Yakkety Yak

Not much to post today. I can't believe I'm sharing this story but here it is: This afternoon Bosley yakked on my head. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen a Great Dane vomit, but it's a sight both horrific and awesome. We're talking half a gallon of soupy dog food, Cheeto remnants, grass, and mud exploding on the back of my head with each lurch. For the record, he lurched 2.5 times.

You're probably asking yourself, "How the hell did the dog hit the back of her head, and why the hell didn't she move?"

Answer: I like to sit on the floor in front of my coffee table with my laptop resting on the surface, legs stretched out beneath the table. When I'm in that position, I'm basically rendered immobile. Or, at least, it's tough to move quickly. Also Bosley likes to sit next to me and rest his chin on the top of my head. I'm not sure why he does that, but whatever.

It was a nice afternoon so I left the back door open so Bos could run back and forth between the house and the backyard. It's easier than getting up every ten minutes to open the door. Normally I take away his food and water when he's racing around the back yard. (Danes can develop bloat and torsion if they do a lot of running after eatng. Bloat and torsion can be fatal and usually is.) I totally spaced today so he was able to eat and drink and run around. He raced into the living room, skidded into the couch, and then slammed his drool-dripping chin onto my head. I sighed and gave him a soft shove on the shoulder. He grumbled and burped (smelled like burnt tires, I swear) and then dry heaved. I tried to clamber away, but there was no time. I got hosed.

I'm sooooo glad that I'm not a sympathetic puker. To be fair to Bos, dog yak isn't the worst thing that I've been sprayed with in my lifetime. During high school, I spent hundreds of hours in the back of an ambulance and during that time I was hosed/splashed/sprayed/misted with various bodily fluids including but not limited to: a blood geyser caused by a shotgun wound to the head (that was my first call ever, btw), a four year old with a hellacious tummy ache and apparently a penchant for 7Up and animal crackers, the clumpy yellow contents of an exploding NG tube (happened maybe ten minutes into a fifty minute transport,) poo vomit from an elderly patient with some horrendous kind of blockage that caused her poo to literally back up and well you get the picture, and the sympathetic vomit from the medic riding the poo vomit call with me.

In case you're wondering, I don't miss those days. Not one bit. I'm quite content to concern myself the gastric explosions of Bos, on occasion Dave-o, and maybe someday kids.

Age of Consent

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking, mainly existential thoughts of little or no use. (Damn you, Kierkegaard!!!) A few weeks ago at Ash's baby shower, I had one of those "holy shit, we're grown-ups" moments. I didn't like it. It gave me the squicks.

Sara, Ash, and I were standing in Ash's parents' kitchen, and rather than talking about the usual stuff (movies, TV, music, juicy gossip about so-and-so,) we were discussing our 401(k) plans, mutual funds, and filing Homestead papers. I know! It's sick, right? Ash was the first to catch on to the absolute ickiness of the discussion and made a comment to that end. We laughed about it, but it stuck with me. Someone, I think it may have been Ash's grandmother, remarked that she'd never seen such young women discussing those kinds of things.

Between the three of us we've mastered the Trifecta of Adulthood: Marriage, House, and Baby. Ash and I are tied; she has the marriage and baby, and I have the house and marriage. Sara has the house. Oh, and a riding lawn mower which, quite frankly, might be a better deal than a husband. At least some days, lol.

Almost two years ago, Sara made the first jump into adulthood when she bought a house. (She was 21-22ish.) A year later and aged 23, I was the second to buy a house and the first to get married. Ash (23) and Ryan married a month later and had Nick six days ago. (I hear the little guy totally rocks, by the way.)

So I don't know. Are we accomplishing the big "adult" hurdles earlier than previous generations? Are we the norm or the exception? Am I disgusted and totally freaked out by the fact that I not only bought but frequently wear (around the house, never in public) a, gulp, Fair Isle hoodie? Did my fist-pumping, Damn-the-Man-screaming, bohemian/emo youth just shoot me the finger and call me a consumer whore before making a mad dash out the nearest door? And why the hell was my youth murmuring something about Project Mayhem and soap?

When I mention these fears/worries to Dave, he tells me I'm overreacting and that this is just life. You get older. Life goes on. Yeah, well, I then have to remind Dave that his outlook is fine for, you know, someone as old as he is. (He tends to make The Face when I remind him of the age difference. Sometimes I point it out just to giggle at The Face, lol.)

Who knows. Dave's probably right. Even so, I'm clinging to the final vestiges of my youth with a death grip. And yeah, I'm totally going to mourn the day I lose the right to check the 18-24 age range box. 25-30? The HORROR!

Furry Faux Pas

*Disclaimer: This first paragraph may contain some language that offends. Seriously, though, I'm not sure the "appropriate" terms are any less crass and/or offensive.*

It's come to my attention that Bosley has absolutely no grasp on social mores. He sees absolutely no issue with flopping onto the couch or carpet, rolling onto his back and gyrating. It's like watching a Scooby Doo/Ron Jeremy/Chippendale hybrid. All guests of the house are instantly treated to an enthusiastic crotch and/or crack sniff, and the last time poor Sara came to the house, Bosley made quite a show of auto-fellating and tossing his own salad. She took it in stride, but I was mortified when he then proceeded to attempt to lick Sara's hand. Ew! I know!

I know short of making him some doggie tightie-whities there's really nothing I can do to curb his exhibitionist tendencies. Sometimes I even envy him a bit. Ah, to enjoy that sort of public freedom...

Dave and I are trying to get Bosley out more. He needs a little social interaction, but I've been wary since he tends to panic when in new situations or around other dogs. Until this week, he's flatly refused to get into the truck to go anywhere. It was an absolute nightmare to get him into the truck to go back to E-Town, or hell, even to go to the vet which is right down the street. Dave usually resorts to hefting the dog over one shoulder to get him in the truck. (Lift with your knees, Dave-O! Lift with your knees!)

Yesterday Dave and I decided to head over to Chick-Fil-A for a late lunch. On a whim, we decided we'd take Bos with us. Eventually we managed to get him in his harness--he thinks it's a chew toy, but seriously, if you have a big dog or a leasher jerker, get one! They're amazing!

Where was I? Oh, right. Bos in harness. So I walked him outside, fully prepared to drag his huge butt over to the truck, but he surprised me by trotting right over to the passenger door. I opened the door, he climbed in and we took off. Dave and I were shocked.

There was a slight moment of panic went we went through the drive-thru. The second he heard that scratchy speaker voice, Bos' ears perked and he gave that low growl he does before he starts bellowing. Luckily he stayed calm and only did a small bark when he saw the guy taking orders at window.

Oh, and the cashier girl handed Dave one of those bone shaped treats with our order. (Odd, I know, but I guess they see a lot of dogs?) Dave held the bone out to Bosley, and I'll be damned if he didn't give a sniff and haughtily toss his head. Apparently Ol' Roy treats are beneath him.

You know, I think I spoil him too much. In the beginning, Dave and I gave Bosley the best of everything because we felt so freakin' bad for him. He looked so pathetic when we adopted him because he'd been so badly mistreated at that effing puppy mill. Organic shampoo and conditioner, super premium dog food, tons of toys, the best vet, lots of snuggles--there was nothing we denied him. I realize now that I've turned Bosley into the Veruca Salt of Great Danes. "I want it now!"

All along Dave quietly warned me that all the things I found so cute in my fifty pound puppy were going to be annoying when he was one hundred pounds. Did I listen? No. Am I paying for it now? Yeah. The lesson: If we ever have kids, all things in moderation.

A (Not So) Glamorous Life

Two bits of news before the main post:

1) The Ash gave birth to The Baby Nick via C-section at 0323 this morning! He's a big boy (21 inches, 9 lbs 2 oz), and from what I hear from his uber-proud mommy, a real cutie! Congrats to Ash and Ryan!!!!

2) Apparently I dropped a plastic blister pack containing a 25 Pounds or Under dose of Heartgard on the floor. Dave saw it but didn't pick it up. Bosley, however, did find it and ate the entire thing. Yes plastic and all. Sigh. Luckily the extra Heartguard dose isn't a problem, but I'll give you one guess about who is now on Poop Watch '08. Her name starts with an "M" and ends with "aria is irked and grossed out."

Now onto the promised post by J. Scalzi. I've never read any of his books (I'm not a sci-fi fan) but I heart his blog. Recently he posted an entry on money and writing. Ah, yes, one of the evils that plagues artists, specifically that there never seems to be enough of it, the money that is.

His first piece of advice is priceless and sadly so effing true: You're a writer. Prepared to be broke. You know, I'm not sure where this romanticized view of writers lounging all day in their pajamas while sipping champagne and eating Teuscher truffles comes from, but it's so far from the truth that it's laughable. Folks, I sit my chubby butt in front of my laptop 10-14 hours a day (sometimes more if I'm on a writing jag) with no guarantee that I'll ever get paid for my work. My first published novella, Nocturnal Obsession, was written in three days, but some of my longer works (like my novel Sangre which was shopped around by my agent, generated interest from multiple editors, but never made it through the buying committee) took months of schlepping and revising and editing to finish--and never made me a freakin' dime. One word for that: demoralizing. But I love writing and telling stories so I just keep after it. I'm finally at a point where I'm making money but it's hardly enough to support me.

Which brings me to Scalzi's third piece of advice: Marry (or otherwise shack up with) someone sensible with money, who has a real job. I totally lucked out with Dave-O. He happily supported my broke ass for years before we were married and never complained. He seems to think my bad ass cooking and, uh, well, other skills, are a fair trade, but I'll be the first to admit that it was, at times, difficult to realize that I had zero income. Again, I was lucky because Dave never made me ask for money (like some asshat men do.) We paid our bills and then split whatever was left over as discretionary spending. By the end of this year, I hope to generate enough writing income to cover 1/3 of our monthly expenses. That doesn't sound like a very lofty goal, but for a writer, it's huge. And really I can't complain. I've had a relatively easy time of starting my writing career. I know writers who worked ten to fifteen years before finally getting an agent or publishing a book. I started at 21ish and sold my first book at 23. Not bad really.

