Celebrate Spoooooky Smart Bitches Day with Sandy! And Bookseller Chick!

And frankly, Bookseller Chick, aka Linsey, has it all over me because that girl has written what I do believe is the quintessential SBD entry ever of all time. Brava, bravissima. Bravissimone, even. Seriously, L - it's GREAT.

I am keeping mine brief because it's been a really long day, but it's both (a) eerily similar to Linsey's entry, and (b) in the spirit of the holiday.

Everlastin'!

So back in the day - which is like 10-ish years ago - Snooks and I worked at the bookstore. It was a Barnes & Backstabbers. I mean Barnes & Ignoble. I mean who cares, it was a bookstore and the only thing good about it was the discount and the opportunity for the two of us to hang out for entire days.

If you've worked retail, full-time, for more than one Christmas season? The sales floor? Then by god you deserve some kinda civilian form of the Purple Heart. But you also know how desperately important laughter is. Without it, Snooks and/or I would now be on death row, working on our third appeal. If we'd known about Linsey's terrific Fun With Harlequins game, we'd have been all over that.

But instead, we had our own not inconsiderable amusements. Things like... oh, I'd wait until there weren't too many customers in the store and then I'd all-store page: "Snookie to the cash-wrap, please, Snookie please report to the cash-wrap. Your autographed copy of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking the Silence is ready at the cash-wrap." Or I'd be buried under a pile of periodicals of some sort, not able to turn around, and she'd come up behind me and in a snooty fake customer voice say like, "I'm looking for Robert James Waller's book of essays, that man is a genius, isn't he?" And then see if I could answer without laughing and/or viciously mocking before figuring out it wasn't a real customer.

And so on. Ah, good times.

But my fave game that we played was Who Can Find The Worst Book Cover In The Store, Quick You Have Three Minutes, GO!

We always had some standards - Laura Kinsale's Flowers From The Storm was one, because Fabio with that look on his face and reaching out like that - oy. (Sorry, but it's totally heinous, that cover.) It held the record for a while, and it was fun to dare coworkers to read it despite the cover. Which we always did, because if ever there were a work to prove the old Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover saying, it's that one. But there were a couple of others -- one vomitous-looking cookbook cover stands out in my memory, as well as some book in the Crafts section that featured a piece of paper. That was it, just a piece of folded paper next to an idle hand, and it was about origami. A glance at that cover was a sedative, I swear.

But! The biggest winner of all - and oh, the day this book showed up in the store was a joyful, joyful day - was Everlastin' by Mickee Madden.

Here's the cover, and God Bless Google, huh?



Every time, we had to list everything so fantastically bad about it. It has everything:

• Ugly Guy Who We're Supposed to Try to Pretend Is Hunky
• A shirt of fine lawn
• Open down to his navel
• Revealing a glimpse of man-titty
• Skin-tight leather breeches
• Mullet
  
• Roaring fire
• An apostrophe instead of the g on Everlastin'. BRILLIANT.
  

But see, Everlastin' is a story about a dead Scottish laird living as a ghost in his castle and blah blah I read it and it is sooooo bad blah blah - my point is that what REALLY puts it over the edge in its Perfection of Cheesiness is this: the cover is one of those holographic things. The whole cover.

See how he's kinda shimmery floaty? Wait, look at this Amazon image. The cover is plastic-coated and textured. We loved to tilt it back and forth and say
Me: "He's there! He's gone! He's there! He's gone!"
Snookie: "He is Everlastin', lassie! [tilt] Or maybe not! [tilt] Everlas--[tilt] Kinda-lastin'… MAKE UP YOUR MIND, DAMN YOU."

And so forth. Then we'd take turns running our fingernails back and forth really quickly along the surface so it made that wikiwikiwikiwiki noise.

I found it years ago in a used bookstore and bought a copy to send to Snooks. It was when she was in Bosnia and I loved the idea of her opening a package and finding that book and laughing uncontrollably. But I never did send it and somehow it got lost in all my moves. So apparently, not so everlastin' after all. Bummer.

