S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 20

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee ~ Bikes and General Busy-ness

Good morning, darlings, and happy, happy Thursday!

It's a two-happy day because I survived Sprite's birthday party, broke out the hammock, and am officially on vacation - yay! (here's a picture of Sprite's birthday bike - finally, a bike that fits her "style." Because 9 year old girls must have style. Ah, this child. She shall change the world.

It's the hammock that makes vacation official.

We don't have appropriate trees, so I have a "frame" style hammock that I purchased, hauled home, and put together all by myself.

In my fantasy of being a full-time writer, there is a hammock. There's actually a kind of "garden" room with plants, a fresh breeze, and maybe a waterfall and an indoor stream (just a small one) ... and a hammock for daydreaming. A huge part of my writing process is daydreaming, working stuff out in my head, listening to what my story people really want me to hear.

So I decided if I couldn't have the whole fantasy, I could at least have a part of it, so there needed to be a hammock. I'd put that sucker in the house, if I could figure out where.

So far, on my vacation, I've been the the DMV, out to lunch with my mom, washed several loads of laundry, drove my child from place, and then from place to place, and then from place to place AGAIN... to the point where I said, "This is getting ridiculous," and refused to pick her up 20 minutes after dropping her off. So now there's a 2 hour minimum. That's how I roll.

(We're talking rides to friends' houses, the supervised parks program, or the YMCA - not that I'm ditching her at the mall).

On my list today - catching up with a dear friend this afternoon, the hand of another friend later while she gets her first tattoo, and more laundry.

Harley Davidson dot comSprite's going to sleep-away camp on Sunday, and the hubby and I are taking the new Harley for a little road trip. I hope it doesn't rain. I mean, ass-less chaps are sexy and everything, but riding in the rain definitely does sucketh.

Our bike is an Ultra Classic, similar to the one at the right, but the tank and side bags are two-toned black and silver. And there's this amazing blue sparkly fleck in the black paint. It is beautiful! I'm excited to finally have a comfortable seat. Hubby's excited to have a radio/CD player.

Our first Harley is a Screaming Eagle V-Rod (left), which is a whole different Harley animal. Yes, I rode bitch on this bike for over 800 miles in Sturgis, South Dakota. Talk about sore ass, sore knees, sore back. Hubby leaned on me, but all I had to lean on was that teeny-tiny seat back, which is about 5 inches tall.

No radio. No bags. No way to even carry rain gear.

So yeah, I was lobbying for a new bike. I admit it. And that makes me a really cool wife.

Those side bags on the black bike aren't all that big. Packing should be pretty interesting. I think hubby told me I can bring 2 pairs of jeans, 2 tee shirts, and some lotion.

I'm like, "What about shorts? Shoes? A sweatshirt? My Kindle? Make-up bag? Kitchen sink?"

He's just looking at me, shaking his head.

I'm going to watch what he packs. Because if he brings 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of tennis shoes, that's like... really heavy. Especially his shoes. So I should get the equivalent in weight, right? 2 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 swimming suit, a beach towel, and the laptop...

Okay, no, I'm kidding. We're only going for a few days. Couple pairs of jeans, tee shirts, and deodorant should do it. And lipstick. Lipstick doesn't take up much room at all...

Oooh! You know what else sucketh?

iTunes.

Yes.

I know, I know, I was whining about iTunes just last week.

But I finally got all the apps and music onto Sprite's iPod, and only lost what I'd ripped from her CDs. Which is about 75%. But I made up for it by syncing with my iTunes, which kept her recent purchases and added another 480 songs. Oh yeah, also put the 49 game apps from the iPad onto her iPod. It's not saying too much to say that I am MOM HERO of the day.

All right, let's recap.

I'm on vacation for 15 days. I pressured my husband into buying a new Harley. I put over 500 songs and apps on Sprites iPod.

I totally rock.

Now if I could just get a few minutes (okay, multiple hours) to do my favorite-est thing - sitting quietly by myself writing stories.

Hahahahahahaha. Yeah, it's summer. That's not going to happen.

But on Saturday I do get to see a whole line-up of my favorite 90s bands at an outdoor venue - Everclear, Marcy Playground, Lit, Gin Blossoms, and Sugar Ray. I'm bringing Sprite along - after all, a bunch of music from these groups has suddenly appeared on her iPod, so she might as well get to know them a little better.

Oooh, I had a re-occurring dream last night. It was very odd, and I'd like to sit still for a little while today (maybe in the hammock?) and explore that a little bit, before I lose the few bits and pieces that I remember. But the feeling of definitely having experienced this dream before was really strong - even while inside the dream.

All right, darlings - have a great Thursday, and a beautiful weekend!

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee ~ Busy-ness

Good morning, darlings, and happy, happy Thursday!

It's a two-happy day because I survived Sprite's birthday party, broke out the hammock, and am officially on vacation - yay! (here's a picture of Sprite's birthday bike - finally, a bike that fits her "style." Because 9 year old girls must have style. Ah, this child. She shall change the world.

It's the hammock that makes vacation official.

We don't have appropriate trees, so I have a "frame" style hammock that I purchased, hauled home, and put together all by myself.

In my fantasy of being a full-time writer, there is a hammock. There's actually a kind of "garden" room with plants, a fresh breeze, and maybe a waterfall and an indoor stream (just a small one) ... and a hammock for daydreaming. A huge part of my writing process is daydreaming, working stuff out in my head, listening to what my story people really want me to hear.

So I decided if I couldn't have the whole fantasy, I could at least have a part of it, so there needed to be a hammock. I'd put that sucker in the house, if I could figure out where.

So far, on my vacation, I've been the the DMV, out to lunch with my mom, washed several loads of laundry, drove my child from place, and then from place to place, and then from place to place AGAIN... to the point where I said, "This is getting ridiculous," and refused to pick her up 20 minutes after dropping her off. So now there's a 2 hour minimum. That's how I roll.

(We're talking rides to friends' houses, the supervised parks program, or the YMCA - not that I'm ditching her at the mall).

On my list today - catching up with a dear friend this afternoon, the hand of another friend later while she gets her first tattoo, and more laundry.

