Yeah, so I put Ahmed on a red eye for London yesterday morning. Mid-day I got an odd email asking "would you send your recipes for scones to the following email addresses?" Didn't think a great deal of it. I had made scones for him to snack on. Sent the recipes. About four hours later I got a text message. "What was the name of that adorable little place in Freeport at the bottom of the hill" and so forth. (Crickets... ironic, since they were beginning to chirp quite loudly.)
Today I called his cell. He was out to lunch with his dad and his new friends. The 12 sorority sisters from the class of 1992, all of whom, incidentally, sat around him on the plane. And then treated him to lunch because he was "so charming and funny."
Oh yeah, I've got the Chirpy Cricket Freaking Philharmonic playing over here.
Now... we all experience jealousy. It's fine. I trust my guy. But let's face it... when he's going to be away for a month it gets tetchier. I mean, if the redhead with the big gazangas in the lab rubs herself against him and flirts, I can just respond by ignoring it til we get home, and saying "get your pants off and allow me to remind you why you never remember her name... just her rubby gazangas."
I can't reach from here. *glare*
So yeah... way to prime the Bacchanalian orgy on the flight, Virgin Atlantic. You couldn't find a single fat accountant with halitosis on the whole freaking plane to break up the boobage? So yeah... you can suck it, Richard Branson. I don't like you anymore.
I understand perfectly why people are paranoid about the Swine Flu. H1N1, as we are now instructed to call it, is scary. Believe me, for a person like myself without a working immune system, it's scary as hell. I get it. Honestly.
What has me scratching my head (it's not lice or scabies or anything else like that... just a figure of speech) is the refusal of strangers to take my word for my non-contagious status. I cough. I don't cough constantly, the way a person with something like emphysema might. I cough a lot in the morning, when I am exposed to quick and extreme temperature changes, or sometimes all of a sudden for no reason I can figure. I've even heard doctors call the PF cough a "nervous" cough. Not because it has anything to do with nervousness... it has similar properties. If I'm coughing like mad I'm probably sick.
But I DO get more phantom tickles than the average person, and I DO sometimes cough like crazy just because I am a PF patient. Most of the time it's a quick, crackly, sharp cough.
When it comes, I cover my mouth. I'm not contagious, but I'm polite. So when a stranger gives me a filthy look in response I'm confused. I don't cough ON anyone. I cough into my elbow. If I'm hacking and horking out of control I'm en route to my oxygen and a call to Ahmed.
A while ago, when H1N1 hysteria took root, I started quietly saying "I'm not contagious" to anyone who looked scared or pissed off at my coughs. I thought it might make them feel better.
Um. Nope. What it did was open the door. Silent glares seem to need some kind of enhancement in order to activate the actual conversation mechanism. Once I've opened my mouth the divide is breached and the launch sequence is ON. I've had everything from "how the hell would YOU know?" to "if you're coughing you're contagious." I don't often know how to respond.
If I clarify we need to sit down for a few. Most people have never heard of PF. I DO have a standard rap:
I have a lung condition. It causes my lungs to rattle and I sometimes cough. It isn't contagious.
That should do it. But it never does. I either get questions that are long and complex to answer or the absurd disbelief reaction. As if I have some mission to be contagious with the rare South Bumblebaria Hooping Disease and have made spreading the deadly coughing death as far and wide as possible.
Yes, please come here, person I have never freaking seen before. Allow me to spit on you, hork at you, and do my gleeful victory dance.
So anyway... here's my last attempt. I'M NOT CONTAGIOUS. If I were I would be busy following the New York Yankees in the off-season, hiding near them at cafes so I could lick the rims of their coffee cups.
Let the count-down begin! Rhonda Stapleton's Stupid Cupid releases on December 22nd, just in time for Christmas! She's kicking off her Stupid Cupid book launch contest! Here's what's up for grabs:
--a copy of Stupid Cupid, signed by the author
--a $30 bookstore gift card to the store of your choice
--a $30 iTunes gift card
--a $30 Starbucks gift card
That's a $100 value!
So, what do you have to do to enter this incredible contest? Simple--write Rhonda a horrible love poem. The more purple-prosed and nauseating, the better. Visit her blog for more details and be sure to spread the word! ALL DETAILS AVAILABLE HERE!
