Richardderus thread 17 for 2012

Book porn!

coruscate
Pronunciation: /ˈkôrəˌskāt/

Definition: (of light) flash or sparkle

My 2012 NEW books ticker:




Previous reviews:

Book 1...thread two.
Books 2 & 3...thread three.
Book 4...thread four.
Books 5 & 6...thread five.
Books 7-10...thread six.
Books 11-24...thread seven.
Books 25-31...thread eight.
Books 32-34...thread nine.
Books 35 & 36...thread ten.
Books 37-42...thread 11.
Books 43-53...thread 12.
Books 54 & 55...thread 13.
Books 56 & 57...thread 14.
Books 58-60...thread 15.
Books 61-64...thread 16.

My 2012 ORPHANED books ticker:




Books are reviewed in post:

65. Redshirts...#46.

66. Deadlocked...#182.

67. The Lifeboat...#183.

68. The Devil All the Time...#184.

Hi!

ETA: Muahaha, first!

Speed, thy name is Crypto! *smooch*

Hi Richard *smooch*

Still love that first image:)

#3! *smooches*

Love how you've carried your best book porn over to this thread!

'allo...thought I'd stop by to scribble on your wall (oops, wrong site!!)


glitter-graphics.com

That's it, I've done decided. I want to be a book pornographer. How do I break the news to my mom?

9 > I bet she already knows. Mom's are sneaky smart like that.

>6 calm: Hi calm! *smooch* back

>7 ronincats: Oh hi Roni! It gives the place a tone, don't it? *smooch*

>8 jdthloue: I love the wall decor, Jude!

>9 Ape: She changed your didies, she knows all there is to know about you.

>10 ty1997: Like Tom said.

Hello, hello, while I can get a word in edgewise!

*hugs*

Oh I love that first library that looks like the hull of a ship.

*drooooool ....I confess to lusting after your book porn.

too hot to think or do anything today.

>12 tloeffler: Hiya TLo!

>13 tiffin: It does me too, Tui, and I think that's part of why I think it's so fabulous.

Hi RD- Love the new thread and all the book porn! I especially like that middle photo! Looks perfectly comfy, with a great view. Hope things are working out with your pain levels. Fingers crossed.

A very interesting recap of the Firefly panel discussion at Comicon 2012 is here.

But the important bit, about the Science Channel's reunion special, is:

"The special — titled Browncoats Unite — will include footage from Friday’s reunion panel, featuring several members of the original team including star Nathan Fillion and creator Joss Whedon. Plus, the cast is shooting an in-depth behind-the-scenes roundtable interview that will dive deeper into burning fan questions about the beloved series. Both the panel and the roundtable will be moderated by Entertainment Weekly‘s own Jeff Jensen."

Z. O. M. F. G.

I might *expire* from the waiting!!

>17 msf59: Thank you, Mark! *smooch*

hello hello hello! :)
Love the book porn!

I was waiting for you to start a new thread before I popped in to say HI!

Book porn is awesome. That second picture with the floor to ceiling bookshelves is my dream. When I am rich, that is what I will do. The only thing that is missing is the ladder otherwise how else are you going to reach that top shelf??

Hi RD,
Nice new header you got there. Draws the punters in, and we stay for the witty repartee- (if thats the spelling of it though Ill eat my hat)
Just eaten a whole pizza (olives and mushrooms) and washed it down with a glass of red. Sometimes I love my life :)

Nice photos! Hope all is well. I know that your weekends are busy..
Big week coming up!

Morning, Richard! Love the book porn, and all of the political talk on your last thread. This is a lovely lovely place to be on LT. *smooch*

>20 ChelleBearss: Hi Chelle!

>21 jolerie: Yoo hoo, Valerie!

>22 LovingLit: You didn't share your olive and mushroom pizza, so you don't get called by name.

>23 mckait: Hello sweetness, no better today but no worse either. Thursday can't come fast enough.

xo

Mmm... olive and mushroom pizza. With extra cheese? Perhaps a couple of anchovies on the side?

De-lurking to drool on Richard's new thread...

Though saying that, olives are evil.

>26 cameling: On the side, then. But fields of cheese-laden, green and black olive-strewn, portobello mushroom-laden crust with fresh crushed garlic and a thin crispy crust...*drool*

>27 BekkaJo: Olives are proof there is a gawd and she loves us and wishes us to experience joy. Silly Bekka.

I'm pretty certain 'proof there is a gawd' and 'evil' fall under the same category, Richard. :)

HA! Well played, young sir.

Loving the book porn ......

>26 cameling:/28 yes, you can have anchovies on the side but not on, or you can just have what RD said as that sounds scrumptio-licious.

Olives make my mouth water, in fact, i might just have to go pop a few now!

Green olives are yummy. Black ones...*shudder*.

Personally, I'm ok with olives, either way; but I can't stand the ones in brine. Eugh!

*smooch* to you and the new thread!

Kalamata olives are the Mediterranean's gift to the world. Ackshully, make that Mediterranean food, period.

olives stuffed with blue cheese are the perfect dry martini garnish.

I can't come up with an olive I don't like. Brined, stuffed, spiced, black, green, chopped, pitted, whole, made into oil...do not care, like 'em all. It's the reason I love muffaletta sandwiches so much, the olive salad on the tasty meats slathered in olive oil and layered with cheese.

*dripdrool*

>31 roundballnz: Yeah, me too, Alex!

>35 curlysue: *smooch* back, Kara!

Hear, hear!

*Raises bottle of Yoohoo in agreement*

Hey, RD! Love "being between those pages". It's our comfort zone. Hope you enjoying your Sunday and the pain levels are minimal.

Hey, Rdearie, I am so sorry to see that you're not at your best. Should you ever have the opportunity, do try to pick up an old copy of a book called From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf. It's one of the funniest compendiums of student-generated malapropisms, arranged in a semblance of a history of British Lit. I laughed and laughed and laughed. A small sample:

"...Ann Gothica Radcliffe (the bride of Frankenstein). Mrs. Radcliffe was born in the Castle of Otranto on Lake Eerie. After reading Sir Horace Walpole's Castle of Othello she introduced the adventures of Shylock Holmes into The Mistress of Udolpho."

One wonders what other delights one has missed by not teaching freshman lit.

Hey RD, Here's a link to that poster that was so cool. Turns out we can ALL buy it if we want to, if we have the dosh.
They have Britain ones too :)

Review: 65 of seventy-five

Title: REDSHIRTS

Author: JOHN SCALZI

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
“Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship "Intrepid," flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better...until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship's captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues' understanding of what the starship "Intrepid "really is...and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.”

