Sometimes, old is better

Even music. Old songs, old voices. Both or either. There's something moving about listening to Johnny Cash sing "Hurt" (a song originally sung by Trent Reznor). Hearing that age roughened voice makes the words more heartbreaking for me. "Everyone I know goes away, in the end." Watching his hands shaking, seeing his face, aged and seamed with a lifetime's worth of experience gives more depth to his work. This song speaks of pain and regret and (imho) is more believably his than anyone else's.

Willie Nelson has the same effect - his cover of Dave Matthews "Gravedigger" is more poignant, an elderly man requesting his grave be shallow "so I can feel the rain."

One last video - another of my favorites. B.B. King singing "One Kind Favor" from his latest album, although it's listed as "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" on the link. The album is named One Kind Favor also. He's 84 years old and still going strong. And his blues are the blues for me.


Their voices are still beautiful, just different.

More books

Between having my hours at work cut and catching the flu this week, I've had a lot of reading time lately. I read a lot of romance, especially paranormal. Usually very "adult" paranormal, which is what most of this is. A few mysteries thrown in, a bit of fantasy.
The Mane Event (Shelly Laurenston)
The Beast in Him (Shelly Laurenston)
Pack Challenge (Shelly Laurenston)
Go Fetch (Shelly Laurenston)
Here Kitty, Kitty (Shelly Laurenston)
All of those were re-reads and well worth it. Incredibly funny paranormals, pretty high "steam" level.
Also re-read the entire Others series by Christine Warren, all 12 books. Again, paranormal romance. The first 6 books are pretty explicit, the last 6 are a tiny bit tamer. Not much though.
Several anthologies:
Belong to the Night
Night's Edge
Must Love Hellhounds (my copy is missing 30 pages so I haven't finished it yet)
Unbound

A Harvest of Bones (Yasmine Galenorn) - the latest in her mystery series, she's always a sure bet. Cosy mystery, a little romance and a paranormal twist.
Obsidian Prey (Jayne Ann Krentz) - the latest in her futuristic series set on Harmony. Again, a guaranteed good read, if you like a light blend of sci-fi and romance.
Pleasure (Jacqueline Frank) - Book 3 in her Shadowdwellers series. Pretty good but I liked the Nightwalkers series better. This one kinda seemed all over the place, I wasn't sure whose story it would be until several chapters in. ****SPOILER (a tiny one)****
It started off with one couple and then jumped to another. Then back to the first couple, whose issues had all been magically worked out. Apparently, their relationship was just a means of getting the woman worked into the lives of couple 2, so that a last minute life-saving could occur. Kinda disappointing, since couple 1 was interesting enough that I would have loved to read a book just dealing with them.
Sea Glass (Maria Snyder) - an exceptional example of what the right author can do with YA fantasy. This is book 2 in the Glass series, a spin off of her Study trilogy (Poison Study, Magic Study, Fire Study). I absolutely love this woman's writing. Vivid in every way. Not only can I see what she's describing, I can almost hear what the main character is hearing and damn near feel her emotions. Snyder is an incredible writer, able to tell a story from the character's teenage POV without diminishing the emotional weight of the conflict or making the girl seem too mature. Opal (the main character) comes across a fairly mature but still young and rather inexperienced. Despite going through some fairly serious problems in the first book (Storm Glass) and the first half of this book, she's still pretty naive at first. Watching her mature, not always in good ways, is fascinating.
To Crave a Blood Moon (Shari Kohler) - another paranormal romance. Not bad but not great either. This book is a good example of what I don't like about series. I love the continuity, I absolutely love getting more of the story and revisiting favorite characters from earlier books. I hate when it seems that a book was written mostly to set up the next book or two. And that's kinda what this one felt like. The main story was pretty fair but all the extra, dangling little story strings just irritated me.
What a Dragon Should Know (G. A. Aiken) - Aiken is the alter ego of Shelly Laurenston and she's a fine writer no matter which name she's using. This is the latest in her Dragon series and it's well up to the standards of her earlier stories. My favorite part of any Laurenston/Aiken book is the humor. She's just one of the funniest writers I've ever come across. I like the fantasy setting, dragons, magic, barbarian warriors, female assassins and so forth. Best of all, this is one writer who can make me laugh loud enough to scare the dog. Quirky characters (not just the female ones either), snarky remarks, pranks and troublemaking. Just too much fun to put down.
Sugar Daddy (Lisa Kleypas) - This one is not a new release, it's not a paranormal and it's not something I would have picked up normally. I'm glad I went with the impulse to give it a try. Sugar Daddy is a contemporary novel set in Texas. It's not really what I consider "romance" despite the boy-meets-girl parts of the story. The story starts when the female protagonist, Liberty Jones, is 14 and living in a trailer park in Welcome, Texas. She meets Hardy, who she loves with all the enthusiasm a teen aged girl can produce. That's where the book turns away from typical romance. Instead of getting married and living happily ever after, Hardy leaves and Liberty finds out just how hard life can get. Left to raise her younger sister after their mother's death, Liberty gets thrown into the adult world at 18 with no preparation and no safety net. The story becomes more about Liberty learning to take care of herself and her sister than anything else. Since the story is told in first-person, the reader gets a pretty detailed view of Liberty's mental processes. The writing style is fairly conversational, so reading was more like listening to this woman reminiscing over coffee. The story is more about Liberty, her relationship with her mother and sister and growing up than anything else. The title refers to other's assumption about Liberty's friendship with a much older, wealthy man. Most of the people around her think, since she's young, pretty, poor and half Mexican, this guy must be her sugar daddy. Liberty takes a lot of flack from some and never lets it bother her. She knows the truth and seems to feel that she has more important stuff to worry about. This was a thoroughly enjoyable book, one I'm glad to have read. I'll probably read it again and I'll definitely take a look at any other contemporaries Kleypas writes. Her characters and plots are realistic without being abrasive, likeable and everyday types.

