Toe in the Water

Offline Again

2012-01-30T13:42:00.001-06:00

Since my last post, I've exchanged one cast for another, larger cast. When my doctor removed the original cast, my hand still felt wrong, and my suspicions were confirmed when X-rays revealed a broken bone. He put ma in a larger cast, further delaying my recovery from shoulder surgery in December. Worse is that my finger--the break is in the area of my index finger, around where carpel meets metacarpal--feels better elevated, which, depending on where I'm sitting, causes pain in my shoulder to kick in. At times I need to lie down simply not to hurt. I'm spending a lot of time that way. It sucks.

I see my shoulder surgeon tomorrow. I last saw him three days before hurting my hand, so it'll be interesting to see his reaction. As for me, having only the use of my thumb makes even the most rudimentary of skills almost impossible, but it's stretchy pants and camis with shelf bras for the foreseeable future...and as little time online as possible.

What's Going On?

2012-01-23T13:35:00.001-06:00

I started having pain in my left arm this summer. I thought I had pulled a muscle, so I rested it for a couple of weeks. It didn't help, so I saw a shoulder specialist, who took X-rays and explained that it was referred pain from my shoulder. He gave me a shot of cortisone and sent me to physical therapy. Though the physical therapy worked to an extent, my second visit to that doctor showed me he didn't really understand what was going on with my shoulder.

My physical therapist recommended another specialist, whom I learned was in partnership with the shoulder specialist my husband saw a couple of years ago when he had trouble with his left shoulder. (He had had shoulder surgery shortly before we got married because his shoulder kept dislocating. Though his surgeon had long ago retired, he referred his patients to the specialist my husband saw a couple of years ago.)

Although I didn't know it at the time, it turns out it's my husband's doctor is the top shoulder specialist in the city. Luckily he saw me right away, looked at my older X-rays, and gave me a 2nd shot of cortisone, one which actually worked for a few days. Both my physical therapist and I noticed an immediate improvement in my shoulder, but a week later it had started to regress. So I went back to the doctor, who indicated that the shot had been as much for diagnostic purposes as it had been for pain. We talked about it, he sent me for an MRI, and after getting those results, scheduled surgery for a few days before Christmas.

Everyone in my side of the family has a very low threshold of pain, so after surgery when the doctor said my shoulder had been really messed up, I was actually relieved. Not only was there a tear in the rotator cuff, but the bone spur he had expected in my shoulder had actually broken off, leaving everything inflamed and disgusting. I had just started physical therapy again, a week after my surgery, when my husband, daughter and I went to see A Dangerous Method. I missed the last step going down a large flight of stairs and landed directly on my left wrist. After trying to ignore the pain through lunch, I noticed a huge blood clot had developed on my wrist, and we ended up at a nearby doc in the box. Two hours later I learned nothing had broken but that my left arm, hand, and fingers were badly sprained. They splinted my hand and wrist and sent me on my way.

When, a few days later I realized I kept re-injuring my hand, my husband suggested I see a specialist. He agreed that nothing was broken but I left his office with my wrist hand and fingers in a cast. I am supposed to have the cast removed this week, and I hope most of the swelling, pain, and general ickiness will be gone. I did take a break from PW duties for the last week in December, and have muddled through my last three reviews using DragonDictate, a voice recognition program I am using to write this very blog entry. I wish I had had Dragon Dictate back in November when I researched and wrote my 1st publishers weekly feature article, which required me to interview 20 authors, then writes eight hours a day for two days to complete the piece.

All of this explains why I've not blogged in months, but this weekend, when I went to look something up in my old blog, I discovered it was gone. Blog-city.com apparently went off line on December 31. I did not know they were going bye-bye, because all their e-mails to me must have been sent to my old AAR address, which has been defunct for 3 years.

This had a very disheartening effect on me; that's more than 6 1/2 years of writing, including probably 100 reviews. Even worse was discovering that I did not have complete archives for the blog. When I switched from PC to Mac this summer, I needed to jettison old files, all of which I had backed up. Unfortunately, the process of transferring files did not go entirely as planned, and not everything made it through the process. Among the lost files was a huge XML file containing the old blog in its entirety. I contacted blog-city.com's owners this weekend, and have requested they try to send me another backup. In the interim, I decided to upload here on blogger the files I did retain, which includes everything from the original blog's inception in 2002 to early 2007. There is simply too much good stuff for me to let go entirely, and it's a shame that all those links from AAR and Heroes and Heartbreakers are now useless. But by my uploading the blog here--each month is a single entry--I will feel better. I can only hope that those missing months can be accounted for. As for the password-protected portions of blog, I have no clue whether or not they were/are included in the archive files, but I'll soon find out. So far I've uploaded August, September, and October 2002.

As for my injuries, I plan to work through any remaining discomfort associated with my shoulder and arm in trying to get back into online writing. The hand may slow me down, but now that I know that anything I do to my shoulder cannot damage my shoulder, I'm going to grin and bear it.

See you here and there!

Paul Simon Giveaway Results

2011-11-14T18:22:00.000-06:00

Congratulations, Lynne Welch, for winning this Paul Simon Giveaway. A copy of the 40th edition Bridge Over Troubled Water is on its way to you!

Professional Milestone

2011-11-14T13:36:00.001-06:00

Today marks a professional milestone for me; Publishers Weekly published my very first—and bylined—feature article. Here's how it happened.

One of my PW editors, Rose Fox, emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd be interested in working on a feature article for the upcoming romance issue of the magazine. The topic? Author online self-promotion. With a two-week turnaround time and a brief to include authors from a variety of imprints/lines/publishers, and a list of publicists for the major publishers, I jumped in.

Emails back and forth to the publicists, my suggestions and theirs, and I put together a list of more than 20 authors. They represented all romance subgenres, included debuting and long-published authors, those who kept it strictly professional online and those who treated readers to personal or off-the-cuff commentary, those who started blogging for fun and those who began to blog as part of a plan to become published. Some intrigued me for other reasons; one because she found a unique way to promote herself by not actively promoting herself, another because she'd sold a quarter of a million ebooks before being picked up by a mainstream publisher, and a third because of her pop culture connections. I did not know most of the authors, but some I knew from my years at AAR.

Twenty interviews later, with 36 pages worth of Q&A and follow ups, I sat down to actually write the article. It took me two eight-hour days to complete it, and another couple of hours to come up with the sidebar of do's and don'ts Rose asked me to pull out of the article itself and use to create a sidebar, along with quotes from the interviews to match.

My draft was due to Rose on Monday, November 14th; because I'd exceeded the 2,100 word count by 500 words (what else is new?), and didn't have a clue if it was any good whatsoever, I emailed it to her the Friday before so she would have plenty of time to edit (and I could rewrite if necessary). And then spent a sleepless night wondering if she'd hate it or approve.

I woke up at 5:30 that Saturday morning from the pain of a dreadful, full-frontal headache, presumably a tension-release headache like those that plagued me after finals all throughout college and graduate school. I checked my email and discovered a couple from Rose. First, and I'm totally channeling my one-time baby-sitter Sally Field here...she liked it, she really liked it! Next, she asked me to secure print-ready cover art for the article. I took a migraine pill and went back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that I hadn't fucked up my chance to prove I could write a magazine-quality feature article.

Over the next few days I gathered up all the print-ready cover art, and went through Rose's edits to clarify certain points. As always, her edits transformed my lowly draft into something terrific. Today the print version of the magazine went on sale, and those with subscriptions to PW can access it online.

The payday for the article is roughly the amount I receive for a year's worth of reviewing, and while the money itself isn't what's important, that my writing is worth it means a lot to me. It only took me fourteen years to get a gig like this; hopefully it won't be another fourteen years to get another.

Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin

2011-11-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin

Grade: B

"Calvin Trillin is a wonderfully funny storyteller, whether or not his stories are true or fictional. He's a quintessential New Yorker, but his appeal is universal, if more than a little ethnic. I'd read previously many of the essays included in this new compilation, but re-reading them was just as funny the second time around. The essays, some of which are more than thirty years old, remain funny today; many that were written in the Reagan era could have been written last week. The included essays are short enough and filled with enough gems of humor that they simply cry out to be read aloud, and in this instance my husband was the happy recipient."

Read this review in its entirety at Amazon. It is not a Vine review; I received a digital copy from the publisher.

Paul Simon: Graceland or Bridge Over Troubled Water Giveaway

2011-10-29T14:00:00.001-05:00

Last night we went to a Paul Simon concert. It was amazing. This teeny little 70-year-old man whose songbook is nearly as old as I am, with horrendous arthritis, entertained a happy audience along with his eight-member band for more than two hours.

The concert began with an opening act: The Secret Sisters, two sisters from Alabama who performed old school country music. I am no fan of country music, but they captivated me with their harmonies, the songs they sang, and how they connected with the audience. T Bone Burnett produced their first album, and they are currently at work on their second. If you want to be transported musically to Mayberry, and I mean that as a compliment, consider The Secret Sisters.

After this astonishingly good opening act, Paul Simon strolled onto the stage, to a standing ovation, and proved throughout the concert just why he deserved it. Though I would have liked a few more of his Simon & Garfunkel songs, his solo acoustic version of Sounds of Silence answered a question I've had for years: How good would a S&G song be without Garfunkel? Very good indeed, because his guitar playing was so lyrical.

Each of his band members played multiple instruments; one of his two guitarists played a saxaphone, the keyboardist played either the marimba or the vibes, and one of the two percussionists played the washboard in a Zydeco piece. And let me say this: Audiences love Jewish boys who sing gospel (cue Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis).

Simon's lyrics are unique; many of his songs are not the typical love song. Obviously he was politically active in the 60s and what worked then is equally prescient today in the current climate. Carwash and My Little Town, in particular; the latter of which reminded me of Sarah Palin and her talk about small town virtues in a way I'd never considered before when hearing that song.

Some of my favorite moments came when Simon played songs off his landmark Graceland album. I ask you: Who among us does not adore Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes? The only song missing as far as I was concerned was You Can Call Me Al. He came out for two encores, and each time I hoped I'd hear it start, but after his final song in the second encore, Still Crazy After All These Years, the house lights turned up and it was, sadly, over.

In honor of Paul Simon and Graceland, I'm giving away one of two favorite Paul Simon goodies:

(1) A remastered version of Graceland on iTunes.
(2) The 40th anniversary edition of Bridge over Troubled Water, which includes not only the CD, but two DVDs. One reissues S&G's Songs of America documentary and the other is an amazing look into the history of recording BOTW. Earlier this year I watched that history documentary on cable, and loved it so much I bought this CD/DVD set...even though I saved the doc on my DVR and already own BOTW.

If you would like to be eligible to win one of these...the winner can choose between the two...click here and send me an email. Type Paul Simon into the subject line and include in your email whether you want (1) Graceland or (2) Bridge Over Troubled Water, as well as your snail mail address so I can mail your prize if you choose the second option. If you go for the iTunes download, provide the email address associated with your iTunes account. You must live in the U.S. to qualify and I must receive your entry by midnight, Eastern Time, November 11th (I like the symmetry of 11/11/11).

New at H&H: A Kiss Is Not Just a Kiss

2011-10-28T15:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a cortisone shot in my shoulder (ouch!), and on Wednesday discovered a desk in our house at precisely the right level to type without hurting said shoulder, so...I'm once again able to write. Which means that online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: A Kiss Is Not Just a Kiss.

During my last year at AAR I wrote an ATBF column about one of my DIK reads, Lora Leigh's Dawn's Awakening. This new article for H&H rifs off that one, answering this question:

What do these things have in common?
The Science of Kissing
The Argument For and Against Romance Bond Mates

Click here to read A Kiss Is Not Just a Kiss, then post a comment over at H&H.

Forced Hiatus

2011-10-14T15:37:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago I injured my shoulder. I thought it was a pulled muscle, but when it didn't get better itself, I finally went to a doctor a few weeks ago, who put me on Celebrex. Earlier this week she sent me to a specialist, who diagnosed me and prescribed a month's worth of physical therapy on top of the Celebrex. The shoulder issue radiates pain down my upper arm to just below my elbow, and typing exacerbates the situation. As a result I'm trying to stay offline as much as possible; most of my posting for the past several weeks has been via my Droid, simply linking to various articles on FB and Twitter.

I hope to be back to full strength shortly; if not, I'll be getting a cortisone shot at the very least (epidurals were mentioned). Once I'm back to normal, look for me to start posting here again, and to return to Heroes & Heartbreakers; I have two articles I stopped mid-way through. Even more frustrating is that reading a print book makes the discomfort worse, so on top of everything, I'm depressed that my favorite pastime now hurts (the irony being that it's how I read that led to the injury over a long period of time in the first place). My Kindle is getting a major workout, but that doesn't help with the PW books I've been assigned to review as none so far have been in digital format.

Anyway, here's to hoping my forced hiatus ends soon.

Snarked on Net Neutrality

2011-10-01T17:03:00.003-05:00

I've written before about Net Neutrality, and probably a quarter of my tweets relate to the issue. The FCC's Net Neutrality rules just went into effect, and Free Press is one of several entities to file suit against the FCC. The rules, you see, don't provide for true Net Neutrality; while they address the issue where land-based computers are concerned, they don't for wireless.

It's hard to get a handle on how much profit Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint make per cellular customer, but enough is never really enough, is it? AT&T recently eliminated the ability to buy a limited number of texts in favor of a $20.00 option for unlimited texts. I believe wireless companies make approximately a 10,000% texting profit. Another example: When I tried to change our existing plan to less than 700 minutes, I learned the 400 minute option—which would have worked for us as our daughter does most of her talking at night and on weekends— had disappeared. Like restaurants charging more for ever-larger plates, cellular providers are closing out less expensive options in favor of larger profits. And as there's so little competition, who's to stop them?

Free Press, a national, nonpartisan group working to reform media, sends out daily emails about media-related news. Many of those news items these days relate to the activities surrounding the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger (different filings made by AT&T as various items have leaked surrounding costs and jobs, lobbying money spent on Congress, unions, and corporations to win their support, and the recent Justice Department's Anti-Trust filing) to the fight for and against Net Neutrality.

I spend a lot of time reading articles linked to by Free Press in newspapers, magazines, online journals, The Huffington Post, etc., because the issue of Net Neutrality is important to me as a writer and former web publisher. You can imagine, then, that I was more than a little perturbed when I read the following headline yesterday on the Techland blog for @Time by @MattPeckham: Net Neutrality Proponents Sued by Net Neutrality Proponents? Though Peckham eventually cuts to the chase, it's not until four paragraphs in that he addresses the issue; until then the suit is made to sound frivolous and nonsensical. Here's the lead-in that follows the headline:

The folks who just officiated over net neutrality Internet regulations, the Federal Communications Commission, are being sued by—yep, the folks who fought to make net neutrality happen. Net neutrality's advocates suing net neutrality's enforcers?
True story.

Again, Peckham eventually makes Free Press' case, along with the FCC's response, but to me the article's headline, that snarky lead-in, and the lack of context related to the issue frustrated me. What's ultimately at stake is what the creators of the Internet envisioned, not a two-tiered system that cellular providers have already begun to force on customers.

It's clear that corporate interests already have a disproportionate impact on legislation, but articles like Peckham's do nothing to dispel the idea that corporate interests now infect journalism. The media bias I fear comes from corporate America, and that's what I worry filtered through into this particular article. "He said, he said" doesn't provide readers with the information they need to understand what's going on, any more than allowing politicians and their spin-meisters from making lies without being called on their bullshit because we've so perverted the concept of equal time that lies and reality now share the stage.

Yesterday I tweeted my displeasure and early today Matt Peckham answered me in a tweet. And then he snarked me by posting about a #Superficial #Reader" and linking back to his article on the Techland Blog. Ouch!

Invicta Men's 1107 Pro Diver Chronograph Black Dial Black Polyurethane Watch

2011-09-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

Men's 1107 Pro Diver Chronograph Black Dial Black Polyurethane Watch

Invicta

Grade: C

When this watch became available on Amazon Vine, I ordered it for my brother-in-law to try because he is quite tall and the watch face, at 49 milimeters, is large. After wearing it for a month, he provided me with these pros and cons, first noting that the watch is a diver's watch and he does not dive...

Read this Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

The Mashboard

2011-09-19T23:56:00.000-05:00

It's 11:30, the DH is sleeping as he has an early morning, so it's just me listening to Rachael's radio show on KHDX 93.1 at Hendrix. I'm very proud of my very musical daughter and the unique angle she's found to entertain people. Her show is called The Mashboard, and her Monday night playlist features various mash-ups like this one—Norwegian Recycling's No Taylor, No Scar, which includes music from Missy Higgins, Men at Work, Jack Johnson, and Wyclef Jean.

I've enjoyed all of the mashups she's played tonight, even the one that features the altogether annoying Fireflies by Night Owl. If you get a chance next Monday night, you can listen on your computer like I'm doing tonight. I think you'll like it.

It's time to sign off now, and I'll do so as soon as Hulk Mash's mashup of Ke$ha, Taylor Swift, and Maroon 5 comes to a close.

Bad Logic

2011-09-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning as I flipped through the channels, I heard Senator Lindsey Graham expound the Republican talking points on why raising taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs won't fix the unemployment problem. See, it may work in the short run, but it won't work in the long run. Here's why he's wrong.

Right now we're in danger of a double dip recession because of high unemployment, which feeds low consumer confidence. Low consumer confidence means we aren't spending enough money to cause businesses to hire new employees.

Regardless of how "short term" the results might be in terms of hiring people to rebuild our quite literally crumbling infrastructure, all those newly working people would lower the unemployment rate. They would be paid real money, which they would then spend, pumping money into the economy. The result of lowering unemployment for a period of several years and the accompanying pumping of money into the economy would undoubtedly raise consumer confidence, which would pump more money into the economy, raising the demand for goods and services, thereby giving business more reason to expand their businesses.

And that, my friends, is the "long term."

New at H&H: Fresh Meat: Theresa Weir's Orchard

2011-09-15T10:16:00.002-05:00

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Theresa Weir's Orchard (excerpted below)

***

My criticism of romances filled with darkness often goes something like this: “The book’s unrelenting darkness went entirely over the top and into melodrama, piling one bad thing onto another. Real people’s lives are not the Perils of Pauline.”

After reading Theresa Weir’s new memoir, The Orchard, I may be forced to revise that criticism. Apparently one bad thing after another can befall a person. The question is...do I want to read it?

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to comment on The Orchard, Theresa Weir, or memoirs in general at H&H once you've read it.

2011-09-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

Sweet Invention

Michael Krondl

Non-Fiction

Grade: B-

Michael Krondl’s Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert, takes readers on an often fascinating journey of desserts in six “dessert superpower” regions: India, the Middle East, Italy, France, Austria, and the United States. The history of food...even of the icing on the cake as opposed to the cake itself...is as terrific a way to impart knowledge as is the history of fashion. Both are surprisingly good as they give us an accessible way to track changes over time in arenas as diverse as politics, economics, religion, transportation and other technological advances, gender issues, the culture as a whole, and how societies are organized over time.

Though copiously researched, Krondl doesn’t give each of the six “superpowers” equal time, which may satisfy historians more than the casual student of history or foodie. I learned a great many tidbits about India in particular, and I’m glad now to know that they love their sweets; that because there are so many gods/goddesses and avatars, there are lots and lots of sweet-filled holidays; that sweets are more associated with boys than girls; that the lack of Western-type ovens results in lots and lots of fried sweets and none that are baked; and that the circumcision of boys does not occur at birth but rather between the ages of seven and twelve. But I wish more word count had been devoted to the particular history I crave: European and “American.” I realize this says as much about my character deficiencies as it does the book’s, but the history I did learn about the intersection of dessert and culture, gender, economics, politics, and people in Europe and the U.S. was so fascinating I simply craved more.

