Update

He's not dead yet. Apparently, the argument about whether or not to keep the breathing tube starts today; he wanted to live to his next wedding anniversary which is June 10th, after his 90th birthday. However, he only wanted to be resuscitated, not kept alive by machines - the problem being, he didn't make this as clear to the doctor as he should have, though apparently he did to the family. I have no idea how all this works, though I know he's in a bad way and has been in pain for a long time - so I kinda wish everyone would just let him go if he's on the machines. It seems more humane to me.

Death and the Holidays

My husband's grandfather's heart stopped earlier this evening; he's on some device or another for a while, though no one's under any illusions that he's going to last for long. Thoughts, prayers, well wishes and the like would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Courtney's Impending Nervous Breakdown and You

So, all three people who read this know that I'm moving. They also know that I'm the one doing all the cleaning and prep for said move, for all four people in my household. In addition, they know that the holidays are stressful here - like they are everywhere - but particularly much so given the situation with my crazy family and my crazier in-laws. On the plus side, my family seems to be getting along relatively sanely right now. There's the usual guilt trips and back handed surprises, but that's been happening as long as I can remember. It's not a shock when it happens, and it's easily shrugged off. My in-laws on the other hand and unfortunately, aren't so predictable and easy to deal with. If only that were all!

Morgen's sick. Today's the Santa lunch and I get to tell Morgen she can't go because she's throwing up.
The moving thing is taking far longer than anticipated.
One of my little sisters got married without telling my mom and me (I don't know if she told anyone else) and it's bugging me more than I ever thought it would, even though we never did get along.
I'm PMSing and overly emotional - as in I spent upwards of two hours crying yesterday when I got home and realized exactly how much I have to do and how much money I don't have going into the holidays.

All in all? It's a shitty time to be me.

Seduction Quiz

Yay, Online Quizzes!

Business minded and a natural leader, you are a canidate to be embraced by the Ventrue clan. You can be rather dominant with a high stamina however, you tend to have obsessive compulsive tendencies...especially when it comes to your food. You are the clan the others look to organize groups and factions. Generally princes are among this clan. What Vampire Clan Do You Belong To?

Two answer changes makes me Toreador. I doubt anyone's surprised.

Dear You

Yes, you. Do you think it's easy for your grown children to rely upon you for so much? Do you really think we - and I mean all four of us - don't wish there were another way to do things? From my standpoint, coming in from the outside a decade-ish ago, you set your kids up for this from the beginning. Really, it's the most selfish thing you could have done to them. But at least they'll never leave you, right? They can't, right? They need you too much. They need you to baby sit eight hours a day, five days a week because goodness knows, they couldn't get a job that'd pay enough for the daycare they'd need with their bachelors in psychology and a history minor. They need you to loan them money every now and then because, that's right . . . everyone learns to deal with things like credit cards and mortgages and car loans right out of high school.

One would think you'd want your kids to succeed. I know I would, if I were in your shoes - I want the very best for my children, whether it's next door to me, in another state or in another country. One would think you'd not try to alienate the woman who married your son to the point of considering divorce at least once a year. I love my husband, and I consider myself a strong woman. But really . . . how much am I supposed to take? Did you consider how much it might hurt people you didn't even know yet when you started along this path? Because it's not just your children you're hurting. It's their spouses, and your grandchildren.

Yeah, I could go get a job. I could put my kids in daycare that'd cost nearly as much as I'd make, and I could spend the rest of my meagre paycheck on a work wardrobe - or maybe I could figure out how to make business casual grow on trees.

So yeah, You, thanks for all you've done for us. Thank you for making your grown children into dependents. They love you for it, really.

Nngh

My computer is broken. Technically, I'm not supposed to be on this laptop, cos it's the hubby's work machine.

I'm going through withdrawals, but I should have a new computer tomorrow. Yay for that!

Antici . . . . pation

We’re leaving for Mackinac Island first thing tomorrow (for those of you who don’t know, that’s between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas, in the straits of Mackinac) – for once, I’m already packed and ready to go. I’ve got cookies baked for snacks on the trip (and to send to Whit with his mix CD), clothes and swimsuits are ready to go, my camera bag’s stocked . . . I feel more organized than I have in a long, long time. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but still, go me! There’s free wifi at the hotel, so I may upload pictures and what not (the ones from my digicam, at least), though I doubt I’ll be doing much of anything else as far as online stuff goes. Maybe I’ll write while the girls are sleeping or maybe I’ll play solitaire or something – goodness knows, Jerry’s laptop is going with us.

Today, I have to go to Gymboree to find cute pseudo-dressy outfits for the girls in case we go to a fancy dinner. Tomorrow, on the way up north, we’ll stop at Birch Run or West Branch and get something pseudo fancy for me – dress/skirt or pants? I don’t know which. Here’s hoping I fit into a 16, though I doubt I will. I hate shopping for fat-girl clothes; my self esteem is low enough without looking at clothes that aren’t flattering on anyone and aren’t cut properly for where I curve, despite technically being the right size. Because, you know, fat girls don’t want to look cute too . . . and why are my clothes twice as expensive (at least) as the skinny-girl equivalent of the same thing? Grr, all around. I hate clothes shopping for me – it’s far nicer to live vicariously through my children on that front. They can wear the cute clothes that I would if I were thinner.

Geralyn’s miracle diet is a Medical Weight Loss thing – which is fine, good for her because it’s working. But she’s on phen-phen or something like it to help, and I worry about her for the health risks involved not only in losing that much weight that fast, but also in taking diet drugs that could stop her heart. Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t do it in a second to get down to a size 10 or 12 – if I got smaller than that I wouldn’t look healthy. I know it’s a stupid thing to be competitive over, but I really don’t want her to be thinner than I am, and the working out and eating less aren’t working as fast for me as drugs and the near-starvation diet are for her. I’m way more toned than I’ve been in years (since high school, really), but I’m as fat as ever (well, not as fat as I was when I was pregnant with Morgen. That was an all time high) and I weigh just as much. I feel very, very American when I say (think, write) I want results now not next month. That’s instant gratification with a side of impatience for me, please.

When we get back from the Island, come Monday or Tuesday, it’s time to start looking seriously for a house again. We want to be into our new place before Christmas, hopefully by mid-December. Wish us luck!

Next Week, Or Maybe Next Month

Someone else rented the house. Disappointed, sad, and not crying very purposely.

Updates

Okay, so technically, it’s later. Just not later yesterday . . . anyway, the house is adorable. It’s four bedrooms, comes with kitchen appliances and a stackable washer/dryer (we have our own of those, but they’re old and dying). There’s a deck in the fenced in back yard, a two car garage, a full sized, partially finished basement, living room, formal dining room, bath and a half (though the half in the basement needs work), and the owner says we can paint and decorate however we’d like, which is rare in a rental in these parts, and awesome. I’d have a place to hang my pictures, and my art! How awesome is that? And it’s only $75 more a month than we’re paying now, three blocks away from the elementary school my kids would attend. Next fall, I’ll be able to pop Liana into the stroller so we can walk Morgen to school. The president of the PTO lives diagonally across the street and high school kids abound – maybe we’d even find a babysitter so Jerry and I could go out every now and then without depending on his parents, who are undependable and only really good for spoiling the kids and then sending them home; I really don’t know how Geralyn and Dave can stand to have them watching Brandon all the time. I guess it’s just because their salaries together aren’t enough to pay for daycare, and next year they’ll put him in nursery school (which I’ve avoided with Morgen, much to the dismay and criticism of my mother-in-law), which Jeanne and Jerry Sr. will probably pay for. But, the house! I think we’re going to take it. Jerry’s going to call the management company for this house tomorrow and see what we have to do to break the lease and how early we can do so, and I think we’re going to move by Thanksgiving. I’m so excited; I actually jump up and down and clap my hands every now and again.

Today is the Greenfield Village Halloween/trick or treat thing; Morgen’s going to be Dorothy and Liana’s going to be Toto from the Wizard of Oz. They both look really adorable in their costumes, and Liana likes to pretend to be a puppy anyway, so it’s really, specially adorable when she does it in a dog costume. I’ll be sure to get pictures, cos it’s super cute. First, dinner at Fishbones and then on to Henry Ford for fun and stuff, yay! If it weren’t with Jerry’s fam, it would be a really good time. For instance, everyone’s planning on changing into costumes after dinner, and I say what’s the point in that? If we’re going to be wearing costumes as adults, we may as well go all the way with it. It’s like wearing regular clothes to go into town from an SCA event. Why bother? Maybe Jerry and I’ll wear our costumes anyway, though it makes sense to change the girls into theirs after they’ve eaten, what with being 2 and 4 and all.

But, we have shopping to do. Must fly!

Whoo!

Back from looking at the house - it's awesome. But now going to run errands, so more later.

Stuff

We’re going to look at a new house to rent today; I’m kind of excited. Morgen’s really excited, except she says she wants to stay where we are – I know she doesn’t understand about things like being bussed nearly twenty miles away to fill a demographic, or an eighty percent attrition rate between elementary and high school, or considerably lower than the national average standardized test scores, so her primary concern is remaining near friends and family. (In fact, she said something along the lines of, “I want to stay here with my friends Zoe and Mikey and my grandma and grandpa,” and asking her, “What about Grandpa David or Grandma Lee Ann,” only got shrugs and further assertions that she wanted to stay where we are.) She’s four, after all, and to her that’s what matters. Regardless, the new house is in Harper Woods, but it’s the part of Harper Woods that gets Grosse Pointe schools, which is a huge bonus. When we buy a house in a few years, we can buy one either right there, in the same school zone as where Morgen will have started, or we can move to another one of the Pointes (not, mind you, that I want to be a Grosse Pointer. They just have the best public schools in Michigan, and with the brains my kids have, it would be ridiculous trying to put them into some average school somewhere – I tell you, they scare me with their brilliance some times). The open house is from ten to eleven, and I’ve seen pictures of the place – it’s cute, though the interior décor could really use some updating. I wonder if the owners will let us do that? A girl can hope, anyway. Here, I’ll try to put some pictures in.