Next week on SBD -- I shall gush about something. Some good romance novel, because I spoze I should make the point that I'm not a hater. Suggestions and requests are welcome.

Dear Internet:

I am tired. I know I said I'd clarify my stance on reading and writing and critique and all that, but work is, as aforementioned, kicking my ass. Also, what little free time this evening afforded me has been spent with someone far more important to me than spreading my thoughts on the subject of Writing and Reader Response. Sorry.

I really will eventually (hopefully soon) blog about it because it's a whole Thing with me, the point about honesty in discourse and why I speak the way that I speak and how our inability/unwillingness to discuss likes and dislikes in very real and concrete terms is pretty much destroying civilization as we know it. Um. But not tonight.

For my faithful and longstanding readers, I know you shall come back and read whatever I blather on about - like how my dinner tonight was a bag of kettle corn and some lemonade, or how my complexion has decided that it really missed out on that acne craze back when I was a teenager so it should really catch up now, or how I'll be meeting the peeps for pizza later this week yay, etc. But there are still an awful lot of people coming over here, and I can only assume it's because of how I made no bones about hating the latest Gabaldon book. They're not here to read about my adorable neffs or my insane ma or how my friends are the coolest ever and you should all be jealous, nyah.

So I'm inviting anyone at all who actually read and LIKED the book to please tell me what was so great about it, and to please dispute any points I made that you think are totally wrong. I'd think that people would feel free to comment on the entry itself, but they don't. So I'm leaving comments open on this post for that purpose.

Please. Disagree with me. Tell me WHY you disagree with me. And hey - listen now, because the vast majority of you don't know me and haven't read anything more than my review of the book: I will not rip into you. I am not looking for a fight. I want intelligent discussion of Why Beth Is Wrong About A Breath Of Snow And Ashes. If you're okay with the rape and how it was handled? Please, please, please explain to me why. Because I cannot fathom it.

And if there are no comments on this post, then I'm going to assume everyone agrees with me that th book is steaming pile and the author is off her rocker. As you should because I am a goddess among women. Clearly.

Goodnight.

*****EDIT*****

Holy statistics, batman. A girl gets a little linkage and next thing you know, people think she ain't nothin' but a hater. Read this to understand My History As A Gabaldon Fangirl. And later on I'll blog my thinking on reading, writing, reviewing, and what all of us owe one another when we inhabit those roles. (Or each other. Is it "one another" or "each other"? Does it matter? Paul? You nitpicky sumbitch, tell us which it is, please. Thanks.) End of edit.

***Edit Again***
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. BIG TIME.

**OMG I cannot believe I am editing this again**

But seriously, I have to because people keep linking and reading and gah. Y'all? Strangers? Reading this? You're reading a blog. A personal weblog. Where I sit down after a long day of boring office work and randomly type out the stuff in my head for the handful of friends who enjoy reading it. This is a "review" only in the very loosest sense of the word. Duh. It was never intended for an audience to gather around and discuss its worth and hold it up as an example of anything. This is me. Talking. The way I talk to my friends. Like if someone asked me, "Hey, why'd you hate that book?" - this would be my candid answer to that. If you read further, you're basically just overhearing a conversation/diatribe. For the love of sweet baby ganesh, people, CONSIDER THE VENUE. You're so much smarter than this, I just know you are. C'mon.

[OFFICIAL END OF EDITING]

Okay, Kate wrote a bona fide Smart Bitches Day entry. Bookseller Chica, I shall totally count as SBD because it's all about her trying to serve the romance-reading community and being thwarted by The Man. Please give her a valid email address - help a girl out. Gads, I remember when I worked at the bookstore(s) and being forced to sell that Preferred/Frequent/Indescriminate Reader card thing. It was hell. I think I actually got written up once for not suckering enough people into it. But though I am (really!) moved that his son loves the Infamous Crack-Infested Peanut Butter Cookies, I can't count Doug's entry as SBD. I don't think Doug quite gets the point of the Smart Bitches Day. And Sandy's doesn't really fit, either.