So, what have you read lately?

It's been awhile

Two months since I've posted. Not enough time, energy or inspiration. Plenty of happenings, few of them interesting. The interesting ones were mostly not good. Yes, my aunt did pass away. No, my uncle did not. He is still not well, though better, and has been moved to a long-term care facility. Wench's grandmother also passed away. In between, there have been visits from my mother and sister, visits to my grandmother, possible progress in rebuilding relationships with certain family members and probable degeneration in my professional relationships. All other connections seem to be stable, or at least about what I expect. Also, some (hopefully) minor health concerns. (I'm not trying to be vague to solicit sympathy, there's just no use going into detail until I know. I'm not sure this will ever be an appropriate place for details, nor am I certain I'll ever wish to share any details.)

Most of my free time lately has been taken up with old movies and books. I hadn't intended to post the above, all of that just popped out. Now that I've gotten it out of the way I can get back to my original purpose in this post.

Book recommendation:
Touchstone, by Laurie R. King. Mystery, set in England, in 1926. There are numerous reviews available through a Google search and I'm not interested in doing another. Just pick up a copy and read it. It's not light, it's not sweet and it doesn't have a normal happy ending. This book is, however, so good I stayed up to finish, didn't skip a single word and just had to put this post up. Touchstone is a keeper. Now go read something.

Family update

Latest news on that:

Uncle J - the aneurysms are repaired but he isn't doing well. He has very serious heart problems (quadruple bypass, blood pressure is wonky, lungs bad etc etc) and the doctors felt, at the time the aneurysms were diagnosed, that surgery was higher risk. But things got bad enough that surgery became less of a risk. The surgery went well, recovery has not. As of last night the drs. have given him a paralytic and are using a ventilator and a balloon pump to keep his heart and lungs going. They are keeping him like this for a while until they think his heart and lungs have rested enough to function minimally. Also, they are giving him anti-coagulants to increase the chances his heart will be able to pump. (yes, anti-coagulants 48 hours after major surgery is not good, this is considered "last resort measures") As of this morning, there has been no change so he is still not doing well. The best hope they can give us is that at least he's not getting worse.

Aunt Ro - hospice is saying 6-8 weeks. Her husband is saying not even that long. The cancer has spread pretty much everywhere and she is in near constant pain. Aggressive forms of breast cancer are just that, really aggressive. Not much else to say since not much has changed. Just getting worse.

For those who have sent good thoughts and prayers, thank you so very much.

Cuteness

These are 2 of my nephews, sons of my youngest sister.
This is James
And this is Dero
and that second pic is just way too cute. Made my day perk right up so I wanted to share. Now I just gotta figure out how to get out of sending pictures of me.

And this is what I hate...

about Facebook. The people who pop up and want to friend you that you'd really rather not know are still walking the earth. Or at least don't care one way or the other.
I'm trying to decide what to do about a message I received today. One of those hey-are-you-who-I-think-you-are messages. From someone I last spoke to about 12 years ago, someone who decided to take sides in my divorce from the Gimp. Obviously, it wasn't my side. Also, obviously the side taking wasn't done nicely, nor did the friendship end well. But end it did. So, I accepted that decision (not gracefully, no, but what 20-something is graceful in the midst of divorce?) and moved on. I haven't actually thought of this person in about 10 years.
And, now completely out of the clear blue I get a message from this guy. My first reaction is why? What possible reason could he have for looking me up this far down the road? Really, what need is there? I certainly haven't felt the need to reconnect. Why would this man decide to contact a former friend he ditched so long ago? Is it an attempt to resurrect a long buried friendship? If so, I can't imagine that going well. The relationship has been dead over a decade. While it may no longer carry the stench of decay, it's certainly not something I want to see shambling around like a reanimated corpse. And then there's the whole question of is it a squishy zombie with the bulging, pus-dripping eyeballs or a dried up zombie, leathery and raisin-eyed? Neither of those is at all appealing.
So, I'm trying to figure out exactly what my response will be. Obscene rejection, dignified fuck you or no response of any kind. I'm leaning more towards no response, simply because I have the sneaking suspicion this will be a squishy one. One little poke and it will explode, spraying rotten bowels and maggots everywhere. Not really a clean up job I'd volunteer for.

btw - there is no doubt in my mind he knows exactly who i am, i have 2 very unusual last names. so unusual that i am the only person by one of those last names in the entire state. not to mention, i look almost exactly the same as i did then, at least as far as i can judge going by photos. so beyond the why bother of reconnecting, there is the why be coy issue. i despise coy.

what I'm reading

Books I've read over the last week or so:
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt.
The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick.
Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.
Edge of Hunger by Rhiannon Byrd.
Nauti Intentions by Lora Leigh.
You're So Vein by Christine Warren.
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan.
The Immortal Hunter by Lynsay Sands.

I'm trying to decide which book to start next. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Time Enough for Love (Heinlein, not a romance) or The Difference Engine. Hmmm...