Thanksgiving is this Thursday in the States, the day we Americans celebrate by stuffing our faces with turkey and all the trimmings until we explode while watching gigantic floats sail over New York, all in remembrance of the good folks in funky hats and buckle shoes who founded this country by booting out the original residents and pretending they were here first. :)

Here are a few funny Thanksgiving links!

faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/images/mooturk.gif


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ricklondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/a-printfection-hells-turkey-2.jpg

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www.allanstanglin.com/wp-content/uploads/11-21hidingturkey.bmp

The first half of TPATP is definitely plot-wise done, but yep, in need of a lot of polishing. The second half's plot is a little less complete, because it does not yet fulfill the expectations that were changed in first half, but I do not see this as being a heavy duty change more like small nudges here & there.

Turkey Day weekend will soon be upon us, and while Wednesday & Thursday will be filled with cooking & friends & family & eating, Friday through Sunday will be all mine for writing :-) Or at least, for the smoothing out process that is needed.

http://cinetemagay.blogspot.com/2009/11/boondock-saints-1999.html

Irish brothers Connor & Murphy McManus live and work in Boston. Feeling that God's will to rid Earth from all human Evil was given to them as a mission, they set out to do their divine deed. A public outcry is never heard, and even FBI agent Paul Smecker, who follows their trace of bloodshed, admits that the boys are doing exactly what he secretly always has wished to happen. Risking their lives

( In which I can't help but blog about how much this statement by Thomas Nelson's CEO Michael Hyatt makes me crazy ...  )




-- Rachel

http://jesseonthebrink.blogspot.com/2009/11/theatrical-reviews.html

....And I am telling you I keep going! Saw a lot of theatre this weekend, mostly thanks to my friend Brandon who can't get enough!

Dreamgirls...at the Apollo! Chester Gregory as James "Thunder" Early was awesome, and wow, what an Effie! Moya Angela knocks it out of the park as the indomitable headstrong, hurting ex-Dream. The rest of the production felt like a national tour (I am sure it's about to become one), and I wasn't wild about the costumes, the panel set, or the new song "Listen" (from the film version) which they turned into a duet bringing Effie back to Deena and the fold.

The audience seemed to like it, though, and I must say anything is better than that, "When I first saw you, I said..oh my" tune that keeps on coming back like a bad smell. It's amazing to see this or anything at the Apollo Theatre ("The bastion of African-American Culture and Achievement") where Ella Fitzgerald won one of the first "amateur nights".

My black culture on-stage education continued with FELA on Broadway. This show officially opens tonight, and follows AfroBeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who was a musician and activist from Nigeria. I've never seen such incredible color and dancing. Sahr Ngaujah as Fela has the charisma and stamina to pull off what must be the most exhausting role on stage today.

I could've done without the audience participation, and the set felt more House of Blues over the bayou than actual Nigeria. Fela also isn't quite sure if it's a concert or a historical biopic (they either need to add more story or remove it all), but for a message of continuing the struggle and the sheer exuberance of a music and dance that's never been to Broadway before - check it out.

Carrie Fisher in her one woman show, "Wishful Drinking". I read the book in half an hour, so I was thrilled to see it come to Broadway. Carrie is a self-deprecating riot, beginning with the tale about waking up in bed next to her gay friend who was dead. She goes hysterically on about her family "After the death of her husband, my father rushed to Elizabeth Taylor's side, and quickly worked his way to her front", fame "Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time", and Star Wars, "Princess Leia couldn't wear a bra in Star Wars, because George Lucas told me: There is no underwear in space". Couldn't get enough of her. I may even see it again.

I've seen some films recently, too. Oh I've been busy!

Food, Inc: So now I can't even eat soy? Shit!
Up: Loved this film, what took me so long to see it?
Bruno: I'm so glad I waited til it came to video. I laughed maybe twice.
Loggerheads: This is maybe the best gay (okay, gay-adjacent) films I've ever seen. It was so beautiful and heartfelt and lots like life: searching, searching, searching. Highly recommended!

Me? Not so peppy. Long night writing, and up before noon, which makes Kiernan a bleary-eyed, caffeine-swigging, irritation factory. Just call me Oscar, as in "the grouch."

