INSERT HEADER IMAGE HERE

I have a crappy life. All I do is come here and whine.

My air mattress popped. For those of you who read my Princess and the Pea post, you know how devastating a popped air mattress is for me. I can’t sleep. My hips feel bruised. I am thoroughly out of sorts. The new mattress better come today or I’m in deep shit in the rest department. I can’t write. I’m irritated. I’m grumpy. Bah!

On a happier note, Ce from Cesigned is making my author website for lexvalentine.com. I’m soooo excited. I had Jester look at the first mockup last night, and he pointed out all the same things I wanted changed so I feel good about being on the right track with this.

I submitted a 5K word piece to Wild Rose Press last night too. Thanks to Jen for helping me with the query letter. It’s for their Cougar Club series. HEH. Yeah, I’d say I know a thing or two about the whole older woman/younger man thing. I have no experience whatsoever with men my age or older. Young and hot? That would be what I know. Yes, I know I’m pathetic.

Oh, and by the way, since I didn’t blog yesterday I’ll say it today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN! Stop on over at the Redneck Romance Writer and wish Jen Happy Birthday. She’s always so supportive of my writing. She’s just a great friend to have and I appreciate her muchly!

I’ve been busy over at the horse racing sim too. Moderating can be tiring! There’s a couple of threads of arguments going on and I have to keep an eye on them. So I started posting little flirty remarks reminding them not to name call or say bad words. I got accused of being lovey-dovey! ME! My reply had something to do with knowing the difference between lovey-dovey and flirty. And besides, a couple of those guys are hot. I’m allowed a little harmless flirtation, right?

I have not yet received a single photo for the Better Than a Hot Blogger calendar. C’mon, people! Send a photo, or I will just stalk your Flickr accounts and pick one myself! Do you really trust me to choose?

I’m planning a little something special for my blog for Halloween week. Not only is it my birthday on Halloween, but this blog is themed rather appropriately for that holiday. So I’ve got some “stuff” in the works, not the least of which is that there will probably be a guest post on my actual birthday of Halloween. I got in on the winnings over at Whall’s a while back and one of the prize choices was a guest post. So I asked him to do one on my birthday so I don’t have to. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for Halloween at this batty blog!

My back hurts. Have I said I feel bruised? Not to mention that I really do still have bruises from last week’s fall. Ack. I’m gonna go suck down some pharmaceuticals. You all have a spectacular Friday!

You know how I always get after Motley, even here in the PRB, about taking out the trash? Well, all the little things I ask her to do, that she doesn’t do, caused a little problem last night. A magazine (Elle Decor) was knocked to the floor. I asked Motley to pick it up. She didn’t. Later on, I attempted to step over it, stepped on the corner of it in my flip flops, had the glossy pages slide against each other beneath my foot, and because I was already trying to step over the damn thing in a narrow space and had my balance off kilter, I went down like a tranked hippo.

I hit my elbow and shoulder on the big Rubbermaid tub the fan sits on. I hit the fan with my hand. The foot on the magazine twisted as did the knee on that leg. My hip hit the corner of the bed. Both knees skidded on the carpet, and I whacked my head on a box as I landed on my face. Ow.

Today, I am black and blue. I am swollen in places that are not supposed to be swollen. I’m not in a very good mood, and I can’t wait for the cupcakes to get here. (Groceries arrive between 10 and noon, but I’ll be at the office.) I’m a very unhappy camper today because now my bad knee, which has had no deterioration in about 2 years, is gonna need an xray. I don’t like the way they poke and prod it for those. It fucking hurts when they poke and prod it. And I’m pretty sure my 2 years of holding steady on the condition of my cartilage, tendons, ligaments, and joint are over with. My pain management will probably be out the window too now.