Harley Davidson dot comSprite's going to sleep-away camp on Sunday, and the hubby and I are taking the new Harley for a little road trip. I hope it doesn't rain. I mean, ass-less chaps are sexy and everything, but riding in the rain definitely does sucketh.

Our bike is an Ultra Classic, similar to the one at the right, but the tank and side bags are two-toned black and silver. And there's this amazing blue sparkly fleck in the black paint. It is beautiful! I'm excited to finally have a comfortable seat. Hubby's excited to have a radio/CD player.

Our first Harley is a Screaming Eagle V-Rod (left), which is a whole different Harley animal. Yes, I rode bitch on this bike for over 800 miles in Sturgis, South Dakota. Talk about sore ass, sore knees, sore back. Hubby leaned on me, but all I had to lean on was that teeny-tiny seat back, which is about 5 inches tall.

No radio. No bags. No way to even carry rain gear.

So yeah, I was lobbying for a new bike. I admit it. And that makes me a really cool wife.

Those side bags on the black bike aren't all that big. Packing should be pretty interesting. I think hubby told me I can bring 2 pairs of jeans, 2 tee shirts, and some lotion.

I'm like, "What about shorts? Shoes? A sweatshirt? My Kindle? Make-up bag? Kitchen sink?"

He's just looking at me, shaking his head.

I'm going to watch what he packs. Because if he brings 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of tennis shoes, that's like... really heavy. Especially his shoes. So I should get the equivalent in weight, right? 2 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 swimming suit, a beach towel, and the laptop...

Okay, no, I'm kidding. We're only going for a few days. Couple pairs of jeans, tee shirts, and deodorant should do it. And lipstick. Lipstick doesn't take up much room at all...

Oooh! You know what else sucketh?

iTunes.

Yes.

I know, I know, I was whining about iTunes just last week.

But I finally got all the apps and music onto Sprite's iPod, and only lost what I'd ripped from her CDs. Which is about 75%. But I made up for it by syncing with my iTunes, which kept her recent purchases and added another 480 songs. Oh yeah, also put the 49 game apps from the iPad onto her iPod. It's not saying too much to say that I am MOM HERO of the day.

All right, let's recap.

I'm on vacation for 15 days. I pressured my husband into buying a new Harley. I put over 500 songs and apps on Sprites iPod.

I totally rock.

Now if I could just get a few minutes (okay, multiple hours) to do my favorite-est thing - sitting quietly by myself writing stories.

Hahahahahahaha. Yeah, it's summer. That's not going to happen.

But on Saturday I do get to see a whole line-up of my favorite 90s bands at an outdoor venue - Everclear, Marcy Playground, Lit, Gin Blossoms, and Sugar Ray. I'm bringing Sprite along - after all, a bunch of music from these groups has suddenly appeared on her iPod, so she might as well get to know them a little better.

Oooh, I had a re-occurring dream last night. It was very odd, and I'd like to sit still for a little while today (maybe in the hammock?) and explore that a little bit, before I lose the few bits and pieces that I remember. But the feeling of definitely having experienced this dream before was really strong - even while inside the dream.

All right, darlings - have a great Thursday, and a beautiful weekend!

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton

Good Monday morning, darlings!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine was busy, busy, busy. Work, and Sprite's Hawaiian luau birthday party (can you say "bacon wrapped chicken kabobs? Of course you can!"), and a lovely ride with hubby on the new Harley closing out our Sunday afternoon.

A-mazing.

Almost lovely enough so I hardly feel bad about having to go to work this afternoon.

But anyway.

buy from AmazonVampire books! Yay!

Anita Blake and Jean Claude, and the gang - double, triple YAY!

I finally broke down and read Bullet. I've been avoiding it, because I heard someone close to Anita dies, and I was dreading finding out who. Jason? Nathaniel? Micah? Richard?

The number of men that Anita loves has grown huge - and throughout the series, we've gotten to know a number of them quite... ah... ahem... intimately.

So yes, I was worried.

But since I recently won Hit List (the book that follows Bullet) in blog giveaway at Fangs, Wands, and Fairy Dust, I did, indeed, have to bite the bullet.

I know, I used that joke already, like last week - but I LIKE it, and I still think it's funny. Sort of like the all-you-can-eat-Chinese-buffet joke - You go now. You been here too long. That's always funny, too. Can you hear me now?

Okay, okay.

So lately I've read quite a few complaints that the Anita Blake books have become all about sex, sex, sex. Too much sex. Sex all the time. Anita's having sex with everybody.

Which is true.

And at the beginning of the series, Anita was kind of a prude, so the fact that she's now sleeping with EVERYBODY is kind of hysterical. It's also kind of poetic justice. Whether Anita wants it or not, her powers have grown tremendously, and sex feeds her power.

The only thing I feel a little sad about in this area is that Anita seems to have out-powered Jean Claude, and I have to say - I always loved that she was a little afraid of him, and there's a decrease in tension now that she's the more powerful between the two.

She does have some rumination about what makes a monster a monster - and does being the most powerful being of all the powerful beings make HER the monster?

If you know Anita Blake, you know that she never wanted to be considered one of the monsters.

She didn't raise any zombies in Bullet. And when a big, bad, icky nasty vamp was running wild in Atlanta killing everyone in sight, and Atlanta law enforcement was begging for help, Anita --  ***BLEEP BLEEP SPOILER BLEEP BLEEP*** -- well, never mind. I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

So there was sex. And there was some more sex. And my only complaint about the sex and more sex parts were that sometimes Anita repeated the same thoughts she had with one guy while she was with a second guy, which I thought was sloppy. (There's a crude joke in there - can you find it?)

But even that was just a minor thing, noted by me only because I enjoy Anita, each and every time I taste her.

Richard did an odd and quick turnaround by way of attitude adjustment. This has happened before, though, and I never fully trust Richard. Is that just me?

There wasn't a whole lot of action in Bullet, to tell you the truth. There was some character advancement, though, and, as always, this was a fairly complete installment of the series, with a rather odd beginning, a very angsty middle, and a super-fast tell-don't-show wrap-up ending.

I have to tell you, Hamilton must have read the same "tips on writing" tutorial thingy that I just read, where the author points out how many fictional characters walk around in stories naked and barefoot because the author neglected to tell the reader what they were wearing.

