#cecilyblack

I am the worst at remembering birthdays but today I remember (well, also because Facebook reminded me) because it is not one, not two, but THREE of my favorite fandom people (and turned real life friends) ‘s birthdays...

Please send a big happy birthday love and gifs (rather than gifts)...to @amelodysosweet, @klaineandbiscuits, and @cecilyblack!

So glad that Glee brought us together and can’t wait to be reunited again...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 There have been some amazing adventures along the way and I am so deliriously happy that I was able to share some of them with you lovely gals. 

Sending you big hugs from my little town so far away from all of you. xox

cecilyblack replied to your post: “It’s my 40th birthday eve, and I’m about to spend it in the kitchen...”:

😘😘😘😘 Happy Birthday lovely!

A friend called from some advice today and as I was talking I had an out of body experience because I sounded exactly like my Mother would when she gives me advice. Like you not a bad thing but so unnerving!

Two days ago, a woman came into the clinic, and after a moment asked (I thought) if I was Samantha. When I said yes, she raved about how well and young I was looking (nice, right?). She was my mother’s age, but I couldn’t place her and her name rang no bells, but I proceeded to catch her up on what mum was doing... as the conversation wore on she looked slightly confused. Then asked me how my daughter was doing. Now I was confused. She asked again how Samantha was. I said I was Samantha. OH.

She had asked if I was Samantha’s mother. She thought I was my 68 year-old mother and that she/I had discovered the fountain of youth. Kind of takes the shine out of being told how young I looked... considering she meant, for a nearly seventy-year-old!

MWAH! Thanks!!! :)

A. Author You’ve Read The Most Books FromHmmmm… I think, if I am going for sheer numbers, probably Anne McCaffrey. I was mad, mad, MAD for her PERN books when I was in high school and college, and she wrote a lot of books in that world. The next runner-up is probably Umberto Eco who I developed a serious obsession for the writings of in college after a friend loaned me a battered copy of Foucault’s Pendulum.

G. Glad You Gave This Book A ChanceOh. This is… hard. Can I answer with, “every book I’ve ever read”? But really, every time I pick up a book to read it is an unknown quantity. If I finish it (I came to the realization while working in the bookstore that life is too short to read more than 100 pages of a book that you are not enjoying. I don’t mind a slow burn, but if a book is still dragging after page 100, I toss it with nary a backwards glance.) and it stays with me, like a literary mist twining about my psyche and tickling my imagination for hours or days after, then I am always glad I gave that book a chance.

M. Major Book Hangover Because OfI am not sure I actually understand what this is asking. Is a book hangover a good thing or a bad thing? Like, the book was so good that it ruins you for any new books for months to come? Or the book was so bad that you lose faith in the power of the word, leading you to tear your digital watch from your wrist, and splash in to join the dolphins? I’ll answer both ways, I guess, and then someone can fill me in on how I was supposed to answer! :)Good hangover: The Night Circus. This book was beautifully crafted and it’s very soul curled around mine and whispered magic and imagery into my dreams for days to come. Weeks to come. Months… Honestly, it will be years before another novel collides so intensely with my imagination, with my literary psyche.Bad hangover: I was a judge for a provincial literary award (a tidy sum and the only criteria was that the book be from the Atlantic provinces and published the year in question) a few years back and I had to read a huge stack of books (we were allowed to stop reading if we knew that there was NO WAY this book was in contention for us, as long as we took notes as to why… this was when I realized it was okay, nay good, to stop reading bad books). Anyway, the very first novel I read was an unfortunate piece of literary dross (I think it was called Hide Me Away. I’ve blocked most salient details from my memory) which had been written for a three-day writing challenge. No editing, “it’s perfect the way it is”, just slammed into print form and sent out disguised as a real book to trap the unwary reader. The protagonists were so unlikable that I felt them like an oil slick on my brain for days after I finished. It is 8 years later and I am still angry that I read this book. So, very intense hangover…

W. Worst Bookish Habit

Previously I would have said having too many books on the go and taking forever to finish them all, but I am afraid a new bad habit has reared of late. I have been asked on several occasions now to be an advanced reader for a selection of titles for Interlude Press, which is a great honour and one I have mostly failed at. I have discovered several things about myself, those being that:

I don’t like ebooks. I do not connect with books the same way in digital format (don’t get me started on what’s the difference between reading fic on Tumblr or AO3 and loving it and not coping well with ebooks. My brain. It doesn’t always come through with the rational limitations), and somehow my passion doesn’t engage in the same way as with a book;

I don’t do well with reading deadlines. And I am a inveterate procrastinator. These two do not mix well.