For instance, I already knew the American preference for milk chocolate as opposed to the French preference for darker, less sweet chocolate, but I didn’t know how Milton Hershey’s deprived childhood played into it. Or that population density...or lack thereof...along with changes in technology, the move from feudal, rural, and aristocratic cultures to urban living and the eventual growth of the middle class tied into when we ate, who prepared our savories and sweets, and for whom they were prepared. Krondl creates linkages out of changes in social economic status, democracy, even the Baby Boom, and his thought-provoking connections deserve study.

It seems obvious that if the mode of dress for an adult male is the same as it is for a 12-year-old boy (jeans, t-shirt, baseball cap), that his palette will differ from an adult male who requires a valet to dress and groom himself. It seems equally obvious that when a culture is focused on maintaining a power structure or Keeping Up with the Rothchilds, different attitudes toward food will develop in comparison to cultures simply sustaining themselves on the frontier...or those with a focus on individuality, portability, and ease of creation. These things seem obvious but only after you begin to actually consider them.

What worked less for me were all the desserts that frankly sounded quite the same to me. Yes, the actual history of the Sacher and Linzer Tortes intrigued me; I was less fascinated with the myriad descriptions of this or that fried sweet. Sometimes a donut, after all, is just a donut. Why not, instead of only focusing on how sugar is refined and how pricing affected dessert, also delve into the varieties of caramel, who invented the creme brûlée, or indeed thought to brûlée sugar?

My only other criticism is that I felt the author gave short shrift to some of the more modern history of dessert, although his insight that today’s restaurant pastry chefs are more innovative than are those at bakeries and pâtisseries was spot on. Sweet Invention wasn’t a perfect recipe for the history of dessert, but it provides ample food for thought.

Republican Autism

2011-08-22T15:13:00.001-05:00

Earlier today I read about a link between autism and anorexia. Anorexics often display behavior that those who understand the Spectrum might recognize, including rigid thinking that revolves around rituals. Which made a great deal of sense a few moments ago when I read a piece by Roger Lowenstein in the new issue of Newsweek that as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, "the government has suffered from self-induced anorexia."

Think about all those wacky Republicans who signed Grover Norquist's No New Taxes...Ever pledge, and the "magical thinking," as Fareed Zakaria calls it, they exhibit, in believing the deficit can be reduced entirely by cutting spending. If the U.S. is suffering from anorexia, it seems to me that these no-tax Republicans (ie, just about all Republicans, btw), are exhibiting Spectrum behavior. Full blown autism or simply Aspergers? That I can't say, but I sure wish I could shake a snow globe and make it all go away like a bad dream.

John Hodgman on Bookstores

2011-08-17T11:06:00.000-05:00

Last night John Hodgman appeared on The Daily Show to discuss with Jon Stewart the End of Borders...and how brick and mortar bookstores might compete in the digital age with Amazon. Although I take exception to being called a snarky nerd (I left the snark at home when I worked at B&N), this is brilliantly funny.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Most Eligible Dallas

2011-08-16T11:47:00.002-05:00

Where do I begin in my assessment of the premiere last night of Bravo's Most Eligible Dallas? Craptastic? Eye-gougingly obnoxious?

As a result of last night's debut, I'm even more embarrassed than usual that I live in Dallas. Let me introduce the cast of characters:

A one-time third-string quarterback from UT whom I believe now works for his daddy
A free-agent football player who's been on so many NFL teams in a decade he can't keep count, now looking to jump-start a modeling career (he's gorgeous—and boy, does he know it!—but his abs are actually scary)
A gay ex-fattie who takes bragging about wealth to a new level and also injects himself daily with so much female hormone (to stay thin) he could pass a pregnancy test
A woman in denial about her love for the third stringer
Another woman, this one with the redeeming quality of loving animals, unfortunately mitigated by her tremendous pride in living two blocks from George W. Bush
A single mother who had the temerity to go out on the town and enjoy an evening with [supposed] grown-ups rather than her one-year-old baby, leaving the woman in denial in a state of apoplectic seizure.

It seemed very odd to me that the sub-text of that last related to how many of the adults the single mother knew. Turns out she only knew one of the five because she's newly back in town. According to these Brilliant Lights of Dallas, a single mother may only leave her baby with a sitter if she knows everybody at the table, leaving me to wonder whether these personages ever had baby sitters when they were young, or if their moms and dads never left the house after dark.

Rachael loved Most Eligible Dallas. I hated it, so much, in fact, that it made me long for the return of Rachel Zoe, perhaps the whiniest, most annoying toothpick on the planet. Harold...somewhere in the middle.

A Web-Based Transition

2011-08-15T14:43:00.000-05:00

My desktop blew up a couple of weeks ago. It was just about seven years old, and though it was built for power and speed, I put it through the ringer during my years at the helm of AAR. Serviced several times in the last couple of years, I knew it would go at any moment, so when it died, I wasn't altogether surprised.

The biggest pain in the ass associated with its loss was coping with iTunes. It took an entire weekend to make it work properly via my laptop from its backup on an external hard drive, but because my laptop is itself several years old and not in the best condition, until iCloud becomes fully functional this fall and I can move all my music (including non-iTunes music) online, I'm being smart and keeping the library on that external hard drive rather than chancing my music to my laptop.

Frankly, because my laptop seems to also be on its last legs, and because I often resort to using our "family desktop," which is old and slow, I need to move as much as I can into web-based applications. Copies of all my PW reviews beginning with this year are now a part of Googledocs, and rather than maintain a database that tracks the assignment of a book through publication and payment, I created a Googledocs spreadsheet to do so. While I can't make the form for PW invoices work properly in Googledocs, I can for Macmillan (Heroes & Heartbreakers), and so I have. My PW invoices are saved both to my laptop and a flash drive (my Calibre library and a copy of my Kindle files are also on flash drives); the same goes for my H&H articles, which also don't save correctly in Googledocs.

As of today I've translated my reading database into a Googledocs spreadsheet. I'd initially tried to create a database elsewhere online using a "free" application, but the app charges $240 a year to create backups. Ain't gonna happen. The spreadsheet isn't as detailed or quite as useful, but as I've begun to use my husband's netbook to conserve my laptop for those things I cannot do using web-based applications, it'll have to do.

Because of Google's meltdown a few months ago during which time thousands of user accounts were unavailable, I'm making sure to mail myself copies of certain documents to a web-mail account entirely outside of Google's system...or saving them to a flash drive. After working with computers for so long, I know it's imperitive to have at least one backup of everything.

Making use of cloud computing makes sense if using more than one computer, as many of us already do. I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but apparently it's the coming thing, and I know I must adapt. Doing so requires giving up some control as far as design is concerned, but at this point, accessibility and convenience win out over perfection, particularly as it's perfection only important to me.

At some point I will need to replace my laptop, but refuse to shell out the money to buy one right now. Ever since my days at the City of Dallas, when I scrounged my computer out of the trash of a department with an actual technology budget, I've learned to make do. Although it's been a lifetime since then, it's still my M.O.. When I absolutely need to buy a new computer, I will. Hopefully the prices will have fallen by then. My guess is that that time is coming sooner rather than later, but if I can make the transition to The Cloud between now and then, so much the better.

Withering Tights by Louise Rennison

2011-08-13T18:06:00.002-05:00

Withering Tights

Louise Rennison

Young Adult/Chick Lit for Teens

Grade: B

"As an avid fan of the first several Georgia Nicholson books, I jumped at the chance to read and review Withering Tights, which kicks off a new series by Louise Rennison. Although my daughter and I both outgrew the original series by the time we'd finished book five, I hoped for the best, and was not at all disappointed."

Read this Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

New at H&H: Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady

2011-08-07T16:51:00.002-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady.

Years ago, at an RWA conference in Atlanta, I sat down for breakfast with Anne Stuart, and invited Megan Frampton to join us. It was one of many author meetings during the conference, but along with a spot of tea with Linda Howard in her suite and a Diet Coke with Jill Marie Landis in the lobby, it was my favorite. Both Megan and I are Anne Stuart fangirls, and this was initially to be one half of a column, with Megan writing the other half. With all her editorial and writing duties at H&H, she simply didn't have time to do that second half, and because—as usual—my part is quite long enough, it's gone up on H&H by itself today as a solo article.

Click here to read Anne Stuart and My Fair Lady, then post a comment over at H&H.

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

2011-08-06T14:56:00.001-05:00

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl

Celia Rivenbark

Humor

Grade: B-

"If Joe Bob Briggs and Libby Gelman-Waxner had a love-child (improbable in more ways than one, not the least of which is that both were invented characters) who grew up Southern and wrote a book, she would be Celia Rivenbark and the book would be You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl. Filled with colorful, inventive and often invented prose, pop culture-infused content that remains unconcerned with political correctness, mockery of self and others, the book is breezy and easy to read fun."

Read this brief Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

New at H&H: Lauren Dane's Troubled Heroines

2011-08-03T13:00:00.003-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Lauren Dane’s Troubled Heroines and Their Sexual Freedom. I'll let you know up front: It's pretty long, but it includes discussion of half a dozen books. Initially it was a full third longer, but I trimmed down the excerpts to the bare bone, and Megan assures me it's not too long. She's a great editor, so if she says it's good, I accept the compliment. It begins:

"When I worked at the bookstore, I once helped set up a “thought-provoking read” table, and to my surprise, a book by erotic romance author Lauren Dane was on the list to include. The titles to include on display tables and end caps are determined by The Powers On High, and never before had I seen an erotic romance included, so my interest was definitely piqued."

Click here to continue reading Lauren Dane’s Troubled Heroines and Their Sexual Freedom, then post a comment over at H&H.

The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands

2011-08-03T11:50:00.004-05:00

The Philosopher and the Wolf

Mark Rowlands

Grade: B

Non-Fiction

The eleven years philosophy professor Mark Rowlands spent with Brenin the wolf at his side profoundly impacted his life. He came to see himself less as an owner or guardian to the animal than as his brother—generally older, but sometimes younger, depending on the lesson learned, and which of them learned it.

The author immediately learned, for instance, that he could not leave Brenin alone or within moments the wolf would make his displeasure known in severley destructive ways. An adjunct to that lesson: If you keep a wolf, you must add $50k onto the price of your home, to cover the damage. Lesson number two? Well, as a result of lesson number one, Brenin accompanied the professor to class. Over time that required him to adjust the class syllabus with a warning that unless students kept foodstuffs in their backpacks thoroughly locked up, they could expect a visit from a foraging wolf. A third lesson: Brenin’s natural, ahem, exuberence could only be overcome by fatigue, so Rowlands learned to tire him out each day through long, long runs. And a fourth: It’s possible to teach a wolf to heel, but you must out-alpha a wolf, and vigilantly maintain that stance throughout the relationship.

The most important lesson learned, though, was one Brenin taught Rowlands while still a pup. It’s predicated on the author’s thesis that as a result of evolution, the worldview of man is simian in origin. As such we rely on social intelligence, so that our subsequent civilization is built upon scheming, plotting, and lying. That's a condensed, bald description, but I think it's an accurate one. After all, in the review of the book by O, the Oprah Magazine, Rowlands is referred to as misanthropic. Which, frankly, is what drew me into requesting the book from @NetGalley for review.

Rowlands proves his point, at least to a degree. Think about it: We are here as a result of natural selection...survival of the fittest. Our ancestors didn’t stand in line for this or that—they made sure they went to the head of the line, or were the ones to create the line. They weren’t the nice ones or the meek, and the author describes in detail how a congregation of apes maintain their cohesion—through intimidation, side-deals, lying, and covering up—all of which makes his point rather nicely. His discussion of sex in the simian world versus the canine and lupine world fascinated me, and helped prove his point as well.

If apes rely on social intelligence, wolves rely on mechanical intelligence, and in ways that didn’t entirely carry through the process of domestication to dogs—did you know a wolf will learn how to open a door more quickly than a dog? Wolves are big on mechanical thinking while dogs accept a more magical form of thought, which he describes in a funny vingette about telephones.

There’s no subterfuge or grudge-holding in the wolf world; I kind of imagine, in reverse anthropomorphous, that Denis Leary would be a wolf. You see what you get, without any bullshit or sugar-coating.

When Brenin was around two months old...Rugger [a pit bull] lost his temper, grabbed Brenin by the neck and pinned him to the ground. Most puppies would have screeched out in shock and fear. Brenin growled. This was not the growl of a puppy, but a deep and calmn and sonorous growl that belied his tender age. That is strength. And that is what I have always tried to carry around with me, and I hope I always will. as an ape, I will fall short of this; but I have an obligation, a moral obligation, never to forget it and to emulate it as far as I can.If I can only be as strong as a two-month-old wolf cub, then I am a soil where moral evil will not grow.
An ape would have scurried away to darkly plot his revenge; to work out ways of manufacturing weakness in those who are stronger than him and who have humiliated him. And when that work is complete, then evil can be done. I am an ape through accident of birth. But in my best moments I am a wolf cub snarling out my defiance as a pit bull has smashed me into the ground. My growl is a recognition that pain is coming, for pain is the nature of life. It is the recognition that I am nothing more than a cub and, at any time, the pit bull of life can snap my neck like a twig. But it is also the will that I won’t back down, no matter what.
When the shit hits the fan, you will believe. When the shit hits the fan, people look for God. When the shit hits the fan, I remember a little wolf cub.

The Philosopher and the Wolf is filled with wonderful vingettes of Rowlands’ years with Brenin, interspersed with various philosophies, among them Sartre and Nietzche, to explain or justify various aspects of taking a wild animal and domesticating him. I’m not entirely sure his justification is 100% solid, but there’s no way I’m taking on a philosopher, who could talk a ring around me and lock me in within five minutes. In the end I'm satisfied Brenin's life was a happy one.

The book comes alive during those remembrances of Brenin, and occasionally falters when the philosophical or scientific sections seem to prattle on. It’s worth the prattling, because at the end the author does reach his point.

I love wolves and the idea of wolves, but this book is not solely for the wolf-obsessed. For the most part it's well-written, although the author's prose during the preface tended toward the purple. But as soon as Chapter One begins, with his bookending of Brenin's death and their first meeting and first hours together, I realized I was crying and laughing almost simultaneously. The lessons Rowlands imparts engross the reader because as all good teachers do, he provides vivid examples to accompany them. Because in the end what leaves the biggest impression for those who cherish animals, whether wild or domesticated, is the impact Brenin left on his brother.

A Remembrance of Pets Past

2011-08-02T17:18:00.001-05:00

I've been reading the utterly fascinating The Philosopher and the Wolf today, and though I'll be reviewing it tomorrow, one of its themes is downright Proustian: Animals are at our mercy in the civilized world.

***

One day while driving to the library in graduate school, I came upon an injured bird in the middle of an intersection in a residential neighborhood. Though I'm not a bird person, I felt I needed to save this poor little creature. After it was gathered up gently in a jacket, I drove to our nearby vet, and with tears streaming down my face, handed him the bird as though it were some sort of chalice, and begged him to save it.

The vet knew the bird didn't stand a chance, but he gave it a valiant effort anyway. My day at the library doing research shot to hell, I drove home instead, and shared my story with my husband, who could see how shaken I was by the experience. It's been nearly 30 years, but I tear up even now when thinking about that fallen bird.

A couple of years later, I visited my family in Los Angeles, and met my sister's new dog Joshua, some sort of miniature Samoyed. I loved this beautiful dog, and the feeling was mutual, so much so that by the time I left L.A. a few days later, it had taken a protective stance toward people moving too quickly in my direction. I think some sort of strange animal imprinting had taken place because Joshua never bonded with either my sister or her first husband and they eventually returned him to the breeder.

Joshua was one of many "off" animals in my life. Though I'd grown up a dog person, my husband and I had only owned cats. Our first, the first of many strays, was Praline, although I called her Kitty. Not very original, I know, but she was my first cat after a lifetime of dog ownership. I used to open the door and call, "Kitty, come home to mama," and she did. But only for me, and if she'd gotten stuck on the roof, extra coaxing was involved. When we moved from Dallas to L.A. at the end of the year, we had to leave Kitty behind with my eventual brother-in-law, Jack. I don't know what happened at this point, only that when we moved back to Dallas a year later, Kitty was Miss Strin (my maiden name), and the opposite of the sweet, loving pet I'd known.

We came back to Dallas with Raindrop, the first of our true rescue cats. Incredibly loving, playful, and snuggly, she was the first "she's not really like a cat" cat we owned. She suffered some major medical issues. Indeed, she may have been the first cat to have interferon treatments after a case of exposure nearly destroyed her little immune system. The shots worked, and she lived a very long and happy life.

We'd only been back in Dallas for a couple of years when we adopted Satchel, an injured, jet black stray. Satchel had a remarkable sweet tooth—he once ate an apple pie sitting on the counter. Raindrop really didn't know what to make of such a scaredy cat, but our vet actually called me after Satchel had been with us several months, and told me the story of a man who'd lost his cat and was desolate. Our vet knew we already had a cat, and asked if we'd let this grieving man adopt Satchel. After meeting up and taking his measure, we agreed, and gave Satchel over into his care.

Next up was Boo Boo, a cat who'd been abused. When my husband brought him home, his feet were burned, and though we needed another cat like a hole in the head, we nurtured him back to health, and gave him the love he needed and deserved. Boo Boo was the scardiest cat ever, and while I was pregnant with Rachael, and maternal hormones raged within me, his liver failed. The vet warned us that Boo Boo was on his last legs, but I was having none of it. If he wanted to eat a teaspoon of food at three a.m., I gave it to him. I sat with him, loved him, and willed him back to life, and his liver regenerated. The vet called it a miracle.

Right before my pregnancy with Rachael, I had a miscarriage, and during my recovery two stray cats appeared in the atrium outside my bedroom. I felt these cats had been given over to my protection—a baby had been taken away, but these were two new lives I needed to save—yet as we already had two cats, I was in no position to keep them. I did, however, feed them and coax them into accepting my touch, so that after awhile, I was able to hold them. At which point I took them to my vet, told him my story, and he agreed to take them in and find them homes. And he did.

On Mother's Day when Rachael was six, we woke up to a swimming pool of baby ducks. They were amazingly quick in the water, and Rachael and I needed to don our swimsuits to catch them. Chlorine isn't good for baby ducks, so animal control took them after we nabbed each one. It was an exhilarating experience, and the officer vowed the ducklings would be taken to Samuell Farm, a city-owned farm open for urban school-children to commune with "nature." I can only hope she did because to contemplate anything else, particularly on Mother's Day, was, is, and will always be abhorrent.

A year later Raindrop finally died...she was into her 20s by then...and we went to adopt a new cat. Our new vet had an animal rescue within her practice, and an entire litter to choose from. Bob (you know, Bob The Cat), was the sweetest of the group, and after he came home with us, his little paws rarely hit the ground because Rachael and her friends carried him so much. It turns out Bob had IBD, which meant a shortened life as a result of cancer, but also because of the lifetime of steroids he had to take on a daily basis. They made him eat like mad, and gave him a mild case of the jitters, so that he became a scaredy cat around anyone he didn't know. He wasn't with his mother long enough to know how to "knead the dough" (cat owners, you no doubt know what I mean), but he loved to be carried and cradled in my arms like a baby, on his back, and to have his belly or ears rubbed. He was the most handsome of cats and very nurturing, with that instinct some animals have to provide comfort and succor. Whenever one of us was sick, he knew, and in his own way, tried to nurse us back to health by sitting vigil on the bed. Bob loved a good nap with his mom...there will never be another Bob.

Perhaps a year after Bob moved in, Boo Boo died. Although my husband said, "No more cats," one day while Rachael and I were at the mall, the ASPCA's Christmas Adoption campaign was in full swing. Rachael found Baby, my heart melted, and Harold capitulated. Though tiny in stature, Baby has always been the princess of the house. She's the healthiest cat we've ever owned, but unfortunately, the loudest as well. She goes into a state of mourning every time Rachael leaves for school, and it's obvious she still misses Bob, her big brother. She comes when called, and like all our cats, she's very un-catlike. I say that with some pride because I can't stand aloof cats. None would dare live in our house.

