I Read a Book Today...

I know, right? The truth is I've read at least a book a day, if not more (if they're short & fluffy) for a long time now. But this one was so.... Yeah.

It really needs a write-up, if only to try desperately to straighten out the confusion in my head. Several sessions of fine-tooth-combing the sections involved didn't help clear up a few timeline issues I was having. And the worst part? The first time I read this was several years ago, so this is an older reread for me. I don't remember noticing these problems the first time through. I must have changed and grown or something...

Anyway, the book:

Causing Havoc by Lori Foster

Blurb (from author's website): Sexy, sculpted extreme fighter Dean “Havoc” Connor has knee-melting good looks-and thick skin. But not from his brutal sport’s enclosed rings. Orphaned and torn from his sisters as a boy, he has no family. That is, until he gets a letter revealing how much the once-little girls want him back in Harmony, Kentucky.

To stop his sister from marrying a man as sleazy as he is wealthy, Dean finds himself teaming up with her pretty-but-smart-mouthed friend Eve — who’s heard of “Havoc’s” reputation and doesn’t need some hunk trampling on her heart. Now all Dean has to do is protect his sisters, win Eve over, and expose a devious criminal.

And he thought winning the heavyweight cage fighting belt was hard.

Now, me... and it will be behind a cut, because... Here there be spoilers, yo!

More thinking-out-loud about girly parts and sexual content of books and what doesn't bother me.

We seem to have a new kerfuffle which is really just an old kerfuffle revisited around the community in which I read and interact. We'll just call it the OMGLADYBITS!! problem and move on from there.

I'm just going to make a brief rebuttal of some things that were said on a site which shall be nameless (if for some reason you don't know but want to, email or something and I'll tell you but you will probably be all head-asplodey) and which I have since removed from my blog feed because really? I don't need that shit in my life right now, and anyway, as a review site it was becoming less and less relevant to my actual INTERESTS, y'know, because of how books that I thought sucked donkeywater were given highest accolades and books that I thought were funny/cute/interesting/otherwise pushed some boundaries in an opening-up-the-mind kind of way were dismissed as lame/trite/blah/whatthefuckever.

ANYway.

I read. I read a LOT of stuff, yeah, some "Literary Fiction" and some nonfiction, and mystery and science fiction and fantasy and and and... yeah. Most of what I read, though, is romance. Or one of the other things with strong romantic elements.

People like to put things in boxes.

Boxes are OK, sometimes. I mean, I like to have a box (basket, drawer, whatevs) to keep my cheeses separate from my eggs separate from my condiments in my fridge. I have a nice little box in the pantry which I keep full of approved snack items for my kids where they can reach, and I have another nice little box out of their reach where I keep the "Only Occasionally" treats. I have a box for the kitty litter, because, let's be honest, you *don't* want that just spreading out all over the floor.

You know what I don't put in boxes? Books.

Piles, yes. Shelves, naturally. Randomly stuck down the side of the couch so I can pick it right back up in the morning? Oh, HELLS yeah. Boxes, though? Not so much. Only when we're moving. Or I'm mailing them to someone. For a while, I kept some in a box under my bed, but then I decided I wasn't ashamed of it, I just didn't want my 7YO boy reading b/c Holy Inappropriate, Batman! So I put all that stuff on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in my bedroom where no one but my mom and my sister ever look, and they're grown-ups and if they go poking and get shocked, SO NOT MY PROBLEM.

Also, do you know what paper books don't have that a lot of ebooks (especially from small presses) do? Warning labels. To me, that's like the Darwin Awards-worthy labels on push mowers warning the user not to pick it up & try to use it to trim the hedges. I mean, really. They should all say "Warning: Thoughts Ahead. Make Sure Mind Open, Or Put Down NOW."

So, when I read romance, I don't go into it with any expectations, beyond the expectations of a minimum of typos. And that I will be entertained (unless I'm reading for some reason other than entertainment. Even then, entertainment is a plus). And if I'm reading a romance written within the last 20 or so years, I do generally expect sex. Particularly if it's an erotic romance, when I expect LOTS of sex. Hopefully well-written sex, but I will settle for cliche and throbbing parts and excessive dampness. The point is, though, I don't look for a particular TYPE of sex. I'll take girl parts, boy parts, alien parts... in whatever combinations and numbers. I've never been "blindsided" by menages, or het sex in a gay romance, or gay/lesbian/trans* sex in a het romance. In fact, one of the reasons I gravitated AWAY from het romance is that it has been feeling too confining. There's a formula for sex, and a formula for characters, and a formula for story. I hoped by moving over toward more of a LGBTQ-friendly reading space, I would come across different types of relationships, characters who didn't fall into the same old stereotypes, new takes on old tropes...

For the most part, I've found that. There's been less of the -LBTQ than of the G-, granted, but I'm digging a little deeper and seeing more. I'm seeing more interracial romances, some May-Decembers where the balance of power is a bit different. I'm even seeing more babies -- with fewer Plot Moppets, although still plenty of those -- which I love (side note: I've seen some people despairing that some of their favorite series are moving toward the baby-crazy, despite being m/m pairings. I'm all like, YES PLEASE MORE OF THAT! because you don't have to be ovaried to believe "Families should grow, not shrink." (quote from Strawberries for Dessert by the lovely Marie Sexton).

So, dear authors who might accidentally read this, Give me girly bits along with the man-sex! I'll read it! The only place I demand to know what to expect sexually is the space where I'm sharing said sexual content with my very own husband in our very own bed. I don't object to warnings about dubious consent because my enjoyment of that is dubious, at best, but I also don't refuse to read it. And I only DNF if I can't actually connect with characters or plot -- some of those stories would probably have been improved by more sex! Give me variety! Give me interesting people doing interesting things! (It doesn't have to be save-the-world interesting; I'm a homebody, so domestic weirdness interests me.)

