Lost Recap – The Package

Oh, just who in the hell is Mr. Him?  Sure, he looks like a mid-aged Charles Widmore, who has possibly traveled back in time to his 30s/40s?  I don’t think that’s him, though.  I listened to that scene three times and that was all I could hear, Mr. Him.  Who do you think this soaking wet man hanging off the desk making at eyes at crazy killer Sayid.  Even though he looked like a wet and skinny Russel Crowe, I’m sure it was our good friend Desmond Hume.

And, good news, if it is Desmond, then we get to see Charlie soon, too.  My god, I can’t wait to see him again.  Can you LOSTIES believe there are only six episodes left, forever?  Aggh!

Tonight was ok, not my favorite, I never really cared about Jin and Sun that much to begin with.  Still, I was pissed Sun and Jin didn’t get to meet on the island, just off island in the sideways version.  What … a dick tease.  Nice that Jin saw a photo of his child finally, but how about his wife?  Funny how they weren’t married in the sideways timeline and had those two rooms.  Even more funnier that her father was trying to get him whacked, and even more funnier that even though Sayid is evil, he still allowed Jin to escape rather than kill him.  Is this how Sayid redeems himself then?

How does anyone feel about Sayid and his “Anger, happiness, pain – I don’t feel it anymore” remark to Smokey John Locke?  I like this side to him, but still, I miss my old Sayid.

I can not take this Liz Lemon-esque woman Zoe and her bad ass moves taking Jin against the wishes of Charles Widmore.  Why the hell does Zoe and Mr. Widmore want with Jin?  Are they planning to kill him to knock him off the list of candidates, to separate the left over survivors to prepare for battle, or perhaps to kill him for Sun’s daddy?  Thoughts anyone?  I think it is to separate the survivors and make them less strong.  If Charles dwindled Smokey John Locke’s team, it would help prevent Locke from escaping the island.

John and Charles keep meeting in time.  Do you know why?  When they first met it was in the 50s.

And then, John and Charles meet again off island, when John was recuperating.

A wise man once said that was coming to this island.  I think it just got here. – Smokey John Locke to Charles Widmore.  Let the battle begin, fellas!

Remember, a long time ago, Charles Widmore once told John Locke off island that he was special, and that the island needed him.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson – Book Review

Photo courtesy of Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is … A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson was a very interesting read for me.  I love memoirs, and was thrilled to be offered a copy of this book to review for my blog, mainly because Laura, like me, was a writer without a book deal.  She had been writing for twenty years and had managed to write fourteen books, all of which were unpublished.  She had some small success getting essays and articles published, but during the summer while writing her last book, her world as she knew it ended in an instant.  This Is Not The Story You Think It Is … A Season of Unlikely Happiness was originally written as an essay for the Modern Love column of the New York Times (published August 2, 2009) was titled Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear.  Her story of marriage woe, while common to many women, wasn’t simple, and it certainly wasn’t common practice, which is perhaps exactly why everyone who read that article had something to say about it, as well as manage to pass it on to friends and their friends, and so on, until the readers managed to eventually crash The New York Times website. 

Laura Munson’s husband came home one day and announced “I don’t love you anymore.  I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out.  The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”   He wanted to leave Laura and their two young children, as well as the life they had built together in a farmhouse on 20 acres in rural Montana.  What wasn’t simple nor common about her dilemma was her response - ”I don’t buy it.”  Laura managed to be calm that summer, at least on the outside, as she often joked about her evil twin sister Sheila who wants blood, as she could see her husband was having a midlife crisis.  She even tried to convince him to go on vacation, and find a new career.  On her own website, Ms, Munson has written “I felt instead that it was his own crisis of self, and that my work was to get out of his way, to control what I could control, commit to non-suffering, and let go of the rest.  My job at that time, and all the time really, is to be responsible for my own well-being, regardless of what’s at hand.”