Now... I don't know about you, but I'm not much of a clothes whore. If a character is pretty much down to earth in their interactions with the other characters, my brain automatically dresses him in jeans and a tee shirt, underwear, socks, and boots or tennis shoes. I probably don't add accessories like a boa, or a baseball cap, or a cowboy hat, or a facial piercing, or a ferret - unless the author tells me about them outright.

What I don't do is imagine him naked. Unless the author tells me he's naked. Then I perk up a little.

If a character is kind of highbrow, arrogant, snippy, or English, I dress him a little better.

So what I'm getting at here is... Hamilton described clothing, hair color, and eye color in incredibly fine detail for oh, about ONE HUNDRED CHARACTERS.
Or at least it started to feel like a hundred. Sometimes I felt like I was reading the emcee notes for a fashion show, rather than a novel.

Give me too much sex in any book. I far prefer it to too much clothing. Especially when the clothing ends up blood soaked, or ejaculate soaked, or gross-fluid soaked because a were-person unexpectedly changed into their beast. All of which tend to happen around Anita Blake.

I've read some reviews where the reviewer was able to get a word-usage count on their Kindle, so I was a little sad that I bought Bullet in paperback, because it would have amused me to count how many times the words "eyes"  "clothes" and "dressed" appeared... but alas. I really love Anita Blake, so she makes my "mass market paperback" stash list.

And WTF was the whole extended opening with the dance recital crap? If this had been a book by an unknown author, I would have never made it through such a long and creepy prequel. And after making out with every guy in sight, she makes some comment that Nathaniel dared to touch Micah (maybe? or was it Jason? Stephen? God, I couldn't keep track), which not only pissed off Asher to no end, but was also pretty wild behavior down there in the deep south an' all.


Bullet will go on my physical books shelf, because Hamilton's Anita Blake series is a total keeper... but this book is lacking a lot, and I feel like my faith in Laurell K. Hamilton is desperately shaken.

I remember when a book about Anita opened at a cemetery, where she's about to raise a zombie for a really important, or at least extremely interesting, reason. Sometimes the zombie would escape, or offer some kind of clue, or the raising would be interrupted by bad guys, who don't want the zombie blabbing its secrets.
Remember those days? In the course of investigating, or killing Really Bad Guys, Anita would flit in and out of her incredibly complicated personal life. And sometimes some part of that became a sub-plot - Richard wants to marry her, but she's more than half in love with Jean Claude, Jean Claude wants to Mark her to increase his power (and because he's always been incredibly intrigued by her ability to resist him), but Anita IS ABLE TO RESIST because she doesn't want to become one of the Really Bad Guys. So this push and resist piece in her personal life would become part of the story because they would add to the overall story questions.

Story questions are what grab the reader's attention and keep them turning pages. They're sort of like soap opera sound-bites:

Is the zombie going to incriminate the head of the police force's acceptance of bribes from Really Bad Guys?

If Jean Claude overcomes Anita's defenses and convinces her to have sex with him, does Anita become one of the Really Bad Guys?

If Anita has sex with Jean Claude, will she lose Richard forever?

In Bullet, Anita mentions that she still works as an Animator, I assume at Animators Inc. or where ever it was, where she had a boss and a secretary, and all of the daily drivel. Which was more interesting than the drivel of the daily grind for the rest of us because, ahem. We. Don't. Raise. Zombies. We don't just not raise zombies for a living, we don't raise zombies AT ALL. So it's very fascinating stuff.

So in Bullet the story questions are:

Will Anita have sex with a bunch of people, including more species of were-animals so she can suck up their power?

YES

Will having sex with a whole bunch of people solve the HUGE and INSURMOUNTABLE metaphysical crises facing Anita and Jean Claude and everyone else?

YES!

Because according to Hamilton and Nickelback, sex is always the answer.

Should Anita leave the Circus for any reason whatsoever?

HELL NO. THAT WOULD BE DANGEROUS. AND IT'S NOT LIKE ANITA IS SOME MAJOR KICK-ASS URBAN FANTASY HEROINE. SHEESH. WHAT KINDA BOOKS HAVE YOU BEEN READING?

I've got Hit List. I'll read it. But if things don't improve, I'm going to have say a wistful and bittersweet goodbye to Anita Blake.


Have a great week, my friends!

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays~ ch 13, pt 2

Chapter 13 – July 24th
Part 2

~Jessemine~

It was the oddest thing in the world for Craig to show up here, ringing the doorbell like a stranger. He said hello to everybody and we, the clan, enfolded him and urged him to the dining room table.

"Come in," Liz said. "Sit down. We were just talking about going to see Melanie."

There'd been an odd tension to this whole gathering, and the room itself seemed to let out a collective sigh, as every person in it embraced Craig and silently thanked him for showing up with a side dish of distraction.

It's funny, in unusual scenarios, we'd typically couple up. Liz and Eric side-by-side, me in front of Sam with his arms looped over my shoulders. Melanie on the lap of whomever she was seeing at the moment, and Josie oddly set-apart in her aloneness, but chipper and engaged with all of us. Or Josie at Mom's side, being hovered over before Mom got sick, and doing the hovering after.

We didn't arrange ourselves in any of the usual ways today.

Liz and Eric were obviously fighting, and they sat across the table from one another.

Silas was really moody, and either because of that, or even possibly to antagonize him more, Jeremy took a sideways seat next to Josie, who leaned into him, her back against his chest, her elbow propping her head up at the table.

I did a sort of double-take, because it suddenly occurred to me that she looked exhausted, maybe even sick, and she'd lost a few pounds so suddenly that her face looked thin, and her skin was almost translucent.

What the hell was going on?

Sam was across from me, and I gave him one those married-people-whole-message-in-one facial-expression kind of looks, and jerked my head the tiniest bit toward Josie. He gave me one of those looks back, and it said, 'what-is-it-exactly-that-you-expect-me-to-see?' Totally clueless. I was across the table from him on purpose, and not because we were fighting. Sam was all horn-dog lately, flirting shamelessly and constantly touching me with fingertips filled with sexual promise. And don't get me wrong –I loved it. We were inexplicably in a very good place in our marriage. But Craig showing up here was weird, and I separated from Sam purposefully so I could pay attention to Craig.

Craig sat himself at the head of the table, like a father-figure, or like someone who had something important to say, and it struck me how perfectly he fit there, like he belonged to this family.

And he did.

He'd been missing from us for all the eleven years of Caleb's life.

What a terrible oversight we'd made, not yanking him into the family circle.

I suppose because at first he was the asshole who knocked up Melanie. A stranger. A one-night stand, couldn't even gracefully call him a fling, although surely Melanie had flung herself at him.

Later he was the villain who was going to take Caleb away from us, and even though he never actually did that, the possibility was always there. This, the story that Melanie fed us, that Craig had the power.

We never invited him in, never treated him as though he belonged here, at the Meyerhoff weekly gatherings, the Sundays that were sacred.

And he set himself apart from us right from the beginning, never asking to be included, although to be fair, it would take a lot of guts for someone to try to crash into our hearts, and likely he would have never earned a place with us that way.

I'd have to talk to everybody about bringing him in. From my perspective at the table, it seemed like the right thing to do. Seemed like, even if it had taken eleven years for Craig to belong, now he did. By default. Or maybe just by the fact that he'd been doing the right thing for Caleb all along.

Silas bit right in and started the conversation.

"What's up, Craig? What's going on?"

And Craig told us. How paranoid Melanie had been since Mom died, calling him out of the blue to check on Caleb, begging him to join her in the paranoia. Is Caleb safe? I Caleb okay? Is Caleb with you, like right this minute? Where's Caleb?

"She's been really intense about Caleb, perseverating on how easy it would be for someone to take him, badgering me about giving him too much freedom, not keeping a close enough eye on him. And by that she means not monitoring him, eyes on, every minute."

Annabelle was two years younger than Caleb, and she'd lose her mind if I hovered over her even half as much as Melanie was asking from Craig.

"You know the story, right?" I asked, speaking up from my role as the family secret-keeper. "How Melanie was kidnapped and abused when she right around Caleb's age?"

Craig nodded. "Yeah. It was pretty much the basis for why we never tried to have an actual relationship. Melanie said she couldn’t afford to fuck me up, that someone had to stay sane enough to be the primary parent."

I could have cried, imagining Melanie saying something like that, her belief that she was damaged beyond repair, too broken to ever be successful in a romantic partnership.

Josie made a sound, part whimper, part sigh, and said, "That's really sad. Poor Mel."

Craig started to say something, stopped. He looked around at all of us, then shrugged, and said, "I had a mentally ill sister, so... you know, I was never sure it would be all that great of an idea anyway, to have a relationship with Melanie that went beyond friendship, I mean."

Well. Huh. Who knew? My secret-loving brain latched on to the tidbit about the sister, even as Craig started saying the important stuff.

"Melanie told me that her kidnapper has been released, and that he's threatening to take Caleb."

Our shock was collective.

"Bullshit," Silas said.

And from Liz, "That's not even possible, is it?"

And Sam. "No bleeping way."

Josie watched us, wide-eyed.

I didn't say anything, didn't even try, just sat there shaking my head. No no no no no.

Nobody gets released from MSOP. Like one or two people in the whole history of the program. Child molesters can't be rehabilitated. That was like… common knowledge.

"I called," Craig was saying. "I called here and there and everywhere. I called the prosecuting attorney from Melanie's case. I called the judge. I got the proper signatures and called the guy who's the head of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program."

He couldn't sit still anymore, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a minute, then pushed his chair away from the table, far enough back that he could stretch his legs out, ankles crossed. And his top foot shook from side to side, causing both his legs to bounce. He stared at his shoes and made the wiggling stop. Then his bottom foot arched against his top foot for a stretch, an independent movement. And then it started all over again, side to side, bounce, stop, stretch.

It was almost fascinating.

We waited for it, the confirmation of all our worst fears, that Melanie's kidnapper, The Doll Collector, as he was tagged by the media, had somehow been set free in a gross miscarriage of justice, and now every child we loved was in terrible danger.

Craig stared at his feet.

Bounce. Stop. Stretch.

And then he said the words that shocked us all. "The asshole is still there. He'll probably never get out. Melanie made up the whole story. She's lying. Or if she's isn't actually lying on purpose, then at the very least she's completely delusional."

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee ~ Oozing wounds...

...and other things that offend sensibilities.

There are some things that annoy me to no end.

Oozing wounds on childish knees being the primary annoyance in my life today. Not my knees, but the knees of my Sprite.

Yikes. And... might I have mentioned in the past that she has a bit of a  penchant for the dramatic?

Yesterday I was a total slug. All I managed to do was a few loads of laundry. Today I accomplished even more - I washed myself in the shower. Ooh. Yes, so exciting.

No, actually - I also ordered a cake for Sprite's 9th birthday celebration, purchased 2 whole pineapples, 2 whole coconuts, and some deli ham. And I'm reading a book.

All of this in between whining requests for any number of different things, not to exclude chocolate shakes, pineapple chunks, Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee, chicken tenders, iced tea, more band-aids, a hair brush, a sip of coffee, a movie, a blankie, an elephant, and 869386584 requests for multiple remote controls
(well, okay, mostly I've been reading a book).

Annoyance #2: My cat allergies are getting worse. Sometimes I can hardly breathe when I wake up in the morning. My defense was to vaccinate him well and allow him to stay outside at night - which, let me explain before PETA crawls up my ass - he LOVES to be outside at night. It's his favorite thing.

So far the only negative side-effect has been a few dead mice in my driveway (she says, cringing as PETA crawls up her ass and slaps a lawsuit on her for cruelty to field mice, and then revises the lawsuit to be merely an addendum to the suit regarding field mice drowning in an unexpected and unprecedented flood in early June where there hasn't been a flood since 1972...) but I digress.

Have I mentioned that PETA is trying to sue our zoo, which was completely devastated by flood waters? Eleven beloved and named animals drowned, breaking the hearts of every zoo keeper, employee, volunteer, and docent... because the city on a hill had no inkling that such a thing could possibly happen. Talk about punishing the victims.

How very, very sad.

I will become a docent at said zoo in August... able to offer visitors information and hands-on learning with some of the animals - yay!

Annoyance #3 is petty, so I'll skip it.


Oh dear. This is all so negative.


Okay. Let's turn things around and list 5 things in my life that I am grateful about:


1) I am able to work part time, allowing me to be home with  Sprite a whole bunch. And more importantly, allowing me to spend lots of time writing books (because Sprite's pretty much off with her friends, anyway, unless she's sick or nursing an injury).


2) My healthy marriage, more than words can express.


3) Loving dogs and needy cats, because while they maybe be annoyances at times, animals make the world a nicer place.


4) Eyesight. Seriously. 


5) The fact that I typically fall asleep without effort.


Happy Thursday darlings! Hope this week is treating you kind.

SM Johnson ~ Bloody Monday ~ Dark Fiction

Ahh, it feels so lovely to take time to read. Now that I'm working hard to tap out more words per day, I do my reading in bits and pieces, but this week I've gone the more devour-and-I'm-not-stopping-until-this-book-is-done route. Partly because I've been getting up early to work on my new book, which almost feels like giving myself permission to screw off the rest of the day.

And to nap.

[image error] Laura's siteOne of my recent reads was Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Weiss. Whoa, talking about the dark... I'm not going to say much, because this is a short YA novel, but even though it's a super quick read, the story's going to stick with you. It's a dive-into-the-dark story, and you can't hep but root for fifteen year old Meredith.

And the ending was just... whoa... too perfect. And not in a trite, yeah, I totally expected this way, either. There was one part of the climax that I saw coming, but I was not at all prepared for the aftermath.

That being said, it wasn't a let-down or a piss-me-off ending. It left me feeling sad that my time with Meredith was finished.

Everything that Laura Weiss has written is now on my need-to-read list.

YA or not, Weiss travels down into the dark, and I will happily follow, trusting her to show me the redemption, show me the justice, and then to show me a safe way home.





All right, I've been teasing you guys about Wicked as they Come for a good, what, three weeks now? Oh, the cruelty. I know, I know - it was on my wish list for several months, so I know all about the tease. I mean, I know what they say about covers and all, but the cover ALONE had my heart thudding with that whole I NEED TO HAVE THIS vibe.

Delilah's blogI'm posting the book cover in as large a size and Blooger will allow, because, oh, dear God, it just must be done that way.

Now that's Criminy Stain, and he is an intriguing and wholesome villain. One who says things like (loosely quoted) "I'm trying to look harmless and safe. Is it working?"

Oh, such fun!

A wholesome villain, yes, how odd. Criminy has cast a spell designed to bring his true love, Letitia Everett, to him in the freakishly bizarre and dangerous land of Sang.

This is a different kind of vampire, and a character as deliciously wicked as Rice's Lestat.

A good thing happened to me, somewhere in the middle of this book. I had to put it down to ride a Harley out to a little bar in the boondocks for a fabulous breakfast of steak and eggs... I was riding bitch, because I'm way too pussy to actually be the driver of a motorcycle (took the class, failed the test)

...and so I was just hanging out on the back of the bike and wham! The seagull of inspiration dropped a load on my head.

Image from OpenWalls.comI've told ya'll about my muse, right? She appears in seagull form, typically flying over my car while I'm driving to somewhere important - to work, or to pick up my offspring - and my eyes go wide open and I say (almost every time) - "Damn! I can never remember to buy a voice recorder to keep in the car."

So yes, my sweet seagull muse shit on my head and flew away laughing, leaving me to do all the work. Because that's what she does.

And as usual, I have yet to have had time to really play with the new idea, what with having DeVante's Choice to edit and starting the new het porn book, The Highly Fictionalized Tale of Ian and Piper.

So the new idea stews and brews, more images and conversations at this point than anything else. And it won't be porn, and it won't be vamipre - it's going to something new for me. And of course, it has nothing to do with Criminy Stain or the land of Sang whatsoever.

Whoops, I got side-tracked here.

What I want ya'll to know about Wicked as They Come is that I was not disappointed. This was quite a satisfying journey to another world, a word of magic, and traveling carnivals, and bunnies that will drink your blood.

The plotting was good, the world nicely drawn, the icky bad people (who were NOT wholesome villains) were suitably icky. The use of magic comes with a price. Criminy Stain is highly entertaining, somewhat manipulative, often jealous, and rather powerful. Letitia is not the strongest bad-ass dark fiction heroine I've ever met, but she's not a wimp, either, and she gets the job done.

I'll be toying with Ian and Piper, and I've finally bitten the bullet and am reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Bullet. But I'll save my thoughts on that one for a different day.

Happy Monday. I hope your work week is kind to you, the weather is beautiful, and all your books suck you in with sharp literary teeth and refuse to let you go.