And, hey, if I ever run across ACTUAL heterosexual intercourse in a romance with gay male protagonists, maybe I'll be shocked enough to actually review it!

True Confessions of a SAHM: I'm not an Idiot!

I had an amazingly nice phone conversation today, with the doctor I took VelcroBoy to for a diagnosis (aside: he has ADD -- no hyperactivity to contend with, just attention deficit. Which almost makes it sound like a bank account; as if it were possible to simply deposit more attention...) Anyway.

Usually, when I take one of the kids to the clinic for whatever... when I would take my hubby to his appointments after his surgery last fall... pretty much anytime, ever, I have to spend time with a professional person, whether it's as a customer/client/patient or simply as a person, it seems like the moment they find out I'm a SAHM, they assume my brain was disengaged at infancy and I'm less capable of understanding complex ideas like what they *do* all day than a five-year-old.

The worst offenders? Moms and men over 50.

I can understand the men. I mean, there are still societal conventions in place urging men to treat women like Delicate Flowers who need special, kid-glove, cotton-wrapped handling. And men of A Certain Age were pretty much drowned in that mentality from a young age, so they're at a disadvantage. Many of them still have difficulty coping with the idea that women are, in fact, capable of deep, rational thought. They don't exactly get a pass on this one, but I'm less likely to let my prickles out.

The women, on the other hand? No.

Just.

No.

Y'know what? Maybe I don't have a degree. Maybe I don't have a whole STRING of letters after my name, or a fancy engraved nameplate on the door of my office. Hell, my "office" is the most comfortable chair in my living room, plus a storage ottoman and a kitty condo (don't judge. It's a convenient height for my tea). The thing is, the lack of those superficial outward signs of privilege (yes, even if you were a scholarship student, you were privileged enough to receive that scholarship, weren't you?) don't mean a thing. I don't have a degree, officially, but that doesn't mean I don't possess the knowledge. I grew up in a lab while my mother was doing the research for her dissertation -- my mom the PhD. I pretty much didn't bother in most of my science classes throughout school because I already knew the material. Mom's a bit of a bookworm (the attic and the living room are crammed full, and that doesn't count the foot-high currently-reading stack by her bed, her home office, her work office, or the overflow in the basement) so even through two years of being a college student myself there were very few books I was reading for the first time -- or even had to actually purchase -- for any of my literature classes. I remember reading medical journals for no particular reason in my teens (ok, they helped me fall asleep. What? Is truth!)

So, yeah. I may not have quite as many years of official training for some career or another, but that does not actually mean I don't understand what's going on when you talk to me.

Ironically, many of these people would give me a pass if I were homeschooling my kids for religious reasons -- I know a few families who do this, and, frankly, I know the way they spell. Their kids are going to be in TROUBLE. Not to mention narrow-minded, but that's a whole 'nother argument. Oh, or if I were a very obviously hippie-dippie Earth Mother type, or otherwise "artistic." Or if I had a job, but lost it, and decided that, given the way the economy is, SAHM-ing was a more graceful acceptance of defeat in the job market, thus choosing to leave the Real Jobs So The Men Can Have Them, There's A Good Girl. (Which, just... GRRRRRR.)

Anyway, I was impressed, because the particular doctor I spoke to today chose not to speak down to me. She spoke to me as if she expected me to be perfectly capable of understanding her if she used multi-syllabic words. She expected me to be capable of asking questions if I didn't understand something she said. She was, quite frankly, amazing! And you don't find amazing like that all that often in the military health-care system.

The Thing About Gun Control...

...at least in regards to it being a political "issue," is that it's, ultimately, ridiculous. I mean, you can make arguments about how guns are designed to kill people, or about how having them is a part of your Constitutionally Protected Rights and Freedoms, or whatever, but really, what it comes down to is this: Some people are not mentally or emotionally equipped to have access to explosives. And, no, those people shouldn't be ABLE to get them.

The thing is, there are two types of gun deaths -- accidents and not accidents. Accidents are horrible and tragic, yes, but in many cases tighter gun control would not necessarily have prevented them. I am most affected by the story I read many years ago in a now-defunct women's magazine about a woman who, along with her husband, bought a handgun after a rash of home break-ins in their neighborhood. They left it, loaded, on an accessible shelf in their closet, and completely forgot its existence until, one day, their two year old daughter found it and accidentally killed herself. This was the reason this woman was shilling for tighter gun control laws -- she was stupid and irresponsible, and someone died who shouldn't have. Stupidity is NOT the government's fault, people! (Ok, well, some of it is. But not that. If you're not smart enough to figure out how to safely handle and store a handgun, you're right, you don't deserve to have one. But how is anyone supposed to test your ability to follow basic common-sense measures, or, indeed, any sort of gun/hunter's safety?)

In the non-accident category, you have your basic "Dude who has completely flipped and lost his shit" shooting sprees and you have "Dude who has no moral compass and doesn't care who he hurts" killing sprees. Some of the weapons used in these were obtained legally. Some were not. The only way to tell if someone's going to snap and turn into a killing ball of rage is MAYBE a psychological examination. But maybe not. And truthfully, anyone who's THAT determined to hurt people? Well, making it harder for him (or her) to legally purchase guns may help a little. But truthfully? Probably not much. He can go for illegal weapons. Or use non-regulated stuff like knives. Or get online and learn how to make a bomb using common household ingredients. Or, y'know. SOMEthing. Tighter regulations might delay him a bit, but they won't stop him, whatever his motivation.

So, yeah, tighten things up. People with nothing to hide won't be deterred. Some might even welcome more common-sense regulations, like the hunter-safety courses that are required to get hunting licenses, or the periodically required driving tests we have to undergo in order to renew our driver's licenses.

But really? Don't use it as the entire basis of your decision on how to vote. Because that's just as ridiculously mindless a reason to affiliate yourself politically as is the assertion (Yes, I'm sad to admit to knowing someone who thinks this) that women shouldn't vote because they only vote for the most attractive candidate, rather than the one who's "right" on the issues (and how subjective is THAT, by the way?!).