Any article that isn’t about a celebrity and still manages to crash a website and inspired a novel in my mind was worth reading.  I enjoyed reading this book very much, because it made me think.   Laura wasn’t even sure if her husband had a mistress, or if he was simply in crisis because of his work and the current economy.  I asked myself, what if I had to face that sort of dilemma?  What if one of my friends was going through the same thing, what advise would I give to them?  What I thought was interesting about the way Ms. Munson handled her husbands midlife crisis was that the belief I hold that not too many women I know, including myself, could be so practical, so understanding and in my opinion, so borderline passive-aggressive as Laura was during the summer of her crisis.  This was exactly why I found the book interesting, because I could relate to her, this 40-year-old college-educated woman who doesn’t get much credit or money for twenty years of hard work, who has managed to change her life completely, leaving behind her former life for the Montana mountains (As I wish I could – I’d die to live in Utah, Wyoming or Montana) yet she was either rational enough or too-emotionally withdrawn enough to put up a crazy fight or to retreat from the humiliation and pain he had put her through. 

Had it been me, had my own husband came home one day and told me those words, I would have went out and grabbed my lead pipe, and bashed my husband in the head with it.  You may think I’m joking, but my running routine with my own husband is that if he ever does something bad, my response will be physical violence and a public shaming at his place of business.  There is no way I would just simply go to my therapist, watch him miss holidays and responsibilities with the kids, and sit and wait so that he would hopefully “see the light” and come back to his family.  In her book, Laura writes about the time she had her friend’s husband do a fly by to their house with his helicopter to drop off pilot books to inspire her husband to get his ass in gear and look for a new career.  Perhaps down the line, I could see rationally, but not in my initial response, at the moment of shock.

 Words of wisdom from the book:

“The only difference between being published and not being published, is being published.”

“If we deprive ourselves of our greatest dreams, how are we setting ourselves to be treated by our husbands?” 

“If we neglect our own souls, how are others to react to us? 

Photo courtesy of Laura Munson

To visit Laura Munson’s website, go here.

To view Laura Munson’s blog, go here.

To follow Laura on Twitter, click here.

To become a fan of Laura on Facebook, click here. 

To buy This Is Not The Story You Think It Is … A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson clicking here.

Book Review – Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valez

The definition of WENCH through the ages:

(1290): A girl, maid, young woman; a female child.

(1362): A wanton woman; a mistress.

(1812; 1832): A black or colored female servant; a negress.

(1848): A colored woman of any age; a negress or mulattress, especially one in service.

(2010): A slave concubine.

I adore historical fiction, and feel so lucky to have been offered the chance to review Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valez.  Not only am I thrilled to have found another brilliant historical fiction novel by a first-time writer, but I haven’t read a book on slavery since high school, and I was so happy to learn so many new things while reading Wench.  Did you know about Tawawa House near Xenia, Ohio?  It was open from 1852 – 1855 and it was a resort for Southern gentlemen and their “slave entourages.”  Not only did these men come to a free state to vacation with their slave concubines, but their behavior closed the resort in just four years.  Out of this crazy place came the Ohio African University which eventually was renamed Wilberforce University, our nation’s oldest private African-American University.  Guess who are believed to be among the first students?  The offspring between the slave owners and the slaves. 

Wench is the story of four slave women “wenches” who meet at Tawawa House.  Lizzie, Rennie, Sweet have become friends over the years during their vacations, but when they meet a new slave wench named Mawu, life as they know it changes forever once Mawu puts the idea of running away to become free in their heads.  When they see free slaves for the first time, not only walking the streets of Ohio, but also vacationing at a nearby resort called Lewis House for colored folk, they are amazed to learn that black children are allowed to read and even play the piano, let alone get served by white folks, sit without doing work, and have bowls of fruit and cigarettes available for consumption. 

Between the love stories and torture tales of these four women and their slave masters, the emotional bonds between them are tight.  Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet and Mawu endure and suffer every imaginable event, from dressing up in fine white women clothes, to eating and dancing in the formal dining room, to being able to sleep in beds all night with their men and take baths, to rape, public beatings, and situations so unmentionable that I won’t mention here.  Throw in the thoughts and plans for escape, the manipulations these men do to them daily, and worst of all the guilt and fear of leaving their lovers and their children behind, you have one hell of a fine novel.  I loved this book, and really hope you will once you read it, too.  I’m not the only one so far who loved it, Wench has also been featured in People, Essence, and O Magazines.

