Leta Blake's Blog, page 75

Twenty-Five Years Ago – Happy Dating Anniversary #husband #foreveragonow

It was twenty-five years ago today that I got my braces off, George Bush (the first one) was elected president, and the mister and I started dating. So, two out of three ain’t bad, right? I’ll spare you the sappy story of how we met, got together, and stayed together, but I didn’t want the day to go by without acknowledging it.

At A Place That You Could Walk Across With Five Steps Down #pinprick #myheart #music

There are days when I think that lyrically this is one of the most perfect songs ever written. Or maybe that’s just my inner adolescent talking. She’s alive and well in there.

Ghost by The Indigo Girls

There’s a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer

The last truce we ever came to

In our adolescent war

And I start to feel the fever

From the warm air through the screen

You come regular like seasons

Shadowing my dreams

And the Mississippi’s mighty

But it starts in Minnesota

At a place that you could walk across

With five steps down

And I guess that’s how you started

Like a pinprick to my heart

But at this point you rush right through me

And I start to drown

And there’s not enough room

In this world for my pain

Signals cross and love gets lost

And time passed makes it plain

Of all my demon spirits

I need you the most

I’m in love with your ghost

I’m in love with your ghost

Dark and dangerous like a secret

That gets whispered in a hush

When I wake the things I dreamt about you

Last night make me blush

And you kiss me like a lover

Then you sting me like a viper

I go follow to the river

Play your memory like a piper

And I feel it like a sickness

How this love is killing me

I’d walk into the fingers

Of your fire willingly

And dance the edge of sanity

I’ve never been this close

I’m in love with your ghost

Unknowing captor

You never know how much you

Pierce my spirit

But I can’t touch you

Can you hear it

A cry to be free

Oh I’m forever under lock and key

As you pass through me

Now I see your face before me

I would launch a thousand ships

To bring your heart back to my island

As the sand beneath me slips

As I burn up in your presence

And I know now how it feels

To be weakened like Achilles

With you always at my heels

This bitter pill I swallow

Is the silence that I keep

It poisons me I can’t swim free

The river is too deep

Though I’m baptized by your touch

I am no worse than most

In love with your ghost

Gay Slang Terms From ThoughtCatalogue #slang #words

ThoughtCatalogue put together a list of ‘gay slang terms you’ve never heard before‘.  Given that I’ve definitely entered a stage in my life when the most hip slang isn’t exactly rolling off my tongue (see the word hip?), and given that I write some gay romances that feature some characters who are, quite possibly, of an age where such slang would be used, I took a gander. Some choice examples are below:

– Beat (adj.) – extremely wonderful or great, “fabulous.” Example: “Did you see her at the club tonight? That look was beat.”

– Full house (n.) – term used to denote having more than one Sexually Transmitted Infection at once.

– Girl scout (n.) – military man on leave, currently seeking sex.

– Hetty (n.) – shortened version of the word “heterosexual,” similar to “hetero” or “het.”

– In sisters (n.) – two effeminate gay men who have an intimate but non-sexual relationship, usually best friends.

– Miss Congeniality (n.) – extremely negative term referring to an unlikable or “bitchy” homosexual male.

– Mother Superior (n.) – older and wiser gay male who has been around the block a few times; similar to “auntie,” but more favorable.

– Yestergay (n.) – former homosexual who now identifies as straight, also referred to as “ex-gays.”

Ongoing Saga of 2nd Grade Teacher #school #kids #teaching

So, Bird came home yesterday and said, “Don’t email Mrs. Elder anymore, Mom. It makes her mad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she said today that she didn’t want parents emailing her anymore with questions about things, especially about her grades. She said, ‘If you didn’t do what I wanted I mark it wrong. Tell your parents that. I don’t want any more emails or questions asking why I counted off on an assignment.’ And I thought, ‘Oooh, Mom’s in trouble.’”

“I never sent her an email like that. It must have been another parents–or several other parents.”

