Sandra Cox's Blog, page 279

YAY!

It's a three day weekend....

A Man's Midlife Crisis

AFTER  BEING MARRIED FOR 44 YEARS, I TOOK A

CAREFUL  LOOK AT MY WIFE ONE  DAY  AND SAID,

"Darling, 44 YEARS AGO WE HAD A CHEAP APARTMENT,

A CHEAP  CAR,  SLEPT ON A SOFA BED AND WATCHED

A 10-INCH BLACK  AND WHITE TV, BUT I GOT  TO SLEEP

EVERY NIGHT WITH A HOT 25-YEAR-OLD  GIRL.  

NOW I HAVE A $500,000.00 HOME, A $45,000.00 CAR,

NICE BIG BED AND PLASMA SCREEN TV, BUT I'M SLEEPING

WITH A 65-YEAR-OLD WOMAN.  IT SEEMS TO ME THAT

YOU'RE NOT HOLDING UP YOUR SIDE OF THINGS."



MY WIFE IS A VERY REASONABLE WOMAN.  SHE TOLD

ME TO GO OUT AND FIND A HOT 25-YEAR-OLD GAL,

AND SHE WOULD MAKE SURE THAT I WOULD ONCE

AGAIN BE LIVING IN A CHEAP APARTMENT, DRIVING

A CHEAP CAR, SLEEPING ON A SOFA BED AND WATCHING

A 10-INCH BLACK AND WHITE  TV.



AREN'T OLDER WOMEN GREAT? THEY REALLY KNOW

HOW TO SOLVE YOUR MID-LIFE CRISIS.

Ma'am Versus Ms.

I grew up in the Midwest, where the polite way of addressing an adult female is 'ma'am.' Is there any female out there who likes to be called ma'am? No one I know. So when I moved to the south where most women are addressed as Ms.Insert First Name. I took to it like a misguided homing pigeon. To me its a much warmer form of address than ma'am.  When talking to other women and friends I almost always address them as Ms. Whomever. A couple of weeks ago, I was told by two different women that they hated being addressed as Ms.......fill in the blank. It makes them feel a hundred years old. Really? Ma'am makes me feel a hundred. I wonder if its a regional thing. What polite form of address do you hate?

Tuesday's Giggle

Blonde Pole Dancer

I thought this was appropriate considering the press about the 'Gentlemen's Clubs' gearing up for the Republican Party Convention.  Tee Hee.

~*~

On a more serious note, I trust that all our Florida friends stay safe.

Sunday is Cat Day At Night Writers

I'm blogging today on Havana Browns at Nightwriters, http://sevennightwriters.blogspot.com. 
If you're in the vicinity stop by and say, hey.

It's Friday, Liebster Award Day

I just received the Liebster blog award.
I just received the Liebster blog award. Thank you, Dana Davis, fellow writer and good bud.
http://danadaviswriting.,blogspot.com
Here's my top five picks:
1.  Hippie Chicks: http://hippiechicks68.blogspot.com/

2.  Sherry Morris: http://sherryink.blogspot.com/
3.  Shelley Munro: http://www.shelleymunro.com/
4.  Jennifer Shirk:http://jennifershirk.blogspot.com/
5. Vonnie Davis: http://vintagevonnie.blogspot.com/


These are the "original rules":
Thank the giver who gave the award to you and link back to their blogReveal your top five picks for bloggsers and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.Copy and paste the award on your lbog with your posting similiar to this
  Enjoy the weekend.