'Cause the truth is, if I voted via wet-panties, I'd have to go Republican -- some of those guys are frigging HOT. However, their ridiculous assertions and obvious backtracking, not to mention their complete disregard for such issues as "Separation of Church and State," "Women's Health and Self-Determination," and "Human Rights" make them deplorable excuses for human beings, and the only way they'd get my vote is if the Democratic side of things started suddenly spouting the same nonsense syllables my seven-year-old claims as his "made-up language" in every appearance/interview/what have you.

Not that I don't believe that most politicians  would benefit from the same discipline my kids are subject to from time to time, but that kind of backsliding can really scare a girl!

See what happens when I blog tired?

I think one of the things that bothers me most about the whole Gay Marriage/Gay Hate Group thing is that the side against, and all the haters (No, really, ALL the haters...do you know any anti-gay groups that are not?) are "religious" groups. And insist on using the Bible in an attempt to justify and support their views.

I have a long-standing love-hate relationship with religion. The love part is because I was raised with it, in a church that was all about loving and uplifting. The hate part is due to churches that ended up being a lot like the ones that are all about anti-gay, "It's not bullying if it's in The Bible" groups that kind of turned my whole family off church period and forever, each for different things: for my mom, it was the oft-repeated-in-a-wealthy-church-community that women should be showpieces for their husband's money & sit at home all day taking care of kids and house at a time when my dad was out of work and Mom was the sole bread-winner. For my dad, it was an attitude that only white, white-collar men were "worthy" of positions in the church -- deacons, whatever -- when he, a white-collar worker, was incredibly proud of the blue-collar background of his parents and grandparents because their work-ethic made it possible for him to go to college and maybe find a less back-breaking way of life for himself and his family. For us kids, it was...well, when a kid has been taught to think independently and question EVERYTHING, and is then smacked down into a youth group that is told to question NOTHING, the end result is NOT gonna be pretty. Just sayin'.

I really really hate this because one of the parts of history that I loved the most was the study of the western religious movement -- Greek/Roman mythology on up through the breaking up of the church. Pretty much every moment of it has been interesting and thought-provoking for me. It has always seemed to me that, with the exception of some of the darker parts of the earliest mythologies, religion has always been about love and glory and beauty and hope and uplifting ourselves out of the physical everyday and into a mental and emotional place of amazement and joy. And many of the earliest splinters from the Catholic Church were about that -- Martin Luther's need to move away from the greed and lust for Earthly power, the Quakers' need to find a place where they could be peaceful without persecution...

The Founding Fathers of the United States specifically made it a part of the ideal of the nation -- Separation of Church and State; the idea that religion has no place in government, especially in the government of a nation founded on the idea that there is room for all (well, almost all) religious practices in this new nation of ours. (I'm sure there are a few religions out there with some practices that are...unsavory...to our first world sensibilities, and that many of us object to as being inhumane.)

And when you start quoting your Bible as a legitimate (in your view) reason to make something illegal, or start calling for voters to "put the church BACK in the government," well, I have to question whether you ever took a US History class. Or, y'know, passed one. Because if you had, you'd know that there was never any intention in the heads of those (yes, mostly Christian) leaders of ever having religion be a prominent force in law-making in this country. Because, and I cannot stress this enough:

One of our biggest, most important freedoms is the freedom of religion; that is, the freedom to practice whichever religion we wish -- or, to practice NO religion -- without the government being able to tell us, "NO, you're wrong, you MUST BELIEVE WHAT WE SAY is the only correct and right way to fulfill your spiritual needs."


In your quest to "Bring Christ back to the government," whose Christ are you going to use? I don't want YOUR Christ. He is bigoted, probably racist, anti-feminist and thoroughly unpleasant. I have some friends who go to some apparently very pleasant, inclusive, wonderful, loving, uplifting churches; I might like their Christ, given the opportunity, but I don't think their Christ is the same as yours, though. And I think you would fight him as much as you do the current state of affairs. Or what of my Jewish and Muslim friends? Even IF their particular sects of their greater religious affiliations agreed with you on issues like gay marriage, which you're outspokenly against, I don't think, somehow, you'd agree to having their Holiest of Books as the one in charge, despite the fact that the Old Testament of the Christians is the same as the Jewish Torah.

It is hard to continue in the childish belief that "God is Good" in the face of so much mean-spirited hatefulness flowing from the mouths and fingers of those who are supposed, theoretically, to be uplifting a "Gospel of Love and Truth" to the masses.

I believe that, had they the power to see into the future, to see and understand the way events have, to date, unfolded, our first great leaders might have said, not "all MEN are created equal," but  "all MANKIND is created equal." We are all mankind -- male, female, trans*, straight, gay, Christian, Muslim, Jew, white, black, brown -- however you classify yourself.

And, frankly, if you want to live in a Church-governed country, well, I'm sure there are still a few around. Go find one of them. (Wikipedia suggest the only two current theocracies are Iran and Vatican City. Take your pick.)

Please don't do this to me!

Foodies beware!

I love food. Not all food, but lots of different foods.

I also love to make food.

Granted, I'm not great with fussy, complicated dishes (I tend to get distracted) or with "presentation." I like my food hearty, simple and filling.

That said, I do tend to be a bit more willing to experiment with breads -- fussy ones, hearty ones, ones with interesting shapes or tetures or flavors.

But, see, here's the thing: Even the easiest, quickest, least hands-on recipes take, at a minimum, two hours from pulling out your materials and ingredients to pulling it out of the oven and letting it cool for a few minutes before you start cutting.

So when an author writes a character who's a "foodie" I will NOTICE. When a character first spends the night at someone else's place, they don't usually go check out the kitchen for bread-baking staples before heading back to bed. Yet the next day (or later that same day, depending when they're gettin' it on) Foodie will make a quick store run, come back, and, in the time it takes to make a fresh pot of coffee, have a complicated meal, including fresh, homemade yeast bread, on the table and ready to eat.

