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I’m pleased to announce that I am now a member of Amazon’s Vine program and will be cross-posting my book reviews for your reading pleasure. My reviews will remain honest, that’s the only way I can be regarding books I read.

Veronica is a character that feels all too real. I feel as though I could pick up my phone and call her up and discus her experiences with her. I realize I cannot do this but the line between reality and fiction is very blurry because Moriarty does such a fantastic job painting her life for me.  Veronica is in college, a pre-med student struggling with Chemistry.  That’s all she should be worried about at her age.  But then her mother screws up and her parents are headed for divorce.  Before it’s all over her mother’s situation will turn the tables on Veronica, who is the child, to place her in a position of providing for her own mother. 

The details of this story are so dead on.  I’ve been in some of these situations and this author seems to have been as well, or she’s just a damn fine writer of real life scenario’s.  Either way, she’s got largely likable characters sprinkled throughout this story.  Save for one creepy dude with an even creepier disposition.  But that guy balances out all the other nicer characters well.  Another reviewer stated that this would make a good movie, and they are right. I could totally see this up on the movie screen.  This book does a fine job of detailing what divorce does to the entire family and how even the worse events make us stronger, better, more aware of who we really are.  I read this one in two day’s because I just couldn’t stop thinking about Veronica and her dog loving Mother and the nature of their interactions. I could also appreciate that these characters made mistakes, but then again don’t we all. This is not a “problem happens” and then “problem solved” story. It’s more of a life story. One that makes a lot of sense and touches on a lot of the harsh realities of life but does so with humour and the truth of humanity as well.  I loved these characters and hated for this story to end.  

This week has been one of the worst in quite some time.  Between career delusions, a marital spat and school…I’ve been insane.  I’ve been miserable, etc.

Last week I went to my doctor for the bi-annual checkup and I finally confessed to her my inability to fall asleep in any semblance of a timely manner.   She prescribed doxipen.  It’s an anti-depressant that has the unfortunate side affect of sleepiness.  Go figure. I stop antidepressants years and years ago and thought I was doing wonderfully in the mental world but blam here I am again taking an anti-depressant.  JUST TO FALL ASLEEP.  However, it’s been a week and I’m now able to fall asleep in a timely fashion.  I take a pill and within 30 minutes to 45 minutes I’m sufficiently sleepy and am able to turn off the lights and zzzzzzzzzz I’m out with the lights.  Thank you thank you pharmaceutical companies.

That one resolution came right at a time when everything else was a mess.  I’ve been struggling with old demons, recognizing long ignored behaviors in myself, etc. etc.  That one little pill I keep knocking back with my bedtime drink has saved me from sure emotiona ruin and a return to the trainwreck ride.  I swear.  Why?  JUST BECAUSE…because, I’m sleeping and the sleep is keeping my mind safe and sound despite my stress.

Ok, so maybe it’s that I’m actually better these days and even without that pill I would have survived.  But I’m sleeping again and falling asleep instead of tossing and turning and that one little pill is worth it.  I’m also reading again.  I’m reading the second of what will be my last book for the Chunkster challenge. 

Rick and I are also planning a much needed foray to Daytona Beach to visit the brother from another mother and his girlfriend.  I like her.I really really like her and that is so very good for my female friendship arena. I set out not long ago to resolve my issues with women (due to my slag mother) and I am achieving those goals.  It feels good.  I also got a call from that women I met at Target.  I then met two women in one day at the bookstore.  (they each deserve their own blog post..so stay tuned).

Things are good.  I’m sleeping again.  Perhaps that means I will be actively blogging again.  Perhaps.

I’ve had this creative idea in my backpocket for several years and yet never enough time.  Being a full time employee and student takes a lot of time.  Squeezing in time for husband, reading and cuddling with Chloe saps the rest of my time, or so it seems.  My idea has been haunting me.  Some of you may know what my idea is because I contacted you before saying I was going to start a new venture and then somewhere or somehow time beat me down and I never began.  I still have that dream and that idea and low and behold someone I admire and have much esteem for asked me to join in him a joint venture.  I accepted.  This marks my first writing gig.  The opportunity came to me, was offered twice, it was meant to be. I’m doing it.

Back to reading “The Prince of Tides”.  Sweet reading….I think that along with Norman Mailer that this year I am also falling in love with Pat Conroy.  This book will end my Chunkster challenge.  I believe I chose two other books and read neither of them.  That’s usually how my reading goes. I plan and then I ramble through doing nothing on my plan. Whew.

“We are walking down the street, holding hands.
There’s a playground at the end of the block and I
run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next
to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher,
passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming
past each other so fast it seems like we’re going to collide,
and we laugh, and nothing can ever be sad,
no one can be lost,
or dead,
or far away:
right now we are here,
and nothing can mar our perfection,
or steal the joy of this perfect moment”.
The Time Travelers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
 

What is your guilty pleasure?  I have a few.  Buying a candy bar and then sitting down to eat the entire thing, dragging the process out into nearly a half hour.  Yum.  This of course is something I rarely do because, well because I’m fat and I can’t be doing that all the time. Going to a movie instead of work and stopping at Target to buy a bag of rosemary popcorn and sneaking it into the theater. I really love to sneak food into the theater, it makes me feel happy crazy inside.  I equally love to take a personal day from work and sit in a bookstore ALL day long picking out as many new books as I want.