Cute, hmmm?

Whit and I talked yesterday; it’s always nice when he can get his cunt of a connection to behave properly long enough to be online. We don’t talk about anything, really, just randomness and inanities, but it’s still nice to have someone to talk with and not really worry about what’s being said and how it’ll be taken. We can talk about politics or music or the air speed of African pigeons, and it doesn’t really matter – the people with whom I can converse in such a manner are so few and far between, I have to cherish the ones I find. I think, if he lived closer, we’d enjoy pints at the pub and cake and gin in person as much as I tease him about online. And yes, I know it’s silly, sentimental nonsense.

The trip up to Mackinac came through! Jerry, the girls and I are going up next weekend for three days and two nights. We have a free stay at Mission Point because of work Jerry did some time last year – they’re owned by the same people who used to own the company he works for. I have a feeling the place will be pretty empty, which is pretty awesome. I’m going to bring both my cameras and take lots of pictures; it promises to be gorgeous, at least if the weather up there is anything like it’s been down here. Why is gray and gloomy almost always the best atmosphere for photography? Not that I don’t enjoy sunshine, but if you look at a picture taken on a gloomy day, you can almost feel it. You can smell the chill, taste the fog, etc. It’s a rare sunny-day picture that has the same effect. Anyway, on the way up, we’ll stop at the outlet mall and get winter clothes (mostly coats and mittens) for the girls, maybe some Christmas present, and then up to the ferry and ultimately the island. I think I’ll need some long sleeved t-shirts and so will Jerry. We’re set as far as jeans and the like go, and since we have no baby-sitter for a fancy dinner while we’re up there, I don’t think we need to worry about fancy outfits. Jeans and t-shirts (or sweat suits, in the girls’ cases) should be sufficient.

Yay! All in all, things are going well. CbN is still a source of stress when I think about it, but it’s getting less as time goes by – it’s hard to care with the same immediacy when posts go for two days or more with no reply. Apparently, I only have four characters left in my system. It’s sad, and kind of a blow to the old self esteem, but understandable with rumors and actuality being what they are.

Anyway, I’m off to outline my NaNo. I think I’m going to write about Elizabeth, which is always fun.

I Have a Plan, or at Least an Idea

Here’s the thing. A couple years ago, Jerry started building a gaming site, just to say he’d done it. For a year or so, it’s been sitting there unused, but it’s complete with chat and forums (buggy, yes, but everything starts out that way) and DP modules. I hate the look and feel, but that’s fairly easily changed. So, I’ve put out a few feelers to see how people feel about using it (not many, granted, as there are some people I’m giving a break and some people I just don’t like, not that most of them would be turned away if they found the place on their own). It’s a Detroit site, and though that could be changed easily enough, the domain name can’t be, so it’s likely to stay that way. I think? I’m going to work on some rules and stuff, based loosely on stuff I’ve read on other sites, and post it here as it comes to me.

I’ll probably steal a lot from Wanton Wicked, cos that’s an awesome site as far as clarity and such goes. I should see what I can do about contacting their admins.

Baking, Stress and Denial

So, again, what I think (and take the time to post) in the ST/Staff forums on CbN gets ignored in favor of someone else’s post full of more vitriol – though, to be honest, it was calm and reasonable coming from Ryan. I agree with all his points and when I read it before he posted, it was even calmer and more reasonable . . . but then he added stuff that he didn’t have me read first. Regardless, everything to do with CbN sucks right now. K’wyn and Kai quit, Whit’s been alienated for months (and still pouring work into the site, I might add, which is awesome on him), Corey’s getting there, Object . . . I don’t really know about him. Ryan’s . . . well, he’s Ryan, and that leave Rck and me, with Rck asking me what we should do, because I’m the remaining staffer with a relatively even head (and temper) and seniority. Everyone else, pretty much, has taken their ball and gone home. I don’t know if we should just let site implode (we have $200 or so in a paypal account from both players and staff) or what. I really don’t want CbN to go away. It’s the only place I really enjoy playing (although goodness knows, there hasn’t been much play lately), and I’ve made a lot of friends there; I hate the idea of losing contact with them like I did with Jaz or Panthera or my other friends from Toronto when that site died. Chicago’s okay and all, but the handful of people there that I made characters to play with are online at different times than I am, or their chars don’t like mine, or . . . yeah. And there’s nowhere else that I’ve found to play Mage in a good, reasonable way.

On a side note, amusing to me: I programmed K’wyn’s cell number into my phone so that if she calls me, my phone’ll play a tonal version of All the Small things by Blink182. If Kai calls, it’ll play We Will Rock You by Queen. My phone, even though it’s only a land line and a cheapie cordless, is awesome.

I guess, if CbN really is dying, it’ll give me an excuse to find a nWoD site and learn that system better; the problem with that theory is the vast majority of the nWoD sites are Vampire and Mortal only. Which is fine, except . . . Vampire is far from my favorite game. I’m a Mage kind of girl, and that’s what I want to play – a mage, a consor (or whatever nWoD calls them) or something like that. I made a nWoD version of my favorite mage ever to play one on one with my hubby as we learn, but it’s been so long since I played TT, I’m not sure I remember how. I just remember people getting irritated with me when I was being descriptive and wordy, but then I was playing with people that are creative in entirely different ways than the writing one. Although, now that I’ve talked to Whit . . . we have a new idea, and I have a proposal to write.

Today is my day off from baking, although tomorrow I start on cookies. I love baking, I love Autumn, I love holidays. There’s no stress, really! (I’m lying my ass off.)

Good Times With Characters (meme)

1) Alanae Murphy (Orphan, Mage)
2) Sophia Rodgers nee Martinez (Child of Gaia Ragabash, Werewolf)
3) Xan (Alexandria) Richardson nee Cooper (Celestial Chorus, Mage
4) Elizabeth Robinson (Order of Hermes, Mage)
5) Betsy Gowan (Seelie Pooka Childling, Changeling)
6) Enid (something) (Fianna Galliard, Werewolf)
7) Collette Rousseau (Cult of Ecstasy. Mage)
8) Keely Musikar (Toreador, Vampire)
9) Ava Dostyevsky (Bone Gnawer kin, Werewolf)
10) Reagan Carter (Cult of Ecstasy, Mage)
11) Sheehan (something) (Fianna Theurge, Werewolf)
12) Katy Bishop (Bone Gnawer Galliard, Werewolf)




Questions:
1) Who would make a better college professor: 6, or 11?
Probably Enid, though only because Sheehan was shy.

2) Do you think 2 is hot? How hot?
Yeah, baby. It was mostly in charisma, though, and in being a dancer/performer (think Broadway). When I picked a picture to represent her, it was Daphne Rubin-Vega’s promo picture from playing Mimi in RENT. Awesome.

3) 12 sends 8 on a mission. What is it, and does it succeed?
If it’s to conquer the throngs at a concert, hell yeah, baby. Although there’d be the whole mortal enemies problem. Katy would want to claw Keely’s face off or something similar, and then a Vampire vs. Werewolf fight would break out . . . and that’s never pleasant.

4) What is, or would be, 9's favourite book?
Ava was the one and only character I played who wasn’t much of a reader. She was smart enough, but academics weren’t her thing. I think the last thing she read willingly, that wasn’t a parts catalogue, was probably Pat the Bunny. In Russian at least as well as in English.

5) Would it make more sense for 2 to swear fealty to 6, or the other way around?
The other way around if Garou did that kind of thing. Sophia was higher ranked, and therefore, she wins.

6) For some reason, 5 is looking for a room-mate. Should they share a studio apartment with 9, or 10?
Um . . . well, Reagan doesn’t like kids. And Ava *has* a kid, but she also has (sometimes) a drug problem. So . . . neither? If one has to be chosen, probably Reagan. Mostly because she’d find someone qualified to deal with an eight year old kid and pay lots of money to make that happen . . . though Ava would get to love her in a gruff, Russian kind of way. So, I guess it’s a toss-up.

7) 2, 7, and 12 have dinner together. Where do they go, and what do they discuss?
Sophia, Collette and Katy . . . Katy’d go anywhere, so long as someone else was buying. Collette would want somewhere high class and rich, and she’d sleep with whoever she had to in order to get there. Sophia isn’t choosy, but she turns her nose up at store bought Mexican when she (or Mami) could make it far better herself. Katy and Sophia would have quite a bit to talk about, from battles fought to similar tastes in music to cute guys to whatever, but Collette, in her insecurity, would be rather standoffish.

8) 3 challenges 10 to a duel. What happens?
Reagan says, “Make love, not war!”
Xan says, “Fucking pussy hippie,” so long as none of the youth group kids are around to hear.

9) If 1 stole 8's most precious possession, how would they get it back?
Keely wouldn’t care – anything she had, she could replace. Alanae was so painfully honest, if Keely dropped a ten dollar bill when Alanae was starving, she’d still return it.