It's funny...every time we've lost a cat, even with another one at home, I've felt the sole-deep urge for a new one. Bob changed all that. Baby remains young and healthy, with many years ahead of her. She'll be the last of our cats, but I feel we've done the job we were meant to do.

New at H&H: Ruth Langan's Strong Scottish Women

2011-07-29T17:29:00.002-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Strong Scottish Women: Ruth Langan’s MacAlpin Sisters Trilogy. It begins:

"A close friend of mine lives in Vermont. I met her at a castle in the Berkshires while she and her family lived in New York. Many months after we became friends, the two of us discovered we have similar taste in books. Sometimes when I pass along what I consider a great discovery, she’s already discovered the author. Mostly, though, my friend is excited to discover my new discoveries. And since we are both Kindle fanatics, when I learned earlier this month that five of Ruth Langan’s Highland series were bundled on sale at Amazon for less than a ten spot, I emailed her in a flash, adding a link to a quick interview I’d done with the author back in the day that compared romances set in the Scottish Highlands to those set in the American West, and just as quickly she wrote back to say she’d read the interview and downloaded the bundle."

Click here to continue reading Strong Scottish Women: Ruth Langan’s MacAlpin Sisters Trilogy, then post a comment over at H&H.

My Favorite Authors

2011-07-29T12:41:00.004-05:00

Back in the day I charted the authors who'd written multiple Desert Isle Keepers. I thought it might be fun to change it slightly. This new chart includes all authors with at least one DIK, and if they have [only] one DIK, they must also have two B+ reads. I may also do another chart of the next rung "down"—one DIK and [just] one B+/multiple B's (think Madeline Hunter), or authors with lots of B range grades (such as MaryJanice Davidson or Calvin Trillin), mostly at the upper end (like Anne Rivers Siddons). I'm also considering a chart of authors with the widest variation of grades, like Catherine Coulter, who has lots of DIKs, but also many D's/F's.

In the chart that follows, if you see this color, it refers to an addition over the original chart, and includes individual books, authors, and the entire "B+" column.

My Favorite Authors (if only one DIK, than also two B+s)
Author	DIKs	B+
Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb	Born in Fire Chesapeake Blue Jewels of the Sun Sea Swept Ceremony in Death Naked in Death Portrait in Death Promises in Death Rapture in Death Seduction in Death Survivor in Death	Betrayal in Death Born in Ice Creation in Death Divided in Death Glory in Death Imitation in Death Inner Harbor Judgment in Death A Little Magic One Man's Art Origin in Death Playing the Odds Purity in Death The Pride of Jared McKade Reunion in Death Rising Tides
Julie Garwood	The Bride Castles The Gift Honor's Splendour Lion's Lady The Prize Rebellious Desire Saving Grace The Secret	Gentle Warrior
Catherine Coulter	Calypso Magic Midsummer Magic Moonspun Magic Night Fire The Sherbrooke Bride	The Courtship
Anne Rice	Interview with the Vampire The Queen of the Damned Taltos The Witching Hour	Blackwood Farm Lasher Pandora The Vampire Lestat
Anne Stuart	Breathless Ice Storm A Rose at Midnight To Love a Dark Lord	Black Ice Cold as Ice
Kathryn Lynn Davis	All We Hold Dear Somewhere Lies the Moon Too Deep for Tears
Mary Alice Monroe	The Beach House Sweetgrass	Swimming Lessons Time Is a River
Deborah Simmons	The Last Rogue The Vicar's Daughter	The Devil Earl The Gentleman Thief
Jillian Hunter	Fairy Tale Indiscretion	The Seduction of an English Scoundrel
Julia Quinn	How To Marry a Marquis Splendid	It's in His Kiss
Katherine Sutcliffe	Dream Fever A Fire in the Heart	My Only Love
Connie Brockway	All Through the Night My Dearest Enemy
Christina Dodd	My Favorite Bride A Well-Pleasured Lady
Mary Balogh	A Secret Affair	The Ideal Wife The Obedient Bride The Temporary Wife
Ann Brasheres	Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants	Forever in Blue Girls in Pants The Second Summer
Elizabeth Lowell	Too Hot to Handle	Chain Lightning Only Mine Winter Fire
Gail Carriger	Soulless	Changeless Heartless
Linda Howard	To Die For	Drop Dead Gorgeous Duncan's Bride
Johanna Lindsey	Prisoner of My Desire	Man of My Dreams Once a Princess
Christopher Moore	A Dirty Job	Bloodsucking Fiends Lamb

Whaddya think?

BTW, Goodreads and my tags at Goodreads made this an easy task as I have a tag for Desert Isle Keepers, and separate my B+'s from other B's by star (4=B+, 3=B/B-)

New at H&H: Angela Knight's Mageverse Series

2011-07-28T16:08:00.001-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Angela Knight's Mageverse Series: Masterful Men and the Women Who Bewitch Them. It begins:

"Earlier this month the writer Lev Grossman wrote a piece for Time entitled How Harry Potter Became the Boy Who Lived Forever. Grossman, who in addition to his duties writing about technology at Time writes fantasy novels—The Magicians, to be followed by The Magician King in August, was a big success a couple of years ago—tackled the misunderstood world of Fan Fiction, which he describes as 'what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker,' adding that it 'is still the cultural equivalent of dark matter...largely invisible to the mainstream, but at the same time, it’s unbelievably massive.'"

Click here to continue reading Angela Knight's Mageverse Series, then post a comment over at H&H.

SoundHound

2011-07-28T15:23:00.001-05:00

SoundHound

Smart Phone App

Grade: A

How many times are you listening to the radio in your car when a song begins to play that you cannot name or that you'd definitely download if you were at home? Well, it happens to me a few times a week, and I've begun to keep this app open on my phone when driving so I can easily do so when stopped at a light...

Read this short Amazon review in its entirety at Amazon.

Targus 90 W AC Laptop Charger with USB Fast Charging Port

2011-07-28T14:56:00.002-05:00

Laptop Charger with USB Fast Charging Port APA32US

Targus

Grade: B

Frequent travelers often run out of USB ports. Indeed, I have three USB ports on my Lenovo Thinkpad and at times I need four. When on the road I dedicate a USB port to my USB modem, leaving me with two while often needing to charge a phone, Kindle, and backup/transfer data with flash drives and/or an external hard drive...

Read this Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

We the People Do Not Consent to the Great Depression On Purpose

2011-07-27T18:45:00.002-05:00

I just sent this letter via the Coffee Party's letter-writing tool to my two senators, congressman, and the White House via email. I realize my congressman would just as soon go down in flames, but my senators are not quite as ideologically insane.

Stop holding our nation hostage to pander to extremists.
We do not consent to the world's first Great Depression On-Purpose. We demand a balanced approach to solving our fiscal problems that will not put the entire burden on the poor and middle class. We see through the ransom demands from radical extremists and representatives in Congress who have pledged their loyalty to a rigid ideology instead of the American people.
We will not stand by quietly and bear the entire burden of solving problems that were caused by irresponsibility in Washington and on Wall Street. If you ignore our phone calls and emails, expect to see us in your local offices and at your town halls. One way or another we will be heard and our nation's interest will be served, or, you will lose the privilege of representing us.

Click here to send your own letter.

Rogue Elephants

2011-07-27T10:51:00.001-05:00

I've already linked to this from google+ and twitter, but can't stop thinking about it, so I'm going to write about it here. There's an op-ed piece in today's @nytimes by David Barash entitled Washington's Rogue Elephants. In it he writes of the current debt ceiling stand-off between the President and the Republicans. Please click the link and read it for yourself, but here's what interests me, and following that, my question about it:

Barash writes about the metaphor we all seem to be using these days, that it is a classic game of chicken which will end with one side swerving out of the way. The swerver loses, but the crash is averted. But, he wonders, what if the current stand-off is not being played under traditional assumptions? His answer?

"Here’s where elephants come into play. To achieve their mating goals, male elephants will sometimes play games of chicken, with one individual essentially giving the impression that he is crazy and has become an irrational player in a game premised on shared rationality and predictability."

He adds that this tactic tends to work because male elephants "can become temporarily "crazy." When in musk bull elephants "ooze a weird, foul-smelling, greenish glop from glands near their eyes," and behave "with violent abandon, taking risks and defying the basic rules of pachyderm propriety (and also giving rise to the term 'rogue elephant')."

So, what does one do when confronted by a rogue elephant? Brasher suggests avoiding it or shooting it. Avoiding it means no more negotiating, and instead refusing to play the game.

Okay...in theory I get this, but how would President Obama do this in reality?

Men and Sex

2011-07-27T10:34:00.000-05:00

The lurid lead-in to Leslie Bennetts' Newsweek article: "The men who buy sex are your neighbors and colleagues. A new study reveals how the burgeoning demand for pr0n and prostitutes is warping personal relationships and endangering women and girls." Is it, in fact, the same argument in reverse for romance novels and pr0n? Actually, I'm not going to get into that, as I think my piece for H&H earlier this year said it all. (Although, Bennetts' piece echoes something I wrote in my article, that being men believe sex workers, be it hookers or strippers, enjoy what they're doing...and with whom they are doing it.) Instead, I'm going to excerpt what really caught my eye in her article, namely...

Buying sex is so pervasive that Farley’s team had a shockingly difficult time locating men who really don’t do it. The use of pornography, phone sex, lap dances, and other services has become so widespread that the researchers were forced to loosen their definition in order to assemble a 100-person control group.
“We had big, big trouble finding nonusers,” Farley says. “We finally had to settle on a definition of non-sex-buyers as men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute.”

Okay, so to recap:

Because they couldn't find enough men who actually don't buy sex, they used criterion including those who visited strip clubs in the last year...but no more than twice and haven't used pornography more than once in the last month. Which means that while these men didn't buy actual in-person sex, they watched it, either in person, online, or in print, just not as often as other men.

Oh, one other thing. Those men who do buy sex say "they would rape a woman if they could get away with it." This is not just the expression of a fantasy; it's what they would do if they could, and I just don't see the reverse from women who read romance novels.

Other quotes that caught my attention, from those men who do pay for sex:

“Prostitution can get you to think that things you may have done with a prostitute you should expect in a mutual loving relationship.”
“You’re the boss, the total boss. Even us normal guys want to say something and have it done no questions asked. No ‘I don’t feel like it.’ No ‘I’m tired.’ Unquestionable obedience. I mean that’s powerful. Power is like a drug.”

That's enough from me...go read the article yourself!

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure

2011-07-26T11:59:00.002-05:00

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Pleasure (excerpted below)

***

At the conclusion of my Fresh Meat on Rhyannon Byrd’s Rush of Darkness, the seventh in her Primal Instinct series, I wrote about my hope for the series' end sooner rather than later. Turns out that Rush of Pleasure, the eighth in the series, is also the last...and now I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s true that I missed the middle three books in the series, and that there were problems with Rush of Pleasure. But now that it’s over, I kinda wish for more, and am glad that on Byrd’s website she mentions Deadly Is the Kiss, an April 2012 release from HQN about Ashe Granger, a secondary character in the series. It’s somehow a stand-alone, even though Granger figured in at least three of the series’ installments. After eight books in a relatively short period of time, August through April seems a long time to wait, but I can do it.

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to comment on Rush of Pleasure, Rhyannon Byrd, and/or the entire Primal Instinct series at H&H once you've read it.
Click the label for Rhyannon Byrd below for more entries at Toe in the Water, including my review of Touch of Seduction, fourth in the Primal Instinct series.

Back to the 80s

2011-07-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

Although I didn't vote for this particular video at Save the Internet.com as regards the possible AT&T/T-Mobile merger, it makes the point I can't imagine needs to be made again.

I lived through the 80s, when there was a telecommunications monopoly, when "Ma Bell" was the only option for telephone and long distance service. I also remember that when the Trust Division of the Department of Justice busted the monopoly, prices went down, particularly for long distance. No longer did family and friends "save up" to make the occasional phone call that actually didn't cost all that much, we could call throughout the country at competitive rates.

Obviously I'm against the merger, because anyone with a fraction of a brain realizes that the fewer companies in competition with each other, the higher the price consumers pay...well, except where Apple cuts in so they can screw with the competition all the while screwing the consumer. But because corporations now write our legislation and have thoroughly co-opted regulatory agencies, I think that the merger will likely go through, particularly now that AT&T has bought off progressive groups. But here's a couple of cautionary tales from my personal files...

1) Not long ago my daughter's cell phone died, and we needed to buy her a new one. She was not up for an upgrade, but Verizon had always worked with us in the past because we've been long-time customers and sent business their way. Well, the times they have changed. Forget that there's no longer actual tech support at their company store; I already knew that. But nobody was willing to help me out when we went in to buy her a new phone. Even though they'd just locked us in to another two years service for her a few months ago, we ended up shelling out full price on a phone that would have cost a new customer a fraction of the price. Why? Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Verizon, AT&T, and t-Mobile together control the vast majority of the mobile phone market. A few years ago, when we did quite a few deals with Verizon, it was a different picture. So now, higher prices, less customer assistance...how great is that?

2) We've long been users of DSL; Southwestern Bell, which at one time was part of AT&T, and is once again part of AT&T (funny that, no?) and we live in a major metropolitan area. And yet, for the entire period of time we've had DSL, our service has sucked. Why? Because "we're at the edge" of a service area. For the same period of time we've heard that SWB/AT&T is "upgrading in our area," yet it's never happened. How do I know this? Well, yesterday, after trying to watch yet another buffered video (about the Dale Chihuly installation at the MFA in Boston), I called tech support. I was told: "Your DSL is as fast as it's going to be because you're at the edge of a service area, but we're upgrading in your area." If we lived in the boonies, this would make sense, but we don't.

Think about what the telecom companies have done: They charge tremendous amounts for basic cell service...much higher than you pay for a land line...for diminished quality, and the possibility of brain cancer. Does it really cost them as much as it does to provide service? Well, we know that text messaging represents pure profit to wireless providers, and that's just one service for wireless users. The wireless bill for our three-person family now includes three data plans for three smart phones in addition to a special text fee for Rachael who, like her college pals, texts almost exclusively. I'm thinking Verizon makes a bloody fortune from us, and I can only be happy that we signed her up for a data plan when we a couple of months ago because now Verizon, like the other carriers, has set in place tiered usage fees. They're also trying to eliminate the ability of users like my husband to toggle his phone to his laptop to avoid yet another data plan. They sold us the phone with that as a major feature less than a year ago, yet now they want to reneg on it.

Ain't the lack of competition grand?

New at H&H: The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons

2011-07-20T13:13:00.002-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons. It begins:

"When I talked to Megan about my Hitting the Motherlode article, she suggested I consider writing about Ruth Langan's MacAlpin Sisters trilogy as well as an article—possibly two—about Deborah Simmons, an author I've championed online since 1996.
Perhaps an article about her Regency-set historicals, including The Vicar's Daughter, The Last Rogue, The Devil Earl, and The Gentleman Thief and another on her lengthy De Burgh family series? But what about Simmons' jumping the shark in more recent years, after being dropped by Harlequin before finishing the Medieval De Burgh series?"

Click here to continue reading The Light and Dark of Deborah Simmons, then post a comment over at H&H.

Fresh Meat: Janet Mullany's Tell Me More

2011-07-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Janet Mullany's Tell Me More (excerpted below)

***

Knowing there's a difference between fantasy and reality is one thing, but having reality shoved in your face, even in a fictional setting, is something else entirely. Janet Mullany's Tell Me More is hilarious at moments because Jo Hutchinson is brutally honest, about herself and the people and situations around her. Unfortunately, that honesty, and the absolute explicitness of the author's prose result in a schizophrenic kind of read. The book went from LOL funny in one moment to squickishness in the next.

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Feel free to Tell Me More over at H&H once you've read it.

Facebook, No...Google+, Yes Please

2011-07-14T11:09:00.002-05:00

I think the last straw for me at Facebook was discovering that if I opt out of their automatically linking all my "likes," such as bands, TV shows, etc., my "likes" basically disappear from my Facebook page. It's just the latest intrusive attempt to force me to wade through more and more crap to discover what I really want and need to know...how are my actual friends, family, and acquaintances doing, and what are they up to?

My dislike really began when Facebook removed the personalization aspect of my page, forcing me to go into my left gutter to access third party apps. Then they removed the tabs, so even if I wanted to share my FB friend web with people, I couldn't. Hell, at this point even I can't find it...or my world map of all the places I've been, or particular music I want to share, or anything that I'm guessing doesn't provide FB with a way to make money off of me.

Yes, I can go in and individually shut off the No Doubt updates, along with those from Mad Men, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, James Taylor, and so on. But why should I have to do that, one by one, for each "like?" If FB is going to allow intrusion, shouldn't I be asked to allow it on the front end, not disallow it, individually, for each intrusion I never asked for?

Wow...I don't think I've ever ended so many sentences, let alone paragraphs, with prepositions!

At this point I check FB mail, wish happy birthday, and then get the hell off of Facebook. Most of my posting is done from another locale; links on EW.com, the NYT, my blog, H&H, direct to Facebook without my actually being there. I'm incredibly happy now that Google+ has shown up; my plan is to set up the kind of circles I wish I could on FB...for friends, family, work, acquaintances, politics...and limit who is forced to endure any particular update from me. Why force Diana, a died-in-the-wool conservative, to read my endless NYT links about things that get my progressive dander up? Why post an update about the Border's bankruptcy to all my followers when only those involved in some way with publishing or bookselling give a crap? And why post a link to an article I've written for H&H to family who have no interest in romance or urban fantasy novels?

I've been extending invitations to Google+ to all who ask...all I need is an email address...with the understanding that unless I actually know you in some substantive way, circle joining will not follow. I understand there are burps along the way; it took two invites to two addresses each for my husband and daughter to join, and a friend of mine is having problems having Google+ accept her. But I love the idea of having a place to post without limiting to 140 characters—if this goes as I hope, my Twitter feed will soon cease to have anything personal and solely be about politics and publishing because I doubt Author A or Publisher B is interested in where I checked in for dinner last night using Foursquare— and I'll actually be able to see updates from the people I care about.

My daughter joined, but has no intention of actually using Google+ "until it catches on." My response? "It won't catch on unless people actually use it." I'm making a conscious effort to do that, downloading the Google+ app to my phone yesterday (I used it last night to pull Kevin into my "family" circle on the way to dinner).

If I can convince all family members to join, and can find some way to import birthdays into my calendar, I plan to leave Facebook altogether. Yes, I know you all play games there, but I quit cold turkey about a year ago when I realized what a time suck it was, so if you are growing more and more dissatisfied with Facebook, please consider the Google+ alternative. And if you need an invite, let me know.

New at H&H: Hitting the Motherlode

2011-07-13T08:58:00.000-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Hitting the Motherlode. It begins:

"OMG!
"While waiting an hour and a half for Rihanna to perform Friday night at the American Airlines Center (we thought we were getting Cee Lo Green too, but he’s a diva and cancelled half the tour, so now his ab fab song Fuck You has taken on entirely new meaning), I got a wild hair and typed 'Ruth Langan' while playing around with my Kindle phone app. Imagine my surprise to discover that Amazon was offering a bundle of five (count ’em, five) of her Highland books from the 90s for $9.99, including the three I’d read and recommended multiple times throughout the years at AAR—Highland Barbarian, Highland Heather, and Highland Fire. After that bit of excitement, which included my purchasing the bundle on the spot, I made a date with myself to later check and see what other 90s Harlequin Historicals might now be available digitally.
"This weekend I hit the motherlode..."