To clarify: a SBD entry isn't just What I Blogged On Monday. The point of SBD is to talk about any aspect of literature (preferably Romance, but it doesn't have to be) you care to, without mincing words. There is no apologizing in SBD. There is little, if any, cushioning of the blow. One does not sit down at one's keyboard and carefully put Kindness before Truth. In short, it's a day for talking (blogging) about your reading material without inhibitions. Stop playing nicey-nice and call it crap if it's crap. Also call it fab if it's fab. Some things are worth gushing about. However. . .

A Breath of Snow And Ashes
. . . is not.

Please know that I am really not up to this post. Am in a Mood and don't feel like saying anything more than "This books sucks the shit out if its own asshole; don't buy it," but I have been promising the internet a more in-depth explanation. And so I shall try.
(And I just finished it and am scrolling up here to tell you that I'm not even glancing over it. I have blurted. It is done. Good night.)

Hmm. What's the best way to go about this? Maybe -- what would I tell Diana Gabaldon, if ever I felt like giving my undiluted opinion to someone who neither asked for that opinion nor forced me to read her book? Because really, it's not her fault. All the warnings signs were there - little droppings (second half of Voyager) and then fat turds (Drums of Autumn) and then wet stinking puddles of it (Fiery Cross), all leading like breadcrumbs to the house-sized pile of steaming shit that is A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

I know y'all are probably thinking I'm indulging in some kind of hyperbole. But I swear I'm not just going for effect, here. It is monumentally Bad. And I saw it coming, and I put my hard-earned money down on the counter and bought it anyway. One fresh cow patty, served up piping hot in one of the most obnoxious dust covers ever.

So if I were taking this straight to la Gabaldon, that's the first thing I'd ask: did you try to stop them from wrapping your book in tin foil? Should hand out sunglasses at the check-out. Neat trick, though, to try to blind the reader. Far more difficult to criticize words when you can't see them.

I'd tell her editor to edit. Or, as Snookie intoned in a Voice Of Dread: "What if her editor is editing?"

I'd tell her that I'm angry that these two characters I loved -- yes, past tense. I loved them. Love, people, and I don't use the word lightly. I'm angry because I spent about 800 of the nearly 1000 pages thinking the traitorous thought: I just want them to die now. Please kill them. Die. DIE. Good fucking CHRIST will you please DIE because THAT would at least be INTERESTING.

I'd tell her that Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser Randall Fraser (really!) deserves better than to be raped for no other reason than her author can't think of anything better to do, and because everyone else has gotten raped so why the hell not. When this beloved character - who has felt like such a real person to me, for years - gets raped, then you as an author are doing something terribly, terribly wrong when my only reaction is to snort, roll my eyes, and say out loud "oh give me a fucking break." It's especially bad when Snookie, who is without a doubt ten times more devoted than I ever was (and that's saying something), reacts to the same scene by actually saying to her book: "Fuck you, Diana Gabaldon. Fuck. You." Because seriously? What kind of bullshit is that? It had no narrative significance. It had barely any effect on any of the characters at all. It had no purpose whatsoever.

I'd tell her that she's getting sloppy, because when Claire was carried off and all she could think about was how she was certain that:
1. Jamie would rescue her, he's bound to track them easily and then she'll be safe, and
2. Marsali must be dead or dying, oh what will happen to the poor pregnant woman they beat up and left for dead?
Then any writer worthy of the title follows up on those two points. You moron. So tell me: wtf took Jamie so long that Claire got treated to three of the men before he showed up? What delayed him? Anything other than your desire to have Claire get raped? And did you think even for an instant that you could've showed the moment when Jamie says Marsali and her unborn baby are okay, instead of mentioning it in a single, tossed-off sentence pages and pages and pages later? Because the only reason I kept reading instead of drifting off into blissful slumber was because I wanted to see if Marsali was dead or not. You made it this big deal. Then you made it not this big deal.