My Review: Yeah, well, you know what? John Scalzi wrote a doozy here. Starship Intrepid and its crew are a steal from classic Trek, and the steal is a new basic cable show (is anyone at Paramount listening?) and one of my main complaints about reality is addressed: Why is it that the really good ones aren't real? Why, to take a recent example of my gritching, can't I apply for a visa and go to Islandia? (They wouldn't let me in, and if they did I'd kick up such a fuss about not wanting to leave that they'd let me stay, and that could get...interesting.)

If the Universe is truly infinite, not just reallyreallyreally big, all of fiction is fact somewhere and somewhen. It can't not be. In Infinity, do the same laws of physics apply everywhere? Perhaps not. Infinity is mind-boggling even to grasp at the edges of, and there is no way my monkey brain with its paltry senses and trivial education can know any more than the merest shadow of what it means.

So somewhere the Enterprise and the Intrepid cruise among the stars and James T. Kirk and Spock do the nasty and Serenity smuggles cattle from moon to moon...and I get a visa for Islandia.

Think about the implications of that for your own life briefly: He *does change. She *doesn't leave. You *do have that baby, adopt that child, build that family—the one you work on in your daydreams.

Mindfuck.

Glorious. Or maybe not. Maybe this is the life where your loved one dies. Why you? Why do you get the shit end of the stick? Or pause for a moment and think loving thoughts to the you that had that accident, took that fall, bore that loss.

Look, not one of us gets out of here alive. What we have, while we're here, are choices and opportunities. And no choice, no opportunity, comes without a cost. Someyou, somewhere, pays, and this book's scorpion sting is “now you know, so what ya gonna do?”

Dunno what I myownself will do, but now, thanks to a funny, engaging, and still very serious novel, I won't do it unknowingly, blindly, without considering the resonances. And yet, for all the longface puritanism that sounds like I'm feeling, it's less hair shirt than rib-tickler that got me here.

John Scalzi! Yo! Good one, little dude.

Or you can believe in karma, wherein you pay in a past / future life - without messing with time-lines, the universe, or my mind (which can be a fragile thing when I try to expand it too much).

*throws herself at Richard for a huge hug* I STILL LOVE YOU DARLING, I'M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON! Maybe you could bookmark the blog, you can't shut me up over there... :)

Seriously though, I've just found it impossible to keep up on LT this year. Everyone's moving so fast, and real life gets in the way, and people in the shop are STUPID, and there are so many social networks to keep up with, and... and... *keels over and gasps for brandy* Did I mention that I still love you? ♥

*blankly* Goodness! Such a display from A COMPLETE STRANGER TO THESE PARTS!

Madam, do stop your unseemly grasping at my brandy bottle! I might wish to review more Plato, and I shall need it. Now, I...

...

...Miss Eleanor Potten? Can it be Miss Eleanor Potten, alive and restored to us?

Loosen my stays! Bring the sal volatile! Where is that fainting couch, I am *woozy* with delight!

*smooch*

>44 msf59: Hi Mark, thanks for the kind wishes!

>45 Matke: That's a riot, Gail, but the idea of reading a whole book of it makes me want to weep...all those little ignoramuses out there voting for MY president...*sob*

>46 LovingLit: It's not cheap, is it Megan? I love that I can have one, no matter what!

>48 humouress: They're not mutually exclusive....

Oh me oh my once again so far behind.. LOL.. I must quit taking vacations where I am away so long. ~~~waves~~~ I saw in your previous Thread you took a day for "True Blood" good for you.. I love True Blood myself and have them in my Netflix Que to be watched in the very near future. :) {Hugs}

Chuckles galore today, and not the Dickens kind, RD. Glad to see you reunited with Miss Eleanor, and what a lively, digressive (?) review of the John Scalzi book. Thumb and tbr from me.

>53 MonicaLynn: No worries, Monica, it's just the usual a-happnin' round here. People wander in and out, chitting the chat and looking at stuff.

>54 jnwelch: I think you'll like the Scalzi, Joe, you're the right generational cohort to think the idea is hilarious and the right age to see the arguments under the raillery as interesting.

yup, that would be me... stopping by, taking off, coming over again, chitting some chat, sometimes just lurking the lurk

"Lurking the lurk"

ROFL
LMAO

Oh Karen44, that is *priceless*!

*bows, and hurries off stage left*

I have found the wedding cake I want to have in case I ever locate a victim to share it with:

I am in love with this woman:

I don't know, that last one is kind of making me want to go hang out in a church...

>60 richardderus: I love her open mouthed laughing, the best kind of laughs are the ones you really throw yourself in to!

>61 Ape: Serious Ew.

>62 LovingLit: I KNOW! It's why I love her!

One of my friends recently had a birthday cake made from her son's favorite story book Midnight Moon. It was absolutely gorgeous and the bakery painted the cover onto the fondant covering the cake, and then made little sugar pieces of the characters and placed them around the cake.

When I turned 21, my friends had a Wicked Willie cake for me with him dressed as a postman. I should try and look for those photos when I'm next at my mom's house. For those of you unfamiliar with Wicked Willie, he was a British comic book character of a man's best friend who could talk and was wonderfully sarcastically funny.

63: I think we discovered how to get young men into church. I don't trust this arcane knowledge in the hands of humans.

>64 cameling: *snerk* That's pretty durned funny, that is.

>65 Ape: Why would one *want* to get young men into church? The parking lot's a lot easier.

RichardDear!! Just dropping by for a quick hello.

*smooches from Horrible*

*smooch* back to hastening onward Horrible

I'm sure there are plenty of malevolent reasons to get young men in church. I think they call it boy scouts.

RD- Great review of Redshirts. Funny, I heard that book praised on 2 different podcasts lately. You are cutting edge, my friend. Was this your 1st Scalzi? He seems to be pretty prolific and well liked.
I had to scan that wedding cake to make sure there wasn't any Dickens in there!

It has a name! My disorder has a name!

>71 richardderus: I was going to say "If book buying is a disease, then I am terminal"

;-}

I do not have a disorder.

>69 Ape: Boy Scouts go to church? I never knew this. I'd've gone more often.

>70 msf59: Read it read it read it!!

>72 jdthloue: Me too...

>73 humouress: Unless we're calling "denial" a disorder, that is.

Don't they? I was in 'cub scouts' in elementary school and we met in a church. *Shrug*

Oh well, *meeting* in a church is a little different. If there ain't a service goin' on, what's the point of having sex in a church?

#59 Amazing cake! Must go try and make something similar... maybe just three layers... hmmm... maybe if I used marzipan... hmmm....I have square cake tins that should work...

*wanders off aimlessly to make a lot of cake*

My name is Berly. And I am a compulsive book buyer. I have kept my wallet shut for 15 hours. (But it was just a gift for a friend!)