The rest of Scalzi's post concerns good money management and tips that most people would benefit from using. Dave and I laughed as we went through them because we do all of them. We are so freakin' frugal it's almost sad at times. We don't have cable or satellite. We don't go out to dinner or the movies more than 4-5 times a year. We don't use credit cards. We've had the same furniture for years, and lemme tell you, it desperately needs replacing. But until we have the cash in hand, we're happy making do. I know a lot of people don't get that but we'd rather be happy with what we have than unhappy and stressed over bills for shit we don't need.

If you're interested in writer incomes and/or pay schedules here are two illuminating posts:

Jim C. Hines: The Money Post

Jennifer Jackson (Agent): Advances--What Are They Really Made Of?

Also I'm often asked about royalties. Here's the breakdown:

Digital (e-books): 37.5% of cover price (I heart e-publishing!)
Mass Market Paperback: 6-8% of cover price, but I've seen the number as high as 10% (depends on the number of units sold)
Trade Paperbacks: 7.5% of cover price
Hardcover: 10% of first 5000 copies, 12.5% of next 5000, and then 15% of everything else

Keep in mind that it gets more confusing when you factor in wholesale discounts for books sold to chain stores and such. Also you don't see a penny of your royalties until you've earned through your advance. Oh, and don't forget that out of your royalties you have to pay agent fees (15%) and self-employment taxes.

Sigh. Hardly as glamorous as it seems, eh? Still I wouldn't change it for the world. Well. Okay. I'd change the mediocre royalty checks--but that's it.

Sweatin' With Sven!

OMG! OMG! OMG! The Ash is labor with The Baby Nick!!!! Give it hell, mami!

Bosley went to the vet today. He weighs 118.4 pounds. Yes, that's right. 118 pounds and he's only 11 months old. Great Danes don't finish growing until 18-24 months. He really will be the size of a horse by his 2nd birthday. Oh, and his visit cost us $368. I know, right! His K9 Advantix is $197/six months. When the vet tech gave us the total, Dave balked and said, "Excuse me?"

Oh, and Bosley had to have a blood draw followed by the taking of his temp. Yeah, uh, I'll let you guess where they stick the thermometer. Needless to say Bosley didn't appreciate that unexpected invasion and made quite an interesting face. Dave laughed so hard he almost fell off the chair in the vet's office.

Bosley was a bit jumpy after his vet visit. He was playing with his new stuffed duck (the kind that honks) and I was trying to teach him the word for that particular toy.

Me: Bosley! Duck! Duck!
Bosley reaches down to grab the duck and bring it to me.
Dave shouts: GOOSE!
Bosley jumps four feet and almost pisses himself.

Again, Dave laughed so hard he almost fell but this time onto our bed instead of the floor in the vet's office. Dave's still chuckling to himself over that one. Sigh.

Let's see. What else? Oh. We did our taxes. I don't know why I've always been so frightened of doing them. It was really simple, even the Schedule C bit. We're getting a nice refund too. We're splitting the check and putting half into savings (probably money market) and the other half into the house. Looks like I finally get to paint the interior of the house and Dave-O gets to tackle his landscaping projects.

Oh, and as for the title, well, I decided to join the 70 Days of Sweat Challenge. Basically you finish a book in 70 days. My goal is 1500 words/day on my YA novel. That particular novel has languished on my hard drive for months, begging to be finished. Unfortunately my commitments and contracts in the erotic romance world have kept me from tackling it. By using it as my goal in the Sweating with Sven challenge I have no reason to stall. I have to get off the old keister and work on it.

Of course that means juggling my erotic romance novels and novellas with the YA, but whatever. I'm up for the challenge. Want to know what Dave-O said when I joined the 70 Days of Sweat Challenge?

Dave: Good lord, woman! Why? Ah, hell. Who cares why? I'll pick up more Dr. Pepper in the morning.

He knows me so well, lol.

Anywho. I'm off. I need to find that Scalzi post for tomorrow's blog. Oh, and hopefully I'll have super exciting baby news soon!!! Congrats Ash & Ryan!!!

Keepin' On

First off, thanks to everyone who sent emails, text messages or left comments of support. I heart you guys!

Secondly, well, seems I spoke--or rather wrote--too soon. Not long after I posted my blog on Saturday evening, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital for complications associated with a super bad case of the flu. Her blood pressure is skyrocketing and they think she may have clogged arteries in her neck.

A few hours after that, my cousin, S, had to take her infant son to the ER because milk dribbled into his lungs. (I'm not sure why, but I think it may be something to do with the fact that he was born premature.) He's seriously a miracle baby. He was born so early that he's considered a micro-preemie and spent close to four months in a NICU in San Antonio. Looking at pictures of him is astounding. My mom made little hats for him when he was born (to keep him warm) and she used a tennis ball as the model. Yeah. He was that small. When you look at pictures of him now it's amazing. He's grown soooo much! And he's freakin' cute, lol.

Needless to say, every time my phone rings and I hear my mom's ringtone, I cringe.

In the good news deparment:

Ash's love of her life, fire of her loins is home for the next 2 weeks. He's here for the birth of their son which is so effing exciting--and slightly terrifying, I'm sure.

My brother, Marcos, is getting married! Yay! They're a bit young, but when you're in love, you take risks. I think Dave is relieved to see all of my wedding planning books leaving the house in a small box bound for E-Town, lol.

I finished my edits on Illicit Bargain and sent the blurb off to my editor. It needs a little work but she's phenomenal in that department.

Dave brought home a gorgeous bouquet of tulips on Monday afternoon, just before he left for a half-shift. They are hands-down the most perfect tulips I've ever seen. The petals are a pale blush pink with just the softest tinge of saffron to the tips and the stems are a vibrant apple green. I love them. And I love Dave. He does that a lot. Bring home random gifts, that is. If I ask him why, he'll say, "I thought they looked nice and knew you would enjoy them," or he'll just shrug and say, "Why not?"

In the iffy news department:

We're doing our taxes tomorrow. I thought about going to H&R block again but then I found out that they charge by the form. We need like a million forms this year so I don't think so. I asked around and everyone recommends Turbo Tax. I figure I'm intelligent enough to read directions and/or look up tax code. If I'm not 100% certain then we'll go to a professional.

Bosley goes to the V-E-T tomorrow. Since he packs on weight like a Sumo wrestler at Golden Corral, we have to take him every few months to be weighed and have his meds adjusted. He also has to be heartworm tested tomorrow which means a blood draw. Can you say nightmare? He also knows the word "vet" which is why Dave and I have to spell it. I'm not kidding. I said, "Dave, I need to make a vet appointment," and Bosley almsot snapped his neck when he whipped it around to glare at us. So now "vet" is classified in the same column as "bath." We don't say those words aloud. Not unless we want to chase a panicking horse through the house...

All right. That's all for today. I'm going to hunt down an interesting blog post by J. Scalzi so I can reference it tomorrow in my blog. He's been discussing the need for self-employed folks (like writers) to marry well. It's generating a bit of debate, lol. More importantly, Scalzi is a hilarious writer so his posts are seriously giggle inducing. But more on that tomorrow...

Bummed

I know I said I was going to blog on self-prescribing asshats, but issues arose and, well, I'm just not in the blogging mood. In the last two weeks, I've been inundated with crap news. It's definitely affecting my writing.

First my brothers' and sister's godfather passed away. He was a rather important and constant figure in my childhood and teenage years. He was also one of my father's dearest friends, and such a good man when it came to my brothers and sister. I was shocked when I learned that he died. I knew he was sick, but he always seemed too contrary to pass. His death has revived my fears about my father's health and the long-term effects of his diabetes. But that's another post for another time...

Secondly my muse died. I mean that literally. I was basing a character in my next novella on this certain person, and yeah, he unexpectedly dropped dead. So now I've had to abandon that manuscript because it creeps me out to even think about writing steamy scenes based on character who is no longer living.

Third, on Thursday morning, I received horrible news from home. It was the kind of heartbreaking news where you can't even think of a reply. You just sit there, holding the phone and sobbing. I'm not going to elaborate on the news because it isn't mine to share and it's a sensitive subject. I feel helpless in that I want so badly to be able to take away the pain that this person is feeling, but there isn't anything I can say or do that will fix what has happened. I think that if I were in this person's position I would want privacy so that's what I'm doing. I'm not going to call or bother her. It's the least I can do.

Oh, and my brother, Joey, was laid off on Friday. He's super down about it. He really loved that job. I have no idea what he'll do now. There isn't exactly a great job market in E-Town. I think he may have to entertain the idea of moving. At least he doesn't have a family to support...

So I'm taking a few days off. I'll try to think of something witty for Monday evening. Until then I'm going to saturate myself in Dr. Pepper, Vodka, and Oreos (no, not all at once) and snuggle up between Dave-O and Bos. L8R.

My Tennis Ball. You Like?

Short post today. I was on a writing binge today and cranked out four chapters of my latest novel. Holy shat are my wrists and fingers on fire! Seriously. This is insane. Weird thing is--I'm desperate to keep writing, but for the sake of my hands, I'm forcing myself to stop.

Sigh. This is what happens when Dave is gone for extended periods of time, and I have no other way to, uh, amuse myself.

On a totally cool note, my sister-in-law, Stephanie, is like a freakin' awesome photog. During the most recent round of wildfires in CA, she took some super nifty pics. I'm talking National Geographic quality shots. She really has a knack for grabbing the perfect angle, the best lighting, and the most interesting subjects. Her pic of Max, one of their Vizslas, was featured on deviantART.

All right. That's all for tonight. I'm going to snuggle with Bos and watch some DVDs. Oh, and tomorrow I'm going to do a mini-rant on the asshats who self-prescribe fertility medications via online pharmacies. Asshats!

Bibliophile

As I'm writing this I'm staring at about, oh, one-tenth of my library collection. I can't even begin to explain how incredibly giddy I am to finally see my books on our huge bookshelf. See, my mom's family are book people. Over the years my grandparents have amassed an astonishing collection of hardbound books, most of them pre-1940, first editions, rare, or signed. When my grandmother passed away, I learned that I was to inherit their book collection. Since then containers of books have started trickling back to Texas after visits to Ohio. Mom kept them safe for me, and now that I have my own house and tons of room, they're slowly making their way here.