I can only assume you did that because it was oh-so-essential to subject me to the unbelievable behavior of Jamie and Claire. Let's see - Jamie Fraser. Great Guy. Better than great, he's downright perfect. In all situations, he always does and says exactly the right (and frequently unexpectedly right) things. So what's the first thing out of his mouth as he's carrying his wife away from the scene of the beating/rape?

He worries that one of her rapists might have gotten her pregnant.

Yes, Jamie Fraser is worried that his like 55-year-old wife might be pregnant with a child that isn't his. He worries about this as the wife in question is re-setting her own broken nose, by the way. And then he comes up with the solution that he must take her home and fuck her immediately. And she agrees with him. And they fuck like bunnies. Less than 24 hours after she was beaten to a pulp and sexually assaulted by three men.

Hoooooooo-kay.

That to me was really the low point. For obvious reasons. But I'd also tell her that Claire wondering aloud to Jamie if the (very, very honorable and warm-hearted) man who raised Jamie's son as his own only did so because well that guy is gay and he's always been in love with Jamie and maybe he only took in the boy because of the family resemblance and well isn't it just possible that he wanted a mini-Jamie around to slake his lust? Well, see - not only is that not very Claire-ish, it is incredibly non-Jamie-ish that he just takes it in stride and says "no" and that's that. And all of that just smacks of some lazy author going to her own rabid-fan-infested message boards and picking up random retarded conversations and writing them into the book. (Sorry, but it does. It's like if JK Rowling ever decided to have Dumbledore and Harry get it on. It's like "whuh?") Oh, and also - remarkably insulting to equate homosexuality with pedophilia, but that shoud go without saying. Sadly, it looks like no one ever said it to Diana Gabaldon.

Also: please stop writing every single horrible, awful, grisly, depressing thing thatpops into your head. Go become a scriptwriter for CSI if you feel the need to describe the details of babies dying of dysentery;
families hanged and burned in their own homes;
an eight year old girl burnt to a crisp and with hunks of skin missing, bones showing, barely beating heart visible through the skin, big blue eyes roaming as she says only mama? several times before one of our main characters mercy-kills her;
lancing an old woman through the eyeball with a knitting needle;
cutting the fetus from a murdered woman's womb only to have it die in our fair physician' hands immediately. . .
did I miss any? I'm sure I did. The list of atrocities goes on and on and on and on and on and on for so many useless pages, and none of it has anything to do with anything. Diana? I get it. Life was hard back then. There were very tough realities. I GET IT. I have a frikken concussion from getting it so beaten into my head.

Oh let's try to wrap this up. I'm tired and my heart isn't in it and you all probably get the idea anyway.

Other points:

I don't give a flying fig about Claire's experiments with ether or penicillin. I don't care about every patient she sees. If I wanted to watch Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, I would.

Your dialogue stinks to high heaven in this book, especially if the character is just one of those who passes through the storyline and is not a permanent-ish figure. Here's a tip: Nobody says "hot dog!" unless they're a cub reporter in a 1940 newsroom. Also, I think even a 1960s stoner dude who'd gone back in time and spent SIX YEARS living with very rough outlaws in 18th century America? Would stop saying "gnarly" and "groovy" at some point.

Speaking of which, you totally blew it with Wendigo. In every possible way. The character himself, the other characters' reactions to him, his storyline, the potential - all of it. Blew it. Way to go.

You also blew it with wee Ian and the story of What Happened With The Injuns. It's one of the only reasons I wanted to read this book, and while his story was poignant, it fell flat. Maybe because he had no compelling reason to tell it. No, I don't consider finding the half-buried bones of a mammoth a compelling reason to confide in your cousin (and why the fuck would he tell her and not Jamie?) about your lost wife and child.

Your physical comedy sucks. Actually, all your comedy sucks. You're not funny. Stop trying to be. It's embarrassing.

I saw that ether bomb coming a mile away. Actually, I thought of it when they had the house surrounded and Claire was in her surgery and trying to think of weapons as she observed the men in her yard huddle together, and I thought Weapons! Ether! Quick grab it and throw it and they'll all pass out and ta-da! Sadly, Claire didn't think of this incredibly obvious device. Funny, seeing as how that goddamn ether preoccupied every other thought she had for 900+ pages.