VBT Sykosa

With us today is Justin Ordonez. I asked Justin how he decided to write Sykosa. This is his response:
 
I wish I had a great story of how I eventually decided to write Sykosa, but it’s actually one that’s rather simple, be it however amusing, especially contextually. In the past, I’ve documented in several blog posts the many inspirations that brought me to write Sykosa, but I never actually sat down and explained the moment when I decided to write it. First off, you gotta understand that I knew Sykosa as a character before I knew her story, so the primary struggles I had was figuring out how I wanted to use the character and what story I wanted to tell. As I failed at different stories, one after the other, either about Sykosa fighting in some holy war, or being a hero on some space adventure, I was eventually struck by the notion that I should just write a story about Sykoss as a girl, just living her normal life, with her normal friends, going to school and doing whatever. It seemed so simple in the moment. There I was, always trying to write this prolific and profound storyline that would put the universe on a tilt, and all I really needed to do for Sykosa is write a simple story about a simple girl living a simple life.
            So I thought, “Well, that’s easy! I can do that!”
  “Cause if there’s anything women are known for, it’s being simple!”

            I made the tragic mistake that many artists make. I thought that simple would be easy, that the lack of complexity would make something straight forward. I recently read a review of The Dark Knight Rises @ ew.com, the final chapter in the Batman series from Christopher Nolan, and in crediting the subtly of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal of police officer John Blake, noting that, “It is a far, far harder thing to do ordinary good than to steer a Batmobile.” Basically, this means that being interesting while not causing thousands of explosions around you, or not oozing sex appeal from your every pore, as it seems Anne Hathaway does so intrinsically, I don’t know who she’ll ever avoid it, is basically the hardest feat of acting there is. We go to the movie theater to get away from normal, so why the hell would we want to watch it while we’re there? We don’t. And so we come to understand why only Gordon-Levitt can truly handle a human role like John Blake, and we come to understand why writing Sykosa didn’t turn out to be easy simply because I dropped the explosions and the sex appeal from her plot.
            In actuality, she got far harder.
 “Actually, I’m simple. Justin’s just not very bright.”

            Writing Sykosa became much more about subtleties. You have to get people hooked into her everyday life. And once you start throwing out the “popcorn” element of the story, people are going to be much more critical of it, and they’re less likely to outright like it. (I’m not saying anything bad about humanity, even I love the “lizard brain” art that gets tossed at us these days). So my easy story became an incredibly complicated one, where story wasn’t driven by a bomb that’s about to blow up, or a universe that’s about to end, but by one character’s inability to empathize with another, and how the friends, families, and support groups of each character could cause secondary conflicts that soon snow-balled out of control, leading to conflicts that lacked clear resolution, and where there was so much guilty to go around, no one would dare tell the whole truth as they knew it.
BLURB:   Sykosa (that's "sy"-as-in-"my" ko-sa) is a sixteen-year-old girl trying to reclaim her identity after an act of violence shatters her life and the life of her friends. This process is complicated by her best friend, Niko, a hyper-ambitious, type-A personality who has started to war with other girls for social supremacy of their school, a prestigious preparatory academy in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. To compensate, Sykosa has decided to fall in love with her new boyfriend, Tom, who was involved in the act of violence. Propelled by survivor guilt, an anxiety disorder, and her hunger for Tom and his charms, Sykosa attends a weekend-long, unchaperoned party at Niko's posh vacation cottage, where she will finally confront Niko on their friendship, her indecision about her friends and their involvement in the act of violence, and she will make the biggest decision of her life—whether or not she wants to lose her virginity to Tom. YA fiction for the 18+ crowd.
EXCERPT:Everything is too complicated. It should not have to be. She goes behind the chapel. He goes behind the chapel. They make out. Simple, right? It’s not. Regardless, if even that must be complicated, then certainly the concept that she wants to go to Prom, thus he should ask her to Prom and then they should go to Prom is simple, right? It’s not. You see, he has this best friend, this confidante, this main focus, this everything—and her name is not Sykosa, but Mackenzie.Or as you will soon find out: “M.” That’s what he calls her. So, every day, she faces the fact that they are merely acquaintances. Two pigeons in a flock of nine hundred who dress the same, talk the same, and act the same. That’s okay. Pigeons are only pigeons because conformity is only conformity. It’s okay to be like everyone else so long as she is always herself. And that is the reason, because there is no other reason, why she makes out with this boy. Other than she likes it. Kissing is fun. She’s lying. There is another reason. Another trivial teenage doodad—when she talks to him, lame as it sounds, she feels like she is being herself.Tom’s never understood this. He sees no issue in how she feels like a phoenix, but is only regarded as a pigeon—and not only a pigeon, but one pigeon in a flock of… Never mind, conformity sucks! REVIEW SOUND BYTES"… gritty, intense and definitely not a book I'll forget anytime soon! It was so differently written. I wouldn't have expected to fall in love with the writing style but I did. It practically made me get under Sykosa's skin despite getting a dose of the perspectives of the other characters and there were parts that were so lyrical." ~ On Books
"Justin Ordonez’s debut novel, Sykosa Part 1: Junior Year, disproves the old saw that youth is wasted on the young. He adroitly delves into the minds and social lives of his titular sixteen-year-old protagonist and her peers, showing that young people wrestle with tough decisions just like adults do." ~Clarion ForeWord Reviews
"Sykosa makes for some compelling reading. Older teens and adults alike will enjoy Ordoñez's tale for its humor, realism and relatable protagonist."~ Kirkus Indie Review

