Debra Anastasia's Blog, page 67

Five more teasers!

 

The Trailer!!!!!

Experience Poughkeepsie in 6 days

 

Poughkeepsie is closer

to your hands!

Here's the cover:




And how about a giveaway?



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Goodreads Book Giveaway








Poughkeepsie


by Debra Anastasia



Giveaway ends November 22, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.




Enter to win

Statement of Loss

Statement of Loss

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This procedure, with the house being destroyed is quite a bitch. It's a lot of work. Receipts, insurance papers, checks getting mailed to various people to be signed. My house is supposed to be torn down, it has yet to happen. Hurricane Irene came on August 27.  It's been a while.
My insurance dude recently sent me an email with an attachment to review. I opened it up and it was titled "Statement of Loss."
My Statement of Loss is ginormous, listing all the things I think about and don't think about in my house. I smiled. As a writer words are very important to me. I believe that printed words have power. In that Statement of Loss? There was only victory. The stuff we brought with us to live in the apartment filled a few suitcases and a few boxes. The rest is either in a landfill or being cleaned. But the stuff that really mattered could never have a neat price typed next to it. My children, my husband, the silly animals.
So this blog is my rebuttal to that Statement of Loss. I'm going to make my Statement of Win. There are no prices, because there is no adjustor that could come up with a number for the following:
1)   Starting with the tree and the house that together, through either a freak chance or careful coordinating of all of the grandparents in Heaven, protected us. The tree landed on a load-bearing wall on the most perfect place on the roof. Both died in this process, but we were able to get out. Many, many trees went straight through the houses like a knife. So yes, I'm grateful to both. I will be saving two bricks from the house and turning the tree into my new dining room table. As thanks.
2)   The kindness and shelter of my neighbors, a local hotel, and area friends that literally kept us dry in the storm. I learned that a reflex for the people in this part of the country is to help one another. Stunning. It can and does give you a new pair of eyes when glancing around a store or a school, there are so many heroes there just waiting for the moment to help someone else.
3)   My Internet community of friends taught me to accept help. I always thought if you were in need of aid, asking would feel awful, receiving would feel shameful. I'm here to tell you that getting help? It's amazing. It makes you stronger when you have so much to face. It makes you feel loved in a way that is a hug that sticks to your heart.
4)   Realizing that the stuff I have? It just doesn't matter. I'm here in a rented apartment, with rented plates, rented pillows, everything white. And I'm happy. I thought all the nonsense was what made my house a home. It is not. The kids, their noises, the stupid dogs barking at every fart, music playing, that's home. It's a whole lot easier to clean too, with just these few things.
5)   Knowing that what my family and I have been through is annoying, upsetting but it is nothing. Nothing compared to true loss. True loss that shakes your world, the missing of someone special, an illness that you have to fight. In the end stuff is stuff and I'm glad I know that.
And I could go on and on. I could easily fill double the pages that the insurance company did with victory, blessings, and laughter. I don't expect this whole process to be easy and certainly not fast, but I if I don't learn a lesson from all of this than I'm a jerk. So take that universe! 
Statement of Win.

October I Hate You

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 Welcome to the Romance Girls Gone Goblin!  

A big thanks to Lisa Sanchez for hosting and Killian McRae fro making the awesome button that scares my ass.


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Halloween tortured me as a child. It had free candy, so that was a win. It also had scary things that, basically, scared me. Turns out my sweet tooth was a powerful force and every year I would dress up as a cat or a rabbit and march into the darkness with my friends. My brain would curl up and sob as I tiptoed past garish decorations. But, damn it; I would get the free candy.


I still like free candy. Mostly my favorite is the Target 90% off old Halloween candy which is just like free, sort off, but I'm getting off track.


When I was little I heard about Dracula and he haunted my small head. For years or at least three nights I insisted on falling asleep with my shoulders scrunched up. I guess I thought if Dracula made it into my house he would assume I was a neckless human and leave me be. Which was kind of selfish of the little me. I mean who would be Dracula's snack? My sister or parents who had not the forethought nor the will power to be a hunched up ball of stress while sleeping?


