Goals Revisited

About 18 months ago, I made a list of 45 things that I would like to do before my 45th birthday. Some of the goals were easy, some were hard - all were legitimately things I wanted to accomplish.The list was surprisingly fun to make. And, since I took it seriously, I feel like the goals I set for myself are both enriching and fulfilling. Thus far, I have been able to cross six things off the list. Take a look:

1. Publish a short story.
2. Take a photography class.
3. Return to London at least once. (Make that twice!)
4. Return to the National Gallery (London) to visit my favorite painting, Van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Wedding.”
5. Go on a cruise.
6. Stay at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.
7. Take voice lessons.
8. Sing in public. (Karaoke counts!)
9. Travel to Egypt.
10. Travel to Japan.
11. Spend more than $500 on a piece of jewelry for myself.
12. BUY a new car.
13. Visit Everglades National Park.
14. Clean up my credit score. (Stupid medical bills!)
15. See the Grand Canyon.
16. Get my CAPS designation
17. Fit into my high school jeans.
18. See David Bowie in concert.
19. Learn a martial art.
20. Plant and maintain a garden.
21. Finish a sewing project.
22. Fly first class.
23. Get another dog.
24. Pay for my parents to take a vacation somewhere amazing.
25. Own and operate a bookstore.
26. Consistently donate to a well-deserving cause/charity.
27. Start a scrapbook.
28. Learn how to properly change a flat tire.
29. Stay in an over-priced luxurious hotel suite for no particular reason.
30. Take dance lessons.
31. Act in a play.
32. Climb a mountain. (Okay – not really. How about a large “hill?”)
33. Ride in a helicopter.
34. Stand on the Great Wall of China.
35. Master the art of lucid dreaming.
36. Break out the ol’ flute and start consistently playing again.
37. Read “Anna Karenina” ALL the way through – no skipping the boring parts.
38. Parlay my editing skills into a decent side income.
39. Spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square
40. Try caviar. (I’ve had the opportunity; I just always say no.)
41. Climb the steps of a Mayan or Aztec pyramid.
42. Go on a safari.
43. Get a master’s degree.
44. Attend a film festival – Sundance, Tribeca, Telluride, etc.
45. See a play on Broadway.

A note on #19: the original goal was to learn how to shoot a gun. I changed it after deciding my friends probably would not allow me to learn to shoot a gun. However, this year, on my birthday, we went to a gun range and I did in fact fire off some rather large weapons. Consequently, I consider this goal to have been met. (Are YOU going to tell me any differently?)

To stay on track, I have set three more of these goals specifically for this year: sing in public, take a helicopter ride, and see the Grand Canyon. Oh, and I'm giving myself extra awesome points if the helicopter ride is over the Grand Canyon. The singing will actually be the most difficult since my normally pleasant voice turns into that of a croaking frog when faced with an audience. Oh, well - this list was supposed to be challenging; obviously, I succeeded in that respect.

I would ask you to wish me luck, dear readers, but you know me - I don't need it. :)

I'm BACK... from outerspace...

So, it's been nearly a year, gentle readers... do you ache for my snarkiness?

Well, ring the church bells and pull out your best parade bonnets - I am back! Life has done its level best to put me off this blog, but I've wrestled it to the ground and showed it who's boss. (In case you're having trouble following the metaphor: *points* There's life over there, hog-tied and prone. Here's me, winning and grinning.)

Anyway, what I'd like to discuss tonight is The Peter Principle. Now, before you snicker and/or warily type that phrase into Google, hands over your eyes in horrified anticipation, let's get a definition out:

"The Peter Principle is a belief that in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently. It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle."

Further more, dear readers: " 'Peter's Corollary states that "[i]n time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence." "Managing upward" is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly "manage" superiors in order to limit the damage that they end up doing.' "

Our scene opens on yours truly, having a heart to heart with a member of upper management at our corporate office. What began as a discussion of ways to improve a new training initiative quickly shifted into a tirade on the lack of consistency in recent promotions within the company. Said member of upper management confided in me (because she "trusts" and "respects" me) that she vehemently disagreed with several of the recent promotions and believed that certain individuals had been unequivocally elevated above their knowledge levels. (Me? I thought they'd been elevated above their intelligence levels, but that would be rude to say and well, I'm never rude, am I?)

Instead of openly agreeing, I demurred and returned the conversation to the subject with which I am most comfortable at the corporate level: the facts. I asked her if a set of parameters had been developed by which one could qualify for these upper positions. She admitted they had not. I asked if those recently promoted were now receiving training to at least better enable them to do the jobs they had achieved (but not earned). She admitted they were not. She went on to say that she feels that the most senior manager at the company, someone who has had more responsibility than any other manager to come before or after her, "doesn't have the skill set" to move up any further.

*sigh*

Thankfully, I have yet to reach my level of incompetence. (And truthfully, so has my boss.) Apparently though, I have nothing to worry about since my employer will very likely promote me regardless of tenure or acumen. Sadly, this means all accolades are suspect and all praise is worthless. This is probably not the time to mention I recently received several emails from the CEO and head of HR, congratulating me on being amazing, is it? Nor would anyone applaud my recent nomination for a state-sponsored award in my field, would they?

My dismay is resounding. No organization is perfect, but I truly believed my company was above this sort of "Office Space"-like behavior. Why work hard? Why bother to strive for excellence? I mean, even someone grounded in astounding personal ethics can be worn down in the face of such obvious nonsense.

And, quite frankly, some days I can be bribed with Twizzlers and the latest copy of Architectural Digest.

Reality tv hits a little close to home...

SpikeTV will soon begin showing a new series called “World’s Worst Tenants.” Here’s a promo for the show:

“The show joins Todd Howard, an evictor whose job description is to kick people out of their homes. Usually the people who get evicted aren't exactly upstanding citizens, and Todd encounters some seriously despicable, dirty, dangerous and just plain nuts people. Working with his business partner Rick and his wife Randy, the team goes to work at their 150-plus residences, commercial and retail properties. When these people don't pay their rent or violate their leases, it's time to go, and they don't always go willingly. Tune in to see all the hi-jinks that ensue in these real life tales of evictions on Spike TV's ‘World's Worst Tenants.’ “

Umm...yeah. I’ve been saying someone needed to make this show for years... as have hundreds of other people around the country in my line of work. People are crazy, crazy, crazy and dirty, dirty, dirty. Sometimes it’s the ones you expect and sometimes it’s the ones you’d never believe. The toothless, tube top-wearing hilljack women with five kids and a cross-eyed dog? You’re not surprised when it turns out she has roaches and towering piles of garbage in the kitchen. But what about the well-dressed doctor who drives a BMW? Oh, he’s storing urine in jars in his garage and has a collection of over one thousand purple bowties in a large pile in his spare bedroom.

Sometimes tv helps our industry, but mostly it just harms it. I can’t tell you how many times a show like ‘Judge Judy’ gives residents false expectations about what they can and cannot do. Here’s my recurring nightmare scenario:

Me: “Good morning, Mr. Smith. What can we do for you today?”

Resident: “I have to move because I got in a fight with my girlfriend. I punched her in the face so she moved out. She was paying half the rent and now I can’t afford to live here anymore. So I’m moving.”