A Year of Sundays, ch 13 pt 1

Chapter 13 – July 24th
Part 1
~Silas~
Everywhere Silas turned, things were an absolute mess. First, and most obvious since he had to work on it every day - he was having trouble getting an important building permit. Yes, he'd put on his Armani suit, and yes, he'd stood before the zoning board and with the sketches of the proposed finished project, which presented as a very high-end, upscale residence. It was a million dollar project, potentially more – with four bedroom suites, each with a full bath, two lounges, and at least one recreation room. They were still negotiating that part with the client. The place would be completely handicap accessible, with lots of green space, and even a pond.
But the zoning board was dragging its feet.
Yes, Silas knew it was to be a group residence for mentally ill persons. Yes, he knew such homes had been in the news several times recently, as one resident kidnapped and assaulted a female staff member, and a different resident of a different house and a different company provoked a police officer shooting him. But this isn't the same company, Silas soothed, and the housing is desperately needed.
 A few more weeks to do a community study, all right. Sure. Reschedule.
He could just scream. This was a hugely profitable project, and the zoning board had just put it on delay. Again.
Silas didn't need this kind of stress.
Melanie being in the hospital turned Sundays upside down. Instead of relaxing afternoons, they spent stir-crazy afternoons at the hospital where Melanie wouldn't tell them what was really going on. How could they help her? How could anyone?
Eric and Sam joined them today for a late lunch. And there was some kind of horrible tension between Liz and Eric that had them snapping at each other constantly, barely able to hold a civil conversation. Silas knew his sisters, had been interpreting their individual non-verbal cues since they were born, and whatever was going on there, it originated from Liz. But he never got a chance to corner her and ask what was going on. In fact, Silas got the feeling that Liz was avoiding him because she knew he would ask. Seemed like it was more than the usual failed attempts to get pregnant, though.
Seemed like every one of them was keeping secrets lately.
Which really wasn't fair, considering Silas had been perfectly happy with his secret gay life until their mother forced him to share. And somehow that led to his bringing Jeremy into all their lives, and if everything else was going to shit, at least that was going swimmingly. Everybody loved Jeremy to pieces.
Sometimes Silas thought maybe he should just move to the Twin Cities permanently and let Jeremy be their brother.
But now he knew he was just pouting.
He always got himself into this dark mood after hanging out with the happy couples of Josie and Jeremy, and Sam and Jessamine.
Yeah, it was irrational. Jeremy was gay and he loved Silas, so of course he and Josie were just friends. Still, the easy way they maneuvered around each other, both physically in the house and emotionally in conversation, was something Silas envied.
He and Jeremy had never been easy.
Jeremy always pushed for more than Silas could give, and Silas always pushed back, trying to force Jeremy to accept Silas's boundaries.
And still there were the strong flashes of jealousy when Josie wrapped her arm around Jeremy's waist, or when Jeremy dropped a kiss on Josie's head.
Stupid. If Silas hadn't refused to let Jeremy live with him at the beginning of the summer, none of this familiarity between Jeremy and Josie would have got a foot hold. So it was his own fault, wasn't it, for fighting so hard against what Jeremy wanted.
And then there was Jess and her badgering him about Butch. Silas wondered now why he thought encouraging Jess to read mom's journals was ever a good idea. Because clearly it had been a terrible idea. And Jess being Jess, once she caught wind of a secret, it would take some kind of natural disaster to make her stop trying to shake it out of the secret-keeper. She felt like it was her duty to safeguard all the secrets, and how dare they keep anything from her?
And why? It's not like she was going to send Silas into psychotherapy with Melanie acting the therapist. 
Mel couldn't even manage her own life at the moment.
The truth was, Silas hadn't thought about Butch for years, and now was probably the worst time of his life to be bringing up that bullshit, anyway, when Jeremy had Silas wanting things Silas never believed he could have.
And that was the real problem.
The memories of his 'relationship' with Butch brought forth a whole host of negative emotions – anger, guilt, humiliation. The knowledge that he had allowed Butch liberties that should never have been allowed. How helpless he had felt at being too naïve to know how to handle Butch's perversion, or how to make it stop, or how to protect himself.
And a part of him had always known that the only thing he'd ever had to do to protect himself was stay away.
And yet he hadn't. He'd gone to Butch's house after school under his own power. Butch had made no explicit threat, and if there had been some kind of implicit persuasion, Silas couldn't identify it from here.
And when he watched Jeremy casually interact with Josie and the rest of Silas' sisters, it was like watching living porn, and Silas felt like he would explode with lust. Jeremy's every move, every gesture in normal conversation, translated to sex in Silas's brain.
Silas felt like a dirty old man.
Like Butch.
But the weird part was… he never felt that way when he was alone with Jeremy. Yeah, there was nothing easy about their relationship, but when it was just the two of them, there really was no room for fear or regret or feeling like their age difference alone was coercion. Because Jeremy was Jeremy, whether he was acting pretty or if he was pouting, and nobody was ever going to make Jeremy do something he didn't want to do. It was clear in the set of his head when he was angry and going into stubborn mode, and it was clear from the shining brilliance in his eyes when he got what he wanted.
And he wanted Silas.
Oh, he didn't brood outwardly about it, but when they were together Jeremy made it abundantly clear that with Silas was where he wanted to be. And if the closest Silas would give him was living at Silas's mother's house with Silas's sister, then that would due.
It didn't stop Jeremy from pushing, from wanting more.
And sometimes Silas thought Jeremy's swift move into the hearts of Silas's family was just one more way for Jeremy to manipulate further into Silas's heart. If Silas had a heart, that is.
But it was becoming obvious to Silas that there was… something between Jeremy and Josie. Something they shared with each other that they didn't share with anyone else. There were certain looks, an odd phrasing of words sometimes, that led Silas to believe that they, also, were keeping some kind of secret.
Silas's jealousy wanted to break out of its cage and go on the attack, convinced that they were sleeping together.
Which was patently ridiculous. And irrational. And all of those other psych words used to describe delusions.
So many secrets. No wonder Jessamine looked so excited lately. It must feel like Christmas morning.Just as they were wiping the last of the dishes and discussion who would ride with whom to the hospital to hang out with Mel, the front door bell rang.
It was so unusual that they all rushed out of the kitchen, thinking they must be about to receive terrible news.
Sam had already opened the door, and Craig, Caleb's father, was standing in the entry, shaking Sam's hand.
He nodded and greeted each of them by name, including Jeremy.
And then he said, without introduction or warning, "I think Melanie is a lot sicker than we know. I mean, maybe she's gone crazy for real."

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~ Here comes Beauty!

Good Morning, Darlings!

Have you heard the news? Oh, oh, oh! I can hardly wait to tell you!

Two of the three books of Anne Rice's erotic trilogy Sleeping Beauty have been re-released - at Target, of all places! And the third shall be released next week.

This is an abso-fucking-lutely BRILLIANT, considering the mass-market pop-culture response to Fifty Shades of Grey... because... well, because it's Beauty! I mean, are you kidding me? Do you think the housewives and mommies basking in their newly discovered states of moistened arousal are ready for Beauty?

Somehow I doubt it. My reservation is partly to do with the fact that, in the end, Christian Grey's kinky was deviant and "bad", and Ana would not stay with him if he didn't change significantly. So even when kinky titillates, in popular culture straying too far from the mainstream = bad.

There could be no benevolent acceptance of Christian's BDSM - you get that, my readers, right?

Yeah, I know you do.

Which means I am looking forward to the Beauty shit-storm. With glee.

