.  Now I know that in the near future, I WILL be able to reopen my Amazon storefront and that will increase my income again.  Because I haven't had my car and couldn't ship things out, that has really cut into what little income I was used to having, so I'm thrilled that I can finally see the light at the end of that tunnel.

OK, back to that doctor thing.  I applied to the local county health plan, and got approved.  So while it won't be free, I can see a doctor again and get prescriptions for very little money, and that will reduce some of my stress as well.  I know that my health is not great, and I've pretty much been ignoring lots of little things because I knew that unless I wanted to rack up some serious ER bills for basic health maintenance, seeing a doctor was out of the question.  Now I can get in to see the doctor, get my blood numbers checked, get back on some meds (like for depression, not having meds has been a serious issue for me for the last two years) and maybe work my way up from Fair health to Good.  After all, I have a grandson I want to see again, and though his little sister isn't made yet, I want to meet her, too.

I've got other stuff, but I think I'll take that into a separate post, because this one's gotten a bit long.