The want, but don't need Christmas list

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was a big dinner for a small group this year, but delicious none the less. I had many things to be thankful for, and I am. It is easy to take for granted what we have in our lives. I have two things that make my existence remarkable: first is my family, who are funny, bright and supportive in all things: The second is… I am not in the best shape of my life, but nor am I ill or infirm and that is a great blessing.

Today begins the count down to Christmas, so here I list the items I want, but can’t afford for Christmas. It’s a silly list of things that I think I want, but not enough to save the money to buy.

The Over-budget and dollar-short list.

1. I want, but don’t really need an E-book reader. Not the inexpensive one I can afford. No, the one I want is possibly not made yet. It’s kindle sized, back lit, but takes any format, so I can find the book from any bookstore site and download.

I tell myself that I really have no choice in this item. I am out of books space now. I have become the book-lender to my friends and part of the reason is to keep a number of books circulating so there is space on my shelf for the TBR pile. The dust is collecting and an E-reader could solve those problems for me. It wouldn’t stop me buying those must reads, but the throw away stack would be more reasonable.

2. I want, but don’t need, a new laptop. I want a small portable one, like a MAC or just one that is portable. I have a labtop, it’s several years old, but I bought a 17 inch screen and it is not portable. Even finding a travel bag for it is difficult. I love the large screen, but I don’t utilize it the way I thought I would. (See, aren’t I good at coming up with reasonable excuses on why I should have this item.) I would need a better wireless system in my home. The one I have is not working, so I am tied to the cord and it makes mobility difficult. I can lug the thing to a café, but I don’t because it is more work than I want to deal with.

3. I need a new DVD/VCR recorder. Mine is acting up and I was not able to record True Blood the way I wanted too. But, what I really want is a blue ray DVD player recorder system. The DVR is cool, but I can’t turn my friends and family on to a new show when they don’t get a sample of it

4. I need a comfortable chair. Yes, yes, I have complained about this time and again. I have bought two new chairs. You know what…you don’t know if it’s going to be comfortable unless you sit your ass in it for a few days straight. I thought I bought a comfortable chair. I was delusional at the time. It is the most miserable POS I have every had the misfortune to sit my fanny upon. I want the lazy boy, the medium sized, not the over large one. Or one of those deluxe massager things. I don’t care as long as it’s comfortable.

I want, I want, I want….there is a theme here.

5. I want, but don’t need, a eighty gig IPOD. That would be fun, though my issue is that I am deaf in one ear, so I don’t like not being able to hear anything but the music. Once something is in my only hearing side, I don’t hear anything else. So, I’ve always debated on this one. I mostly listen to music in my car and it would be fun to plug in there.

6. Of course that would require a much better car than I have….Hehehe!

7. I need a two week long vacation somewhere quiet and beautiful, where I will not worry about anything but writing.

8. The CD player in my car went out just today. It won’t take my disc. This is a great loss for me, especially now, because I love to play Christmas music. And if I need to replace the system, it might as well be one I can’t really afford, something deluxe with an IPOD plug in port. More likely I will be listening to a lot of radio.

9. As long as I’m listing things I don’t need, but want. A Wii system and exercise program would be fun and perhaps beneficial.

10. This last one I’m saving for you to choose what you’d love to have for Christmas, but really need.

Rhianna Samuels

A small joy

I’m going to try to explain to you how I feel this week. I know it’s transitory and the bubble will pop in another day or two, but I’m speaking of this week, this little vacuum of time in which I opened a box containing my authors copies of Shaking Off the Dust. My first book.

I know it came out in E-format at the beginning of the year, but there is nothing quite like holding a book in your hand, caressing the cover, inhaling the new book smell or reading your dedication for the first time in a format that you have always known a book to be. It is a small joy, but a joy none the less.

I have never been one of those lucky people in life, who can fall into a poop hole and come out smelling like lilacs. I always came out smelling really bad. I still feel that I have worked very hard for the things that have come to me. But, I will admit that this small joy is a gift.

I call it a small joy because there is no comparison to those moments that flower from relationships. Consider your first love, the birth of child, the day of your marriage; those are big on the list of larger joys. Small joys, are transitory, like a breath taking view or rain during a drought or even a epiphany that suddenly changes the way we view the world for the better. It is moment we pause to mark in our memories, to savor because it is rare.

I am a published author. If you don’t believe me, I can show you the physical evidence of my claim. Isn’t that totally cool!! Woop Woop!! *Joyful Dance*

What have you tucked into your memory, which you savored for the small joy it brought to your heart?