Incidentally, they look like total shit-for-brains, what with how they know that they're supposed to die in a fire at home and yet they still keep ether and phosphorous in the house. Fucking keep it OUTSIDE, you idiots. I mean, who wouldn't put that shit out in the snow? You have newspaper clippings of your own death, for the love of god, take the flammables outside and LEAVE them there forever. Sheesh.

Oh, and I remember the other books. You know, the 5 that came before this one. Things like when she and Frank first slept together after (that's after) the baby was born. And Brianna can't be capable of everything (worst character ever) and I don't buy Roger's sudden "calling" for an instant and what's with this huuuuuge rivalry with Brownsville getting all suddenly resolved in about 2 sentences at the end of the book? Why do you think I want to hear the details of the hot sex a couple of almost-60-year-olds are having?
Was there supposed to be a reason that that lawyer guy wanted some kind of revenge on Jamie, because you never mentioned a motivation?
Why the bloody fuck is Jamie going back to Scotland to get his printing press?
And why is he coming back?
And why wouldn't you write the goodbye scene between them and their daughter and grandchildren when they all know they'll never see each other again and that's one of the huge things you've been building toward?
And why did they have like no conversations, any of them, about anything important?
Can you explain to me why I should care about Prince Charlie's gold?
Or why you didn't make this story a little bit about the Revolution in which it's set?

I dunno, can you even tell your ass from your elbow anymore, woman?

To Diana Gabaldon, I'd say: look thee to the hideous example of Anne "I've Gone Totally Insane" Rice and beware the path you tread. Most people already have a god, and you ain't it, sister.

To her editor, I'd say: The book should've started at chapter 76. Yes, that means cutting 75 chapters, and about 700 pages. So? No, seriously -- so what? It's incredibly obvious. You read along and hit the opening of Chapter 76 and there's this little jolt to it; something in the story says click and there it is. Those first 75 chapters are nothing but the writer wandering about the page and trying to figure stuff out, playing around. It's like 700 pages of scratch paper. It's all cutting-room floor stuff, and not the kind that cultural historians lament the loss of, trust me. Then take those last couple hundred pages and expand those storylines and voila - you have what we thought we were paying for. I mean jaysus, if little nobody me can see it, a big deal editor (definition: one who edits) like you should be able to.

To anyone who's thinking of reading it, I'd say: Obviously don't.

But what I'd also say, and what makes me really sad is that I really mean this: I'm done. I'm not reading the next. It's supposed to be the last, but she's said that about the last 2 or 3 of them. I'm really done, because she's made me thoroughly sick of the whole thing. And that's bad, because I am an incredibly loyal reader. Years from now, I'll ask Snookie to mark the Very Very End, the last scene, the story coming to a close. I'll hope it's as graceful as its opening. But I can't greet another thick book from Gabaldon with anything other than a shudder. Where I used to be ecstatic at so much good reading ahead of me, I'm now filled with a weary kind of disgust.

I loved those books. I wish I'd never read these last couple, especially this last one, because it's just soured me unbelievably.

My advice: Read the first. If you must continue, stop at the third. Go ahead and read the fourth if you can't stand it, but don't don't don't ruin it all be going any further.

Someone stole Diana Gabaldon and her wonderful characters and her talent and her skill. And I've given up hoping she'll ever get found again.

***Edit Yet Again: Further substantive commentary/discussion can be found here.

Of Writing and Scones

My favorite people to talk to about Why The Fuck Do I Even CARE About Writing (a recurrent theme in my life these last few years) are Chas and Laura, because we've all come to the same conclusion about it and need to remind each other and ourselves what we've learned. It always boils down to: write what you want to, and because you want to; your own sense of satisfaction is the only semi-guaranteed reward, so if that's not enough for you then maybe you shouldn't bother.

Or something like that.