The thing is, though, I almost had sent an email like that but decided not to ask about it until I met with her in a parent-teacher conference next week. The teacher often sends home work graded with an S or an S+ and I can’t figure out what the errors are because it is a subjective assignment like a drawing. (The grading scale is, from highest to lowest, E (xcellent), S (atisfactory), N (Not Satisfactory) and Bird usually gets an E, but I always want to talk over an S or S+ just so she knows how to improve, not because I care deeply about an S or S+ occasionally.) This is frustrating because, in my opinion, what is the point of giving her a grade if she can’t learn from it?

My plan is to say, “I always want Bird to challenge herself, and part of that is talking her through what she could have done differently to achieve a higher mark, even if it is just going from an S+ to an E, I think that it helps her to really rise to a challenge the next time. I’ve found myself confused about how to guide her in this regard at times because I don’t know enough about the assignment to know at a glance why she received an S+ instead of an E. Things like math or grammar, I can definitely understand, because there are rules to follow. But some of the assignments which are just drawings of a story, for example, I often don’t know why it’s an S+ and, when I ask her, neither does she. Is there a way to help us out on that front?”

We’ll see how that goes. I’m not very impressed, though, with a teacher who clearly has parents emailing her with questions asking why their students are getting the grades they’re getting, and then her passing the message on to kids that she doesn’t want that and for them to let the parents know. What on earth? Either give effective and clear grades or expect parents to send emails about it. Don’t you want involved and concerned parents? Isn’t it better that parents want to know and are interested in helping their children improve at school? Lord a’mighty, lady. You’re not impressing me so far!

*Disclaimer: I recognize my daughter is an unreliable narrator, but she’s reliable enough for me to put her story with my experience of the teacher so far and get a reasonable picture of what is going on.

Someone Book Me a Ticket to London ASAP #thelightprincess #toriamos

So, I know there have been many mixed reviews about The Light Princess, but THIS REVIEW has convinced me that me and my BFF are the perfect audience for this particular show.

I’m just going to quote from it liberally, starting with the bit that made me think, “This show is clearly written for me and my best girl!”

“The whole production feels of one voice, as if a prodigiously gifted and deeply eccentric young woman obsessed with Victoriana and post-feminist comic books was released from her attic to be given free reign — and an unlimited budget — at a major theater.”

“The direction by Marianne Elliott (reuniting with much of her War Horse team) results in some of the most magical stagecraft I’ve seen in a theater. The scene where Althea floats into the arms of a prince from a rival land makes swooning seem understated and inadequate forevermore. Throughout the evening, puppeteers, animation and dancers converge in swirling tides like hormonal mood swings.”

“More interestingly, the show suggests that Princess Althea doesn’t simply need to learn to cry, but must come to terms with adulthood. Her flying above the world becomes a metaphor for the sometimes selfish and other times frightened flailing of adolescence — and a decidedly modern female adolescence at that — with symbolic references to drugs, eating disorders (in one of the plays funniest gags, if you can believe it), angry rebellion, sex and suicide.”

“The deeply felt, almost primal, production that results from such explorations is as beautiful, ungainly, powerful and too-smart-for-her-own-good as the heroine at its heart. And what a heroine she is — Rosalie Craig’s performance as Althea is magical, mercurial and physically astonishing; suspended in the air via multiple techniques for much of the show, she sings gorgeously and makes sense of even the densest passages.”

Yes, okay, so…who is buying these tickets for me? I need flights from the States to London and then tickets to the show itself. Santa? Are you listening? Santa??? *sigh* Oh, well. Sadness.

Why I Don’t Do #NANOWRIMO

For many writers, November is NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). Once upon a time, about nine years ago before I had a child, I also did NANOWRIMO and, if you’re going by the number of words written, I finished it. However, if you’re going with whether or not I had a completed book, I decidedly did not. In fact, ’90s Coming of Age Novel? Well, that’s the book I started all those years ago for NANOWRIMO.

Right about now, I’m tempted (as I am every year) to do a NANOWRIMO push. After all, writing any particular amount every day sounds awesome. But, as an American woman/wife/mother, I find November to be the absolute worst month aside from December for this endeavor. There’s Halloween the night before it begins, and then there’s the run-up to American Thanksgiving and Christmas, which involves a lot of work for women/mothers.