As much as I love the beauty of the south, it is unimaginable to me that many people there felt it was ok to “own” African-Americans, let alone force them to work, starve them, beat them, kill them, hate them, and force the women to be their sex slaves, often impregnating them.  I remember learning in school about the 3/5ths of a person rule in our Constitution and felt like puking in my mouth at that moment.  These slave owners didn’t consider their slaves as human, but it was ok to count their property as 3/5 of a person for tax purposes?  What, besides ignorance and opportunity, ever gave that first very first person the idea to decide to force someone to do whatever they wanted while calling them their property?  What a world we live in …

I’d love to hear from anyone who has any good or bad stories about slavery, what their family or friends encountered, or any other good books you’ve read on this topic.

To purchase your copy of Wench, go here.

To visit Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s website, click here.

To visit her Twitter page, go here.

To visit her Blog, click here.

I’m Not Wild About Pretty Wild, Kendra, Or Kirstie Alley’s Big Life

Is it me, or does Sunday night television suck these days?

Dear Tess, Alexis, Gabby, Andrea “CRAZY EYES” Arlington, the step-father than just sits there and does nothing, E!, Chelsea Handler and all of the rest of the producers of Pretty Wild – I don’t even know where to begin in this rant.  This show may actually be worse than Jon & Kate Plus 8.  Nice going, exploiting three teen girls, even if their bodies are filled with nasty whore-esque tattoos and they allegedly steal from movie stars.  You have a 17-year-old girl charged with a felony going out to dinner with a big man in his mid-20s; a dog running wild in the house, shitting all over the place, not getting taken care of, and almost lost outside, destined to be picked up and eaten by a coyote in the weeks to come ala Daisy Simpson?  You move houses and yank the youngest out of home schooling while she is also busing filming this heavily scripted but still not even good “Reality TV” show during her sisters trial, further pushing her under the microscope and just begging for his classmates to destroy her?  You talk about Tess’s birth mother, and never mention her real parents are pissed that they are being portrayed poorly on the show?  I feel so bad for them if they were good parents.  FYI, all that fake crying has got to go, because it was way to much fake drama for even this Ghetto Girl to handle.

For those who need to know who Tess Taylor really is, and who her parents are, listen up: Tess was born Tess Amber Adler to Tracie A. Adler and Franklin Simon Adler.  According to court documents filed in October 2002, her father was paying her mother child support.  If Tess is 20 now, in 2002 she would have been 12.  There is a rumor going around that Tracie Adler got into a car accident in 2005 and was in a coma, so, that is probably when her mom’s friend “Crazy Eyes” stepped in and helped out raising Tess, at age 15.  I wouldn’t say that qualifies her to be called “mom” or for Tess to claim Gabby and Alexis are “her sisters.”

 

Dear producers of Kendra, OK Magazine, E!, and Kendra Wilkinson Baskett - I find it hilarious that you want us to believe that Kendra lost all her baby weight in 10 days from working out.  Even more hilarious, passing off these airbrushed photos on OK Magazine of Kendra.  I saw her on the show at that photo shoot in that pink one piece bathing suit … and Kendra was WAAAAAYYYYYYYY heavier than she appeared on the magazine cover.  Being a photographer myself, I know my way around Adobe Photoshop.  (I’ve got Roceasea and Fat Arm Syndrome myself)  Funny when I used my zoom tool and blow up both of these photos to very large sizes the borders that I circled are completely straight, when every other border in the photos aren’t.  It’s one thing to help a person out with a double chin, but to take off 20 pounds?  I’m tired of celebs trying to pass off airbrushed bodies as pregnancy weight loss stories.  Everyone in the industry and in the entire world, actually needs to quit pressuring woman to lose weight so fast after going through something very hard.  Heck, guess what?  Food tastes good and it is nice to be able to eat it sometimes!  You are sending the wrong f-ing message when you airbrush people that much.  Ever hear of the saying “REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES?”  It is ok to show them on tv, you know, and I’m not talking about Kirstie Alley, Ruby, or the people on The Biggest Loser.  Also, way to go on spending less than five minutes on Hank’s Superbowl blunder, by the way.  That was what I was waiting for all night.  Way to glaze over that one and just show us a photo of Kendra crying rather than the good footage.  What kind of reality show edits the best moments out?