10) Suggest a title for a story in which 7 and 12 both attain what they most desire.
”Diff’rent Strokes”

11) What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted 4 and 1 to work together?
………………………………………….
Impossible. No way would my better-than-thou Hermetic work with an Orphan. She’d say, “Get out of my way, you idiot. There, taken care of.”

12) If 7 visited you for the weekend, how would you get along?
She’d drive me crazy and sleep with my husband. And my brother-in-law. And my father-in-law. And my friend’s husband. And . . . you get the picture. High maintenance drama queen Cultists . . . *mutters*

13) If you could command 3 to perform any one task or service for you, what would it be?
Um . . . baby-sit my kids?

14) Does anyone on your friends list resemble 11 (either in appearance or personality)?
Shy, Irish gayboi? Nope, can’t say anyone does.

15) If 2 had to choose sides between 4 and 5, which would it be?
Betsy. No way would Sophia side with that holier-than-though caern-raping bitch.

16) What might 10 shout while charging into battle?
”I’ve got money and political clout, no way in hell I’m dumb enough to go into battle!”

17) If you chose a song to represent 8, which song would you choose?
Foreigner – Jukebox Hero

18) 1, 6, and 12 are having dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. There is only one scallion pancake left, and they all reach for it at the same time. Who gets to eat it?
Katy. She’s a ‘Gnawer . . . ‘nuff said.

19) What might be a good pick-up line for 2 to use on 10?
Heh, Reagan’d be far more likely to hit on Sophia than the other way around. Sophia doesn’t swing that way.

20) What would 5 most likely be arrested for?
Being out past curfew.

21) What is 6's secret?
Breaking the Litany, baby, law #1. But she was already pregnant when she fucked him, so does it count?

22) If 11 and 9 were racing to a destination, who would get there first?
Sheehan, totally, what with the ability to turn into a wolf and all. Or Ava, if she were allowed to drive.

23) If you had to walk home through a bad neighbourhood late at night, would you feel safer in the company of 7 or 8?
Neither, if it came to a fight. But either of them could talk us out of anything, given the opportunity and need.

24) 1 and 9 reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat posed by 4's sinister secret organization. 11 volunteers to help them, but it is later discovered that he/she is actually a spy for 4. Meanwhile, 4 has kidnapped 12 in an attempt to force their surrender. Following the wise advice of 5, they seek out 3, who gives them what they need to complete their quest. What title would you give this fic?
”Crossover Headaches and Staff Breakdowns R Us”

Another Book Meme

So, I'm really anal and I'm changing this one a bit. The other way was driving me crazy trying to find all the ones I'd read (and I've read a lot), so here goes. And, for those of you who don't want to go all the way to the bottom of the list . . . I've read 205 out of 582.

Instructions:
1. Bold those books you've read.
2. Italicise started-but-never-finished (so not doing this part).
3. Add three of your own (in alphabetical order by author's last name).
4. Post to your livejournal (or where ever).