Dave and I unpacked 220 books the other evening. He's as much of a bibliophile as I am--actually more. He reads all the time. Me, well, I write all the time. I have a rule that I never read any non-research materials while writing a manuscript. Just the thought of subconscious influence and/or borrowing makes me cringe. It happens to writers all the time. Usually we catch it in edits but god help you if it makes it to your editor. Yikes!

So anyways... We unpack the books, marvel at the smell of the paper, the aged tinge on the bindings. It's lovely. I smile every time I find a book with a publish date earlier than 1900. I laugh when I uncover the tattered copy of Little Women that I read at least twenty times during middle school. Dave gasps when he finds a copy of Summer of the Monkeys. As I near the bottom of the last crate, I grow sad. It's been like Christmas, you know?

Dave and I now realize that we desperately need more book cases. We still have boxes and boxes of books in the garage (paper backs mainly, lots of newer fiction and dozens of EMS and college textbooks) and hundreds, hell, maybe even thousands of books still coming from Ohio.

I'm beginning to realize that Dave-O and I really need to come up with a cataloguing and shelving system for the books. Right now they're just sort of haphazardly placed on the shelves. I haven't the slightest idea how to approach this issue. My first thought was the good ole Dewey Decimal system--but then I realized that I would prefer to separate the books by frequency of use. You know, like, my favorite paperbacks on easily accessible shelves. So I don't know. We'll play it by ear I guess.

And now I'm thinking that I should check with my homeowner's insurance policy about the books. I haven't the foggiest idea what this part of the collection is worth. Sigh. Yet another entry for my impossibly long To-Do list.

Speaking of which--I should really get back to work. I received my edits for Illicit Bargain last night. The copy is fairly clean so there aren't any major revisions/edits needed. I can't tell you how giddy that makes me. I loathe edits, lol. I hate them so much that I tend to procrastinate. Of course, Dave knows this so he's been bugging me all day about getting my edits done and sent back to Kelli K, my editor. Yeah. He can be annoying sometimes, but he says he does it out of love. Yeah. Right.

So to keep the love of my life, fire of my loins off my case, I'm signing off for the night. Do svidanya!

All Quiet on the Western Front, My Beloved Treasure

Not a lot to report today. I worked until 0300, fell asleep around 4, and was up and working by 1115. I was actually quite surprised to get seven hours of sleep. Lately I've been in one of those 4 hours of sleep, 20 hours awake cycles that I despise. 'Course those wacko sleep cycles mean I've captured the Inspirado and I'm writing like a crazy woman.

Bosley took advantage of the nice weather today and spent two hours outside. He loves it out there, but man is he rough on grass! When we had the back sod put down (in August?) he would drag entire squares of sod around the back yard. I would have to chase after him, drag them back into place, and hope to god Dave didn't notice when he came home from a shift. Nowadays he's so big and heavy that his strides throw up massive clods of grass and dirt. It doesn't help that the lawn is soaked from the recent rains.

His digging genes seem to have kicked in during the last few weeks. There is nothing quite so terrifying as glancing toward the backyard and seeing your 36"tall (from feet to shoulders) Great Dane standing in a trench that's deep enough that you only see his head peeking over the sod. Seriously--our back yard looks like a shooting location for Im Westen nichts Neues. I'm just waiting for some stunt guy to start setting off mustard gas squibs.

Needless to say Dave and I are considering renting out Bosley as a gravedigger/landscaper. We have to pay for new sod somehow.

So anywho--Bos is digging today, but I can't see him because I'm not facing the back window and I'm busy revising my opening scene. He gallops throught the back door, slides across the linoleum in the kitchen, ricochets off a wall, and races into the living room. He trots over to me and drops a seven pound "gift" in my lap. At first I'm stunned. What the hell is that thing? The more I look at it, the more it starts to resemble, well, a human femur.

Suddenly I have one of those The 'Burbs moments. You know what I mean. "Ray, there's no doubt anymore. This is real. Our neighbors are murdering people. They're chopping them up. They're burying them in their backyard. Ray...this Walter!"

I jump up, take the possible femur into the kitchen and start knocking chunks of reddish clay off the outside of it. My mind is racing with paranoid thoughts. I remember our sales agent's shifty eyes when I asked what, exactly, was on this tract of land before we put our house on it. Those bastards, I think, they did build our houses on top of Indian burial grounds!

And then I realize that it's just a really strangely shaped root/stick that had lumps of clay on either end. I heave a sigh of relief, step out onto the patio, and hurl the femur stick over the back fence. That's when I see Bosley's latest trench. I tried to explain to him that the Germans aren't, in fact, advancing on our Western Front. He can cancel his order for barbed wire and scrap the plans for the machine gun nests. Im Westen nichts neues meine liebe Schaetzen, I tell him.

Anyways. So before I go I have to pass along this hilarious quiz: How Many Five Years Old Could You Take In A Fight? Try it. You'll laugh your ass off. I did.

18

Since My Last Post...

I have learned:

1) That Dave is a Rhesus monkey. Seriously. The man is a walking petri dish. In November, he brought home some vile plague/influenza/Oregon Trail-esque dysentery hybrid. I was sick for seventeen days. It was horrid. Oh, and it completely effed up my plans to spend a weekend with The Ash in Houston. There was no way I was going to risk infecting Ash since she's, you know, preggers.

2) I can buy a Decon Shower (perfectly sized to fit on our front porch) for $1095! (See Point Number One.)

3) I have the same psycho reaction to Nyquil as I do to Benadryl. As a child, I was given Benadryl twice--as in two doses over 18 years. The first time I was a toddler, and instead of becoming drowsy, I became a super-charged, babbling, rampaging terror. My mother still talks about it with a tremble of fear in her voice. When I contracted chicken pox at nine, I was subjected to oatmeal baths and that icky pink lotion to cool the annoying itch. Eventually Mom caved and gave me the Benadryl--and, well, I became a 9 year old super-charged, babbling, rampaging terror.

Sometime between my childhood and young adulthood my reaction to Benadryl changed. During my freshman semester, I couldn't sleep so Lauren (my roomie) gave me two Benadryl capsules, certain they would knock me out. Yeah. Well. Not so much. I was awake for, like, two days and had the most bizarre hallucinations. Seriously. Green elephants and talking spiders and a dancing desk. Needless to say, Benadryl is now on my "NEVER TAKE THIS" list.

It appears that Nyquil is going to be the newest addition to said list. While I was suffering from the Oregon Trail-esque plague, Dave advised me to have a few Nyquil shooters and call it a night. They put me to sleep quickly, but when I woke a few hours later and stumbled to the bathroom, I realized that something was off. It wasn't until I was stumbling back to bed and happened to look out the window that I realized what, exactly, was wrong. See I saw not one, not two, but a horde of Death Eaters (yes, those Death Eaters) in our backyard. I freaked the fuck out. I mean, I was trembling and hyperventilating and on the verge of a full out panic attack.

Dave, bleary-eyed and congested: What's wrong?
Me, whispering in a paranoid panic: There are Death Eaters in the back yard!!!!
Dave: Right. I'm going back to sleep.

He turned over and was out in a millisecond. When I asked him about it in the morning, he was like, Huh? (He does that a lot. Has lucid conversations in his sleep without remembering the next day, that is.)

4) Bosley has a drag queen streak in him. No, really. See he has this favorite sheet. (It belongs to my once-favorite set of t-shirt bed sheets. They're so pretty! They're blue with white clouds. And I'm rambling... Back to Bos and the sheet.) He used to sleep curled around it. Then he started chewing on it. Lately he's taken to wearing it. Somehow he manages to put it on so that it looks so flamboyantly camp!

He chewed a hole in one end that's big enough for his head to fit through it. When he manages to work his head through, he looks like a super hero as he lopes around the living room. Other times he wraps it around his torso toga style. On those days I address him as Emperor Bos the Munificent. He's also torn a few strips from the sheet. A few days ago I found him with a strip loosely wrapped around his neck. I panicked like an overprotective mother, of course, but he wasn't in any real danger. He seemed to like it. I realized that he looked like he was wearing a cravat. That made me laugh. I called him Fitzwilliam Darcy, Viscount Bosley that day. He liked that too.

5) Sara is one hell of a lecturer. During our drive to Clear Lake for Ash's baby shower, she filled me in on her PhD work at TAMU. It's so interesting, and more importantly, it has the potential for real impact on the economy, foreign oil policy, and that oh-so-desirable energy independence.

Sara is working on biofuels, specifically biofuels from sorghum. Apparently corn (starch-based) ethanol is crap because it's so inefficient. Cellulose ethanol is way more efficient and produces loads more energy per unit. Why haven't we, the public, heard of this alternative form of ethanol? Let's see. Idiots in DC writing energy policy without any scientific knowledge? Lobbyists pimping corn as the next big thing while pushing for initiatives and grubbing for more subsidies? I could go on....

So Sara is working on the roots of the sorghum. Her goal is to identify specific genes regarding nitrogen efficiency (because the cost of fertilization impacts the overall cost/gallon of fuel) and breed them with plants that are kickass biomass-wise. She'll either end up creating plants that use half as much nitrogen or plants that use the same amount of nitrogen but double their mass.

I know! She's so effing smart! I heart Sara! The earth hearts Sara too!

6) Ash is going to be such a great mom. I know people say that all the time, hoping they're right, but with Ash, I just know. There isn't even a shimmer of doubt. When she talks about Nick, her whole face changes. I can't really explain it, but there's this sharp glimmer of protectiveness, warmth and radiance of unconditional love, and a fierce determination to give him the best life she possibly can. It's a very moving thing to see your friend morphing into a mother.

7) The 28th is my new favorite day of the month. That's the day my royalty check arrives, lol.

8) I seem to have found my literary niche. My first erotic romance novella garnered awesome reviews, the kind that made me cry. I so wanted to brag, but I didn't. I got most of my reviews in November and I just barely got around to sending copies to my mom, lol!

Unfortunately I'm starting to panic about my second novella slated for release in November. I mean, when you get a review that calls you "...an author who has the talent to become quite a voice in erotic romance," well, that's a bit tough to top. So fingers crossed, my newest tale, Illicit Bargain, will be just as well-received as Nocturnal Obsession. (Oh, please, please, please!)