If it's a disease, then I am not ashamed to admit that I suffer from it and I suffer it well. :)

hearing lots good stuff about Redshirts gonna have to get a copy.

Perfect book to read while watching "Galaxy Quest"

"Never Give up! Never Surrender!"

I'd say a whole bunch of us here on LT are terminal cases of the CBBD! Now that it's an acronym, the pharmaceuticals will be rushing in to develop a drug to prevent this disorder developing in young children.

Did you mean a drug that helps children develop this disease?

I would totally support a drug that *gave* the disorder to kids. AND adults!

Bekka, the only appropriate use of marzipan is baiting ant traps. Remember this.

Jim, heh, I'd love to do that double header!

We can contact all those ex-Soviet scientists and use their bioweapon expertise to deliver this drug on a global scale. Sounds much more productive than smallpox...

1) I love that woman.
2) I love that cake.
3) Hi Stephen! *waves*
4) I WAS NOT GRABBING FOR YOUR "BRANDY BOTTLE", YOU NAUGHTY MAN. :P
5) I too have compulsive book buying disorder. Which is why 'popping out to submit a passport application' on Monday turned into 'Oh dear me, good heavens, how did these eight books get in here?'
6) Did I mention I love you? :)

Richard

Do I remember correctly that you have a doctor appointment tomorrow?

For some reason this sticks in my brain.

How are you feeling these days?

Uh oh! Ellie is reading, now I have to behave myself...

Stephen.."behave" yourself? Oh, no, there will be a wicked lightening storm in Ohio when that happens.

A friend of mine gave me a pin that says "I cannot be trusted in a bookstore with a credit card."

Says it all.

Linda: Ha! Well, considering the drought we are suffering I suppose it would do us a little good to have a lightning storm. Who knew I was causing so much grief just for being a little naughty from time to time...

>84 Ape: Dunno...smallpox might take out some stupid people...

>85 elliepotten: TWICE?!? *faints* Ellie...she...I can't believe...she was here TWICE!! In one year!!!

*Snoopy dance*

>86 Whisper1: Tomorrow afternoon is an all-doc time. Crossing my crossables for good news not long after that.

>87 Ape:, 88, 90 Behaving isn't one of Stephen's more notable qualities, Linda...and lightning would simply burn Ohio up.

Hmmm

>89 tloeffler: Oh my oh yes it is sooooo truuuue!

HI!

Hope your doc appointment goes well!

>92 cyderry: Hiya C!

>93 jolerie: Thanks, Valerie, I really hope it does too.

So. HOT!

xo

You got your (fourth? fifth?) powercord!! Yay!

Someone should tell him to pull his pants up.

xo

Today would have been my dearly beloved dead love's 55th birthday. Twenty years gone. I miss him very much.

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire”
― Emily Brontë

Much love to you; I hope you are able to spend the afternoon with some happy memories.

*Hugs* May you be reminded of all the good times, the times of laughter, and all the joys you were able to share with one another.

>96 richardderus: I can vouch for that

((hugs))

Ah, he is still with you.. watching out for you ....
Small comfort, I know.

My sympathy, RD.

Sending hugs your way, Richard. Twenty years and still you miss him. Of course you do.
xoxo

Your thread is a visual treat (on a lighter note).

The really important loves in our lives never fade away. Those people are always with us! And your current friends send much love your way, always, too!

Sending you hugs dear! Hope your wonderful memories helped you through today

Good luck tomorrow!

Hi Zesty! Sorry you still miss him. Glad you had someone special enough to still miss. In the meantime, go back and look at #99 again. Eye candy is important. It keeps us in the here and now. And I like his pants right where they are! Hugs.

Sprinkles positive energy dust all over rd

Good luck today Richard. Smooches.

Hi there all my dearies. It was tough yesterday. Jeremy, aka sweetienubbins, heard something in my voice when we talked and arrived unannounced bearing ice cream and shoulder rubbing willingness. What an extraordinary young man. **I** wasn't that nice when I was 20!

I spent all day today at the docs. I'm home, I'm in some nasty pain from their exams, but it's done and all I can do now is wait. That's a lot easier knowing their system's requirements are taken care of.

I'm going off to nap now, and see if I can't get some of this ache and owch to subside. xoxoxoxo

Nap away, and go the shoulder rubs/ice cream.
May you awake refreshed and ready for action. If not, there's always chocolate.

115: What a lovely man. Hope the nap helps with the owchies and achies! *smooch*

You got to a DOCTOR! That is fabulosity.... First step along the path...

So thoughtful and sensitive! Hope your nap does a body good. :)

Rdear - Sorry to hear you ache after the tests, but I'm glad to hear things are progressing with getting you proper healthcare .... and hopefully soon.

Hope you feel less achy after the nap.

Shhhh! Closes the door so Richard can sleep.

{{Hugs!}}

Awake again! For Crypto, Laura, Berly, Kath, Jim, Chelle, TLo, Suz, Linda, Caro, Valerie, Karen44, Ellen, Joe, and Megan...smooches and scroodles of love for stopping in and wishing me well!

I'm quite impressed with young sweetienubbins. It was dear and sweet for him to hear something that worried him in my tone of voice, and to make an effort to cheer me up yesterday. He gets big points for coming here this evening and making my dinner, massaging the painful hip, icing the painful knee, and telling me amusing vacation stories so I didn't have to do more than laugh or smile or say "left a little" or "I hate ice packs."

I didn't expect him to be this sensitive or kindly. He'll be a terrific PT one day soon.

Hang on to him then (maybe not literally, you dont want a law suit on your hands)- the good ones are hard to come by. The good ones are the ones who care, arent they? Good on him.
(ps Sweetienubbins- lol, does he know this is his nickname?)

Sounds you have a keeper there - take care of yourself - sweetie nubbins indeed .....

So pleased that your sweetienubbins is so good to you. Hope that the pain recedes soon and that the doctor's report will get you the help that you need.

{{{Hugs}}} and *smooches* and wishing you a better day.

Oh, I'm so relieved someone is there to spoil you a bit. Hooray for getting to a doctor and starting some of these wheels. Hopefully it'll all be worth it!

*smooch* RichardDear. Glad you've seen the doctos and gotten the process started.

So glad you've got sweetienubbins. Give him a smooch from me.

Hope you're feeling better today, Richard! Glad to hear you had some relief... big virtual hugs to you! :D

Great news about seeing the doctors, despite the long day and the painful tests. I hope that it will prove to have been worth it for you.

So good to hear you have someone taking good care of you! Everyone should have someone who cares enough to provide ice cream and cold packs!
Hope you are feeling better today and may your ouchies go away!