Me: “Well, Mr. Smith, first and foremost, you're a jerkface. Secondly, you’re in a lease through December, so you will be responsible for rent until 12/31 unless we are able to re-rent the apartment.”

Resident: *incredulous* “But that’s not fair! I don’t WANT to move – I HAVE to! SHE moved out! It’s not my fault!”

Me: “Mr. Smith, you signed a lease. You agreed that you would pay rent on this apartment through the end of December--”

Resident: “You’re not listening: I HAVE TO MOVE.”

Me: "I am listening, sir. Regardless of the situation, you signed a contract and so you are bound even if you leave.”

Resident: *sticks his finger in my face* “That’s ILLEGAL. You can’t charge me if I’m not living there! I know my rights! That's double indemnity derp derp derp derp....*continuous ranting*”

Me: “Let me guess, sir – you watch ‘Judge Judy’.”

Resident: “Yeah - how did you know?” (Obviously, I'm exaggerating to make a point. But the sad reality is that I have this conversation on a monthly - if not weekly - basis.)

There was also a segment on “Good Morning, America” a few years ago where the presenter advised people to “bargain with their landlords” if they felt they were paying too much rent. First of all, that may fly in New York (where the show is filmed), but most states have strict laws regarding the fair and equal offering of housing. To be brief, it’s illegal to be inconsistent with the pricing you offer similar prospects in similar situations. If Person A and Person B both come in on Tuesday and want to rent the same two-bedroom, I can’t give Person B a different price just because they dickered over it. We’re not a fish market; we don’t have the ability to haggle indiscriminately.

Anyway, I have some tenants to nominate for SpikeTV’s “World’s Worst Tenants,” starting with the guy who had an ongoing leak from his bathroom ceiling that he NEVER REPORTED. We eventually discovered it after we evicted him and had to tear out the whole ceiling and bathtub surround, remove tons of mold, and repair everything. Cost? $3700 in repairs. Would you like to let this gentleman come and live with you, Judge Judy?

Door A or Door B

As most of you know, I have some pretty serious decisions to make right about now… decisions that will affect my finances and my living situation. And they are the hardest kinds of decisions: the ones that impact people other than you.

So how do you go about deciding to wreck your life? :) I think the most important part is accepting that you can’t change what’s happening. The time you waste on hand-wringing and “why me” ’s is time you could be spending TRACKING DOWN THE PEOPLE WHO DID THIS TO YOU… *ahem*... I mean, is time you could be working on a solution to the issue at hand.

Now I’ve been called “level-headed” a time or two. So how does a level-headed person figure out what to do? First, I lock down all emotions and think about what I should do. I mentally list all the pros and cons of the situation, logically consider all possible outcomes, come to a conclusion, and then examine that conclusion for flaws. Then, I open the floodgates of irrationality and consider what I want to do. How does it make me feel? Can I make a final decision without guilt/regret? If all goes well, in the end I will make a compromise between emotion and logic; both sides of my brain can be happy.*

Do I ask for help? I don’t ask for advice, but I do ask for opinions. To be honest, what I’m really interested in is if you can come up with some brilliant insight that I haven’t already mulled over. Chances are, you can’t. After all, I am a genius and relentless in my pursuit of “situation extrapolation.” (Go ahead – try to smack me for my smugness. I already considered that possibility and prepared a distraction: wow - look at that goat in a beret! *runs*) Anyway, I’m like everyone else: I’m going to do what I’m going to do – regardless of what you say.

Soooo… I won’t take advice, but I do accept prayers, happy thoughts, and large sacks of cash.

*Incidentally, this is how I came up with my plan to deal with the Zombie Apocalypse. My logical side told me that I have no practical fighting skills (other than bottomless rage), but definite cruelty potential. My emotional side was acting all hard like I could kill a bunch of brain-eaters with my bare hands. I put the two sides together and decided that my Zombie Plan is to follow my friend Jeff around. He has dozens of guns and knows how to use them. And before you ladies get snippy about how I’m playing the stereotypical “damsel in distress” role, consider this: my first official duty as Jeff’s Gun Caddy will be to stab a zombie in the face with a ballpoint pen. Establish yourself as the craziest freak early on and no one will turn their back on you. Not exactly “in distress” here.

Le Freak, c'est chic.

Can someone please explain to me this obsession with James Franco? In every movie I've seen him in, the guy is either grinning like a moron or high as a kite... or both. And that's okay if you're playing the stupid drugged-out next door neighbor role, but Franco's up next as a super-genius-inventor/scientist-type in the new Planet of the Apes movie. C'mon - that's about as believable as Zach Galifianakis playing Stephen Hawking. To whit:

City by the Sea - drug addict (high!) and angsty

Tristan and Isolde - high and English

Milk - high and goofy and gay

Pineapple Express - high and goofy

Date Night - high and white trash

127 Hours - high and goofy and hacks off his arm

Your Highness - high and goofy and wears armor

And the guy isn't even good-looking - he's just goofy. Oh, and he's always smiling. Who does that? As my sister pointed out, he's perfect in his recent role as an egomaniacal artist/serial killer on General Hospital. Why? Because anyone who smiles that much is either a surfing pothead or a serial killer. There are no other possibilities. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the serial killer character's name is 'Franco.' I wonder how that conversation went....

General Hospital writer-type person: "So, James, your character is a complete psycho. He'll be torturing and killing off several characters over the course of a few months. He's completely fleshed out for you in your character bio packet there. Any questions?"

James Franco: "Yeeaaah... so can we change the character's name to my last name? 'Cause that'd be awesome." *cheesy grin*

Or maybe like this:

General Hospital writer-type person: "Mr. Franco, your character is called Benedetto Masterson and he's a stone-cold psycho. Any questions?'

James Franco: "Duhhh... what's his name? Bernie?"

Writer:" No, Benedetto."

James Franco: "Buford?"

Writer: "BEN-UH-DETTO. Benedetto."

James Franco: "Can we get high?"

Writer: *sigh* "How about we just call him Franco?"

James Franco: "Right on. Cool name."

Me, I'm betting the second one. Because despite the fact that Franco has two degrees, writes poetry, and runs his own production company, he sounds like a complete and total dunce every time he opens his mouth. Oh, and did I mention that he looks like he's high? All. The. Time.

So why all the hate for Franco? Because I want Hollywood to stop putting him in movies I would otherwise enjoy.

*brief pause for seething*

Not only will he be the aforementioned genius in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but he will also play the titular character in Oz: the Great and Powerful. I guess one can hope he stays behind the curtain for most of the movie, yes? Oz was a charlatan, but HE WAS NOT HIGH AND/OR GOOFY. Okay - maybe he was goofy. But not James Franco goofy.

Untitled for a Reason

Yes, yes - I have not written a blog in a looong time. But I hate my job right now and I just generally want to stab people. You might think this would make me write more, but truth is that it makes me loathe to do anything.

Here's a peek at my soul-killing job:

A resident came in last week and tried to partially pay her rent. (This isn’t Bargain Bill’s, lady – we need payment in full. Could you go to the grocery store and offer the checkout clerk $100 for your $200 worth of groceries with a promise to come back later with the rest? No. Could you go to a clothing store and tell the salesperson you'll give her $20 for a shirt with a price tag of $90? NO. Then WHY do you think we would be any different?) We let her know that, as it states in her lease, we need payment in full. We give her back her check and tell her to keep it until she has it all. She says she can pay in full on the 9th. We remind her about the late fee on the 6th and tell her to definitely pay in full before the 10th as that is when we begin eviction proceedings on unpaid accounts. She leaves.