Me? I love to write for Snookie. To have the constant dialogue with her, ongoing and engrossing and filling up my mind and sparking my imagination. Entertaining her. Or trying to. She's my audience. Sadly, she is only in constant dialogue with her very young children. They're her job, and what absorbs her day. I get an hour or two a week. Maybe she could swing ten minutes a day or so. And it's not enough for my purposes.

I try to find things or people to replace that motivation and that audience. But I'm only ever disappointed and frustrated.

So I don't write. And it makes me sad and it's this really wonderful part of me that I loved more than anything, but is gone now. It'll maybe come back one day, but it's not here now. And it hasn't been for a very long time. I just try not to think about it, because it's really, really upsetting when I do. And I don't like crying as though my life were at an end.

You know what I do like? Scones. Not ALL scones, mind you, but certainly this recipe I have. Linsey has requested and so I share it.

Here's the deal:

• If you have one of those gorgeous Kitchen Aid mixer things? Perfect for this. It takes a REALLY big mixing bowl (unless you do half the recipe, which I always mean to do but haven't yet) and it's really, really sticky.
• I don't have a mixer or a blender. All I use is fork, spoon, wooden spoon, rubber spatula, whatever - as necessary. It's not very high-tech.
  
• You don't have to use raisins. I never do. I get dried cherries. The best are dried sour cherries. Bet cranberries would be awesome too, and one day I'm gonna put in orange zest and then make orange hard icing to put on top because orange scones are AWESOME. Or chocolate chips, if that's your thing.
  
• It makes a gigunda batch, but they freeze fabulously. So freeze like a whole bunch and you can have scones with tea for like WEEKS and how cool is THAT, huh?

Scones

4 c flour, sifted (I confess I never sift.) (I would, but I don't have a sifter.) (So sue me.)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 c sugar
2 c raisins (or other dried fruit or whatever, be creative)
1 stick Irish butter, melted (A Very Old Woman From Ireland gave me this recipe, and I generally have Irish or Danish butter in my fridge instead of American [there's honestly a difference, to my tastes], but I say use whatever you want as long as it's not margarine.)
2 c sour cream (not less)
2 eggs

Sift all the dry ingredients together in one bowl (or if you, like me, don't have one big enough, then just use your biggest soup pot). Pour melted butter into dry mix, cut it in (as in, mash with a fork or use a pastry cutter, and work it in some with your fingers). Add raisins (or whatever).

In another bowl: beat the eggs, and add in the sour cream - mix them together. Add the sour-cream-n-egg mixture to the dry mixture and stir everything together into a gloppy sticky dough.

Drop by tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350-400 for 15-20 minutes, until light golden brown.

Eat. With tea. Rejoice.

(Also, if you want to employ an electric mixer? Beat a tub of Cool Whip together with a brick of cream cheese and slap some of that on there. Yee fuckin' haw, baby.)

Over and out, y'all.

How To Make Pie Crust From Scratch Because It's Really Not Hard Despite What Everyone Seems To Think

So I took all my roasted veggies and threw in some steamed broccoli, too, plus whatever other cooked veg I had hanging out in the fridge and a handful of grated romano cheese and put it in a double pie crust and baked me a giant homemade veggie pot pie. Which, incidentally? Is really easy. Just chop and roast the veg (make sure there's onion and garlic in there, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY) and throw it in a crust and voilà.

But every time I make a pie crust, everyone is all "Are you KIDDING, you make your own PIE CRUST oh my GOD how do you DO that!!" Like it's a frigging miracle or something. A lot of people act like it's the equivalent of making elegant chocolate bonbons with nothing but a handful of cocoa beans, some sugar cane, a wooden spoon and a butane lighter. They think I'm some Martha Stewart sans ill-gotten gains. And they never ever ever believe me when I say it's really easy and kinda fool-proof.