When I was in my twenties, it seemed I didn't need sleep -- ever. I could work all day, party all night, and go straight back to work the next day without a wink of sleep. Now, I'm lucky if I can make it through a movie without snoring.

Getting old sucks. I don't recommend it.

At least I didn't fall asleep while watching "New Moon." I went to see it the other day with my daughter. Now, those of you who know me already know I'm not keen on the whole "sparkly" vampire thing, mostly because I just don't find Robert Pattinson to be quality vampire material.

Taylor Lautner as the werewolf Jacob Black is a whole 'nother enchilada. Lord, that boy is hot! And yes, I feel quite the perv saying so, since he's barely out of short pants. Then again, there are very few men my own age who are drool-worthy. Eventually, as I continue to get older, I figure everybody is going to seem like a schoolkid to me.

Again, I refer you to the getting old sucks thing.

But it brings to mind a question. How do you see some of your favorite Torquere characters behaving in their golden years?

I can almost picture an old age home full of my characters, eating jello and doing the walker-foxtrot after bingo.

And having sex.

Oh, yes, my boys would still be doing the mattress mambo, no matter what their ages. Hey...it might not be pretty anymore, but it still works.

Kiernan

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/EroticHorizon/~3/IW1xNnJe6_4/what-am-i-reading-on-monday-i-finally.html

Books I completed this week are:

Arm Candy – Carol Lynne  ( Cattle Valley Series)

Unridden – Cat Johnson  (Studs & Spurs series)

Reckless Passion – Amanda Young

Reckless Behaviour – Amanda Young

Over the Moon - Anthology

I finished THE MAVERICK– Finally. Palmer is one of my must read authors but I have been dragging my feet on this one.. It is a continuation of the whole Jacobsville war against drug plot and boys and girls getting together….

The Maverick – Diana Palmer

Meg Benjamin second book is a cracker of a read – I was dying to get my mitts on another Tollefson brother and I did and his story is funny, chaotic and absolute sarcastic madness, but I loved it.

Wedding Bell Blues_ Konigsburg, Book 2 - Meg Benjamin

Rivers of Tears – For those of you who have been following my journey with this emotional read. My review is up. River Of Tears - Michele Montgomery.

Books I am currently reading

After reading a few review of SKIN GAME I have decided to give it a go and I am hoping this works for me as well. I have read the author – Ava Grey other voice Ann Aguirre and I love it, so I am hoping this lives up to the hype – so far  good anyhow. I didn’t finish this one yet , so hopefully will finish this today..

Midnight Cove is a requested review book and it’s a genre that I love (Romance Suspense) so I am giving it a go.

Midnight Cove - Cierra James

Skin Game – Ann Aguirre

 

Hoping to get through this week

Lovers, Dreamers, and Me - Willa Okati

Broken – Dawn Kimberly Johnson

Dragon Storm, Bk6 – Bianca D’arc

The Jade Owl – Edward C. Patterson

Howling At The Moon – Karen MacInerney

 

My most anticipated book of the week is

I am one of those people who never feel content unless I have at least three reading projects going all at once. So along with sometimes on audio, I’ll have something on the e-reader or a book – but I must always have a “Book for the bag”. I wait around alot on my kids – for sports practice, creative practices or some other venture or just the post office, and it is at these times that I pop this book out and get stuck in…..

I have recently finished the last book I had in my book and Haglerat from Unbound was kind enough to brave the UK postal strike to get this book to me…. I have been salivating over this book for awhile now…. it will take me sometime to finish, but - I don’t care…

The book has three covers so far –I thought I would let you guys see the three – I am a cover hussy… The top one is the UK cover, the next two are the Australian and the US one’s consecutively… No question on which one is my favourite…

Everything about the UK cover says dark fantasy – the mist, the castle in the background, just the unknown. I love it.

HEART'S BLOOD - MARILLIER, JULIET

 

A stunning gothic love story based on the legends of Beauty and the Beast

A haunted forest. A cursed castle. A girl running from her past and a man who’s more than he seems to be. A tale of love, betrayal and redemption…

Whistling Tor is a place of secrets, a mysterious wooded hill housing the crumbling fortress of a chieftain whose name is spoken throughout the district in tones of revulsion and bitterness. A curse lies over Anluan’s family and his people; the woods hold a perilous force whose every whisper threatens doom.