She receives a late letter on the 6th which reminds her of her balance, the late fee, and that we file on the 10th. The 9th rolls around – she doesn’t pay. On the 10th, we leave her a message because we still have not received payment and we are about to send her file to the attorney. We don’t hear back and we send over the file.

This morning, I open our outside dropbox to find that she had turned in the keys to her apartment and left me a lovely letter. Her letter, in short, says that we were extremely rude to her and that we should have “worked with her” to let her pay her rent partially. She proudly describes her four months worth of timely rental payments. She mentions several “complaints” she has about our community which, until now, have never been reported. Among these complaints is the supposed existence of a vaguely-described “jagged, rusted piece of metal” sticking out of the ground on which she almost cut her foot. She continues by saying that nowhere in her lease does it explicitly say we “will not work with people at any point in time.” She says we have different ideas about “moral obligations.” She says her attorney told her that we are required to allow her a reasonable amount of time to move out if she doesn’t pay her rent. She quotes several Indiana statutes concerning apartment rentals. She ends the letter by saying she has moved out and that we can contact her attorney (whose name she has not given me) with any questions.

Would you like to see my reply to her letter?

Dear Stupid, Fat Hilljack Woman with Kids from the Movie “The Hills Have Eyes,”

You, madame, are an idiot. Please allow me to elaborate.

1) Your lease explicitly states in Paragraph III that rent must be paid in full, without exception, by the 1st of each month. It also states that a late fee of $50 will be in effect on the 6th of the month if we have not received payment in full. It also states we will pursue the matter legally if rent is not paid in full and that you will be responsible for any attorney’s fees and/or courts costs incurred on your behalf.
2) I do not recall anyone holding a gun to your head the day you signed the lease. I do not recall your eyes rolling back in your head and/or you frothing at the mouth that day either. Therefore, I will assume you were of sound mind and body and not under duress when you entered into the contract. (The former is still debatable considering how epically stupid you are, but I digress...)
3) I am so glad you have access to the internet so that you can faithfully misquote Indiana statutes out of context. Unfortunately for you, I have more than a fifth grade education and am familiar with the law.
4) Your Stanley Kahn-esque and/or possibly imaginary attorney does not frighten me. I wear big girl britches.
5) I am glad you moved. Just looking at you gave me a rash.

In conclusion, I hope you get hit by a garbage truck full of burning diapers.

Hugs and Kisses,
Kelli

So that was my morning. My afternoon involved speaking to Child Protective Services about a resident at a different community who was arrested for leaving her four-year old unattended (in the street) for several hours. And my evening began with one of our perpetually drunk residents screaming at me on the phone because, according to her, the lights in her apartment “keep going on and off when she kicks the electrical outlet.”

On the way home, I bought my favorite British foodstuff, HobNobs, at the store to console myself… only to get home and discover they are the digestives kind. *slump* (If you don’t know what they are, I can’t explain. That’s what Wikipedia is for.)

Meanwhile, back at the compound: I am driving a rental this week since my car is in the shop being repaired after the harrowing life-or-death door-scraping catastrophe that was an old lady and her Dually. I exaggerate of course – it was minor as accidents go, but I’m grumpy and hyperbole is my friend. Anyway, they ironically gave me a rental that is the same make and model as my car. Good news is that I’m familiar with all the bells and whistles and the handling, so I don’t head butt the dashboard every time I brake. Bad news is that the car is a luxury version of my car with a bigger engine… *narrows eyes*… which means I’m going to hate my car for its powerless pickup once I get it back. Crap.

I have about twenty books I could review on here, but I don't have the mental energy - I need it all to do psychic battle with my cretinous residents. And I would like to update you on my short story progress, but it feels like it's still in the early stages and I don't like to talk about them until they're almost finished.

I will however plug some books I am excited about: Melissa Marr's "Graveminder" and Patrick Rothfuss' "A Wise Man's Fear." Read them now.

And now a bug just fell from the ceiling onto my head. *sigh* I'm leaving to go to veg on the couch...

People are stupid and I am, ipso facto, angry.

I am not loved by the general public; my job makes me the enemy of many. I have made people (men and women) cry and I have been called quite a few curse words (that I won’t bore you with here); I have even been threatened with bodily and psychic harm. (I had a maintenance technician who was a warlock. He was fired and subsequently vowed to put a curse on me.) But my favorite part of being a property manager is when tenants and/or their families attempt to make me feel guilty about enforcing our policies. They tell me I’ll “be sorry,” or that certain things will be “on [my] conscience.” They say I have “no heart” or that I don’t care.

Let’s be clear: it is not my job to care. It is my job to collect rent on the apartment for which you signed a lease. (In fact, “caring” – as my tenants define it - can quickly become a conflict of interest.) And it is my job to enforce the policies of my company as well as to observe the *many* laws/statutes governing the fair and equal sale/management of housing. Personal feelings cannot/do not enter into it. You want me to feel bad for you? Fine. I am sorry that you didn’t figure out how to pay your rent on time when you knew that it was due on the 5th and your check wouldn’t be coming ‘til the 6th. I am sorry that you chose to spend all of your money on Christmas presents, wrote us a bad check for your December rent, and are now being evicted in January. I am sorry that you allowed your abusive ex-boyfriend to move into your apartment (without our permission), that he attacked you, and that you now want out of your lease early because you don’t feel “safe.” I am sorry that you found a job in another state and want to move early without having to pay out your lease. I am sorry that you lost your job and can’t pay your rent. I am sorry that I can’t let you live here for free. I AM SORRY.

It’s all part of this culture of blame that we live in. Everything is someone else’s fault; blame whomever you have to in order to get an exception made. I’m not saying that I’ve never been a willing participant in this game, but I’ve certainly never called someone “monstrous” or told them they were “of Satan” because they wouldn’t waive a late fee. (Both are things I’ve been called.) I’ve never screamed into the phone so forcefully that I gave myself a heart attack (This happened to someone else in my business; a resident was complaining over the phone and got so upset that he had a heart attack.) And I’ve never tried to sue someone because he/she wouldn’t let me break a policy which I agreed to observe. (Tenant filed a claim against me because we kept her deposit after she moved out early.)

Take responsibility for yourself and your behavior, people. Alternatively, STAY AWAY FROM MY APARTMENT COMPLEXES.

Reviews Continued - wherein Kelli follows through on her promise.

Sooner rather than later (as promised), here are the rest of my reviews. And I already have another five books to review - I hope to have those up here before I leave in early February on my cruise. Enjoy!