I have to admit, every year, I find myself thinking, “Whoever originally created NANOWRIMO was probably a single male with no family obligations.” My research reveals that it was 21 people, probably of mixed genders, but I’m still doubting that many/any of them had kids and traditional family obligations for the months of November and December.

I was looking for something about mothers and Thanksgiving, but when I saw this, I knew I had to share it. I have the same problem. LEGO families are so judgmental, man.

But, I ask myself, am I just selling myself short? Could I squeeze in, say, 1,000 words a day if I actually focus and do it? I probably could. And maybe I should. And maybe I will try after all. (I say that like I say it every year.) But there’s also the issue of my personality and the way my brain works. Once I’m plugged into a book I’m writing, the rest of the world falls away. Housework? What is that? Appointments? Whoops…nearly missed it…oh, shit, I did miss it! All the little extras? Huh? What are extras? Are you asking me about the extras I’m throwing into my book? Because I’ve given a lot of thought to those! That sort of thing.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas holding such esteemed and important places in the hearts of children everywhere–and definitely in my kid’s heart–my head needs to be in the game. So, yeah, I probably, maybe, definitely won’t be participating in NANOWRIMO. But I guess I might try. Since it started yesterday, I should probably decide.

*ponders*

Probably not. After all, I have edits on the figure skater/rancher book, Training Season, to finish up within the next few weeks. Then I’ve got to get ARCs out review sites. Then I’ve got to decide on a release day for it.

I’m a Libra. I can’t decide.

Seriously, though, GOOD LUCK TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATE!! *shakes pom-poms* YOU CAN DO IT!!! RAH-RAH!!

Fanworks Friday: Drama Queen! Rifter Fic! *twirl* #fanfic #ginnhale

Go forth and read Drama Queen – rated G, by stone_princess: A tiny blip of the boys in The Rifter living out life happily together despite everything that’s happened. I don’t know if this will make much sense if you haven’t read the book.

Hey, Girl, Ryan Gosling Does Halloween With Children? I’m In! #halloween #heygirl

I’ve always enjoyed Ryan Gosling for obvious reasons–pretty face, nice body, so far he hasn’t put his foot in his mouth terribly about anything at all, and the whole Hey, Girl meme he inspired has added a lot of joy to my life.

But then I saw this video.

Ryan Gosling singing, paying piano, and interacting with singing children dressed up for Halloween? Oh, be still my heart. As my BFF says, good looking men and children (usually babies, but kids will do, too) are my kryptonite. I go all weak and swoony and, well, gosh, I just love men and children together! And so now, with this video, Ryan Gosling has earned all my ovary-exploding love! Hooray!

Also, Happy Halloween!!

Halloween Rage #ryanadams #halloween

In HateSong, we ask our favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world.

Someone sent me a link to the above article because it is about Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem, one of my all-time favorite bands. I loved reading about his HateSong (click above to see what it was) and it only took me about half a minute to come up with my own HateSong.

Halloween Head by Ryan Adams fills me with RAGE. Why? Because I love Ryan Adams. He can write some amazing songs. Like, for example, The Sadness or Hotel Chelsea Nights, and so when I buy an album of his, I expect it to be awesome. Well, the album that had this evil song it was just so-so and then…and then…suddenly Halloween Head came on and I was like, “OH NO YOU DID NOT, RYAN FUCKING ADAMS!! NO YOU DID NOT!!!”

This song is shit. I hate it. The end.

(If you love it and it is your all-time favorite song, well, I’m…no. I’m not sorry. I’m just not.)

Child’s Own Is Awesome #toys #christmas

To quote the site, Child’s Own Studio is a place where your child and a craft artist, together, can create a keepsake to be cherished for a lifetime.

Essentially, the child draws a picture, and then the artist at Child’s Own makes a softie toy for the child based on the picture. The blog is amazing and full of lovely photos of the softies. Check it out! See if you want to get one for the special child in your life for Christmas!