Adams, Douglas: Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (series)
Adams, Richard: Watership Down
Adamson, Issac: Tokyo Suckerpunch
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Andrews, V.C: Flowers in the Attic
Anonymous: Beowulf
Anonymous: The Way of a Pilgrim
Anthony, Piers: Apprentice Adept – Split Infinity
Anthony, Piers: Xanth: the Quest for Magic (original trilogy)
Archer, Jeffrey: Kane and Abel
Asprin, Robert: M.Y.T.H. Inc (series)
Atkinson, Kate: Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Atwater-Rhodes, Amelia: Falcondance
Atwood, Margaret: Cat’s Eye
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale
Atwood, Margaret: Oryx and Crake
Auel, Jean M: Earth’s Children (series)
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Persuasion
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Babbit, Natalie: Tuck Everlasting
Bach, Richard: Illusions
Bach, Richard: Jonathon Livingston Seagull
Baddiel, David: Time for Bed
Banks, Iain: The Wasp Factory
Bantock, Nick: Griffin and Sabine
Barker, Pat: Regeneration
Bauby, Jean-Dominique: The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
Baum, L. Frank: The World of Oz (Series)
Bennett, Cherie & Gotesfeld, Jeff: Anne Frank and Me
Bishop, Anne: The Black Jewels Trilogy
Blackman, Malorie: Noughts and Crosses
Blackmoor, R.D: Lorna Doone
Blume, Judy: Summer Sisters
Blyton, Enid: The Magic Faraway Tree
Borges, Jorge Luis: Ficciones
Boswell, John: Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe
Bradbury, Ray: Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray: Farenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray: The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray: The Toynbee Convector
Bradley, Marion Zimmer: The Bloody Sun
Bradley, Marion Zimmer: The Mists of Avalon
Brin, David: Startide Rising
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Brookmyre, Christopher: Quite One Ugly Morning
Brown, Dan: Angels and Demons
Brown, Dan: The DaVinci Code
Brown, Dan: Digital Fortress
Brownrigg, Sylvia: Pages for You
Brust, Steven: Jhereg
Brust, Steven: The Sun, the Moon and the Stars
Bryson, Bill: The Mother Tongue
Bryson, Bill: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Buchan, John: The Thirty-Nine Steps
Bujold, Lois McMaster: Barrayar
Bujold, Lois McMaster: A Civil Campaign
Bujold, Lois McMaster: The Curse of Chalion
Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange
Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
Burroughs, William S: Naked Lunch
Butcher, Jim: The Dresden Files – Grave Peril
Butler, Octavia: Xenogenesis (or Lilith’s Brood)
Byatt, A.S: Possession
Cabot, Meg: The Princess Diaries
Cahill, Thomas: Desire of the Everlasting Hills
Card, Orson Scott: Ender’s Game
Carle, Eric: The Hungry Caterpillar
Carr, Caleb: The Alienist
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Case, John: The Genesis Code
Cather, Willa: My Antonia
Chabon, Michael: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Chabon, Michael: Summerland
Chabon, Michael: Wonder Boys
Chalker, Jack L: Spirits of Flux and Anchor
Chandler, Raymond: The Last Goodbye
Charriere, Henri: Papillon
Chbosky, Stephen: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Cherryh, C.J: Cyteen
Chevalier, Tracy: The Girl With a Pearl Earring
Chodron, Pema: When Everything Falls Apart
Christie, Agatha: Murder on the Orient Express
Clarke, Arthur C: Childhood’s End
Clavell, James: Shogun
Clouston, J. Storer: The Lunatic at Large
Coelho, Paulo: The Alchemist
Colfer, Eoin: Artemis Fowl (Series)
Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone
Collins, Wilkie: The Woman in White
Colapinto, John: As Nature Made Him
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
Cooney, Caroline: Among Friends
Cooper, Susan: The Dark is Rising Sequence (five books)
Cooper, Susan: King of Shadows
Coupland, Douglas: Girlfriend in a Coma
Coupland, Douglas: Microserfs
Courtenay, Bryce: The Power of One
Cross, Ian: The Good Boy
Cunningham, Scott: Wicca – A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
Cuppy, Will: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody
Cussler, Clive: Cyclops
Cytowick, Richard E: The Man Who Tasted Shapes
Dahl, Roald: The BFG
Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dahl, Roald: Danny, the Champion of the World
Dahl, Roald: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Dahl, Roald: George’s Marvelous Medicine
Dahl, Roald: James and the Giant Peach
Dahl, Roald: Matilda
Dahl, Roald: The Twits
Dahl, Roald: The Witches
Dahl, Roald: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Danielewski, Mark Z: House of Leaves
Dante: Inferno
Dean, Pamela: Tam Lin
De Bernieres, Louis: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
DeLint, Charles: Memory and Dream
DeLint, Charles: Moonheart
Demille, Nelson: The Lion’s Game
De Saint-Exupery, Antoine: The Little Prince
Dickins, Charles: Bleak House
Dickins, Charles: A Christmas Carol
Dickins, Charles: David Copperfield
Dickins, Charles: Great Expectations
Dickins, Charles: Oliver Twist
Dickins, Charles: The Pickwick Papers
Dickins, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities
Dickinson, Peter: Shadow of a Hero
Dobyns, Stephen: The Church of Dead Girls
Doctorow, E.L: Ragtime
Donaldson, Stephen: Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever
Donoghue, Emma: Hood
Dorris, Michael: A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (series)
Duane, Diane: So You Want to Be a Wizard
DuBois, W.P: The Twenty-One Balloons
Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Muskateers
Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dunn, Mark: Ella Minnow Pea
Dunning, John: The Bookman’s Promise
Dunning, John: The Bookman’s Wake
Eco, Umberto: Foucault’s Pendulum
Eco, Umberto: The Name of the Rose
Eliot, George: Middlemarch
Eliot, George: Silas Marner
Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho
Ende, Michael: The Neverending Story
Englehart, Kim: Joona Trilogy
Estes, Clarissa Pinkola: Women Who Run With the Wolves
Evans, Nicholas: The Horse Whisperer
Farmer, Paul: Infections and Inequalities
Faulkner, William: The Sound and the Fury
Faulks, Sebastian: Birdsong
Feilding, Helen: Brigit Jones Diary
Feist, Raymond E: Magician
Fenton, Edward: The Refugee Summer
Fforde, Jasper: Tuesday Next Series
Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott: Tender is the Night
Follett, Ken: Pillars of the Earth
Forster, E.M: A Passage to India
Forsyth, Frederick: The Day of the Jackal
Foucault, Michael: The History of Sexuality
Fowles, John: The Magus
Frank, Anne (Translated by someone else): The Diary of Anne Frank
Friedland, Joyce: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Gaarder, Jostein: Sophie’s World
Gabaldon, Diana: Cross Stitch
Gabaldon, Diana: Outlander
Gaiman, Neil: American Gods
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere
Gaiman, Neil: A Season of Mists
Galsworthy, John: The Forsyte Saga
Garcia, Cristina: Dreaming in Cuban
Gann, Earnest K: The High and the Mighty
Garland, Alex: The Beach
Garner, Alan: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Gerold, Devid: Chess With a Dragon
Gibbon, Lewis Grassic: Sunset Song
Gibbons, Stella: Cold Comfort Farm
Gibson, William: The Miracle Worker
Gibson, William: Neuromancer
Glass, Suzanne: The Interpreter
Golden, Arthur: Memoirs of a Geisha
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Goodkind, Terry: Wizard’s First Rule
Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows
Grimm Brothers: Grimm’s Grimmest Fairy Tales
Gross-mith, George and Weedon: The Diary of a Nobody
Guest, Lady Charlotte E (translator): The Mabigion (Ancient Welsh Tales)
Guest, Judith: Ordinary People
Gunther, John: Death Be Not Proud
Hallowell, Janice: The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn
Hamilton, Laurel K: Guilty Pleasures
Hansberry, Lorraine: A Raisin in the Sun
Hardy, Thomas: Far From the Maddening Crowd
Hardy, Thomas: Jude the Obscure
Hardy, Thomas: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of the Seven Gables
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
Heinlein, Robert: Stranger in a Strange Land
Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
Helprin, Mark: Winter’s Tale
Hemingway, Earnest: A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway, Earnest: The Old Man and the Sea
Henry, Marguerite: Misty of Chincoteague
Herbert, Frank: Dune (series)
Hill, Beebe: Hanta Yo
Homer: The Odyssey
Hooper, Mary: At the Sign of the Sugared Plum
Hornby, Nick: About a Boy
Hornby, Nick: High Fidelity
Horowitz, Anthony: Point Blanc
Horowitz, Anthony: Skeleton Key
Horowitz, Anthony: Stormbreaker
Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Hurston, Zora Neale: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous: A Brave New World
Hyde, Lewis: Trickster Makes This World
Ibsen, Henrick: A Doll’s House
Ibsen, Henrick: Hedda Gabler
Irving, John: The Cider House Rules
Irving, John: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Irving, John: The World According to Garp
Jansson, Tove: Finn Family Moomintroll
Jerome, Jerome K: Three Men in a Boat
Jones, Diana Wynne: Howl’s Moving Castle
Jordan, Sherryl: A Raging Quiet
Jordan, Robert: Wheel of Time (series)
Joyce, James: Ulysses
Juster, Norton: The Phantom Tollbooth
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Kafka, Franz: The Trial
Kay, Guy Gavriel: Tigana
Kay, Susan: Phantom
Kaye, M.M: The Far Pavilions
Keene, Carolyn: Nancy Drew (series)
Kerouac, Jack: On the Road
Kesey, Ken: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ketchum, Jack: The Girl Next Door
Keyes, Daniel: Flowers for Algernon
Kidder, Tracy: The Soul of a New Machine
King, Laurie R: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
King, Stephen: Different Seasons
King, Stephen: It
King, Stephen: The Green Mile
King, Stephen: The Gunslinger
King, Stephen: Misery
King, Stephen: The Stand
King, Thomas: Green Grass, Running Water
Kingsolver, Barbara: The Bean Trees
Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
Kikhler-Zimmerman, Lenah: My Hundred Children
Kipling, Rudyard: Kim
Kipling, Rudyard: The Light That Failed
Klingler, Erin: Love Beyond Tomorrow
Knowles, John: A Separate Peace
Konigsburg, E.L: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Konigsburg, E.L: The View From Saturday
Koontz, Dean R: The Oddkins
Kundera, Milan: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Kurtz, Katheryn: Camber of Culdi
Lackey, Mercedes: Bedlam Bard (series)
Lackey, Mercedes: The Last Herald Mage Trilogy
Lamott, Anne: Traveling Mercies
Landis, J.D: The Band Never Dances
Lawrence, D.H: Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Lawrence, D.H: Sons and Lovers
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
Lefebvre, Georges: The Coming of the French Revolution
LeGuin, Ursula: The Earthsea Saga (series)
LeGuin, Ursula: The Telling
L’Engle, Madeline: An Acceptable Time
L’Engle, Madeline: And Both Were Young
L’Engle, Madeline: The Arm of the Starfish
L’Engle, Madeline: Camilla
L’Engle, Madeline: Certain Women
L’Engle, Madeline: A Circle of Quiet
L’Engle, Madeline: Dance in the Desert
L’Engle, Madeline: Dragons in the Waters
L’Engle, Madeline: A House Like a Lotus
L’Engle, Madeline: Many Waters
L’Engle, Madeline: Meet the Austins
L’Engle, Madeline: The Moon by Night
L’Engle, Madeline: A Ring of Endless Light
L’Engle, Madeline: A Severed Wasp
L’Engle, Madeline: The Small Rain
L’Engle, Madeline: Summer of the Great Grandmother
L’Engle, Madeline: A Swiftly Tilting Planet
L’Engle, Madeline: Troubling a Star
L’Engle, Madeline: The Twenty Four Days Before Christmas
L’Engle, Madeline: A Wind in the Door
L’Engle, Madeline: A Winter’s Love
L’Engle, Madeline: A Wrinkle in Time
L’Engle, Madeline: The Young Unicorns
Leroux, Gaston: The Phantom of the Opera
Levitt, Steven D: Freakonomics
Lewis, C.S: The Chronicles of Narnia (series)
Lewis, C.S: Mere Christianity
Lewis, C.S: The Screwtape Letters
Lewis, C.S: Till We Have Faces
Love, Brenda: The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices
Lowry, Lois: The Giver
Lowry, Lois: Number the Stars
Ludlum, Robert: The Bourne Identity
MacDonald, George: Lilith
Magorian, Michelle: Goodnight Mister Tom
Maguire, Gregory: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Maguire, Gregory: Lost
Maguire, Gregory: Mirror, Mirror
Maguire, Gregory: Son of a Witch
Maguire, Gregory: Wicked
Mahy, Margaret: The Changeover
Marillier, Juliet: The Sevenwaters Trilogy
Maro, Publius Vergilius: The Aeneid
Maro, Publius Vergilius: The Illiad
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Martell, Yann: Life of Pi
Massie, Robert K: Dreadnaught
Maughm, Somerset: Of Human Bondage
McCaffrey, Ann: Dragonsong
McCollough, Colleen: The Thorn Birds
McEwan, Ian: Atonement
McFarlane Jr., Bud: Conceived Without Sin
McFarlane Jr., Bud: Pierced by a Sword
McKillip, Patricia: Riddle-Master Trilogy
McKinley, Robin: Deerskin
Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
Mieville, China: Perdido Street Station
Miller, Arthur: The Crucible
Miller Jr., Walter M: A Canticle for Leibowitz
Milne, A.A: Winnie the Pooh (series)
Milosz, Czeslaw: Road-Side Dog
Milton, John: Paradise Lost
Mistry, Rohinton: A Fine Balance
Mitchell, Margaret: Gone With the Wind
Moliere: Tartuffe
Monsarrat, Nicholas: The Cruel Sea
Montgomery, L.M: Anne of Green Gables (series)
Moorcock, Michael: Elric of Melnibone
Moore, Christopher: Lamb – The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Morganstern, S: The Princess Bride
Morrison, Toni: Beloved
Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
Nabakov, Vladimir: Lolita
Nabakov, Vladimir: Pale Fire
Nash, Ogden: The Old Dog Barks Backwards
Nelson, O.T: The Girl Who Owned a City
Newman, Kim: Anno Dracula
Niven, Larry: Ringworld
Norris, Kathleen: The Cloister Walk
O’Brian, Patrick: Master and Commander
O’Brien, Kate: The Land of Spices
O’Brien, Robert C: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
O’Dell, Scott: Island of the Blue Dolphins
O’Dell, Scott: Zia
O’Connor, Flannery: The Complete Stories of
O’Neill, Jaime: At Swim, Two Boys
Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
Ono, Yoko: Grapefruit
Orlev, Uri: The Island on Bird Street
Orwell, George: 1984
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Packard, Edward: The Cave of Time – a Choose Your Own Adventure Book
Palahniuk, Chuck: Fight Club
Palahniuk, Chuck: Invisible Monsters
Palahniuk, Chuck: Lullaby
Paolini, Christopher: Eldest
Paolini, Christopher: Eragon
Parker, Robert: Double Play
Parkhurst, Carolyn: The Dogs of Babel
Parsons, Tony: Man and Boy
Paterson, Katherine: The Bridge to Terebithia
Paterson, Katherine: The Great Gilly Hopkins
Peake, Mervyn: Gormenghast
Penman, Sharon Kay: Here Be Dragons
Pierce, Tamora: Sandry’s Book
Pierce, Tamora: Song of the Lioness
Pike, Christopher: Sati
Pilcher, Rosamunde: The Shell Seekers
Pinkwater, Daniel: 5 Novels
Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar
Plato: The Apology
Potok, Chaim: My Name is Asher Lev
Pratchett, Terry: The Colour of Magic
Pratchett, Terry: The Fifth Elephant
Pratchett, Terry & Gaiman, Neil: Good Omens
Pratchett, Terry: Guards! Guards!
Pratchett, Terry: Hogfather
Pratchett, Terry: Men at Arms
Pratchett, Terry: Mort
Pratchett, Terry: Night Watch
Pratchett, Terry: Reaper Man
Pratchett, Terry: Small Gods
Pratchett, Terry: Soul Music
Pratchett, Terry: Thief of Time
Pratchett, Terry: The Truth
Pratchett, Terry: Witches Abroad
Pratchett, Terry: Wyrd Sisters
Preston, Douglas & Child, Lincoln: The Relic
Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
Pullman, Phillip: His Darker Materials (trilogy)
Putney, Mary Jo: Thunder and Roses
Puzo, Mario: The Godfather
Rampling, Ann: Belinda
Rampling, Ann: Exit to Eden
Rand, Ayn: Anthem
Rand, Ayn: The Fountainhead
Ransome, Arthur: Swallows and Amazons
Raskin, Ellen: The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel
Raskin, Ellen: The Westing Game
Rawls, Wilson: Where the Red Fern Grows
Read, Piers Paul: ALIVE!
Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front
Renault, Mary: The King Must Die
Renault, Mary: The Mask of Apollo
Rennison, Louise: Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging
Rice, Anne: Blackwood Farm
Rice, Anne: Blood Canticle
Rice, Anne: Blood and Gold
Rice, Anne: Cry to Heaven
Rice, Anne: The Feast of All Saints
Rice, Anne: Interview With a Vampire
Rice, Anne: Lahser
Rice, Anne: Memnoch the Devil
Rice, Anne: Merrick
Rice, Anne: The Mummy or Ramses the Damned
Rice, Anne: Pandora
Rice, Anne: Queen of the Damned
Rice, Anne: Servant of the Bones
Rice, Anne: The Tale of the Body Thief
Rice, Anne: Taltos
Rice, Anne: The Vampire Armand
Rice, Anne: The Vampire Lestat
Rice, Anne: Violin
Rice, Anne: Vittorio
Rice, Anne: The Witching Hour
Rilke, Renier Maria: Letters to a Young Poet
Roquelaure, A.N: Beauty’s Punishment
Roquelaure, A.N: Beauty’s Release
Roquelaure, A.N: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Rowling, J.K: Harry Potter (series)
Roy, Arundhati: The God of Small Things
Ruff, Matt: Sewer, Gas and Electric
Rushdie, Salman: Midnight’s Children
Rushdie, Salman: The Moor’s Last Sigh
Rushdie, Salman: The Satanic Verses
Russell, Maria Doria: The Sparrow
Sachar, Louis: Holes
Sagan, Nick: Idlewild
Salinger, J.D: The Catcher in the Rye
Scott, Walter: Ivanhoe
Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones
Sedaris, David: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Sedgewick, Eve Kosofsky: The Epistomology of the Closet
Seraillier, Ian: The Silver Sword
Service, Pamela: The Winter of Magic’s Return
Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
Seton, Anya: Katherine
Sewell, Anna: Black Beauty
Shaffner, Peter: Equus
Shakespeare, William: Henry V
Shakespeare, William: Julius Ceasar
Shakespeare, William: Othello
Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Shute, Neville: On the Beach
Shute, Neville: A Town Like Alice
Silverstein, Shel: The Giving Tree
Simic, Charles: The World Doesn’t End
Simmons, Paullina: Tully
Singer, Isaac Bashevis: Shosha
Sleator, William: Singularity
Smith, Dodie: I Capture the Castle
Smith, Robert Kimmel: Chocolate Fever
Smith, Wilbur: River God
Snyder, Zilpha Keatley: Below the Root
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus
Sorkin, Aaron: A Few Good Men
Spyri, Johanna: Heidi
Steinbeck, John: East of Eden
Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck, John: Travels With Charly
Steingarten, Jeffrey: The Man Who Ate Everything
Stephenson, Neal: Cryptonomicon
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island
Stewart, George R: Earth Abides
St, George, Judith: Haunted
Stine, R.L: Goosebumps (series)
Stirling, S.M: Island in the Sea of Time
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Stover, Marjorie Filley: Midnight in the Dollhouse
Stover, Marjorie Filley: When the Dolls Woke
Strong, June: Song of Eve
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Susskind, Patrick: Perfume
Tan, Amy: The Bonesetter’s Daughter
Tan, Amy: The Joy Luck Club
Tan, Amy: The Kitchen God’s Wife
Tartt, Donna: The Secret History
Taylor, Theodore: The Cay
Thackary, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair
Thomas, Dylan: The Collected Poems of
Tolkein, JRR: The Hobbit
Tolkein, JRR: The Lord of the Rings (series)
Tolkein, JRR: The Silmarillion
Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace
Toole, John Kennedy: A Confederacy of Dunces
Townsend, Sue: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2
Tressell, Robert: The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists
Trumbo, Dalton: Johnny Got His Gun
Truss, Lynne: Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Various Authors: The American Heritage Dictionary
Various Authors: Dear America (series)
Various Authors: The Holy Bible
Venables, Terry & Williams, Gordon: They Used to Play on Grass
Verne, Jules: Around the World in Eighty Days
Vinge, Joan D: Catspaw
Voltaire: Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt: Cat’s Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse 5
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Wallace, David Foster: Infinite Jest
Waller, Robert James: The Bridges of Madison County
Waters, Sara: Tipping the Velvet
Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
Weber, David: Path of the Fury
Weber, David: On Basilisk Station
Wells, H.G: The War of the Worlds
Welsh, Irvine: Trainspotting
Wharton, Edith: Ethan Frome
White, E.B: Charlotte’s Web
White, Edmund: The Married Man
White, T.H: The Once and Future King
Whitman, Walt: Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Little House on the Prarie (series)
Wilder, Thornton: Our Town
Williams, Tad: Otherland
Willis, Connie: Passage
Willis, Connie: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Wilson, E.O: Consilience – the Unity of Knowledge
Wilson, Jacqueline: Bad Girls
Wilson, Jacqueline: The Dare Game
Wilson, Jacqueline: Double Act
Wilson, Jacqueline: Dustbin Baby
Wilson, Jacqueline: Girls in Love
Wilson, Jacqueline: Girls in Tears
Wilson, Jacqueline: Girls out Late
Wilson, Jacqueline: The Illustrated Mum
Wilson, Jacqueline: Lola Rose
Wilson, Jacqueline: Secrets
Wilson, Jacqueline: Sleepovers
Wilson, Jacqueline: The Suitcase Kid
Wilson, Jacqueline: The Story of Tracy Beaker
Wilson, Jacqueline: Vicky Angel
Woodward, Bob & Bernstein, Carl: All the President’s Men
Woolf, Virginia: To the Lighthouse
Wouk, Herman: War and Remembrance
Wrede, Patricia: Dealing With Dragons
Wyman, David: The Abandonment of the Jews
Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids
Yeats, William Butler: The Collected Poems of
Yolen, Jane: The Devil’s Arithmetic
Zelazny, Roger: The Chronicles of Amber (series)
Zelazny, Roger: Lord of Light
Zukav, Gary: The Dancing Wu Li Masters (205/582)

