Meh

Nothing much happened in this blog.

The Fat Woman Continues the D OR How I Felt Like a Criminal in the Misses Section at Walmart

Warning: Fat Woman will talk about...dieting...AGAIN!  Ranting may be involved.  Plus diet memes.  Lots of diet memes.  If diet memes offend you, this is your big opportunity to click on the x in the upper right hand corner.  Don't say I didn't warn ya!

So I'm on month four of the lifestyle change.  (MONTH FOUR!  Four months.  Sixteen weeks.  112 days.  2,688 hours.  161,280 minutes.  Yes.  I've been thinking about this a lot.)  I've plateaued like four times and each time is worse than the last.  Currently I've lost a total of 37 pounds.  I eat 1000 to 1100 calories a day and I exercise six times a week.  I hate that I've stopped losing weight.  If I weren't going to go to the doctor next month I would be screaming "WHY!  Why am I not losing weight?"  I've looked up all kinds of answers.  I'm not cheating on food portions.  I might not be sleeping enough.  I might not be getting enough vitamin D.  I might have some issues with hormones.

All things I need to take up with the M.D.  Plus he hasn't seen me for 37 pounds and I expect some kind of doctorly happiness over my weight loss.

I want the guy to be enthusiastic, dammit.  I want him to do a cheerleading routine on my weight loss!  I want him to run out into the hallway and scream out that I'm the best patient, ever!  Am I going to be disappointed?  Probably.

 

So this last week I went to get a new pair of pants.  Why?  All my other pairs of jeans are sliding down my ass which isn't a style choice I like to go with.

Although I did some sewing to save myself a little money and also to use the old jeans as working-in-the-garden jeans, even those are too baggy, so they went up on the shelf in the closet because I can't quite bring myself to throw them away...yet.

Therefore I'm in Walmart.  Why am I in Walmart?  Because Walmart is where I usually buy my fat jeans.  You can see my mindset hasn't yet moved into the proper zone.  I literally went to Walmart to buy my fat jeans because it hadn't sunk in that I didn't need to buy fat jeans again.  (Duh moment approaching.)  Without hesitation I went to the fat women's section.  (They call it the women's section because calling it the fat section might not be PC.)  I'm standing there like a doofus because I can't find a size 14.

Yes, I am truly confused.  I look.  I look again.  I look a third time, and then I had to scratch my head.  I think if I was MacGyver, I would have found it.  In fact, I would have used a Swiss Army knife to make a new pair for myself out of old ones.

Then it dawns on me.

I'm in the wrong section.  I was IN THE WRONG FRICKIN' SECTION.  So I surreptitiously slide on over to the misses section.  I expect someone will yell at me like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I mean, I'm looking around expecting someone to look at me and ask, "What are you doing here?"  But they don't and I'm all like, "Hey, this must be a meaningful moment."

 

I went to the US Space & Rocket Center to see my daughter graduate from Space Camp the very next day, and my husband who I was meeting there, did not recognize me when he was looking for me.  So it's another meaningful moment.

 

I may be plateaued, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing.

 

Fat Woman out.

More Thoughts About the "D" Word OR How Fat Woman Deals With the "D" Word in a Snarky Fashion

So the "D" word news is old.  I've been put on a good food timeout.  I've lost 20 pounds and no one has said anything which is a little depressing, but I have to be realistic.  Regardless, I have to look at nutrition labels everywhere I go.  If I'm really bored I look at how many calories are in the fast food items I can't even touch.  (1/3 Lb. Mushroom and Swiss Thickburger from Hardees's, which has 650 calories in it.  Their 1/3 Lb. Frisco Thickburger has 930 calories.  I couldn't even eat a 1/3 of that in my present plan.)  I worry about sounding like Reformed Diet Fiend.  "Hey, person I don't know," I say to a random stranger in a fast food place, "did you know that has 930 calories in it?  Hey, where ya going?"  Previously I complained about HIM, the man to whom I'm married, and how's he's lost 25 pounds and he's got all kinds of people saying stuff to him.  (Showoff.)

Therefore I haz some shizz to say about what I've learned in the last five weeks.

Anyway, it turns out that if you substitute turkey for some of the meats you can get more bang for your buck.  However, the bang doesn't exactly taste right.  Example: Jenni-O turkey hot dogs.  These aren't actually bad.  They have about 70 calories per dog and they don't taste exactly wrong.  If you put a crapload of mustard on them, you're golden.  (No pun intended.)

It was hot and it was technically a dog, so yes, it was.