I call bullshit.

Unless you're making it from a mix, soup is gonna take at LEAST half an hour, minimum, to wash, chop, saute, and simmer everything.

And the bread? Well, mixing and kneading and measuring is gonna be at least a good 15-20 minutes, unless you're using a mixer with a dough-hook attachment, and no one in books uses one of those, because, let's face it -- your new flame back there in the bedroom isn't gonna have one if he isn't into cooking, too. Or if he does, it's gonna be super-loud & it'll wake him up Too Soon. Then, there's the 45 min to an hour the dough's going to need to double in bulk. Punch it down, shape it, put it in or on the appropriate baking container, and give it another half-hour or so to proof (and don't forget to start warming up your oven!). Then 20 minutes to an hour to bake, and then it needs to cool for a while before you can even start slicing it and we're already up to, what, 2.5 hours, MINIMUM.

Now, there are a few recipes which skip the kneading step, and even a couple which skip the proofing, but really, that only knock maybe 45 minutes or so off the length of time needed. And some of those recipes call for sponging the dough, which means instead of that initial one hour rise, you may be waiting for three or more.

And even with frozen dough, you need to wait for it to come to room temperature and double in bulk before you can start baking it, and that takes a good hour or so.

So, no, unless it's a pretty damn complicated soup recipe, you're not going to be starting the soup first; your bed-buddy's probably NOT going have live yeast just lying around, (let's face it; probably not the appropriate cooking pans, either)... and, no, you're not going to have fresh, homemade bread in under an hour.

Unless, of course, you're God (in which case, come see me.)

Therefor: Unless you have baked bread and know how long it's gonna take, unless you're going to reflect that in your text, please, please don't write characters who can do it in less than a third of the time it takes to make your average pot of soup.

True Confessions of a Stay-at-Home-Mom

This is something that, somehow, I have a feeling would earn me a lot of backlash if I shared it with certain of my fellow SAHPs. And some of them may find it by accident and hate me. But some may find it and love me for saying some things they feel...

I know a lot of SAHMs. Like, a LOT a lot. I'm, after all, a military spouse. Especially among the enlisted classes, it's a big thing -- sometimes almost a necessity. There aren't a huge lot of college degrees between us, and, while the pay's not great at this level, it's usually barely enough to scrape by, as long as you don't try to pay extras like childcare.

So, here's the thing. I don't actually enjoy a lot of the "Good Parent" type stuff. I'm not particularly religious, either. Both of these things are nearly anathema, at least in the community of SAHM/military spouses -- a lot of them are extremely (but not, thankfully, scary-) conservative. They all seem to feel like a "Good Parent" doesn't let their kids mix in with the rank and file of just-anybodies who go to public schools (and I'll admit there's a LOT wrong with the public school system; however, that's a rant for another time) but they can't afford a religious school if there WERE one locally that catered to their particular religious mores. Obvious solution? "Good Moms Homeschool Their Children" -- And, ok, I know all about the potential benefits of homeschooling, but. And this is a huge but. It is not for everyone. I, personally, would never make it -- my kids drive me batshit crazy when they're home for a long weekend; how would I survive all three of them 24/7?

Plus, it takes a lot of discipline from *everyone* involved -- I have to be motivated to make them work, they have to be motivated to actually do the work. I can barely motivate them to get their rooms cleaned up! I don't have the temperament to stand over them, and they don't have the temperaments to let me. Plus I'd have to deal with subjects that, frankly, I hate. And if I go out of my way to avoid them, why would I want to force my kids to deal? It's like my husband trying to make the youngest child eat something he doesn't like: I tell DH he has stuff he refuses to eat, but the rest of us like. Why should a child be forced to eat something HE dislikes, just because Daddy likes it? So I can't justify homeschooling on those grounds.

And, you know, now that my kids are in school, I could maybe look for a job. Maybe part-time childcare after school and on weekends/evenings while my husband is some 5,000+ miles away wouldn't be so expensive? Yeah, right! I still don't have the education to get anything that pays.

And anyway, I grew up in a two-income family. Honestly, my parents, for all that they both work, were never any more financially secure than my husband and I are now. And I saw the toll it took on my mom -- She loves her work (mostly); she thrives on the nuts and bolts of it -- she's a college professor; she loves teaching.  But the weekends? After a long week of everyone working or going to school or both, we would then have two days which would be filled with all the stuff that nobody could get to during the week. Bathrooms cleaned. Floors mopped. Mountains of laundry washed, dried, folded, put away. Grocery shopping, dusting, changing the kitty litter. Mowing, sweeping, raking, weeding, digging.

There was never really any time to just enjoy being together. And I don't want to do that to my kids -- I don't want us to have so many chores waiting on the weekend that we don't have time to be a family. I don't want to do that to *myself*! Sure, my kids have weekday chores, light stuff like dishes and feeding the animals, taking out the trash. And on the weekends, we throw in a few heavier things -- vacuuming their rooms, cleaning their bathroom, helping with the yard. But usually, that's less than half a day's worth of work; we can spend the rest of the time playing with the dogs, riding bikes, fishing, playing on the beach, dominoes on the dining room table and puzzles on the playroom floor.

And, honestly, I'm not as good at keeping my house clean during the week as I probably could be. There's usually a pile of laundry needing to be folded, more than one floor needing attention. The truth is, during the week with no one home, it's easy to get caught up in other stuff, stuff that's just MINE -- reading or needlepoint or just sitting on the sofa with the new puppy curled up next to me napping. But the point is that I have time to do those things or put them off.

I don't really LIKE doing Mom-stuff a lot of the time. I'm not into crafting with my kids. I'm not an athletic, outdoorsy person. I get touchy when they get too close, too talkative, too clingy.

But I love giving them free time to explore and learn and do on their own.