>124 LovingLit: I was considering leg irons after the massage, but he needs to finish his degree.

I don't call him by his nickname because he's so very dramatically younger than I am. Nicknames from older to younger person are power plays, "look I'm so much older and more potent than you are I can rename you!" where between more equal parties they're more marks of possession which I think is perfectly okay. He's taken to calling me "Big Daddy" though, so this could need revisiting soon.

>125 roundballnz: Hi Alex! Taking care of myself is the watchword. Thanks for stopping in!

>126 calm: Thanks, calm, I sure hope so too.

>127 London_StJ: From you mouth to the goddess's ears, Crypto.

>128 karenmarie: I'll make it a chaste one, which should have the side benefit of confusing him mightily. *smooch* for dear Horrible

>129 dk_phoenix: Hi Faith! Thank you most kindly!

>130 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl! Thanks for stopping in to wish me well!

>131 ChelleBearss: I never thought I'd say this, but I'm getting tired of ice cream. He's a love to remember that I love it...but enough already...I fear obesity is not far away! I suggested we give that one a little rest while I slim down a bit. His comment was priceless: "What for?"

Keeper.

Nice Stephen King quote.

Glad to hear you're getting sympathetic treatment from the young 'un and feeling better, Richard! With all the lousy things that happen in the world, it's heartening the way friends and acquaintances so often rally around when life hits a bump.

>134 jnwelch: I like that one a lot! Book Porn over on Facebook is a real treasure.

Sweetienubbins is a great guy. I'm learning more and more to appreciate him.

Hi Richard.
Just joining the chorus of voices appreciating your lovely young assistant :-) and hoping the pain continues to subside.

Great quote in 133, too.

Oh dear... so many posts... Good that you have someone in your life to appreciate, because he appreciates you.

>136 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen!

>137 mckait: For however long it lasts, I am a grateful old geezer. *smooch* for dear Kath

Does your lovely young assistant make house calls, I could use him after my procedure yesterday. But I'll survive.

Hope you are feeling better. xxoxx

>139 cyderry: I'm certainly cheerier, Cheli, and his house calls are limited to MEMEME!! Besides the fact that you live several states away.

Recuperate well, dearie, and NO RELAPSES.

Sick of ice cream: What the?
What is the world coming to?
Take an hour off, and try again ;)

>141 LovingLit: I already did. It worked!

Montana 1948 quite probably saved my sanity.

Cool, if weird, reading doomaflotchie.

I'm still waiting for the book to save my sanity, I think. . . . .

I don't like mixing books and water, so the doomaflotchie makes me nervous. I'm pretty sure I can think of other things that would be fun to do in there though.

Hi RD- You know I love your book posters. I especially like the King quote. I wonder how easy it is, getting in and out of that doomaflotchie?

Breezing through.....no way am I going to read 126 posts but I did browse a bit. Sprinkles of happy thoughts about love's memories...and hugs to let you know we all still adore you.

>146 Ape: Don't wait too long...the situation is becoming dire...

>147 msf59: I have no earthly idea how the doomaflotchie works, but it sure looks cool! Kind of like a Baltimore oriole's nest. Like Stephen, the wateriness makes me feel a twinge of anxiety...what if the rope broke and my books went into the drink with me?!

>148 tututhefirst: *smooch* for dear Tina

Stopping by to leave some love for you.

I would love an hour or two of silence to read the most engrossing book I could find. Heaven.

Do you find that a book must meet its reader at any one of several, or perhaps the only, appropriate moment: that moment where interest meets content? Or do you think it can be sometimes forced?

*smooch* for dear Gail

I don't think reading pleasure can ever be found if it's forced, but I make a distinction between forcing myself to read something and struggling to get into something.

I had to force myself to read *shudder* Hemingway. I struggled *mightily* to get into Faulkner, and ended up glad I made the effort. I felt something, some tickle or twinge or ping, as I was battling through the Faulknerian syntactical thicket. Hemingway made me long for a swift and merciful death as a release from penal servitude to his Manly Manly My Pits Stink And My Foreskin Sweats prose. U. G. H.

Re #151: I do love your way with words! LOL Smooches

#145 I so want one of these - though I share Mark's curiosity about how the heck you're supposed to get in and out...

#151 LOL!

just stopping by to make sure you are still curmudgeonly and rd-ish...xo

*lurking on through... making me smile, this fine morning*

>152 Berly: Awww shuckins Miss Kimmers, I just think funny is all.

>153 BekkaJo: I wish there was a demonstration video somewhere, I'd like to know myownself.

>154 mckait: It took a long time to learn to be me, and I don't have time to learn to be someone else. *smooch*

>155 maggie1944: Hi Karen44! Come smile any time!

>145 richardderus: I want one of these so-called reading doomaflotchies. Does it come with mosquito repellent? I should think so, as the risk would be high.
*off to dig me a lake and plant a fast growing tree*

>157 LovingLit: I'd hang some insect death from the top of the stem-lookin' dealie, on the inside, to keep the monsters at bay.

It just looks so *cozy* doesn't it?

My life, explained.

>159 richardderus:

Ouch...i figured that one out when i was a kid!

;-}

Still learning....

Hemingway was like listening to typing for me. Staccato word pecks on my brain. Faulkner is still tbr. I'm gearing up for him though.

I could never get into Hemingway...too much testosterone! Faulkner i first read in 6th grade..Absalom Absalom was way over my head, contextually...but the words themselves, were a revelation...I am still awestruck...

It's not TOO difficult to please everyone.

Just make pancakes.

>160 jdthloue: Wise blood.

>161 Berly: *smooch*

>162 tiffin:, 163 Hemingway is just *a*go*ny* to read, but like Jude says, Faulkner be da man for beautiful wordage.

>164 Ape: Just give me an hour alone with a beautiful sub boy. But not everyone is as easy to please as we are.

Yeup. Only bother me if you want sex.

Some books better than all people, all books better than some people.

You post the truth, richardderus!

"I'm just going to read a few pages of my book." That is truth when it comes from my hubby. He literally will read only a few pages. I pity the guy. :)

>168 maggie1944: Amen, Sister Karen44!

>169 jolerie: ...really...?

How does he *do* that?

I don't know...
He says...I'm amazed you can read that many books in one year!
I respond with...I'm amazed you can read so little in one year!
Obviously there are other things that make this marriage work. ;) He tolerates my book buying, what more can I ask for? :)

TBH, not a lot.

>166 richardderus:

And, if it's a really good book, you might not get sex with me....and have to go solo.....pity, that

142 > That says Sunday or Monday if its a long weekend .....

166/167 - Love

99> Richard, I can't believe you posted a picture of me in your thread. How sweet!