AUTHOR INFORMATION:Justin Ordoñez was born in Spain, raised in the mid-west, and currently lives in Seattle. He's nearly thirty years old, almost graduated from the University of Washington, and prefers to wait until TV shows come out on DVD so he can watch them in one-shot while playing iPad games. For fifteen years, he has written as a freelance writer, occasionally doing pieces as interesting as an editorial, but frequently helping to craft professional documents or assisting in the writing of recommendation letters for people who have great praise for friends or colleagues and struggle to phrase it. Sykosa is his debut novel.
LINKS: www.facebook.com/sykosanovel
www.twitter.com/sykosanovel
www.goodreads.com/sykosa
http://sykosa.wordpress.com/            WOW!
Justin will be giving away a $50 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter on his tour).. The tour dates: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2012/05/vbt-sykosa-by-justin-ordonez.html. 

 

Wedding Bell Blues

About my brother's wedding....My family and the Murphys are very tight. You know the Murphys? The ones who invented Murphy's law: Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
The bride and groom wanted a no-muss no-fuss stress-free wedding and opted for a justice of the peace.
It was small, family only, but folks had come in from Florida, Pennsylvania, and Missouri.
We all went to the county jail were the magistrate's office was located. I'm sure the pundits out there can find all kinds of symbolism for the location.
But seriously, what could possibly go wrong......
My brother had taken care of the paperwork in advance, signed everything he was supposed to. We were minutes away from the ceremony.
When he handed the paperwork to the magistrate the stress-free piece went up in smoke.
The magistrate informed him she couldn't marry them. Why, you ask. Good question. We were all asking the same thing, even after the magistrate explained.
It seemed the clerk had signed the license but hadn't dated it. Since it wasn't dated, the magistrate didn't feel she could legally marry them. Since it was a Saturday, the clerks office was closed and he couldn't go back to get it dated.
The magistrate performed the ceremony, but told him it would have to be done 'legally' at a later date. We all went out to dinner and treated as the wedding rehearsal dinner.
Monday he and his fiancee went back, with my sister--who he was driving to the airport--in tow.  The  employees at the clerk's office apologize profusely, saying they'd sent licenses over before with no dates and there'd never been a problem and if someone had called the clerk she would have came in and dated it.
After getting the paper dated, he goes back to the magistrate where he's told he'll have to wait till twelve when the magistrate who wouldn't marry him the first time will be in. Keep in mind, he still has to get my sister to the airport and himself to work. Then they tell him he's only got one witness. This is quickly rectified by asking a police officer to act as the second witness. Once again my brother and his fiance say their vows in front of the magistrate. This time she actually signs the paperwork.
The moral of this story: There's no such thing as a stress free wedding.
On the up side, they get to celebrate two anniversary dates for the same wedding.