Click here to continue reading The Motherlode, then post a comment over at H&H.

iHome iA63 Alarm Clock Radio with Rotating Dock

2011-07-10T12:59:00.002-05:00

iHome iA63 App-Enhanced Alarm Clock FM Radio Stereo Speaker System with Motorized Rotating Dock for iPhone and iPod

iHome

iPod dock/alarm clock radio

Grade: C

Music for my husband is critical. For that reason and because he uses an alarm clock, I asked him to test the iHome iA63. He did over a period of weeks and deemed it "yet another device that tries to be all things, and does none of them great."

Read this Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

Loud

2011-07-09T15:43:00.004-05:00

Nose spray. Check.
Antihistimine. Check.
Sudafed. Check.
Nasal irrigation. Check
Extra strength Tylenol. Check

I went through this entire procedure this morning because I woke up with a full frontal sinus headache, probably because I spent over an hour last evening in the hot wind of Dallas waiting for trains to and fro the Loud concert at American Airlines Center with Rachael.

My observations:

1) Cee Lo Green is the diva my friend Jane declared him to be. We'd bought the tickets because Rachael loves Rihanna and we both love Cee Lo. Until last night, that is, when we learned he'd cancelled his participation in what I think was a fit of pique.

2) I'd like to know more about the art of the modern D.J.; it's more than just spinning and scratching these days. Luckily Rachael's into it, as are college friends, and she says she'll show me a video on YouTube to explain the history from its roots in Chicago in the 1980s. I can't wait.

3) J. Cole, the very likable opening act, has a very interesting background (St. John's on an academic scholarship, where he graded magna cum laude).

4) Rihanna is even more of a dirty girl than I thought she was. At a couple of moments during her performance, she seemed to be giving Dallas a lap dance. And the simulated sex with a female audience member literally dropped my jaw.

5) To call her performance a "concert" is really a misnomer. It was more of a performance, with multiple costume changes and every second choreographed. The only personalized aspect was her referring to "Dallas" several times. I must say, I miss the old days when a concert, even in an arena setting, seemed more intimate and less like a Vegas show.

6) Along those lines, most of the young women in attendance dressed as though they were going clubbing. I cannot imagine wearing stilettos while climbing up and down narrow, high, arena stairs. And given we had to forgo the escalators entirely when a small fire broke out as a result of the pyrotechnics and we were forced to evaculate an hour into her performance, ouch! Back in the day we wore blue jeans, not cocktail dresses! My husband and I are going to a Boz Scaggs concert in September; I'm fairly sure there won't be much bling and many, if any, stilettos in the house.

It was an adventure, to say the least. Rihanna attracts fervent fans with her sultry voice and lipstick feminism. Does she do it for me? I say more singing, less faux fucking.

To Hell with Hits...Let's Go Shopping!

2011-07-09T15:12:00.001-05:00

No mourning over the death of my latest H&H article, although I thought for sure somebody would find "...fitting your dainty foot into a glass slipper held by a prince has nothing on learning you have special powers that can stop a werewolf in high dudgeon in his tracks" out and out hilarious. Instead, let's go shopping.

Like every other young woman, my daughter is totally into Vera Bradley. To me her stuff is very hippy dippy, Calico Corner peasant skirty—not something that would appeal to a 2011 audience. But for girls living in dorms, who need their ID, key, and phone handy, they really are just the thing. So when we wandered into the Vera Bradley store so she could buy a larger wallet/wristlet thingie because her new phone is bigger than the old one, I kinda cringed. They were having a sale, though, and the "one for the money" she bought was actually cute.

The more I thought about it, though, the more the idea of not having to figure out what to do with a phone, keys, money, I.D., credit card, and key ring reward cards while running out for a quick errand in the hot summer heat or going to the gym appealed to me. The sale continued when we next visited the store, and we both ended up with purchases, although nothing we bought this time was on sale. She bought the "one for the money" in the print she liked, along with a lanyard to sorta turn it into a shoulder bag, and I bought a "one for the money" I liked, in the same print as the only sunglass case I've found that can fit this pair of sunglasses I have with enormous hinges. She also gave me the "one for the money" she'd been using this past month, and asked me why I ended up with two. The answer well and true? I wanted the wallet thingie to match the sunglass case and her cast-off didn't have a sunglass case to match. Also, I've been on a buying binge, the first in years and years, for the past couple of months, and saw no reason to deny myself.

The binge, thankfully, is over now. My husband asked how it felt to be able to buy whatever I wanted (more or less); he's been on his own binge as well. I told him I loved everything I bought...nothing was a regretful purchase...but that I did not like feeling as though I needed things I clearly did not need. He, on the other hand, was just happy to be able to buy whatever he wanted to buy.

Let's tally it up now, shall we?

White topaz earrings—25% off—from the amazing @GottaHaveBling (Ross-Simons) because I ~~wanted~~ needed a pair of day-to-day earrings that were substantial, and real (white topaz is not expensive, but it looks like diamonds; the real cost is the white gold setting).
Two Brighton discontinued watches from e-Bay; I've hungered for the chronograph for years (it goes without saying both brand new watches, with tags and boxes, were both less expensive than originally priced at Brighton).
A multi-gem bracelet, also 25% off, and also from Ross-Simons. Ever since I first saw that David Yurman Confetti Cuff I wrote about last month, I've wanted to find a more reasonably priced alternative. This cuff is amazing, and according to my jeweler, hand made.
Re-set a very large blue topaz yellow gold ring into a white gold pendant on sterling silver chain. I've owned this gorgeous blue topaz for more than 20 years, but what worked when I worked in an office setting no longer fits my lifestyle. My jeweler re-set it as a white gold pendant, used the gold from the ring to off-set some of the cost, and we picked out a very modern sterling chain to go with it. I saw no reason to buy a white gold chain at five times the price. Please excuse the photo; it's blurry, but it manages to display the gem's color quite nicely.

I splurged on a bag for Rachael as well (this bag, on the right, in this color—on your left)...she still can't believe I stopped being austere, but it's fabulous and she now "gets" why fabulous bags are fabulous. We're also doing major work on the house, but I'm not including any of that, because not only are we going to enjoy it, it'll help when the market returns and we can get the hell out of Dallas!

And so ends the Great 2011 Shopping Spree for things I craved, but did not need. When I add it all up—thanks to the terrific sales prices—it's not all that bad, but it's the craving aspect that scared the hell out of me. May I embark on no further sprees for years to come.

New at H&H: Girl Power

2011-07-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Girl Power.

Some time ago Megan Frampton and I developed a list of possible blog ideas for me to write about. The point being: not to rehash too many of the topics I'd written about back in the day of Laurie Likes Books. The list included: Clubbing It, my title for the paranormal nigh clubbing article that went online as "A Party to Die For" in mid-May; several Fresh Meat articles; "Look Me in the Eye," posted June 20th; falling in love while honeymooning; and heroine super powers. I'm struggling with the honeymooning article (can't seem to recall any romances that fit), but just now, "Girl Power," about heroines who develop super powers in urban fantasy/urban fantasy romances, went online at H&H.

I'd love for you to read it, then post a comment over at H&H. Meanwhile, I'm reading Angela Knight's January Mageverse release (I lost track of time in January, but in recent years have read each release right upon publication), then plan to read an arc of her August Mageverse book in preparation for at least a Fresh Meat and very possibly a series overview. Also on tap for today: writing a review for PW of book number four in a series for which I earlier reviewed book number three...and didn't really care for. This time around, though, I'm a happier camper.

Interior Design

2011-07-07T13:25:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we met with our new interior designer, and the designated project manager, for the master bath re-do we have planned. A couple of weeks ago we met with two local designers. I passed on the first because while she had great credentials, the amount of money she thought we ought to spend on the bathroom equaled about a fifth of our house's worth. The second designer, who also does contemporary spaces, although ours is eclectic more than modern, also has great credentials, but I felt far more comfortable with her.

A few days after signing the contract with her, she sent out the project manager and his assistant to measure the space and take photographs. Not long thereafter we received three design concepts and some photos. We decided on the concept we liked best, then I began to get additional ideas so that when our Big Meeting happened yesterday, I'd be able to show them what my "ideal bathroom" looks like.

BTW, for those of you interested in interior design, Houzz.com is a fantastic resource...I actually located some of the photos our project manager sent to us for perusal while going through ideas, and soon discovered our designer had 181 photos on Houzz as well. Anyway, on Saturday and Saturday night, because local bathroom showrooms all closed down for the Fourth of July weekend, I created an ideabook at the site that featured the colors I gravitate towards, tub and shower designs, etc.

I was thrilled that they had intuited my design aesthetic and brought wood and tile samples in my color palette, which happens to be sea foam green, and various shades of gray as the neutral influence. As I explained to Rachael, "think Vermont"—the color of the granite you see as you drive the highways that pass through the mountains, with their cutaways of the granite within— and "organic." We plan bowl sinks, a white free-standing tub, but not one with claw feet, a shower with two glass walls that will open up an end of the bathroom, cabinetry that doesn't rest on the ground and includes open areas for that "spa look," and drawer space made for jewelry. All of this meets our design aesthetic but also takes into consideration resale, as we would love to leave Dallas as soon as the housing market picks up.

Here are some photos from my Houzz ideabook:

contemporary bathroom design by seattle interior designer Garret Cord Werner Tub and shower configuration, though the tile wall is actually our outside wall, with a large window over the tub	contemporary bathroom design by detroit kitchen and bath Tanya Woods Inset for shampoos and such
contemporary bathroom design by vancouver interior designer Claudia Leccacorvi Rain Shower Head	modern bathroom design by boston architect LDa Architecture & Interiors Above floor and "open" cabinetry
contemporary bathroom design by new york general contractor Prestige Custom Building & Construction, Inc. Color Scheme (the lighter gray)	modern bathroom design by new york architect Ann Marie Baranowski Architect PLLC Bowl sink...although ours won't be glass, and will be the same oval shape as the tub

The Voice: The Morning After

2011-06-30T16:12:00.008-05:00

We were happy in our house last night; Javier Colon won The Voice. Rachael and I got the chills listening to his duet with Stevie Nicks (Rachael has loved that song since she was a child) and I actually plan to buy the iTunes download.

Which brings me to my next point: Why are we such conspiracy freaks in the U.S.? And why do people get so carried away over trifles while the important stuff doesn't hold our attention?

1) "Dia outsold Javier on iTunes, so the results must have been rigged."
2) "Vicci or Beverly were robbed because America can't handle a lesbian winning The Voice."
3) "Justin Bieber's fangirls robbed the rightful winner."

I can just imagine if the vote had gone a different way...would people be complaining that America won't vote for a half Dominican/Half Puerto Rican?

Okay, so how about this as a scenario instead: More of those who voted by text, phone, or online, whose vote counts were never revealed, voted for Javier. Gee...that's what I did, and I'm not a Justin Bieber fangirl. Neither is Rachael, who also voted for Javier. My husband didn't vote, but his choice? Javier. I don't think anyone would accuse him of being a Justin Bieber fangirl.

I, for one, rarely like a cover better than an original rendition. One reason I stopped watching Glee is because it started to remind me of that PBS show Rachael used to watch of teenyboppers "running" a TV station and putting out "music videos" of popular music. While I wouldn't buy his cover of "Angel" or Dia's covers of "Losing My Religion" or "Heartless," I will likely buy whatever CD he produces with his new record company. Then again, I'll probably buy Dia's too, because I've no doubt she'll sign with a label as well.

But back to the haters...after reading some great pieces on EW today, I couldn't believe the vitriol being spewed in the comments. It's a fucking TV show, people! GET. A. FUCKING. LIFE.

@ew reports all four coaches have signed on for season two of The Voice. Here's hoping the network and/or producers don't get greedy and ruin the show. I guess one more season with these coaches would be nice, but after that, pick some new ones. At lunch Rachael suggested Usher and Jennifer Hudson...I came up with Gwen Stefani, Pat Monohan, Bruno Mars, and Carrie Underwood.

The Voice: Awesome in More Ways than One

2011-06-29T11:30:00.006-05:00

Last night was the final competition round for The Voice, a show I started to watch after NBC promo'd it to hell and back using the gimmicky chair swivels. What can I say? Worked for me. Add to that Adam Levine, whom I've crushed on for years—and doesn't he just keep getting more and more gorgeous with age?—and Ceelo Green ("Crazy" and "Fuck You" are two of my favorite songs), and, obviously I'm there. Rachael came home from college after the first couple of episodes, and quickly became hooked. We now watch it together, faithfully, every week...usually joined by my husband, who sometimes watches it from his study as he's Working on Stuff. And this is why it's awesome...

Awesome #1: For those of you with decent relationships with your kids throughout the tough years, well, this won't make much sense to you, but for those who struggled...and I've recounted our struggles on both blogs...sitting down week after week and watching a TV show that we all enjoy is a relatively novel experience for us. I inherited negativity from my mom, and passed it along to my daughter, although she swears I'm the only one who calls other shows "stupid." We have a running gag in our house that whenever she deems a show or somebody on a show stupid, I say, "You are not allowed to say anything negative." That never happens on The Voice. All there is, in fact, is discussion during commercials, and though I'm not a Beverly fan, I feel the need to stick up for her because Rachael and her dad really don't like her. So the world doesn't need another Melissa Etheridge, okay, but I don't think the world needs a new Pat Benatar or Joan Jett either, nor does it need, in Dia and Xenia mashed up, another Nora Jones. What it does need, however, is the angelic voice of Javier, who shares certain qualities with Aaron Neville, but adds the sex of Seal and so much more. (That's not to say I didn't love Dia's renditions of "Heartless" and "Losing my Religion," or won't look forward to a slightly older Xenia when she learns to become comfortable in her own skin.)

Awesome #2: The best singers actually made it to the finals...and presumably, the best will win. With the exception of the early years on American Idol, which I stopped watching years and years ago, many of the most talented finalists don't actually win. Between that problem and the interminable audition shows, of which more and more were tacked on as the show became a juggernaut, I found that by the time I stopped watching AI, it had become a parody of itself. I understand this season's episodes were an improvement, but that again, the most talented singer did not win. Contrast that with The Voice, which weeded out the ridiculous and through the coaching versus judging experts, we saw not only Xtina's boobage each and every week on display, but more importantly, the development of true talent...and that Adam Levine is a very smart Jewish boy who knows how to play a game.

Awesome #3: Most of the original song performances of last night showcased how shitty "A Moment Like This" really was. How many of you remember that as Kelly Clarkson's first single? It sucked big time; had she not had Clive Davis behind her (who tried and nearly derailed her career a few years later when she had the temerity to state the obvious), she might never have gone on to "Miss Independent," "Break Away," and "Since U Been Gone." None of the original songs last night are going to end up on my iPod, but they weren't treacle either.

Awesome #4: All the coaches with the exception of Christina Aguilera entertained me, and all have real knowledge of music, the history of music, and how, for the most part, to help their contestants shine. Whether it was Ceelo Green channeling Mad Max and King Kamahamaha in his duet last night with Vicci, Adam's one-liners, or Blake's wearing his fondness for Xenia and Dia on his sleeve, I loved to watch them. Yes, they didn't offer a lot of criticism on performance nights, but they weren't acting as judges on television. They were acting as coaches, and coaches do a lot of praising. When they showed the actual coaching sessions, you saw the coaching, the suggestions and changes, and the song choices, although I don't know, truly, how much input they had into those. The three male coaches charmed me; Christina Aguilera was a camera hog and it seemed to me, insecure about herself among her male counterparts. She also failed to initially choose a wide variety of finalists, which hurt her in the end. As for last night, how smart was Adam Levine that he chose a song sure to highlight Javier's abilities, even at the expense of his own? I love Levine, but he knows his limitations, and unlike Shelton, whose powerhouse of a voice drowned out Dia in their duet, he put his ego aside so that his finalist might win, even if voters were not supposed to consider the duets.

I'm sure there are more reasons why The Voice Is Awesome, but I need to read a book about a goblin now.

Separated at Birth

2011-06-28T16:00:00.001-05:00

When I heard about the Rob Blagojevich conviction yesterday, the first thing that popped into my mind is how much he looks like Larry Bondurant, the character who married Carol Kester during the fourth season of The Bob Newhart Show. That reminded me of other separated at births, some of which I previously posted on my old blog. So as not to be mean to Dan Hill, I omitted his separated at birth.


"Floyd the Barber"	Richard Haydn

Dave Foley	Ken Burns
	"Larry Bondurant"— although Will MacKenzie is who prompted today's blog, I cannot find a single photo of the actor online. Those of you who remember The Bob Newhart Show should recall the husband so obsessed with his "Red" that he won't let her out of his sight.
Rob Blagojevich

Edwin McCain	"Bobby Hill"

You've Got Mail

2011-06-26T09:14:00.005-05:00

On Thursday my daughter and I went out to lunch, then stopped off at a local B&N before moving on. After being accosted by the Nook salesman, I realized how off-putting my own Nook selling must have been for many of the customers I hawked at. I did enjoy playing with the new B&W touchscreen Nook, but didn't like the salesman's getting a basic Kindle fact wrong in trying to contrast the two. All in all, not a great experience, and one that alerted me to the reality that I no longer enjoy visiting B&N. Since the Borders across the street—there first for years before B&N moved in on their territory with a boutique-like store that remains one of my least favorites—closed a couple of months ago, it's the only game in town, save the big Half Price Books nearby, and as much as I enjoy a bargain, the experiences are not the same.

As I told my daughter over lunch when she launched into Luddite mode about the death of retail (yes, she's only 19), the world changes, and we must change with it. I told her about Lee leaving his job as lead in the Music section because he didn't want to preside over its eventual dismantling. I told her that although I left to earn that abortive MLIS degree, I knew that every Nook I sold would eventually eliminate my job. I understood that the necessary cannibalization of B&N's brick and mortar stores through lower prices at B&N.com would eventually do the same. It just depressed the hell out of me to be in the thick of it.

Well, last night I had an epiphany of sorts. The three of us were watching You've Got Mail for the first time—I'd TiVo'd it probably two years ago—when I realized that what B&N did to locally-owned bookstores in the 90s, Amazon is now doing to super-bookstores like B&N.

Is that a bad thing? Well, last Thursday my daughter wanted two older books. They were available at Amazon and I planned to order them until she asked if we could get them at B&N so she could start one immediately. I did that whole text me if you have them thing...and never heard back. Meanwhile, I went ahead and ordered the books from Amazon, and they arrived Friday afternoon, a full day before we expected them. Now, you may not be able to browse at Amazon, or sit in a comfy chair...oh, wait...you can't do the latter at many local B&N's anymore either. The store I worked at never had the great chairs, and at some point the management removed all customer chairs save those in front of the window at tables near the magazines. Another local store removed most of their comfy chairs; the last three times I visited and wanted to sit and read awhile, there was no place to do so, leaving me feeling bait & switched: "You once invited me to spend the afternoon by providing a comfortable place to sit and read, and now, unless I go spend more money at your cafe, you'd really prefer that I leave."

I'm hoping this disaffection with visiting B&N ends, because as a life-long reader, spending time wandering around bookstores has been a favorite activity. Even throughout my two-years as a B&N bookseller I enjoyed visiting various stores throughout the country as a customer, although I forever straightened up display tables and put books away that others had left behind. But because actually buying at a B&N tends to be a costly experience, and because Amazon's prices tend to be lower (sometimes by a little...sometimes by a lot) than B&N.com's prices, I don't expect it to go away any time soon.

Sigh.

BTW, I did take exception to one scene in the movie. When Kathleen Kelly wanders into Fox's books and sits in the Kids section, a customer asks a salesman about a particular book, and he can't help her because he's simply an anonymous clerk who might well have been working at Home Depot. At least at our B&N, we had answers most of the time because those of us who worked there actually, you know, read. At least at our B&N, that woman would have been offered help and/or a recommendation by the time she landed in the Kids section.