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"The Help"
by Kathryn Stockett

Told from the perspective of three woman - one white, two black - this novel explores the tense, compelling, and sometimes poignant relationship between white women and their black maids in the South of the 1960's. Skeeter has just returned home from college only to find that her degree doesn't impress her family as much as a good marriage would; her usual confidante, her maid Constantine, has disappeared and no one will tell her why. Aibileen, a black maid for one of Skeeter's friends, is raising her seventeenth white child while grieving over the loss of her own son. And Minny, Aibileen's friend, has just lost another job for sassing her white employer; Minny finds employment with someone too new in town to know her reputation, but this white women has secrets of her own. The three women, seemingly the unlikeliest of heroines, band together for a secret project that puts their reputations - and even their lives - at stake. Based on Stockett's own experiences growing up in the "recovering racist" town of Jackson, Mississippi, "The Help" is a story about the lines we tolerate and those we defiantly cross.

Kelli's Thoughts: Comical and heartbreaking, this book is one of the most refreshing "best sellers" I've read in a long time. The characters are fully formed - not caricatures - and each tells her story with a clear, unique, and powerful voice. The only drawback in my opinion is that the visual descriptions suffer a bit because of the concentration on characterization and dialogue; I didn't really feel the hot summer nights in the black shantytown, or the haughty atmosphere of the all-white Junior League meetings. A film version will be coming out soon; hopefully, they keep the strong characters AND give us some good visuals as well.

Overall Ratings: 4 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, or "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

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"Matched"
by Ally Condie

For Cassia, nothing is left to chance (or choice) - not what she will eat, not the job she will have, not her activities in her spare time, nor the man she will marry. In "Matched," Society Officials have determined optimal outcomes for all aspects of daily life (including the time of your death), thereby removing the "burden" of choice. Things such as writing and the owning of personal items are forbidden, seen as roadblocks to an equal and fair society. When Cassia's best friend Xander is identified as her ideal marriage Match it reaffirms her belief that Society knows best... that is until she plugs in her Match microchip and a different boy’s face flashes on the screen. This strange mistake (from a society that doesn't make them) leads Cassia down a dangerous path to the previously unthinkable - rebelling against the "perfect" predetermined life Society has in store for her.

Kelli's Thoughts: This book has similar themes to the Hunger Games trilogy - dystopian society of the future, initially innocent heroine who becomes jaded - but this story focuses on romance where the Hunger Games books focused on violence. The main character is really only rebelling because of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who she's told she can't have. Interesting themes, bad dialogue: the author has this weird need to end each chapter with some kind of homily. An example would be when Cassia says, "It felt strange to be rebelling this way against rules I was previously accustomed to. But maybe we all rebel in some ways?" It seems like she wants it to come off as deep and thought-provoking, but it just ends up being awkward and actually made me feel disrespected as a reader. Granted, this is YA fiction... but I was never that dumb, even at 14.

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: *shudder* "Twilight" - but only if you're the kind of person who would never admit to liking it. Also, Lois Lowry's "The Giver"

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"Fallen" and "Torment"
by Lauren Kate

In "Fallen," Luce must spend her senior year at the Sword & Cross reform school after her boyfriend dies in a mysterious fire. Did the dark shadows that have tormented her all of her life have something to do with it? Or is she, as she fears, going insane? When Luce meets fellow student Daniel, she feels a familiar longing, making her believe they have met before. When she pursues him and tries to discuss her feelings of deja vu, Daniel cryptically tells her that the truth would kill her as it has many times before. And then there's the charming Cam: Luce wants to like him, but something just feels wrong about him. Strange deaths, homicidal Goth girls, unwanted advances, and a seemingly unrequited crush - all plague Luce's steps at her new school. As Luce figures out that her classmates are decidedly unnatural, she also discovers that this life may not have been her first.

In "Torment," Luce has discovered the true nature of her relationship with Daniel, but not all secrets have been revealed. In an effort to protect her, Daniel removes Luce from Sword & Cross and places her in another boarding school, the hippie-ish Shoreline. Although his pact with Cam prevents him from doing so, Daniel sneaks in to see Luce, confusing their relationship even more. Her training at Shoreline is helping Luce to fight back against the shadows that previously plagued her... but it's also giving her the confidence to take it one step further and try to control them. Will Luce ever truly understand the supernatural war going on around her? Will Daniel ever trust her enough to tell her the truth about who he is and who she was?

Kelli's Thoughts: I really enjoyed these. (However, I am currently also obsessed with YA fiction, sooo... others may not share my appreciation!) Not too much of a spoiler here: these books deal with the concept of fallen angels. The plot of both revolves around lovers who find one another, only to lose one another over and over again in a story that spans centuries. Both play with the idea that Good and Evil are less black and white, and more shades of gray; basically, the idea of a "bad guy" is relative, history is written by the winning side, etc. The books are a little angsty, but not to a sickening degree. Luce as a main character is a somewhat maddening (Why doesn't she draw the obvious conclusions?) and a little too gaga over Daniel. The story caught my interest more than anything; it's interesting and fairly well-plotted. Nutshell: I will be buying the third book when it comes out, but I won't feel the need to get it the day it comes out.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: The House of Night novels by PC and Kristin Cast
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That's all for now, chickadees!

Book Reviews or "How I got lost on the way to my blog."

I am alive, gentle readers! When you get a load of the list of books below, you'll understand my reticence to begin this post. (i.e. I have a crapload to review) Shall we begin?

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"My Stroke of Insight"
by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

First of all, I need to preface this review by saying that I expected something completely different from this book than what I got, and that this will inevitably color my review of it. I picked this book up after listening to an interview with Bolte Taylor on NPR. Based on the interview, I thought the book would be a kind of instruction manual on how to tap into previously inaccessible portions of your brain; Bolte Taylor promised as much when speaking with NPR. Instead, the book was as is described below:

Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist with Harvard training, had a massive stroke in 1996. This book details her thoughts and actions during the actual stroke as well her eight-year recovery. Bolte Taylor's focus is on how the stroke changed her relationship with her mind and her surroundings.

The first half of the book concerns the actual stroke; Bolte Taylor describes how she witnessed herself having a stroke and the subsequent feeling of peace that followed when her (logical) left brain shut down and her (intiutive, kinesthetic) right brain became dominant. She methodically delineates *each* step she took to make the cognitive leaps between realizing what she needed to do to get help for herself and actually making her poorly functioning body react to those realizations. Kelli's thoughts: this part - which may be extremely interesting to scientists and/or medical practitioners - was a little long for my liking. I mean, she spends 28 pages just describing the onset of the stroke and how she had to labor to make a phone call to alert someone to her condition. Basically, you have to slog through this part to get to the good stuff.

In the second half of the book, Bolte Taylor writes from a post-recovery perspective and provides examples of how living with a damaged left brain for eight years changed her relationship with the world and with her own body. To quote Bolte Taylor, "When the cells in my left brain became nonfunctional because they were swimming in a pool of blood, they lost their ability to inhibit the cells in my right hemisphere. In my right brain, I shifted into the consciousness of the present moment. I was in the right here, right now awareness, with no memories of my past and no perception of the future. The beauty of La-la land (my right hemisphere experience of the present moment) was that everything was an explosion of magnificent stimulation and I dwelled in a space of euphoria. This is great way to exist if you don't have to communicate with the external world or care whether or not you have the capacity to learn."