Dan is the same. A few pages and he is done. weird that.
Yet, an improvement. For the first 38-39 years he ddnn't read any books.
Now he tortures himself with books about how our government is screwing us and killing us.
I read to escape those things..

((Hugs)) and xx smooches xx

RD- I LOVE #166! I think we should have T-shirts made. Hope you are having a good weekend.

>173 jdthloue: So true, Jude, for me too.

>174 roundballnz: Hi, Alex! They're good ones, I agree.

>175 ty1997: Jensen! You're back! I forgive you everything. Why are you pretending to be Tom, though?

>176 mckait: Take our benefits where we find 'em, eh what? I might be tempted to read only a few pages at a time if that was my only reading matter.

>177 alcottacre: Hey Student Lady! Glad to see you! *smooch* for dear Stasia

>178 msf59: That would be a good T to have, I agree Mark. Enjoy your day off!

>180 richardderus: Love it!

Review: 66 of seventy-five

Title: DEADLOCKED

Author: CHARLAINE HARRIS

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
“With Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), in town, it’s the worst possible time for a body to show up in Eric Northman’s front yard—especially the body of a woman whose blood he just drank.

Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.”

My Review: Entry #12 in the seemingly eternal Sookie Stackhouse novel series. Why bother reviewing entry #12, you ask, with perfect justice, when after 12 books you're either on the bus or not interested in going where the bus is going.

Recently I reviewed book 13 in the Meg Langslow mystery series, to say auf wiedersehen to that giggle-loaded fun fest of a series. That book left me feeling that Donna Andrews was decorating the narrative with little bits and bobs from the past entries, and had in fact lost interest in doing anything new with it.

Charlaine Harris hasn't lost interest in Sookie, at least not visibly. Sookie and Eric and Bill and Pam and Sam...everyone's here and accounted for, and each one still has stuff to do that makes the book move forward. Likewise Sookie's fairy family. Sookie's life changes, not to say that Langslow's doesn't, but Sookie's life-changes come out of a story being told that has its arc. I didn't feel that in the other case.

And this isn't to say that I've loved every Sookie book. No indeed! A few have been middle books, in that they gave the whole arc a push forward but in and of themselves weren't that satisfying. But it's crucial to note that, each and every time I've read a Sookie book, I've felt Harris's authorial presence making something happen. And after 12 books, she's still in it, still working out the ideas and making them happen in prose that's got a voice, that's made an effort to please my aesthetic sense and still make me laugh. Harris is still out to seduce me.

It worked.

Review: 67 of seventy-five

Title: THE LIFEBOAT

Author: CHARLOTTE ROGAN

Rating: 3.875* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
“Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.”

My Review: This is Charlotte Rogan's first novel. I do not expect it will, excepting only her own lack of interest in pursuing a writing career, be her last. It has the voice and the control of a fourth or fifth novel, one long chewed over and considered and drafted, which then is utterly transformed by some magical alchemy of fresh insight.

Rogan's forty-person lifeboat is almost entirely filled when it hits the cold, cold North Atlantic in 1914. Hardie, a seaman of the doomed luxury liner the Empress Alexandra (named for the equally doomed Russian Czarina who was herself to founder in a few short years), has hustled himself and our narrator Grace Winter, aboard at the last possible instant, as the lifeboat was about to hit the sea. The narrator, we know from page one, is creating the story we're reading for her lawyers, those defending her from a murder charge leveled against her for, in the course of a mutiny against the morally suspect Hardie, killing him by pitching him overboard.

What is it about this story, then, with its not-new outlines, that merits the busy, overbooked reader's attention? Grace. She is an unreliable narrator, she is even aware of her unreliable perceptions, and yet she is, in this tale, weaving a myth as subtle as any out of the Greek sacred tradition.

Grace doesn't ponder or study on anything. Grace floats above the sea, whether the literal North Atlantic or the metaphorical subconscious, in a dangerously unreliable craft, loaded with people who don't seem real to her, don't seem like actual flesh and blood, don't exist in full four-dimensional spacetime for her.

Grace is in shock. Probably. Grace is manipulative and selfish. Probably. Grace is a sociopath. Quite possibly. But Grace, above all things, is a survivor. By the end of the book, she's not only been acquitted of the crime she actually committed, but has found another husband, although she ruminates detachedly that she doesn't seem to feel anything strong for him, either, like she didn't for her first husband. So what is Grace, in the end? Victim or victor?

The cast of characters includes some stock people...the bluff and hearty military man, the iron-willed older matron, the brainless helpless girlie-girl...but also has some really interesting people, too. Grace herself, thank goodness; also the Anglican priest, a useless and vapid nithing who is there, it seems, to make Rogan's point that god will not be the help and succor of the lifeboaties, still less their savior. The able seaman, the tough decision-maker Hardie, is deliciously nasty, admirably strong, and likely as not guilty of taking the bribe Grace's husband offered him to save her (and himself, which one senses he would've done no matter what) as the lifeboat cast accuses him of. He's up against it from the beginning with the passengers, because he beats away survivors trying to get into their already over capacity boat. Everyone assumes that, like the Titanic a mere two years before, the survivors of the Empress Alexandra will be rescued within hours, therefore having a few extra people on board will be okay. Hardie, no one's fool, refuses on behalf of all of them, to play dice with god. He is proven right as the days stretch on...but the initial brutality is what stays in the passengers's minds. Thus his doom is sealed.

The setting, and the harshness of the crisis the characters face, and the inevitable results of being trapped in an unforgiving situation, all work together to make the book gripping. It's tense and it's exciting, and there is a cracking good helping of sea-specific action. And it's this point that allows Rogan the full scope of her talent. She gives Grace the gift of a poet's eye in a thriller-writer's head. There is, as there statutorily must be in sea-rescue takes, a storm. Grace thinks, as the storm approaches, that the water

was bluish-black and rolled past us like an unending herd of whales. The lifeboat alternately rose high on their broad backs and slid down into the deep depressions between them. Above, clouds hurtled through the sky before the wind.... I shivered, and for the first time since the day of the shipwreck, I felt profoundly afraid. We were doomed.

There now. If that doesn't make you want to invest five or six hours of your reading life in the book, then nothing I can say will change your mind.

Review: 68 of seventy-five

Title: THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME

Author: DONALD RAY POLLOCK

Rating: 4.9* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
“Take a man from Ohio who's worked blue collar, send him for an M.F.A., and set him loose. From the acclaimed author ofKnockemstiff—called “powerful, remarkable, exceptional” by the Los Angeles Times—comes a dark and riveting vision of America that delivers literary excitement in the highest degree.