New at H&H: Look Me in the Eye

2011-06-20T09:25:00.003-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Look Me in the Eye When We Do That.

The idea came to me while reading a particular scene in Christine Warren's Black Magic Woman. Initially Macmillan sent me the book in advance of its release so I could write a Fresh Meat about it, but my timing was way off. Instead I wrote Reading Series in Order as a result of Warren's unusual method of incorporating her Fixed series into the longer, more mainstream The Others series by rewriting the original stories as longer books, then interspersing brand new books. The first release of The Others, for instance, which was published in 2006, is actually ninth in the series' reading order.

The scene that set me off was a love scene, and after developing the concept, I got approval to write a more expansive piece, which I did last week. It's probably going to be the last of its type for me for awhile so that I don't lock myself into a specific blogger mode over at H&H. Once you read it, I think you'll understand what I mean.

I say that with a caveat, though; if you don't regularly read my stuff, don't read this one or you may end up with the wrong idea about me. Truly...I'm not pervy.

As for me, I've got two PW books to review this week, so I'm off to Starbucks to read for awhile. Yesterday, btw, I tried out the new Starbucks card app on my Droid...OMG great is how I'd describe it.

Oddly Emotional Day

2011-06-16T18:15:00.002-05:00

It wasn't until I saw a photo from a friend from my bookstore days, posted from the Dallas Mavericks celebratory parade that I actually considered watching from home. As season ticked holders (we buy a partial season with my husband's law firm), we were invited to the special party at American Airlines Center following the parade, but given crowds of 250,000 were expected along the parade route with many thousands crowding into the area surrounding the arena, we had no plans to attend. Frankly, for me, watching the game, the awards ceremony, then ESPN long into the night Sunday night, then listening to various radio hosts talk about the win, I thought I'd had enough of what I needed to move on. I'm glad I didn't.

I started watching the parade from my computer, then moved to the TV within a half hour, and was about to enjoy about 3/4 of the in-arena festivities before needing to leave with Rachael. I did miss Mark Cuban's emotional speech, but I caught it on NBC DFW's website a few minutes ago.

I also found a video the Mavs organization put out earlier this afternoon; I've already shared it on Facebook and Twitter, but here I'll have it for posterity.

But back to the in-arena celebration...it really was great to listen to the coach, the players, and Mark Cuban share their happiness. I discovered Jason Kidd really hates public speaking and that Tyson Chandler, my newest sports crush, is a natural. I left before Peja Stojakovic had a chance to speak, but now that I've found an audio clip of his Q&A at the arena, I've been able to experience all of it.

So now that I've heard from all the players, the coach, the owner...and watched Dirk lead his team in an a cappella rendition of the chorus to We Are the Champions from the AAC's balcony...and experienced the joy of being a fan for a winning team, I'm happy, and for the most part, sated.

I don't need to be pumped up for a repeat next year—capturing lightning in a bottle is ephemeral by nature, and I'm fine with that. I'd actually like to leave it at that.

New at H&H: Interfering Relatives

2011-06-15T09:31:00.005-05:00

Online today from me at Heroes & Heartbreakers: Interfering Relatives, which I kick off with a video clip from Auntie Mame, featuring Rosalind Russell as my favorite cinematic Interfering Relative Of All Time.

The idea came to me while recently trying—but ultimately giving up on—a soon to be released historical romance, in which an Interfering Relative played a strong role. But the book didn't compare with other, better romances with far more memorable Interfering Relatives, so I chose my two favorites—one from a contemporary series and another from a Trad Regency—and used them to open up a discussion on other Interfering Relative stand-outs. I'd love to know which fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, siblings, or cousins you remember fondly for sticking their noses into the private lives of friends and relatives, so be sure add your two cents to the comments after you read my piece.

I'd Like to Say It Ain't So, But...

2011-06-14T12:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I get weird intuitions. Mostly it's mother's intuition, which is generally dead-on, which makes it critical to listen do, but also more than a little creepy. Occasionally, though, it's about other things, and this weekend I had one of those "other" intuitive thoughts.

I've written a couple of times about Austin Art Glass, on SoCo in Austin as owned by artist Aaron Gross. Last October we picked up three new plates for our wall, including one to replace a broken piece, and I spent quite a bit of time talking to Aaron about whether or not he'd be able to stay in business given how slow it was for him last summer. He was less noncommittal than he'd been in September, giving me hope that because of his talent—and his prices— he was going to stick out the economic downturn.

Well, Saturday evening as we were driving home from dinner, I suddenly flashed on Austin Art Glass, pulled out my phone, and tried to access the website. I couldn't. When we came home, I went first thing to my desktop and went through all the Googled links I could find for both Aaron and his store. Lots of reviews and previous mentions of both...but nothing but a "Forbidden" message when going to austinartglass.com. I told my husband about it, and added that I felt like crying at the store's closing.

There's so much beauty in Aaron's art, and even with the economic downturn, people are spending all sorts of money on all sorts of things they don't need (iPads topping the list) and rarely consider the influence of beauty in their lives. I'm not immune to buying things I don't need, but when we drive down to Corpus Christi this summer to visit my m-i-l, I had every intention of stopping by Austin Art Glass to buy more lovely glass plates for our wall. I know there are other artists out there creating beautiful glass art, including James Hayes in Little Rock, but I'm taking the closing of his store very personally.

Good Day, Dallas!

2011-06-13T11:01:00.007-05:00

Feeling plenty rowdy, proud, and loud this morning after last night's win over Miami, making the Dallas Mavericks the NBA Champions by a margin of 4-2. As with the entire series, this one was a nail biter. Early on...and for the first time in the finals...Nowitzki found it hard to score points, but he came alive in the second half, initially with some tremendous defensive plays, then by sinking some beautiful shots. Jason Terry was terrific—I've always been a fan of the Mav's sixth man, even when he was Nick van Exel back in the day— and Tyson Chandler throughout this series against the Heat was an unsung hero.

My only gripe? NBA Commissioner David Stern mispronounced Dirk Nowitzki's name while awarding him the Finals' MVP. Really...really? OTOH, Mark Cuban stayed mum throughout the post-season, showing some real maturity.

Here's what I love best about this win:

Vindication over the Heat after the humiliation of 2006
An NBA Championship win not by a team of stars, but by a team of players ably led by a star who stuck by his team during the lean years
Proof that an NBA team can win without thuggery or poor sportsmanship, but instead through stalwart determination and a will to win.

Woot!

Updating My Travel Map

2011-06-12T18:32:00.001-05:00

Create your own travel map

Laurie's Travels has traveled to: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Russia, Sweden, Turks And Caicos, United Kingdom, United States, United States Virgin Islands, Vatican City, USA States: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington

I've seen [just] 11% if the world. How about you?

Bill Maher Brilliant This Week

2011-06-12T17:30:00.004-05:00

I just finished showing my husband @BillMaher and @janemarielynch reenacting the cyber exchange between Congressman Anthony Weiner and a blackjack dealer in Vegas. If you've not seen The Weinerlogues as read by Mahaer and Lynch, you've missed something brilliant.

That wasn't all that caught my eye when I finally got the chance this afternoon to watch Friday night's episode of Real Time. Although I'm a fan of The Voice, I loved it when Maher fretted that all of TV will soon become CSI: Vampire Idol, "where forensics experts solve murders committed by sexy vampires singing show tunes in front of Steven Tyler."

But what caused me to laugh hardest during New Rules was when Maher, reflecting on Anthony Weiner's cyber sex life, puzzled about what teens get out of cyberjacking when they're not listening to "their hippipty hop records." I wish I could post a video clip, but can't...if you'd like to watch this week's New Rules, click here and link to New Rules Bill Maher, All Hand and No Weiner on Kick! Making Politics Fun.

Historical Romance Hiatus

2011-06-09T10:28:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I tried to read an upcoming historical romance release. I gave up fairly early on, realizing that unless such books are written by specific authors, I've totally lost interest in reading them. Last night at dinner I told my husband and he was shocked. Historical romance occupied a good deal of my life for several years to the exclusion of other reading, and though I slowly began adding other genres of books to my reading repertoire, the idea of [mostly] going on a Historical Romance Hiatus for the foreseeable future is for me a Big Deal.

I still plan to read a select group of releases from authors like Mary Balogh—who wrote a DIK historical last year—and Anne Stuart, who wrote another, but for now, unless an author passes the DIK litmus test, I'm going to pass. Wow...I really said it.

That Mary Balogh is one of these authors kinda surprises me as for years I was in the I only read her trads camp. Then came A Secret Affair, which blew me away, all the more so because it was the end of a series I'd never begun. The Secret Mistress, which comes out early this summer, is actually a prequel to More than a Mistress and No Man's Mistress, and I've never read those either, but look forward to it regardless. As for the Anne Stuart, I can't wait to read the fourth full-length House of Rohan book. I don't expect her to top Breathless, but after having enjoyed the entire series to date...and because she's, well, awesome...I'm hoping for a good one.

Speaking of which, I won't be doing a Fresh Meat on Shameless because I've already declared Anne Stuart to be awesome on H&H, but will probably write about it here, openly declaring my fealty to her altar of awesome-ality.

TomTom Go 2435 TM

2011-06-05T11:33:00.006-05:00

TomTom Go 2435 TM

Read my attempt at installing and using this special Lifetime Map Updates TomTom at Amazon Vine.

P.S. It wasn't fun.

Hey, A-hole, Say It with a "V," Not a "W"!

2011-06-03T11:07:00.004-05:00

Last night the Dallas Mavericks had one of their infuriatingly thrilling games. They did what they've done so many times this post-season—come from behind in the last moments of a game to score a major, tremendous, splendiforous upset. This is what it's like, folks, to be a Dallas Mavericks fan. For the most part it's "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." This year, though, it might actually be different.

What's so annoying as a fan, though, and I don't think I'm being too sensitive, is that the Mavs are like the Rodney Dangerfield of basketball; they don't get no respect in the press. How much of that has to do with the antics of Mavs owner Mark Cuban? Who knows. All this fan knows is that the focus is almost always on the other team, even when the Mavs win the game, as they did last night. The post-game press conference on ESPN featured the Mavs head coach for a minute or so, but they covered the coach for the Heat for at least three times as long. I notice stuff like that.

The most egregious offense, though, is that to this day members of the press do not know how to pronounce the name of Dirk Nowitzki...the "w" is pronounced as a "v," and just last night, they did it again. The man was NBA MVP the last time we played the Heat in the finals, for god's sake. Get it right!

This year's post-season presents a Mavs team that finally, in their old age, (I think they are the oldest NBA team), has become aggressive in its pursuit of the win. They are in no way the thugs that many other NBA teams are, and I cannot imagine anyone on the Mavs behaving as Odam and Bynam did during game four of the series with the Lakers. But they've "manned up," so to speak, and most remarkable has been the change of Dirk Nowitzki himself.

I've spent at least five years defending him against my husband's tirades. The DH has a point...to a limit...but he's never given Dirk his due, which means he has refused until now to add a "Mr." in front of the man's name, as he does with Mr. Chauncey Billups or Mr. Dwyane Wade. He finally agrees, now that Dirk has grown a pair, that Dirk may actually lead his team to victory. I think he's finally prepared to alter his "mister" stance because of Dirk's clutch play this post-season.

I mentioned earlier that I've got a bridesmaid's mentality when it comes to post-season play and the Mavs. I have very low expectations because I've seen them throw it all away before. Which means that I've been constantly, pleasantly surprised so far this post-season. I'm glad to go to games or watch them on TV, without overly high expectations because, even though this is likely the last year they can win before needing to start over, even though they seem on track to finally pull it out this year and not choke at the last minute, I don't expect them to actually win. But it sure would be sweet.

New at H&H: Me Again...on Pr0n This Time

2011-06-01T16:27:00.001-05:00

In my first entry for today, I mentioned dashing off a quick piece in response to a tweet from Megan yesterday. It's just been posted online at Heroes & Heartbreakers.

I wrote about so-called Lady Pr0n in response to an article on a website for an NBC affiliate in Utah. Historical context always matters, and given that when I ran AAR we went through a similar controversy way back in 1999 that led to an article in Salon.com, I wanted to add my two cents, in an updated way.

As always, I'd love some feedback on H&H after you read my piece. Even though I had a fabulous, confidence-inspiring birthday yesterday, the lack of comments to my H&H articles, let alone the usual dead-silence here, feeds my insecurities. I can't help it; I need lots and lots of validation!

New at H&H: A Makeover of a Different Kind

2011-06-01T12:53:00.003-05:00

I think that subconsciously, watching Will Farrell's hilarious appearance on Conan O'Brien's show in early May gave me the idea for my new article at Heroes & Heartbreakers. It reminded me of a joke I heard back in the day. The joke kicks off the article. Feel free to watch the clip below in its entirety, but it's between 1:20 and 1:55 minutes in that it all started to gel in my head.

Putting a piece out there of on a topic such as this (you'll see when you read it) was not something I took lightly. I mentioned last week that I had a blast writing it, but that it took a lot of effort on my part to get to and maintain just the right tone...to write about a delicate matter and keep it light so as to be funny yet not be prurient, and to be revelatory enough while not exposing myself too much in the text. Hopefully I succeeded.

Because of the subject matter's delicacy, I feel a little squirmy knowing that people will actually read the article. On the other hand, I'm kinda proud of myself for tackling the topic in a funny way. Did I succeed? Please let me know by posting a comment at H&H after you read it.

A Perfect Birthday

2011-06-01T11:54:00.003-05:00

I mostly adhered to my daughter's "you shall not work on your birthday" edict yesterday, but after following one of Megan's tweets, I felt compelled to dash off a quick article that may go online today...and if so, may kick my article originally scheduled for today into some time next week. But I had fun writing it, it was quick and off-the-cuff, and I didn't edit myself to death.

My husband and I put ourselves on an austerity program a few years ago that precluded big celebrations and big expressions of affection, but this year we've been able to ease up. Because yesterday's birthday was a biggie, I actually looked forward to it. I knew this year would not be a repeat of last year's self-imposed pity party because...ta-da...a birthday card and check arrived from my mom last week, along with a birthday card and check for my husband, whose birthday was two weeks ago, and an anniversary card (our anniversary is in March) and check. Do I think my mom remembers just how big a birthday it was for me? Probably not, but to have had it remembered for the first time in three years is good enough for me at this point.

When I picked up Rachael after lunch yesterday, she couldn't wait to give me her gift. The card brought me to tears. After all our struggles, to be at this place in our relationship with one another is something neither of us takes for granted. As I told a close friend yesterday, in our immediate family we treat each other with respect and love, but don't allow anyone to either sit in their shit or be full of it.

Mostly, though, we laugh and talk, run errands, go to movies, and watch Bravo marathons. This morning talk was all about The Boy, who will be coming to visit late this month. Anyway, after the card came the gift, a lovely purple/blue glass bird made by a gifted glass artist who graduated from Hendrix College in 1998. Which means she bought it not over the weekend or last week...she bought it before coming home for the summer. It was thoughtful...obviously I adore purple, and I've transferred my love of glass to both Harold and Rachael...and lovely. After putting the card away, we put the bird on my bedside table. And then she took me to Starbucks for a drink. When we came home, she did my makeup, and noted that this fabulous new eye concealer from Mahya I've been using on my eyelids made a tremendous difference. (Truly, if you have discolored, dark, or red lids, this product is frigging amazing. Because my lids are so discolored, for a couple of years I've been unable to wear most of my beautiful BE shadows unless they are pretty light. This concealer makes it possible for me to pull out some of my favorite darker colors, and to wear them without looking like a raccoon.)

Later in the afternoon a beautiful display of hydrangeas and mini-calla lilies arrived from my family. More thoughtfulness as I am the Queen of the Hydrangea. When Harold got home, he gave me his gift. His card also brought me to tears. And the gift (depicted on the right)...extravagant and over-the-top on any other birthday than this one, but perfect—for me, and our lifestyle—for every day. Silly, silly man...I think he actually thought I was disappointed he didn't buy my dream bracelet (seen to the left), which would have been the perfect gift if I lived a different life. If I actually owned it, though, I think I'd probably gaze adoringly at it on a daily basis, but only wear it three or four times a year.

So ends the conspicuous consumption portion of my blog entry. <g>

Then it was time for dinner at Fearing's. Dean Fearing, along with Stephan Pyles and Robert Del Grande, invented Southwestern Cuisine, and for years Fearing ran the restaurant at The Mansion, a boutique hotel here in Dallas. A couple of years ago he opened his own restaurant in the Ritz Carleton, and though it isn't as highly acclaimed as Pyles' is, the food is more accessible, and more Texan in its exuberance and abundance. Dinner was spectacular, the birthday cake the best damn restaurant birthday cake you can fathom, and when I got home and checked my twitter feed, there was a response from @fearingsdallas about my foursquare tweet, sent in the car on the way to the restaurant.

To top it off, there was a birthday message from my mom, who called while we were at dinner, and though it's a very easy thing to post a Facebook birthday message, the number of family and friends who bothered to take the time really warmed my heart. And since I didn't know until this morning that the Mavs lost game one of the NBA Finals (our game is #3, on Sunday), the entire day went off without a sour note.

New at H&H: LKH's Merry Gentry FTW

2011-05-31T09:15:00.005-05:00

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog just went online this morning.

Gee, a new article online and a huge birthday all in the same day. As my daughter asked me not to work today, this'll be it from me, although I don't think reading possible comments and maybe responding counts. She's not here at the moment for me to ask. <g>

Before the new Anita Blake book came out, Megan asked those of us who read her if we would write about our LKH experience. Hence, Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry Series: Merry Gentry For the Win, which is self-explanatory. I know the series attracts far fewer readers than Anita does, but then, I'm a natural born contrarian.

Hop on over to H&H and read it, and consider posting a comment. Hope you'll enjoy the visit!

Some Interior Design

2011-05-30T17:07:00.004-05:00

I got a wild hair yesterday and redesigned my blog using the same paisley background I created to use on twitter. Blogger redesigned its layout since I set up Toe in the Water last year, so it wasn't simply a matter of swapping out a background image for the black background, and adjusting text and link colors. Color blocking and new fonts were involved, widgets, moving things around, and basic tweaking by conventional means, followed by jerry-rigging to fix other minor issues. I'm still not quite happy with needing to move the "Share" widget to the side column from underneath the blog description, but I'm not skilled enough in html/css to handle transparencies from scratch. At least i managed to figure out how to use the same "AddToAny" widget for the blog as a whole and for each individual entry...that took some time. The real issue is that the tag cloud at the bottom of the page may not be as readable as it could be, but I hope you'll let me know if that's the case.

Sometimes you just gotta zhuzh, ya know? Particularly when it helps keep those mad skills developed over years, even for a blog nobody reads. <g>

One of the All-Time Great TV Characters

2011-05-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

This summer my husband and I are re-experiencing Northern Exposure, and on the second DVD for season one is the first episode in which Adam appears. Watching it reminded me that he is one of the all-time great television characters.

Enjoy!

Let's Not Forget the Forgotten

2011-05-28T13:18:00.000-05:00

A close friend of mine has a son who joined the armed services straight out of high school rather than going to college, not because he and his family were gung-ho hawks, but because he wanted to serve his country and because he thought it would help him become a man. He chose to become a grunt in the Marines; if he was going to do it, he was going to "do it right" by being on the front lines. He was injured yesterday in his second tour of duty in Afghanistan by IED attack. His injuries were considered minor, but the injuries of one of his buddies were far graver.

I think I've written before about the emotional dangers facing our soldiers, and that they seem to increase exponentially with each deployment. That's outside of the physical danger they face daily, and the unbelievable conditions in which they live. I remember the first time I saw this photo—these guys are sleeping, not dead—and having it hit home in a visceral way how brave these young (some as young as 18) men and women are; it's frankly unfathomable to me, in my air-conditioned suburban home surrounded by beautiful flowers and the ability to bathe and/or shower at will.