Rhianna

Turn, Turn, Turn…

Can you believe that it’s only a couple of months until 2009? It seems like it was only yesterday that there were half a dozen disaster movies about how computers, banks and planes would crash because of the turn over at midnight in 1999/2000. Obviously we were on the wrong calendar for all that…because it took eight years for the banks to crash. (Tehe…have to laugh or cry.)

Isn’t there some Mayan calendar that predicts the destruction of all in 2012? Or do they mean the destruction of the world as we know it now? I look over the last several decades and I am shocked by the differences. Technology has turned our society upside down. I haven’t watched Life on Mars yet, though I saw a couple of episodes of the BBC series. We are a technology dependent, instant identification of finger prints and DNA tests, crimes scene sucking police force. Every time I watch a Bourne movie, I worry about prying eyes. (Not that my life is all that interesting.) We are a new world, completely alien to the world of thirty years ago.

Why we seem to be wearing the same clothes from the seventies, I don’t understand. Who looked at those hideous patterns and polyester clothes and thought that was a good idea to bring into fashion. Scuse me, I threw up a little in my throat. I personally hate the current fashion. (Did you guess?) I digress, it’s a personal soap box for me.

The wireless world of communications has broken through barriers that not so long ago kept billions of people isolated from the rest of the world. Once those lines of communication are open, it is nearly impossible to stop conversation and knowledge exchange. One the great pleasures of getting older is seeing the world change.

I’m looking forward to turning the reins of politics and technology over to this newest generation. They have been talking to each other since early childhood. They have learned to collaborate instead of horde, and they are being raised to believe there are no boundaries, only new horizons. My heavens, the stars and beyond are at their fingertips. I so want to hitch a ride with one of them.

Which is your favorite generation? I had a good time in my twenties, did amazing things. Was it the time, or was it my age and perspective. I think it was my age that made that time incredible. I was open to experiencing life and was young, unafraid and sassy. If it were 2008 for my twenties, I would still be the person in the sway of youth and freedom. I think it was the age…though it was a great time back then.

What do you think?

Rhianna Samuels

Singing and Dancing

I’ve been sitting here watching August Rush on cable. Not much of a story, but I love the music. I love movies with music as a theme. Current musicals are touchy, though. I don’t automatically like them, whereas, I have always enjoyed musicals from the forties through the sixties.

Why is that? I suppose we don’t grow actor /singers / dancers like the old days. What we have is on Broadway and a Broadway voices tend to be less intimate. Where are the Gene Kelly’s and Bing Crosby’s. I miss those kinds of movies. I want a little fantasy, where people sing when they are sad or happy. My favorite is White Christmas. Huge fan of Danny Kay.

I also like dance movies. I adored the Australian movie, Strictly Ballroom. OMG, I never laughed so hard, and the dancing was superb. I watched the Japanese version of Shall We Dance a dozen times before it came out with Lopez and Gere. I prefer the original. Even the B movie dance company movies suck me in…and yes I do watch So You Think You Can Dance…not the other one. I want to see real dancers, not mediocre dancers.

I hate to even admit this, because there are people I know who would shoot me for saying this, but I never really liked Sound Of Music. Yes, I’m a freak. I’ll watch any dance movie that comes my way. I don’t always like them, but I will watch it once to discover it’s quality .

What is you favorite Musical or dance related movie.

Rhianna

Soul Mate, Life Mate, Lover...what do you call it?

I have been working on a paranormal/urban fantasy series. The world is complete and I’ve played with the characters long enough to have my favorites, several favorites in fact. What concerns me is the heat level I am writing. You see, I would have never considered myself a writer of erotica. And yet, I am writing fully fleshed erotica.

Urban fantasy has given me license to write sex to the extreme. The focus is on the creatures that populate this particular world, and though varied, they share a common challenge. I’ll save that bit of information for the story, so you can enjoy the series.

In concert with this series, I am continuing to write my historical, which includes sex, but less extreme in its depiction. The level of heat is relative to the passion that is expressed by these particular human characters. Don’t worry, they are passionate.

All this talk of passion and sex has brought to mind, the sort of universal belief that we are all meant to find that one person who will bring us fulfillment. Every romance novel, no matter the genre, has a term for it, soul mate, life mate, the fated love of our lives that brings us complete communion with someone and allows that HEA. Hey, I’m a sucker for the HEA. I’ll never read an author again if I am led to believe throughout the story that the hero and heroine are meant for each other and don’t get their HEA. When I am denied that, I am a very unhappy reader.