In The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock has written a novel that marries the twisted intensity of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers with the religious and Gothic over­tones of Flannery O’Connor at her most haunting.

Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

Donald Ray Pollock braids his plotlines into a taut narrative that will leave readers astonished and deeply moved. With his first novel, he proves himself a master storyteller in the grittiest and most uncompromising American grain.”

My Review: This is Donald Ray Pollock's first novel. After being mauled and kicked by Knockemstiff, his short-story collection, I was chomping at the bit for this book to come in to my village library. Today was my first wholly peaceful day, and what better thing to do with a peaceful day than to read about the broken and forgotten members of Murrikin society?

So I got on the Greyhound for Knockemstiff, garlic around my neck and an illegal assault rifle perched in the seat beside me, scared stiff that one of these Hill Williams was gonna start some shit with the fancy New Yorker getting' off the bus.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what happened.

Look...read Knockemstiff and, if you feel the need to bleach your eyeballs and you want to scream, cry, and unswallow on average once a page, this isn't the book for you. It's not that worse things happen in it, although some do happen that made me scream, cry, and unswallow, it's that this novel is unremittingly grim and a lot less easy to stop reading than a story collection is.

I started this book around 4pm. It's now 3am. I paused long enough to eat some cucumber and tomato salad and a wedge of watermelon around 10pm, and I think I piddled around midnight...but that was with the book propped open on the tank top. I'll mop the floor tomorrow...errrmmm, later today.

Pollock is the kind of writer Hemingway wanted to be. Simple, elegantly shod, carefully manicured sentences whip out their truncheons and, never mind the flying blood, wail on the innocent reader's brain-box. Dazed, in pounding agony from the grinding of severely fractured bone plates in the readerly skull, eyes absorb and record and flinch away from the matter-of-fact violence. It's not played for gore or shock. Pollock just...writes it the way it was in his head.

Mother of all the gods. That sentence scares me shitless.

The stories that make up the braids of the novel are, in themselves, good novellas. Put together, though, the effect is overkill. Oh dear. Bad choice of words. It's one bridge too far into horrorville. The last thirty or so pages, while well written, just didn't keep up the pace of revelation. In every other part of the book, there was a blood clot coming loose and causing fresh damage as the characters got closer to the inevitable ending...so I kept moving...and then, well, some of that sense of howcanhetopthis zomg he did it got lost.

And now I will be turning on the Snarkinator. Those whose tastes are for tomes lit'ry which ahhhr evah sew reefahayned, please seek the exits.

Pollock got an MFA. I find MFA writers are all much of a muchness to me. A bit like opening a box of dried dates hoping for something other than a sugar coma, permaybehaps a peppermint or a Red Hot secreted in amongst the sticky soft sweetness. I have my list of offenders, but I've puked on them elsewhere, so I'll leave it at Paul Auster Jeffrey Eugenides Jonathan Franzen Dave Eggers Jonathan Safran Foer et alii, none of whose books I can tell apart from the authors's various ouevres without a look at the spine or title page. Yes yes, nice sentence, lovely image, I'm sorry was something supposed to move me here, to reach across the gap between our brains and change me? Cause it sure as pork rinds didn't. And it never does, all the mooin' and carryin'-on y'all groupies do aside.

And the last, well, last six or so chapters of this novel? They're the first time I felt Pollock's MFA intrude into his writing. He's still got more potency in his keyboarding fingers than those boys. I knock off a whoppin' tenth of a star from perfect because of that. It's a little like complaining that the blowjob didn't last long enough (I don't have any idea what the equivalent is for women, sorry ladies but I am just not anxious to know either). Describe the worst sex you ever had: It was marvelous, as the old joke goes.

And, not a small consideration, is it me, or is it he? I could simply be grumping about this because the way things turn out isn't the way I want them to. But hang on! The ending, you'll recall I said above, is inevitable. And it is. The only ending this book could have. I liked it!

So maybe, just maybe, it's that bloody degree reefahayneeng the gasoline-and-pigshit essence of this wonderful book. I sure as all get-out hate that idea. I suspect it's true. But, and this is KEY, do NOT let this discourage you from visiting the bottom of the heap with Pollock. This is the real deal.

The real deal.

4.9 huh... interesting..

I hope you're sleeping.

#166 - perfect. I'm not sure my husband understands "Reade-rish" yet. He interrupts me constantly.

Have a super super day.

>185 mckait: G'mornin

Just woke up to a nice surprise: Coffee on the nightstand and no station run to do!

Do NOT read Pollock. You'd find some passages too hard not to hate. *smooch*

>186 karenmarie: Heh! After all these years?! Willful ignorance, I call THAT.

*smooch* for my own dear Horrible

Good way to start the day.. hope it continues in the same manner..

Stop it Richard.. Now you've convinced me that I must give Sookie a try....I'm addicted to a couple of Harris' other series, so onto Mt TOOBIE it goes.

BUt why stop there? your #68 and 69 just hopped up onto the pile too. SIGH............

>188 mckait: I hope so, too!

>189 tututhefirst: *evil Muttley laugh* Oh there there, poor Tina whose reviews are near occasions of sin for so many...bad bad me!

I own both of Donald Ray Pollock's books.....and doubt that i could ever review them objectively...I live smack dab in the middle of his geographical territory...and his benighted souls are the one's who have saved my life, since my Dad died.....and you don't go all objective on your neighbors...at least not here

As for MFA writers...we all gotta start somewhere...

Hope you're feeling better, sweetie.....**smooch**

Thanks luvvie!

A great reminder for us all:

And some book porn via the Doctor:

>193 richardderus: I want! I want! Gimme!

♥♥♥

>184 richardderus: I think I piddled around midnight...but that was with the book propped open on the tank top
haha, and ew. No, mainly haha.

>192 richardderus: yes, we could all say that to some people in our lives. Hmmm, I wonder how much good it would do to our relationships though.

Love your review of The Devil All the Time ... thumbed and added to the obese wish list.

And if there's a spare after Judith grabs that Dr Who bookcase, I want one too!

The HRC has rated businesses based on workplace equality so that those of us who are so inclined can support the inclusive businesses and eschew the others. The full PDF report is here. Richard, you may be surprised to learn that Target scored very well.

If you get tired of Sweetienubbins I'll definitely take him. He sounds very handy.

interesting here. always.

RD- Good review of the Lifeboat. I only gave it the mini-review treatment. You gave it the one it deserved and I hope you snag some readers.
Great freakin' review of The Devil All the Time. Like you, I loved Knockemstiff and have been looking forward to his 1st novel, which fortunately I own a copy of. I NEED to move that Bad Boy up a few notches. Thumbs all around!

Thats some great pictures

>194 jdthloue: I know, cool ain't it?