So please: do not fear the crust, people. Here's the easy-peasey recipe:
1.5 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp of salt
Mix those together in a bowl.
1 stick (8 tbsp) of butter, diced.
Put the butter into the flour. Smash it in with a fork until the lumps aren't so big anymore. Then plunge your hands into the bowl and work it all in with your fingers. Basically you're just rubbing the butter into the flour, rolling it between thumb and fingertips. Obviously you should wash your hands first. Also, don't be squeamish about using your hands like this. Cooking is messy. And fun.
So anyway, rub along until the mixture is like a pile of soft, fine breadcrumbs. It's dreamy.

Then add like oh I dunno, maybe 6 tablespoons of very very cold water. I start with four, but I have the cup right by me so's I can dribble more in at will. You gently work the water into the flour (with your already floury hands) until hey-presto, it's dough. The trick is to NOT get impatient and think it's not working so you dump in too much water. It really doesn't take much at all. You're just kinda gently pressing it all together, see.

That's it. You got dough for a pie crust. Congrats. Just remember (like with any dough) don't work it too much when rolling it out, or else it'll get tough. If you don't have a rolling pin, use a drinking glass. Or bottle covered in plastic wrap. Or whatever. (Another Beth Gift Idea: rolling pin. Oh and while we're at it: crêpe pan. Sigh.)

Also, you can add a handful of cheese in there, if you want a cheesey crust. Hint: sharp cheddar in the crust for a granny smith apple pie. Seriously.

I'm not saying you CAN'T buy pre-made crust at the store. I'm just saying: look how EASY the homemade way is, how few ingredients, how inexpensive and how fun. Plus, it makes a good flakey crust. And you will totally impress your friends, family, and onlookers.

So please: Fear not the homemade crust, y'all.

Snookie said, that one time, when some friend of hers was a jerk to her and she told me about it and I got insanely pissed off and declared my hatred for this a-hole third party -- there was a pause after my stream of blistering curses, and then she said with a smile in her voice, "One of the best things about a really good friend is when they're actively angry on your behalf. So you're not alone in your anger. It's so great."

Tonight I called her and she said I beat her to the phone because how was my new doctor? Hang on, let her sit down and okay, tell her what's going on, how do you feel, what did the doctor say? So I told her everything, this huge blurt while she kept up the "uh huh... uh huh... and then?... uh huh..." At the end of it, I wrapped it up with a general statement of how I feel so very relieved - not just the lack of pain and finding a doctor I like and trust, but because of the incredible relief of having someone take me and my health very seriously, at last.

And then Snookie, god love her, burst out with, "Seriously, what the hell with your last doctor? How DUMB was she and who the hell does she think she is and how HARD is it and are you KIDDING me, she didn't even have you come in for an exam even after you told her your symptoms I mean the new doctor's done more than her already and What. The. HELL kind of a dumbass was that woman, I am SO glad you found someone good."

Et cetera.

And I thought of how Snooks said that so long ago, that one of the best things about a really good friend when they get pissed on your behalf. And sometimes their anger is on hold while worry is on the stage, and they feel the same helplessness and then the flood of relief and then you realize: you've been distantly feeling the same things, together. And with really good friends like this in my life, by my side -- we're in it together.

And I'm really not alone. Which is, of course, the best thing about a really good friend.

At the laundromat - it was full of people when I arrived. I found this thoroughly annoying. But by the time my clothes needed to migrate to the dryers the place had cleared out completely, save one woman. She had annoyed me the most, taking over five dryers and a huge expanse of countertop-space and ya know? Annoying. I need a little space to spread out and sort, lady. SHARE. Sheesh.

Her husband or lover or partner or whatever you want to call him came when she called him on her cell phone. Prolonged hugging, and then he helped her cart out the duffel bag, rolling cart, and basket that contained the massive amount of clothes she'd cleaned. Buh-bye, laundry lady, I thought.