My other guilty pleasures include:

Taking a bubble bath every night after work. Reading in said bathtub. EVERY NIGHT! Drinking Coffee whenever I want. Buying trinkets off of etsy. Reading the entire set of “Shopaholic” books when I was sick a few months ago.  Sometimes scrolling the Internet is a guilty pleasure when I should be studying or writing a paper for school.  I’ve just had a guilty pleasure weekend whereby I’ve done so little schoolwork it’s been awesome.

I also have a long list of guilty pleasure telelvision shows.  I do not watch “Lost” or “House” or any other intelligent shows.  My brain cannot handle that stuff.  When I do watch television, it is “The Gene Simmons show” (seriously my favorite show ever….I laugh throughout the entire show, I love that family and I was never ever a KISS fan!), “Tori & Dean”, “Denise Richards It’s complicated” (something I secretly call “The Fun Bag’s show because seriously when the hell does that girl do anything complicated?”), Rev Run’s show, Hammertime (stop with showing us your Twitters..it’s stupid) and the Kardashian show…the latter is really addictive, I especially love Bruce Jenner on that show, he’s always doing something stupid.  Ahh you get my drift?  I also watch TMZ with Rick all the time.  It’s guilty television watching and I can’t help it. I like to be entertained and yet not committed to having to see every episode or being on a television viewing schedule.  I don’t have time for that.  I also love to turn off the TV and realize that if I mis something I won’t stay awake all night wondering what happened.  I cannot stand any show whereby someone has to win a key, be chosen, be dismissed etc.  I watched one season of Rock of Love and I watched all of that crapola with Flava Flav and New York big tit’s dumb girl. “Yah boy!”  Yes, it’s not something I speak about or blog about because it’s total crap and its a total waste of my time, but..it is my guilty pleasure, that’s for sure.  I love crap television, let this be my confession. Oh yah, I also watched 2 entire seasons of Tila Tequila and thought for a few moments that I surely was gay because that girl is HOTT.  Yes, there I said it.  She’s hott.  I have no idea why I think she’s hot because I do not ogle women etc.  I have two lesbian neighbors and they are far from hott.  I wish they looked like Tila.  Screw Angelina Jolie, Tila is hott. Yes, with two t’s.

But more recently, my guiltiest pleasure was reading through “sTORI Telling by Tori Spelling”.  I bought it last night and read it last night until 4 a.m. with Rick sleeping beside me.  Ahhhh……bliss.  I like Tori and I like her and Dean together and I think their relationship is really genuine and real.  I could be being bluffed…but I don’t care.  Her book was a relatively quick read and she kept me interested throughout. I realize she didn’t write it entirely herself, but that’s ok too.  I was entertained and happy while I read that book, something I can’t say about some other highbrow novels.

Yes reading what some would consider trash novels…that’s my guilty pleasure.  I bought that book and hoped that no one of substance saw me doing so.  I wanted to hide the cover of Tori’s book, but I loved it. I loved every sentence and I am now trying very hard to stop myself from buying her second novel until it comes out in paperback.  Oh….I’m going to hold back on that pleasure because sometimes waiting is the biggest tease of all.

Liam is adorable….Stella equally cute and the thing I love about watching them is that they truly seem to love each other. I hope they don’t get hit by the “reality tv show curse” because I personally might cry. I like their happily ever after story.  I like how they cry when they have to part from each other. I am a sucker for it all. I like Tori Spelling and guess what….I never was a big fan of 90210.  I really couldn’t stand Brenda ever.  I used to watch “Jon & Kate +8″ and have now boycotted that show. I stopped watching regularly about a year ago when I got tired of watching Kate hit Jon on air, belittle him on the joint couch and basically yell at him every chance she got.  The more weird her hair got, the less I watched. I’m not going to watch that show anymore and I hope beyond hope they cancel it. 

I’m a smart girl, I read tons of books every year despite being in college. I still read good for your brains material. I watch the Discovery channel, etc. etc. etc.  I try to justify my guilty pleasures……but really they are just that.  Guilty pleasures.

What is your guilty pleasure?  Do you have more than one?  Do share.  What are you hiding from the world? 

When I was a little girl, I was infatuated with one person.  I tried to imagine what her life would be like.  With the onslaught of the Internet I now have a peek inside.  It only took about 25 years for me to become a voyeur of her life…but who knew….who the heck knew that JUDY BLUME had a blog!!!  If you did know, why didn’t you tell me?? 

And yes…I’ve swiped this photo off of her blog so I can print it out and put her on my wall with St. Paul. The only bad thing about the photo is that only I will know who the heck that is.  But I rather like the fact that she’s somewhat obscure in the photo because that’s how she was for me growing up. I knew nothing about her….until about a week ago when I started to read her blog archives.  Transparency…is it a blessing or is it a curse?  Is it better to know about your hero’s in small ways via a blog or better to have a wide open imagination?  I haven’t decided yet.  In case you google yourself Judy…..I admire you.  I am grateful that you were a part of my childhood…and I’m equally glad that while my mother didn’t want me to read “Forever” my awesome Aunt DeDe helped smuggle a copy over to my house while my mother was busy smoking her cigarettes on the back patio. I think Judy Blume is the one person (along with St. Paul) who would make me quiver in my shoes if I ran into her at the grocery store. I’d be awestruck.  That photo reminds me of this one of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses.  Only what urks me about this photo of Marilyn is that she’s supposedly reading at the end of Ulysses and I know so few people who could actually get through that book. (myself included….!!)  If you read Judy’s blog you will find out what she’s reading in that photo…(or you could just let your imagination run wild….you know…like before the day’s of the Internet).