>195 LovingLit: I suspect not a lot of good, Megan. I've always lived to regret being blunt with whiners.

>196 cameling: I so hope The Devil All the Time is up soon, Caro...I suspect it will resonate with you.

>197 ty1997: Uh huh. The corporation that contributed millions to the anti-equality forces can suck it before I give them any more of my money.

>198 Ape: He is handy. Unhand him, he's mine!

>199 mckait: It's just that kinda place...*smooch*

>200 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I really liked The Lifeboat and I hope others will take a chance on it. The Devil All the Time is such an amazing read...give it a push up the pile.

ETA >202 m4x: Thank you, m4x!

xo

*smooch* How are you, dearie?

Good afternoon, RichardDear!

Hope you're having a wonderful day.

*smooch*

Howdy Horrible! No, but it's not hideous, so that's something anyway.

Reading Damascus and really really impressed by it.

Book porn!

but did you notice the poor book prisoners behind bars? *sniffle*... Time out?

So long as I have the key, it's more like "protective custody" than prison.

Poor things .... quarantined and not allowed out to play except when the Master lets them out of their cells. tsk tsk ... come to Mama...I'll let you be free. *snurk*

Love the shelves, even the 'protected' ones:) ... but the room could definitely do with some more comfortable chairs!

Hope you are having a good a day as possible Richard.

>213 cameling: Back! Back, I say! Bookie wooks, you ignore the Siren of the Bookstacks! Daddy will protect you from the evil clutches of That Woman.

>214 calm: Thank you, calm. I intend to spend the minimum time possible in the 36C heat.

yep... need better chairs...

Chairs can be changed easier than rooms like that found!



YUM

Hi RD- Glad you snagged a copy of Binocular Vision. I'm a 100 pages in. It's subtle and beautiful. Like Patchett says in the introduction. It's a mystery why Pearlman is not a household name.

Love the Doctor Who bookstacks

good morning to you!

Good morning, RD!

*smooch*

Tooooo hot! So I really hope you have some good air con since you are still loads hotter than me. See - I'm even too hot for grammar...

Oh and can we put 217 into 210 please?

>218 msf59: She writes short stories. It's the Kiss of Death for some reason I cannot fathom.

>219 magicians_nephew: Ain't they cool?

>220 mckait: *smooch*

>221 karenmarie: *smooch smooch*

>222 BekkaJo: What a great idea! *turns on bubble machine*

Just skimming through to read all your book porn and wonderful quotes. The one by Harper Lee is possibly my favorite (for this week).

Wait a while, something new will come along. Always does!

Thinking of you and hoping you are pain free today.

And the quote by Harper Lee is also my favorite!

Hi, Sweet Boy. Come on over to my place and answer a question, please, Sir, when you have a free moment.

I actually had the vapors when first viewing #210.

>227 Whisper1: Thank you, Linda! Not so much, but I appreciate the wishes.

>228 Matke: K be there in a sec.

Oh yeah, meeee toooooo!

Popping in to say Hi!! And to get my daily Book Porn. Course the guy reading in bad isn't bad either. : )

He's somethin' special all right. *smooch*

Sigh.

checking in.... Hoping for rain.

>232 tloeffler: Why, TLo? The hunka hunka burnin' luuuv in the glasses? *smooch*

>233 mckait: More rain would be lovely everywhere in the US, I suspect.

>224 richardderus: The only thing I would change, in that wonderful quote..is "....that moment when you open one and sink YOUR TEETH into it.....

that could just be me, though

;-)

Could be, I'm thinkin'.

>237 richardderus:: Oh yeah. It's a real fear.

Thank you for answering my question, Rdear.

I'm off to find a book that just puuuuuls me into it...might give The Lifeboat a try...

Oh, do! Gail, it was a surprise to me how I was compelled by this book. It's really well-made!

Richard...I enjoy the cartoons and quotes posted both here and on facebook. They cheer me.

What's next for you after the appointment you had with the doctor? New meds? More tests?

Hi Linda! Glad my raillery can raise a smile.

Hm. Well, until the disability claim can be determined, nothing is happening YET. Cross your crossables that this is wait only a temporary way-station heading for full medical coverage.

Still on the road, my dear, but caught up on the last 230 messages just now. Have you gotten the results of your tests yet? That's what I came by to check, but I bought Redshirts just before leaving San Diego--it's awaiting my return home.

237> I can't fear that, I just have to accept it. There are too many wonderful books out there for me to get to them all, that's why I need to learn to apply the Pearl Rule with full prejudice and chuck that non-pleasing tomes across the room quickly.

Not sure if this means they are coming around on the issue.

>234 richardderus: You know that it is, Richard.

And 237 is without question my biggest fear. The older I get, the more nervous I get.

Sorry to hear about the mini-bookfunk! I hope it's already beginning to move on, like a troublesome cloud.

You might get a kick out of this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/fei-lin-penis_n_1699017.html?utm_hp_ref...

I want the Tardis with the bookshelves and that wonderful personal (?) library in >210 richardderus:, please.

>242 ronincats: No results expected, just a determination of my ability to claim disability. The lead doc said he was writing a report strongly advocating my approval for full disability.

>243 ty1997: Even with the Pearl Rule, I can't live long enough to get to them all.

>244 ty1997: They spend millions defeating marriage equality in Minnesota. It's a cynical and manipulative effort to pick gay men's pockets. They'd have to donate a year's profits to Lambda Legal before I'd consent to receive a gift bought there.

>245 tloeffler: *there there, pat pat*

>246 msf59: Sounds to me like justice was done....

>247 jnwelch: *poof* They're yours!

237. Yep.

244. Well, they just opened one of the first three CityTargets here in Seattle. Based on that ad, I might be willing to buy my t.p. there...... but then I read what rd knows in the behind the scenes. I'll buy my t.p. elsewhere.

Good luck on the disability claim. How I hope this occurs. Medical coverage would be wonderful for you...You could get those costly gout prescriptions that you need.

We had rain last night...blessed, wonderful rain to cool the earth. I thought of the title of one of Ray Bradbury's short stories...
There Will Come Soft Rains

oh good.. you posted last night. I was afraid you had lost power...
I am not exactly in a book funk.. but maybe a bit of a slump.

Great story Linda.. sad like so many of them:(

eta
\http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf

Wandering my way through your long and fascinating thread, loving the quotes and the photographs (that is one long tall yummy drink of water) and the reviews. Bless you, you even gave me good reason to turn off the background TV noise.

Having a day "off" so to speak today: preparing for a three day yard sale marathon in my neighborhood. Putting my old leather sofa and easy chair in the garage, for sale, and will be sitting there reading... whilst waiting for the customers.