These "forgotten" wars of ours shame me, not only because we continue to fight them when the true enemies are elsewhere, but because they are forgotten. I continually wonder why we aren't exposed to these wars on a daily basis, on television, in newspapers, on online news outlets and blogs. Because of modern techniques more and more soldiers survive horrific traumas to their brains, psyches, and bodies that would previously have left them dead on the battlefield or in field hospitals. And yet most of us don't realize their survival comes at unimaginable costs to their long-term quality of life.

And now, I guess it's time to go shopping in order to support our troops this Memorial Day weekend.

Fresh Meat: Kristina Douglas' Demon

2011-05-28T11:05:00.003-05:00

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Kristina Douglas' Demon (excerpted below)

* * *

I need to get this out of the way first: I think Anne Stuart, a.k.a. Kristina Douglas, is awesome. Four of her books sit on my all-time keeper shelf, and what I notice more and more is that as her heroes go farther in skirting the edge or going over it in terms of acceptable behavior, the more I seem to love it. She skirted the edge of it with her heroes in the four that I read of her five-book Ice series, and she took them over it in her 2010 historical House of Rohan series, culminating with possibly the biggest prick in my experience reading romance: Lucien De Malheur, the 'hero' in Breathless. So I had high expectations for Demon, the second in her Fallen series written under the pseudonym Kristina Douglas. Demon will not be joining Breathless, Ice Storm, A Rose at Midnight, and To Love a Dark Lord on my all-time keeper shelf because I'm stingy when it comes to annointing books and it's nowhere near her best work, but it offered plenty of nougaty goodness nonetheless. I'll focus on two nougats...

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Would love for you to add a comment.

Gotta Love the Free Market

2011-05-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

I just read that the U.S. lags behind other many other developed nations in terms of broadband access and speed. That according to the FCC, which, as we all know, is not exactly a market-neutral entity, as most recently evidenced by the so quick the revolving door gave me whiplash career change for Meredith Baker, who just a few months ago voted for the monopolistic merger of Comcast and NBC, only to have announced last week she'll be working as a lobbyist for Comcast.

Every day I read something that infuriates me, that makes the case that "we, the people," no longer are. Whether it's Net Neutrality, the wives of investment bankers getting bailout money, or the sale of our infrastructure to foreign interests, monied interests are not looking out for you and me...they're looking out for themselves, but have convinced many of us that it's government that's the problem, that taxes are awful, and that the free market can solve anything.

It's as though there never was a Great Depression, trust busting, or any ability in our minds to understand how credit inexorably links Wall Street to Main Street. Or that if we cede control over legislation and regulation to business, they come out on top at our expense.

We blame Obama (not entirely blameless), rather than remembering what he inherited. We refuse to pay for our wars by raising taxes, and believe ridiculousness like 90% of funding to Planned Parenthood is for abortion, 15% of our budget funds the NEA, and that foreign aid accounts for a quarter of our spending.

The "government is evil" bunch hasn't got it entirely wrong, but that's only because government is in so deep with big business that I believe this picture says a thousand words.

Busy Girl

2011-05-23T13:38:00.000-05:00

This morning I turned in my latest PW review, saw that three of my previously written PW reviews made it into this week's PW (a new record), and learned that I have [at least] two pieces going online this week at Heroes and Heartbreakers. I've got assignments out the wazoo, and could not be any happier. These aren't lengthy articles, but the creativity seems to be flowing out of me.

My H&H piece for tomorrow was a blast to write, but achieving just the right tone for it proved a challenge. I worked and worked and worked on it, and because it was a spec piece was patient as it found a slot on the H&H schedule. Once you read it you'll understand that I feel proud of it yet while also feeling, in a non-ironic sense, exposed. That's as much of a teaser as you're getting from me.

Fresh Meat: Carolyn Jewel's My Dangerous Pleasure

2011-05-21T13:20:00.001-05:00

Online from me today at Heroes & Heartbreakers

Fresh Meat: Carolyn Jewel's My Dangerous Pleasure (excerpted below)

Cupcake, anyone?

* * *

What stands out most after reading My Dangerous Pleasure, fourth in Carolyn Jewel's Immortal series, is this: The hero, while totally the alpha male you'd expect a demon to be, is also incredibly sweet to the heroine, a human with latent magic being threatened by a mage.

The typical urban fantasy/urban fantasy romance hero is usually pretty slutty, with a bad-ass attitude to match. He's generally pulled into helping/saving/working with the heroine, often begrudgingly, and...yada, yada, you know the drill. Iskander, Jewel's hero, fulfills the slutty part of the equation, but even though he never planned any sort of involvement with Paisley Nichols, he brings no pissed off, sullen, or I'm-the-boss-of-you attitude into their relationship...

Please click here to read my new Fresh Meat in full. Would love for you to add a comment.

It's a Look

2011-05-19T13:01:00.001-05:00

This morning, after getting my driver's license renewed, I met a friend for coffee at a local mall that also houses a mineral makeup store for which we'd both bought Groupons. Because I knew I'd be getting my picture taken for my driver's license, I wore makeup (mineral foundation and veil, three colors of eyeshadow applied with a very restrained hand, a brow filler/tamer, mascara, and my typical blush). I should have known that perhaps this store wasn't for me when the make-up artist/saleswoman asked if I was wearing any makeup.

I told her that I wanted to try out her store because Bare Escentuals tends to build their product line around warm tones and I prefer cool ones. What do you suppose she did? Well, after putting foundation and a very brown bronzer on me, she loaded on eye shadows that she described as neutral—ie, browns—but in no way restrained. As for the blusher she used, it had already turned orange by the time she finished my eyes, so she removed it all to try again.

At this point I suggested a neutral look built around gray, but I guess I should have specified light gray, because her idea of a neutral gray eye featured charcoal gray over most of my lid, a teal color on the inner part of the eye, and a coppery yellow smack dab in the center of my lower and middle eyelid. At that point I said, as tactfully as possible, that this might be a fine "night" look, but she assured me it was perfect for daily wear.

In the end I used my Groupon for the foundation, mineral veil, an eyelid primer to cover my red lids, some brow filler, and a huge Kabuki brush that puts my BE Kabuki brush to shame. I picked up a new technique for loading the 'buki brush that I can't wait to try, but after walking in the door five minutes ago, I headed straight for the bathroom and scrubbed the whore off my face.

Web Work

2011-05-15T09:33:00.000-05:00

I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon creating a blog for my husband's family. I did it here on blogger, using their new template designer interface. I enjoyed the design process more than I thought, because one of the reasons I ended up not being happy as publisher at AAR was the result of all the design work I did, particularly for advertisers in creating ads for authors. I think working on my Heroes and Heartbreakers pieces, laying them out and considering which images to suggest, made the difference. What had become a chore is once again an outlet for creativity.

Speaking of which, my piece on clubbing it in paranormals, posted at the deadly hour of five p.m. Friday afternoon, has died an ignominious death. But I hope you all will be more interested in my next piece, which is, shall we say, on a very titillating subject. All my creativity the day I wrote it went into not being prurient and maintaining a high level of humor throughout. I won't say more until it's posted, but consider your appetites whetted.

New at H&H: A Party to Die For

2011-05-13T16:13:00.002-05:00

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog just went online.

In A Party to Die For: Night-Clubbing in Paranormal Romance, write about various hot spots that appear in urban fantasy/urban fantasy romances, including Jean-Claude's Guilty Pleasures, the Blue Moon werewolf club in the Riley Jenson series, and the Rehv's ZeroSum.

Hop on over to H&H and read it, and consider posting a comment. Hope you'll enjoy the visit!

L Isn't Just for Losers...It's for Lakers

2011-05-07T12:04:00.001-05:00

To call game three of the second round of NBA playoffs last night between our Dallas Mavericks and the L.A. Lakers (the team of my youth) a nail biter is putting it mildly. We got on the train after an early dinner at Mockingbird Station with plenty of time to walk around and soak up atmosphere...which last night meant listening to live music, looking at a couple of Ducati bikes on display, and watching a few crazed fans in wacky outfits (if you dress up crazily enough, they let you stand in a section for the entire game for free).

Once inside we put on our "The Time Is Now" blue t-shirts everyone was asked to don (and those who wouldn't were embarrassed into it by the "shirt cam" that relentless honed in on the scofflaws).

As for the game itself, the Mavs got off to a bad start, but eventually came back to lead.

Then they went down again, and with scant moments left, began to come back as a result of a couple of game-changing three-pointers, the first by Peja Stojakovic, the second by Jet Terry. Nowitzki, who scored 32 points, was named "player of the game," but without that shot by the wish-he-still-looked-like-this Serb, I don't think things would have turned around.

In the end the Mavs won by a healthy margin. At the start of the game the chant was "Beat the Lakers." By the end it was "Sweep the Lakers," in reference to the now 3-0 lead we have over Bryant et al. I hope that's the case, but at this point it's nearly impossible for the Lakers to come back. No team has ever been down 3-0, and I should know. The Mavs almost came back a few years ago, but didn't. That was the year they choked less than usual during the playoffs.

Watching the game was incredibly frustrating because even after losing year after year after year in the playoffs, the Mavs continue to stick with their same outside game. I've watched several coaches come and go, and it doesn't matter; the Mavs refuse to shoot within the paint. Yes, when their 3-point game is on, it's fantastic, but is it too much to ask that they be able to add some lay-ups into the mix? Honestly, I don't think so.

When we got on the train to go home, a gaggle of adorable teen-age girls got on at the West End, with a guy, probably one of their dads, and though they hadn't been to the game, they knew all about it. Everyone was in such a party mood that the smack talk began when one of the girls mentioned she was going to "Cali" for the summer. (Note to cute girls everywhere...us "Cali" natives don't call it Cali.)

Even after that faux pas, we were all having such a good time together that after she said she was a Lakers fan, I felt confident enough to tease her in return. In my very first ever bit of smack talk, while making the L is for Losers sign on my head, I said, "L isn't just for losers...it's for Lakers!" The whole back section of our train car—including the cutie—erupted in laughter, and then we were back at Mockingbird Station. The perfect end to a really fun night.

On Sunday we'll be watching game four, this time on television, to see if the Mavs make a clean sweep. With Ron "I need anger management" Artest back from his one-game suspension for hitting J.J. Barea in the face, who knows what'll happen?

Fantastic Fiction Sidebar

2011-05-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

...I simply turned to my favorite backlist website, Fantastic Fiction. If fantasticfiction.com isn’t on your radar yet, it’s the best source I know for sussing out backlist and series order information. Just last week I learned that Rose Fox’s (one of my PW editors) mother wrote romance. I looked Jennifer Rose up on FF and sent Rose the link, which she promptly included in her Twitter feed. (from Order of Importance, my blog piece for H&H, online May 5th.)

When I wrote the first draft of that blog entry, I took a "time out" smack dab in the middle of it for a sidebar about fantasticfiction.com. In my next draft I decided to pull it out as a full length companion piece, only it really didn't "fit" at H&H. So I talked about it with Megan, and decided to post it here.

For those who haven't used fantasticfiction.com before, it's well worth a detailed introduction. As talk of Christine Warren's new Others book kicks off my H&H piece, I captured a screenshot of her Fantastic Fiction page and broke it out into three more manageable images. If all of this is too elementary because you've used Fantastic Fiction forever, forgive me.

This first image shows the author's picture and provides a generally brief biography. I say generally because the bio for Julie Garwood is extensive. Photos aren't always included. Sometimes the author's birth date is included. If the author is dead, the date is generally noted.

New and forthcoming books are broken out, with dates attached, and clicking a cover/title link brings you to a separate page for an individual book. All the individual book pages include, when possible, synopsis information, along with purchase and issue/reissue information. Click here for the page to Black Magic Woman and see what I mean.

Below the new/forthcoming books section is the meat of the page. This part of the page provides the backlist and series information I use on an almost daily basis. I was thrilled when the computers at the bookstore were able to access the Internet because using Fantastic Fiction was often easier in helping to determine a series order than B&N's own system. Many customers walked off with a little slip of paper in their pockets/pocketbooks with "fantasticfiction.com" written on it for future use.

Christine Warren's Fixed series (with each of the six titles and their dates of publication) is followed by her Novels of the Others. The 11 already published books—in order and with dates included—and other titles in the series set to be published this year are listed. Stand-Alone novels follow, then anthologies. All of the titles are links to individual pages, and wherever possible, linked covers are shown.

The third part of the page features author recommendations and a set of links to other authors that may interest the reader. To be honest, I've never actually scrolled down far enough to pay much attention to this part of the page, but it's probably worth a look.

As with the individual book pages, Fantastic Fiction provides quick links to Amazon in the U.S. and U.K., and for those looking to find copies of perhaps hard to find books, those individual pages also provide direct links to various used copies.

Before signing off, I thought I'd also mention a site referred to in one of the first comments to my corresponding H&H piece: FictFact.com. While it's a free site, unlike Fantastic Fiction you need to register. Once registered, though, you click "follow" for the series you read, and it'll let you know when the next installment goes on sale. I registered and will be giving it a shot in upcoming weeks and months.

Let's see...I now use my personally designed database, honed and adjusted over the last six or so years to track my reading, goodreads, fantasticfiction, and now fictfact. How do I ever find the time to actually, you know, read?

Reading Series in Order (Or Not) at H&H

2011-05-05T17:07:00.010-05:00

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online an hour ago. I actually didn't know it was going to appear at all until I checked my twitter feed. What a nice Cinco de Mayo day surprise, and how exciting to see two comments already!

The article is all about reading series in order...when it's important, when it's less so, and what to do when you can't start at the start. I hope you'll swing by, read it, then talk about your own experience by adding to the comments.

Voices in My Head

2011-05-03T12:57:00.003-05:00

Evan Fallenberg's When We Danced on Water, my favorite book so far in 2011—and my first Desert Isle Keeper in more than half a year, will be published later this month. It's terrific for a lot of reasons, chief among them its elegant prose.

Those of you who've known me online for long know that I often point out bad prose—hence a decade of the Purple Prose Parody Contest. It's less often that I talk about prose in a positive sense. When I do, it's generally to compliment spare prose, as I've done with other DIKs, such as Paulo Coelho's The Fifth Mountain, or overall spareness, both in prose and plot, as with Mary Balogh. Fallenberg's writing isn't so much spare as it is precise. Coelho's writing packs an emotional punch because the prose itself is so spare. Balogh's emotional success comes from the all-round spareness. It is Fallenberg's precision that works so well in this book because it allows him a tremendous fluidity, like Baryshnikov flying across a stage.

The book features an 85-year-old choreographer, so indulge my using that as a metaphor for Fallenberg's writing. Just as a choreographer can capture the fluidity and emotionality of a piece of music and dance, so does this author. Just as a dance features moments of different tempos and varies in boldness and strength, so does Fallenberg write with a pin-point focus, creating a similar fluidity and elegance.

In a couple of scenes his lead character explains how he sees and feels music in his head. While a beautiful concept, it did not fit my experience of music. I ~~wanted~~ needed to understand it better because it was conveyed with such beauty. As music is so integral to his being, I read those passages aloud to my husband, who seemed surprised when I asked if he understood what Fallenberg's character was trying to explain. "Of course," he said matter-of-factly, as though everybody experienced music in that way.

It's been quite awhile since we had that conversation, but it wasn't until recently that I realized he sees music...and when I'm reading, I hear dialog. I hear dialect, voice inflection, even timbre. I don't listen to audiobooks because hearing someone else voice characters interferes with my experience of hearing them in my head.

Among the reasons I so love Eve Dallas' Roarke is that his voice is so clear in my head, particularly when he jokes with Eve or croons sweet nothing to her in that yummy Irish brogue. And when he speaks Gaelic in moments of pure passion, I'm a goner. When a poster to yesterday's piece for H&H objected to a similar speech cadence in Roberts/Robb's writing, I had to sit back and think about whether I'd ever noticed that. I haven't, but I'll start paying attention. That said, though, some of her most vibrant characters are those with accents, so perhaps there's something to her criticism.

What about you? Do you experience music, art, or books in an unusual way?

"This Is the End"...now at H&H

2011-05-02T16:57:00.004-05:00

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online late this afternoon. I've been on sort of a writing frenzy the last several days, turning in two more spec pieces to the blog. This one, though, on why I won't be buying Dead Reckoning, Charlaine Harris' new Southern Vampire Mysteries release that goes on sale tomorrow, started forming in my head probably a month ago. Anyway, it goes from Sookie Stackhouse and Liz Phoenix to Eve Dallas, LOST, The Sopranos, and Mad Men, all in the space of about a dozen paragraphs.

I hope you'll swing by, read it, then post a comment. As for me, I'm still trying to take in the death of Osama Bin Laden...and yes, episode three of Game of Thrones.

New Fresh Meat at H&H: Anna Campbell's Midnight's Wild Passion

2011-04-26T18:49:00.006-05:00

My newest Fresh Meat for Heroes and Heartbreakers just went online. In it I talk about Anna Campbell's new historical romance, Midnight's Wild Passion. Please drop by and check it out, then post a comment over there. As for me, I'm settling into my newest book, with an idea (with a little help from Megan) on my next article...

A Big Smile

2011-04-26T14:11:00.001-05:00

In a couple of recent bloggings for for Heroes and Heartbreakers, I wrote about what is perhaps my most unique skill: the ability to match books with people. Previous to my two-year stint as a B&N bookseller, I never knew I had this savant-like skill, and it's what I miss most about working there.

Last month Lewis and Alice, two of my most favorite relatives, spent a couple of days with me while they were passing through town. Lewis, recently retired, wanted mostly to relax and read, so I lent him a book I thought he'd like...and he did. So I gave him another, this time knowing he'd be leaving my house with it, which should tell you how very much I like him, because I never give books to people knowing I won't get them back.

Later he emailed to say how much he'd enjoyed that second book, so I started thinking about additional recommendations. Not long thereafter we sat next to each other at one of the meals during the recent Benjamin family reunion. After talking about spirituality and nature, I wrote down a few titles I thought he'd enjoy. Lewis is a long-time fly fisherman and quite comfortable expressing his emotions—which no doubt accounts for the love so many of his patients expressed for him when he was their pediatrician—so one of the recommendations was for Mary Alice Monroe's Time is a River.

This morning he sent a most heartfelt thank you, written five minutes after finishing the book. It put a huge smile on my face and helped erased the worry I've felt since Rachael called a couple of days ago from the vending machine room in her dorm while the sirens blared in Conway. Conway, you see, is little more than a hop, skip, and a jump away from the town destroyed in Monday evening's tornado.

I've already added three more Mary Alice Monroe books to his short list: Sweetgrass, The Beach House, and Swimming Lessons. I hope he'll love them too.

New at H&H: Fresh Meat: Rachel Gibson's Any Man of Mine

2011-04-25T15:13:00.001-05:00

Fresh Meat: Rachel Gibson's Any Man of Mine

Wow, what a week! In the last seven days I've read and written about four books: one was literary fiction, another Steampunk, a third contemporary romance, and the fourth a European Historical romance. I have a reprieve for a few days as my next PW review isn't due until Monday of next week. I've got so many books that I'm dying to get to just for the fun of it that I don't know quite where to begin. Whatever I choose will wait until tomorrow as I need a break for the rest of today.

The online result of a portion of that reading and writing just started, with my new blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers. Drop by and give it a read, then post a comment over there.

Look for another "Fresh Meat" from me, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I'll let you know.

New "You Are What You Like to Read" at H&H

2011-04-13T10:24:00.005-05:00

You Are What You Like to Read: A Book-Selling Savant’s Recs, Pt. 2

Yesterday at Heroes and Heartbreakers, part one of Recommendations from a Book-Selling Savant went online. Just a few minutes ago part two was posted. Drop by and check it out, and if you can, post a comment. As for me, it's now day three of Whatever It Is That Ails Me.