On that note--I should get back to work. I started a new novel yesterday morning, and my characters beckon. And yeah, I've finished my blogging hiatus. New entry tomorrow! Promise!

Hell In A Handbasket

So Dave-O sent me this link for this Dante's Inferno Test. Basically you answer this questionnaire and when you're results are tabulated it tells you which level of Hell you would be sent to. Dave received Level 1 which is Purgatory or basically Summer Camp for Sinners minus the ice cream sandwiches and midnight gropings behind the infirmary. All of his friends were in the 1-4 range it seems. And me? Well. Funny thing...

I've been sentenced to the 7th Level of Hell. I was shocked. Am I really that deviant? I mean, I've had my fair share of fun in my 24 years of life, but the 7th Level? Really? Jeez. I guess that just proves that bookworms really are naughty.

Speaking of HI-larious links! Check these out!

Test your vocabulary skills and earn free rice for the UN!

Take a peek at some truly hideous 1970s Catalogues. Jesus, Maria y Jose! Are these things tacky or are they tacky?!?!

Hiatus

I've been on a self imposed hiatus for the last few weeks. I've got deadlines out the whazoo and if I give myself just the tiniest bit of time to mess around with my blog I always end up on Perez Hilton or some other place I really don't belong. That said, I haven't the foggiest idea of how to pull together my list-o-blog topics. I'll just give a list of entertaining snippets.

I was supposed to spend the weekend with Ash but Dave decided to bring home some vile throat plague on Thursday. Since Ash is uber-preggers it would unbelievably irresponsible of me to expose her to this horrid pestilence so I chose to raincheck on the weekend I’ve been looking forward to for weeks.

Ash has decided that no self-respecting WASP-ish wife can have a kitchen lacking a rooster. We decided that kitchen rooster didn’t have a very good ring to it so we settled on “Kitchen Cock” instead. I quite like the sound of that. At any rate, Ash found her very own Kitchen Cock in Hobby Lobby. I can’t wait to see it.

Ash and Ryan have chosen a baby name. I would announce it—but Ash and I had this big huge discussion about a certain SCRUBS episode and I don’t want to be the one to jinx it. (In that episode, Turk and Carla are discussing baby names and decide on Tiger and Angie, I think. Carla forbids Turk from telling anyone their names in fear of ruining them. Turk, of course, tells JD who ends up suggesting the name Angie to a group of pediatric patients who are playing with a hamster that was removed from a kinky patient’s, uh, well, you know. Anywho…Carla and Turk overhear the kids calling the ass hamster “Angie” and Carla loses it.) Since Ash would cut me if her kid’s name is applied to an ass hamster, I shall remain mum.

Bosley has gotten huge. No, really. Only problem: he doesn’t seem to realize that he is the size of a small horse. He still thinks it’s totally OK to squish himself onto one couch cushion which usually entails pinning me into the other corner of the love seat. He’s also become rather possessive of me. Today Dave and I were sitting on the loveseat while we reconciled our checkbook and updated our financial spreadsheets. Bosley planted his huge bohonkus right in front of Dave and made the whiny “I have to potty” noises until Dave finally got up to let him out. Funny thing—Bosley didn’t have to potty. He just wanted Dave to get up so he could hop onto that cushion and lay claim to me. It’s not as romantic as it sounds… This is yet another reason why Dave has given Bosley the new nickname “Coitus Interruptus.”

Sara graciously donated some super awesome oak bedroom furniture to the "Furnish Our New House" project. Can I just tell you guys how AMAZING Sara looks? No, really. She was, like, glowing. Seriously. Radiant. I haven't seen her like that in a long, long, long, long time. And I totally heart her new haircut. I'm sure it's not that new but it's new to me, lol. Oh, and I can't wait to see her Halloween pics...

I’m ¾ of the way through a new novel and putting together a list of prospective agents. I’m also revising a novella for my editor and polishing a pair of smutty tales for submission near the end of the year. If all goes as planned, I should have 3-5 new novellas/novels contracted for next year. All in all, I’m busy, busy, busy!

Cringe & Insert Foot

Aw, poo. So I made a huge faux pas the other day. Sara stopped by to pick up her ladder and drop off a wedding gift (these super gorgeous, hand-painted bowls) and me being the big dummy that I am said something I shouldn't have. See Sara's bf was planning to buy her a certain birthday gift and had enlisted my help in finding exactly what he wanted. I didn't get to see Sara on her birthday (deadlines, etc) and since then we've been swamped with the craziness of life so I hadn't had a chance to speak with her. So there we were, chatting in the living room, and I asked how she was enjoying this certain gift that I wrongly assumed she had received, and yeah, all I got was a confused stare.

At that point I realized that I'd made an ass of myself. I panicked and rambled for a few minutes before Dave finally stepped in to shift the conversation topic to something else. After Sara left, I almost cried because I felt like such a jerk. Needless to say, I'll be way more careful in the future.

Sorry Sara and Clint! I am a complete dork.

Onto less cringe-worthy news...

Dad was in Tomball this week attending some kind of work conference so he stopped by the house yesterday afternoon. Bosley wasn't quite sure he liked a strange man in the house when Dave wasn't around, but after a couple of hours, they became friends. I have a picture of the pair of them snoring and drooling as they napped side by side on the couch. Dad took Dave and I out to dinner--and OMG I'd forgotten how expensive a steak house can be! Thank goodness it was Dad's treat! At least it was super tasty! Dave turned in early because he had to work today, and Dad and I stayed up watching some crappy B movie called "FANGS" about these mutant bats. It was super goofy but funny in that melodramatic way.

After breakfast, Dad headed back to E-town, but he left me a $50 tip for making breakfast burritos and coffee. Sweet, huh? I see a Lane Byrant shopping trip in my very near future, lol.

OK. I should get back to work. I've been watching Divorce Court and Judge Alex for the past few hours. Enough procrastinating. Must write.

Rainy Days & Mondays

It seems the weather and the weekday are conspiring against me. I've been writing like a fiend these past few weeks, but today I have a super case of the BLAHS. Ugh. This is totally reading weather but I've read, like, four books already this month and am so not in the mood to start another one. I've got plotlines unraveling in my head, but each time I sit down in front of my laptop I draw a blank.

And right now I'm totally watching a creepy spider battle raindrops as it descends on a precariously thin web string. I'm almost tempted to open the window and snap the line in half because I loathe that spider. OK. Not that spider in particular but the brood to which it belongs. They're built like black widows but they're brown with orange spots and have mouths that look exactly like Predator. No really. Exactly like it. A few weeks ago, four of them built their webs over the back door so I couldn't even use my backyard, and they would randomly dive bomb Bosley. A few swipes of the flyswatter and a broom fixed that....

Anyways. Where was I? Oh yeah. The BLAHS. I think I may need to recharge the creative juices. Sometimes when I'm juggling two or three projects I start running out of fresh words and sentence structures. Yeah. Not good. Maybe I'll take the evening off, go see a movie or something with Dave-O. We still haven't gone out to celebrate my birthday, and tonight is as good a night as any.

Oh, and a belated INGADINGADURGEN to you all in recognition of Leif Ericson Day last week! If you're not a Spongebob Fan you won't get that. Pity.

Canine Party Line!

Not a lot to report on this front. My test results came back, and despite my chubbiness, I have excellent cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Hell, even with my family history of diabetes, I have low blood sugar, as in almost hypoglycemic. Weird, huh? The FSH result was better than expected so now I get to start a new prescription regimen that--fingers crossed--will help me out!

I finally finished my latest novella and am currently tweaking the synopsis and blurb before I submit to my editor. I plan on re-working my urban fantasy novel and using that as a platform for querying agents. Hopefully, I'll get a start on that tomorrow or early Saturday. We'll see.

So the other night as I sat typing away at the laptop, Bosley bounded downstairs (he was sleeping upstairs with Dave) and started to do his potty dance. I let him out, gave him a treat, and then decided to peel a kiwi for a late night snack. Before I could even take a bite, Bosley decided that he wanted to go back outside. Rolling my eyes, I let him out and glanced at the clock. It was a little after midnight. I noticed that when Bosley ran outside, he went straight for the middle of the yard and started listening to the cacophany of barking dogs in our neighborhood. During one of the lulls, he started barking, then paused, got a few barks in return, and then barked a few more times. When he was finished, he trotted back inside and flopped down on a couch.

Contemplating what I'd just seen, I leaned against the wall and munched on my curiously ham scented kiwi. Since then, I've realized that he's going outside to gossip! Seriously, my dog is like Perez Hilton, lol. He goes out to get the straight cheese, tells a few secrets of his own (cringe!) and then comes back inside.

Man, I can only imagine what kinds of colorful tales he's spilling about us. Maybe he's only bragging about all the cool toys he has, the nifty treats we give him, and the veritable smorgasbord of yummies he ingests all day. Nah. Who the hell am I kidding? I know he's out there giving them all the juiciest details of his owners' bedroom antics.

No wonder all the dogs in our neighborhood give us The Look when we're checking the mail...

Better Now

I've been a recluse lately, but that's because I've been majorly stressing about a doctor's appointment. This week, I started seeing a new OB/GYN who specializes in infertility. Switching doctors is a major pain, but anyone who has ever dealt with reproductive issues will understand how terrifying it can be. Turns out I was stressing over nothing, lol.

For the first time in my life, I have a doctor who LISTENS! She walked into the exam room, introduced herself, and started chatting with me. We talked about me--occupation, family, marriage, goals, and lastly health issues. I was just waiting for her dismiss my symptoms with the usual reply, "Well, you know you are a fat cow." But she didn't even broach the subject of weight. I was the one who brought it up.

Her reply: You should lose the weight because of a family history of heart disease and diabetes. Losing weight will likely have little effect on your lack of ovulation.

Her nurse's comment: Honey, we get ladies in here every day who are pregnant or TTC who are double your size. We manage, and so can you.

Dr. A didn't try to shove birth control pills down my throat as all my past doctors have. Since I don't ovulate taking BCPs is sort of pointless, you know? That said, we did discuss placing me on them if we can force ovulation. We discussed all sorts of treatment options from medications I might try to more drastic interventions like ovarian drilling (yikes!) or a double wedge resection. Thankfully, those are last resort options. Also she ordered a full blood panel and will be calling me early next week to discuss the lab results and schedule a follow-up.