Banned Books Are Better Reads (meme from Kai)

Banned Book Week (the meme)

In light of last week, here's another fun web game. If you've read the book, bold it. How many of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books have you read?

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Frustration

Hurray for blatant favoritism and lack of subtlety. It makes everything easier, yes it does . . . because it’s always best to disgruntle as much of any given base as you’re pleasing. I know what’s going on, and some of the way things are being handled rubs me severely in the wrong way. “Oh, you don’t play a Euthie? Fuck off, we don’t care about you. We’re busy making sure all the Euthies transfer.” Yeah. And I’m staff, so I can only imagine how the rest of the non-Euthie players feel. You know – the ones who have no (or little) idea what’s going on, though I’m sure they all know pretty exactly what’s happening now, hence my mention of subtlety. There’s a whole lot of background staff-y type stuff to be done yet, and now some of us will be fielding questions until the cows come home. You know, those of us who don’t know what we should be writing yet, or who we’re supposed to be working with. Needless to say, this isn’t a way of starting a new venture that strikes me as ideal, even aside from server crashes and the like. Yay. For the record? I have a pet character, a favorite, that I really care about too – one that I’ve been playing for years. I’m willing to give her up for this, if necessary, and I’m not stifling the creativity of the rest of staff by insisting that she be moved to the new setting (site, whatever) as is, or else. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall; that would be as rewarding as working around this huge thing that no one wants to talk about, in some respects. And yet, I have a feeling it’ll happen. And I’ll staff Changeling if that’s what we end up with, because I can’t staff Mage around such a thing – both ethically and creatively, it’s a killing blow.

Anyway. I’m home today, huzzah! I can sit here in front of the computer and wait for people to message me, or try to write for the new site (but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be working on! We’re not organized, at all), or I can go do housework. I’m guessing it’ll be the former that ends up happening.

Ah, the Changes a Day Can Make

I really hate ironing. I’m not sure why, other than it’s One of Those Things that I don’t often mention, let alone do if I can help it. My psychological issues are many, I’ll admit freely, and the people I talk to about them are few. Regardless, ironing is about on par with doing the dishes, in my mind. Folding laundry, washing it, drying it, that’s fine. Putting away dishes is fine. But ironing and washing dishes . . . I used to start to hyperventilate, or I’d get a migraine and I’d have to go lie down. Now, I just hate them – but I can do them if I have to. It’s strange how that works, I suppose, and it would be interesting to see what brain chemistry causes such reactions . . . but mostly, it’s a pain in the ass. My sink is full of dirty dishes, and I’ll do anything I can think of to avoid washing them. I have a beautiful piece of linen that I just washed and dried that needs to be ironed and I’m sitting here blogging instead while the uncertainty of my day plagues me.