But alone in the laundromat, I continued to be annoyed by her. There was no reason for it, except that I am exceptionally peevish lately. It's this somewhat constant state of pain I've been in. Makes a person peevish. And you know, it's not something I necessarily want to blog about and then people worry or ask questions and in general I just don’t like broadcasting the state of my health if it's anything less than Just Fine, because it's just the way that I am, all private-like about some things and health is one of those things, but the truth is that it has this huge affect on my life and my attitude and this is my journal. Where I talk about myself and my life. So. I am peevish lately. Because various body parts hurt to varying degrees, even when I don't mention it. And I haven’t mentioned it much but I'm mentioning it now. I'm like perpetually grumpy these last few months, and that's why.

So there. Okay? GAH.

(Note that this is one of those squabbles with myself. I am not squabbling with You The Reader, but with Me The Insufferable Schizo.)

So even an hour after she left, I was still irked at the laudry-hog. Just one of those back-of-my-mind things. Not actively thinking of her, but her annoying persona was hovering about the edges of my thinking mind, along with the too-loud (football?) game on the TV that can't be turned off.

I folded my clothes and was half-consciously wondering: does she do like me and drape the unfolded blouses across the top of the neatly folded piles, so I can take them out as soon as I get home and hang them up, in the hopes they won't need ironing? Is that a common practice, or am I just supremely lazy? Maybe most laundromat people resign themselves to having to iron anyway and they don't connive ways to avoid it, as I do. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but in my world? Laziness is the mother of invention. I become unbelievably creative when, for instance, I want to make dinner but want to dirty as few dishes as possible.

I am now rambling to no purpose. Snookie says that her ability to focus her thoughts and her short- and mid-term memory took a huge blow after having the second kid. Mothers say this, that giving birth somehow messes with brain function in a profound way. But lately I'm thinking I'll have to tell her -- it's just as much age as anything. Because I haven't given birth and find myself supremely scattered of late. I meander from thought to thought and find it increasingly difficult to remember whatever the hell my original point was. I used to be so good at it. The Queen of the Tangent, that's what my friends used to call me. No matter the wanderings of the conversation - some of which lasted hours and even days - I could always bring it back to the original point. And do so gracefully, usually.

Anyway. I was idly wondering about laundry-hog's clothes. I'd already built this animosity toward her, in my head. Heaps-o-scorn. Stupid woman, I thought as I folded my underwear, selfish woman, that woman is a clear example of what's wrong with society, rar. Fold, fold, fold. The little squares of my unmentionables stacked up and I noted for the first time - well hey there. That's awfully colorful. Purple and green and melon-colored and pink and white and black, of course, but also beige and blue and red and one pair with cartoon-y I Love You and hearts all over it. I think my underwear drawer has every color of the rainbow in it.

Not that I'd ever consciously seen to it, or anything. I thought to myself that hey - this must be some aspect of my personality showing through my choice in undies. Maybe it's one of those things that tells you a lot about a person, like their medicine cabinet or their garbage can or if they put ketchup on their scrambled eggs. Et cetera.

And I thought, with no small amount of contempt and a healthy dose of superiority: I bet that laundry-hog has nothing but a pile of plain white cotton.

But then my thoughts immediately sparked and went like so, and I think this is maybe where I get the urge to write characters, this is where it comes from:

No, every woman has black undies. Tis the curse of girltime!
Okay, so maybe she has one pair black, the rest white.
No, four pair black and the rest white.
No, half black, half white.
Very utilitarian. Practical.
Six of each.
Because she buys them in packages of three, see.
One stack of black and one stack of white, folding them up on the faux woodgrain countertop.
And I'd be folding my whole rainbow, watching her live her life in black and white.
But then at the end, there's one pink pair. Just one.
A woman who owns six pairs of white undies, six pairs of black - and one lone pair of pink.
Is it her special pair? Special occasions? If so, how often does she take em out for a ride?
Or are they lucky?
Or a mistake?
Or a gift?
Or mistakenly found their way into her laundry somehow?
Are they cotton like the rest?
Yes, they're cotton. And she smiles to herself as she tosses them on the pile, splash of blushing color among all the black and white and she walks out, that intriguing piece of work.

And then my rainbow seemed pretty damn boring, by comparison.

And that's the kinda stuff that goes through my head.