So far, I’m managing on Tylenol, but the aches and bruises are bad enough that 3 of the arthritis strength have me barely hanging in there. I know they won’t give me any pain meds either, and I’m not sure I want them anyway. Once I start taking them, I depend on them to “mask” the pain, instead of learning to manage it. I got myself off the Darvocets before and down to occasional Tylenols. I prefer that things stay that way so I’m not totally unhappy that I have a doctor who doesn’t prescribe Vicodin or Darvons.

Anyway, I’m having trouble sitting for very long so I don’t know how today is going to go. A couple hours at the office and I may come home crying, although my chair is very comfy there. The problem is more the suit. Tailored suit pants in a wool blend, socks and shoes… all on the parts of my body that just want to soak in the hot tub. I’ve been doing okay sitting around in my undies. Putting clothes on and sitting for several hours is gonna hurt like a muthafucka.

If you don’t see me on Twitter or YIM for very long at a time, you know it’s cause I’m off crying in my coffee about my bruised and battered old body. Pray that the cupcakes work to ease my misery.

UPDATE: I tried putting on my suit pants and shoes and socks. It’s far too uncomfortable. I’m gonna call my boss and finish the stuff I was working on from home then head back to bed to elevate the knee. Later, a trip to the radiologist. Oh, joy.

Hope your Tuesday isn’t trippin’!

My bed sits on the floor. Boxspring, then the mattress, then an air mattress on top. Ever since I started getting old having back issues, I’ve been sleeping with an air mattress on top of the regular mattress. If I could afford one of those memory foam things, I’d get one because the air mattress’ rubber is kinda hot.

Anyhoo, I wrap the air mattress in a nice mattress cover, and nice sheets and it’s a very comfy sleep. When it starts to leak a little air, I use the battery operated pump and make it all nice and firm again. At some point, this stops working. Sometimes, that point comes too soon because something external has popped the mattress. I’m not sayin’ who, er what.

Last night my mattress was fine. During the night I had a series of visitors who annoyed me. One of those visitors popped my mattress. It was way, way too squishy this morning and my ass was firmly on top of the regular mattress. I could feel the little quilted parts. This brings me to the tale of the Princess and the Pea.

You’re thinking kid’s fairy tale, right? Well, you’re half right. Rott and Motley know their fairy tales. They also know me. If there is anything between the mattresses, I flip out. I swear I can feel it. One night, I went to bed and couldn’t get comfy. I tossed and turned and finally yelled.

Rott comes in and says, “What the hell? Who died?”

“There’s something in my bed,” I bitch, getting up and looking in the sheets and blankets for the culprit.

“It’s probably one of those little toilet paper balls,” Rott snarks.

“Ewwww!” I squeal, still checking the bedding.

I can’t find anything, so I start to lift the air mattress. Pillows start to slide and Rott grabs the mattress saying, “Woah, there Nellie. Not so fast. You get the pillows and I’ll lift the mattress.”

I grab up the four pillows and stand there glowering at the bed as Rott lifts the mattress. I stare at the flat expanse of the bed skirt, stretched across the mattress without a hump or a lump or a wrinkle. I frown heavily and Rott gives me another look that is reminiscent of Hilly’s famous RMEITBOMH.

“There’s nothing there. Can I put the mattress down now? You’re imagining things because you’re sleepy,” he tells me.

“I’m not sleepy. And I’m not sleepy because there is something in my fucking bed!” I exclaim. “Look under the other mattress.”

By now, Motley has arrived. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“Here. Hold this,” Rott gripes and hands her the air mattress. He yanks off the bed skirt and lifts the regular mattress. There in the center of the box spring is a dried lima bean the size of my thumbnail.

“AH HA!” I yell and drop the pillows to grab up the bean. “I TOLD YOU!”

Rott and Motley exchange a very suspicious look. My eyes narrow. They ignore me and start putting my bed back together. When it’s all ready to go, Motley picks up my pillows and tosses them to Rott who puts them in the bed and plumps them up.

“Better go to bed. Now, that you can sleep that is,” he mutters in a voice that is decidedly smirky.

I look at him. I look at Motley. They both start to grin and Rott turns to leave.

“Hey! You forgot something!” I tell him.