There’s more sewing to be finished for Vikings; Morgen’s outfit is done and Liana’s and Jerry’s are almost done, but mine isn’t even started. I have a beautiful piece of burgundy silk (one of the things I have to iron) for my under dress, and a nice cotton brocade in olive that matches one of the colors in everyone else’s fabric. – Update, since I was writing this earlier, and now it’s late at night and things have changed: My under dress is done but for finishing the neckline. My over dress is cut out. Everything for both girls and Jerry is finished. Huzzah!

Amusingly, there was probably more angst-laden stuff I had to say this morning, but nothing in particular now. Other than man, it feels good when I come home after a long day and see a message from a certain crush blinking at me, and man, I wish the guy who thinks he’s in love with me would move to another state again. It would make my life way easier, and we all want that, don’t we? I thought so.

Writing for CbN 2.0 Playlist

30 Seconds to Mars: Capricorn (A Brand New Name)
Fallen
End of the Beginning
Attack
The Kill

Ani Difranco: Knuckle Down
Studying Stones
Paradigm

Berlin: Metro

Blue October: What If We Could
Hate Me
Ugly Side
Razorblade

The Fray: Over My Head (Cable Car)
How to Save a Life

Indigo Girls: Secure Yourself
Kid Fears
Prince of Darkness

Jewel: Who Will Save Your Soul
Foolish Games
Angel Standing By

Leonard Cohen: The Stranger Song
Who By Fire
The Guests

Pedro the Lion: Criticism as Inspiration
When They Really Get to Know You, They Will Run
Bad Things to Such Good People

Pink: Who Knew

Poe: Haunted
Wild
Trigger Happy Jack
Angry Johnny

Tori Amos: Crucify
Precious Things

Trip Shakespeare: Gone, Gone, Gone
Dead Set on Destruction

Under the Influence of Giants: Mama’s Room

The Wreckers: Way Back Home
Cigarettes

Post-Event, Pre-Holidays

I gave myself a day off, today, between crazy event stuff (and the crazy getting-ready-for-event stuff that came before it) and crazy getting-ready-for-Halloween stuff, and all the other crazy stuff that comes after that. The plan was to relax, to rest, to . . . I don’t know, not nap because very rarely (if ever) can I manage that when the girls are here with me. The plan, I guess, was to pretty much do nothing. Maybe play a bit, maybe just play around with my new Sims2 expansion (I did that, a bit), talk to some friends (most of whom are feeling about as chatty and cheerful as I, it seems) – I just wanted to do pretty much nothing today, because tomorrow (or maybe I can put it off until Wednesday), it all starts again. I have to make Morgen’s, Jerry’s and my Halloween costumes. I have to start baking, and maybe learning how to can so I can give out jars of applesauce, salsa and other yummy treats as presents to people. We’re leading into the holidays, and my time for ‘just relaxing’ will be even less than normal – but I think I don’t know how to just relax, anyway. Friends of mine are (sort of) upset at each other, and this, of course, makes me upset. It’s tiring to be able to feel it before they talk to me; at least one of them knows it from up close and personal experience. I doubt they’re projecting, at least not on purpose . . . but this is my time of year. Even more than usual, I can’t seem to help it; it just happens.

But anyway! The event. I know that’s what you’re all waiting to hear about. The boat (or, really, a stage that looks vaguely like the aft end of a pirate ship) got finished and looked beautiful, the girls’ garb got done completely and looked super cute, especially when all three of them (Morgen, Liana and Zoe) were together, my garb got done most of the way and looked pretty nice, I like to think (I didn’t get any pictures of me, and I don’t know if anyone else did), and . . . everything was great, despite the usual penchant for Michigan weather doing everything it can to fuck things up. Friday, we didn’t get out there (as a family) until fairly late because of sleeping children, but Jerry’d already gone out earlier to help with some of the big set up stuff, and to put up our tent and so on – so there wasn’t much to do other than change into garb and hang out. When it was the girls’ bed time, he took them to the tent and I got to stay up and drink . . . man, I’d almost forgotten how much fun it can be to just sit up around a bonfire, drinking and telling stories and singing songs. It’d been ages since I’d been able to.

Saturday, I ended up with the girls most of the day, which would have been fine if the plan hadn’t been for Jerry to take care of them so I could help with stuff since he’s far less of a volunteer type than I am. I can help and help and help until I collapse, but he wants to just make beer, cook, and do other stuff he considers fun. Running troll and stuff like that? Not his idea of a good time. I, however, like to help. I do it all the time for events-not-ours, and it makes sense for me to do it for BotIS too. Someone has to, after all. Anyway, yeah. Things didn’t go as planned on Saturday, although Michael, Ruth and Erich all showed up and checked it out, so that was fun. All in all, it was a good time despite the weather and despite things not going the way they were supposed to. It makes me ridiculously happy that the turn out was so good.

This weekend, there’s another camping thing but not an event – it’s just a normal camp out at the park. There’s only two times a year you can do it, once in the spring and once in the fall, but I think it’s going to rain. Don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling . . . and I’m right about the weather far more often than your average weather-person, Doppler radar or no. The weekend after that is Squires, out by Lansing, and I think we might try to go to that if I can convince people to have the clean-out-Mike-and-Becky’s-garage-and-wash-all-the-dishes party/tavern on Sunday instead of Saturday. And I know we’re planning on heading up to Traverse City for Vikings – yay! – though I can’t imagine we’ll be camping with the girls there this late in the year. It gets really, really cold at night.

What else? I got a new exercise DVD, and it looks like a lot of fun. Yay for dance-as-aerobics! I also have to write a note to my mom and thank you notes to Eoin and Baldric for helping out last weekend. And I have to clean my living room so I can mess it up again making Morgen’s Halloween costume and so on. Also, I have to do at least one CbN scene (I’m one of those people who’s feeling little interest these days, I’m afraid, though it’s not the game that’s not holding my attention, or my characters) to run (not play, people need the NPCs) and . . . ugh. It’ll be alright.

Oh, shit.

I just realized it’s almost November.

I need to figure out what I’m going to write about. I WILL hit 50K again this year. I WILL.

'Cause When I Look You're Never There

Okay, yeah, definitely a crush. Man, it's irritating me that he hasn't been online in ages . . . I know he's taking a break from CbN and STing, but that doesn't mean he has to take a break from IMs and what not! Or, well, I guess it kind of does, because people are cunts over IMs too. In fact, the same people who harass him on site harass him over AIM, I guess, so it's understandable. But I miss him! I want him to be online, to be snarky with, to make me laugh, to laugh at my jokes even though I'm not funny. It sucks when he isn't around - and it sucks worse times like now, when there's no one online that I want to talk to, and nothing to do but update my blog. Alas! What's a girl to do? Fret and whine, I suppose, or at least that's what I'm doing. Anyway, I know he has crap for a computer and shit for a connection, so that's probably part of the problem too. Stupid not-working-the-way-it's-supposed-to technology!

Anyway. Went to the State Fair over the weekend with the girls, the in-laws and a few other random relatives. It would have sucked if I'd had to spend the whole day with the in-laws, but instead I got to escape and go on fun rides with the adolescents (tweenies, I think they're calling them these days. Thank you so much, Olsen twins and Hilary Duff), and then the three of them, Morgen and I went to play games on the midway. My four year old is a shark, let me tell you! She did better at the midway games than I did, which was awesome to see. The only way it could have been better is if we'd gone in the evening instead of the morning - there's very little that's prettier (and scarier, and more magical, and . . .) than a fair with all the lights on. Elephant ears taste better and the rides are scarier, and everything's just . . . more. We always used to go at night when I was a kid.

Yesterday, we had a family picnic - I posted pictures complete with snarky captions on TC and Ames said she really enjoyed the thread. That was cool to hear. It's really there for K'wyn, but of course everyone can look at it if they so desire. It would be silly to put it there if I didn't expect them to. So, family picnic. It was relatively painless, even fun. It was the last day for the pool to be open, and I think they stopped cleaning it on Saturday or so. But the lifeguards were all like, yeah, whatever, it's the last day when kids wanted to bring in floaties and kickboards and so on. They're all going back to school today, be it high school or college - yay for them. Morgen's swim teacher is away at Eastern now, though I still could swear she's 16 at the oldest, by appearance, anyway. Obviously she's older, but still! Man, with how young she looks and her cute, squeaky little voice, I'd never put her at old enough to be in college.

The girls' garb is done! But for the elastic in the waists and ankles of the pants, anyway. The outfits are so cute - I'll make a couple normal tunics as well, for Friday and Sunday, but their clothes for Saturday are adorable. Now to finish mine - hopefully I won't screw up the sleeves (again, for the third time) when I put them back on. I really want it all to be done, and then I can just make a couple tunics and dig up some of my old pants or something for Friday and Sunday. G wants me to take a shire picture, so I have to remember to bring my tripod and not just my camera. Speaking of camera stuff, Erich got my film camera fixed! I'm so excited. And Jerry's asking me what kind of lens I want for Christmas - since eventually, I want to set up a studio and do my own pictures of the girls (and probably Brandon, and Zoe, and . . .), I'll look into what people usually use for that. Maybe I'll end up with a light or something instead - that'd be awesome. My other choice is a new computer - or at least a new hard drive. I really hope for a whole new computer, honestly, though I'd probably go for the camera stuff if I had to choose between the two. It'd come in far more handy, after all, as I'm far more likely to use it to make money than I am to use a new hard drive or . . . whatever . . . for anything other than fun.