All About the Benjamins

2011-04-12T15:11:00.001-05:00

My husband and I flew to Rhode Island Friday to be a part of the 110th anniversary of the founding of the United Brothers Synagogue in Bristol. Anyone who knows me realizes I'm a fairly secular person, so why would I fly to New England to celebrate the 110th anniversary of a once-orthodox synagogue? Actually, it's quite a story...

In the late 1800s, in what is now Latvia, a man named Joseph Benjamin was married to a woman named Etta. They had three surviving children when Etta died, and according to local Jewish tradition, although Joseph was 20 years older than Etta's younger sister Emma, Joseph married Emma. They had four children—the eldest of whom was Jacob—before moving to America and settling in Bristol, Rhode Island, where they had many, many, many more children. It seems Joseph was particularly fruitful.

Joseph, along with several other Jewish immigrants, founded an organization to maintain their Jewish identities and perform good works in their community. In 1900, they consecrated the United Brothers Synagogue. By 1905, btw, there were 36 Jews in Bristol.

When Joseph died, there was a schism between Etta's children and Emma and her children, and while most settled in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York, the ill will spread like a disease so that two generations later, few of the cousins of the original descendants knew of each other.

Jacob moved to New York and married Dora; they had two children, Emma and Martel. Later they moved to Texas where Jacob became what I imagine was quite the rarity: a Jewish wildcatter. When that didn't work out, they moved to Austin and started a cafe in a building that eventually became the University of Texas' bookstore. Eventually Jacob and Dora moved back to New York. I don't know when he died, but she passed away in 1979.

Marty married Rhoda and had two daughters, Carole and Sharon. They settled in New York. Emily stayed in Texas and married Sammy. They had four sons: Lewis, Paul, Harold, and Jack.

Harold is my husband, and until about a year ago, he had never heard of most of his family, let alone met them. But over time, a few of the cousins had independently begun to research the family tree, including Paula Reynolds, a most amazing woman whose work on tracing the family tree back in time has been phenomenal. My s-i-l Alice (married to Lewis) got involved early last year and last July there was a family reunion that we unfortunately could not attend as we were scheduled to be on a cruise ship to Mexico at the same time.

Meanwhile, a member of the United Brothers Synagogue, a PhD (who sat in on Bill Cosby's orals, from what I gather!), who had started doing family trees a decade earlier, decided to find the descendants of the synagogue's founders for the big anniversary celebration. When she and Paula found each other, they were able to locate the final missing pieces of this large family puzzle, so that 31 Benjamin descendants took part in this weekend's festivities.

Friday evening we attended a Shabbat service at the synagogue, led by the lay leader. The synagogue reminded me of what I imagine an old European or Russian shtiebel looked like. It's a small, unprepossessing building on the outside, but on the inside one immediately feels a strong sense of family and community. That sense of community extends beyond the building; local churches donated the pews and one of their reverends taught the synagogue's first group of children Hebrew.

The difference then and now is that rather than separating the women from the men, as the Orthodox do, this congregation had decided some time ago to become Re-constructionist (I'm still working on a definition for that, but I think it's becoming somewhat of a replacement for Reform Judaism as Reform Judaism moves to the right). The founders were forward-thinking: The by-laws allow a majority of congregants to choose their own sect. By the time we arrived Friday night, the place was packed, so we sat up top, where the women would have sat back in the day. Having that bird's eye view somehow made it all the more special. Not as special, though, as actually meeting some of the Benjamin relatives and hearing stories about the olden days.

Saturday morning we returned to the synagogue to look at old documents and photos, and to take part in an official get-together of the founders' descendants. One of the second generation Benjamin cousins had put together a book with photos and a narrative. Both fascinated me, particularly the photographs, because two of the men depicted—they would have been my husband's great-uncles—looked exactly like him. Some powerful genetics are at work in the Benjamin family!

After milling around and looking at the history, a videographer set up and some of those in attendance began to share stories. The first was Alfred, who would be Emily's first cousin, and the "patriarch" of the Benjamin family. He's 87 and sharp as a tack. A number of Benjamin descendants spoke, but we also heard heart-breaking and heart-warming stories from descendants of other founders, including a 35-year-old woman who never knew any of her extended family until she spoke up. It was but one of many Kleenex moments. Then three siblings spoke: their ancestors had died in 1910 and 1913, leaving young orphaned children behind. As a result, most family connections were lost.

What most people don't realize is that it's far easier to do a family tree if you're from Western European stock. Eastern Europeans present a problem for a variety of reasons, including name changes at Ellis Island. Apparently what's helping today are genealogy centers created by the Church of LDS. When I attempted to do a basic family tree a decade earlier, I could get no further than my mother's parents on her mother's side. She has no knowledge about any relatives on her father's side, other than "a cousin with pretty hair who used to visit once a week" when she was a young girl. The Benjamin family can now trace its roots to the 17th century.

As if discovering all these family members weren't enough, the icing on the cake is the kindness and generosity of the entire Benjamin clan. I wished oh-so-much that Harold's mother Emily had been able to make the trip, but beyond spending time with Lewis and Alice and Paul and Susie, my husband and I each quickly developed relationships with other family members. We're both in the process of Facebook friending, and after one of my new second cousins-in-law (I think) linked to my twitter feed, he proudly showed me his daughter's feed; she's a sportswriter at the Boston Globe. As the credentialed lexophile, I've even been given the task of setting up a sort of Benjamin book club. I can't wait.

Our weekend ended with a trip to a Jewish cemetery in Providence where Harold's grandparents are buried. It was there that we said goodbye to Lewis and Alice, and when we spoke on the phone with our daughter Rachel last night, we couldn't wait to begin sharing stories. Already we're thinking about another trip to New England where Rachel can meet the Benjamins.

It's possible I've presented some of this information inaccurately or incompletely. If any corrections are necessary, I'll make them.

New "You Are What You Like to Read" at H&H

2011-04-12T10:26:00.001-05:00

You Are What You Like to Read: A Book-Selling Savant’s Recs, Pt. 1

My newest blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers just went online. It's the first of two pieces (I think the second goes online tomorrow) detailing my recommendations and sales pitches as a bookseller for two years. I've written about many of them here, but it's nice to have it all in one (or two) handy-dandy, print-outable articles. Drop by for a read today (hopefully you'll like it enough to come back for part two), then post a comment over there.

FYI, currently I'm working on a third "savant" piece, featuring my "straight" romance recommendations.

A Table...at Last!

2011-04-07T16:40:00.000-05:00

We're heading out to Rhode Island tomorrow for a weekend-long family extravaganza. Because I knew this was coming, I planned for it, time-wise:

I turned in my review to PW Editor B, due today, last Friday (in addition to my other PW review last week, for PW Editor A).
I turned in my review of PW Editor A, due Monday, on Monday as planned, and started to read the book for the PW review due this upcoming Monday, also to PW Editor A, so that I would not need to worry about it this weekend, or face a last-minute review Monday morning before eleven.

Alas, my best laid plans were to write the review this afternoon, leaving me enough time for mani-pedi, trip to tailor to pick up hemmed trousers and slight damage repaired to a sweater/jacket I found on deep discount earlier in the week. It's 4:30 in the afternoon now, and I'm just home after a last-minute three-hour adventure. It'll be a late night tonight, but since I don't sleep the night before we fly anymore, I'll be up anyway.

As for that three-hour adventure, here's the story: World Market's online circular arrived in this morning's email, indicating a huge sale on dining room furniture. We've lived in our house for 22 or so years, and don't have a real dining room table and chairs. We always end up renting when we entertain, but the thought of possibly getting a terrific deal on something appealed to me so much that I went through the circular and sent my husband photos of four possible options that were approximately half off—at least—prices we'd seen in the design district.

Next I drove to the nearest World Market. Two of the four options looked better in the photos than in person, and of the other two, which were quite nice to look at and featured clean lines, only one had chairs I found both comfortable and appealing, and were made from a wood and in a finish I liked. Had we been working with the decorator we occasionally use, he might have steered us away from buying eight side chairs rather than buying six and finding two other arm chairs, but I made an executive decision: time to finally take the plunge.

To get the best price, I needed to buy the six-piece set (four chairs, extendable table, and bench), then add four more chairs—two as swap outs for the bench. We don't yet know where, or if, we'll even use the bench, but because of the sale, the store would not swap out the bench for two chairs so that we'd need to only buy two more to end up with eight.

Unfortunately, the sole table at the store was damaged, and after they spent a figurative eternity phoning around, they finally located the one table in all of Dallas county at a store about a half hour away. The other store, which had the table but no chairs or bench, put the table on hold for me, and I paid for all the seating while the managers arranged so that when I paid for the table at the other location, they'd refund the difference to give me the lowest price. We had to eat a second delivery charge, but I went on my merry way to the other store. Because of the high finance involved, it took three employees at each of the two stores to make the transaction work, and I've got my fingers crossed that on Monday the actual two deliveries will be correct...not to mention Amex requiring me to call in to unfreeze my card due to all the strange activity.

I'm quite happy with what I picked out, and happily anticipate a dining room furnished with a dining room table and chairs rather than the small conference table and Windsor chairs that moved with us from our first house back in the day. It would be wonderful to finally replace the china cabinet we inherited with our first house, but hopefully it won't take another 22 years to find one now that we have a style with which to work.

Mystery Solved

2011-03-31T15:31:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the week I read Time magazine's spread on Elizabeth Taylor. On page 62 of the article, there's a photo of Taylor and an unidentified, damn fine-looking man leaning up against what looks to be a sound stage at some or other studio. Earlier today I tweeted: "Who is unidentified male on page 62 of new @TIME with Elizabeth Taylor? Inquiring minds want to know!" Within an hour (ain't Twitter grand?), @Allie_Townsend, who works for Time (and asked the photo department), provided the answer. The unidentified smoldering yet nonetheless nonchalant hunk is Montgomery Clift, whom we now know was deeply tortured by his bisexuality during a time when nobody came out of the closet. (According to Patricia Bosworth's biography of Clift, he once said, "I love men in bed, but I really love women!")

Regardless of that bit of gossip, here's the photo (I cropped it for maximum hunk-gazing), taken by Peter Stackpole, Time & Life Pictures back in the day. Enjoy!

Top Chef Finale

2011-03-31T12:49:00.000-05:00

To be honest, Richard Blais sometimes came off like a dick during this season of Top Chef, not giving any of the credit to Stephanie Izard for his loss to her during season four. But more often, Mike Isabella wore the mantle of asshole chef. During the last couple of episodes, though, he appeared to be more likable, while Blais' neurotic lack of confidence sometimes seemed to be a front to gain sympathy from the judges and other "cheftestants." (How ridiculous is that name, and is it worse than "celebreality?")

Last night, though, I think we saw the real thing from both chefs. Blais willingly delegated to his sous chefs (I worried that Spike wasn't at the same level as Antonia or Angelo, but wasn't he the one who suggested changing the foie gras ice cream?), while Isabella, no doubt immensely talented, wasn't interested in taking any suggestions from Carla, Tiffani, or Jamie. Was that some of the same sexism he exhibited throughout much of the competition (and poor Antonia suffered the most for it when three got cut down to two)? Actually, I don't think so. I think Isabella followed his vision, and for the most part, he succeeded admirably.

Still, I think Blais as winner was the correct call, and I hope this will give him the confidence he needs to give his nasty little "you're not good enough" inner voice a rest. I'm familiar with that voice. So is my daughter. She called Monday to say she'd gotten an A on her philosophy midterm, which surprised her because she thought she'd earned a C+. Poor thing. She's experiencing precisely what I went through after each round of tests in college. I finally stopped fucking with myself in grad school. Hopefully it won't take her four years to figure it out.

I think this was one of the best seasons of Top Chef, even though I wish Angelo had made it into the finals. He against Blais...now that would have been something to see.

Writing for H&H Is Fun!

2011-03-29T13:29:00.004-05:00

I adore writing for Heroes and Heartbreakers! My Rhynannon Byrd "Fresh Meat" piece, which went online yesterday, was incredibly fun to write; the site, thanks to Megan Frampton, has a sensibility I find refreshing. It's modern and pop-culturey. I needed to entirely rewrite each of the first four pieces published so far, but that's because it's tough to go from PW "staff-writing" mode to "let's have fun with it" mode.

I actually don't mind the rewrites because the first draft is "just the facts, ma'am," and totally necessary. The second draft is when I get to morph the piece from impersonal to personal, from old media to new media. If I wanna write "fuck," I write "fuck." If I wanna write "wanna" instead of "want to," I write "wanna." I still limit dashes because I'll never get the "too many dashes are lazy" refrain out of my head, but I might even...gasp...allow myself to use more than one type of special punctuation in a sentence (like a colon and ellipses), something that I decreed verboten at AAR.

Writing for difference sources that require different sorts of writing challenges me. To be honest, I still don't think I've come up with a single "style" for this blog, but I'm going to try to do that in the future. I'm going to aim more for the H&H sensibility, but because some of my posts are more serious, that may be a tall order. We'll see.

New "Fresh Meat" at H&H, and the Art of the Review

2011-03-28T16:55:00.003-05:00

Fresh Meat: Rhyannon Byrd's Rush of Darkness

My newest blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers just went online (5:00 p.m. eastern time). My sub-title for the piece is Dysfunction junction...come on, gimme a little smile. Drop by and give it a read, then post a comment over there.

I thought I'd share with you why I don't seem to be blogging much these days. It's simple. I'm spending all my time reading and writing, either reviews for PW, or pieces for H&H. I've got another spec piece in draft status, with another just written yet not submitted, and in the last week, in addition to reading and writing about Byrd's book, I read and reviewed two books for the magazine (not including the review I turned in this morning). Never has it felt so good to be under such a time crunch, although having to write ten drafts (yes, you heard right, ten drafts) between last evening and my eleven o'clock deadline this morning for my most recent PW review was not exactly a barrel full of monkeys.

Why were ten drafts necessary for this particular review? Well, the book was nearly 500 pages long and had four sub-plots, three of which melded together. It's part of a long-running series that I've not read in its entirety, with a tremendous number of fans who are as unhappy with review errors as I am. If the facts in a review aren't right, the entire thing—analysis and all—lacks credibility. Because these are short reviews, there's no margin whatsoever for error, and with a book readers are ready to devour, the pressure is more keen than usual.

I write for two PW editors; my mass market editor requires reviews to be no more than 170 words, including page cites. My fiction editor allots up to 300 words (with page cites). This was a review for my mass market editor and the first draft was too long by half. By the time I'd cut it down enough, I'd not only gone through nine more drafts, I'd very nearly rewritten the entire review several times.

For me, the hardest part of self-editing to meet a word count is giving up ownership of my writing. In this review, for instance, I'd written a particularly brilliant sentence fragment. It lasted from draft five through draft nine. Ultimately I cut it because the sentence directly following it subsumed my point. I should have been able to let it go a couple of drafts sooner, but it took further editing to determine how I could cut the fragment and replace it with an entire sentence. Other writers, who are more skilled than I am, no doubt find this easier to do, but even after sixteen years of reviewing, I struggle.

I've got six books to review for PW between now and early May, and I've committed to writing at least two more Fresh Meat pieces for H&H. In addition to the spec pieces I've submitted or finished writing, I plan to write more. And, I'd like to fit in a little reading simply for the pleasure of reading. Not that I'm complaining; I'm glad to be busy and hope everything I write that's published pleases readers and my editors. While you can't update me on my success at PW (I can tell you that I had one review among the 86 published today, but can't be more specific than that), I hope you'll give me feedback on my H&H articles.

My Hour of Crazy

2011-03-20T14:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my wedding anniversary and after my daughter finished doing my makeup (she's home for spring break from college and asked if she could), I took out the jewelry I planned to wear out to dinner at Stephan Pyles (yum!) last night. I could not find my earrings and went into an hour-long bout of crazy looking for them.

The ring and bracelet I'd planned to wear were right where they should be...in a small yellow jewelry bag that sits on the crystal plate in my bathroom which houses all my nice non-safe deposit box jewelry. The earrings should have been in the same small yellow bag, but were not. My daughter and I frantically started looking in drawers, in my closet, my bedside table—anywhere they might be. Eventually I got so upset I told her to stop. Continuing to look would spoil my evening. And so I decided that my next "project" would be to reorganize my bathroom drawers and closet space, all in the service of finding the damn earrings.

I got dressed, put on a different set of earrings, then went into the den to relax until it was time to leave. About five minutes before we left, I asked, "Do either of you actually remember my wearing them after I bought the other jewelry on our cruise this past summer?" Neither had any recollection. Suddenly I remembered blogging about the jewelry I'd bought, and posting pictures of each piece, last August, and ran into my study to take a look.

Guess what? There were no earrings. I'd actually invented them in my mind, but of course, after thinking about it, realized I'd never be so matchy-matchy. This hour of insanity will undoubtedly and undeniably go down on my "most crazy" list that I mentally keep. See, I never lose things. In the past five years there have only been two instances in which I could not find something, and in both cases, they were actually where I thought they were. Problem is, the inside of my backpack is black, and the neoprene cover for my iPod is also black, as is the zipper bag in which I store my laptop plug and chargers for my phone and Kindle. Both times I went more than a little nuts trying to find one or the other, but in both instances, they were actually there...I just need to root around to find them.

Anyway, we all had a good laugh about it, and I kept thinking about the earrings that weren't lost because they didn't exist during our delicious dinner. So much that I actually designed a pair from looking at my bracelet. This is what they'd look like. If only they weren't so matchy-matchy

Btw, dinner last night was one of the best meals I ever ate. I mention it specifically to write about the sous vide stuffed chicken. Until last night I'd never actually eaten any food prepared in this manner. If you ever have the chance—and since more and more chefs are incorporating this style of cooking into their menus, you well may—try it. It was the most moist and tender chicken I've ever eaten. Now, I like chicken well enough, and adore my husband's pan-roasted chicken, but I'd never imagined it could taste this good. Of course, my appetizer was phenomenal (really, how could seared foie gras be anything but amazing?), as was the amuse-bouche (a small bite of lobster and asparagus in a delicate sauce), but the dessert also blew me away: Mexican chocolate fondant with fleur de sel caramel and Kahlúa crema. For a few years now I've loved salted caramel and salted chocolate, so this was a real treat. My husband's dinner was equally wonderful, and after 28 years of marriage, I'm still wildly in love.
If you're ever in Dallas, have dinner at Stephan Pyles. He's among those few chefs who invented Southwestern cuisine, and I can remember in our younger days waiting six weeks for a reservation at his first restaurant, Routh Street Cafe. Not only was it the place to see and be seen, the food was brilliant. What can I say? It was the late 1980s and we were yuppies with a disposable income.

Now online at Heroes and Heartbreakers...

2011-03-13T09:31:00.000-05:00

Fresh Meat: Wendy Soliman’s Of Dukes and Deceptions

My newest blogging at Heroes and Heartbreakers just went online this morning. It's all about the trope that wasn't...and the one that was. Drop by and give it a read, then post a comment over there.

Growing an actual readership after all this time is not easy; I'm trying very hard not to get as neurotic as I once was when a new piece is published online. It helps that I'm merely a freelancer over there, but old habits die hard. Meanwhile, have a great Sunday. Hope your loss of an hour doesn't make you sleepy.

Education, Short-Sightedness, and Child Labor

2011-03-09T11:25:00.000-06:00

It's hard to imagine, but less than a year ago I posted A Rant of Major Proportions, in which I theorized just how far back the lunatic right-wing fringe would like us to move. Thanks to a Facebook friend, it's as I suspected: FDR's New Deal and the umbrella of laws and regulations it encompassed.