He turns back to me and I throw the lima bean at him. He catches it in one hand. “Fucker. Not only did you fuck with my bed, you fucked with my groceries,” I grumbled.

Motley, now openly snickering, heads out, saying to Rott, “Told you she’s the Princess and the Pea.”

Rott shakes his head and leaves too. I hear his chuckles echo down the hall as he returns to the living room.

Tonight, I am reminded of that occasion because of my popped mattress. I’m gonna fill it up with air, but since it’s got a small (claw made) leak somewhere, I know that in a few hours my ass will be feeling the quilted cover of the regular mattress, something far, far worse than a lima bean to someone like me.

I may not wake up black and blue like the Princess and the Pea did, but I guaran-damn-tee you that I will have tossed and turned and barely slept… just like a real Princess would have done.

Wishing you a pea-less Thursday!

*sigh* My self esteem has taken a hit in the solar plexus. Lucky for me, I’m used to gasping for air. However, it’s left my mindset that of the poor kid staring in the window of FAO Schwarz at Christmas. Or Ebeneezer Scrooge looking in the window at the happiness of Bob Cratchit’s family despite their lack of money. So I’m a little disconnected, a little lost today. You’ll have to forgive me my moodiness.

One night ShinyBitch told me she needed a poem for her character Sascha. Sascha was going to write a poem to her mate. Shiny was looking for poetry on the internet. A few minutes later, I gave her this:

Winter breeze cold and chill
The screams of broken hearts so shrill
You stand before me so tall and real
But hold me always, let me feel.

The path to love is long and hard
The potholes linger, like your guard
Upon me always watching, ever there
Catch my stumbles with your care

You hold me up when I’m alone
When I can’t bear the river’s moan
The shrieks of pain from winter’s night
You always shield me from its fright

To me you are the only one
Who breathes and sighs and always comes
To my side in darkness free
And lives to love no one but me.

Another time, my friend Jen, who uses the name Opalgirl on message boards and IM, was bemoaning the fact that people were writing poems for each other on the Zanctuary board, but no one had written her a poem. A few minutes later I gave her this:

She glows with a regal light
Twists and turns give forth
Fire beneath the surface
Brilliance not as like the diamond
But instead a warmth felt
From the heart out to the skin
Her moonglow in muted hues
Outshines her sisters
With understated elegance
A genius caught within
The unknown, the mysterious
She is aglow with magic
Her fire banked always
But flashing brighter than the sun
To make those self same sisters
Pale in comparison
And kneel as supplicants
To the Opal.

I’m not into writing poetry these days, although on occasion I can just slap something together like those two poems. I’m sure that neither of them would survive a critique, but both made people I care about happy, and that was all that mattered to me. With the hit to my self esteem, I’ve been sort of bashing myself internally, wondering if all the things I write only matter to a few people. I’ve been questioning my creativity, my skills. I’m no literary genius, but I somehow thought I had it in me to be something more than a technically proficient cliche.

You expect to be critiqued and judged when you put the things you write out there in this electronic media world for others to read. Somehow I’ve come away from a few recent writing experiences with the sense that I’m not expressing myself very well. When I write a piece that is meant to give the reader a sense of the character’s quietly growing despair, a spiraling swirling darkness that is sucking them in, and the reader doesn’t feel that… I can tell myself that it’s just one person. When others chime in with a “meh” attitude about it, I begin to wonder what I could have done to make that sense of quiet despair more palpable. And the answer, of course, is nothing.

I yam what I yam. My creativeness has been honed over a lot of years, and if it’s just not there… then it’s not. I’m not going to drink some magic bean juice and wake up in the morning with a brilliantly creative bean stalk of ideas sprouting from my brain as if I was a JR Ward, Nora Roberts, or Charlaine Harris. (Harris’ books have spawned a new HBO series called True Blood.) I guess I have to admit that I’m just not that creative in an original sense.