That, I hope, is the real gift -- their childhood, on a platter.

mini-rant

I know there was all kinds of kerfuffle in NJ last week about the governor wanting flags to fly at half-mast for Whitney Houston's funeral. & granted I wasn't a huge fan of hers, or anything, but I was aware of her, and have enjoyed her music, and kinda had a crush on the whole "Bodyguard" movie briefly.

But it really gets me when people post about military deaths and say stuff like "This is a REAL reason to fly flags at half-mast."

'Cause, you know what? I believe ANY death is a reason to fly flags at half-mast. I get that we kinda save that for those who die of a Noble Cause (not that war's particularly noble, but it's the thought that counts) or who are major public figures (Whitney Houston *definitely* qualifies on that count) because otherwise, flags would always be flying at half-mast. I don't think that one group of people is "more deserving" because of how they died. The truth is, not a single soldier, sailor, marine, pilot...whatever their roles in the military, they went in KNOWING -- absolutely knowing -- that at some point, they were going to see active combat. I remember the Gulf War. I know soldiers who've been to Kosovo. Korea is still considered an "active" zone. And, guess what? MY beloved husband, father of my three kids, is going to Afghanistan. Soon. Far, far too soon for my peace of mind (but then, any time at all is too soon for me.) He'll be missing my birthday -- again. He'll be missing his own birthday, and those of all three kids, and our next wedding anniversary, and I don't know *how* many national holidays. And, yeah, I worry about him. But the truth is, for me...I won't need that flag flying at half-mast should something  happen to him. In my heart, as in the hearts of anyone who's lost someone they love to whatever reason, those flags are on the ground, in the mud, getting trampled on. And they'll never EVER fly higher than half-mast.

So get over your Holier-than-Thou. Unless you're the one who lost a loved one yesterday, you're not the one who it's about. Hell, even if you *did* lose a loved one, it's still Not About You. Whitney Houston's death was just as much a tragedy as any soldier's life lost before he got to meet his first child, as any child killed by cancer, as any mother taken by a drunk driver as she drove to the pharmacy to pick up some damn cold medicine for a sick child. The tragedy is that she was so obviously unhappy that she would resort to substances to try to bring surcease from her pain, and even more that there were so many people willing to  help her along to it, rather than trying to help her not need the chemical help any more. And now people are willing to vilify her for her weakness...would you, COULD you have done differently, were you in her shoes?

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.


   --John Donne

NOT a Sock Hop -- except in the broadest sense

I think the boys' school missed out on a great opportunity today. All the kids who had met their AR (that's Accelerated Reading -- they read books, take tests & earn points) goal for the last quarter got to attend a "50s Sock Hop" in the gym this afternoon. That's how it was billed on the little flyer that was sent home. Kids were encouraged to dress in 50s-style clothing and come ready to dance. Parents were encouraged to attend & the boys both asked me to go, so... Well, imagine my surprise to find that the music was going to be provided via XBox hooked up to someone's iPod, and rather than just letting the kids dance, they're supposed to be dancing along with the figures being projected on the wall. OK, I can see that, maybe. Except...well, NONE of the music was even remotely from the 50s. They skimmed over a couple of 80s songs (Take On Me, anyone?) but all the rest was extremely current. 


I know I can be a bit of a dinosaur about music, but...we're talking about a bunch of K-2nd graders, here. Some of the dance moves and lyrics were not really what I'd consider appropriate for that age group. 


I mean, they could even have found some updated covers of 50s songs, I'm sure.


The biggest thing for me, though? If it's supposed to be a 50s sock hop, why the HELL wouldn't you make it into an experience? Play up your theme! Play the music, for goodness sake! Maybe some of these kids will already be familiar with it (mine are...but like I said. I can be a bit of a dinosaur). And if they're not? Whether they like it or not, it's not exactly going to harm their delicate little psyches to be forced, for 45 minutes, to be exposed to a piece of their cultural past. 

Voices in my head

It would be so much easier if they were plotbunnies or characters. I could write something and my messed-up-ness and whining would be *something*...

Instead, it's random to-do lists and freaky useless guilt about nothing in particular or about all the things I wanted to do but didn't because I burnt out on math or got pregnant at 20 or just can't seem to stay on top of the housework.

Hell, sometimes it's guilt caused by the fact that my body just doesn't work the way I want it to, as a result of hormones, or just plain biology, or because I've let myself get out of shape.

Life keeps kicking me down and I angst about it at 1:30 in the morning, and then I wake up early the next day and face it down again and kick freaking back!

And that, my lovelies, is the true meaning of courage.




And now: Linkity of YUM: Men In Kilts (enjoy, my dears!)

stressful weekends just don't stop

I really feel like I need to read something with an eye to reviewing it, just because I need something to concentrate on that will make me happy. I have a couple of new things I need to load on my reader; maybe one of those will be The One; the next book to inspire me to write about it.

We've had a long and busy weekend, piling new stress up on top of the stress I'm already feeling. My fingers are so crossed that the DH's truck will sell soon that my hands are starting to cramp, but really? We really really need it to happen. The Middle Child had his 8th birthday on Saturday, and he started celebrating on Thursday. He apparently felt that the entire weekend should be All About HIM, and that he should be able to do whatever he wanted, and win everything. Needless to say, that's not the way it went, and there were many tears involved. And that meant many lectures. And when I'm the one giving the lectures, it stresses me, and when I'm just listening to the DH lecture, it stresses me out. On top of that, there was a lovely hate-y rant on FB, which I allowed myself to be drawn into, which culminated in a woman I thought was a friend who knew me fairly well deciding that I was expressing an opinion based on a superficial knowledge of the subject at hand. (I'm trying REALLY HARD not to get into the whole thing on here.)  Anyway, I have no real evidence that she has any more background on the matter than she thinks I have, but I *know* that I have more knowledge than she thinks I do. I don't offer up an opinion on things unless I'm sure of my position and feel VERY strongly on the subject, and to be so dismissed is hurtful. I may not have a degree, and I may stay home with my kids, but I *do* have a fairly thorough education. I do not have a paid job, but that doesn't mean I have no motivation to learn things. I may have primarily reviewed (or commented on, rather) romance and YA novels, but that's not all I read now, and it's certainly not all I've ever read.