After having spent so much time cocooned in her right brain, she realized the peace and tranquility therein. As she recovered, Bolte Taylor practiced forging connections with that peace, so that she was able to tap into it despite her left hemisphere's growing dominance. She did this by focusing on sensory stimulation (and deprivation), meditation, and making a conscious effort to be in control of the complex circuitry of her brain. Kelli's thoughts: now, THIS, is the good stuff. Did you know that you are in complete control of "the anger circuit" in your brain? Once you become angry, your brain begins a 90-second circuit which produces physiological responses - things like a reddened face, elevated blood pressure, heightened breathing. After those 90 seconds pass, you are back in control... if you choose to be. Essentially, you can't blame anyone for your actions when you're mad but yourself; and if you're still upset after 90 seconds, then it's because you're allowing yourself to be so. I know - awesome stuff, right? And there are more of these gems in the second half of the book.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: books by Dr. Sanjay Gupta... or are a brain scientist!

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"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"
by Seth Grahame-Smith

It's 1888 in rural Indiana and, in a dimly-lit one-room cabin, Abraham Lincoln watches his mother slip away due to a deadly illness. Only later does he uncover the truth: her affliction was actually caused by a vampire. From then on, Lincoln devotes himself to a life of seeking out and destroying vampires and their slave-owning allies. Graham-Smith has reconstructed the "true" life story of our greatest president for the first time, thereby revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of the United States.

Kelli's thoughts: Ugh. This book seemed SO promising. Alas, it is stupid and possibly a bit insulting as well. Without spoiling it for anyone who may be so unfortunate as to believe that he/she should *still* read it even after my bad review, let me just say that there are some big unanswered questions here: for example, why doesn't Lincoln ever share the existence of this threat with the rest of the country? Also, (and more importantly) the author's decision to reduce slavery to a mere intrigue of the vampires is repulsive to say the least.

Overall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars - this book wasted my time and made me mad.

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: I'm at a loss here... other boring books that belittle the oppression of an entire race of people?

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"The Passage"
by Justin Cronin

This is an epic story about a man-made virus that nearly destroys humanity, and the six-year-old girl who holds the key to its survival. "The Passage" takes the reader from the early days of the virus to the aftermath of the destruction, where packs of the infected roam the desolate cities looking for food, and the survivors eke out a bleak, brutal existence.

Kelli's thoughts: Beautifully-constructed story that takes you in from the first page and won't let you go until the last. The author identifies his "virals" as vampires, but these are not sexy, sparkly vampires; they're closer to the old-school Nosferatus... but maybe with a dose of the creation from "The Fly." They're man-made and military-bred - definitely an original creation of the author's; these vampires are hairless, insect-like, glow-in-the-dark mutations who are inseparably linked to their makers and the young girl who could destroy them all. This book has a chokehold on the 'science' part of science fiction. I loved, loved, LOVED it. Don Chaon, a reviewer on Amazon, expresses it perfectly when he writes, "About three-quarters of the way through' The Passage,' I found myself in the grip of that peculiar and intense readerly emotion. One part of my brain couldn’t wait to get to the next big revelation, and I found myself wanting to leapfrog from paragraph to paragraph, hurtling toward each looming climax. Meanwhile, another part of my brain was watching the dwindling final pages with dread, knowing that things would be over soon, and wishing to linger with each sentence and character a little while longer."

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (And it's the first in a trilogy!)

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: "Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton or Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles"
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"A Storm of Swords" and "A Feast for Crows"
by George R. R. Martin

Note: I am reviewing these two books together as they are part of a series and simply too enterwined to review separately.

The third and fourth installments of the staggeringly epic saga that began with "A Game of Thrones" and continued in "A Clash of Kings" are one of the more rewarding examples of "bigger is better" in contemporary fantasy. As the richly imagined kingdom of Westeros slides closer to its 10-year winter, both the weather and the warfare worsen. In "A Storm of Swords", House Lannister uneasily rules from the Iron Throne in the north. With the aid of a peasant wench, Jaime Lannister (the Kingslayer), escapes from jail in Riverrun. Jaime goes to Robb Stark to secure the release of Joffrey's prisoners, Robb's sisters, Arya and Sansa. Meanwhile, in the south, Queen Daenarys tries to establish her claim to various thrones with an army of eunuchs, but discovers that she must choose between conquering more and ruling what she has already taken. In "A Feast for Crows," Brienne of Tarth is looking for Lady Catelyn's daughters, Queen Cersei is losing her mind and Arya Stark is training with the Faceless Men of Braavos. The complexity of characters such as Daenarys, Arya, and Jaime will keep readers plowing through the vast number of pages contained in these volumes, for the author makes us care deeply about their fates.

Kelli's thoughts: I can't even keep my obvious appreciation for these books out of my synopsis above. Simply put, this is the best series I have ever read. Considering that I've been reading adult-level books since the age of five and that I read at a rate of about 50 books a year, that's saying something. The characters, the dialogue, the characterization, the plot development - all are practically flawless. These books hover around 600 pages, but you barely notice the time spent in reading them because you're so absorbed in what's going to happen next. Something else that must be mentioned is Martin's amazing ability to relate such sensual experiences as the heat of wildfire, the smell of the sea, and the sheer indigestibility of the medieval banquet at its most excessive. Fair warning though, Martin plays for keeps - his characters are in *real* danger and don't always make it out alive

Overall Rating: 15 out of 5 stars (It' s my system - I can do whatever I want ! :P)

You Will Enjoy These Books if You Like: medieval history, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert Jordan
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"The Hunger Games," "Catching Fire," and "Mockingjay"
by Suzanne Collins

Collectively known as the "Hunger Games" trilogy, these three books follow the exploits of Katniss Everdeen, a teenager who volunteers to participate in her society's annual gladiatorial games in a "Thunderdome"-style arena. Once a year the government chooses two children from each of the twelve districts to compete against one another in a live and televised reality show. Twenty-four teens enter, and only one survives. (Katniss volunteers when her younger sister's name is chosen.) The series covers not only Katniss' participation in these brutal (Teenagers killing each other with as much remorse as feral animals!) games, but also her growing resentment towards (and rebellion against) her Orwellian government. To complicate matters, Katniss is also torn between two suitors - one more suited to who she is and one more suited to who she could become.

Kelli's thoughts: these are designated "Young Adult" fiction, but "Anne of Green Gables" they certainly are not. Suicide bombers, torture, the slaughtering of children - some heavy themes to be sure. The real gore is mostly "off screen," which sometimes makes it all the more frightening. I mean, I can probably imagine worse than what someone can write. Great dialogue, smart writing, well-paced action. Oh, and then there's the fact that this is a dystopian novel where the author has actually managed to create a believable future; no made-up slang here, or casual references to extinct dolphins. My only complaint is the ending; admittedly, you can't please everyone and no matter what she chose, the author was bound to alienate someone. However, I never totally bought the relationship Katniss has with the boy she eventually chooses (Trying not to spoil anything here - if you've read the books, give me shout and tell me if you agree.); I didn't feel like it was in keeping with the fiery nature of the character. Regardless, these books are both terrifying and amazing.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy These Books if You Like: "The Running Man" by Stephen King or Horace McCoy's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
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Okay - I have to stop... even though I have four more books to review! ("The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, Ally Condie's "Matched," as well as "Fallen" and "Torment" by Lauren Kate) Stay tuned, gentle readers. Cross my heart that the next set of reviews won't take so long to see the light of day.