(Sleeping Beauty cover images from Anne Rice's Website)


Do I think this is a bad idea? Hell no. I think it is a GREAT idea. I'll say it again - brilliant. Because here's the thing with Anne Rice - even when she's not writing erotica, it's erotic.
Her voice, her attention to detail, her way of spinning a phrase exactly just so - just so you understand perfectly, just so you feel like you are kneeling in the pew beside Lestat, just so you might turn a corner in the Garden District of New Orleans and run smack dab into Lasher, or Mona, or Rowan, or Michael...
Anne is one of the masters. At least in my eyes.
Beauty contains at least a nibble for every deviant palate. Or, in the case of some of us, several large bites and a deceptive feeling of fullness, in places I don't care to mention.
I can't even tell you how many times I've read bits and pieces of the Beauty trilogy over the past twenty years (my favorite coupling is Tristan and Nicholas). The never-ending creativity of the Queen (grapes the size of large marbles, spanking shops, apple collecting, pony grooming, the punishment wheel - oh my!), the unbelievably erotic games ... and all of it described, basically, in simple terms of "the norm."
And "the norm",  my friends, is the HUGE difference between 50 Shades and Beauty.
In the Queen's land, kinky is normal. Deviant is delightful. The Master who imagines the naughtiest and most humiliating game wins. 
The masters are creative, bright, appreciative, cruel, beautiful, intuitive, loving, and so on and so forth. But never sick. Never deviant.
By the way - there is no pregnancy, disease, or menstrual cycles in the land of the Queen. Yay! I mean, just that sentence right there makes me horny.


Another thing I'm not sure pop culture is ready for is the varied and interesting couplings - girls with girls, girls with boys, boys with boys. The whole gamut is represented, and there typically isn't a blatant designation of sexual orientation - the Queen's land IS sexual, and much sexual pleasure happens there without regard to the gender of the participants.

And while the pleasure slaves - Princes and Princesses from surrounding kingdoms - are expected to "grow up" and leave the Queen's land when their time of servitude is over - they leave this second "childhood" (in the sense of being carefree and not having ruling-class responsibilities) with sorrow and reluctance.
It is shockingly unfamiliar and uncomfortable to put on clothing, but they must, and so the Princes and Princesses return to their families, ready to take up the mantle of adulthood and temper their reign with kindness and compassion. 
Although - they might still be a little kinky in the privacy of their castles...
What say you, readers? Is mainstream culture ready for the release of Beauty?

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ My short list

Delilah's blogI had hoped to be posting a review (of sorts) of Wicked as they Come by Delilah S. Dawson for this week's Bloody Monday, because as I suggested last Monday, it promises to be somewhat dark and wonderfully strange. Unfortunately, although I received the paperback in my mailbox on Saturday, the rest of the weekend kicked my reading time to the curb. But I am about 50 pages in, and so far it's damn good.

(Click the captions under the book covers to go to the authors' blogs or sites).

But I'm not far enough in to write any kind of review yet.

I would have read further, but there is an iPod problem, and an iTunes problem, thus creating an iSprite problem. Oh yes. I won't go into detail, but for reasons that are entirely NOT MY FAULT, the Sprite's iPod wants a password, and either Sprite can't remember it, or the device itself isn't recognizing the password since the battery bottomed out. And iTunes cute little iForgot feature apparently isn't going to work without restoring factory settings and losing all her music.

All her music includes hundreds of songs I ripped from Kids Bop, Justin Bieber, Hanna Montana, and Bratz CDs, to name only a few.

Either way it's a crisis for ME.

image from TechnoroticMainly because I hate hate hate hate iTunes. How the "plug-and-play" company of Apple managed to create such a horribly user-unfriendly program defies all logic.

We have my iTunes account on my laptop, my phone, and the family iPad. My husband has his iTunes account on his phone and his laptop. I think the kid's iPod (a broken iPhone 3) is connected to my husband's iTunes, or maybe I created her a 2nd iTunes library on the desktop computer (with all her ripped music), but I can't tell, because it's password protected and I can't peruse the music list to figure it out. And her joint but separate library was stored on the desktop hard-drive. And the desk top is dead.

And then there's iCloud, and iCloud Match, and iTunes Family Share.

I keep getting the message from iCloud that I've used up my free 5GB of data (is that even possible?) and they want money from me before they'll give me more space. And I'm sitting here thinking, "Yeah, but I PAID MONEY for iCloud Match, so what the heck's the difference?)

Good God, who could flipping keep any of this straight?

I certainly can't.

So hello, my name is Mud today, because I can't fix the iPod.

Anywhoo.  Back to my subject of the many things I'm reading at the moment.

I've always been a "read till you finish" kind of girl, for fiction, at any rate, meaning I wouldn't start a new book until I finished the current one. And suddenly, that just isn't true anymore. I'm in the middle of no less than FOUR novels right now, and I want to read them all.
Melanie Gideon's blog

I already mentioned Wicked as they Come by Delilah S. Dawson.


Another book I'm currently reading is Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon. It's pretty good, and I like it. I won the hardcover in a contest at Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust (thanks, Steph!)

Carolyn McCray's blogOn my Kindle, I'm reading a surprising little something called Encrypted: An Action-Packed Techno-Thriller by Carolyn McCray (click the picture caption to go to Carolyn's blog). I have to say, I was a bit skeptical about this one, including the part where the genre/description is part of the actual Kindle title. I found it in a collection on my Kindle of some promotion or other of authors I'd never read before, and, to be perfectly honest, I had not found any new favorites in the bunch.

Until maybe just now.

Encrypted is so far quite lovely, and might  contain the most unusual couple that I've ever read in a romance. It's quite reminiscent of The Thomas Crown Affair.

I was also a bit unsure of a title that included the genre/description. I thought that was super odd. I don't see the description on the book cover as part of the title. But whatever. Encrypted sucked me right in and is holding me tight.

And then there are the 3 books sitting on my desperate to read list. But I have to save talking about those for another day, because the cat's hungry. And God knows one can't get anything done when the cat's hungry.

I'm sorry it's Monday, darlings - hope your week is great.