My friend linked to an article today from her Facebook feed that required further investigation. The explosive headline of the linked article reads: Missouri GOP Wants to Repeal Child Labor Laws. Because the article is posted on a non-neutral website, I decided to look into it further, and went back to the beginning to remind myself that laws put into place at a federal level which govern the minimum age of employment date back to the 1930s. Does anyone outside of the lunatic right-wing fringe think the supposed "nanny state" began in the 1930s...really? I won't even go into the fact that this same group of patriots believe woman are too imbecilic to be responsible for our own health decisions and that the government must step in to "help" us.

Okay, back to child labor laws. A Republican state senator from Missouri wants to amend the state's child labor laws...effective at the start of the next school year...so that children under fourteen can work more than three hours a day during the school week and more than eight hours a day on non-school days. Further, if this bill passes, inspectors could not monitor workplace compliance over remaining child labor laws.

Child labor laws weren't enacted by an out-of-control government under the "liberal" administrations of the last twenty years. Hell, they weren't enacted by an out-of-control government under the "liberal" administrations of the last forty years. Laws governing minimum ages were enacted more than seventy years ago.

Given the existing drop-out rates and how badly Americans compare to other developed nations in terms of education, do we really want middle-school students working more than three hours a day during the school week? Do we want them working before seven in the morning or nine at night?

My husband and I recently talked about Governor Rick Perry's odd views on public education. Given that Texas currently ranks 47th in education, that Perry took federal money earmarked for education but then cut state education funds in the same amount to effectively pocket the money, and that he plans to cut even more money from education (and libraries), I've concluded that Perry's braggadocio about not raising taxes and how terrific that is in luring businesses to come to Texas is a big load of smelly horse shit. Do companies want to relocate in order to create high-paying jobs that require educated people to fill them in a state that doesn't produce educated people? The logic doesn't track. On the other hand, if Texas is spitting out people fit only for low-wage jobs that don't require much learnin', we are in great shape.

Last year, the Houston Chronicle reported that "Texas' unhappy mix of dismal eduation achievement and high poverty" may have disastrous results, such as almost a third of the work force not having high school diplomas by 2040. This downward trend in education...and the poverty that goes along with it...is not only of concern to statisticians; Texas business executives also worry about their future work force. And for those who question the bias of that statistician, he worked in the Bush administration as head of the Census Bureau.

Among those quoted in the article is the CEO of the Texas Association of Business, who warns about the long-term results of short-sighted policies like those currently in vogue in Texas. According to Bill Hammond, "The only way we will turn around public education in Texas is for the business community to realize that their future is at stake." He fears for the future of Texas in terms of economic competitiveness, and adds, "Much of the state's leadership looks like me [Anglo] and do not understand that in 20 years time, their children are going to face a bleak future in spite of the fact that they have a college education because there are not going to be enough educated workers to move the economy ahead."

By all means, let's ensure a strong work ethic in our young by allowing middle-schoolers to spend their free time working rather than learning. It'll be like the good old days.

Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

2011-03-08T11:48:00.001-06:00

Blood, Bones, and Butter

Gabrielle Hamilton

Memoir

Grade: C+

Ever since I saw the first "wow, this is great!" review of Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones, and Butter, I knew I had to read it. When Amazon offered it through their Vine program, I requested a copy. As advertised, the author's voice is clear, strong, and very descriptive; it's not surprising to learn she earned a master's degree in writing. When she describes the "pig-urine stench of panchetta," I sat back, thought about it, and realized she was absolutely...incredibly...right on the nose. The book's structure, though, didn't work as well as the prose itself. I would have preferred seeing her in my mind's eye as an adult first, and a chef, before reading about her very unusual upbringing. Context is necessary on both ends, and without the later context, her background seemed all the more foreign.

Read this Amazon Vine review in its entirety at Amazon.

This May Help Explain Things

2011-03-07T16:26:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend I read an article in @newsweek on the science of decision-making. Sharon Begley's article begins with this lead off: "The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence—our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions."

Begley explains the science behind what Alvin Toffler coined as "information overload." I don't know about you, but I'm someone who always tries to research things. When it came time to buy a Blu-Ray player a few months ago, I made myself crazy in the process while trying to decide on precisely which one. At the time I wished for only three or four options...you know, the number I would have by going to a non-superstore that sold electronics.

I just came back from a trip to @ulta_beauty in an effort to buy some new skin care products. It took me an hour and a half to choose between the fifteen to twenty high-end lines. Honestly, had I done a similar shopping spree a decade ago, I know I would have been able to choose within a half hour.

What's going on in my brain that makes me dither? It's not just stress or being depressed...both well-known causes of dithering/mind-fucking. Begley explains that as we begin the process of selection on something, our brain activity increases. That's fine, but there's a mental circuit-breaker that shuts off when the line is crossed between enough information to make a well-informed decision and information overload. Before that point the part of the brain governing decision-making and controlling emotions is in charge, so to speak, but after we cross the line, activity in that part of the brain essentially shuts off, and our emotions "run as wild as toddlers on a sugar high." The result of too much information, therefore is that "people's decisions make less and less sense."

Which reminded me of Malcom Gladwell and the theory he posited in Blink: Successful decisions lie in between instinctive thinking and deliberate thinking. If, like me, you spend too much time researching prior to making a decision, you're not allowing your instincts enough input into the process. Over the years I've tried to "listen to my gut" when it speaks to me. At this point unless something is dreadfully, dreadfully wrong, I believe my gut isn't as "loud" as it used to be. Has it been muted by too much deliberate thought?

I discovered, for instance, way back when, when I worked in municipal management, that when a problem remained unsolvable for any period of time, that I needed to step away from it. I can't tell you how many nights I'd get into my car and drive home after too much thinking, when violà, the answer "came" to me. Even now, I often do my best thinking after going to bed, when I've given my brain a chance to relax. It's one of the main reasons I suffer from insomnia.

Reading Begley's article was like a kick in the pants for me to try and engage my instincts more and limit my deliberate thinking less.

Treachery in Death by J.D. Robb

2011-03-03T08:30:00.000-06:00

Treachery in Death

J.D. Robb

Futuristic Romantic Suspense

Grade: B

Detective Eve Dallas and her partner, Peabody, are following up on a senseless crime-an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. This is Peabody's first case as primary detective-good thing she learned from the master.

But Peabody soon stumbles upon a trickier situation. After a hard workout, she's all alone in the locker room when the gym door clatters open; and-while hiding inside a shower stall trying not to make a sound-she overhears two fellow officers, Garnet and Oberman, arguing. It doesn't take long to realize they're both crooked-guilty not just of corruption but of murder. Now Peabody, Eve, and Eve's husband, Roarke, are trying to get the hard evidence they need to bring the dirty cops down-knowing all the while that the two are willing to kill to keep their secret.

I've been tepid in my response to the most recent In Death releases, so I approached Treachery in Death with some trepidation. If I didn't like it a great deal, I planned to go on a semi-permanent J.D. Robb hiatus. Thank god I won't have to do that. If not for two flaws—I found it overly long and wished for another love scene—this one would have earned an even higher grade.

Although Treachery in Death is primarily a procedurally oriented book, Robb still serves up plenty of great personal interplay between Eve Dallas and her NYPSD cohorts. Peabody's relationship with Eve moves to a new level. The unmotherly Eve is like a mama bird in this book; she's pushing Peabody out of the nest knowing she's ready to fly. And Peabody, around whom this corruption plot circles, flies high and strong.

Robb didn't write enough physical intimacy between Eve and Roarke this time around, but their love and care for each other remains palpable. I particularly enjoyed their banter about Eve owing Roarke sexual favors as a result of his "consultant" work for her in this instance. He ups the ante each time she wants him to do more and do it faster; by the end of the story costumes are involved. Whenever she second-guesses him on the case, he becomes more and more "insulted" by her lack of confidence. It's all in great fun, and helps lighten the tone.

Even better than their banter, though, is how Roarke, a former criminal, totally "gets" Eve. She tells him that "at the end of the day, you're what fixes me up." It's a beautiful moment, particularly in context as Eve reflects upon her relationship to her squad and compares it to the corrupt relationship she uncovers between another lieutenant and her men. My all-time favorite moment of the book actually comes when one of her men, and not Baxter or Truehart or anyone who's gotten much (if any) screen time, takes down one of the corrupt cops:

"Drop the fucking weapon, you fucking motherfucker, or I'll fucking scramble your fucking brains. Hands up! Hands where I can fucking see them, you fucking cocksucker. You fucking breathe wrong, you fucking blink wrong, and I will fuck you up."
"On your fucking face, you fucking shit coward. Stream my lieutenant in the fucking back? Fuck you..."
"I seem to have misjudged my step, Lieutenant, and stepped on one of this motherfucker's fingers. I believe it's broken."

That's not a spoiler, btw, as in every book in this series there's a moment when Eve puts herself in the line of fire. And it all comes together at the very end, during that moment of reflection for Eve, and brings it back to Peabody too; Eve allows her squad to fly high, gives them the respect they deserve, expects the best, and they're glad to give it to her. Eve may not have family in the traditional sense—outside of Roarke—but her squad is her family, unconventional though it may be, and Eve, whether she likes it or not, is their mama bird. By the end of Treachery in Death, I believe she actually begins to like that fact.

That Was Quick!

2011-03-02T11:53:00.000-06:00

By the time I finished writing tomorrow's blog entry for Toe in the Water, I received notification of a Twitter "@ mention" indicating my second piece for Heroes and Heartbreakers was live. And so, I can now reveal what primarily I will be writing for H&H: Short essays on new releases.

Through digital arcs made available under netgalley—unless the book is published under a Macmillan imprint—I will be writing about new books. These brief pieces are not traditional reviews; indeed, there is no synopsis given. Instead I will accompany back cover blurbs with a point of focus about the book from my perspective, something I liked...or did not like...about it, if that something is worthy of mention.

Because these are not traditional reviews and no grades accompany them, I've decided to omit grades on future reviews here on Toe in the Water as well so that I don't drive myself crazy. Also, I plan on using back cover blurbs in lieu of synopses as well, something I often did on my old blog. The difference between what I'll be writing here and what I'll be writing at H&H is that here, except for the synopsis difference, you'll be reading an actual review on the book in its entirety. Tomorrow's review, btw, is of the new J.D. Robb.

I'll be keeping up with all this new reading...all my reading regardless of the venue (if there's a venue at all) as well, on Goodreads, but if I write about a book at H&H, I won't assign a rating at Goodreads, although I will link to my essay.

P.S. Because I am required to rate books I review for Amazon Vine, I decided to keep grades here on the blog. The only grades that will not appear, then, are for those books I write about at Heroes and Heartbreakers.

Grumbly in my Tumbly?

2011-03-02T10:24:00.000-06:00

I heard from my new editor at Heroes & Heartbreakers this morning about the second piece I sent her. She would like for pieces of this type to be my focus for now. Again, I can't reveal what type of piece it is because it will be the first of its kind, but that's not what I want to talk about here. No, I want to talk about something else, something that didn't even occur to me until bedtime last night. Once the thought struck, my stomach went to a very bad place for a few hours...hence my reference to grumbly in the tumbly. It's not related to a hungry stomach, just an angsty one.

This is the reason for my angst: Have I, or will people think that I've sold out by writing for and being paid to write for a blog sponsored by a publisher? Does this go against everything I stood for during my time at TRR and AAR?

At this point in my career, I consider myself a free-lance writer, one who focuses on mass market and other fiction. I occasionally pen pieces for the National Association of Book Critics, get paid to review books for Publishers Weekly, and when offered the opportunity to add another freelance job to my resume, I took it. Although the site is funded by a publisher, I take them at their word that they are "publisher-neutral in our selection of books, authors and materials for coverage and discussion." Indeed, my focus will likely include books published by the various Macmillan imprints only every so often; most of my energy will be spent writing about books released by other publishers.

I took this job because of the people involved in it. Megan Frampton, who heads up the blog team, once reviewed for me at AAR. She's now my editor and boss. Myretta Robens and Cheryl Sneed are both long-time online friends whom I've often turned to for advice. If the three of us sat in a room together rather than on a telephone, it would be a good, old-fashioned hen party, with lots of gossip, laughter, and most likely, liberal amounts of alcohol. Myretta and Cheryl help run The Republic of Pemberley. Myretta and Megan both published trad Regencies before the sub-genre went into that good night and Cheryl, who reviewed at AAR for quite awhile and also headed up the massive data entry project corresponding to the site's review database way back when, also writes at Rakehell.

I have a personal relationship with these women, none of whom have any difficulty differentiating between good fiction and bad. As my brief for joining H&H was all-inclusive where thumbs up or thumbs down are concerned, this looked like a win-win for me. I would be able to write again online where an actual audience could find me, I'd be paid for it, and could laud a book or criticize it at my discretion.

As I said, that was my thought process until last night, when the "Have I sold out?" thoughts began to niggle, then shout within my head. I don't think I have. What I'll be doing is no different from what I've always done, whether at TRR, AAR, Publishers Weekly, Amazon, my old blog, or this "new" one. I will continue to share my unbiased opinions, but won't act, as I did at AAR, as a reporter (although I may here on my personal blog). The only difference as far as I'm concerned is who's paying for the real estate.

I hope that doesn't make me a sell-out. I don't think it does. Do you?

"Werewolves FTW" at Heroes and Heartbreakers

2011-03-01T09:58:00.002-06:00

It's official...my first blog entry at Heroes & Heartbreakers went online today. Click here to link directly to Sexy Beast: Werewolves FTW! and post a comment if you'd like.

I Take It All Back

2011-02-25T10:15:00.000-06:00

I started graduate school in mid-January, and as a result of multiple learning curves—ie, technological, subject matter, and differences in "how college is done" these days—my seven credit hours turned into a 40-hour work week for me. Still, I pushed on, even though my husband and daughter increasingly wondered why I didn't seem to enjoy the work. I tried to respond thusly:

"Studying library science is not like studying political science or philosophy, where you learn about policies and ideas that effect humanity. Library science is the study of information; how to find it, how to use it, how to manage it. I can't get excited about that in and of itself, but that doesn't mean I don't like it."

Apparently, though, it meant just that.

Earlier this week, after receiving four A's out of four projects (three of the four of which were perfect scores), I realized that the only true enjoyment I'd had from either class was this past Saturday, when one of my professors lectured for eight hours. She'd missed the first session back in January (the second was cancelled due to snow and ice) and while online I wasn't sure what to make of her, in person she was amazing, and that alone was what I enjoyed. Alas, my work in my other, wholly online class, revealed something important to me. In that class we were required to focus on an individual library for the entire semester's worth of projects. I chose a branch library in the city of Garland, Texas. After working with library staff (they were great) and city government staff in Garland, Texas, I experienced horrendous flashbacks to my first career, in municipal management as a division manager for the City of Dallas. Listening to those refrains of "never again" in my head, I concluded I did not want to work in a public library, effectively shutting off the majority of librarian positions.

I pride myself in thinking things through the first time around so that when I make decisions, I don't need to rethink them later on.

Apparently, though, I did a piss-poor job in this instance.

A tremendous amount of soul-searching throughout the early part of the week, including a visit with a friend from class and phone calls to my academic adviser, friends from AAR who are librarians and totally "get" me, and a close family friend, as well as lengthy discussion with my husband, helped me put things in perspective. A chance email a week and a half ago from a[nother] close online friend about the possibility of a part-time, paid blogging position refused to vacate my brain even though I'd already sent her a "sorry, I've moved on" response. She too received a phone call from me, and after this exhaustive process—which also included going over the course catalog for the degree and finding little that interested me this time around—I decided it was better to realize early on that librarianship really wasn't for me. As I told my husband, being a librarian really isn't like "working in a bookstore except you get to sit down."

Yesterday I sent my official request to withdraw from my spring semester classes to UNT's registrar. I finished the book I need to review for Publishers Weekly by Monday and, after reading a blog entry by another close online friend at the blog I'm joining, decided my debut could well be a response to it, which I wrote up last night and sent to the site's manager for her to peruse, approve, or decline. While I finished up the spec piece during the evening, sitting on the couch with The Big Bang Theory playing on TV in the background, my husband said to me, "You look happy."

I believe I am. That said, though, the idea that I made a bad decision the first time around is tough for my over-sized ego to handle, not to mention the embarrassment I feel after making such a loud pronouncement about my Major Life Change a couple of months ago that now I must retract.

On the other hand, deciding to quit the program when I was succeeding is an entirely different proposition than leaving because I was not. Still, in the back of my mind the thought niggles that I gave up out of laziness. Nobody who knows me now believes this could possibly be so, but growing up I was lazy; just ask my mom. And yet, writing, and being paid for it, as I am at PW and now will be at this blog (which I don't want to name until my first piece appears online), fulfills something deep inside of me.

I continue to be a work in progress...and am back online.

RIP Bob Gold

2011-02-09T18:41:00.000-06:00

(Bob and Baby a few months ago)

Our cat Bob took very ill late last night. This afternoon, on a cruel winter day filled with snow and a blistering wind, we said goodbye to him at the vet's office.

(Bob waiting for a belly rub in December)

We're all very sad at the loss of Bob T. Cat., one of the coolest and most handsome of cats ever. Sweet but weird, and therefore an oh-so-fitting member of our little family.

Rest in peace, Bob. You shall be missed.

Texas Libraries

2011-01-27T20:48:00.000-06:00

Dear Library Supporter,

Take action now and click on SAVE LIBRARY PROGRAMS to send an email to your legislators. You can customize your message to describe the negative impact of budget cuts. The time for action is now!

Ask your friends, neighbors, support groups, and everyone you can think of to send messages as well. Distribute this call to action through social media and any other tools at your disposal. We need tens of thousands of messages to go forward, and we need your help getting this message to our stakeholders across the state.

As you may already know, the proposed state budget:

Eliminates Loan Star Libraries (direct aid grants to public libraries)
Eliminates all state funding for TexShare databases
Eliminates the K-12 Database Program
Eliminates the Library System Negotiated Grants Program
Eliminates state funding for statewide library development
Eliminates state funding for the state depository program and TRAIL program
Assumes an overall loss of over $8 million in IMLS funds (Note: federal funding is the source of funding for the regional library systems, the TANG program, and interlibrary loan.)
Eliminates the Technology Allotment at TEA
Eliminates funding for the State Law Library

Without a restoration of library funding, Texas will have no state infrastructure for library services. Compounded with massive cuts proposed at the local level throughout the state, Texas libraries are in danger. We need you and every single library supporter in Texas to write elected officials to oppose cuts to libraries and urge the restoration of funding for library services.

Gloria Meraz

Texas Library Association

Okay, Maybe Not So Much

2011-01-21T10:06:00.000-06:00

After signing off yesterday, I never got to that Word outline tutorial because when I went back into Blackboard to see if my professor had responded to my email, I learned two things. The first was that, as she reminded me, our assignment could deal with a special library, and what I'd proposed was the Fine Books Collection within the Main Dallas Library, which means I'll need to pick again. The second was that when I'd worked through that lesson yesterday, it must have been too early in the day because now it was longer...and there were two associated assignments and one self-assessment test connected to it. Oy.

I spent the next few hours going through the entire thing, reworking my outline from start to finish, adding to it, moving things around, etc., based on the "new" lesson, then performed my first self-assessment (I scored a perfect 100% even though I guessed on one of the questions because as far as I could see, it was not covered in the online lesson, which means I'll be going back into the material again today to discover if I somehow missed it the first time around...not a strong testament to my note-taking/outline-making abilities). Next up was answering one of five questions in an online discussion board based on the material, followed by answering another question via email to the professor.

It was nearly ten in the evening before I turned off my laptop and got ready for bed. As I brushed my teeth I realized I'd spent far too long working on this first day's work and will need to work smarter and more quickly. After signing off here, I'll be checking out the websites of three other libraries and possibly contacting them, then I'll return to yesterday's material about the data I somehow missed.