Barbara Double D [dating story]

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I met a man named Ozzy. We’re calling him this because he’s originally from Australia, or so he said. You never know with guys from dating sites, since they tend to lie about everything. He lived in NorCal and was working here, in SoCal, and was (allegedly) separated from his wife. I didn’t care at the time that he wasn’t divorced yet because I wasn’t either. He was very sympathetic regarding the recent death of my mom, which drew me to him.

For our first meeting/date, he took me to a very nice Japanese restarant, where we had a long, leisurely sushi and sake lunch. (Back then, I loved sushi and also drank alcohol.) It sure beat the boring Starbucks meets favored by the majority of men on dating sites. We kissed afterward and it was very fireworky. He also enjoyed writing and sent me a sexy story starring us and included a special pasta dish similar to spaghetti carbonara but named for me.

Ozzy and I began dating/sleeping together. He was fun and cute and had a nice place provided by his employer (I had a child at home and didn’t bring dates over). We had agreed at the start to be monogamous and deactivate our dating profiles, but for whatever reason I didn’t trust him. And I wasn’t even that cynical yet, but I simply didn’t.

So, I reurned to the same site where we met, but instead of reactivating my profile to spy on Ozzy (which he would see and then deny doing anything, except accuse me of still being active too… stalemate), I created a new, spoof profile. I named her BarbaraDD and stole a photo of a blurry blonde off the web. I made her profile very different from mine: outgoing saleswoman with implants, loves to travel, likes watching football, wants to keep things casual. I made deliberate spelling errors, though that was difficult. Barbara viewed Ozzy’s profile and said “hey how are u” ~ something I’d never do in a million years. Of course he responded because he hadn’t deactivated.

Naturally, Barbara also received 90 kajillion messages from other men, pretty much every man on the site. She ignored all of them and focused only on chatting with Ozzy. She said outrageous things, like she wanted to come to him right after she had unprotected sex with another man, and he said that would be great. Ughhh. Then he sent Barbara the sexy story, changing the names, including the recipe to Pasta Barbara.

I was so mad! Obviously Ozzy sent that stupid story to all his women.

Barbara told him the story was incredible and made her want to meet him right away, but she’d lost her phone. Could he just meet her tonight at this bar in Newport Beach at 8:00? Of course he agreed.

At 8:00, BarbaraDD deleted her account. I blocked Ozzy and never spoke to him again. Dunno if he figured it out.

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Diamonds, Daisies, Snowflakes…

… That Girl!

I can’t believe no one guessed the correct answer. Some of you got close with MTM, etc. ~ shows about single brunettes navigating big city life. But alas, nobody got That Girl. I’ve been enjoying reruns on Prime and am just starting the second season. A good friend bought S5 for me as a gift and watching some of those motivated me to start over at the beginning. Okay, let’s discuss…

First, we’ll address the theme song (music only until S5 when lyrics are introduced), which I see via google is not super popular. I guess people hate happy, sappy lists. Does this mean “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music is hated now too? Bye cream-colored ponies, off you go. We’re tossing the crisp apple strudel right in the trash. What the hell is wrong with lists of nice things? Does every piece of music have to be dark and dystopian with singularity death robots clawing out our livers? Eff that. We can haz nice lists.

Second, That Girl is a nice show about nice people, who mostly do nice things and end up getting into mild predicaments. So, you’re thinking omgawwwd boring. No. You know what I’m bored with? Criminals, jerks, liars, druggies, drunks, narcissists, wackos, and psychopaths. But enough about men from dating sites already, eh? Pffft.

