Sick

The Hubby has some head-stuffing sinus something and I feel like crap myself (everything hurts. Everything. How does everything hurt?), so go play elsewhere today. I'm taking pills and going to bed. Again.

Slushy Brains and Valentine's

So, I think I've figured out how to describe this weird amount of non-functional I've been going through. It's like, my body is working and doing something, and my brain is off in the ether. And then my brain realizes that my body is doing stuff without it, and then there's this insanely long lag time for my brain to catch up with my body. I have no idea what's causing it. I only know that it's happening and that I really kind of desperately want to sleep for a week.
Anyway, today is 2/14. This is a bad anniversary for me, so I try to pretend that it doesn't exist, but resistance is futile. Luckily I'm not insanely sad this year. Last year I think I cried all day. So there's progress. At least slushy, nonfunctional brains aren't completely embarassing at work.
Because of this anniversary, I don't really get into the whole Valentine's thing. But regardless of the anniversary, the whole idea of this holiday annoys the crap out of me.
Why is *this* the day to show the ones you love that you love them? Why don't you do that every day?
The Hubby asked me what I wanted to do this year, and I was like, "You know, I'd rather have a normal day than anything else. Because it's the little everyday things that show that you love someone." And I firmly believe that. Hubby could buy me ropes of diamonds and buckets of roses and tons of chocolate, and it wouldn't mean as much as emailing Jenny Crusie about signing a book for me. It wouldn't mean as much as the two of us cooking together. It wouldn't mean as much as him taking me to get new boots before the Superbowl. Those are the things that really matter. Those are the things that show someone that you love them.
Don't get me wrong. I love chocolate, jewelry, and flowers as much as the next girly girl (although I don't like any of the standard things, for example, I hate fancy jewelry and diamonds and crap like that). I wouldn't be mad if I got any of those things.
However, I just don't think those things are important, or even meaningful or valuable, as tokens of affection.
This is just me, though. And I maybe clinically brain dead right now. So take that for what it's worth.
And have a very happy day showing your loved ones that you love them.

Like Swimming in Concrete

Today was another very weird day. I just feel kind of enveloped in wool. Nothing's really connecting. Although today I think I did it to myself.
Last night we got some snow, the first snow of the whole winter, actually. And it was coming down and I was getting really tense and stressed out by the whole thing.
Why, you ask?
Because Erica is a no-walking-in-the-slick-stuff ass. Also, no-driving-in-the-slick-stuff. I tend to slip and fall a lot in the winter when there's "weather," and I cannot stand driving in it. I'm honest enough with myself to know that I'm not that great of a driver, although I'm okay and I've never been in an accident, but realizing my limitations gets me very stressed out about winter conditions.
So I couldn't get to sleep last night until absurdly late, and then I woke up this morning absurdly early, just because I was terrified and wanted to give myself a crapton of time to get stuff done. And I made it to work fine, an hour and change earlier than the library opened today, and all was well.
Except that that damn tension and stress I'd managed to create was swirling all around me and settled quite firmly into a knot the size of my fist in the middle of my back. God damn my back. So now I'm tired as hell, stressed out, and in massive amounts of pain. So I decided the one thing that I could control was the pain, and took an extra painkiller.
It didn't really do a thing for the pain, but the next thing I know, I'm walking around like some kind of zombie. Fun. Note to self: don't do that again.
I actually did manage to get some things done at work today. It was like swimming in concrete, but I did things.
I also sent in a, what I thought anyway, pretty awesome question for the DBSA (Dear Bitches, Smart Authors) podcast. Yay me! I'm contributing. Haha.
But in general, I've been pretty weirdly useless today. And I'm over it. I'm over my back, too.
Anyway. Yeah, I got nothing.