And, no, Dave-O and I are NOT trying to conceive. Dudes, we haven't even unpacked from the move. Babies are, like, way down the line. Besides, I'm in that "it's irresponsible to conceive when you're overweight" camp. I know. I know. I should support my BBW sisters, but I just can't. Just because you CAN get pregnant, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Flame on...

As I was sitting in the exam room waiting for Dr. A, I could hear the patients on either side of me. One was a youngish sounding woman who was preparing for her first ultrasound. She was on the phone and begging her husband to come, but from what I could tell, he wasn't all that worried about showing up on time. On the other side was a couple who were arguing about having to wait for their doctor. I couldn't hear much of it, but what I did hear was just terrible.

Husband: I wouldn't have to be here right now if you're plumbing wasn't broken.

OMG! I know, right! The tone he used was just, well, scathing. That statement was pretty simple, but the resenment behind it was fierce. I mean, it's pretty obvious that he despises his wife because she's infertile. All I heard after that was her crying.

My first thought was, "You're a dick!" My second thought was, "A baby ain't gonna fix that marriage."

You know I used to have these twinges of guilt because I would think, "I'm going to be the reason Dave doesn't have kids." There was even a time when I thought it would be selfish of me to stay with him since I have compromised fertility...but then he proposed and I realized that he wanted to marry me even though he was totally aware of my issues. I can't even begin to explain how much guilt that alleviated.

Also, I have to give a little shout-out to Ash. Seriously, I don't know what I would do without her. We're both in the same boat: newly married, building/trying to build families, figuring out what the hell life is about, etc. There are things that I can share with her that I can't with anyone else. It's nice to have a friend like that.

I HEART YOU, ASH!!!

Carpet Burns

So I have carpet burns on my right elbow and calf, but I didn't get them in the fun way. I stayed up all night starting a new novella that has to be submitted by September 30 for consideration in an erotic romance anthology, and when the sun came up, I decided that it was time for bed. I let the dog out, gave him a treat, and then we trudged upstairs. After brushing my teeth, I peeled off my scratchy, dry contacts, slipped them in a clean case, and clambered into bed. I had just fallen asleep when Bosley started barking and jumping and slapping the bed because he needed to go out--again.

I tried to convince him that he could wait another hour until Dave-O came home, but no, he wouldn't have any of it. Pissed and grumpy, I stomped out of the bedroom, hands extended as I felt my way along. (I'm nearly blind without my corrective lenses so the world is just a big ole blur when I'm sans contacts.)

Bosley decided it was playtime. He jumped against my back, nipped at my ankles, and was generally being an ass. Being a tired, frustrated bitch, I snapped at him to go downstairs--and he did.

As he bounded down the first two stairs, he bumped against my leg and caused me to lose my balance. I tried to grab the banister, but it was too late. Flailing my arms, I tumbled down the stairs, smacking my butt, my ribs, and cheek. At the very last second, I remembered to pull my head in and managed not to knock myself out when I slammed into the wall on the second landing. (Our staircase is shaped like a square U so you go up seven steps, then there's a landing, then you go up seven more steps and you've reached the second floor.) There I was writhing in pain and bleeding and what is Bosley doing? Barking. Not that playful bark, but that ear-splitting, stomach rattling bellow that he uses when he's afraid or warning us.

After crying for a few minutes, I pulled myself to my knees and managed to crawl down to the first floor. Bosley was still begging to be let out so I made it to the patio door, let him out, and then we headed back upstairs. Bosley seemed to realize that he caused my fall so he hung way back, letting me get all the way to the second floor before he started hopping the steps three and four at a time. I cleaned up the bleeding carpet burns on my arm and leg, rinsed the blood from my mouth (I bit my tongue, I think) and then collapsed into bed. I called Dave, wanting him, needing him--but he wasn't even close to coming home. Surprise, surprise.

I fell asleep and woke up an hour or two later when Dave finally made it home. Then I went back to sleep. I woke up again around 3. I know it's not fair and it's really ridiculous, but I'm still peeved at Dave. Every time I get hurt, he's never around. I've fallen out of showers, cut myself, burned myself, etc, and I always have to deal with it alone. I know. I know. The man works, cut him some slack, blah, blah, blah. How childish, right? But there it is.

Anywho. I should go finish dinner. I may be grumpy with him, but I'm still going to feed him properly--even if I'm hobbling around. For lunch, I made tomato basil bisque and grilled cheese sandwiches. Tonight it's braised ribs, potato salad, garden salad, and something for dessert. Pudding, maybe?

Lots to do. I'm off.

Quarter Century

Today is my parents' 25th Wedding Anniversary!! Congratulations Mom & Dad!!

Having been married just under 3 months, I find the idea of celebrating 25 years thrilling. We'll see if the attitude changes between now and then, though. :)

That's it for today. Back to the cracking that old chestnut...

Out of Touch

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been MIA lately, but that's because I've been cracking the whip and forcing the Inspirado. Mama wants some granite countertops, lol.

Actually, though, this post is about Dave's company. No, I'm not going to name said company. Some of you know us, but most of you don't. Rather than get into a big stink about bad publicity, I'm going to leave the name out.

That said....

Today Dave is at work and while he was browsing the schedule for overtime, one of his supervisors decided to make a snarky remark about "living within our means." Dave being the sweetheart that he is (and no fan of confrontation) let it slide. A few minutes ago, he told me about this remark, and it super pissed me off. I mean irate to the point of wanting to hex someone's balls off!

Who the fuck is this guy to lecture us about living within our means? Has he seen our budget? If he had, he would see the following:

1) Our mortgage and escrow is less than 26% of our gross income. (And no, we don't belong to that group of dummies who got ARMS without understanding that it will, in fact, adjust! We have a 30 year fixed rate at 6 point something percent.)
2) We have NO car payment and our insurance is only $57/month.
3) We spend $250 on groceries/month and $250-275 on gas.
3) Utilities (water, gas, electricity) are less than $200 each month because we keep the thermostat up, only water the lawn in the evenings, and have the water heater set low.
4) Cell Phones and Internet cost another $200 but are necessary for communication and working from home.
5) Student loans (his and mine) eat up $200 of our budget.
6) Feeding Bos and providing meds averages out to 65/month.
7) We have no credit cards, no satellite or cable, rarely (read: once a month) have dinner at a restaurant, and have seen 2 movies since January.
8) Oh, and yes, being the splurge whores that we apparently are, Dave and I do spend $18/month on Netflix.

Now, call me crazy, but I think that's a rather lean budget. Believe me. If I could find a place to squeeze extra money, I would. All of that takes up 3/4 of Dave's net pay. So no, we're not poor, and yeah, we live comfortably, but we definitely need the OT every now and then.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, where does all of our extra income go? If you guessed medical bills, you're right! Yeah. Remember when Dave had to be hospitalized with pancreatitis? We're still paying for that because, yep, his insurance didn't cover most of it.

It's times like this that I see the glaring differences between Dave and me. Had it been me in his position, I would have scathingly pointed out that if Dave's salary tracked with the cost of living and if his company provided full vision and dental benefits or simply BETTER health insurance, a lot of the employees at Dave's company wouldn't have to work two jobs. Hell, some of Dave's colleagues qualify for WIC and Medicaid! Yeah. That's fucking pathetic that these people have one of the most important jobs in society, but they're paid less than the people who push paper in the main offices.

Just to go off on a tangent for a sec: Why is it that we pay the most important jobs (teachers, police, fire, ems, researchers) the very least while people who do absolutely jack squat (athletes come to mind) earn obscene amounts of money? Seriously, when is kicking a football or shooting a three pointer ever going to cure cancer or revive a drowned child or teach your dyslexic child how to read? Priorities! Where the hell are our priorities?!?!

Back to the issue at hand--the rude and obviously out of touch supervisor--I also would have pointed out that the reason Dave picks up OT is to add money to our savings cushion. After buying the house, paying for a wedding, all of the extra medical expenses last year, appliances, and moving costs, we're a little strapped. And no, we're not saving for something stupid like a boat or a pool table or whatever.

Being the selfish and extravagant hacks that we apparently are, Dave and I are saving to start a family. Not so much for the nursery furniture and such, but for the adoption fees, etc. Since I have shriveled prunes for ovaries, conceiving won't be a walk in the park, and, of course, Humana doesn't cover any of the medical interventions I might try. No, I don't mean IVF treatments. I mean simple shit like Clomid. It's ridiculous really that we have to pay $60/month for my insurance, but there isn't a damn thing that I need that they'll pay for! WTF?

Oh, and speaking of the devil, did I mention that our insurance coverage was terminated--on our wedding day? Oh, yeah. Funny thing, though, is that the cost of my coverage has been deducted from Dave's paycheck since June. Hmmm. I wonder where that money went? The really messed up part of this story is that we were mailed new insurance cards in July, but when Dave went to pick up his prescriptions on Labor Day, the CVS pharmacy tech informed us that our insurance had been terminated MONTHS ago! Am I the only person who thinks we should have received a notice? When my dad's insurance was going to kick me off because I had reached the age limit, I got not one, but two notices at 60 days and 30 days. My parents also got duplicate notices. So where were the notices from Humana? Or Dave's HR? Shouldn't THEY have realized our coverage was going to lapse?

Eventually, Dave's HR and Humana worked out the issue, but obviously, they're still passing the blame back and forth. Quite frankly, I don't care who's to blame. I just don't want it to happen again. God forbid I had been in a wreck or Dave had fallen down the stairs! We would have been royally screwed.

Finishing up my little rant, I think that if this supervisor was really concerned with the welfare of his employees that he would make it a priority to champion their needs. Higher salaries, better benefits, a real cost of living study to employ in salary adjustments, etc. Life might be cushy on his supervisor's salary, but the people working in the trenches (and jesus, yes, i still remember the exhaustive, thankless life that is a medic's career) rarely get the compensation that they deserve. There's nothing wrong with a husband wanting to support his wife and dog solely on his salary. I still haven't figured out how the medics with stay-at-home spouses and children make ends meet. I suspect they're the medics who have second jobs.