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays~ ch 12 pt 6

Chapter 12 - Sunday, July 17thPart 6
~Craig~
"Well then," he said, still gazing at the hillside of this big town but small city. "I suppose I should."
He turned around and looked at Melanie, who still stood at the doorway. He nodded toward Caleb. "Spend a few minutes with your son. Jessamine said she'd wait for him and keep him for the afternoon."
Melanie sat on the bed next to Caleb. "Hey buddy," she said, her voice reassuring. "I know it's boring here, but I’m so glad you came to visit. I miss you more than anyone when I'm here."
Craig tuned them out and turned back to the window.
He hated talking about his sister. And every time he decided to tell someone about her, he swore it was the last time he'd talk about her. Ever.
Melanie was a different kind of sick, sort of, than Crystal had been, but sometimes it seemed like they were each one half of a pair of socks, rolled together tightly in his brain.
Crystal was six years older than Craig, and had been goofy and dramatic and sick for as long as he could remember. One of his earliest memories was his mother begging Crystal to eat. Pulling Snickers bars out of the cupboard, then macaroni and cheese, then offering to bake a cake, if Crystal would please, please just eat it. Anything she wanted. He'd felt almost angry about that, and wished he could have cake instead of chicken when it wasn't his birthday.
The food thing became a big issue. Crystal must have been in sixth grade, and Craig was in kindergarten. It was the only year that they attended school in the same building. What he remembered most was how he never understood her problem with food.
He was thrilled with school hot lunches – a whole meal right in the middle of the day! It was unimaginable to him when she called school lunches 'disgusting' and 'practically inedible.'
He remembered what she did eat – saltine crackers and water, for almost a whole year, until her arms and legs looked like sticks and her hair started falling out, and she finally went away for a few months, to learn how to eat.
Logically, he knew his parents brought him along to visit her, he remembered bits and pieces of the car ride even, doing the twenty minutes of out-loud reading that his teacher required during the drive. But the memories of the actual visits to some facility or hospital were gone, leaving mainly the image of Crystal's face, twisted in revulsion when presented with a meal on a plastic toddler-sized plate.
Her refusal to eat was only the beginning.
"I have to talk to you," Melanie said softly and right into his ear. "Someone has threatened Caleb,  so you have to be extra careful."
Craig glanced over his shoulder. Caleb was propped against the pillows of Mel's bed, Gameboy in hand, volume all the way down out of an innate respect for the hospital setting. He was a good boy. An awesome boy, who didn't deserve a crazy mother.
He sighed. "Mel, I'm always careful."
She was shaking her head. "No, you're not. And neither am I. We let him run the neighborhood, hang out at the park with his friends, do all the normal stuff that kids do. That's not careful. That's operating on the assumption that nothing's going to happen."
"Right," Craig agreed. "Because nothing's going to happen."
Melanie's head shake became a little more violent. Frantic.
"Someone's threatened to take Caleb. Hurt him."
Craig searched her face. Her eyes were wide and frightened, her lips trembling. Melanie had been kidnapped and molested at Caleb's age, but it wasn't in her history to hear voices. Of course, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, either. Hell, Crystal had believed the weatherman on the local television station was speaking directly to her. For about nine months she stalked him and made his life miserable, confronting him and begging him to stop sending his filthy thoughts to her through the television. The poor guy had finally had to take a months-long sabbatical off the air.
And Crystal was harmless.
So even if it was rude, Craig had to ask.
"Are you hearing voices or seeing things that other people don't see or hear?"
Melanie let loose a funny, hiccupping laugh. "I'm not that crazy. Jesus." She was still basically whispering.
"I think you can have the sound on, buddy," Craig said, and Caleb answered, "Cool." The machine in his hands spat a frenzied, happy tune out its tinny, dime-sized speakers.
Craig wrapped his hand around Melanie's upper arms and gave a gentle squeeze. "Who has threatened Caleb?"
She shook her head. "I can't tell."
"Come on. This is our son. You need to tell me."
She shuddered, and her words came out the barest whisper. "The Doll Collector. From the shed."
A cold chill flew through Craig's veins, just a quick flash, there then gone. Pity for Melanie and her terrifying delusions settled over him. "He won't get near Caleb," he said. "I promise."
She visibly relaxed. "Keep him close, please? Don't send him with Jessamine. I need to know, without a doubt, that he's safe, or I will lose my mind. For real."
Craig released her upper arms and hugged her very lightly, very gently. "Okay," he said into her hair. "But then we have to go, because Jessie is waiting."
And he had to make some phone calls, Sunday or no, and find out if Melanie's perverted abductor was still confined. Because if the answer was yes, then Caleb was perfectly safe. And if the answer was no, then surely the guy would be picked up for making contact, making threats.
There was some relief in escaping the hospital this easily, in not having to talk about his sister, not having to find words to relive the pain. Not having to admit that what happened to Crystal was all his fault.
~Melanie~
She asked for her phone, which was locked up somewhere. She was a bad, bad girl for telling Craig, and if she thought about it too hard, the fear would paralyze her. But she'd been gone for much too long, and he was going to be angry. And if he was angry, he might retaliate and take Caleb.
She didn't believe for a heartbeat that Craig could watch Caleb every second. He was ten, almost eleven, and all boy. Caleb would fight any constraints Craig tried to place on his freedom. So as much as the hospital had been her cozy safe cocoon, Melanie had to buck up and face reality. She had to tell him where she was, and that being here was beyond her control.
It would have been best if she'd called him from her room, but she wasn't allowed to use her cell phone, only turn it on long enough to copy numbers from her address book. Her contact list was filled with names that were barely familiar, if remembered at all, people she'd met at the bar, a guy who'd picked her up and drove her home one night when she sitting on the curb of the street, too drunk to even walk.
Alex. Craig. Her sisters. Her brother. Mom's number was still there, too.
And That Clown.
She couldn't bear to input his real name, because that made him seem almost human, and he was not. He was the monster from a nightmare, so she gave him a silly name in a useless effort to make him less frightening.
She called from the phone at the end of the hallway, a clunky, heavy thing, with the curly, coiled cord between the base and the hand piece.
She twisted the cord in her fingers, around and around and around until her forefinger was completely encapsulated, then reverse, reverse, reverse until it was free again.
Repeat.
It seemed like he was never going to answer, but then he did. He said, "What?" instead of "Hello." And then immediately, "Who is this?" 
He sounded irritable and annoyed, as if she'd interrupted him raping a child.
She wound the cord around her finger again, finding comfort in the way the tight coils cut off the circulation to her digit.
Her voice came out childishly strangled and high pitched as she said the only thing she could say. "I'm sorry."