Blahblablah

I've been totally out of it since yesterday. I don't really know what's going on, but my brain just feels sluggish. The Hubby was trying to talk to me while we were making dinner tonight and I think I just looked at him for a couple of minutes. Special.
I've been trying to decide how I'm feeling about the Eloisa James book I finished last night. The cross-dressing plot worked pretty well without being too homophobic. The big climactic fight between the hero and heroine, however, didn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't feel like I understood at all why the hero got so upset with the heroine. I may need to look at it again and work out some thoughts.
Neither of the two Eloisa James books I've read in the past couple of days has affected me as much as When Beauty Tamed the Beast did. They were both good reads and I'm glad I read them. I enjoyed them. (Well, I think. I'm still puzzling over the last one.) But When Beauty Tamed the Beast was incredible. I mean, I get teary thinking about that book, it was so good.
I found a couple of places where romances are being critically analyzed and my inner nerd's heartstrings have been tugged. Tugged, I say! Now I'm having all kinds of fantasies of doing critical work in romances, writing papers and going to conferences and stuff. I'm such a dork. But it's very cool to know that people are looking at romances seriously, and critically.
I'm trying to read Beyond Heaving Bosoms again, a loving and critical look at romances from the women who founded Smart Bitches Trashy Books (and I swear, Sarah Wendell is my sister from another mister or something, she's so awesome).
I'm watching a bunch of shows on the Travel channel about super-expensive stuff. I have decided that if I was ever ridiculously rich, I want a villa in the south of France. I love the Provencal vibe. This one villa we saw on this show could be rented for like $12,000 a week, and I swear it is my total dream home. Everything about it is completely perfect. The dream. I love the style of the house. I love the colors, I love the architecture, I love it all.
Yeah, this is ridiculous. I'm just babbling now.
I don't know what's up with my brain. It is not functioning. Not functioning at all.
Yeah, I'm giving this up today. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Maybe my brain will be working tomorrow.

Much Rambling

It's been a lovely chill day. I've slept a lot, read some stuff, done a little bit of laundry. The Hubby's out with buddies, and I am watching a movie that the Hubby would never want to watch, and I found problematic the first time I saw it.
The movie, folks, is He's Just Not That Into You.
For one thing, I hate Bradley Cooper's character in this movie with a seething, roiling passion. He is such a complete jerkwad. Ugh. He makes me want to puke.
Then there's the relationship between Ginnifer Godwin and Justin Long. The first time I saw this movie I was so happy that there was a relationship between a man and a woman that was based in friendship, not romance. But when I watched their relationship develop, I admit I had some crazy secret romantic streak and I was hoping that they would get together. And I was horrified when she came on to him and he rejected her -- because, obviously he did really care about her. But then he comes back for her and tells that he does love her, and then I was totally disgusted, because of course, they had to make it romantic. They had to have some kind of fairy tale ending, even though the whole point of the movie is to show that romantic expectations are screwed up and unrealistic and can completely damage your relationships.
So, I'm watching it again, to see how it feels this time around.
I'm still completely hating Bradley Cooper's character. I'm hurting for Jennifer Connelly's character. I'm hurting for Jennifer Aniston's character. I'm really debating turning the channel.
My latest book, another one by Eloisa James, is a cross-dressing story, which sometimes bothers me. To make the romance work, the hero has to be attracted to the heroine dressed as a male, which leads to a bunch of questioning of one's sexuality, only to be profoundly relieved when the heroine is revealed to be a woman. It just seems to come across a bit homophobic, which is, of course, to be expected of a character living the 1780s, but it still bothers me a little bit. So I've been having some trouble getting into this one.
I'm a teeny bit jealous of The Hubby going out with friends, since with all of my back stuff I can't really do much, but I'm trying not to be one of Those Wives.
Have I mentioned how much I love Drew Barrymore? I love Drew Barrymore. I adore her. She's totally adorable. She's smart. She's funny. She's completely amazing and I love her with every fiber of my body.
Yeah, my brain is not organized right now. I apologize.
Okay, back to watching this movie, or reading my book, or hating Bradley Cooper.