The turkey hot dog was our first foray into the wide world of turkey biproducts.

I know this really doesn't have anything to do with the blog, but
I never would have thought to do this with a coffee pot.

Having partially succeeded with the turkey hot dog, we went for the turkey burger.  I believe our reasoning was something along the lines of "But the turkey hot dog wasn't bad."  These turkey burgers are also Jenni-O's, and they're preformed patties that you fry up and supposedly eat like a regular burger.  I ate the first one okay.  I added a towering pile of sautéed mushrooms and onions, baby, and more mustard.  (I'll whisper a little dietary secret about mustard.  The bottle says it has 0 calories.  0, 0, 0, which is good for me.  Someone's probably going so say something about sodium, but I've got a trade-off here, and I'm going with 0 calories.  0!)  (Also mushrooms and onions are like, retroactive calorie foods.  It takes you more calories to prepare them than they contain, and no, I didn't use butter or oil to sauté them.)  HIM liked the turkey burger so much we made it the next day.  But then my stomach said, "Oh, hell no," and I couldn't finish it, probably because it suddenly had the consistency and smell of fried Alpo.  (I never fried dog food, but I had to try some dry dog food kibble when I was about ten because if my dog was eating it then I should too.  Anyone who was a kid with a dog has done this, don't deny it.)

Do you think this woman looks at memes of herself all day long?

And surprisingly there were more memes about turkey burgers than I would have imagined, which meant I have to post them in my blog because...because...the memes have 0 calories, too.  0!

So this guy finally retired.  They sent his
character into space in the commercial.  How degrading.
I bet they didn't send Dos XX's with him.
"In space, no one can hear you scream because there is no beer."

So turkey hot dogs = okay.  Turkey burgers = only when you're starving to death, on a desert island, without any coconuts, and Tom Hanks is unavailable for backup.  (Which sometimes I feel like I am starving to death, but then I think I could eat a turkey burger.  Then I think, "I'm not really starving to death.")

And I got distracted again.  This guy is from Turkey, and I don't
know why it's supposed to be funny, but I liked it anyway.

Next up on the turkey byproduct list was Jenni-O's attempt at a sweet Italian turkey sausage.  (Think a turkey version of a brat.)  (Somewhere there's an underground guerilla group of turkeys who are planning to bomb Jenni-O factories.)

Distracted again.  I would say it was the diet, but it's probably just me.

Then we tried Jimmy Dean turkey breakfast sausages.  You can hear me squealing in the meat aisle when I read on the back that it's 100 calories per serving and one serving includes two sausages.  Two.  (Those people at the supermarket don't like it when I squeal.  I'm not sure what they think is going to happen but it can't be pretty.)

I couldn't find a turkey sausage meme.
Would you look at that picture?
Seriously, who eats kiwi and blueberries at
brekky?  By the way, the diet Nazi in me sez
this is actually showing 1 1/2 servings of turkey
sausage patties, so it's slightly misleading.

Despite the lack of memes in the breakfast turkey sausage arena, the sausages aren't bad.  They only mildly taste like dog food.  (HIM adds Siracha sauce liberally.  I mean he drowns the poor little sausage-y bastards in it, but he also has to add the calories to his app.)  (I suppose if I put cheese on it, slapped some mayo on it, added a fried egg, on top of a toasted English muffin it wouldn't be so bad, but then I couldn't eat anything else during the day, which would suck about 4 PM, whereupon I would likely strangle everyone in the house.  Maybe the neighbors, too.)

So I went looking for recipes and found one for meatloaf.  I decided that I would attempt to make a lower calories version of meatloaf using lean ground beef and lean ground turkey.  Believe me when I say that I added the normal amount of onions to the recipe and then I doubled it because I knew if I didn't it would taste more like dog food again.

 

I went looking for turkey meatloaf memes and I couldn't find any,
but I did find this picture that someone did for their recipe, so I
will now make fun of it by saying it looks like
a turkey meatloaf fruitcake.
That just made me gag.

My turkey meatloaf wasn't terrible, but it wasn't my regular yummy meatloaf.

So someone got really bored with their turkey meatloaf and
threw boiled eggs in it.  I did not do this with mine.  Maybe
next time.

And I continued to look for memes to amuse myself.

I yam amused.  Also I have no yams.

More meatloafy memes.

I thought I was perverse.  Someone actually
took the time to make a baby meatloaf with
bacon diapers.  This looks uber gross.  I
wish they posted the after it was cooked part.

Finally the Dos XX's guy again.

This has to do with Meatloaf, but not meatloaf.
Get it?  Also, he probably won't have meatloaf
in space, unless it's the freeze dried kind,
which is probably worse than the turkey meatloaf fruitcake.

Anyway, tomorrow we're trying a different type of turkey sausage.  (Think kind of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage except with turkey.)  I don't know.  I hope it doesn't taste like Alpo.

Fat Woman (who might have to rename her blog) out.

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is OUT!

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is out!

It’s the day of Bubba and Willodean’s wedding day.  The sun is shining.  There isn’t a cloud in the sky.  The pergola is decorated in high style with baby’s breath and ribbons streaming galore, and the preacher is ready.  So what can possibly go wrong?

Just about everything can go wrong.  While twenty-two types of canapés are being served along with gallons of mimosas, Bubba finds the one thing that he well and truly did not want to find.  There’s a dead body in his house.  Then the dead body disappears while Bubba goes for help.  Then the body reappears with nary a witness except Bubba.  One would think all of that would be bad enough, but throw in a super steampunk villain, a cranky baby, no available cellphones, a mother who invited “everyone” to the wedding, and dozens of people trying to keep a secret from Bubba, and one’s got a bona fide comical caper of epic proportions.

The questions are very nearly endless.  Will there be a wedding?  Will Bubba ever find the dead body again?  Will he find out who the murderer is?  Will this trailer ever end?

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is the seventh book in the Bubba Mystery series.  The series is as follows: Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Brownie and the Dame (3.5), Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note, The Ransom of Brownie (4.5), Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies, and Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies.

Buy it at Amazon here.

 

Buy it at B&N here.

 

Buy it at Smashwords here.

Fat Woman and the Diet of Doom

Anyone who is on Facebook with me knows that I'm on a diet.  Why because I'm posting about it all the time.  (Also known as bitching about it all the time.)

Jeez, I hate this.  On my last visit to the doctor, he tells me, "Well, look at that, we have some new news.  You're still a borderline diabetic, but now you've got Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3."  I had to go look that shizz up because my mind kind of blurred after the words came out of the doctor's mouth.  You have to picture it in slow motion.  "CER-RON-IC...KID-KNEE...DEE-ZEES," he said.  Since he's the doctor, I'm technically obliged to listen, no matter how much I don't want to listen.

Then came some other stuff like Weight Clinic and Optifast and injections, and I think my brain kind of dropped out of orbit, kind of like Skylab.  (You have to be of a certain age to remember that one, so the hell with you if you have to Google it.)  (I looked for a Skylab meme and I couldn't find one and so I looked for one for the International Space Station and I did find a mildly funny one, but then I was really distracted and found one that has nothing to do with diets, space stations, or anything in the blog, which is the one I'm going to put below.)

In space, no one can hear John Williams'
infamous score.  You know it because
you're humming it right now.

Anyway, Skylab was the precursor to the International Space Station.  Astronauts went up, hung out, did experiments, and sang songs.  Then the whole kit and caboodle fell down in the seventies.  I think it hit part of Australia.  And you didn't have to Google it.

An International Space Station cartoon because I can.

So I talked to my husband about the diet.  Words were said like, "We must," "I must," and "You must."  I talked to our daughter.  Support was mandated.  I then went to this weight clinic because we initially decided to do the Optifast thing.  I talked to the counselor there.  This is where the problems started.

It's my concerted opinion that their weight control Nazi megalomaniac twat in charge of bringing in people to their $2300 program (not to mention $120 per week for the shake product) is, oh, shall we try to use a polite term, or should I just call a guilt-inducing, non-compassion having, prune-faced, know-it-all spade a spade?  I think I just did.

Of course, my mini-rant calls for a meme.

Therefore it dawns on me that it doesn't matter who is holding my hand, because I'm going to have to do it myself no matter what.

I hate Dr. Phil, too.  He's a total jerkface.  I don't think he really
has a degree in psychology, but I don't feel like looking it up.

And I thought about it and I thought about it.  There was only one way to go and that was to count calories and exercise.  It sucks to count everything that goes in your mouth, (no nasty jokes there), but I gotta do it.

Furthermore, I had to apologize in advance to my husband, HIM who still remains nameless, for transmogrifying into Diet Nazi Bitch.  I suggested to HIM that the reason that he wasn't losing weight was because he was eating too many calories.  I use the S Fit app on my Samsung which is pretty damn good for doing that, if a little time consuming.  (Insert fat joke here.)  So he's counting all his calories too.  We've both lost about ten pounds, which is good, but here's the shizzy part.  He eats about 2000 calories a day and I eat about 1000 calories a day.  This SUCKS!

I love this artist.

How is that fair?  He literally eats twice as much as I do (but he did give up beer and wine) and he gets the same bennies.  This blows.  Now I've plateaued for a few days which also blows because it's depressing to get on the scale after days of STARVING YOURSELF. for pete's sake, and there is no decrease in weight.  My mantra is usually muttered in a manic fashion while glaring at the numbers on the scale, "Stick to it, stick to it, stick to it."

Oh, I've gotten pretty creative.  We had turkey hot dogs today.

I'm going on a trip to visit my sister and I'm probably going to have to apologize in advance for anything that comes out of my mouth there, but this is not just a diet, it's permanent.  I have to eat like this for the rest of my life.

Shopping at Target: Runs into the sample woman.  The sample woman says, "Here, have one."  She offers something with sausage, cheese, and other stuff on it.  I say, "I can't eat that.  I wouldn't know how to count all the $#$%^!! calories on it.  What's wrong with you?  Can't you see that I'm a fat woman on a diet?  Can't you offer it to skinny women who obviously need the calories.  Jesus Tapdancing Christ, what is the problem with you people?"  HIM: "Honey, just let it go and we'll go browse through the vegetables again."

Dieting is definitely affecting me.  I was at Home Depot the other day and was minding my own business when I stopped to let a man with a cart full of siding go in front of me.  He saw my t-shirt which said: "Home is where the wifi is at", and said, "That's the stupidest t-shirt I've ever seen."  Then I said, without pausing, which isn't usually the way I am, but it was an hour before dinner, "No one $&*@#^!! cares what you think."  Well, he was rude first, and I suppose I should have been carrying my "Danger: Dieting Fat Woman" sign, but I wasn't.  Next time, he might know not to insult a fat woman.

In conclusion, the diet endures.

On Suicide

Yes.  I know.  Normally I joke or rant or sometimes use hyperbole with excessive exuberance.  Today, not so much.  Today, I read two articles today about depression and suicide which prompted me to be serious for a change.

The first article was from the perspective of Christine Chubbuck's brother, Greg.  Christine was a media personality who during a 1974 morning show on television, shot herself.  A link to the article is here.  A lady who suffered from bipolar disease before it was widely diagnosed, she was unhappy with her life.  There were various problems mentioned in the article from the mental illness to romantic issues to the possible inability to have children.  I'm not certain why she chose to end her life so publically, but she did, and now there a few movies cropping up about her.  Her brother describes her as "An interesting, gifted, flawed person."  What a sad way to remember a loved one.

I feel for the family.  Their loss touches me in a way most people aren't aware.  My mother killed herself in 1979.  She didn't do it on live television.  She didn't do it in front of a crowd.  Specifically, she left our family house, went to her mother's house, borrowed my grandmother's .22 pistol, and put the barrel in her mouth.  She left a two-word note underneath her glasses on the table in front of her.  "Forgive me," it said, and I've often wondered what happened to that note.  I'm not certain if I wished I'd kept it or not.

There was a tiny article in the local paper a few days later about our mother's suicide that offended my sister and me terribly.  I remember that we called up the paper's offices and said something anonymous and nasty to them.  (Upon reflection that was silly, but we felt better.)  I didn't get to say that she was an interesting, gifted, flawed person.  Much, much later, I remember her being a kind person, but a person who kept her nose in a book, and ignored what was happening all around her.  (Which is ironic considering my present profession.)

At the time of my mother's suicide, I was fifteen years old, a sophomore in high school, gleefully trotting myself down a dark path of rebelliousness.  I can't say how much my mother's death was a wakeup call, and forever changed I became thereafter.

The other article I read was written by a woman who discusses her experiences with mental disease and the effects of its impact on her life.  Stephanie Land speaks about what it was like to commit herself in a psychiatric hospital and the aftermath of financial responsibility.  See the article here.  I also took a look at some of her blog articles, which are just as compelling.  See her website/blog here.

Recently my daughter asked what happened to my parents, which proves that the past is never really past.  My father died in 1972 when I was eight.  His death was primarily due to a heart attack caused by arteriosclerosis.  (Those fried catfish done him in.  Sorry, Dad.)  Answering what had happened to my father came naturally if ruefully, and doesn't bother me.  When it comes to answering about my mother, I had to be a little more discrete.  I wouldn't have thought that I'm ashamed of my mother's death by suicide, although at one point in my life I was very much aware that I was wretchedly mortified to admit it.  So in the present, it was more like I didn't want to sully my daughter's head, which leads down that same mental path that suicide/mental disease is something that is inherently dirty.  I don't remember my exact words to my daughter, but it went something like, "My mother was very unhappy.  Because she was so unhappy she thought that she should die.  I've often wished that she talked to me or someone else about it instead."  And my daughter was very understanding.  I dislike lying to my daughter so I try not to lie about things like death and taxes.  (The whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy is making me itchy under the collar because she's gotten to the age where the holiday cat should be out of the bag.)

In a similar manner, I told my daughter the truth about her grandmother.  I didn't go into detail.  I didn't specify how and why, and I could have because when my grandmother found my mother's body, she called me up.  I ran the half block to her house and opened the front door to see my mother on the sofa with blood coming out of her ears, nose, and mouth.  My grandmother was washing her hands in the sink, and I didn't immediately understand what had happened.  I rushed to my mother's side, thinking she'd had some kind of stroke, and I checked her pulse.  Much later, the EMTs were standing in front of her body laughing about something and I screamed at them to get out of the house because her death was not something amusing.  This is very likely the most dreadful memory I have in my life.

And therefore I came to the conclusion that even now, some 37 years later, there is still a tinge of shame in the manner of my mother's death.  I don't like to say that I am.  I certainly can't change what happened, but I can change the way I think about it.

The impact of my mother's death continues to be felt.  Not only did it color my life (I have two degrees that relate directly to the circumstances of her death) but I've suffered through three episodes of major depression in my life, including a five year period directly after her death.  I don't know if my family was aware of my problems or that they chose to ignore them, but I remember getting advice like, "You should make more friends," and "You should just go out more."  I had to work myself out of my depression, and I had to do it in a way that I would never recommend.  My marriage was one of several keys to my recovery.  HIM, the man to whom I'm married, may never know how much he truly helped me.

Mental illness continues to be swept under the carpet like a redheaded stepchild that must be hidden away in a closet when visitors appear.

For those of you who need help, here's the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:

1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-273-8255.

The link to their website is here.

I wish this had been an option for my mother.  Or for myself for that matter.

Spoilers, Spoilers, Spoilers OR How Fat Woman Went to See The Force Awakens

Warning: There are spoilers following this.  In fact, I spoil the holy living crap out of it.  I'm warning you if you haven't seen the movie, and you want to see the movie, I will spoil it.  Furthermore, if you've seen the movie, and you lurve the movie, I might spoil it, too.  So if you're easily upset by anyone saying stuff about Star Wars, Star Wars stuff, Star Wars merchandizing, or George Lucas, don't read this.  Really.  Seriously.  Don't do it.

First, several memes to separate the spoiling warning from the rant.

Not sure why I think this is funny, but it is.

Slamming both Darth the V. and Office Space.  Somewhere Gary Cole
is giggling.

Then I get to slam the guy from the Dos XXs
commercial and Darth the V.  My work is done, but not really.

Okay, three Star Wars related memes in between the warning and the rant like I promised.

Now for the actual rant, er, review.

OMFG!  I can't believe I waited 31 years for this rehash of every other Star Wars movie ever fricking made.  Don't fret because I shall go into dreadful and excruciating detail.

Here's the basic premise: It's 30ish years after Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi and things are not hunky-dory.  The First Order has replaced the evil empire and Emperor Pruneface, er, I mean Palpatine.  (But don't worry even though the First Order is now in charge they didn't bother changing the storm troopers outfits because then the audience wouldn't know who was a bad guy or not.)  Luke Skywalker has vanished.  The Resistance is still resisting.  Everyone is looking for Luke because they need him/lurve him/want to kill him/want to tickle his neck feathers.  A mysterious guy played by Max Von Sydow gives a Resistance pilot a little something-something that might lead the Resistance to Luke.  The pilot, whose name is Poe Dameron, hides it in...a droid (BB-8) because the village just got attacked by the First Order and a neat black masked guy who looks a lot like Darth Vader but kewler and whose name is Kylo Ren.  Rey, a scavenger on the same planet, finds the droid and Finn who is a storm trooper who deserted while rescuing Poe from Kylo Ren.  Rey and Finn find the Millennium Falcon on the planet and she's so super mechank-y and super pilot-y that they evade a gazillion or so tie fighters and one of the big cruisers because well there wouldn't be much of a plot if they didn't.  And the beat goes on in that way.