Needless to say Dracula never made a plate of blood nachos out of me. Next, puberty hit like the hammer of hormones and body hair that it is. Then I found Dracula oddly sexy. And Gary Oldmen made it very, very hot. Fast forward to the present and surprisingly; I'm considered an adult. Vampires are still tempting us. Like everywhere. (cough, True Blood, cough)


Now let's fast forward to the present, shall we? Now Halloween has turned into a national holiday where candy is worshiped. Of course I'm on board with that, except that along with the increase in sugar production there seems to be a hell of a lot more attention to detail where the decorations are concerned.


 I took my son to a Halloween themed store to get an accessory for his costume. Holy hairy vagina batman! The decorations there were my worst nightmares carved into rubber and set to life. They moved, they spoke and, dear heavens, they scared me. And I get it, some people love to be scared. Have at. Better yet, come over and see my hair in the morning, that's crap-your-pants-crazy. But zombie babies? Who even thinks of that? You know what they did to the babies? They put 'em on a carousel. Wow. There was Freddy and all kinds of scary dudes I have spent a lifetime avoiding when their stupid assed commercials came on at night.


So you might wonder? Why the hell is this girl on a blog hop? Well, despite being a whiny jackass, I love free stuff. I love having giveaways and I think Lisa Sanchez rocks. So I have slid on a pair of sturdy diapers and waded into the Halloween promotion that may keep me awake until Christmas.


Anyway, to celebrate you people that are much tougher than I am, I'm giving away an eCopy of Crushed Seraphim and it is international.


To enter, comment below and make sure to follow this blog! One winner will be chosen at random.

I Suck

I suck at a lot of stuff. I could make a big freaking list of the things I totally don't excel at.
One of those things is standing next to mannequins. I don't trust those bastards. And I don't think they trust me either. I hate the sensation that you're standing next to solid matter that's shaped like a human but no one's home. I actually prefer the headless ones, because it somehow puts me at east knowing that headless things are rarely alive. It's weird to be out shopping with other people and trying to avoid mannequins without being obvious about it.
I suck at spiders. In general, anything to do with spiders, I'm going to buck at. I hate when I'm reading a happy magazine and BAM! Spider picture. Then, even when the magazine is closed next to the toilet, I know he's still in there. Real spiders? Even worse. On-the-shoulder spiders? Oh my god. I'd rip my own pancreas out of my body and beat on myself with it to kill a shoulder spider.
Whatever. I know I'm not alone.
Other things I suck at? Staying coherent when I'm angry. I'll never say the perfect something when I'm mad. I'll think of it a few hours later and sometimes even say it out loud to myself in the mirror, just so I could see how smart I might have looked if the words had come at the right moment.
I've given up getting better at that, though luckily I'm a happy lady, rarely fired up.
Lately, I've found that I suck at living in apartments. Due to the circumstances, my family and I have been living in an apartment on the third floor. And it's lovely. Really, I'm so very lucky the insurance was able to provide this for us. Plus we had to know someone that knew someone to get in, because there were no houses for rent at all. All the families in my area who were displaced filled up the rentals in a hot minute.
I really thought we would be living in a hotel for months. So I'm grateful.
But here's where I suck. I'm not a dainty girl. I pound around like a giraffe trying to stamp out a fire. The people below us are not tickled pink with that. Also, I gave birth to two stompers and the husband is no delicate flower either. So we've learned, because we're not assholes, to walk softly. We tip-toe around like we are all cast as extras in Nutcracker Suite. But sometimes we forget. Sometimes my giant butterball of a cat hops down from the counter where he was stealing part of the chicken dinner and I cringe. He's like having a lively wrecking ball as a pet. Loud. Plus, I have three dogs. One is blind, one is vengeful, and the other is a jerk. Don't get me wrong, I love my pets, but apartment living has really put a spotlight on their considerable flaws.
The blind one, for instance, is an amazing animal. She has been a devoted family dog for 9 ½ years. So obviously, I try to accommodate her needs and she's doing very well with the three flights of stairs and the disorientating changes in residence, but she somehow has figured out how to tip the garbage when we're not home. See? I bet you were feeling bad for her. I was too until she gave herself diarrhea three separate times right in a row from eating garbage contents. Now, I have to remember to put the garbage up. In my now smooshed house, I had a very heavy metal, lidded can. Three flights of stairs to make super quick with a blind dog ready to have diarrhea? That's a recipe for some death by falling. Now that I have the cheap, super light plastic one from the rental furniture company this is my life.
That's right, the furniture is rented. The plates are rented, the linens are rented. So when I break a glass, if I were to do that making lunch, I might wonder what that means. Who pays for the broken glass? Will I go to rental furniture jail? I've no idea. I forgot to ask. Maybe I thought I wouldn't be such a nightmare, but I am. Okay, fine I've broken one glass and one dinner plate. I'm scared.
Did I mention the carpet is white? That the walls are white? No stress about that at all.
So back to my animals. The small poodle mix is actually the perfect size to live here. But he's about 90% house trained. That other 10%? On the white carpet. That sucks. Plus his bladder holds like one tablespoon of urine, but every time I look at him he's taking the biggest drink of his life. So that's a lot of stairs. Again. In a hurry. Every time.  
You'd think my ass would be a bit smaller by now, right? No. It's not. I expect I can crack a coconut open with it, but my butt is not one bit smaller. Perks, not getting them.
Last dog. The jerk. She's a nimrod. I feel evil labeling her, but it is so damn true. She's a cocker spaniel. She wants to be a bird dog. Peanut's so freaking strong. You wouldn't expect it from her floppy, adorable demeanor, but if I strapped her to the front of a train and she saw a squirrel? She'd be able to drag that locomotive hundreds of miles.
So what has she trained herself to do? Well, Peanut listens for the retractable leash's click. If she hears it click, she knows the leash is unlocked and bolts, full force. She wants to rip the hunk of plastic from your hand and run to her death on the six lane road close by. She's so good at it. I spend a good chunk of everyday making sure she doesn't get her way.
So that's just some of the stuff I suck at. There's more. Damn it.