Anywho. Seeing as we're such horrible spendthrifts, I should probably get back to cranking out tawdry novellas to earn a steady paycheck. Maybe if I'm really lucky I can force a bestselling literary novel out of the Muse. Then Dave can work part-time (since he really loves his job) and spend the rest of his leisurely hours holed up in our bedroom, helping me, ahem, research my latest erotica plotline...

Procrastination

It's really late or super early depending on how you view time, and I am totally procrastinating. I have maybe half a chapter left to write on my latest novella, but I keep finding all of these really important, super interesting things to do. And why? Because I loathe editing. Seriously. I would rather cage fight Joey, Marcos, and Tricia for the last spoonful of Ama's arroz con pollo than have to edit my rough draft into a presentable final draft which then morphs into a string of back and forth revisions with the Editor.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles, if the four of us were ever to engage in such a cage match, I would tell everyone to place their bets on Tricia. Don't be fooled by the princess attitude and pretty face! She's wily and cunning and has the stamina of a Force Recon Marine. I'm telling you, the girl is fierce like a tiger! Rarr! I wouldn't be surprised if some day she's gracing the cover of Soldier of Fortune. I can see it now. She's wearing a crisply tailored black Dior suit, red Laboutin slingbacks, and is dripping Harry Winston diamonds. She'll have a .338 Lapua slung over her left shoulder, a cell phone pressed to her left ear, and her favorite Balenciaga bag dangling from her right arm--with a Fairbairn-Sykes hiding inside, of course.

Anywho. So I have this huge list o' topics for blogging, but none of them are meaty enough for a full post. Here's the list.

1) I am beginning to suspect that Bosley has deep seated issues that may or may not stem from the removal of his, uh, chestnuts. Firstly, he has a crazy foot fetish. No, really. Ask Sara or any of the other visitors we've had. If you're barefoot in this house, prepare to be suckled by a Great Dane. And yes. It is exactly as disturbing as it sounds. Secondly, he's sort of masochistic. He chews on his paw and makes these really, really inappropriate sounds. It's almost reached the point of bizarreness that I'm thinking about tracking down one of those dog whispering quacks.

2) My favorite blog, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books, runs this weekly video post, and this week's video is HILARIOUS! It's called Love Story and is a short animated take on the dating scene for modern ladies. Give it a peek. You'll appreciate the humor. Also, the blog itself is worth browsing. The critique of romance novel covers is my particular favorite!

3) Can I just tell you how funny HOT FUZZ is? OK. Sure. It's humor isn't on par with SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but sometimes I like to watch a comedy where you have to think to get some of the jokes. If you've watched a fair share of action and/or cop movies of the "Buddy Cop" genre, then you'll get the subtle spoofiness. And, yeah, the violence is gratuitous, but it's not, you know, gross or disturbing. It's usually rather funny. I particularly enjoyed David Bradley's (plays Argus Filch in the HP flicks) mumbling scene, and of course, the two-footed flying side kick into creepy grandma's nose...

4) Speaking of films! I watched this amazing foreign film the other morning. I can't stop gushing about it! It's called Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt) and has such a gripping storyline. A young couple, Cecille and Joachim, have just gotten engaged and are planning their marriage when Joachim is paralyzed by a car collision. The woman, Marie, who caused the accident can't handle what she's done so she instructs her husband, Niels a surgeon, to make amends. He does the only thing he knows how to do: he listens to Cecille. And that's when it gets complicated. The motivations of a middle aged man, beautiful and confused young girl, oblivious wife, angst-ridden teen daughter, and a self-hating quadriplegic all conspire to form a heartbreakingly honest portrait of reality.

The acting and cinematography aren't polished so when you're watching you feel like you're actually watching this story unfold between the characters. The English subtitles are fantastic and easily read, but if you're comfortable with German, you should be able to understand the Danish dialogue without having to glance at the subtitles too often. For maybe the first ten minutes, I was tied to the subtitles, but once I figured out the Danish intonation and pronunciation, I was OK.

It's a beautiful example of why sometimes tiny foreign films are a thousand times better than Hollywood blockbusters. In the end it boils down to Hollywood predictability versus inspired film making. Oh, and in true Hollywood fashion, it appears that Zach Braff has signed on to do a remake of this film. Cripes! When are we going to learn that not EVERY foreign film needs to be remade? Seriously, would it kill us to watch a subtitled film? People in other countries do it all the time. Or, you know, we could broaden our horizons and learn a few languages. I'm telling you, after the first two languages, it's much easier to continue adding new ones.

5) Two words: Fan Fiction. Yes, sigh, I must confess. I heart FanFic! When I'm in a slump, it's one of the ways I recapture the Inspirado. Either, I write a short piece or I read some of the better stuff. If you're every bored, give it a try. You might find something that piques your interest!

OK. I think I've goofed off enough. Sun will be up soon, and I've got a self-imposed deadline looming. Must get cracking!

Chipotle

OK. Am I the only person disgusted by the incessant "chipotle" marketing campaign? What is with corporate America choosing the most exotic sounding spice or ingredient in ethnic cooking and exploiting it like some two-bit pimp turning out his latest crack whore for a stroll down the track in search of a trick. Every fast food chain and franchise restaurant has their own "chipotle" flavored meal. Chipotle marinated chicken, chipotle dressings and mayonnaises, chipotle wraps, chipotle this, chipotle that--enough!

Also I find it INCREDIBLY insulting that all of the lastest McDonald's commercials that showcase their Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap have "Latino" music (heavy on the drums and maracas,) brown skinned girls with tons of chica attitude, baggy clothes, big earrings, and of course this skeevy Rico Suave-esque voice over because, you know, ALL hispanics have an accent. UGH!

And it's not just chipotle! Miller has that new Miller Chill beer which is just a ripoff of chelada style drinks. (Chelada is a slang term for beer and a squirt of lime served on the rocks with a salted rim. It's a combination of chela, beer, and helada, iced or with ice. There's your linguistics/culture lesson for the day. Enjoy.) Oh, and guess what? The commercial for Miller Chill has--you guessed it--an accented voice over. Come on!

There's also this bizarre "mango salsa" trend. I don't know where the hell that started, but it's just weird. Look, I love salsa as much as the next person, but I'm so not into fruit salsas. Besides isn't mango salsa really just mango chutney? Methinks someone in the marketing department of some huge restaurant corporation was all, "Hmm. How can we pander to the Latino market? I mean, they are the biggest untapped market segment. I know! I'll just rename these basic menu items and tell the recipe department to throw in some mangoes here, a little lime there, and some kind of exotic spice, too!"

Here's the thing. As far as I'm aware, I've never in my life eaten chipotle, and Ama, my grandmother, cooked for the extended family all the time! So if chipotle is such an authentic "Latino" ingredient, why is it that NONE of my Latina friends have ever eaten it? Hmm?

I guess I'm just tired of having my culture exploited to sell really gross food and surprisingly bad beer. Seriously, folks, exploit someone else for a change. I think we've been exploited long enough.

A Sometimes Slatternly, Always Naughty Housewife

So OK. I'm trying to adjust to the idea of being a hausfrau. Yes, I work from home, but for the most part, I am a housewife. Now, look, I'm a diehard feminist, but I don't see anything wrong with being a housewife. I mean, shouldn't I have the CHOICE to live however the hell I please? Isn't that the whole point of feminism? Giving women the privilege of CHOOSING their fates? So what is up with all of the housewife bashing?

Generally these are the responses I get:

"And you're happy staying at home all day? Don't feel like you're wasting your potential?"

"Oh." Yep. Just "Oh." Usually in a clippped, semi-conceited, almost always disgusted tone, regularly followed with, "Well, don't let yourself go!" or "Have fun watching your soaps!"

Um. OK. First of all, I rarely watch soaps--and even then it's because I'm trying to figure out what the hell makes them so addicting and/or appealing so I can mimic that in my erotica. Secondly, to imply that being a housewife somehow alters my intelligence is simply insulting. The very idea that alternating household chores with working on my latest chapter or synopis will reduce my IQ is just ridiculous. It's not even worth discussing.

But seriously, all you non armpit shaving, overbearing, manhating slags who feel the need to bombard me--and my fellow hausfraus--with negative comments for choosing to stay home and play house, well, you can all FUCK OFF!

Ah, I feel SO much better now! So moving on....

I decided that I needed to find some kind of community, preferably online, for young housewives. Being that I am obsessed with Google, I type "housewife" into the search box, press enter, and...Oh My God!

Besides the 2 relevant resuls, here's a sample of what else popped up--and yes, these are the LEAST filthy results that I feel comfortable typing here for public view:

Housewife Hunnies
Cheating Housewives
Housewife Bangers
Wives In Need
Extramarital Affairs (A Dating Service for Married Folks)
Wild Wives Club

Uh, OK. So those sites weren't really useful to my needs. Depressingly enough, the other two were a bust also. One was a "How-To" guide for being the "perfect" housewife and entailed hours of scrubbing, primping, mixing drinks, and all kinds of other 50s era subservient BS. Yeah, what the fuck ever. As for the second result, well, it was all geared toward women with kids...lots of them.

I tried searching "new housewife" or "young housewife" and after sorting through all the porn sites, I found sites for chicks who a) can't clean, b) can't cook, c) have absolutely no idea how to maintain a budget, or d) are generally disasters. OK. I maintain a detailed budget with a six month projection, share housekeeping duties with Dave-O, understand and regulary practice the basics of housekeeping. My house isn't spotless, but it's presentable. As for the cooking, well, I'll be a little conceited here and state that I am a hellaciously amazing cook. The only women I've ever met who are better cooks are: Mom, Ama, and Agnes G.

So yeah. I think I'm covered on all those fronts. Sigh. Maybe there's just nothing out there for me--or maybe I should start my own group.

Fruit Salad

Today, I met a friend from my "glory days" at EHS for lunch at Doc Greens. Layna was one of my closest friends at EHS. She was someone that I truly enjoyed spending time with, and now that we're all growed up, it's nifty to go out on lunch dates and such. Recently Layna graduated from TAMU and has taken a position in a nearby alternative education program teaching high school science. I know. Tough gig, right?