Lesson? Don't ever presume to know, especially based on a single conversation on a given subject, that someone does not have the knowledge to support or uphold their opinion. Unless you have been with them for every moment of their life to date, you have no way of knowing what experiences or research are fueling their thoughts and feelings. In other words, Dear Ma'am, you can bite me!

I feel all need-to-blog-y, but I don't know about what, really. Maybe we'll try that whole stream-of-consciousness thing and see where it gets us. Right now, I'm sitting on the sofa on my DH's laptop. In the room with me are two cats: one white, sleeping on the sofa arm beside me, the other grey and sitting in the high-back car booster over by the front door. My cell just beeped, which probably means my DH just texted me from the neighbors' where he went to see what they got our Middle Child for his 8th birthday today. Better go check...

~~~~

Yup, it was him, but to tell me that their puppies are playing with his shoelaces. Those pups are SOOO cute, and I kind of want one, but just can't right now. They're part some sort of terrier (I think) and min-pin, so they're never going to be very big, and we have two large boxer-mixes right now. I just can't think it's a good idea to bring a third dog -- and a small one at that -- into that, especially as the larger of our two is not yet 18 mos old. Also, we just plain can't afford it. But we can't afford much of anything; I hate to admit it bu we're in dire financial straits.  We're hoping to sell the DH's gas-guzzler soon (ad on Craigslist) which would go a long way to making things a lot more comfortable around here, but until that happens, we're hanging on paycheck to paycheck. And just barely managing to keep no more than one month behind on bills and stay on top of the mortgage and all still EAT. And of course, only one vehicle means it's nearly impossible for me to get a job, because I'd be constrained to the maybe half-dozen or so businesses which are within walking distance, all of which would require me to find some sort of childcare for at least the boys -- and none of which would pay anything above the cost of  that childcare.

Life sucks sometimes.  Keep you fingers crossed that the truck sells.

I so need to go back to school eventually. I keep looking at Work-from-home job posting sites, hoping to find something that I can do, but sometimes it just seems hopeless. They want you to have a space with a door you can shut while your kids are home (which makes being home with the kids kind of pointless. They want you to have this degree or that experience, none of which I have. Or to buy special equipment, which I can't afford. There's always something, and for the others, they're scams. Or they might be genuine, but they totally come across as spammy when you click the links. And I'm not going to risk anything on "might be."

The sad thing is, about half the time, I know I have the skills, even if I don't have the piece of paper or the work history. I've spent the last 8 years or so not working at all, just being at home taking care of kids and house and pets. I can organize, I can make phone calls, I can be convincing. I can type, and more importantly, I can WRITE. Not fiction (or I'd be trying to get published instead of looking for a job), but I can write. I can even edit -- Maybe I'm not sure about fictional content editing, but nonfiction almost certainly, and especially looking for errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation. I'm not sure I could sell anything, but I've done customer service before and I was pretty damn good at it.

Here it is almost 5 pm an I've accomplished virtually nothing today. I've folded and put away a couple of loads of laundry, and washed a couple more (one's in the dryer, the other in the washer waiting its turn.) I really need to do dishes and clean the kitchen so that I can help the Darling Daughter with her first foray into birthday-cake-baking -- she wants to make her brother's birthday cake for tomorrow. It's a basic box cake, so not beyond her abilities, but she's never done a cake before, and this is a special silicone dinosaur-shaped pan, so it shall be interesting. I just hate doing dishes. It's not my least favorite thing ever, but it's starting to rank right up there. Less because I don't enjoy the ritual of it, the joy of taking something dirty and making it clean again, and more because I just do it all the time; hardly a day goes by when I'm not doing the freaking dishes. And my hands get all dried out and flaky and itchy and *horrible* and there's nothing that really helps.

*sigh*

Trying to get past this mood, and not sure how well it's working. Will move on from this to some other things; maybe turning on loud, dance-y music will help me get moving and get it all together.

Much love!

life and randomness

So we're having a bit of financial iffery right now, due to unforseen circumstances (namely the AC dying in the middle of a freaking heatwave). Which means we're living pretty much hand-to-mouth trying to catch up on bills, with a birthday party on Saturday for our Middle Child. Plus, I got a tattoo on Monday. So my ankle hurts like a b*tch. Anyway, all this means I'm on a book-buying moratorium until we're caught up (which with any luck will be, oh, end of October.)

I'm kinda feeling weird about that whole thing, honestly. There's a little part of me that's all, "oh oh OH!!" at all the new releases that some of my autobuy authors are coming out with (even when the blurbs for the books are kinda leaving me "meh"). But at the same time, there's a part of me that's not really interested in reading Anything At All (although that's not really working, because I find myself re-reading a ton of stuff.) As well, I'm really excited about a new publishing venture I'm aware of, but not so much some of the authors involved (some of them are already on my auto-buy, so, yeah, wanna NOM them ASAP.)

All of this has combined to leave me a very mixed-up kitty indeed, and I've been compensating by trolling the web for free reads, none of which I've managed to download to my reader yet. I've been considering doing a massive reorganization of my digital library anyway (at least parts of it; some of my M/M stuff is improperly tagged in Calibre) but it's going to be, as I said, a massive task and I'm not sure I feel up to it. I do need to back up the newer downloads, though, just in case I ever have to completely reset the reader again. Weirdly (or not) a lot of the free reads I've downloaded are Kindle books which have to be read on the computer which gives me headaches. Swear to God, one of these days I'm going to get a cheap, older Kindle just so I can read those in freakin' e-ink. LOL  I'm not sure it's worth the cost of even a refurb'd Kindle, but even tho I know I wouldn't be pirating, I can't deal with the thought of trying to learn how to strip the DRM (yeah, I know, I'm not very technologically advanced. I have my moments, but overall....No.)