VBT Shades Of The Future

Welcome, Suzanne. By the way, I love your giveaway:)  And I was especially pleased to see that you're involved with animal rescue.
Tell us, how did you come up with the idea for this book?
I’ve always had times when I could sense what might be coming. I think everyone has those moments from time to time, but most of us don’t really pay attention to them. The idea of seeing into the future is a tempting notion for many people, especially young adults curious about how their lives will unfold. However, will we always like what we see? I think not. That’s where the kernel idea for this story was born.
Then I tried to think what it would be like if a person saw something terrible in their future. What if they tried to stop it but couldn’t? I always try to take my stories one step further by asking, “What if?”One night, after struggling with What would you give to see the future? Would you make your dreams come true? Would you change the things you didn’t like?Mariah Davis loves animals, running, and her hunk of a boyfriend, Kevin Creamer. Everything looks bright for her until the day she finds a pair of sunglasses that allow her to see the future.When she glimpses a disaster looming, she tries to avoid it but fails. She has a car accident that lands her in a wheelchair, smashing her hopes for a running scholarship to the veterinary program at Ohio State University. She pushes Kevin away, thinking he’ll want to end their relationship now that she can’t walk.Will she ever learn to trust and love again? She could search for an answer in the sunglasses. But she’s afraid what they reveal might destroy her.
Here’s a short excerpt from the first chapter:
Mariah scooted closer to the inside of the booth to read the digital display. As she slid across the red vinyl seat, something poked into her thigh.“Hey, somebody left a pair sunglasses here.” She picked them up, rubbing her leg where the frame had made a dent in her skin.“Those are nice,” Hayley commented between fries.“These aren’t random sunglasses. These are Dita Aviators.” Mariah turned them over, checking the thin metal frame to make sure she hadn’t bent it. She held them up to the overhead light. The lenses were clean and unscratched. “Plus, they’re like brand new.”“Let me see them.” Hayley took the glasses out of her friend’s hands and started to put them on.“Give them back,” Mariah told her. “Your hands are all greasy and cheesy. Not to mention saliva-y.”Hayley laughed and handed the aviators back across the table to Mariah. “When I have clean hands, I’ll try them on. They’ll look good on me.”“You think? How do they look on me?” She put them on and a warm tingle of fun washed through her veins.
If you’d like to read more, you can download sample pages or buy the book from these online retailers:Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Future-Honey-Creek-ebook/dp/B008L1PQ0Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342622859&sr=8-2&keywords=shades+of+the+future
B&N http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shades-of-the-future-suzanne-lilly/1112092900?ean=2940014608800
Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=shades+of+the+future
Turquoise Morning Press http://www.turquoisemorningpressbookstore.com/products/shades-of-the-future I love connecting with readers. You can find me online at these sites:Suzanne Lilly Website: http://www.suzannelilly.comTeacherWriter Blog: http://www.teacherwriter.netSuzanne Lilly Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SuzanneLillyA... author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5258804.Suzanne_LillyTwitter: @suzannelilly http://twitter.com/suzannelillyAmazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-Lilly/e/B006HY79IYGoogle +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115758832631616324955/posts     One last note:I’d like to let your readers know I’m on tour through the month of August, and I’ll be giving one commenter a free pair of designer sunglasses from Shoebuy.com. I just can’t guarantee if they’ll show you the future. You can get the schedule of blog tour stops at http://suzannelilly.com/blog-tours/http://suzannelilly.com/blog-tours/. Also, 10% of the royalties from the sales of Shades of the Future will be donated to a pet rescue organization. Together, we can help find forever homes for pets.Thank you so much for interviewing me on your blog today!
SYou can follow her on Twitter as @suzannelilly,  visit her blog at http://www.teacherwriter.net, or her author website at http://www.suzannelilly.com.