Anyways. We made our lunch date via Myspace because, you know, cell phones are so blase. I left the house around 11 because traffic on Texas Ave is absolute mayhem with all of the lane closures and construction, but I make it to the restaurant with maybe 8 minutes to spare. I call Layna for an ETA, and she tells me that she can't find the restaurant. No biggie. I had a hard time finding it, too. It's sort of tucked away on the backside of a mini shopping center on a random street next to an HEB on Texas Avenue South.

Layna: I'm at Hastings. Have I gone too far?
Me: Yep. Cut through the HEB parking lot and you'll see it.
Layna: Is it close to that Starbucks.
Me: Hmmm.

This is when I realize that Layna has gone to the wrong HEB, lol! Now the reason this is an easy mistake is because the geniuses who designed B/CS and named the streets divided Texas Avenue (the main drag, if you will) in this way:

In College Station, the street is labeled Texas Avenue South
In Bryan, the street is labeled South Texas Avenue--even though it's actually NORTH.

Yes. Let that sink in for a second. Now. Does that make any freakin' sense?!?! Oh, and did I mention that both HEBs on Texas Ave are right next to a Hastings? WTF!

After a good laugh, Layna finds her way to Doc Greens. The food was great, but the ordering could have been a little more efficient. Also, the seating arrangement in their hallway of a dining room was totally ridiculous. At any rate, we made it work and had a delicious lunch and a great talk. We discussed everything from her new job, my decision to find a new agent, generational poverty, teaching standards, schools without A/C, etcetera.

On the drive home, I started thinking about salads which made me think about fruit salad which made me think about apples which made me think about PCOS. I know that's a totally random segue, but that's exactly how my mind works. See women with PCOS are usually shaped like apples, but the thing is, I wasn't always shaped like an apple. I started out a fuzzy little peach, then I stretched into an oddly proportioned banana, and then blissfully, I began to blossom into that oh-so coveted pear shape. Why oh why couldn't I stay a pear? Even a slighty lumpy, ripe pear would have been cool, but nope, I began to take the shape of an apple, not quite a red delicious, though. More like a Pink Lady.

So as I'm driving I start to think, crap, what's next? Grape? Cantaloupe? Watermelon? By the time I'm eighty, I'll have gone through all the stages of a fruit salad!

Oh well. It could be worse. I could look like a mushroom! Dave hates mushrooms...but he loves fruit salad, especially the apples.

Dumped

For the last month or so I've been contemplating where exactly my writing career is going. SANGRE was a well-written literary women's fiction novel, but it just wasn't right for the current market. No matter how many acquiring editors at the NYC houses loved the story, the characters, the strong writing, (insert positive comment here), the book just wasn't going to sell. And that's OK. Not every book that's written makes it to publication.

My agent and I decided that it was probably a good idea to shelve SANGRE for the time being and pursue a different manuscript...except the agent wasn't very keen on any of the manuscripts I sent her way. Yeah. That's a problem. My agent felt I should write another literary novel, but I just didn't feel the urge to write another literary novel. I wrote a dark urban fantasy novel, a Latino themed YA, a historical romance, and maybe 5 erotic romance novellas.

So while I sat there for a month trying to force another literary novel, I began contemplating an agent switch. It happens all the time. Some authors use different agents for every book while others make the switch when they want to go a different route with an author. And others, like Jennifer Crusie, get a pink slip from their agents--but in a good way. I spoke to Dave about the potential agent switch and the fact that it would mean yet another round of querying and nailbiting. He supported my decision, certain that a new agent would mean better opportunities.

I sat on my hands for a few days, wondering how best to end my relationship with my agent. A certified letter? A phone call? A nice email? I checked my contract again and again, rereading the termination clause word for word to make sure that I wouldn't be in breech of contract when I delivered my letter/phone call/email.

But then one afternoon last week I got an email from my agent. Something along the lines of: It's been fun, toots, but I think it's time we break up.

Can you say relieved?!?! I know. For the first time ever, I was GLAD to be dumped, lol. Now I'm not the bad guy. I'm the coward, sure, but not the bad guy!

So now I'm evaluating my options. I'm not sure which manuscript to use as my querying platform in a search for a new agent. At least this time I've got some publishing credentials under my belt...but that also means that I have to find an agent willing to handle my mainstream/genre fiction written under my real name and my erotic romances written/published under a pen name. Yeah. That makes it a little more difficult but not impossible. Off the top of my head, I can think of seven authors who write tawdry erotic novellas under pen names and serious fiction under another name.

Anywho. It's a little scary being on the unagented side of things, but that's okay. I've got books lined up for publication without an agent which buys me a little time to drag my feet and find a new one. Who knows? I might find the agent of my dreams this time around!

Back to writing....

Blank

So my Pawpaw (Mom's Dad) had a heart attack last week and had a quad bypass a few days ago. Mom and Joey took off for Ohio (where Pawpaw lives) the day of his surgery and will be staying up there until who knows when. There's a lot of uncertainty right now. Everyone's talking about survival percentages, recovery times, and quality of life. Someone mentioned that if he makes it through recovery the surgery should buy him at least 12 months.

12 months.

Man, when I was a kid a year was such a LONG time, but now, it's just not. Why is it that as we age each year seems to be shorter than the next? Perspective perhaps? Who the hell knows.

Part of me is really optimistic about the entire situation. Two years ago Pawpaw was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and given an iffy prognosis, but after a thorough course of treatment, he beat the cancer and kept on keeping on. Who knows? He might whip this heart problem, too, and live another 5-10 years.

It may sound odd, but I've never had a relative who passed with advanced warning. What I mean is that all of my relatives who have checked out of this realm went suddenly. In Apa's case, we visited him at the hospital the night prior to his death. He was laughing and telling jokes and seemed ready to be discharged--but then Dad got an early morning phone call. He took off immediately, but by the time Mom, Joey, Marcos, Tricia, and I got there, he was gone. Mawmaw went the same way. She made phone calls that afternoon, talked to everyone, and then--wham!--that evening she had a massive heart attack and passed.

Some people say that being able to prepare for an impending death is easier than suddenly losing someone and having to process all of those conflicting emotions at once. I don't know. I think maybe I prefer the sudden death bit. I did a little Hospice work that summer between graduating and beginning college, and I have to say that watching a loved one languish and waste away didn't seem to make the passing any less painful for the families involved.

Anywho. Moving away from the depressing subject now...

I've been getting tons of emails and messages from people asking when I was going to update the blog (for some reason I have a huge readership via Myspace, 791 hits last week/post.) Now you all know why. I've tried to write a post, but I just had this huge blank. It's coming back to me now, though.

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'll fill everyone in on a recent career move that I think help steer my writing in the right direction.

Ruff Days

Not much to report here. Lots of SSDD. Dave's had the last four days off, and yeah, I totally love him, but cripes! I have my own schedule of sleeping, eating, and working, and when Dave's here for more than two, three days at the most, well, we start to get gripey. Not about anything important, of course, just stupid little stuff. We've always been like this so it's become a running joke of sorts.

Anyways. We went to the DPS today, I changed my name and address. I didn't realize that I'd have to take another picture since I renewed my license less than ten months ago so Dave had quite a laugh when the lady said, "And step behind the green square, please." I was in blue jean gauchos, one of Dave's plain grey t-shirts, my lime green and hot pink 'ROOS, with my hair clipped up, curls all over the place. At least I had the foresight to put on some concealer and powder and my diamond studs before leaving the house--otherwise ICK! I would have won the Frumpy HouseFrau Award.

Bos has had a "ruff" couple of days. Get it, ruff? A ha ha ha...sigh. I'm so lame today.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Bos. He's been really snippy this last week, chewing and snapping at whatever is near him. I've noticed that when he's going through a growth spurt he's a real piss head and super manic. One minute he's my little snugglebumpkins and the next he's gnawing on my ankle like it's a knuckle bone straight from the butcher. Needless to say, we're working on that.

Yesterday while Dave and I were out buying groceries, Bos must have gotten bored and decided that Dave's latest Stephen King paperback looked like the tastiest of all chew toys. I was stunned when I opened the front door and found Bosley sitting in a pile of ripped pages, paper confetti still raining down on him. We're talking 700 plus pages of paper shredded all over the living room! What a freakin' nightmare!

After that he was on Dave's shit list. Oh, and did I mention that he decided to pinch off a few upstairs in the hallway. Yeah. Dave was steamed. Bosley seems to sense when Dave is angry because he does a lot of hiding behind my legs or under the nearest table. Weenie.

Then last night, Dave and I are snuggled on the couch watching The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Bosley, who's sleeping between the couch and the wall, shoots up, spins around, and starts making snapping noises at the baseboard. Curious, I lean over to see what he's up to--and I almost pee myself. It's a SCORPION!! A HUGE EFFING SCORPION IN MY LIVING ROOM CRAWLING ACROSS THE CARPET.

I'm shaking and screaming for Dave to kill it, but Bosley has decided to play the brave defender and is trying to bite the damn thing. I try to yank him away, but at almost 6 months and ripped like a body builder, he's impossible to out muscle. Needless to say, the scorpion bit him two or three times on his chin before Dave was able to get in between them and stomp the bastard to death.

When we finally settled down, Bosely didn't seem the least bit worried about the scorpion bites. He wanted to play and run and jump and throw his toys. Normally, I don't care, but it was, like, 1 o'clock in the morning. So we head up to bed and Bos follows us up and for like, five minutes, he was nice and calm, but then he picked up his rope toy and started galloping from the bedroom to the hallway, furiously swinging the toy side to side, hitting the wall, the door, the TV stand, and our bed. Again, if he was a small dog, I wouldn't care, but when 60 plus pounds of awkward, stumbling Great Dane is hurtling around your bedroom, it's impossible to sleep. Unless you're Dave and apparently you can sleep through anything.

I take Bos downstairs and put him outside to run and play. It's three o'clock. I'm bleary-eyed but suffering insomnia so I figure, "Eh, what the hell. I'll write." I grab a notebook and pen and start writing longhand. I get through half a chapter before Bosley decided he's ready to come in. I pet him, close the door, and give him one those fake bacon treats he loves so much. He gobbles it down, gulps down some water, and then starts pacing nervously. I watch him intently, certain that he's about to start barking. He heads into the living room, looks at the door, looks at me, looks at the door, looks at me, looks up the stairs, looks at me and then opens his mouth. I cringe, ready for an eardrum bustin bark, but instead, I hear SPLAT!