Dear Kirstie Alley, A & E, and the producers of Big Life - Shame on you for this boring, dull, and ridiculous waste of tv airspace on A & E.  I tuned it tonight just for laughs.  Instead, I found Jim the Handyman, your chubby buddy?  Snooze.  Showing off Jim’s gigantic belly, I’ll pass.  Flaunting your possibly gay and lazy sidekick assistant?  It’s been done to death.  My favorite moment wasn’t when you were interviewing work out staff that go by the name of The Truth, or pranking your black trainer with racist jokes, but when you “WORKED OUT” on camera with your long hair down and wearing some sort of pant suit instead of gym clothes.  Honey, I weight like a 1,000 pounds less than you, and seven minutes into my workout I’m sweating like a pig.  You don’t have any real technique using those machines, and I can tell it was for show and not for fitness.  If you think it is ok to poke fun at yourself for being fat and monopolizing on it to earn money, than you sicken me.  I am more than happy to watch any reality show about any person who is trying to lose weight, or who is losing the battle to lose weight, but when you start off by never even trying, I can see you have multiple seasons lined up just to keep us wondering if “you’ll ever lose it.”  YOU GIVE FAT CHICKS (and hell, even Scientology!) A BAD NAME.  Shame, shame, shame!

 

Book Giveaway – Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

 

I’m happy to announce that I have 3 copies of Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus to giveaway to three lucky winners!!! 

Photo courtesy of Washington Square Press

I just finished reading Dedication Thursday morning and it was a really good book – I started reading it at 1:00 am and finished it by 4:30 am, all in one sitting.  Even though I had to wake up at 9:00 am, I could not put this book down, even though I was exhausted and had a long day in front of me, since I had to walk to and from my volunteer job in the rain, and work all day.  I think Dedication is a much better book that The Nanny Diaries and Nanny Returns.  I’ll be doing a review of the book later this weekend, but let me quickly tell you what this book is about.  The main character Kate is a successful women in her early thirties.  Her high school boyfriend Jake broke her heart, became a major rock star, and every hit song he had was all about her, every intimate detail of their high school relationship, and her family troubles.  Kate can’t escape his music, nor get him off of her mind.  When Jake finally returns back home to Vermont after years of absence, Kate decides to confront Jake face to face and flies back home.  The book goes back in time to sixth grade when they met until her senior year and beyond into her twenties, and also flashes forward to present day every few chapters.  I really enjoyed reading this book, and I hope you enter to win it, because I know you will love it, too.

A special thanks to Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus and their representation for sponsoring this fantastic book giveaway!

RULES:
**U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY
**NO P.O. BOXES, PLEASE
**MUST INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS IN COMMENT
**ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO COUNT

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: Go to Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus website HERE and tell me via your comment below what fun or interesting thing you learned or noticed on her website. 

+1 MORE ENTRY: Go to Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus website and look at all of their novels HERE .  Let me know if you have read one of their other books, and tell me which one, or if you had to pick one you would want to read, tell me which one you would pick and why. 

+1 MORE ENTRY: Comment if you are a loyal follower of theirs, either on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads, or if you are on their mailing list.  Tell me where and how you follow her. 

+1 MORE ENTRY: Blog about this giveaway, share a link via Twitter, or post a link via Facebook about my Dedication giveaway and come back here and comment with that link.

+1 MORE ENTRY: Come back to my blog next Thursday, April 1st and read my book review on Dedication.  Comment on that post and tell me your high school romance tale gone wrong and why you need to win this book!

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