Goals? What are those?

Several months ago, a friend of mine published her "45 before 45" list - a more uplifting alternative to a "bucket list." I was inspired to create my own... which has been languishing in my saved documents ever since. (Much like my oft-mentioned post about book reviews... *squirm*) Anyway, here we are:


1. Publish a short story.
2. Take a photography class.
3. Return to London at least once. (Make that twice!)
4. Return to the National Gallery (London) to visit my favorite painting, Van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Wedding.”
5. Go on a cruise. (I’ll be able to cross this one off very soon.)
6. Stay at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.
7. Take voice lessons.
8. Sing in public. (Karaoke counts!)
9. Travel to Egypt.
10. Travel to Japan.
11. Spend more than $500 on a piece of jewelry for myself.
12. BUY a new car. (Current one is a lease.) <---Done on 11/12! Just goes to show you how long ago I started this.
13. Visit Everglades National Park.
14. Clean up my credit score. (Stupid medical bills!)
15. See the Grand Canyon.
16. Get my CAPS designation (Doing this one next year.)
17. Fit into my high school jeans. (Hope to be able to do this by late January!)
18. See David Bowie in concert.
19. Learn a martial art. (I think everyone agrees this would be safer than me learning how to shoot a gun.)
20. Plant and maintain a garden.
21. Finish a sewing project.
22. Fly first class.
23. Get another dog. Frenchies are my favorite right now!
24. Pay for my parents to take a vacation somewhere amazing.
25. Own and operate a bookstore.
26. Consistently donate to a well-deserving cause/charity.
27. Start a scrapbook.
28. Learn how to properly change a flat tire.
29. Stay in an over-priced luxurious hotel suite for no particular reason.
30. Take dance lessons.
31. Act in a play.
32. Climb a mountain. (Okay – not really. How about a large “hill?”)
33. Ride in a helicopter.
34. Stand on the Great Wall of China.
35. Master the art of lucid dreaming.
36. Break out the ol’ flute and start consistently playing again.
37. Read “Anna Karenina” ALL the way through – no skipping the boring parts.
38. Parlay my editing skills into a decent side income.
39. Spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square
40. Try caviar. (I’ve had the opportunity; I just always say no.)
41. Climb the steps of a Mayan or Aztec pyramid. (Without the evisceration, please - a la “The Ruins.”)
42. Go on a safari.
43. Get a master’s degree.
44. Attend a film festival – Sundance, Tribeca, Telluride, etc.
45. See a play on Broadway.

Some are easy, some are hard - ALL are truly things I would like to accomplish. I found this list diffcult to make, actually. I think it's because I treated it like a promise to myself; I fully intend to at least try to make every one of these happen in the next 10 years and five months. I encourage everyone to try a similar exercise, you might be surprised at what you want to do.

Oh, and I know that most of the goals are self-oriented and involve indulgence. *shrug* What can I say? I'm a Taurus.

Quitters

If you decide to quit your job, please do the right thing and give appropriate notice. Do not tell your boss at the end of the day that you have an interview for a new job tomorrow and that you'll need to miss work at your current job to make said interview. Do not no call/no show for two days beginning December 26th, ignore phone calls as to your whereabouts, and then finally sheepishly admit that you've decided to quit without notice. Do not show up 15 minutes late (without calling in) after having an "accident" in your pants on the car ride over (without changing those pants), leave the key in the door of the office that was recently burglarized, lie about leaving the key in the door, and then say you're quitting because "things are disorganized around here."

All of these things have been done by my employees. (And yeah, I heartily wish I was lying about the last one.) All of these things have stressed me out, sent me on a tirade, and just generally made me hopping mad. But, in my mind, the most shocking and jaw-dropping aspect of all of these things is that they were done by adults. Not teenagers - not even young, twenty-something whippersnappers - adults. Adults with families and responsibilities. Just take a moment to let that soak in.

Have some courtesy, people. Have some class. Have some dignity, for the love of Mike. But, above all, have some respect for the person who has to clean up after the bridge you just left flaming in your wake.

Unless of course your boss is a jerk-off. Then you have my permission to wet your pants and quit.

Landlords Unite!

Apartmentratings.com: the bane of my existence. It sounds like a good idea: a website where renters can rate apartment complexes/landlords on everything from maintenance service to amenities. Presumably, the original intention was to create an open forum to discuss the pros and cons of living in certain places. Ideally, it would be a way to keep people from making poor renting decisions and to put slumlords on notice, so to speak. But unfortunately NO ONE regulates this site. It costs nothing to post (You can even do so anonymously if you wish.) and is almost impossible to have comments removed. So, someone could post blatantly ridiculous lies such as, "My neighbor had a pet monkey that busted out my window and my landlord did nothing about it!" and conceivably I as the landlord in question could not have it removed.

Now, you can pay to have the right to post as a verified property owner/community manager, but how is that fair? I have to pay to defend myself against inane posts such as, "Thier cheats! They just take you money and donn't care about nobody!!!!" while any schizoid with an axe to grind can post his/her hucked-on-foniks-werked-fur-mee bullcrap? How democratic.

And where, oh where is the website for the discerning landlord? The site that will let you know that the guy who just filled out an application plans to never clean his bathroom for the next 12 months? Or that the nice couple to whom you just showed that one-bedroom are amateur taxidermists who will be stuffing rats with sand in their newly-carpeted living room? The answer, of course, is that there is no such website. Because that would be considered libel and therefore *gasp* illegal.

I had a tenant who broke his toilet, did not report the problem, and continued using it for a year. The toilet had to be removed by a biohazard team after he moved out. I had another tenant whose bathroom upon move-out was covered in hair clippings and an unidentifiable orange substance; it looked like someone with a penchant for munching Cheetos(and who also happened to be running a very profitable barber shop) had vomited everywhere. And it smelled like it too. Then there was the guy who filled his entire garage with Diet Coke cans full of urine. Or the man who collected dog feces in bags and kept them in a styrofoam container on his patio. Or the man who wanted to move out of his apartment because he was convinced the gay couple that lived above him would "burrow through his closet and get him." But my absolute favorite has to be the older couple who kept their armless grandson in a closet in their bedroom. (You read right - the word was armless.)

So, yeah, I'd like a website too. And fie on those grammatically-disinclined rejects who have the freedom to lie willy-nilly on the intarwebs. I just wanna know if you plan on hollowing out your oven and turning it into a NASCAR diorama, okay?

"Inception" or "How 'The Matrix' forever ruined movies for me."

When I saw "The Matrix" for the first time, I had that "What the...?" moment that I'm sure many of you had. I went home and thought and thought and thought about it.I didn't quite understand what had happened; Keanu's terrible acting and all that heavy metal music had distracted me. Everything became clearer upon second viewing, and by the third time I'd seen it, I felt comfortable discussing it at length with others.

That was the first movie that ever really baffled me. The first movie where I missed sections of dialogue because I was trying to wrap my head around this giant perception shift.

So now, ever since I saw 'The Matrix,' I can no longer just watch a movie - I have to analyze every bit of it from start to finish. And this makes enjoying a movie awfully hard. Within the first ten minutes of a film, I typically have a fully-formed opinion about: which direction the plot will take, who will die (if it's that sort of picture), whether the romantic leads will end up together, and who the double-crossing friend will be (if it's that sort of picture). It's an understatement to say that the brain is a phenomenal multi-tasker; so, obviously, I can still watch the movie while all this opinion-forming is going on... but it's not the same.