I sat in the theater counting points off my fucking fingers because I was getting so pissed off.

I'm not sure what was worse, the lets-hide-the-valuable-information-in-the-droid plot point or lets-have-a-brand-new-death-star-that's-ten-times-as-big-as-the-last-death-star plot point.  The new death star is called a starkiller because it sucks the energy out of suns and then unleashes it on Resistance-occupied planets to blow them up because well starkiller sounds better than death star.  Plus the audience gets to see the whiz bang special effects and go, "Ooooo."

I have to stop for a minute to finish cursing and also to catch my breath, so have a death star meme.

This is a dirty death star meme in case you
didn't realize it.

Then there's the whole everyone's after this mysterious map to find Luke Skywalker.  You see, Luke Skywalker disappeared because he wanted to disappear, not because he was a hidden treasure that someone wanted to find later.  So who made the three piece map and gave it out to various and sundry plot devices?  It certainly wasn't Luke $#%^!! Skywalker.  Somehow later in the movie it becomes two pieces that the droids put together, because flipping humans couldn't do that shizz.

Time to take another break with a meme:

I bet the original Chewbacca is on my side.  Just listen to what he says.

Should I say I loved seeing Han Solo back?  Chewbacca too.  Yes, I should say that because I don't want it to seem like this was the worst movie ever.  (It wasn't but it could have been so much better!)  But as soon as Rey, Finn, and the little M&M like droid (cute replacement for R2D2) got into space they were almost instantly tracked down by Han and Chewie, who'd been looking for their missing Millennium Falcon, which coincidently happened to be on the same planet as Rey, the droid, the missing information for finding Luke Skywalker, and probably some other shizz I missed because I was busy waving the steam out of my ears.  (I haven't forgotten about Princess Leia, who is now General Leia, because I'll be getting to her later.)  So Han and Chewie are now hauling freight.  And everyone decides to board his freighter at the exact same time because you know (PLOT DE-bleeping-VICE!) that stuff just happens like that in space.  They escape in the Falcon and Han takes it over because it is his shizz.

I needed to add this one because I just did.

Off to a new place with an alien named Maz in charge that looks suspiciously like E.T.  Maz just happens to have Luke's original light saber, which by the way was in his hand when it was cut off by Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, so what the $#@%!! is up with that?  Luke, as all Star Wars fans remember fell down to the bottom of Cloud City, hung out on an antenna, mentally called for Leia, and got rescued.  But the fricking light saber did NOT.

Then Rey gets Luke's original light saber (the blue one) which somehow goes to Finn and has the whole movie audience going, "Who's the real replacement Jedi knight?"  It turns out that Rey only had to be dangling off the edge of a icy cliff and be offered a deal to go to the dark side to realize that she was the real Jedi knight.  In all that time on a desert planet, scavenging for stuff off wrecked imperial cruisers and living in a walker, marking days off waiting for her family to return because she's apparently pretty flipping naïve, she had no idea she had secret Jedi powers with which to kick serious First Order ass.  But don't worry she was about to take down the biggest dark side bad ass since Darth the V. happened.  And it happens so quickly, I was like, "What the frick just happened?"  Seriously, I wanted to stop the projectionist guy and ask him to back it the $#@!! up because I must have blinked or had a brain fart or something like that.  (The hubs said I wanted to Zapruder it.)

Anyway the latest Darth Vader replacement is the formerly mentioned Kylo Ren, who is Han and Leia's son, (One of the two big SECRETS of the movie.  Don't say I didn't warn you.) and supposedly the reason why Luke left.  Luke was training new Jedi knights when Kylo Ren snapped and went to the dark side.  Kylo Ren snatches Rey up because he "senses" she saw the map.  At this point, Han sees Kylo Ren carrying Rey into the big bad ship with the wings that fold up just before it lands.  Finn sees it too.  At this point the Resistance arrives with General Organa in charge.

So the song is running through my head now.

I had to have a meme break because of what I'm going to say next.  Carrie Fisher acts like she's got dentures in her mouth.  I swear she kind of mumbled her lines and her lips were pinched like she had permanent constipation.  I'm going with one of those strokes that freeze half of your face and you have to have your eyelid sewn shut or something.  It wasn't very nice.  I realize she's only a few years older than I am, but OMG, there was something wrong with her.  I did not enjoy seeing her like this.