Sometimes it’s just darned good fun to watch a show about normal people negotiating the quotidian. Kind of like Seinfeld, in a way… many of TG’s eps are also about “nothing” or nothing more than the minutiae of daily life gone awry via misunderstandings or miscommunications. This was prior to texting and email, so people have to talk to each other face to face to work things out. This generally resolves an issue quickly rather than our current method of trying to “text it out,” which further mires us in the muck of miscomm. Yes, I realize it’s fictional. 😛

Third, there’s a refreshing absence of sex, drugs, and violence. I’m no prude, but I’m just tired of the emphasis on those three things in entertainment. Once they’re introduced, they tend to dominate the script. Ann and Don are steadily dating, but we haven’t seen them in bed. Good. I don’t want to; it’s uninteresting to me. In one of these early eps, they wade in a stream while picnicking and she remarks that it’s the first time she’s seen his ankles. Why? Because they haven’t slept together or cuz he has sex in his socks or what? The questions crossed my mind, briefly, and I’m happy not to know. There’s a mafia ep where the bad guys end up in a food fight then a fist fight but not a gun fight and it’s hilarious. Etc.

Fourth, surprisingly, these old TG eps offer many situations that are still currently relevant. How to maintain a close relationship with your parents when you move away and choose a different lifestyle. Can you conduct a professional relationship in the same office with someone with whom you’re romantically involved? The struggle of pursuing your low-paying dream while juggling two or more side gigs to make the rent. Etc.

Plus Marlo Thomas is funny. So are Ted Bessell, who plays her boyfriend, and Lew Parker, who plays her father. But many actors could have done these roles, imo, including Marlo’s. This is not to disparage the actors, who are certainly fine, but the writers should get the credit for the show. Always credit the writers! Check out that link… interesting.

K, I’m off for more teevee! 🙂

Corncobs & Donuts: A Friday Morning Rant

I was curious today about why some Twitter users had donuts in their profile descriptions, so I began googling up the meaning. I mean, of course donuts are delicious, especially coconut ones and the kind that have little cimmanom crunchy whatsit coatings (never know what you call these donuts ~ I just point at them like a grunty caveperson), but I had a feeling Twitter donuts meant more than this and I was right. Back in my day, when all we thought about was sex, the meaning of a donut would have been sexual, but now everything is political, so naturally donuts are too. I’m not even going to attempt to paraphrase the ridiculousness of the political donut, but simply link to the article I found which essplains the whole insanity. Scroll down, donuts are in there, after the roses and corncobs.

Also, back in the day, roses and corncobs had sexual meanings too. “Roses” stood in for dollars as payment for sex on certain personal ad websites, some of which, notably Craigslist personals, have had to shut down since the passage of FOSTA on March 25th, the anti sex-trafficking bill. Oh, you probably didn’t notice that bill with everything else going on people rage about 24/7, but it will probably end up changing the internet as we know it, making service providers actually liable for content, starting with subjecting websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties misuse personals unlawfully. I agree with this btw, even though probably most of you do not. The liberal media (see previous link) has been crying about how closeted gay & trans peeps, adulterers, and others are losing an important venue to find anon hook-ups. How sad. If only websites had followed their own damn TOS in the first place, including Facebook, these “free speech” catastrophes might have been mitigated somewhat sans gobblement involvement. But they were all too greedy. I digress. You can find the sexual corncob meanings here, after the otter ones.

Why is everything so stupid? Rhetorical. Don’t personsplain at me! It’s part of the reason I left Facebook ~ I keep finding new reasons. Privacy breach/data scraping, too addicting, too political, too irritating, too many memes, people constantly reposting headlines, BORING, and just… stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. RAWR! Sure, all that same stuff is on Twitter, but I can block it all there. I’ve blocked an entire family from my Twitter feed, every one of their names, and it’s marvelous. I do not see any of them. How awesome is that? And I’ve also blocked most of the other SOS politicians and keywords to keep the crap that people obsess over out of my face. When a new story comes up that everyone goes nuts over, I block that too. I occasionally see some politics, a joke, or something that doesn’t mention a person by name ~ what’s funny is that generally those tweets are usually much more interesting than the normal political garbage because someone is expressing an honest opinion, not reposting a link. So, I don’t mind them. But, as I’ve said, I am mainly there for the poetry, which is fab.