And yet the derelict fortress is a safe haven for Caitrin, the troubled young scribe who is fleeing her own demons. Despite Anluan’s tempers and the mysterious secrets housed in the dark corridors, this long-feared place provides the refuge she so desperately needs.

As time passes, Caitrin learns there is more to the broken young man and his unusual household than she realised. It may be only through her love and determination that the curse can be lifted and Anluan and his people set free...

 

 

 

http://www.romantictimes.com/2009/11/dark-divine-sneak-peek-chapter-2_23.php

We’re so glad you’ve all been enjoying our exclusive excerpt of Bree Divine’s debut, The Dark Divine. This week we’ve got chapter two for you, as well as another giveaway. Keep those emails coming to Elissa@rtbookreviews.com, to enter for a chance to win a copy of the book and a snazzy bottle of matching purple nail polish. Winners will be announced each Friday leading up to the book’s release on December 22.

Here's what Brae has o say about writing the second chapter of her book:

I had three objectives when I wrote chapter two. The first is that I wanted to introduce the ideas of secrets and promises — themes that are explored throughout the book. Grace’s inability to keep a promise is one of her greatest flaws, and something she is going to have to come to terms with during the story. The second idea I wanted to explore is what it feels like to look for someone who has disappeared. One of the three people Daniel was loosely based on was my first boyfriend who mysteriously vanished off of the planet one day. I know how it felt like to look for him everywhere I went for the next year, hoping to bump into him, thinking I’d seen him from a distance … only it never turned out to be him. The third objective was to show the reader how Daniel’s reappearance into Grace’s life — even for only a few minutes — has started to cause problems for Grace. I like to think of it as foreshadowing for the much more serious trouble, and secrets, that are about to be exposed with Daniel’s return.

Bree Despain

http://ryan-field.blogspot.com/2009/11/kansas-city-life-insurance-continuing.html

For those who don't know, I've been helping a friend out, as legal power of attorney, because his long term disability insurance was just cancelled by Kansas City Life Insurance Company. Here's the original post. I'm not blaming Kansas City Life; there's a lot of insurance fraud out there and sometimes innocent people, like my friend, have to pay for this fraud.

And in this post I'd like to quickly explain why my friend's case is slightly different than other stories about people who find out they are HIV positive. Usually, there are physical signs and symptoms after someone has been exposed to the HIV virus. With all the new HRV meds out there, most people can live a fairly normal life, with HIV, because now it's treated like other chronic illnesses. I'm not minimizing the magnitude of being HIV positive for anyone. There are still many factors to consider, including psychological and social aspects that can be devastating for people with HIV.

But in my friend's case, it wasn't as simple as getting tested and learning he was HIV positive. This is a true story. For two years, he was being treated by a very bad doctor. My friend was treated for stress, the flu, and a long list of other things. He was given "herbal relaxing" vitamins and was told to exercise more (I swear on my life). This doctor treated all his HIV symptoms without having any regard for the fact that he might have been HIV positive. The doctor never requested an HIV test once. Even on my friend's last visit to his office, which was two days before he was admitted into the hospital, near death, my friend was being treated for "Clogged Bronchial Tubes," and the doctor prescribed an inhaler. This is all on record; I was there, in the doctor's office and personally witnessed it myself. And when I saw how sick my friend was and asked the doctor if my friend should have x-rays, the doctor sneered at me and said, "I don't practice medicine that way." Those were his exact words. This is the doctor who was treating him, at the time, Dr. Scott P R Berk, MD. Here's a link to his web site. http://www.stocktonfp.com/doctors.php I'm not at all afraid to mention his name in public. If it hadn't been for this idiot, my friend wouldn't even be worrying about disability. He'd still be HIV positive, but he'd still have his normal life.

Two days after Dr. Berk prescribed "inhalers," my friend was rushed to the emergency room because he lost consciousness from a lack of oxygen. Up until that time, my friend was still working full time, in corporate America, and trying hard to live as normal a life as possible. I'm not joking. As sick as he was, he continued to work, thinking all the things he was experiencing was stress, thanks to Dr. Berk.