Might even wander past here again, too.

Have a great, comfortable, and full of good reading weekend.

ok... too incommunicado. I am beginning to be concerned that you are currently powerless.. and that would be bad. Requesting cool breezes from the weather goddess for you....

>241 richardderus: crossables crossed, hon.

Ditto.

Hello all...not powerless, thank goodness. Just really miserable. Pain levels very high.

Several house disasters. It's been a thoroughly unpleasant day.

Jeremy, with my full and entire support, accepted the *A*MAZ*ING* bribe his rich grandmother offered him to finish school in a different state (away from me). The dear guy came to tell me about it, and in the end, we discussed it for a few hours. He didn't really want to take it, but my lordy me! He'd be an idiot not to. I took the logical road, and when he looked sad and said "don't you want me to stay?" I said "yes, but I'm not that selfish." I meant it. But it was not at all easy to get there.

With the house disasters, the pain problems, and the emotional turmoil, I am not enjoying today.

Good for you. You did the right thing. Sorry about the house disasters.
xo

Sometimes life does suck, doesn't it?

Hugs and mooches to you from your own Horrible

Sorry to hear about the pain and the emotional turmoil, Rdear ...but you did the right thing and he'll love you all the more for it.

{{{Hugs}}}

Since you mentioned it

By Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

That just proves you really care.

Smooches for you, Padre.

A good man you are, Rdear.

{{{{Rdear}}}}

xo

>210 richardderus: i can relate to the earthquake-proofing mesh over some of the bookshelves in that one!

>244 ty1997: And I cant help but be suspicious of any marketing tool that any big crap-selling company uses these days. Even if it is a nice photo.

Whilst lurking my way through I happened upon a fine generous man and a sweet thoughtful all too true poem. What a fine place this is!

*grump* A good man who's out a masseur/fetch-and-carry/ice cream delivery service. But thanks, y'all, for affirming that it was a Good Thing to be unselfish.

It didn't stop me from being aurally assaulted by McCartney raspcroaking "Hey Jude" *shudder*

This is really sweet.

Just stopping by to say good morning. I am listening to my evil washing machine shake rattle and roll...
it has gotten itself off balance. It is my hope that it falls over in a quiet death after spinning my towels.

I'll join in to say "good morning" today, hoping your pains and aches and discomforts fade away right now! Or sooner, for that matter! Happy reading today?

Me? Well, I'm off in a bit to set up Day Two of the Marathon Garage Sale! Made about $70 yesterday, and was able to pay an unemployed friend for some help he provided. I love turning unwanted stuff into money for living!

Rainy and gloomy outside, just gloomy inside. After the Olympic opening, two hours of meltdown tearful Skype from Jeremy.

It's his first heartbreak as a grown-up, and that really, really, really rots to live through. Now he's furious at everyone including me for "deciding his future for him."

I deserve a gold medal for being patient enough to tell the hawt boy who wants to stay with me to think of himself IN THE FUTURE with a crippled-up man older than his father.

I'm not feeling too terribly sociable after doing the right thing.

*pinning a gold medal on Richard's chest*

*huzzah!*

>267 richardderus:, 268

Richard--Sorry about the pain, the house and the boy. That sucks@!

Now back to #244 and Target. Personally, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another company with ads as nice as that. They were one of the first to offer domestic partnership benefits, and they have a HUGE presence at the Twin Cities Pride festival (one of the largest in the country). I know 2 years ago they got in hot water over supporting a politician who turned out to have an anti-gay marriage stance, but they have since made sincere efforts to publicly correct that error. They are even selling shirts to help pro-gay marriage groups. Oh, and my brother's partner loves working for them in design. I absolutely love to shop at Target. Just saying.

*Adds another gold medal to Kath's*

I thought McCartney did a much better job here than he did at the Queen's Jubilee concert where both he and Elton John sounded way off key, raspy and well due for retirement off the stage. I loved the Daniel Craig/Queen segment to the OC though. He's one hottie.

>277 richardderus: absolutely agree!

>276 richardderus: English is the baddest Mugger Fucker! (am i allowed to say that, here?)

***smooches***

Richard, I'm gone from your thread a week and I'm 140 messages behind... you are just too popular!

>280 richardderus: I'm surprised that you'd post this...given your Fan Club base......(middle aged/women).....but, what the hell

DIRTY PUSSY....DIRTY PUSSY!!

***shoot me, later***

Well then....

Hope you are doing okay this weekend ... plenty to get you down, I know, but stil...
possibilities of good things to look forward to, too!

*smooch*

Good morning all! I'm back in black, as the saying went 40 years ago. Aches and pains, check; a bit of sad self-pity, check; three more sorta started mini book-funk victims, check; and my smoochie-smooch-poochie woke me up with hot doggie breath, slurpy doggie kisses, and such a bolus of infectious rapturous joy that I was catapulted over grump and gloom into giggles and snickers. Hot on her heels came puppymommy with morning coffee and bad mood was vanquished for the day.

Now to attack the mini book-funk!

*smooches* galore all around

Yay! Happy riotous day! Now go find a good book. Smooch!

Elegantly simple perspective check.

Definitely 2 thumbs and 2 feet up for #277, Richard.

Having a better and less pain-filled day today, I hope?

LOL @ 289 :)

I can't settle into a book today. I've played on the computer instead. And now I have to return In One Person to the liberry tomorrow...I don't think I really care, though.

:276 is a keeper boss

Hi RD- Sorry the pain has continued and I'm sorry the book-funk will not cease. Bad Book-funk. Bad Pain! Gentle Hug!

Richard, I am very sorry for the sadness that you feel over letting your swan fly, but adore that you cared deeply enough about him to push him off the ledge and make him flap his wings, rather than selfishly holding him against you where I know you would love for him to be.

He will realize what you did for him, and he will love you for it, though it may take time for that to occur.

New thread is up.

Right now the poor guy is raw and hurting and his pride is badly hurt by what he can't help but see as my betrayal, siding with Them, and rejecting him. Better by streets and acres that he be mad at me than passively depressed or locked in self-blame. Spent an hour on the phone re-breaking his heart by refusing to reconsider, saying if he stays I still won't see him. (A total and complete lie, I'd scoop him up like cinnamon ice cream.)

If someone is going to deal first adult heartbreak, better it be someone who knows why and has an inkling of how.

I have to say I'm really proud of myself for not doing the easy thing especially since the easy thing preserves steady sex and sweet companionship. I wonder if agnostics can be saints....

Cool Hill Country cabin.

OH!!! My dream house! Wheres the lake? I'n not kidding.. add a fence and a lake, and this is how I have described my dream home for years. ( Blue Ridge foothills... oh my...) So wonderful!