November dawns with a Hunter's Moon in Taurus. Our clocks have just been turned back, and the moon is full. I've always loved this moon... the transitioning between autumn and the first winter weeks. It brings both briskness and the blanket of coming snows... a shock to the system and a warm place to hibernate, letting our dreams lead the way during the dark months.
Taurus moons have always been productive for me. I like the persistence and stubbornness of the bull, the earthy qualities suit even an air-head Gemini like me. The bull grounds me, which is not an easy thing to do.
Fitting, I suppose, that I begin National Novel Writer's Month with this moon, since it really lends itself to organization, gathering resources, tracking plans, and basically getting one's poop in a pile. I've always allowed lunar positions to be my guide at times like this... and probably never would have made a list or organized a desk in my life without that nudge from the celestial lady. I never follow the NaNoWriMo rules strictly, but like to use it as an inspiration and motivator.
So this week I kick off a month of getting it together, putting it where it needs to go, and having all my ducks in a row for the coming season of sleep and dreams.
Yeah... it's a pity party. And I know they get old, so feel free to ignore me. Lately I haven't been depressed, really. But I can't seem to write. And I can't seem to answer that block with my usual determination and distraction technique. Nothing wants to grow here.
Ahmed says this is understandable, since I am in a lot of pain and can't sleep. I've recently been struck with polymyositis from PF treatments, followed by two broken toes and a third with hairline fractures. My muscles are breaking down and my bones are brittle. It's part of fighting to survive. I understand and embrace this... but it wears me down. So the leg thing has kept me from sleeping. I'm on maybe 2 hours a night.
I hate people who complain. I hate feeling so locked in doldrums on a day like this one, bright and crisp and beautiful after miserable rains. I want to look forward with an open and grateful heart... but I really, really need a rainbow. It's all well and good to make hope your choice. I'd just love a little sign... something small... some tiny whisper that it will be ok.
Eden Bradley and R.G. Alexander both have vamp releases out today at Samhain Publishing!!
MIDNIGHT FALLS…
His life was stolen to keep their secrets…
Book Four of Children of the Goddess
It has taken years for Liz to lay the past to rest. Now she has been called to find the missing Jasyn Dydarren, the only man who can save her friend Nicolette from the Shadow’s mark. Tracking him means chasing down a secret the Shadow Wolves want buried forever—and another man they want dead. A man with an eerily familiar face, whom she craves with an intensity she can’t explain.
Hannah, an Unborn, never considered herself anything special, but she and Jasyn have something that is. Now her Were has been snatched away. She’s not a fighter, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to find her heart’s desire and force him to see her as an equal at last. Or die trying.
With alliances on the line and lives in danger, these two very different women must save their men, and come together to discover the truth…and destroy the Shadow once and for all.
Warning: This book contains explicit sex. Sex on the stairs, sex in a tree, sex with two, (and sex with three). Vampires mating. Werewolves mating. And a lot of gratuitous A** kicking. BUY HERE!
THE SEEKING KISS… Two vampires, one woman, an eternity of love and desire…if only she’s strong enough… Midnight Playground, Book 1
London 2069 For as long as Nissa has known about Midnight Playground, the most exclusive of a world-wide network of vampire sex clubs, she has yearned to gain entrance—and to become one of them. Orphaned and alone from a young age, she has nothing to lose and nothing to stop her from indulging in her darkest fantasies. Hex and his maker, Aleron, have enjoyed many play partners at the club and have often shared in the euphoria of the Seeking Kiss, that sensual blood exchange between vampires and their lovers. But Nissa’s beauty, intelligence and strength is a siren call he can’t resist.. His desire for her and her willingness to let herself be drawn by their mental pull compels Hex to consider offering to her something he’s never given another mortal– the treasured Turning Kiss. The beautiful vampire pair entice Nissa into an intimate sexual realm beyond her wildest dreams—and she revels in it. But when she finds herself falling for one of the powerful duo, it could mean the end of her deepest fantasies. Or a new beginning she never dared to imagine… Warning: Three-way vampire sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, anal sex, oral sex, simultaneous anal and oral sex (oh, yes, it’s possible!), drinking blood, drinking blood while having sex, political unrest , and a hot French accent. Keep a fan and some holy water nearby! BUY HERE!