And the Oldest Child *just* told me she  has detention after school today for forgetting her ID 2x, and can I pick her up at 4? She's just lucky that I'm gonna have the van today; we're trying to only drive the one vehicle that gets semi-decent gas mileage.

Ranty McRantypants

There are some days you just can't seem to get off the ground. Today has been one of them, definitely. Bad weather, bad finances, backache and all kinds of stuff have combined to leave me grumpy and blue. And the DH spending All Day (seriously! All day!!) on the damn XBox with various members of the Barbarian Horde playing various versions of Halo was Not Helpful to my general mood.

So I holed up in bed and I read. The only thing I've eaten today is a handful of M&Ms, a pimiento-cheese sandwich (I have *got* to start making my own; that store-bought stuff is such CRAP!), 5 slices of canned peach, and a grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know. I'm working on that starting tomorrow. Mostly because we're at the point of only eating what's on hand, and thankfully the fridge is stocked full of fruits and veggies, and I'm gonna have to bake bread for sandwiches (but I don't WANNAaaaaa....)

And the reading the last couple of days has engendered a mini-rant from me. The words "He said," "She replied," etc., have long gotten old; everyone knows you need more interesting tags than that. BUT. Can we please put a moratorium on the word "coo" and all its variants? Please, God? Please? I'm sure it's a perfectly good word, if you're a pigeon or dove. Or possibly if you're speaking to a baby. But a fully-grown male (or female) speaking to another fully-grown male (or female) Should Not COO. Damnit. I'm sure it's supposed to evoke a sweet, loving, low, sort of sing-songy tone, but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Let them croon, please. It just sounds more adult -- brings to mind Tony Bennet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. NOT a mother trying to calm a screaming child, or a particularly obnoxious and stupid (though quietly lovely) bird. Kthnxbai

Then, today, I read over my blog roll and find some sort-of-serialized posts. They're stories that I'd really love to love, posted in increments regularly for free on blogs. But sadly, I'm not loving a lot of them. The characters are great, but the English? Atrocious. Grammar? Non-existant. Spelling? OMG Let's not *even* go there. Look, I get that these aren't intended to be the most polished thing ever, but seriously! Get thee a beta reader who knows a little about this stuff to at least clear up some of the most egregious errors before you post! And more importantly, when you post excerpts from actual, published (or slated-to-be-published-in-the-near-future) works, make sure they're competently copyedited. Because as a reader, I'm not inclined to want to pay for your work if it's that unprofessional-looking. My book-allowance is slim; since I can't exactly flip through digital books at random down my local Wal-Mart, I really rely on those excerpts and blurbs to help me decide where my money's going. And even a few major foul-ups will make me avoid you like the plague. I have a couple of authors who were at one point on my auto-buy list *despite* many errors who are no longer there, because I can no longer tolerate the missteps, the homophone abuse, the redundancy. At one point, excellent world-building and interesting characters would be sufficient for me to overlook such things, but no more.

Now. The Halo, and the DH fussing at the Girl Child for not being as good at the game as he is (not that, frankly, he's so very great) are NOT helping the headache situation at all, so I'm going to go make some hot, sweet, decaffeinated tea of some sort -- possibly mint, although maybe not -- and go back to bed. And book.

Life sucks

And it's freaking *stressful* too! I hate, sometimes, that I'm a SAHM, because it can be very isolating, especially when you really don't have a lot of money for getting out and doing things. And it's even more so once the kids are in school, because they used to be the excuse for getting out. Wed morning? Storytime at the library! I'd like to get a job, but...let's be honest. With 8 years under my belt as a SAHM, I have no current references and no workplace skills (Heck, I can't even *remember* my last three places of employment, much less names of managers. Some of them aren't even in business any more.) And without a full formal education behind me, the only thing I'm really qualified for is minimum wage service industry employment. There's not a lot of that available around here, and what there is, is dependent upon having a very flexible schedule, which I don't because...well, I have three kids. I have to be home at 5:30 in the morning when the Hubby leaves for work (which means no overnight shifts) and at minimum wage, after-school care will eat up my paycheck. So, I shall have stress over money most months of the year, and juggle bills, and hope we can manage a half-way decent Christmas this year. *fingers crossed*

series rant

Usually, I really enjoy reading series of books. Ever since I was a kid, when I started with Raggedy Ann and Andy, through my early teens with very nearly the entire list of LM Montgomery's various series, and including forays into Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Sweet Valley girls and the Babysitters' Club.  And onward: I still love Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series (and all the other books set in that particular universe --well, almost all of them, anyway) and others in the fantasy/science fiction genres I've come into contact with over the years. I love series that concentrate on one or two main characters over the entire course, with strong supporting characters who you can see develop over time, and a simply-directed story arc. I love series that focus on a group of people, with a different person or couple or whatever as the primary focus of each book.

That said, a series is really tough to do over the long haul.

My first experience with this was with LM Montomery's Anne of Green Gables series. Like many many budding young ladies, I fell in love with Anne when I was about 10 or 11. I read all the Anne books, and loved them all, but I found the last couple of books of the series to be...difficult. Somehow, at some point, there was a shift of focus, from Anne onto her children. As an adult, I realize that the books were directed specifically at young girls, to give them a road map to growth, and at some point Anne had grown as much as she was ever going to within the confines of a young-woman-to-be's ability to grasp. But having Anne on the outskirts of what were supposed to be her own books was jarring to me as a pre-teen, and I had a difficult time connecting with her sons and daughters -- the books skipped from one child to another and it was jarring to find yourself inside yet another head.

Sadly, that's not where it ends. That's just where it begins, I've since learned. I am -- or I WAS -- a fan of JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood. Perhaps, I'm both. I still currently love the books I loved initially, but the more recent books, not so much. There's just too much going on. The last one I read was Lover Mine (I think? John Matthew and Xhex?) and I just...it didn't work for me. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't keep track of all the story threads. I ended up having to skim through the book with color-coded post-it flags, flagging each change of character POV, and then go back and read each storyline individually. There were, like, 8 storylines. It was exhausting, and I wasn't ever really able to just immerse myself in the story. It was the written equivalent of budding hoarder, and I freely admit that I'm just marking time on the series. I own, but have not yet brought myself to read, the latest installment. I'm not interested any more in any of the main characters. I'd like to see a bit more of some of the former couples, and I'm heavily invested in one minor storyline, which is the m/m relationship (Blaylock and Qhuinn), which is probably never going to be a major storyline. She's said it's most likely to end up being a focused novella probably published digitally so as not to offend the readers who are against m/m pairings. 'Cause, y'know, we should protect people from the realities of life.

And I'm sad to admit that there are several long-running series that friends I trust have recommended, but I can't even get into the first books. I've tried, I really have. And I have to admit, the series I've loved the most have been the ones that I discovered about 4 books in, on a whim or out of desperation, like Katie MacAlister's Dark Ones or Alexis Morgan's Paladins of Darkness.  Both of those ladies are at 8+ books for those series with no immediate hints of stopping, and both series continue to hold my attention in a way others don't.

about my eReader...

I feel the need to rant and rave today about my eReader. I have a Sony Touch (PRS-600)--NOT the latest model, but the next-to-latest. Choosing it involved about a year of dithering, researching, comparison shopping, and acknowledging that a Kindle would bleed me dry in a week, as I have a tendency to GLOM backlists. My darling Sony limits that somewhat, in that I have to actually physically hook it up to a computer in order to download books onto it (although it's still ridiculously easy to shop at all my favorite sites: Diesel, All Romance EBooks, Samhain, Torquere...the list goes on.) And just because, I kind of want a Kindle, too. Just because (sorta).

So anyway. Today, my lovely red Reader decided to be a little B*tch today, when I hooked her up to the computer. I kept getting the message that the computer could not read the USB device (or something along those lines, anyway...) so I visited the Sony support webpage for help. I downloaded firmware. I tried uninstalling the device driver. I uninstalled/reinstalled software, I restarted the computer (like, a million times). I poked around on my external hard drive, trying to make sure I'd successfully backed up all my books when the other laptop (MY laptop; I'm currently sharing the DH's) started having issues. As it happens, I didn't. (boo) Luckily, however, I tend to mostly buy direct from small pubs, and was able to re-download everything, so I only lost one book. It was a "free limited time" offer, and now it's regularly priced, so I may one day get busy with the malfunctioning computer and see if it will cooperate long enough to try and rescue that one particular book...

Turns out what had to happen was a hard reset of the Reader--which means, dumping *everything* and restoring it to fresh-outta-tha-box factory settings. Like I said, I still have everything I wanted to keep, minus the one book, and now (for now, anyway) everything works fine. I need to get on to getting everything on memory card, though. That's why I picked this particular reader--it has memory card slots, so I can categorize my books, and hide the "Inappropriate Content" from the Ravening Barbarian Horde, and have an extra backup of everything  (without having DRM hissy fits) if this ever happens again. The downside to the memory cards? They can slow down certain functions, like deleting individual books from the reader/card itself, and it can be slow catching up when you first insert or remove the memory card. But I haven't noticed any real difference in, for example, battery life. Which is less than I was led to believe but I hear around the internet that those guidelines for battery charge are based on the "average" reader, and, let's face it, I am well above average in terms of the amount of time I spend reading on a weekly basis.

Also, regarding the sucktastic-ness of my old computer--it's the second HP I've had problems with in a year's time. It's supposed to be still under warranty, but it's been dinged a bit so they won't fix it under warranty. I can't afford a new one right now, so for the foreseeable future, I will be using the DH's. And come tax refund time, when I can get a new one? I'm SO getting a Mac. (That's right, I'm going over to the Dark Side.)

just a quick moan

Ok, so there's an author I really love (not naming names now b/c it's a moan and not a Yay!) who writes m/m erotic romance. I really love her work (did I say that already?) because she writes good drama, good conflict, characters I really enjoy reading and just want to mother to death.

But.

See, I have this inner English teacher. She's about 60 or so, crazy grey hair, and she LOVES her red pencil. You know the one. You remember her from, oh, 8th grade or so.

And this particular author's stories just absolutely drive her BATTY! It's a good thing I'm totally in love with my eReader, or the screen would be a mess! (Gee, I'm exclamatory today.) But I can over look all this--with difficulty--but there's a bigger problem.

You see, she's also the queen of the premature ejaculation. And I'm not exactly meaning this the way you think I am. I mean, yeah, a couple of guys...come too soon, y'know. But that's not necessarily a problem. The problem is, she flicks the switch. This one story I read yesterday, it was all "OMG OMG I hate you, you're untrustworthy because of your job." one second, then *literally* the next minute he's all "OMG srsly, I fell in love the minute I saw you but I've been fighting it 'cause it's soo hard for me to trust but I must take you to bed Right The Hell NOW dammit!" and other dude's all "OMG I loved you too and don't you KNOW I would NEVER EVER betray you and you've hurt me and hurt me over and over at every opportunity but OMG Must Have Sex NOW!"

And just...no.

I mean, yeah, the whole time she's been dropping hints that douchebag doesn't trust pretty boy, but wants him anyway, against his will, and has been slowlyslowly coming to terms with it, but for me, for the flow of the story, he needed a couple more encounters and a slower lead-up before the OMGsex scene. It was just a bit abrupt, and jolted me out of the good story high I was floating along on.

And before the cum had even dried, they're all like, OMG move in with me! Live with me forEVAH! (AND they forgot the condoms. Srsly. Safety first, people, or we can't complain about how careless/thoughtless/whatevs the younger generation is.)