On a random musical note, I'm loving Sondre Lerche. Man, he's brilliant. His voice is pretty different, to my very American ears, and the guitar, and the lyrics . . . just lovely. The crush who shall not be named introduced me to him, and . . . yeah. Also digging on Rod Stewart/Faces and Roxy Music currently (always), because they make me think of him. Come back online, silly boy! I miss you. :(

Crushes

So, I have a fairly addictive personality. I don’t drink a lot, I don’t smoke any more and I certainly don’t do anything harder . . . instead, I get crushes. I fall ‘in love’ with someone intensely and undeniably, usually for a week or less though sometimes they last longer. Sometimes, they could in all likelihood be more than crushes, if they weren’t confined to the internet. I’m smart that way, I guess – there have been (and probably will be) crushes on real life people, but mostly I know better. They live in Australia or England or California or Mars (near enough, really, considering responsibilities that keep me from going anywhere, ever) or Timbuktu. Regardless of where the person lives, it’s a bright spot in an otherwise tedious day when said person comes online; I start grinning ridiculously and can’t wait for that person to message me, or to message that person.

Right now, he lives in England and he knows, though I doubt he took it seriously when I told him. I don’t really take it seriously, what with the married and the two kids and all – it’s a diversion, something more fun than changing diapers and cleaning up kid messes and making dinner. It’s adult companionship with both more and less intimacy than if Ruth or Erich or someone came over and sat in my living room drinking tea and talking about nothing for an equal amount of time. I don’t . . . connect with people who can see my face and read more into what I’m saying than I want them to see. Online, if people read something into what I’m saying, I can blame it on something else entirely – but in person, my face gives me away. My tone of voice, the look in my eyes . . . I’m a decent actress, but the people I’d hang out with know me well enough to tell when I’m lying (or just obscuring something) anyway. It’s far more rare, these days, that I can say ‘I’m fine’ and get left alone. Someone (usually Ruth or Erich) always pushes the issue – and I hate it, when there’s the risk of me crying in front of someone. Or getting pissed off. Or . . . well, or much of anything, really. It’s different to talk to the Ks, or other online people.

Anyway! Yes, England and fags and gin and cake. It’s fun to imagine, indeed, just the hanging out part. It hasn’t gotten any further than that, so maybe it’s not so much a crush as he’s becoming one of the few online people I call a Real Friend ™.

On the Subject of Geekhood, Hanging Out and Sewing Progress

I’m a gaming geek, as lots of people know well. So, I was talking to another gaming geek today, and we were talking about characters, and how each character is kind of like a sliver or two of our personalities, and that if you follow that thinking to its logical end, to know all of a gaming geek’s characters is to know all of said gaming geek. It’s interesting, at least, to think about. If I put Reagan, Lizzie, Terra, Britt, Mac, Vincent, Aodhan, Grace, Marissa, Zara, Sunshine and Najia all together, do they equal me? Some of them are similar, but different. Aodhan and Zara could sort of be combined. So could Sunshine and Marissa. And Najia and Reagan and Mac, and Vincent and Lizzie. But still . . . that’s seven-ish archetypes (or fragments, depending on how one looks at it) that fit well to different parts of my personality. Strange, hmm? It certainly makes me curious if this applies to everyone I know who games, or just to the person I was talking to and me. It also makes me wonder if I’m really that simple of a person, or if my characters are that complex.

Anyway! Onward and upward to other more interesting things. I have a friend in England, and he’s absolutely fabulous. Much like the other people I know online that I really call friends (and a couple of you read here), I’d love to just hang out with him. Be it at a pub with soccer hooligans or taking pictures of the riots in . . . Manchester, I think he said it was . . . or whatever, I think it’d be a great time. We’d sit in front of a fireplace in a library crammed full of loads of books on every subject with a messy computer desk in one corner, a laptop in one of our laps, drinking gin, smoking, and eating cake until we couldn’t stand any of the three any longer. Then, we’d make up silly songs and write silly radio shows and it would be fan-fucking-tastic, much like if I met up with Kai or K’wyn or Eric or Dusty, the other internet people I call friends rather than just internet people. I was supposed to meet up with K’wyn this fall, but of course that didn’t work out . . . stupid hubby’s work, getting bought out and changing vacation time policies and what not. But then, when I think about my internet friends, I wonder if I’d get tired of them and they’d irritate me face to face, just like most of the people I know in the real world do. I’m not really much of a people person, I guess – which is strange, because I’d rather be around people I don’t like, even, than by myself.

Sewing is coming along nicely, I suppose. I have a lot to do, still, but my patterns are pretty simple as far as such things go, and as long as the machine cooperates, it moves at a nice clip. If only the machine would always cooperate, I’d be done with everything already. I still need to call Ruth for her measurements – I keep forgetting – but G’s sewing Ruth’s dress for me anyway. I just have my stuff and the girls’ to finish – I’d have Jerry’s too, but we don’t have the money for his fabric (or, well, we do – but when he gets paid, there won’t be enough time for me to sew his stuff), or the pattern I’d need. Folkwear patterns are expensive as hell. I’m looking forward to the event; Eoin will be there, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. He’s one of my favorites of the old guard, and ever since Elspeth died I worry about him a little. He’s old enough to be my dad, but still . . . I worry about my dad, too.

And now, I better get back to that sewing, or it never will get done.

Sometimes, You Can Cut It With a Knife

It’s never the good things you can cut with a knife, at least not if one is speaking metaphorically. Instead, it’s the things most people wish they could deal with in smaller pieces – tension, anger, humidity. Sometimes, it’s frustration, sexual or otherwise. Sure, all these things can be good (or at least cathartic) . . . it’s just unusual.

I ran into an old friend not too long ago, and he came to a gathering at mutual friends’ house even more recently. We’ve known each other off and on for a decade, minus time apart when he moved to the other side of the state or to Ohio for a while, and minus time for when I was too busy to really know anyone. There’s always been a sort of energy, a tension between us that defies rational explanation (but then, what’s ever rational about most of the situations that touch me?). Most of the time, you could cut it with a knife; I’m not sure I even like him, really. I mean, he’s okay, but he irritates the hell out of me sometimes, and likely he could say the same about me. When, of course, he isn’t professing undying love. Needless to say, this kind of thing is less than helpful, and what’s a girl to do? Write blogs complaining about it, of course, in a place where he doesn’t know to look for them since he now knows where my myspace page is. Yay.

On a somewhat more interesting (or fun – to me, at least) iTunes is nicely picking songs that fit my mood or the situation about which I was writing or both. Quite sporting of it, really.

Hurry Up and Wait, Stereophonics
We wait to get warm, the car starts from cold,
Stall to make a first move,
Magazines make the rules to make us lose,
For your dream man, the house you could both plan,
The car in the sales ad,
The wet dream with a man you wished that you had

So hurry up and wait
But what's worth waiting for?
So hurry up and wait
But what's worth waiting for?

Nothing’s Changed, Chris Isaak
Let's take a drive through the old town.
Back past the place where we met.
Some things are hard to remember.
Some things you'll never forget.

Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World, Ramones
I'm a shock trooper in a stupor
Yes I am.

Misery, Green Day
And she screams why oh why
I said I don’t know

The Prettiest Thing, Norah Jones
So why does it seem
Like a picture
Hanging up on someone else's wall
Lately I just haven't been myself at all
It's heavy on my mind

Freedom, Tegan and Sara
this is where i wanna be
this is who i wanna be

Pourin’ My Heart Out Again, Golden Earring
And I could spend all
my life
Just sittin’ here paralyzed
And I could
spend all my life
Waitin’ for you to materialize

And there ends the random pertinence. I do hope my two readers enjoyed. Oh, and . . .

Sometimes you could cut it
With a knife
Sometimes you don’t know
If it’s wrong or if it’s right

Another bit of a poem. I like this one less, though.

Things I Haven't Said

There's a well, somewhere, of all the things
I haven't said
good or bad or indifferent
for every
one
there are hundreds of words dying, drowning . . .
I’ve forgotten how to talk, or maybe you’ve
Forgotten how to listen.
It’s not an easy thing to learn, and it is
A difficult skill to retain
Comprehension comes in

Fits

And

Starts

And misunderstandings abound;
Everything is a homonym
Except for the things that
I haven’t said.

Yay for New Toys!

Now everyone who looks here can check out my kids. Kind of scary, but I think I know everyone who looks, so . . . yeah!

Actually Written Back in June

So, this year was the first Border War I've been to in ages - you wouldn't believe how much I've missed playing with the people I grew up around, how amazed I am at the little McCords all grown up, how much I wanted to cry when I saw the bridge gone (and wondered where on earth the fighters were going to shower) and so on. That park . . . well, this year was Border War 23. I remember Border War 1 - that's a lot of Border Wars. Even the bad parts don't outweigh the awesome that is Bertha Brock park - never mind the mosquito bites, never mind the eight million miles uphill to camp, never mind all of it . . . just being there is amazing. It feels a lot like going back to camp, all quite and serene and OMG fun at the same time.

I remember playing with Jill and Chris and Rolf when their parents were prince and princess, and then king and queen.
I remember SO MANY Fum courts I've lost count.
I remember hanging out with the Donnershafen kids (okay, that was a Winter Revel, but still) and my dad telling me I smelled like furniture polish (drinking cognac tends to do that to one) and me kissing Karhu and that other guy (Cuvara? Something like that), having one on each arm.
I remember my first near-sexual experience being with some guy I don't remember now (but I think he's married and a knight!!!!!) with black hair and glasses - we went down the trail from Palmer Lodge and to the right to a stone bridge and right there in the middle of the bridge, leaning against the side, well . . . anyway.
I remember finally kissing Julie (hi, honey!).