I find it amusing that every day the Facebook horror seems to be getting worse. The only thing I regret is not dumping it sooner.

Okay, time for a donut ~ and that is not a euphemism!

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Dukes…

Jennifer Weiner has an interesting op-ed in the NYT celebrating sex ed via the romance novel. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never read any of Ms. Weiner’s novels and I want to change that soon. I’ve put her memoir Hungry Heart on my wish list and will be grabbing some of her older novels as well. But in the meantime I enjoyed her article in the NYT, even though I didn’t agree with all of it.

We’re on the same page with the idea that “what goes where” sex ed is necessary but not sufficient for young peeps and of course they will be curious for more information. They will search for it relentlessly. I definitely agree with Ms. Weiner that romance novels give a woman’s sexual satisfaction equal priority to a man’s. No fantasy duke or pirate or spy or CEO ever forgets to please his heroine in the bedroom (or wherever), multiple times. Ms. Weiner makes a good point that, unlike pr0n, romance novels describe complete scenes, including birth control (in contemporaries), various other awkward moments, and follow-up conversations.

Talking is important!

But romance novels, like so many forms of entertainment, focus mostly on fabulous looking characters with beautiful faces and perfect bodies. These are the kinds of people deserving of soul mates, true love, fantastic sex, and happily ever afters… this is the message insidiously drilled into our minds as soon as we’re able to read a book or watch a movie. Ms. Weiner quotes Jennifer Crusie in her article, and Ms. Crusie has given us plus-size heroines in several of her novels, but still they are gorgeous overweight women with great legs, lips, and hair, not the ordinary fat chicks you find shlumping around the supermarket. This is not to criticize ~ I lurve Ms. Crusie’s novels and they’re among my favorite romances. I am… JUST SAYING.

[I know some of you go into a peevey fit when peeps just say. Sorry about that.]

Point is, there’s a downside to young people (aka women let’s be honest cuz young men aren’t going to be reading Crusie et al) consuming the emotional content of their sex ed via romance novels. I should know. I was one.

On the bright side, people are still reading books.

More Than This

The first time I heard Roxy Music was at Stacey’s apartment in downtown Chicago, in the spring of 1983. I was a classic rock girl and Bryan Ferry was club music. I didn’t go to clubs; I listened to the Beatles and Stones alone at home. Actually, nothing has changed… but that’s beside the point. I don’t remember why we went to Stacey’s either. We were both taking a computer class and broke for lunch or something. She lived nearby. What I do remember is that she turned on the stereo and fired up her bong. It was the first time I’d seen a bong too. I lived a very sheltered life, in the middle of Chicago. I declined her offer of smoke, but I did get intoxicated with Roxy Music and bought an album soon after.

The only reason I’m even bringing this up is because I was listening to RM’s greatest hits the otter day in my car and I thought, holy shit, I’ve been telling peeps the wrong thing all these years. I always say I moved to California because my parents said they’d buy me a car, which they did say, but that’s not why I left ~ I left because my heart was broken.

Stacey and I were talking about men that day, of course, and I confessed I had a crush on Mark, who was also in our class. Mark and I regularly created outrageous fictions about adventures we had together and no one really knew what was going on between us (nothing), and the rest of the class thought we were very entertaining. Sometimes I would create my own individual stories for Mark, so he wouldn’t think I was such a boring boring. He had his own individual stories for me as well that I didn’t know what to make of ~ they were wild and crazy, occasionally verging on the sad.

Eventually we became lovers, in the summer, though I knew it wouldn’t last. My heart broke the first time we were together, as it always does when I know something will fail, and I floated off into that strange limbo of soaring dreams mixed with crushing despair. It’s a potent drug. I never turn something like that down; I simply wait for it to disappear because I know it will. Each time might be the last, so each time is incredibly wonderful, like I imagine it might feel to be on X, though I never have been. What writer would turn this down? How many chances do you have to experience this in your life? You wouldn’t be able to describe it otherwise. I might have only had the once… but as luck would have it, it’s happened a few more times.