Of course this was followed up by the rescue on the starkiller while the starkiller was revving up on a sun to kill the planet where the Resistance was located.  Finn was recruited to help turn off the starkiller's shields or something because he used to work there (as a janitor storm trooper, who knew?)  (This is the scene where the second big SECRET happens, but I won't say it, even in my long, varied rant o'spoilers.)  Let's just say, of course the Resistance kicked butt and Rey and Finn saved the day because they had to do it.  All the X-Wing fighters also kicked starkiller butt, to include Poe from before and the guy from the original Heroes who looks a little chubby to be a pilot, but who am I to criticize a person over their weight?  (No saving cheerleaders in this movie, buddy-boy.)

I needed to add a meme before winding down.

Then General Organa hugs Rey because they insta-bonded having never met before.  Also everyone's uber accepting of Finn.  (That whole former life as a storm trooper business was just him acting up and he's completely trustworthy in 2.5 seconds.)

Rey and Chewbacca are off to follow the starmap, and who do they find at the end?  Well, let's just say that Mark Hamill didn't have to memorize any lines for this movie.  Supposedly he was looking for a Jedi temple.  (Did you know that they have Jedi temples all over the fricking place?  I'm pretty sure there's one in the 7-Eleven down the street.  I want to find a meme with Apu from The Simpsons saying, "Come again.  May the Force be with you." but I don't think I could find one.)

In conclusion, I didn't like the movie.  Color me disappointed.  I need another meme.

Death Twitches: A Lake People Novel

Death Twitches: A Lake People Novel

Now Available!

Meli has a few problems.  She’s a telepath who reluctantly works for a psychopath.  Then her day becomes really bad when she “hears” that her neck might be on the chopping block.  Her neck is at risk, as are her family’s necks.  It’s further compounded when another person speaks with her telepathically, which has never happened before.  Rousseau, a young man from a remote Louisianan town where many of the occupants have extrasensory gifts, has tuned into Meli’s fear and hurries to help her.  Provoked into running, Meli becomes allies with Rousseau and ultimately realizes they are connected in a special way.  However, the man Meli works for is a bona fide monster with secrets of his own, and he doesn’t want to lose his “pet” psychic.  He will do anything to get her back while Meli and Rousseau will do anything to escape.

A full-length novel of about 109,000 words. Book One of the Lake People Novels is Veiled Eyes.  Book Two is Disembodied Bones.  Book Three is Arcanorum.

 

Available at Amazon here.

 

Available at B&N here.

 

Available at Smashwords here.

On Writing

This isn't exactly what I picture in my head, but it's not far off.

I just finished the first draft of Death Twitches, which is good.  I wanted to fall over with mental exhaustion, which isn't so good.  I wonder how some of the writers put out five and six books a year.  I have a writing buddy who writes two books AT THE SAME TIME.  That would probably cause me to have a psychotic episode.  (Now I'm going to have to message her and ask her how that works out for her because I can't not know.)

No, it's not available yet, but soon my
little reading aficionados.  Soon.
I just had to put this in here because I think
the cover is so cool.
The cover is by www.derangeddoctordesign.com by the by.

The last three days I ate, slept, and lived in the manuscript.  I think I was so absorbed that a meteor hit the earth.  There might have been a Presidential assassination and I didn't notice.  Did Hilary Clinton win?

This kind of captures the moment.

People write me and ask when something or other is going to be done and I kind of giggle.  First I first started I could pop out four books a year.  Two full length novels and two novellas.  Now I'm down to two novels and a novella, and it's kind of stretching to say that was all in a 12 month period.  Everyone's got their favorites.  I'm sorry to say that I can't afford to write some of them.  If a book doesn't sell well, there's not much point in writing a sequel.  (That's disappointing.  I will finish some of my favorites whether they sell or not, because they ARE my favorites.)

This obviously doesn't show the moment directly after when the cat gets tired
of the mouse and eats him with a wet little crunch, which is exactly
the same as a crazy writer.  Exactly.

Anyway, next week is working my way through the draft, which involves sitting and reading and rereading all of my work.  I want everything to be tied up, unless there's a sequel planned.  I want people to say, "Oh, I get it."  I want all the readers to be happy.  (Of course, there are some who will never be happy with me.  Someone really hated the fact that I wrote The Life and Death of Bayou Billy and will never let me forget it.  Apparently I'm kind of twisted for writing that one.  Oh, well.)

Okay.  It had to be said.

 

Remember no matter where you go, there you are.

 

 

Smallest Blog Ever!

Bleh.