You sort of ruin it for yourself when you boil a movie down (even internally) to its most basic points - girl meets boy, boy dies via T-Rex attack, girl meets new boy, new boy double-crosses girl, girl is sad but eventually rides off into sunset with archaeologist - and you have the potential to miss a lot when you do this. The nuanced performances, the stunning visuals - you're not getting your metaphorical money's worth if your distracted by trying to figure everything out before the first handful of popcorn has been munched. And because I know this, I TRY not to extrapolate the plot so much... but it never works.

Enter "Inception," the buzzed-about film from Chrisophr Nolan ("Memento," "The Dark Knight") - I went to see it last week. I knew that this movie was supposed to be a mind-bender and that there was somewhat of a surprise ending, so what do I do? I start plotting it out in my mind five minutes into the show. No spoilers here, but, for me, the movie did not quite live up to the hype.

But is it because the mass media overstated its greatness? Or is it because I just had to be super sleuth and guess the ending shortly after the opening credits rolled?*

*The author is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment for her problem. She is being made to watch films such as "Citizen Kane" and "Unbreakable" where the endings make no sense and are therefore good aversion therapy.

Reviewed!

I read... a lot. I'm getting slower in my old age, but I still bust through about a novel a week. I'm forever being asked (and asking others) for book recommendations, so I thought I would post a few reviews here. Please feel free to comment with recent books you've read which you feel are worth sharing!

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"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

I was late to this bandwagon... well, technically, I wouldn't qualify myself as being on the bandwagon; it's more like I'm in the vicinity of the bandwagon. Anyway, I was intrigued by the idea right away (Zombies in the Victorian era? Whatever will they wear?) , but didn't read the book until three weeks ago.

I don't think I'm selling the book short by saying that it is exactly what the title states it is: Pride and Prejudice ... and Zombies. The author - nay, embellisher - takes the original book and sandwiches in this idea that England is overrun with zombies and that the Bennett family has been trained to deal with them. The original story - with all its angsty romance, misunderstandings, anguish over social improprieties - is still there, but now there's this matter of the Undead as well. There are lots of gory fight scenes, a clever backstory about the Bennett girls' martial arts training in China, and some great zombie-centric twists to the plot involving namely Lizzie's confrontation with Lady Catherine and Charlotte's marriage to Mr. Collins.

Other than those two plot developments, in my opinion, the best part of this book is the illustrations; eight black and white drawings accompany the story. The scenes depicted are generally ones of zombie mayhem. (Although there's a great one of a zombie-fied Charlotte in wedding attire. YES, Charlotte's a zombie!)

I don't know that this book will really get people who wouldn't normally read Austen to suddenly flock to her in droves. It may however get them to read the first few chapters out of curiosity's sake, and it has assuredly made existing fans view the original title in a new way.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (I would have given four save for the fact that Grahame-Smith didn't write most of the book.)

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: the original "Pride and Prejudice" (maybe - if you're a little kooky), Bram Stoker's "Dracula," or "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke.

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"Bloody Awful"

by Georgia Evans

This book is one in a series of murder-mystery tales that take place in southern England during World War II; the main character, Gloria, is a were-fox. Yup - she turns into a red, bushy-tailed little thing in the moonlight and romps around the Surrey hills solving mysteries. As if constantly tripping over dead bodies weren't enough, Evans also populates this world with vampires, pixies, and dragons - oh my! - and all seem hell-bent on making Gloria's life complicated.

I really wanted to like this book; I really, really did. I recently met the author (real name Rosemary Laurey) at a science-fiction/fantasy convention and I thought she was brilliant; erudite, witty, and sarcastic as she was, I thought her books would definitely be to my taste. But this book is dull and disjointed and just... not good. *sigh* Her title was unwittingly appropriate.

Anyway, I will try her other books before making a blanket judgement. She also writes vampire romance under her own name and has some other risque fiction under the name 'Madeleine Oh.' I will update you, intrepid readers, on how those other books fare.

Overall Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: Ummm... other boring books?

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"Crown of Vengeance"

by Stephen Zimmer

Eleven ordinary people find themselves enveloped in a strange mist and transported to another world. Separated into two groups, with no idea how or why they came to this place, they must fight to survive. And it is evident that war and unrest plague this world, as armies muster and factions strike against each other, often placing the eleven right in the middle of their conflicts. Will these travelers discover untapped reserves of strength and cunning, or ultimately break against the pressures of this strange new world?

Zimmer introduces many races and cultures in this book, the first in the Fires of Eden series. It's obvious that this story is going to play out on a grand scale. (To me, the most interesting group is the Trogens, a proud dog-like race who ride winged feline steeds.) The use of mulitple non-human races, mixed with a major plotline involving religion, reminded me a little of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe."

In a nutshell: the story pulled me in, the characters did not. Even by the end of the book, I didn't care about any of these eleven people; in fact, I was more emotionally invested in some of the half-glimpsed villains of the story than I was in the purported main characters. So, I will read the next book (which comes out this November) in the series, but only because I want to know what comes next... not because I care about what happens to these eleven people. Actually, I hope they all get eaten by the dog-people. :)

Overall Review: 3 out of 5 stars (with the caveat that I enjoyed it enough to read the next book in the series)

You Will Enjoy This Book if You Like: "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," George R. R. Martin's " A Game of Thrones" series, or any of the Falconfar books by Ed Greenwood.

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I actually have three more books to review (Did I mention I read a lot?), but this post is already enormous, so I will save those for next week. Check me out again, gentle readers, for reviews of: "The Female Brain" by Louann Brizzendine, "A Storm of Swords" by George R. R. Martin, and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith.

And this is just awesome...

This makes me giggle and clap my hands like a small child:



The following is a message forwarded to me by a friend. The message was written by the C.O.O. of her company (Names have been removed to protect the witless):

"It is with my pleasure to announce the promotion of ****** ****** to the position of ************* responsible for the Texas and Mid-West multifamily portfolio. ****** has proven herself over the last several years with both successful portfolios under her charge as well as the excellent teams she has assembled.She will be establishing continuity with branding ,systems,and marketing /training throughout her regions.Please congratulate her as well as assist her in this transition.I believe our company is in a strong position in these regions and will continue to progress and improve in the future

**** *******
Chief Operating Officer"(sic)

And here is my response:

Dear ******,

You do not possess the grammatical (or editorial, apparently) skills that befit a C.O.O. Furthermore, in my opinion, your blatant disregard for spacing renders you subhuman. Therefore, I am banishing you.

Good day, sir.

Hatefully yours,
The Email Nazi

Friendly Warning

This is worth re-posting because I continue to have this dream.


So I had a dream about the end of the world.
Now, I've had apocalyptic dreams before, but they normally involve staying at a lovely seaside hotel and watching a tidal wave engulf an entire town. This is followed by the stars (literally) falling from the sky. I've had this particular dream so many times that I will never, ever stay anywhere where the ocean is closer than a mile away. The very thought fills me with dread. (Maybe that's what causes the end of the world! Me staying at a seaside hotel! Look out, Nostradamus - I'm awesomer.)