Our relationship ended mundanely ~ I had to work, and Mark wanted to go camping. He asked me to go with him, and I couldn’t, so he took another girl. That was in August and I kept working as my parents planned their move out West. I vaguely said I might stay and find a place with a friend, but I made no plans. My job consisted of formatting disks, all day long. I sat at a reception desk and did that, crying silently.

In September, my mother said, you’re not really staying in Chicago, are you? My father said he’d buy me a car if I moved with them. It sounds amusing to say I left for a car, but I would have left in any case. Chicago is nothing but a big frozen heartbreak; that’s why I’ve never gone back, not once. I like to leave places that remind me of bad times; I like to throw everything away. If I can’t, I gather it all together for an emotional bonfire and a story is born. Sometimes the story lies dormant for several decades, apparently.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Dormant

Click Me

It’s been so long
Since I
Felt that click
Of desire,
That quick flush
Of blood, the rush
Of fire, the thrum
Of need, the craving
To feed
On lust and love
In an ouroboros spiral—
Sating only creating
More of the same
Hunger in me and
You in me over again
Never to end, only sleep
And feed and touch
And breathe deep—
Desire rush and
Flush and thrum
With need so strong
And
It’s been
Too long.

~*~

This was written for another prompt long ago and is included in my poetry collection Depth Perception.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Craving

Say Yes to the Marquess

This romance novel’s title is likely a play on the TV show “Say Yes to the Dress,” and it makes sense because Tessa Dare’s book is all about convincing the reluctant Clio she should still wed whazzface even though he ran off to do mysterious work for the Crown and she’s been all abandoned and gossiped about for 8 years. Rafe, whazzface’s hunky prizefighter brother, is trying to do the convincing. I don’t think I need to say any more about that, do I?

I really enjoyed this book, except for when Rafe breaks character to give Clio a totally ridic flowery speech about her looks. Otherwise, the writing is top-notch. The characters are super-interesting and complex ~ not just the protags, but also her sisters, his trainer, etc. The twists and turns kept me guessing exactly how the story would get to the HEA, and I totes appreciate that. The one thing about the resolution I didn’t like so much was a “telling not showing” of Clio’s discussion with whazzface, said convo important to her character development.

There is cake in this book. A LOT OF CAKE. Wedding cake after wedding cake. There is a completely awesome cake scene that you need to read if you love cake and sex (who doesn’t love cake?). The leitmotif (!!!) continues throughout the story. I am particularly drawn to the cake in Say Yes because I never had a proper wedding cake, the lack of which I am convinced doomed my marriages.

Cake: it’s what’s for breakfast.

Going Dark

Hai everyone! I just self-published another book on Amazon KDP. Going Dark is a second collection of short fiction and poetry, with my favorite themes of sex and depression. Somehow they just work well together for me, in the literary sense, like cake and frosting. It’s already received a great review, eeeeeeeeeeee!

Going Dark is available in the Kindle Unlimited program, which means it’s free if you’re a member. If you read a lot, like I do, I highly recommend joining. For ten bucks per month you can read as many books as you want. This has encouraged me to break out of my same-old mode and try new authors and genres.

I hope you enjoy my book. Thank you. 🙂

Sugar Kisses

Sweet Addiction by J. Daniels…

OK, I admit it: I bought this book for its title and cover (pic of sugared lips).

Also, it had a lot of baking/bakery/cake/frosting stuff going on.

So, I began reading and was immediately disappointed because the narrative was first person, which I hate for a romance, unless it’s going to be a dark, crazy, deep romance, which this was not. It was typical fluff. Hot fluff, but fluff nonetheless.