Musing About Writing OR How I HAD to Comment on a Book I Read

This isn't what I was reading, but I had
to have something graphic for the first part.
Now I want
to read this book.  Girls Out of Hell.
Yeah.

Yes, I read.  I read a lot.  I have to stop reading certain genres when I'm writing.  For example, if I'm writing a mystery, I can't be reading mysteries because I tend to take on the writing style of what I'm reading.  (I found myself doing a distinctly Stephen King sentence last week while I was reading Mr. Mercedes.  Bad, bad, bad writer.)

She doesn't really look like an office hussy
to me.  She looks like she's waiting to
pass gas.

So I'm writing Death Twitches: A Lake People Novel, or the 4th Lake People novel, and I'm reading this, that, and the other.  I get one novel which is Space Opera: Mommy Porn.  (It was free or 99 cents, one or the other, and I felt like being amused, so I did it.  I admit it.)  I won't name the book or the author because I don't really want to embarrass the author, but I do want to comment on the author's entrepreneurial style.  I really, really, really want to comment.

Here's the set-up.  Aliens invade Earth, as they're wont to do.  Some other aliens save our Earthly asses, as they're wont to do.  But, in exchange for saving our tushes, they want our women.  So all the single ladies between reasonable ages have to sign up for a draft to be an alien bride.  (I can see it coming.)  Cue the first lady who gets drafted.  (I think the author missed out on the Uncle Sam posters that could be custom tailored for this.  Really, really missed out.)  She gets to go hang out with the big alien stud and if she can resist his alienly charms for a certain period then she gets to go back to Earth, without being hooked up and having to stay with the alien.  I think you all can get it.

What the hell?  Did they
fall in love over hammering spikes?
Was that a double entendre?
Maybe.

As a hack writer myself, I can appreciate a good set-up.  After all, I did happen to notice that the author has about sixteen of these alien/human puppies on Amazon, and they're not short books, mind you.  It's like a 160,000 words long, which is like two of my books, if I'm not being too wordy.  The author practices the give-away-the-first-one cheap method, as I do myself.  I'm not ashamed to say that I bought the next three before I gave up.

I went to a flag class with my
daughter for her Girl Scout troop.  The
instructor would be very
unhappy with this cover.

I think the author put together a selection of what was selling the most lately and incorporated them into her world-building.  If you threw out aliens, werebeasts, menage, and bdsm and said, "Fit that into a series," you might be scratching your butt.  But not this author.  Also she threw in that they're six foot six inches tall, have natural six packs, and they all have very large...appendages.  Of course they do.

I think someone was messing with
the covers ahead of me.

Furthermore, it turns out that the alien saviors come in different types, so that the author can cover all of the bases.  I shall elaborate because I would have a vein in my head explode if I didn't.  There's the savage ones who happen to have an issue with a knot in their penis when they mate.  They also emit a certain pheromone that makes the gals super happy, if you know what I mean.  Then there's the ones who are all toothy and like to suck blood when they're having sexy times, but don't make the mistake of calling them vampires.  There's also the twins.  They share a mate and get this, the mate needs a special fruit that makes them very elastic down in the nether region.  Guess why?  Well, the twins have wee wee's that fuse together and I think you can follow the drift.  Finally, (finally in my reading of four books out of the series) there's the bad alien type who is conditioned to really like Christian Grey, paddles, nipples, and all.


I love meme generators.  Pixar, this is parody so
please don't sue me.

Anyway, I pretty much gave up after that because the plots all went like this: Her: "I hate you."  Him or Hims as the case may be: "I lust for you."  Her: "Don't touch me.  Yes, touch me."  Him: "I want to touch you.  No, I can't touch you."  Her: "Yes, touch me."  Him: "I'll lick you."  Her: "Yes, yes, yes, Meg Ryan RULES!" Him: "No, I can't."  Her: "Yes, you can.  Thomas the Train says you can!"  Then finally, they do, and that's the end.

How could I not include this?
Redneck Scotsmen.
Their famous last words are,
"Aye, hold my kilt and watch
this."

I like a good romance book and I have to admire an author for throwing in everything but the kitchen sink and going for the gusto.  I'm not sure I could do this.  I've thought about writing more explicit romances, but I start wincing and giggling when I get into the whole cock, pussy, cunt, cum thing.  I feel compelled to mention that when the author actually called a woman's natural lubrication "cunt honey" I almost threw my Kindle into the garbage. 

I think I used this one before,
but I couldn't help myself.

Anyway, I think my IQ has dropped a few points.  I need to go read a dictionary.