Grouchitude and Fabulousness

So, I've been pissy all day. I got the only decent night's sleep of the week last night, and I was extremely bitter to have to wake up and do stuff today. Plus, my stomach has been hurting a lot, which is making me hunch over, which is making my back hurt, which is making me, quite possible, the single biggest grump on the planet. I came home and just started bitching all over the place. Poor Hubby.
However, The Hubby knows me, and knows what's going on with me. So when I mentioned that my tummy was killing me, he was like, "Well, let's go get you a salad." So we went to a buffet place where I could make myself a massive salad, get a plain baked sweet potato, and a piece of rotisserie chicken and I am feeling much, much better. That's a good Hubby. I don't know why I don't eat like that all the time, instead of all the crap I usually eat, especially knowing that eating crap makes me feel terrible. Ugh, it's dumb.
Oh well.
Anyway, I'm about to take some painkillers and curl up with the Eloisa James book I'm about to finish, so hopefully I'll be feeling much more personable tomorrow. We'll see. There's been a lot of stress this week. It was bound to catch up with me at some point.
So, to make you all feel like you're getting something good, go check out Reinventing Fabulous (http://reinventingfabulous.com/). The posts from the 7th until today have been hilarious and wonderful, and sure to inspire giggling and big giant smiles. Which is what I want you all to be doing (and loving yourselves, by the way!), while I'm getting over my massive grouchitude. So go there and smile and giggle and have a wonderful Friday night.

On Audience and My Navel

Oh my god. I had this excellent post and it all just vanished. Sigh. Damn it.
Anyway, let's try this again.
Jenny Crusie posted this (http://www.arghink.com/2012/02/09/blog-ramble/) today, and it's been making me think. It's been making me think a lot, actually.
You see, I am apparently running this blog all kinds of wrong. Instead of asking "Why would people want to read this?", I'm saying, "I have stuff I want to say." Now granted, I created this blog as a place for me to figure out what I want out of life, to try to achieve some direction and maturity before I turn 30, so it's mostly a lot of navel-gazing and me, me, me, me, me. But I have on occasion addressed other people's concerns about the tone of the blog, and then I addressed concerns that I thought my defense of the tone brought up. But for the most part, I'm just rambling away about something that's all about me and my pretty, pretty navel, and probably has zero affect or interest for anyone else.
Also, I never expected to attract huge numbers here. I knew that this was going to be for me, so I didn't think too many people would be too interested in what I had to say. (I'm actually shocked that I've heard from as many people as I have, and that all of them have been male.) I did try to keep it somewhat apolitical, because since this was a place for self-reflection, I didn't want to get into the kind of debates that political topics can become. I have no problem with them in other spaces, but I didn't feel like it was right for what I was trying to do here. See, not a lot of concern for my audience here. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm thinking about this more seriously than I may have before because I've been considering starting another blog -- one dedicated to reviewing books that I'm reading. And while Journey to Thirty is purely for me and my sorting myself out, I would want this reviewing site to be a little more inclusive to others, because I would like it to eventually do something for me... like show authors that I understand how stories work and that I could be paid to edit their e-books for them... So, for that project I need to think more about audience than I have been, and that's going to be an interesting thought experiment.
Anyway, I'm not starting it anytime soon, so I have plenty of time to try to work out all the kinks and to try to come at it from the right side, like Jenny suggests in her ramble.
Speaking of this blog and its purpose, I feel like it's really been doing some good. I feel like I'm starting to focus a little more clearly on what I want to do. I always knew I loved reading and writing, but I don't think I ever really understood just how much story meant to me. Now I know that I'm eventually going to write my novel, and the others floating in my head, regardless of what happens with them. They can get published or not, but I will write them because I must. I know that I am passionate about stories and I will defend them to the death, and talk about the books I've loved, and the books that fell down. So reviewing is looking really wonderful -- and it's something I've considered doing before, so it's not totally out of the blue. But all of these things are something that's going to happen because they are things I love doing. They can wind up being my career one day, or I can go to library school and become The Cataloging Goddess of All Time, which I would also enjoy, but I will still read and write and discuss books.
And for not even a month into this project, the fact that I found these truths out already is pretty exciting and encouraging. Who knows what else could happen?