I don’t have any trouble being run of the mill and cliche on most days. I was just a little more sensitive today what with the way things have been shaking out at home and work. Tomorrow I’ll probably wonder why I ever felt as if my self esteem had taken a hit to the gut. I’ll probably look at my writing and be happy with it again. Today, I’m just gonna sigh again.

Hope your Wednesday is sigh free!

So my last blog post was hot, wasn’t it? I love it when the words flow from me, and they’re tight and passionate and so perfect for a freaking contest… but I don’t use it for such. My contest entry for the Zanctuary writing contest is dragging. It’s actually not flowing which makes it rough going aka work. I guess that should tell me something, huh?

Then yesterday’s blog post just flowed from my fingers when I was half asleep. The words were all perfect. I couldn’t really find any fault in the way I described it. It happened just like that in my dream, but I don’t know how I articulated it so well when I was half asleep and not yet caffeinated.

What kind of muse inspires something as perfect as yesterday’s bit when I’m not even awake, but can’t make Defending Your Love Life work? And where is this muse? Why does he hide on me all the time? He’s a total hit and run lover. Yesterday, he showed up, out of the blue, and fucked me in a good way. When I was working on Defending Your Love Life, the muse was there… but he was fucking me in the bad way. I’ve decided that there is nothing I can do but admit that, while I have a writing/creative muse… he’s also a Fuck Me Muse.

My muse takes great delight in fucking with me and fucking me. He hides out, snacking on my writing bites, getting fat and happy and giving me nothing but silence. Then he goes all bulimic, gets all buff and hard bodied and shows up to inspire something hot and riveting. He is a fickle fucker. I shouldn’t be able to sit down the way this muse fucks me up the ass repeatedly.

This weekend I’ve gotta figure out what I’m doing for this contest. I need another bit like yesterday’s. Longer and hotter though. Something I’ve never posted before. I mean, I was second last year. I gotta defend that and try for number one, don’t I?

I don’t have a lot of faith that my muse will show up, but you never know. I guess I should get the lube out just in case though, eh?

I’m beyond pissed off at someone who is staying in my house at the moment. I cannot do anything right now, I am so pissed off. I cannot go off on this person either. He has a heart condition, and he’s a bonehead. He’s been a bonehead most of my adult life. Saying something will get me absolutely nowhere. And I’ll feel guilty later if I yell at him. I mean, his kids don’t do jack for him. I guess I feel a little resentful because I supported him for a few years. A few years when I didn’t have the money to. I lost everything I owned because I was supporting more people than I could afford to.

He’s here “visiting”. That really means he has nowhere to go and no money until his Social Security check hits the bank Monday. I was hoping that then he would go back to Seattle, but apparently, he’s not quite ready to go yet. It might be another couple of weeks… I hope I survive that long.

For the 2 weeks he’s been here I’ve barely turned on my TV because he has to have the TV on in the living room. I can’t afford an inflated electricity bill so I leave my TV off. He has all kinds of lights on because his vision is bad. He has poor marksmanship in the bathroom. He cooks and leaves food out all day and night. All of which wouldn’t be so bad if he would just CLEAN UP AFTER HIMSELF!

I’m so angry right now, I’m crying. My brand new manicure is messed up from cleaning the stove because he couldn’t clean up from the stuff he cooked yesterday and the day before. And then he roasted a chicken and baked on all the crap he spilled on the stove yesterday.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the company picnic… ALONE. That’s right. I’m not taking my brother. I’m not taking anyone. I am NOT good company right now. And the worst thing of all… this stupid shit makes me feel very alone. I put a good face on it for those around me and for those I’m talking to on IM, but the fact of the matter is… I am alone and I FEEL alone.

This is why I need my characters, and why I’ve been rather irritated that I couldn’t write them. They are never too busy playing online or going to the mall to have time for me. It’s just imaginary time… but still, they never leave me alone. I can always turn to them and lose myself in them. I don’t feel inferior with them. I don’t feel like a wallflower or the unpopular girl or the bitch with them. They hear me. They listen to me. Okay, maybe the guys flirt with me too. HEH. I mean, if they don’t, who will?