How can I explain? If a story is meaningless fluff, then I want more than one POV. I want to know what the idiot hero is thinking along with the vapid heroine. I want to jump into the mind of the evil villain/ness who schemes to destroy the relationship. That’s the best I can do here.

And not only was it first person, but it was unbelievably stupid. I mean, stupider than the typical chick lit whining about moms and cramps stupid. How can that be? Well, it was. Trust me.

First, not only were the two protags the most absolutely physically stunning people you could possibly imagine, but all their friends were, too! What a coinkydink, and in Chicago of all places (meow). We had the heroine, a 26 year old bakery owner (no mention of where she got the capital), with a fabulous body even though she sampled bakery stuffs all day. This is because she went on a run every morning, and as any ful kno, that half hour of exercise will burn up thousands of pastry calories. And we had the hero, a 32 year old CPA, with the body of Adonis. In fact, the whole CPA firm was stuffed with Greek gods like a freaking studded gyro. [See wut I did there?]

Second, there was the gay best friend. My god, that’s soooo original. Who would think of putting a gay best friend in a romance novel?! He was unbearably handsome, natch, and happily hooking up with every other hot gay guy in the city, as you do, until he falls in lurve. Because like the gun on the table, once you introduce a horribly tired cliché, you must use it to its foregone conclusion.

Third, Daniels had the “plot” turn on a misconstrued half-overheard comment, which we haven’t seen since the last 87 thousand romance novels.

Why did I read it to the very end, you ask? Good question!

It was for the sex. The sex scenes were so incredibly hot, I skimmed through for the next one… and the next one… etc.

Yes, I’m ashamed of myself. I will have to atone somehow. I know! I’ll read another romance novel.

Sizzle Fizzle

I did something very unusual last night, and naturally I want to share the sordid details with my loyal readers.

I abandoned a book. YES. I hated it more and more and finally gave up around the halfpoint at chapter 11. (I went up to 11.) This book, Sizzling, is by Susan Mallery, and I just reviewed another book in the series, Irresistible, which I loved. I called that one “a perfect romance novel.” How could I have enjoyed one book so much and despised the other? I don’t know!

*****POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*****

Remember when I said that the grandmother’s nastiness in Irresistible was near the edge of believability? Well, Mallery took that nastiness and blew it out to infinity for Sizzling. It was completely ridiculous… but even worse was when Grandma gave it up. Yep, one day she broke down in tears, our heroine Lori the nurse told her to quit being such a bitch, and she did. Just like that. Poof!

I absolutely could not stand the hero, Reid. God, what a jerk. And I’m supposed to wait for his redeeming qualities to emerge and shine because he’s just so darned handsome? Um no. I just can’t get interested, literarily or otherwise, in a man who’s slept with thousands of women. That’s just gross. And wah wah he only acted like a pig because all these women offered since he was this hotshot baseball player. Not only that, but his first love broke his heart, so it was only logical he felt like a useless stud. Um what? Blargh.

Even worse was Lori’s inexplicable attraction to Reid. I realize that’s the whole point of the story, but it made no sense. And Mallery kept repeating how it made no sense, but nevertheless Lori just flipped out at the sight of him every time, even though she thought he was stupid, lazy, ungrateful, etc. And suddenly Reid is no longer attracted to gorgeous women, but wants Lori, the ordinary nurse. Just, bam, like that.

Why does anything need a reason, hey? Just fling it all on the page and be done.

I stopped reading when Lori went to his room (for no reason) and let him take her to bed. “Oh, God. They were going to have sex.” Lori thinks she needs more foreplay and intimacy (and so do I, as the reader), but eh the heck with it. After all, he is soooo good-looking. How is the reader supposed to sympathize with her at this point? I was basically embarrassed for her. That was my feeling when I threw the book down in disgust. Embarrassment. It seemed as if he was doing her a favor and she knew it. Yuck!

I’m totes done with Mallery books. This was one of the worst romances I’ve ever read. I can’t remember the last time I hated a book too much to finish.