Oh, that's right. He puked everywhere. Jesus, Maria y Jose! Like gallons of the stuff. I mean, I'm no wimp when it comes to puke, but this stuff was sour and brown and bacony. Ugh.

*Icky story ahead. You might want to skip down to the next paragraph* Just a random story from my days as a medic: Once, I had to ride an emergency transfer from E-town to San Angelo (fifty plus miles) with a bazillion year old woman that had a fecal impaction, some kind of lower GI blockage, and a horrendous case of the egg burps. As we were loading her onto the gurney for the transfer, she started dry heaving and then vomiting and--well--let's just say that it looked like Wolf Brand Chili and smelled like a broken sewer main. It was horrendous. Imagine that for fifty plus miles, in the back of an ambulance, with like minimal air flow. The second we pulled into the ER Bay, I freakin' bailed, sucking air like a fish tossed onto a pier.

After his gastric episode, Bosley followed me upstairs and settled down. He slept straight through the night and most of the morning. Dave and I felt so bad for him--first the scorpion, then the pukes--that we stopped by our local PetCo dog bar to pick up a pound of tasty treats. You know, things like those dog cookies, the peanut butter bears, the veggie o's... Man, he loves those.

A'ight. This post is pretty boring, but bear with me. I'll have something better tomorrow. Hopefully.

Back to my writing...

Upwardly Mobile

After spending the last two days loading the final boxes into truck, scouring the apartment from top to bottom, and taking PLENTY of clear pictures as evidence, Dave and I have officially finished moved! And it could not have come a day sooner. We've been plagued with problems from the start and have made a pact that if we decide to sell this house and build/buy another one we WILL hire movers and Merry Maids to give the house a final cleaning before sale.

You know, Dave and I were laughing as we packed up the kitchen and reminisced about moving into our apartment in May of 2004. At the time, we lived in separate apartments at the same shat-tastic complex. When I had chosen that particular apartment complex, I was looking for a place close to campus, on the university bus route, and of course, cheap enough to fit into a budget based on my embarassingly low medic's salary. My parents subsidized part of the rent and utilities, but I was on my own for everything else. Not a bad deal, really. It totally taught me how to pinch a penny until Abe Lincoln shrieked for mercy.

Anywho. Where was I? Ah, yes. Shat-tastic apartment.

Dave could have afforded to live in a much nicer complex, but the poor schmuck was smitten and wanted live close to me. He ended up in an apartment three buildings away, maybe a three minute walk. We lived there for a year before deciding to consolidate households and get an apartment together. We were so excited to be moving into a nice complex, a place with great windows, a spacious floorplan, and an updated kitchen.

But then the apartment flooded on our move-in day. And two weeks later. And again four months later. And--well--you get the picture. It was a never-ending cycle of flooding, maintenance issues like a sputtering A/C, lights that flickered, a badly repaired kitchen, etc. So yesterday as we're scrubbing the stove, we realize that compared to the new house we were living in squalor.

OK. So not really squalor, but you know what I mean. When you've got a brand new four bedroom house with clean carpet and bright paint and no funky odors from the previous tenant who may or may not have kept a shrimp stand in the master closet, you really start to see the blatant discrepancy between the two.

We also had a pretty good laugh trying to figure out if one of us married up, down, or made a lateral move. Even though I pointed out that I benefited more financially from this whole ad hoc socio-political alliance by gaining a steady income and health insurance, Dave decided he was the one that married up. I'd like to think of it more as a lateral move, but whatever. I'm not going to argue. It's kind of nice to think that I'm the prize!

Either way, we decided that compared to a lot of people, we're doing OK. We have a steady, loving relationship, a beautiful home, a spoiled ass dog, supportive family, amazing friends, and low overall debt. Are there a ton of things that we want? Uh, yeah. New furniture, a second vehicle, a new lawnmower--all those things would be great, and sure, we could just charge away on our credit cards, but screw that! I like not struggling each month. I love going to bed at night knowing that we're completely solvent. So yeah. We make do with what we have and appreciate the hell out of it as we build up the savings to pre-wedding and house purchase status and put away a little here and there for our vacation fund.

Our game plan is pretty simple: Live Within Our Means. If we stick to that, there's no stopping us. We're upwardly mobile now and the sky's the limit.

I am Du'a Khalil

I’ve been wanting to blog about Du’a Khalil for some time but haven’t been sure if that’s really something that anyone would read. I try to keep my posts on track with the whole “random musing” angle, but this morning, I think I’ll veer off course a bit. Although, I suppose this could be considered a random musing since I was reminded of Du’a Khalil while reading through this AP wire about a 13 year old girl dying after a botched female circumcision.

For those of you not familiar with that rather barbaric custom, a female circumcision or female genital mutilation occurs in various disturbing forms, including the splitting of the clitoris or the complete removal of the clitoris and the labia minora. The third type—and this is really the worst—involves the removal of the clitoris, labia minora and majora. But, oh no, they don’t stop there. They then stitch up the gaping hole left behind and tie the girl’s knees together for weeks (sometimes as long as six.) When—or if—it finally heals, the girl is left with only a tiny little hole, think the size of a pencil eraser, through which menstrual blood and urine are allowed to pass. That’s it. She’s completely flat and closed from where the clitoris used to be to her anus.

Yeah. Let that sink in for a second. Oh, and keep in mind these disgusting procedures are normally carried out on toddlers and young girls by crazy ass old hags without anesthesia, sterile fields or even basic hygiene. Also, they aren’t making these cuts with scalpels. Nope. We’re talking glass shards and knives, people. And those stitches? They’re not always done with thread. Sometimes it’s just long thorns plucked from the nearest bush.

No, I am not making this up. You can not make up this kind of horror. There are dozens of UNICEF, WHO, and medical journal studies describing in terrifying detail these back alley mutilations. And guess what? It gets worse once you’re married. How can that be, you ask? What could possibly be worse than having your vajayjay mutilated and then sewn back together?

Having it cut open by your husband on your wedding night so that he can enjoy the supposed pleasure that only a girl preserved in this manner can provide. Yes, that’s right. The husbands create a new incision so that they may have intercourse with their wives. If the girl gets pregnant, they have to widen the incision to allow for a vaginal delivery—but get this—they then SEW it back up, let it heal, and then the husband gets to slice it open yet again. You can see what a vicious cycle this is…

I first learned about Female Genital Mutilation during my freshman year of high school. I was shocked. I didn’t quite know what to think. My own sexual curiosity was just beginning to bloom, and I couldn’t imagine having the very essence of my womanhood, the outward symbol of my femininity, hacked to pieces to prevent impurity.

And before anyone starts bellowing about Islam—just hold on a sec. FGM predates Islam and Christianity. People who study this sort of thing think it started in the Nile Valley during the time of pharaohs. Apparently there are lady mummies with mutilated genitalia. The practice spread and has persisted because of cultural beliefs on cleanliness, virginity, and stature. If you’re interested in a long, but surprisingly well-researched article, check out this link.

Anyways…I never thought I would ever hear of another crime against women that could rival FGM. But then one morning I was scanning some Arabic newspapers online (trying to pick out the words I understood) and I discovered a tiny story on Du’a Khalil. Using Google, I searched for her name and that’s when I uncovered the most barbaric, unbelievably sadistic and inhumane cell phone video that has ever been captured.

Du’a Khalil Aswad was a 17 year old Yazidi girl who lived in Northern Iraq. (The Yazidi are mostly Kurds who follow an ancient pre-Islam religion. I’ve read a few articles on them, but there’s no way I could sum it up in a few sentences. Suffice to say that they believe they’re descended from Adam but not Eve, absolutely forbid intermarrying with other Kurds or people of different religions, and they don’t accept converts.) It seems that Du’a fell in love with a Sunni boy and may have converted to Islam to marry him. That detail hasn’t been thoroughly vetted, but it has been widely reported. She also seems to have been seen walking with this boy and may have spent the night away from her home, presumably with said boy.

What happened next is murky at best. Du’a fled for her life, but was either persuaded by a family member to return, understanding that all was forgiven or she may have been granted asylum and protection by a local sheikh. When she returned to the city, she was either jumped in the street or made it home and was then dragged into the street to meet her death. A crowd of men numbering in the thousands tore away her clothing until she was wearing only her undergarments and began to stone her.

Yes, STONE her. The stoning lasted more than thirty minutes. If you watch the video, she tries to sit up, she begs for mercy, but no one lifts a fucking finger. They yell and spit and throw huge chunks of concrete at her. Even more infuriating are the ARMED FUCKING POLICEMEN standing throughout and around the crowd doing absolutely nothing to help this poor girl. Eventually some guy steps forward and whacks her on the face with a huge piece of rock, killing her. But these worthless pieces of shit don’t stop there. Nope. They drag her body to the edge of town, set it on fire, and then bury her with a dead dog.

All because she fell in love with the wrong kid. Uh, hello! She was a teenager! That’s what teenagers do!

Where the fuck is the honor in killing a young girl? Or, for that matter, mutilating a baby’s genitalia? More importantly, why the hell do women sit around and take this crap? Domestic abuse, sexual assault, honor killings, genital mutilation, misogyny in media and pop culture, lack of basic female health care. And we can’t act like Third World Countries are the only place this stuff happens. Every 2.5 minutes in the US, a person is sexually assaulted. 1 in 6 women or 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted. Childbirth is the NUMBER ONE KILLER of women worldwide. 1 in 2500 US women will die from pregnancy complications. Compare that to 1 in 30,000 in Sweden. Hmm, I wonder which country has universal health care, appropriate sexual education, and widely available contraception to prevent high-risk teenage pregnancies?

So now that we’re all depressed, let’s turn that helplessness or apathy into something productive.

Buy a Du’a Khalil t-shirt.
Join Equality Now or NOW.
Volunteer with your local Rape Crisis or Domestic Abuse Shelter.
Educate Yourself!!

*Jumping off my soap box and crawling into bed*