After that, my friend was diagnosed with PCP pneumonia, full blown AIDS, Kaposi's Sarcoma, CMV virus, and a long list of other things that could have been prevented if he'd been properly diagnosed in the first place. His T-cell count was 16; he was near death. Actually, he died three times at the hospital and was brought back, miraculously. The doctor who was treating him, Dr. Berk, has refused all phone calls to this day and he never once even had the decency to send a card or inquire about how my friend was doing. (I wanted my friend to sue Dr. Berk; I'm a fighter. But my friend was so thankful to be alive, he didn't want to revisit the horror he'd already gone through with a law suit.)

Ultimately, my friend spent three full months in the ICU, in a coma, fighting for his life. He went down to eighty pounds and suffered a heart attack during physical therapy. It didn't look good; he wasn't supposed to live. But he did. When he was discharged from the hospital, he left in a wheel chair, with a hole in his neck from the tracheotomy he'd received while he'd been in life support. The nurses cried as we pushed him out the door and put him into my car that hot summer afternoon in early September. I felt like I was in one of my own books, because it really was a happy ending. And you don't get to see real happy ending a lot in life.

But after the coma and all the other "events" he had during that hospital time, my friend was left disabled in many ways. Due to lung damage alone, he can't walk up or down stairs without losing his breath. He lost motor skills that make it difficult for him to walk without tripping on his own feet. The "wasting" he experienced during full blown AIDS, didn't go away. Though he's gained some weight, he still has the "wasting" look.

He's learned to live a slow, quiet life. He does not travel and he can't do anything physical. Going out to dinner is an event. And now with swine flu going around, he's terrified to go near anyone who is even associated with it. For him, with his past history of lung problems thanks to PCP, swine flu is deadly. The common cold could be deadly.

The reason for this post, is to show that this isn't just an average case of someone with the HIV virus fighting a big insurance company like Kansas City Life. I know for a fact that my friend wishes he could go back to the full life that he once loved. But the disabilities my friend has make this impossible. And it isn't because he is HIV positive, it's because he's been through full blown AIDS, at death's door, with disabilities that are documented, on file, and very real.

...manic Monday. BUT! This Monday, I actually feel like a human being, unlike last Monday, when I was unknowingly struggling with the first stages of H1N1 recovering from H1N1.

It's a short week this week, because of Thanksgiving, but that's just fine by me. Two days of work, and five days off. I'll spend a chunk of Wednesday grocery shopping (again, because I forgot to get stuff for cornbread stuffing when I went out on Friday, and somehow we've run out of eggs again), and Thursday is the holiday, which I intend to spend cooking, planting bulbs, and writing. And then a doctor's appointment and three more days of laziness and leftovers.

The Writing To-Do
revise Parallax
finish blurb worksheet for Tatterdemalion
write Percussion
outline new sekrit projekt

ಥ_ಥ don't worry elgay i'll save you
oh and bella & jacob made babies afterwards

So Thanksgiving is coming, and once again, I'll be going to the in-laws. I'm thinking that consuming copious amounts of alcohol, although effective and time-proven as a coping strategy, might be taking the easy way out.

So this year, we're going to consider ways of de-stressing oneself before unpleasant yet unavoidable events that don't imperil your liver much. (That's an awkward sentence. If I had an editor, it would be fixed. I mean coping mechanisms that don't imperil your liver, not unavoidable events that don't imperil your liver.)

So today, we're going to focus on mindsets. You see, there's a certain school of thought (which I intermittenly belong to; I also intermittenly believe that food eaten while standing up contains no calories, so take this as you will. I also, apparently, believe that intermittenly is a word, and that it means periodically, although right now, looking at it, it seems to mean contraband contained within the things you wear to keep your wee fingers warm) that states that it is your attitude toward an impending event that determines how you will experience said event.

For example, if you say to yourself, "Oh, great. I have to go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving and it will be a horrid time filled with nasty self-absorbed people who have already judged me based on no accurate information whatsoever, and it will be hot and crowded and loud and there will be obnoxious children running around at top speed screaming at the top of their lungs and some of them will be mine and I can't in good conscience leave them there when I eventually bail." it is likely that you will not enjoy the event.

So the trick must be to develop a mindset that will lead you to enjoy said event. I'd pondered combining this with a drinking game. For example, "Every time your assorted and sundry relatives say something dumb/annoying/hurtful/ignorant take a drink" but then I realized I would be setting myself up for alcohol poisoning long before the pumpkin pie even thought about making an appearance.