Writers have become creative in the terminology they use to define The One. It is somehow tied to the mythology of the world they are writing. Yes, even I have teased my brain trying to come up with a new term for it.

I thought it might be fun for us to create a new term for that one and only. I’ll even use it in my urban fantasy book, either as a throw away line used humorously or something more substantial.

Go ahead dazzle me and -uck buddy and sex slave doesn’t count.

Rhianna

The Last Ten Days

Whew! Long, action packed week. It began with a rather impressive disaster drill. I’m on the disaster committee, which includes those of us who are part of the..What if the worst possible thing were to happen club. In this case it was an earthquake and we had 80 excited volunteers. All, but one of them, were mualaged to within an inch of their lives, some further-the dead ones.
We decided to work in a factory line way. I was assigned blood. Pretty much everyone got blood on them. There were the amputations and fractures line, the laceration line, the deathly pale line, dirt line and blood line. I always get the most fun things to do. (Mauahahaha!)


The day job took up most of my energy. Not only the disaster drill, but the folks that complete accreditation for the hospital also chose that same week to come and purview the premises. That was fun - *not*, though it appears it went well for my department. They were impressed by the disaster drill though.


As part of my other job… is it a job or still a wish? As for the writer portion of my brain, I volunteered to judge for the Eppies. I was impressed by the quality of the material I was sent. I finished up all but one by Sunday night and the last today. I have become a new fan of one particular author, which is good, but bad for my time, because I will need to read all the other books in the backlist now.


Did I tell you I had to reformat my computer a couple of weeks ago. Nasty virus and it killed me to have to do it. Now, I still can’t find my PDF creator to put back on and I never found my Dragon speaking, which I did use, a fair amount. I gave up and bought the newest version of Dragon Speaking and have decided I will put off the other for a time.


I’ve been watching the True Blood HBO series and would recommend it to anyone who loves vampires. I read all the books since the first one came out, so I’ve come to terms with how I saw it in my head while reading it and what Allan Ball is doing with the characters. The brother Jason is definitely more visible in this venue. And I do mean VISABLE, my my…sweet cheeks. Bill is much more than I remember from the books, though I will tell you now, that I fell in love with Eric the moment he appeared in the books. His sense of humor and honest way of saying exactly what he wants, always cracks me up. Of course after book four, I am totally for him as Sookie’s one and only. I choose to ignore all the other males that crowd her space. I think I scared off Charlaine Harris, the writer of the books, at the RT convention several years ago. I kept appearing up every time she turned around. I would stalk her if she’d move here to southern Indiana.


You all have a lovely week and I’ll be blogging again soon.


Tell me about your week.


Rhianna

Persuation

MY WEBMASTER



It’s quiet now. There’s no sound but for the low hum of the computer fan. I sat down in front of this rectangular machine to blog about…what? I don’t know really. I considered a half dozen topics.


I have been warned to stay away from politics, and in all honestly I haven’t much to say on the subject. I’m not a fan of either candidate. And in truth, no one that even entered the nominations this year seemed like they were there without an agenda.


I am smirking because a couple of weeks ago I was at Sam’s Club and saw this book and I just had to buy it. It’s Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Green Book of Getting Your Way. I’ll admit that I haven’t read the whole thing. When he started talking about putting in the time and energy and being positive all the time, well I figured I know that and had been looking for a short cut. Just like when I hear about a new diet, I want a short cut, not life changes. If I am doing the work, then I’m not getting my way, I’m making progress.


One of the things he talks about in order to be persuasive is that you must make the person you are trying to persuade believe that the topic is important to them. Get to the point and don’t give a lot of tedious details in your initial presentation.


As a Nurse, I learned to do that a long time ago when I give the patient his discharge instructions, it’s all about what is essential for them to know to get healthy and stay that way. Most of the time, they are already motivated to do as they are instructed.


As a writer, I have to write something they want to read. Beyond even that, I have to actually write the novel and persuade an editor or publisher that it is worth their time to even consider. It’s funny because in my head I can hear every line I’ve ever had used on me to convince me to have sex with someone.


Why do you think it is that we must be persuaded to do so many things. How many of you will freely admit that when it came to a sexual relationship with someone you cared about and chemistry abounded that you didn’t need to be persuaded. You chose without any excuses or arguments. My hand is raised.


Can you also say that you don’t have to be persuaded to do the right thing, to be a good Samaritan or show your humanity. It’s not my intent to persuade you of anything, only to reflect upon it.

Rhianna