Anyway, this dream involved the sun blacking out and then sailing across the sky like a gigantic baseball. It was horrifying. The only thing that kept it light (and utilimately made me realize it was a dream) was when my friend Joe said, "Uh, yeah... it'll take at least 2-4 weeks for the sun to recover from that."

I firmly believe that dreams are your mind's way of telling you what's going on in the dank and musty recesses of your brain, especially when it comes to stress and worry; your cerebral "Basement of Hand-Wringing," if you will. So, what does that mean for me? Hmmm. Off the top of my head, I would guess I'm worried about something big that's coming up soon; whatever it is, I think it's going to go badly. And that would make perfect sense, given the dream... IF I had something big coming up that I was worried about. But I don't.

Sooooo... I guess that means the world's really coming to an end. Sorry 'boutcha. :)

Ha ha ah ah ha ha ha ha ha ah ahaha ha!

I crack myself up re-reading this post, so I had to bring it over here:


My former employer- who many of you know - seems to be obsessed with me. Part of her obsession manifests itself in her assuming that I am obsessed with her and her stupid company.
Now, some of you might stop me here and say, "But Kelli, you're taking the time to write a blog about her. That could be construed as at least being unable to let the past go, don't you think?" And you may be right, gentle reader. However, I defend myself by saying that... SHE STARTED IT!

I will not name her - since I fully believe her pact with Satan involves her being able to sense the use of her odios moniker - but most of you know her or have heard me speak of her. I'm sure you also know about her melting candle wax face and her wide, expressionless psycho baby doll eyes. And for these things I pity her. All her piles of money can't keep her from having to sleep hanging upside-down from the ceiling each night or stop her cheekbones from sliding into her clavicle.

I can picture her now - eating at MCL in a ballgown or buying her way into another organization - and, I will admit, my mind fills with cold hate. BUT... there's another picture of her that floats through my head: her, shoring up her melting face by gathering folds of skin and stapling them behind her ears, sitting in her white marble office with her princess phone and her fake quill pen from 1985 (the last year she was relevant). She is alone. Utterly alone. THIS picture makes me laugh and laugh.

In the end, how could I (or anyone else) be obsessed with someone so tragic?

I think we all know the answer to this one.

And another post from myspace...


Can people change? Can they really, really change?

If I say 'no,' then that means I can't change either... means I can't evolve, mature, or essentially alter my character in any way. And that's just depressing. Who doesn't believe that they will someday overcome those bad habits, destructive tendencies, idiotic psychoses? That - deep inside - there germinates the seed of a beautiful new tree of life? That maybe they are just sleeping inside a chrysalis of their own making, which will one day crack open and reveal a totally different person?

If, on the other hand, I say 'yes'... I am ignoring years of hard evidence to the contrary. It is foolish to think you can change a person and many times even more foolish to believe someone who says that he/she will change. If you let yourself walk blindly down this road, then I have no advice for you, only the pity of one who's been there and found no end to it. (As someone once said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and clearly you've found the right person to fool.")

I think the crux of the matter is this: people can change... but only if they truly want to change. No one can fix your problems for you, just as no one can identify them. I believe that if a person recognizes and understands his/her issues, and wants to do something about it/them, then they can change. The important thing for us, the bystanders with hope beating away in our chests, to recognize is the difference between a person who wants to change and a person who says they want to change.

And while you're trying to decide if someone really wants to change or is just telling you what you want to hear, remember this: people don't always need to change just because we think they should. The world is not our dollhouse; we should never attempt to rearrange lives on a whim. Love is accepting someone for who they are. If you want someone to overlook your faults, be prepared to overlook theirs.

Waxing Poetic

Another blog post from myspace. Really just an excuse to type out my favorite poem.

"Each and All" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it cheers not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear,—they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid,
As mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;
I leave it behind with the games of youth:"
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet 's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole;
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.


For centuries, Man has come up with a variety of answers to the questions, "Who are we?" and "Why are we here?" Generally, these answers develop and define our relationship to ourselves, the universe, and our deity/supernatural force of choice. We explain things and derive comfort from it. It is said that realizing how insignificant and infinitesimal you are in relation to the cosmos will drive you mad.

I, on the other hand, find comfort in the fact that I am nothing on my own. That I am but a small drop in a vast ocean of beings and forces. Because, as the poem suggests, 'small' does not have to mean 'unnecessary.'

I'm still here!

I've decided to actually try to maintain this thing once again. I don't know what it is about this blog that makes me neglect writing; I was pretty prolific over at myspace... Anyway, in an effort to become motivated again (and as a way to cheat - hee hee), I'm transferring as many posts as I can from my myspace blog. Here's the first one:


So, last night I watched a special on PBS (Yes, I watch PBS. Buzz off, nimrod.) about the science of attraction...
A group of scientists gathered 20 men and 20 women and put them through a series of tests with the goal of matching each one with at least one other member of the group. They used facial similarity mapping, compatibility tests, body-morphing software, and, finally, actual one-on-one encounters to compile data on each individual.
Facial similarity: this takes your face, maps it, and then compares it to faces of members of the opposite sex. The theory is that people are attracted to other people with similar facial features. Ever seen those couples who they look like they could be sister and brother? This is why.
Compatibility tests: theirs was the "CQ" test and consisted of over 100 questions covering every topic conceivable.
Body-morphing software: they asked the men and women to "create" their ideal body type for the opposite sex. They then put all the different selections together to create an average desired shape for both sexes.
One-on-ones: participants had two types of speed dates. The first was simply for gauging first impressions. A woman would sit down in front of a man, then they would both adjust dials hidden on their respective sides of the table to indicate how attracted they were to that person - no talking allowed - and then move on to the next person. The dials ranged from 1 to 100; 100 being the person to whom you were most attracted. The second date was three minutes long and was the participants' chance to ask questions of each other. The dials were reset to the levels chosen after the first dates, and the men and women could lower or raise them based on how they now felt about the person after the second date.

Well, good effort all the way around, guys. Bravo for trying. What they found is that there were too many variables to accurately predict to whom someone would be attracted. (Maybe they heard me yelling at the television screen.) The people with similar facial features were creeped out by each other. The compatibility tests were not foolproof. And the body-morphing only revealed this chestnut: men are attracted to women with good waist-to-hip ratios. Preferences for other areas were varied, but this quality came up consistently across the board.

The thing I found amusing about the one-on-one encounters was that the women participants were in almost all cases giving the men higher ratings on the attraction dials after the second date, suggesting that they were interested in more than physical appearances. The men's dial ratings, on the other hand, changed very little from the first to the second date. (To be fair, the women could certainly have upped the attraction level on the second date after hearing, "I'm a rich doctor" or something similarly superficial.) Along the same lines, was the fact that the women's body-morphing choices (which averaged out to something like a muscle-bound guy who hadn't gone to the gym in a bit) went right out the window when it came to the actual dates. They did however rate for attraction based on height. Soooo... skip the gym, guys, and just... be tall.

Sadly, ladies, it seems you do need to put your fullblown face and knock-em-dead heels on when going to the grocery store (if you're on the prowl, that is). If his first impression is bad, you probably won't get a chance to make another one...