Maybe it’s a horrible selfish whiny ass woe is me pack of bullshit fed by where I work, but a lot of the time, I wonder how long anyone would miss me if I died. And ya know, even though it is a stupid whiny feeling sorry for myself thing, I think I’m entitled to a few of those a year, wouldn’t you think? I’m responsible the rest of the time after all.

Sheesh. I’m already regretting what I’ve ranted. I guess, it’s not just the alone. I think… I think I’m lonely too. I can’t remember the last time I really felt lonely. I talk on IM and in email and on boards and to people at work… all the time. But for some reason, I think I feel lonely. It’s kinda weird. I haven’t had this feeling in a very long time. I’m no Pollyanna, but I always spring back from every bad mood I have. I guess I will from this one too. It’s just that I can’t remember the last time I felt like one of those movie tricks where someone is standing still and there is all kinds of activity that goes on around them in a blur because they filmed it in slow motion. All these conversations going on around me, on Twitter, in IM, email, boards, in the office, in my house… and I’m just not feeling connected. Weird.

I’m going to bed. Maybe my characters will talk to me. Motley was nice to me on the phone just now. She’s gonna help me get my hair really straight tomorrow morning for the picnic. That’s nice of her. Although… she still needs to take out the trash. HEH.

Wishing you a non-lonely Sunday!

Everything irks me. I’m in one of those prickly kinda moods where nothing satisfies. I look at my template and I seethe. I think about all the stuff I wanna tweak in Photoshop because I need to create something “perfect”. I read other blogs and think, why aren’t I this funny or deep? I stand at the refrigerator door, stomach growling like a grizzly bear, contemplating everything that is inside the big white box… and close the door. Nothing in there appeals. Which is fucking bizarre because for one, I have BACON. For another, I buy what I like when I order groceries. I don’t have anyone else to please at the moment when I’m buying food.

This phenomena inside me occurs every now and again. Usually, I cannot write when I’m in this mood. What I end up doing is working on the Bar character pages. Or I make something else new. I’m not sure I understand why I feel the need to build/create when I’m in a dissatisfied state. I mean, the writing is building and creating too. Why can’t I do it when I’m feeling persnickety?

I’ve got a ton of projects I’m juggling and I’m eager to do them all. Why is it that I’m more interested in breakfast at Johnny Reb’s? And not for the food either because at the moment, nothing appeals even though my stomach is protesting. Maybe I just want out of the house. But if that is the case, why am I feeling like I don’t wanna go get the mani/pedi that I have to get because the company picnic is tomorrow? (Cannot show up in flip flops without a fresh pedi. God forbid that I give someone fresh fodder to gossip about me!) I have to go to the bank, but I don’t wanna. I need to watch my races at the sim because I have a 2 year old filly who is so evenly matched against another filly that the race should be incredibly exciting. But I’m dragging my heels about clicking the link.

I don’t think I’m unhappy per se. Dissatisfied with some things, certainly. Depressed about money, always. But what the hell do those things have to do with me feeling bitchy and nitpicky and just… irritated? And before one of you raises the female banner let me tell you point blank that it is NOT PMS. I do not suffer from it. I have never in my life had excess estrogen. I am missing internal girly parts and because of that I have never had PMS. Menopause is going to be a piece of cake for me because I won’t need hormone replacement, I’m told by my doctor. I’ve never had much of it to begin with.

I guess I just have to be a crank ass every now and again. A Scrooge, if you will. Irritated. Pissy. Cantankerous. Bitchy. Whiny. Persnickety. Fussy. Disgruntled. That’s it. I’m a fucking malcontent. A nitpicky malcontent. Luckily, the mood won’t last. Something will perk me up like boobs in a water bra. This mood never lasts. If it did, I might need to shoot myself. Or change my blog template daily.

Have a great non-nitpicky Saturday, people of the Blogosphere!