It could work, if I framed it all as a anthropological study. Kind of like Jane Goodall, but with less verbal cues to work with. I could take notes, write it all up as a sojourn in the wild. Marlin Perkins could narrate my interior monolouge. I could wear a PITH HELMET!

I could pretend I'm either Barbara Kingsolver (unlikely, because the whole local food thing would make my inner Kingsolver's soul shred with grief) or Ruth Hamlin and turn the whole occasion into a pathos-filled family drama replete with dysfunction and wry humor, so the critics could later write, "Potts has a keen but not unkind eye" never knowing (unless, of course, they read my LJ) that I am anything but kind, some days.

I could pretend it's dinner theater, like one of those murder mystery dinners where someone suddenly drops dead. For extra value, I could bring in someone else on this (sadly, I don't know who it would be, unless I could corrupt Harmony) and then we could stage an entire mystery without ANYONE ELSE knowing it was actually all BS. I'm liking this; it's like performance art. Or I could be like Bjork, (which is Icelandic for Lady Gaga for you younger readers) and just let myself be as bizarre as I'm willing to be and see what happens.

I wonder if I could rent paparazzi for the whole thing. That'd add a certain something.

Now, there is that sunny little Pollyanna side of my nature, and to honor that silly twit, I could go into this event assuming it will be a loving gathering of people bound by biology and remarkably bad decision making, all determined to make the best of it. Diamonds turn up where least expected, and perhaps some soul altering, reality changing experience will occur over the turkey and gravy. I could go in with that expectation, and then, on the off chance it fails to manifest, console myself with the liquor I didn't drink in the first place. The delay inherent in reaching the disappointment stage of the evening should reduce alcohol consumption by as much as 80%, saving dozens, if not hundreds of dollars.

Personally, I'm leaning toward the Pith Helmet. (For verily, one of life's rules should be "Never pass up an occasion to wear ridiculous headgear.") But what say you?

SO MUCH MORE FUCKING AWFUL THAN OINK-FLU!!!

Nothing, but NOTHING makes me feel like I want someone to shoot me in the head the way vomiting does. IT ROBS ME OF THE WILL TO LIVE!!! Thankyou!

After my joy of managing to put a bit of weight on it is back to size anorexic in the space of 2 days. The children got over it a bit faster although they are still generally scared of food. I, on the other hand, took it worse, mostly because throwing up make me panic and panicking make me throw up - Vicious circle of DOOM!

I managed to keep down a toast today - I guess I should be grateful. I need to air the house before my mum arrives because it smells of puke like WOAH.

And now, as I still feel shaky ... probably from lack of food since Winter Vomiting isn't a bug that stays around long (thanks heavens)... I am going to flake out on the sofa and see if I can digest a yaoi novel...

BLAH! ;_;

Stoke are still, incredibly, ninth in the table, though their match against Portsmouth yesterday, which I watched, was pretty dire, especially in the first half. It was as if the ball and the players were a few seconds out of sync.

Of course, the wind didn't help... The Britannia is terribly windy at the best of times (the corners of the ground aren't filled in, do not ask me why) and yesterday it seemed to be more than usually blustery.

What amused me though, was the Stoke segment on the roundup programme later. We were told solemnly that no team has wasted chances more than Stoke and that if they'd won all the games they were leading in, instead of letting their oponents catch up or beat them, they wouldn't be ninth but, wait for it, SECOND.

::crickets::

The thing is, if I had a dollar for every time I sneezed this past month, I'd be chortling happily, but I didn't, so I'm not. Just because you're ahead in a soccer match is no guarantee you'll win it or even deserve to; fortunes fluctuate wildly. Sure, some of the games, Stoke threw away the lead, but others were just plain unlucky for them; it happens. Football; it's a funny old game, as Kevin Keegan astutely told us.

Look at the infamous French handball this week, that got mentioned every two minutes or so on every commentary, or Spurs beating Wigan 9-1 yesterday.

But Stoke are doing okay, bless them. Just don't give away any more penalties in the first 7 minutes, okay, lads? Not every team will pat the ball gently to the feet of my woobie, Sørensen.