Monday, Monday

I really need to stop sleeping in over the weekend, because then Monday comes and I am so...effing...tired, and all the coffee Juan Valdez can pack over to me on his mule cannot keep me awake.  All day I dream of napping, and it's crazy hectic at work, and then I get home and it's make dinner get OD to her cello lesson take The Son to return the shoes he doesn't like go to the grocery store get everyone showered/homeworked/tucked and pluck George The Superpet's ear hair (yes, I do that) and then one would think I would be ready for bed and SURPRISE!  I'm wide awake.  Sure to be dead ass tired again tomorrow.

I did start this book last night, which is terrific so far:

It's a dog book, so I'm sucked in.  I read these books and I get engrossed, but there's also this voice in the back of my head that says, "You need to write your book" and I say "I don't have time right now" and the voice pesters me until I start yelling at it, "Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to write a book!?!  And one that is actually good and has a story and proper English that people will read that doesn't have sparkly vampires in it because that is so 2010?!"

I love a good book.  I have been reading since I was four, and I love nothing better in life than losing myself in a book, where I am so obsessed with it that I can't put it down, and when I'm forced to put it down I can't stop thinking about when I can pick it back up again.  I will take a good book, and I mean a REALLY good book that is one of the obsession books, over sex, coffee, wine, pasta and tiramisu.  THAT is how much I love books. 

There are loads of books I've been this obsessive with in my life, but ones that pop into my mind immediately are - Jane Austen books (except for Northanger Abbey, which was okay but I could put it down and live), Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston, The Good People of New York and Out of the Girls Room and Into the Night by Thisbe Nissen, Cooked Little Heart and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Devil in the White City by Eric Larson, It Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies, the entire Twilight series, the entire Harry Potter series, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, Room by Emma Donoghue, all Jen Lancaster books, the Hunger Games series, and the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson.  As a kid, it was Laura Ingalls Wilder, Nancy Drew, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, The Trumpeter Swan, anything by Judy Blume and of course The Flowers in The Attic series.  Ish.

On deck right now I have A Tale of Two Cities, Portrait of a Lady, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch by Hollis Gillespie, It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro, and am awaiting Stacey Ballis's new book whenever it may come because I did love Good Enough to Eat.  And David Sedaris's Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk.  And With a Little Luck by Caprice Crane.

(I have to stop writing this because I have spent the last 20 minutes going back and adding another book I love to the "obsessed with" list.  Because I'm obsessed.)

But with a Pesky Full Time Job, my work severely cuts into my reading time, and then the Mothering takes over the non-paid-work time, so I find myself reading until all hours of the night and then waking up vowing never to do it again and covering the perpetually deep shadows under my eyes with foundation.  Open Memo to People at Work: I'm not being beaten, I'm reading.

What exactly is my point here?

That I write every single day, and have been writing pretty steadily for 15 years, and I can tell you firsthand that it is DAMN HARD to write a book.  Try it, I dare you.  I'm about 2/3 of the way through my first novel, which is about 60,000 words (the average blog post is about 600-900 words), and I haven't TOUCHED the novel in over a year.  I know how it's going to end.  I just haven't written it down.  And then when you start writing it, it changes.  The book actually takes your thoughts and says, "Bullshit, that would never happen.  THIS is what that character REALLY wants to do!"  I have another book rolling around in my head, and a collection of short stories too.  But guess what?  No publisher is going to pay me to tell them all about the stories and not write them down.  It's that tricky technicality of calling oneself a writer...you actually have to WRITE.

Every week, I say, "once we get through the school year I'll make time to write", then "once we get through the summer, I'll make time to write" and "Once school starts again, I'll make time to write" and now it's "once I finish this freelance project for CH..." and "once we finish the basement..."  One of these days I might actually do it, but honestly people, I'm 42 and I start worrying that I'm never going to purge these words.  It's like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Every time I hear the song, "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, which I'm pretty sure she wrote specifically for me, I think Get Your Ass In Gear, Girl!  Do you have a lifelong ambition that is unmet?  Do you have something you are just dying to do and just don't do it?  What is holding you back?  Am I alone in thinking my epitaph is going to be "Unfulfilled potential?"  Lay it on me, Wifers, if Blogger will let you comment.  What is on your mind?  If you can't comment here, go to the FB page and do it there.  I want to know!

It's Whoreticulture Friday! Issue 44

Whoreticulture: The industry and science of whores and whore-related topics. Whoreticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of OB-GYNery, Brazilian waxers and shavers, adultery, personal hygiene mavens and easy women. The word is composite, from two words, whore, from Greek meaning "harlot" or "dear", and the word "culture". Like NPR's Science Friday, Whoreticulture Friday exists to educate and spark discussion on the science of Whorology. Whoreticulture Friday is not for children. Or squeamish people. Or Mother-In-Laws. Or people I work with. Because there are many things I don't need you people to know about me. SO STOP READING, CO-WORKERS. You know who you are.

Today's topic: No sex for you!

I used to be quite the purveyor of sex, and it was probably my sluttish ways that secured Current Husband to me.  But CH has been wronged in a number of ways since the day of "I Do."  