The first time I got drunk was with SCA people from the western side of the state - I grew up there, I lived there forever. My dad was famous amongst all those people; now, years after he's moved several states away, I still have people doing double takes and saying, "Hey, aren't you Fum's kid?" When I go to events over there, particularly anything at Bertha Brock, or Val Day, I feel like I'm going home - more than I do when I'm going anywhere else. I could be going to visit my mom in the house I spent most of my life so far in (wow, that won't be true any more in another two years) and it wouldn't feel as much like home as those places, with those people. I'm not sure what it is, or why it happens that way . . . but it does. There's the smell of bonfires and mead and sweaty fighters, the sound of drums and people laughing and singing, there's the roads that I know so well that I could traverse them barefoot and blindfolded and still know exactly where I'd be and how long it would take - yes, I know from experience.

The memories in those places are a mile thick, and the relationships I've made there are bigger than that.

Fuck, I wish I could spend more time at home.

Left Unsaid

There's a well, somewhere, of all the things
I haven't said
good or bad or indifferent
for every
one
there are hundreds of words dying, drowning . . .

It's been a long time since I wrote poetry . . . a very, very long time. I don't think I was really any good at it then, and I'm fairly certain I'm not now, but I ran into someone I used to know a long time ago, and it made me come up with that bit. I don't know if it's a beginning, middle, or end.

But it's a start.

In-Laws

Almost everyone (that I know or hear about) hates their in-laws; it's in every movie you watch, every book you read, every song you hear. I don't feel at all unique in my hatred for them, deserved or un (goodness knows, they do a lot for us - I'm just not quite sure if it outweighs what they do against us), nor do I feel particularly unique in my reasons for hating them, at least not any more. Ever since I've seen what they do to me done to countless daughters-in-law in movies and TV, it's been hard to feel special about that.

Yes, I said hate.
I may even have meant it.

Eighteen. That's how old I was when I moved out here, away from home and friends into a strange new world (Mars is nice, I used to think as I looked around the suburb of Detroit I found myself in) that was exactly that, no exageration. In Kalamazoo and Portage, there aren't even neighborhoods that look like what I found in Grosse Pointe, or what I continue to see. Sure, the town's got great parks, great schools, great 'networking potential' (or at least it did, but my theories on that are for a different entry, I think) and hundreds of other superlatives going for it . . . but it's also full of the rudest, snottiest people I've ever met in my life, kids not disincluded. Money, even old money, doesn't equal manners, though one (I) would think it ought. No, as far as etiquette goes, the kid from the poor town on the other side of the state, bordered on three sides by farms, is more educated than the doctors, lawyers and CEOs that surround her.

Anyway, I was eighteen. I was in love. I was young, and stupid, and countless other things that eighteen year olds are prone to be . . . and the first thing my in-laws did was discredit me to anyone that I came into contact with. For years, I was stupid, a whore, and . . . I don't think I've heard all the things they've said about me yet. I know I really don't want to. The first time I heard someone say something along those lines, it felt like a smack (not a slap, smack has a far more satisfying ring to it, and it's more like how it felt) to the face. I know I got very pale except for the apples of my cheeks and my forehead were, which were very red. I know that my eyes were very wide, and the dark, stormy blue-gray they only get when I'm about to cry or hit someone. I know my freckles stood out like braile, or maybe bas relief. I know these things because I was in the produce section of a produce store and I could see my reflection in the bowl-thing at the bottom of the scale. Didn't I see you with what's-his-name last night? If Jerry finds out . . . And then there was a lot of faux sympathetic, tell-me-more, unneeded and unwanted advice.

It wasn't the only time that, or something similar, happened.

When I got married, I was twenty. I'd had four male lovers (two of them were one night stands, one was a week-long fling, and the other was a 'real' relationship for several months) and one female (that lasted a year) who weren't my husband, and none of them before I was eighteen. The comments changed from what a whore I was to how stupid, or what a bad cook, or . . . whatever. Did Jerry teach you how to make that? I mean, if you made mashed potatoes out of a box . . . I know you only have your high school diploma, but . . . I don't even really pay attention any more, at least not until they get to a place where they discredit me in front of my kids.

I was twenty-three, or just a couple months shy of, when my older daughter was born. They started trying to take her (and other family members, but that's a different story) away from me that day - not physically, perhaps, but emotionally, mentally. To this day, they can't just admit she looks almost exactly like I did when I was a kid. Isn't it cute how much M looks like your sister, H? Look at that red hair, just like M's. As she's gotten older, it's escalated; now, they try to bribe her. Popsicles, candy, toys, money . . . it doesn't really matter what, so long as it's something she doesn't get from me on a regular basis. Love me more, they scream with each nearly forbidden treat they shove in her four-year-old face. Meanwhile, M's little sister, L, is all but forgotten in favor of M, who's nearly forgotten in favor of B, her cousin. And they wonder why they don't see my girls often.

So, yeah. Almost everyone hates their in-laws . . . add my name to that list, too.

Carnivals and Magic

From the top of the ferris wheel, I can see over Lake St. Clair in one direction, and far past the confines of the carnival in any other; it’s a hazy, hot afternoon and up there, I get a little lurching feeling in the pit of my stomach if I brave the notion of looking down rather than out, over. I can hear the blings and blips of the midway below me, so much quieter up here than down on the ground, amidst the throngs. Up here, the wind is stronger, cooler, and I think I’ve actually stopped sweating (because I’ve cooled off enough, not because I’m dehydrated). The gondolas are old and smell slightly of urine and bleach and the smell of dead fish – or rather, dead fish flies - is as strong as the smell of malt vinegar on French fries, or the hot oil used to fry elephant ears and Belgian waffles.

In the down sweep, I come perilously close to the funhouse that’s set up right next to the ferris wheel – my older daughter is on the upstairs balcony of it, waving and yelling my name as each boat goes by her; when she actually sees me, her face lights up and I can’t help but smile.

On the way back up, I’m very careful to look at the lights, the bench across from me, the sky – anything that keeps me from realizing that instead of getting off, I’m going around again.

Ferris wheels are far more frightening than roller coasters, I think. They take longer, and unless you’re kissing (or doing other things, which I have) a significant other, it seems like you’re floating through the air on a flimsy bit of tin foil and cardboard for hours. Give me the significant other any day – but today, I’m alone. I don’t remember why.

Finally, the ride lurches to a stop (my stomach rises to my throat), and I’m about a third of the way through the down sweep. At least I’m not all the way at the top this time – it only takes a few minutes for my gondola to stutterstart to the bottom so I can get out and meet back up with my friends and children, to go play a game, or perhaps ride a different ride.

I can’t remember when I forgot how to believe in magic – the magic of the carnival, the magic of anything. I used to talk to the faeries, like my daughters do. I used to be able to see things that no one else could imagine. But today? Today, I’m hot and thirsty and my feet hurt, and the shouting of the barkers and the now louder blings and blips are giving me headaches.

Today, I just want to go home.

Quizzes

You Should Be a Song Writer

You have the ability to evoke emotion, tell a story, and hook someone... In a very small amount of words, perhaps with some deft rhyming. Even if you can't write music, you can sure write compelling lyrics. Lyrics so good, people will have them stuck in their heads!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are very passionate and quite temperamental. While you can be moody, you always crave comfort. You are a very grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it. You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true. Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it. For you, falling in love has never been easy. You can only fall for someone who is very patient and persistent.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

What American City Are You?

Yay, Lyrics!

K'wyn and Yena's fault
Step 1: Put your MP3 player on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play.
Step 3: Ask everyone to guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.
Step 5: No cheating. (Note: Google is cheating.)

1. David Bowie, Changes
Oh yeah / mmm / still don't know what I been waiting for
Corey

2. Tal Bachman, She's So High
she's blood, flesh and bone
DD

3. Afghan Whigs, Hated
I smoke a pack a day
Corey

4. The time to rise has been engaged

Extra Credit 1: Só danço samba

5. Hey mom, there's something in the back room

6. The Heads, The King Is Gone
They came from the second city
Corey

7. Ain't had no fun all the time

8. Prepare to go forth

9. You're running fast and missing but cannot help convincing.

10. The Who, My Generation
People try to get us down
bonus points if you know more than one band who's covered this
Thess, who also got the extra credit

11. They Might Be Giants, Number Three
There's only two songs in me and I just wrote the third
Rob

12. The Pixies, Wave of Mutilation
There was a guy / an underwater guy who controlled the sea
Rob

13. Baby I don't like to tell ya

14. Smashing Pumpkins, 33
Speak to me in a language I can hear humour me before I have to go
Rob

15. Ani DiFranco, Company
Tell me what's the point / of all this pointless proximity
Alan Turing

16. Motley Crue, In the Beginning
In the beginning / Good always overpowered the evils / Of all mans sins
Corey

17. Tom Waits, What's He Building
What's he building in there / what the hell is he building
Rob

18. Once upon a sign I read a warning and it said

Extra Credit 2: ya sé que no vendrás

19. The Arcade Fire, In the Backseat
I like the peace / in the backseat
Rob

20. Here I lay motionless / catch me if you can

21. Beatles, Sun King
Here comes the sun king
Rob

22. Long legs don't give me no head rush in the morning

23. I didn't ask for as much / as maybe I oughtta

24. The Fray, Over My Head (Cable Car)
I never knew / I never knew that everything was falling through
K'wyn

25. Hey there / I know it's hard to feel