Everything is rolling

Now!




Every time I open my email I have a new, exciting thing to review regarding Poughkeepsie. What the book will look like is starting to take serious shape. It's like putting a dress on a dream. Life is like a steamroller on steroids right now between work, house demolishing, insurance issues, kids and school. But the thrill still shoots through me when I see the next piece.


 And then there is the worry. It's a bitch. I try not to let it in, but when I'm sleepy it hits. Will the house be a sufficient replacement? Is the insurance offering me too little to replace? Will the book stink? Do all the connections and relationships still feel as real as when I first wrote it?


 I guess that's normal. Or as close to normal as I get. My girl is going as an angel for Halloween. I think that's cute. All the Crushed Seraphim stuff finally got to her. The son will be a butcher, but I think he just wants the Slim Jims and Beef jerky I've promised him for the apron's pockets. Wouldn't it be cute for him to hand it out to his friends?


 Here is the link to the YouTube playlist again. I'm updating it daily until the release. On the side of this blog you can find the countdown as well. On October 22, 2011 9:00pm EST Beckett Taylor from Poughkeepsie @Beckett_Taylor will be tweeting. He'd love for you to show up! Be warned, he's dirty, flirty and very bad.


 Happy Thursday guys!


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Rebuilding

Tired. I am that. Our sleep here in the apartment has been sort of more like long, crappy naps. That sounds like me complaining and I don't want to be that chick. The insurance sent us a 50 page report and estimate on our smooshed house. That needs my attention. I don't want to see my house on paper. The contents of it all listed in black and white. Seems so simple, you can tell me exactly how big the windows are in my half bath, how much the molding around those windows were, depreciate the value over the amount of years. And eventually there is a price on that room.


It makes sense, that's how it's done. The report doesn't note the price for the sharpie marker drawing my daughter scrawled when she was three and a half right by the front door. I kept it covered with a door mat. But when I cleaned, and I took up the rug, I get a little visit from my four year old girl's disobedience. It was a smiley face because she liked her new house. That isn't written in the report because why would it be there?


The hardwood floor was scuffed, as well it should be. My son's matchbox cars had an entire roadway mapped out on it. I will get the depreciated value for that as well. It doesn't matter. 


We are safe. We are here. I know the process of getting back into a house will be a long one and I guess I haven't really been honest with myself about what losing the house actually is. It's not a tragedy. It's not something to mourn. But maybe it is just a sad difference. 


Work has to begin in November. Funny that is when Poughkeepsie comes out. Tearing my home down while finally holding story up. Crazy month. 


 Is this a blog post or me just unloading? So many things to do everyday and I never just say goodbye to that house. I can't yet. 

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...'...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA63B4B3162BE0291

I've been updating the Poughkeepsie Soundtrack everyday! Chapter 20 ~ Aftermath was the most recent addition. Check it out and join in on the fun!