1. First, I cut off my long hair about two weeks after the wedding.  CH has a philosophy that women use their long hair to fetch themselves a husband (because it is a truth universally acknowledged that every young woman with long hair must be in need of a husband), and then they cut it off when the deal is sealed.  I used to scoff at this notion, but I have to admit that I've seen it happen more than once.  It must be a symbolic cutting off of oneself from the insanity of planning a wedding.
2.  I stopped cleaning.  Okay, I never really cleaned, but at least I used to make an effort toward the ILLUSION that I cleaned, such as stuffing the dirty clothes under the bed, putting old magazines under the couch, and sticking dirty dishes in the oven when people would come over, only to forget and fill the house with smoke when preheating my oven a few days later.  CH, on the other hand, cleans a mean bathroom.
3. I stopped being a whore.  When CH was Current Boyfriend, I was freshly graduated from college and feeling liberated and unencumbered.  Let's have sex on the living room floor!  Let's re-enact 9 1/2 weeks!  Let's get you a gag ball and call you Slappy! (Okay, I've never used a gag ball.  But I have called him Slappy.)

So totally me.  

If I was blonde, sexy, and inexplicably 

attracted to Mickey Rourke.

Maybe it is The Full Time Job I Can't Blog About.  Maybe it's the move.  Maybe I'm perimenopausal.  Maybe I'm a frigid bitch.  No, I think it's the job.  Either way, I've become The Sex Nazi.

It happens all the time.  CH starts circling me after dinner when I am clearing away the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, and he is....circling me after dinner.  He starts trying to be cute and lunge at my boobs or "hug" me from behind and say sexy things like "You know you want it".  (Was it obvious at dinner in front of the kids when I said, "Do you want more meatloaf?" that I really meant "Do you want me to eat your meatloaf?" nudge nudge wink wink. Because that is TOTALLY what I meant, you really "get" me.) 

Suddenly, something happens to push me over the Annoyed line, and it's "NO SEX FOR YOU!"  Don't clear away dishes with me?  "NO SEX FOR YOU!"  Watch SyFy or USA too long and it's "NO SEX FOR YOU!"  Fart just one too many times?  "NO SEX FOR YOU!"

It's sad really.  I used to love sex.  I was the absolute, frequent instigator of sex.  At least one of our children was conceived in the back seat of our car in our own driveway.  Another might have been in my parent's garage.  I was Paris Hilton without the coke.  I was Jersey Shore without the tan or Ed Hardy or Jersey.  I was Tila Tequila but three feet taller and monogamous.  Now I'm Phyllis Diller.

Is it age?  Do I need some Vitamin D or Folic Acid or Spanish Fly?  It's not CH - he's still got it goin' on, he just doesn't always make it on my "To Do" list.  There are kids to be fed and a dog to be groomed and a job and a house to unpack and showers to take and legs to shave before that action can go down.  When did being an adult become such a pain in the ass?  What happened to Dime Draws or Bloody Mary night with Beer chasers and Baby's Got Back on the house sound system and the Walk of Shame?  

I am The Sex Nazi.  And don't even think you can reference this blog post and use it to guilt me into sex CH, or there will be NO SEX FOR YOU!  I'd love to hear if I'm alone - I know for a fact a few of you gentle readers are in the same boat.

Happy Whoreticulture Friday!  Go on out and have The Sex. 

Jane Austen's Vampire Zombie Coattails Fight Club

Jane Austen has been dead for nearly 200 years, but surely she would be dying a slow death today if she could see what has become of her work. Or would she?  What would it take to really piss off Jane Austen?

I love Jane Austen. If you are unfamiliar, check her Wikipedia entry for a little background.  I love Jane so much that Oldest Daughter's middle name is Austen.  I read "Pride and Prejudice" for about the fourth time while pregnant with her, and here I am pregnant with The Son and reading "Sense and Sensibility", again:

Okay, I'm drinking a malt, a pregnancy staple.  

But the book is next to me.  

I knew what was going to happen in the book, 

but that malt wasn't going to wait.

My favorite book on the planet is Pride & Prejudice, my favorite movie is the BBC/A&E version of Pride & Prejudice (Oh Colin Firth, allow me to say how ardently I adore you wet and clothed in a frilly shirt).  There have been many books and movies influenced by Jane Austen's work, including Bridget Jones' Diary (P&P), Clueless (Emma), Lost in Austen (which I love) and The Jane Austen Book Club, just to name a VERY few.  I have no issue with these works inspired by Austen, and have in fact enjoyed them.  BUT.

What is the deal with all of the new Austen craziness?  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?  Prada and Prejudice?  Colonel Brandon's Diary?  Murder at Longbourne?  I swear to you, these are real titles of real books that real authors have been paid to write.  Here is a list on Amazon of the top FORTY (they could only list 40!  But there are more!) Jane Austen-inspired books on the market.  I can't tell you if they are any good - I have steadfastly refused to read them in honor of Jane.  I've heard some of them are good.  It just feels so...wrong, somehow.  WWJD - What Would Jane Do?

Just when I think the Austen Craziness is simmering down, something like this comes up, which I found on cinematical.com:

Here is the original Fight Club trailer, a movie I loved by the way, for reference:

I think the Jane Austen Fight Club is funny, I do, but then I think "When will it end? Is nothing sacred?" How would Jane feel about it all? What's next?

• "Jane Austen's Wheel of Fortune"
• "Jane Austen Celebrity Rehab"
• "Rock of Love 5:  Passion at Pemberly"
• "Project Runway:  Corset Style"

Are there any other traumatized Austen fans out there?  Am I being unfair to artistic freedom?  Have any of you read any of these recent Austen knock-offs, and tell the truth, are any of them worth the read?  I await your advice, gentle readers.  Until then, in the words of Mr. Darcy:  "My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever."