Saturday May 28 2011 at 4 pm EST I will be the featured author on fangreaders dot blogspot dot com! Stop by if you want to chat!

I guess I need to put a little something here as people keep visiting my profile and end up with a big fat nothing because I'm too lazy to write anything other than my story. I have husband, two teenage daughters, and an eleven-year-old English bulldog named Thelma Lou. I majored in journalism in college and worked for newspapers for a while, but got burnt out when two papers went bankrupt during my employment (and this was way before the mortgage crisis!). I have a non-creative job now. It's boring, but it pays the bills.

I grew up in Meridian, Mississippi, and graduated high school in the Delta, about an hour from Charlaine Harris's home town of Tunica. It must be something about that rich, fecund, black soil that grows people who want to write, because there's a passel of us from around there. I also had a weird and sometimes wonderful childhood, which helps. As a result, I've been writing since I was a little kid. Right now I'm in the middle of trying to craft The Great American Novel, and it's driving me insane. I've been so incredibly anal and picayune about whole thing that I had nearly halted any progress whatsoever when I started writing Death Eatin' A Cracker.

I guess I should also mention I've had my head up my own behind ever since last September when True Blood came to HBO and I read the SVM novels as a result. I'm a huge Eric/Sookie fan, obviously. I saw Sookie's character starting to get weaker and more marginalized in some of the online literature as time went on from Charlaine's last book. Anyway, after grousing a bit, I realized that ultimately no one was going to write my interpretation of Sookie for me, and that's what got me started.

It's been a learning experience for me as I try to post the chapters quickly, without lots of editing and control-freak work. It is very hard for me to let the words and creativity flow and put something out there that is not to-the-letter perfect, that I have not agonized for weeks, sometimes months over, but I'm making myself do it. I believe it is helping me with my writer's block on my novel, which is reward enough, but it's also been incredibly gratifying as the readers have been so generous and forgiving of my many syntax and tense transgressions in appreciation of the overall story. I do thank each and every one of you.

I have forty pounds to lose and I'm starting a medically-supervised liquid diet next Tuesday March 31. I'm going to try to channel all my frustration and boredom into writing instead of into pastry, so hold on. I don't know where a starving me is going to take us, it might get bumpy!

Misscyn

PS Update on diet; As of April 3, I've lost six pounds since Tuesday March 31! My friends and colleagues tell me I'm a litte edgy and grumpy! Probably because I am starving to death! But because I have given them all my money, and because a nurse calls me personally to ask me if I'm cheating, not to mention the bi-weekly blood tests that will show if I go off the shakes and eat regular food, I am indeed stuck in some kind of Nazi Gestapo Diet Hell. I've had to face all kinds of demons because apparently I had no idea that real food is inherently evil. Honestly, I had no idea how much I relied on it for comfort. Talk about a wake-up call. I'm hoping the starvation pushes me into some kind of nutrient-deprived mega-creative trance, hasn't happened yet, keep your fingers crossed ; )

4/5 update two more pounds down for a total of eight. I. Want. To. Cheat. I want to eat a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, I want to go to a restaurant and order appetizers, main course, and dessert, I want to have an alcoholic beverage, I want to go to the store and buy a box of Turtles and a 20-ounce regular Coke and down them both while sitting on my double chaise lounge on my deck with a book. Alright, now that that's off my chest, I'm gonna go drink another @#& diet shake. Thanks for listening : )

4/8 Diet update - 3.5 more pounds for a total of 11.5 in less than two weeks wahoo! Last night at group therapy (yes they make us go to fattie group therapy and the chairs are as big as loveseats and for some reason, even though they are super comfortable, that offends me), anyway, this girl who has lost 40 pounds and only has twenty to go confessed to eating a big chocolate chip cookie everyday and I thought those women were going to behead her right there! I mean, they gave her such a hard time, her face was so red, and one woman went through her purse, got her cookie, and threw it away! And this girl lost 40 pounds! And still lost 2.5 pounds last week with the cookies! I will confess to nothing in group therapy, those women are fat rabid dogs, yes I'm fat too, but I'm not like that, at least not yet, let's see what happens...

4/10 Sorry, guys, it appears my muse went on vacation when I did. I'm halfway through Chapter 23 struggling for some get up and go here. I know where I'm going with the story, it's just getting there in style that I'm having a problem with. Bear with me and I should be up and running in a day or so, think I might spend a couple of hours in a bookstore or library this afternoon for inspiration. Happy Easter, and remember I haven't forgotten you. To all those who have sent me pm's encouraging me on my diet, thank you so much. I am holding strong, the next weigh-in is Tuesday the 14. I'm scared because of Easter (read Easter candy, that I have to deal with to make my kids' baskets, plus big Easter dinner at my husband's uncle's house, whose wife is from the Phillipines and is one of the best international cooks I have ever met, not to mention her step-son, a highly talented chef whose creations have been featured in Southern Living magazine). So anyway, I'm tryin' to keep the faith. You all have a safe and joyous holiday, okay?

4/13 I have finished Chapter 23 but I didn't get it to my beta until after 8 pm so it might be tomorrow before I post it, but I will ASAP. As far as Easter went - I was bad. I ate, not alot, but I ate. Then the chef sent home leftovers with my daughter. Today was my birthday and it sucked, I lost my cell phone and my masseuse called in sick - (yeah, I know, wahhh, but I only get a couple massages a year, and my birthday is a big one) so, anyway, I ate the leftovers again for a big birthday pity party. Not much, but I'm worried I will be humiliated at weigh-in tomorrow. Get back on the horse, right? What's that Japanese saying, fall down seven times, get up eight? I'm getting up, people, don't worry, I'm getting up. I will confess my sins to the doctor but I ain't telling those witches in group therapy nothin', if they try to press me I'll tell them to contact my attorney, I'm pleading the fifth amendment. Y'all take care, and I'll let you know what happens!

4/14 Woohoo I still lost 2.6 pounds even with the cheating on Easter and my birthday! I 'fessed up to the doctor and she said "things like that happen, but remember that the active weight loss only lasts 12 weeks, so just keep in mind you're losing time when you cheat" so I guess what her point was, is that I'm cheating myself, which I knew already, duh. Anyway, back on track today, no big meal holidays or birthdays in the future 10 weeks, now if only my crazy aunt and my Type A husband stay off my butt I may have a chance! Thanks again to all those who have pm'd me, it really warms my heart. :)

Story update I am working on Chapter 24, I'l go back to work Monday and finish it up about Tuesday I believe. I'm having to work out the details of the fictional pathogen so it makes sense, so, it's a little more research than I usually have to do. I've stuck to my diet all week, I'm going to Carowinds this weekend but there ain't a decent bite to eat in that whole park so it shouldn't be a problem, and I just found out I can have this yummy tomato soup on my diet, it's only 160 calories, but it has a lot of herbs and you can add crushed red pepper. The end of the day is my downfall, I'm tired and I want comfort food, that's when I cheat. But this soup is so good, and creamy, and something about crushed red pepper kills my noshing trigger, so I am so hopeful now I can stay on track! You all have a great weekend, its back to the grind on Monday bahh grrr hiss...

4/21 Heck yeah I rock 4.2 lbs gone this week! Total 18.3 lbs lost! Now, they keep telling me if I would exercise it would be even better, but I say, why mess up a good thing? Seriously, I have to starve and exercise!? Isn't that a little much? I'll think about it. Thank you again for the support and pm's, I'm really an introvert by nature, so it's great to get all the positive feedback : )

4/22 I had an epiphany with my diet and if there's enough room here I'll share. When you stop eating solid food, you spend a lot of time thinking about - solid food. And all the talk about triggers got me to thinking about what I do, etc, when I'm stressed or bored or overstimulated. The first week of the diet, I was so depressed because I felt that all the color had gone out of my life, that the diet was unnatural, that we are supposed to eat, and take pleasure from it, and how this had all been screwed up for me, and I was now forced to live this unnatural existence. When I stopped feeling sorry for myself, then I started thinking, really, about how I experience food. It took me a few weeks to come up with my theory, because none of my friends really think about it the way I do, but I'm sure there are more people out there like me, maybe one of you will recognize yourself here.

I found that for me, food is a sensual, mindful experience. In short, I am a sensation seeker, and I use food for such, and I use food for escapism also. When I see a pomegranate, I think of the Mediteranean, I smell the fruit's skin and picture the Greek Isles, when I eat olives, I think of ancient olive tree groves, when I drink muscadine wine, (Chaper 24!) I picture the sun and soil of the deep South, etc. Goat cheese makes me think of Hiedi and the Swiss mountains, Baby Ruths remind me of my grandmother and the perfume she wore when I was little and she took me to the store, and on and on. It's not really the actual eating, or the feeling of fullness I crave, but rather the experience, the way the scents, the way the flavors roll around on my tongue and transport me to a different time or place. One of my favorite things to do in the summer is to visit local produce stands and stroll up and down the baskets of produce, letting the memories and thoughts roll over me; it creates almost a meditative state as I choose the food I'm going to prepare for my family.

I explained this to the doctor and she got really excited for me, and said it made perfect sense, that your senses go from your nose to your palate to your brain, and I was hooked on these little head trips that food gives me more than the food itself. She said I probably never would have figured it out until I quit eating, and many people never do. So now she wants me to try all these exotic teas, and I'm trying all kinds of sugarless gums, to get the same effect without the calories. I also think it would help for me to work with some visualization techniques, if I can figure out how. I'm not a new-age type gal, but I'm flexible. I do live in Asheville, NC, AKA Hippie Central, so it should be fairly easy.

Anywho, if you didn't think I was strange before, I'm sure you know it now. Fact is, I'm almost completely right-brained (seriously, sometimes I wonder if there's any left brain in my head at all, I think it maybe atrophied) and I have a rich and full inner life; somehow, I combined food with these personality traits and it got scary. I think I can fix it now, since I know what it is! (What did Oprah's character keep saying in The Color Purple, 'They is a God'..) I'm putting all this personal and somewhat embarrassing info here in case it might just help someone else who is suffering. No point in keeping it to myself. If it helps you, let me know. If you think I'm crazy, well, you're probably right ; )

4/23 Wondering if you're right or left-brain oriented? Check out this link, it's fun:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

4/25 Just wanted to clarify something from the above posts; what I'm referring to there is all the 'extra' noshing I do, the recreational snacking, if you will. I will still eat for hunger, plenty, and I don't go to Greece or Switzerland or Cape Horn in my mind with every bite; I'm just saying when I start eating for emotional reasons instead of physical, I incorporate the little mind trips in. I feel like it helps me to relax and forget my stresses. I just didn't want anyone to think I was being flip about it and saying 'oh, yeah, now I never have to eat again, I'll just buy some fancy tea and some Mojito Orbit gum since real hunger will never be an issue'. I know most of you probably got what I was saying, but I wanted to clear it up. The scales say I'm down three pounds, but, my scales and the doctor's scales don't always mesh. Weigh-in on Tuesday, I'l keep you posted, and I do have a confession to make, but I'll save it for Tuesday's post.

For everyone who's following my story, thank you for your wonderful pm's and reviews. Chapter 25 was a hoot to write, and I'm so glad you enjoyed it too. I think I identify with Sookie so clearly because I too grew up in the conflicted deep South. My mother was a sixties child who read Gloria Steinem and The Mother Earth News and refused to cook. She went to college at the age of 28, as a single mother with three kids, and became the first female physician's assistant to be certified by the state of Mississippi. She had a hard time melding modern ideas with the strict Baptist upbringing, the debutante society, the old decrepit social taboos, that were just part of her world, but she made a valiant effort. When I was sixteen years old she sat me down and tried to have a big sex talk with me; in face of my mortification and my pleas with her to please shut up, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'Cindy, get over it; everybody screws.' So, that's where that phrase came from.

As for Eric calling Sookie 'dove', that is also derived from my family. My great-grandfather Stanley Bennett, the fourth in a line of five generations of physicians, married a debutante by the name of Ann Speed, whom he adored. He called her 'dove', which, even when they were in their eighties, sounded terribly romantic to me. A great lady, she had one flaw; she liked to smoke, when smoking wasn't cool for women, back in the 1940's (Heck, it was't considered 'ladylike' when I was growing up in the 70's and early 80's). My mother said Dr. Bennett would come home after a long day in the hospital and catch Ann sitting on her haunches in a full-length skirt in the closet, puffing away. "Smoking, my dove?" he would say, disappointed but still indulgent of his beautiful bride. According to family, he was always in love with and incredibly gentle with her, no matter what. Y'all take care : )

4/28 1.5 lbs down I'm bummed. I did cheat and eat some chicken and rice last night after my bone doctor told me I need knee replacements, but he doesn't want me to get them, because I am way too young (46), crappy genes. But I have to remind myself that when I weighed I was wearing pants I haven't been able to get into in at least four years, with this really cool heavy belt, and that belt probably weighed a pound or two. So, maybe not so bad, eh?

I do have a confession. My doctor is letting me have a boiled egg in the evenings when my hunger is bad. So it's not all liquid. Sometimes if I'm really hungry, I'll go to the Chinese restaurant down the street and get some wonton soup, no wonton. So it's just broth, with a little pork and scallions, but it fills me up. And on days that are really, really bad, I'll go through the drive-thru and get a hamburger or chicken sandwich, throw away the bun, and just eat the meat, I figure it's protein, I need it. So, those are the cheats I'm doing, just want to be totally honest here so I don't mislead anyone or make them feel bad. I'm getting better, my clothes fit better, things are looking up! Chapter 26 may be up tomorrow, if I'm lucky...

5/1 I've written part of Chapter 27 but need the weekend to 'mull' - I have a lot to accomplish in the next few chapters. Probaby won't post until Monday or Tuesday, which is when DAG will be in stores and this place is gonna be a ghost town for a while. Have a great weekend, next weigh-in May 5 : )

5/5 4.0 pounds done dayum I done good! I was really, really good this week, and therapy went well, although I did get into an argument with the dietician, when she said going to a restaurant should not be a trigger for eating (WTH? I still don't understand what she meant, guess that's why I'm fat). So, um, I guess you want a confession, and I don't have a food one, so here goes - I walk around barefoot a lot at home, and as a result, my feet are more often dirty than I'd like to admit. So there you go. Y'all take care, I'm going shoe shopping 'cause that's all I can buy right now, I'll wear my fat clothes til they fall off me, but I'm not buying anything new til the very end. I'm happy. :)

5/10 Happy Mother's Day, dear readers. Will probably post Chapter 28 Wednesday This weekend 'mulling' thing is going well for me. Plus I work on fine points on Tuesday nights while I'm waiting to talk to the fat doctor, cause it's usually at least a 45 minute wait, and I do it then. I'll try for Tuesday - but I'm thinking Wednesday. We gots some fightin' comin' up! This week's cheats have been cabbage soup and decaf coffee. I was drinking too much regular coffee and had to do something. I always said decaf was a waste of money, I would never drink it on principle, it seemed like faking yourself out. Oh, how the mighty do fall! It's my oral fixation, that's the problem. Anyway, I'll post here after weigh-in, let you know about the chapter then, deal? :)

5/13 I suck. I lost one lousy pound. I am suffering too much and I am definitely paying too much money to lose one crappy pound in a week. I looked back and tried to figure out what happened - well, I broke down and ate a corn dog Monday. That wasn't good. Also, I have been eating a pepperocini or two every now and again - they only have three calories each - because they are hot and that curbs my appetite. Other than that- I've been adding a little sauteed cabbage to my broth every other day - I don't know what happened. Cabbage can make me retain water though, and the salt in the pepperocini, and that deep-fried CORN DOG smothered in mustard didn't help. I am going to assume most of it was water gain monthly stuff and forge ahead.

The dietician told us last night that fat people freak out when they get a hunger pain. She said we need to get used to feeling hunger every now and again, and realize that we're not bleeding to death, we're just hungry. Fine. But the hungrier I get, the more I'm tempted to cheat- I don't handle hunger well, I know. I need to work on that.

In better news Chapter 28 is at the proofreader's right now and should be posted in the next day or so! Wanda W. has agreed to beta my work - I haven't had a beta for four or five chapters as TxGal has had an extremely busy time at work - so Wanda offered her help. The chapters were getting a little more complicated with all the action and I'm so appreciative, thank you again Wanda! Everybody keep the faith, and if you have any ideas on how to 'handle' hunger better, let me know :)

5/20 I meant to do this last night but I was too sleepy. I only lost 1.5 pounds this week, so, the bariatric doctor wrote EXERCISE RESISTANT in big letters across my file. I think that was harsh. True, but harsh. Then she made me go have a one on one with the workout Nazi. You'll never guess the snake oil that exercise specialist tried to sell me. She said that when you work at a sedentary desk job all day, and you get home and you're tired and creaky and your body aches, it's not that you need to rest, it's that you need to move. Your body is trying to tell you that it needs to exercise, and all of us desk-tied Americans have been misinterpreting the signals, because apparently we're idiots who are in no way attuned to our body's needs. We've all been resting needlessly, when we really should be running miles around the block; we have neglected our own health in a cruel and inhumane manner by doing so. "Huh," I said, unimpressed. "Is that so." "Yes," she replied, unfazed by my manner. "It definitely is."

So, I laid out of work today and I'm going to get all my exercise equipment together and do this thing, dammit. It's now or never for me, the end of the line. I don't want a lap band, and since I've lost nearly 30 pounds I don't weigh enough to qualify for one anymore, ain't that a kicker. I need to build up my thigh muscles to take pressure off my knees, anyone got any tips? I'll be jumping on the mini trampoline and running on the treadmill off and on all day, and coming up with a (gnashes teeth) exercise plan. Also, I have a family reunion June 23, I need to lose at least 10 and hopefully 15 more pounds by then, because I plan on, literally, kicking my crazy aunt's butt once and for all. Seriously, I'm going to smack the fool out of her, then run, that's my plan. It's what's keeping me going at this point. I'm used to the shakes now, only five more weeks, gotta make it count! Thanks again for all your support, you guys are the best :)

5/25 Happy Memorial Day! I've finished Chapter 30 and it's at the proofreader's, today's a holiday so...probably tomorrow! (Tuesday). I'm into Chapter 31 already, yes, Eric will reappear in that chapter, don't worry! I hiked yesterday at the NC Arboretum, it's beautiful, and I'm off to Chimney Rock today, probably just hike around the trails, not quite up to that rock. I have to admit my knees do feel better now that I'm lost weight and I'm exercising, damn, I hate it when the doctor's right! Have a lovely holiday, tomorrow's a new chapter, and weigh-in--ugh. I have done really well this week, just don't know if the scale will reflect it the loss seems to be slowing down. You all be good :)

5/26 Diet update - one lousy pound again, and I exercised all week! I think the 800 calorie diet has slowed down my metabolism or something, but I'm not giving up. I wore three-inch heels today, I basically had to because as my butt and gut get smaller my pants get longer and I hate to hem LOL. Anyway, with my weight and knees I couldn't have worn those shoes all day two months ago, so I am gettin' somewhere. My breakthrough is this - medical grade fiber. They have us take it to because it swells in the stomach - it is not the kind of fiber that gives you a laxative effect, it is Benefiber medical grade and it makes you feel full. They told us to take 5 scoops a day, but it wasn't getting it for me, so I upped it to 7 scoops three days ago and whoa, no hunger! Hurrah! I expect really really great results next week because of this! It truly makes me feel full, so I feel like I have a little edge I didn't have before. Also when I feel like noshing I'm doing sit ups now and that makes me feel kinda sick so I don't eat haha. Anyway, even though I didn'tl ose much I still feel really positive and I think it's probably the exercise boo hiss growl.

For those of you who wonder why I want to slap my aunt, trust me, she's a really evil old spinster bat who makes Aunt Minnie in my story look like Mother Theresa. And she's not even old, she's 55. On Christmas Day, that is Christmas DAY, she waited until everyone left my house and staged a little personal one on one intervention with me about my weight. I had already signd up for the program, so it was not necessary. Also, I need to mention that three days before Christmas I fell down a flight of stairs (knees again). I was bruised head to toe, big lump on my forehead, huge, huge bruise about eight inches long and four inches wide on my arm, and on painkillers, on Christmas Day, when this woman told me I was going to die, I was mistreating my family by being fat, and she was taking me out of her will because she didn't think I would live more than five years anyway. She totally ruined what was left of my holiday after the fall, I was too drugged up and in shock to say much of anything, (although I do remember telling her at one point to go to hell) and that's why Ima gonna kick her butt. Even at my heaviest, I was not THAT fat, she's just a biotch who tortured my poor mother for years with just this same kinda shennanigan and it's time for some come uppance. She made my uncle cry last year because she said he was 'of no emotional value' to her whatsoever. WTH? Relatives, sheesh.

Maybe I'll just yell at her, but, somethin's goin' down, and I want to be skinny when I do it. Revenge...great motivation, eh? Y'all take care :)

PS Update 5/28: I posted this same message at the end of Chapter 30 - Yes, I know I said that I would finish Chapter 31 by Friday if motivated, and I am motivated, and thank you for all your reviews; I have mostly finished Chapter 31 as of Thursday afternoon. But if you guys would just bear with me and let me have the weekend, I would appreciate it. I have come to the realization that I have a tendency to rush through action scenes, because I am not used to doing them. I don't want to put something out there that is muddled or unclear, especially not this chapter, as it is a complicated and pivotal one. So if you'll just let me have the weekend to breathe, and think things through, I would appreciate it. It will be a better read if I take the time to tweak it a bit. It really reads as a first draft to me now. (BTW, I think that was Charlaine's problem with DAG, just my opinion. She published a rough draft, if only she had taken the time to tweak it, add the humor and dialogue, oh, what it could have been...ah, Charlaine, you've given us so much, we'll forgive you if you make it up to us next year in Book 10 :) Anyway, I'm certainly no Charlaine but give me a couple of days to improve it, we'll all be happier. Y'all take care misscyn

6/1 Chapter 31 is finished and at the proofreader's right now so - hurry up and wait. I'll get it out as soon as I can :)

6/2 3.9 pounds gone at weigh-in - I'm back! Had a great week, and it finally showed on the scales! Like I mentioned at the end of Chapter 31, I got hit on seriously by two carnies at the mall fair. One of them (who actualy had all his teeth, and they were white, also he did not appear to be high or drunk) kept talking passionate smack to me until finally I had to walk away. Now, before you judge me, hear me out. I'm not gonna let you cheapen this. I was waiting outside the fun house for my daughter and her friend. The conversation went as follows:

Carnie: You can go through the fun house if you want. I won't charge you any tickets.

Me: Thank you, but I don't like rides like I used to. Guess I'm getting old.

Carnie (with heat in his voice): You're a young and beautiful woman. I will carry you through that fun house if you want me to.

Now, I was't hobbling or anything (my knees are doing much better and I walk normal most of the time now). So, my point is this: Would he have offered to carry me through that ride 35 pounds ago? I think not! Testament to my weight loss! Score!

Plus my husband called me "Skinny Minnie" this morning, and I nearly keeled over. My husband is a big half-Russian badass type (when it comes to emotions, that is), and I have never heard him say the words "Skinny Minnie" so after I finished guffawing, and after he finished telling me to shut the hell up, I realized, hey, now I'm getting somewhere.

We made it to the 1000-review mark, thank each and every one of you so much. I'm plannng two more chapters, maybe three, and that will be the end of Death Eatin' A Cracker. I don't know what I would have done without your positive reinforcement. It really means alot :)

6/4 It has occured to me that I may seem a little cavalier about my weight loss, and I am not. So, I just want to take a minute and go over some things I may not have explained. I'm on a medically-supervised diet, Opitifast. I'm starting my 11th week. It cost me 2600 plus products, which run about 100 a week. Yes, it is terribly expensive, and no, I'm not loaded. Why did I do it? Because I'm 46 years old, no other diet worked for me, and I was miserable. My next stop was a Lap Band or Gastric-Bypass, and I wasn't heavy enough for the gastro. Anyway, surgery was my next option, and I really, really didn't want to do it. I've known too many people who had gastric bypass and it created horrible health problems for them. Your stomach is responsible for many things in your digestion, and when part of it is blocked off- nutrient absorbtion (sp), etc, is affected. People I knew had their hair fall out, their bones become brittle, they couldn't eat anything without getting sick; they walked around skinny, yes, but looking green in the face most of the time. They didn't feel well. I wanted to feel better, not worse. To hell with that.

My sister-in-law did this and lost 56 pounds. I figured, it's now or never, my knees hurt, I can't walk for any distance, my blood pressure is rising and I'm tired all the time. At my last physical my MD told me I had increasing insulin resistance and it scared the hell out of me. I am deathly afraid of diabetes, it is almost a phobia I fear it so much. Optifast seemed like a drastic measure, but I needed a drastic measure.

I couldn't stand it anymore. It had to come off. I didn't know why Atkins and South Beach and Weight Watchers had been so frustrating to me, but after I stopped eating I found out. Want to know the big bad reason? Are you ready? I eat too freaking much. That's the problem.

Why did I not know this? Because compared to the people around me, considering the restaurant portions, and what they gave me through the drive through, and what I saw on TV and in the grocery store, what I ate didn't seem out of whack at all to me. But we've all been brainwashed by people who are trying to sell us food, folks. At least I was. And the diet programs above didn't help me because they kept telling me what I could have 'instead' of what I wanted. Eat Jiffy Pop healthy pop instead of chips and dip, eat a steak instead of a potato, no-fat cheese with your whole-wheat nachos. And so I did all the 'insteads', eating different, somewhat healthier things, but still eating, eating, eating. I guess it's like the Emperor's New Clothes, no one wants to be the kid who points at the fat person and says "Hey, you eat too much!" Not just 'you're eating the wrong things' not just 'you need to exercise,' but, 'hey, lady, slow down and pay attention. It's too much. Really, it is.'

The demons are, of course, the worst things to face. Emotional eating? If that test had been the SAT I would have scored a 2400. I was always good at meal time, making nice choices. I never binged. But when I got home from work in the afternoons, it was the two to three hours of grazing, just a bite here and there while I was cooking and cleaning, that got me. The harder my day, the richer the snacks became. A fairly good day, carrots and veggie dip. A really bad day? Italian wedding cake and a sixteen-ounce coke. But it was always something, regardless. Pastry and coke are my downfall and that's why I picked them as a kind of tongue-in-cheek enemy in my story. There is really no reason for me to have flour or soda in my diet at all, and I have to remind myself of that fact on a daily basis. But I also have to remind myself that substituting one obsession for another, even a healthier one, is not an answer. I need to stop eating when I'm not hungry, when I'm trying to fill a void inside that food can't possibly fill. Stop. Just stop.

Until I quit eating I couldn't see it. I would look you straight in the face and tell you I didn't eat any more than the average skinny person, I just had a really crappy metabolism and got screwed in the DNA department. If you had pressed me I would have blamed my brain surgery in 1987. I had an egg-sized arachnoid cyst in the fourth ventricle of my brain removed when I was 24. My boyfriend and I went to Cancun and I tried to scuba dive and nearly fainted from the intra-cranial pressure. By the time the doctors diagnosed the problem I had hydrocephalus so bad they couldn't operate until the swelling went down, and I was critically ill as the cyst was closing off the flow of spinal fluid to my brain. The solution? Massive steroid therapy. It saved my life, made the shrinking go down, and the cyst was removed. I stayed on steroids for some time after that, and when things didn't get better fast enough I went back in for another brain surgery to implant a shunt. More steroids. I was skinny when it started and fat at the end. So I blamed the steroids, which were in part responsible, for twenty years. But I wouldn't talk about that dark, dark period of my life, when I stayed in an apartment all day long, looking like Frankenstein with staples and stitches all over my shaved head, steroid rashes covering my body from head to toe, wondering why the hell this happened to me, and food was my only friend. No, I wouldn't have mentioned that part at all.

And don't think I haven't fought all this new-found knowledge, because I have. Early in the program I remember getting really upset at the nutritionist and in group therapy. I remember one particular rant when I went off after the nutritionist said food is only sustenance, nothing more. I told her that food is every day art, sometimes the only beauty we can find in a fix. I told her that the whole world is built around food, just look at the books and food shows and listen to Emeril and Wolfgang and Nigella if you don't believe me; that we kill Beluga whales just for the contents of their ovaries, hunt in the dirt in the French countryside for truffles, and feed cows beer and give them massages just for Kobe beef. I told her all these things were natural and good and just fine with me; living on five Optifast shakes a day was not. I didn't get it. Now I do. And that, my friends, is worth all the money and heartache I've gone through. Thank you for listening, once again :)

PS If you are considering a program such as the one I am in, some insurance companies will pay a portion. Also, if your doctor refers you to the program, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA's) will cover it, so think about that this fall when you do your FSA deductions. Have a blessed day :)

6/11 I gained a tenth of a pound and I'm trying not to hate myself. Truth is, I had a bad week, but I exercised every day, so WTH? Can stress make you gain water weight or something? Is cortisol heavy? I don't know what happened, but, to hell with it, I'm keepin' on keepin' on, no choice. I'm so over losing the battle of the bulge, I'm going to win it this time, I don't care how long it takes. I'm upping my exercise today and I'm doing away with my little pepperoncini and olive indulgence. I don't need it! I lost nearly four pounds last week, so I need to keep a good perspective here, I'm sure it will be better next week. I'm not really depressed about it - just resigned. So, it's really hard for me to lose weight, harder than it is for many people, harder than it should be. Tough shit, that just means I have to work harder. Gotta play the hand you're dealt, ya know? I'll keep you posted :)

PS to the above; although I didn't lose any weight this week, I did manage to throw away some ugly fat clothes, and that was fun! I could have donated them, but I felt like they had bad jou-jou and I didn't want to curse anyone else, particularly another woman struggling with her weight, with their presence. I intend to do this every week, pick out some favored piece from before, that really looks huge and balloony now, and give it the old heave-ho. The nicer things I will donate, there was a time I should have bought stock in Lane Bryant, believe me. Anyway, Chapter 32 is done and at the beta's as of Thursday, it may be early next week before I get it posted, though. Hope y'all like it ;)

6/13 Chapter 32 is up! Here's a link if you think Sookie got well too quick:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93675590

Have a great day!

6/16 hey, got another fun clothes story. I got out a pair of what I called my 'skinny' capris, and they used to be so tight I couldn't even button them, so I haven't tried them on in at least two summers, so I started thinking, 'hey, those might fit now' and when I put them on they looked so funny, there was all this extra material and they were bagging at the waist and I could pull them down over my hips without unbuttoning them or unzipping them and man, was that a rush! I couldn't wear them at all, they looked like clown pants. So I pulled out what I called my 'super skinny' khakis, which haven't fit in a while and were always skin tight when I could wear them, and lo and behold they fit perfectly now, even a little loose!

Saturday was my daughter's high school graduation. I ordered her a cake from a fancy bakery at the last minute, and the only choices were carrot cake, something with fudge in the middle, or Italian wedding cake. Have I mentioned I have a thing for Italian wedding cake? I believe I have. So does my daughter, apparently, because that's the one she wanted. So the cake was beautiful and I took it to my sister-in-laws, who hosted this lovely barbecue for my daughter. She has this big old farmhouse on the side of a mountain with a creek running down the side and lots of screened in porches, it's big and airy and immaculately decorated and very hip. She's got no kids, what can I say. Anyway, I ate no dinner, had my shake as usual. Later there was a campfire by the creek to make s'mores and I toasted marshmallows for the kids, no temptations. Then my sister-in-law comes down to the fire (this is the same sister-in-law who got me to try Optifast) and said "Cindy, I'm not telling you this to torture you and I know you're on a diet but that is the best cake I have ever put in my mouth, you have to try it." I said, "I will have a bite." And that's what I did. I went upstairs and had one bite of the cake and quit. It was incredible, but I quit after one bite. Do I need to say it again? We took it home and I didn't eat anymore of it there, either. Now I know when I go to group therapy tonight that dietician is going to give me 'the look', tell me I am messing up my one chance at losing weight, and ask me what I learned. She's probably going to tell me all the things I could have done instead of taking the bite. Going for a walk, drinking a glass of water, etc. And I'm going to look her straight in the face and say, "I did the right thing. I had one bite and stopped. Now I can say I had it, and I don't feel deprived. And I'm happy with that. So there." Even though they may think I failed, I think I won, and that's all that counts. :)

I got my blood work back and my insulin (fasting) tolerance/resistance test is down to 7.7 from 25.5, my BP's down to 110/65 and that's about average for me with no medication now, my LDL cholesterol is good but my HDL cholesterol is 33, I don't understand that because I used to have perfect HDL cholesterol, like sixty-something, even when I was at my heaviest the doctors would always marvel at it. The bariatric doctor said the HDL could have been pushed down by the increasing insulin resistance, and I just need to give it time to come back up. The only other thing out of whack was my sodium, it was low, but she said that's okay because I drink so much water now and it will adjust. So good news!

Also lost two pounds and when I went thru the drive-through the manager at McDonald's sorta proposed to me this morning, so I'm feeling fine! I go through every morning to get an unsweetened tea with three Splenda, and lately the manager always seems to be hanging around when I get there about ten til eight. This morning he started joking with me that my husband should be making me my tea in the morning. I said, "I told my current husband that my next husband will cook and clean." And he said, "Well, when you get ready just give me a call," and winked. He was my age or just a little older, no ring. Forgive me for sharing but it's been a long, long time since men have flirted with me, even carnies and McDonald's managers. In my youth I got a lot of attention, but it came to a screeching halt after babies and weight gain and the dowdy clothes and hairstyles that seemed to go along with all that. We didn't have 'cougars' when my kids were real little. I wouldn't have been one anyway, more like Nanna the Saint Bernard in Peter Pan. Plus men seem to look right through fat women, it's like they're scared we're gonna try to throw some of that stuff at them or something. Maybe they're afraid that if we do try to get all up in that with 'em they'll be overcome by our size and won't be able to get away hee hee. They should be so lucky. When I'm not a fat woman anymore, I think I may have some kind of an identity crisis, it's been so long. I'll start to find out here in about twenty pounds I believe, looking forward to it. Have a great day :)

6/19 I'm leaving Monday for a week in Charleston and Folly Beach, folks. Yep, it's the fated family reunion with my biotch aunt. She's been all sugary sweet lately and really kissing my behind 'cause she knows I'm mad. Am I going to kick her butt? I dunno, I've calmed down a little. If we get our drink on one night I might just have to tell her I'm not putting up with any more of her speeches, ill-conceived interventions, and hissy fits. I might just let it go at that. Life's short, and the fact is I'm too happy now about my weight loss to get into a big bunch of negativity and drama with her about it. Yeah, I know I'm wimping out, I'm just having a hard time keeping the grudge up now that the weight is gone. That's good, right? What that woman didn't realize, and what I'm sure many people don't realize, is how powerless I felt toward the weight. I really felt like there was nothing I could do about it, I had tried so many things. I just felt screwed, like my body was almost an entity outside of myself, outside of my being, and I couldn't control it, it had gone too far. Sounds silly, I know, but the fact is that I felt the odds were stacked too high for me to ever overcome save surgery or getting castaway on a island somewhere. If I felt that way, with no more than what I had to lose, there's no telling how helpless truly morbidly obese people feel. It is very sad, and we have such a poverty of compassion for the overweight in this country. Let's all work on that, shall we? I'm gonna work on mine, promise.

About Charleston. We got the beach, where I love to drink beer and margaritas. We got great restaurants. We got seafood, which I also love. How am I going to make it? It's gonna be week 13, and I am allowed four ounces of protein a day, which I can tell you right now is gonna be in the form of shrimp, crab legs, and lobster. Four ounces isn't much, and I'm sure I will go over. I'm also going to be with my extended family, which almost guarantees the need for alcohol. I plan to watch 'The Matrix' which for some reason I've never seen, and think about food when I do it. The bariatric doctor told me to do this, she says it's mind-blowing. My best friend keeps laughing her ass off and saying 'You're gonna be Neo, you're Neo!" I don't know what the hell she's talking about, 'cause I haven't seen it, but WTF, I guess I'm Neo, then. I'm going to try really, really hard, and I'm going to walk and ride bicycles and hope it all works out. Sometimes hope is all you've got. There's this restaurant named 'Hyman's' I go to every year, and they have the best shrimp and grits, and this appetizer thing called a Napolean that has fried green tomatoes, crab dip, shrimp and remoulade stacked, then there's another one with a grit cake, Cajun alfredo sauce, oysters and scallops - oh, I'm in trouble I know. Charleston is the mecca of Southern fusion cuisine, and I love me some Southern fusion. Pray for me. I mean seriously.

Now I will have a wireless laptop with me, but I don't know how things are going to go, so I can't promise a chapter unitl I get back. Sorry to skip a week, but these last few chapters are very important to me. I want to do them right. Fact is, the longer I ruminate, the better they are, so please have patience. I will be thinking and planning and ruminating while I'm walking up and down the sands of Folly, so it's all good :)

6/30 Whoa. I lived through the beach reunion from hell, but not without scars. Good news is, I didn't gain any weight according to my scale, but the scale at the doctor's is always less kind, so let's keep our fingers crossed. Bad news is, I ate. I ate she-crab soup three times, I ate shrimp and grits twice, I had scallops alfredo, I had fried catfish and boiled shrimp, I had a bite or two of crab dip, and TA-DA worst sin of the week: I ate an entire pecan praline, warm out of the oven from a shop on Market Street in downtown Charleston!! I thought about it for 48 hours before I did it, but I did it. I don't even feel real bad about it, to tell you the truth. I cut down the portions and avoided all things carb-y (except the grits and the praline, had to have some of that). Ohh, but one night for dinner when everyone ordered pizza from this absolutely divine pie place in Folly Beach I found an appetizer of goat cheese rolled in crushed walnuts and pan fried, then topped with this freaking wonderful marinara that was somehow hot and sweet and the same time - that was my dinner, three of those pieces of goat cheese and the marinara, and it was wonderful.

I tried to space the food as best I could. The soups were the only thing I had besides the shakes on those days. I walked four-six miles a day. I tried to ride a bicycle but it hurt too bad, but I'm not going to tear myself up about that, my knees were already sore from all the walking.

Anyway, I'm gonna have to go now but I will finish this up when I get back from weigh-in tonight. As far as the drama at the reunion, there was plenty, but I'll have to let you know about that later ;) Did you all like Episode Three? What's up with Eric and the cheesy running suits? Couldn't they have at least tacked on a fake ponytail or something? And I can't help but believe Alan Ball is rubbing his own sexual preferences all in our face with Eric touching and winking at Lafayette. He's supposed to be touching and winking at our girl, dammit. Go get your own beefcake AB. This one's taken. Oh well...

Quick note: I lost 1.2 lbs while on vacation drinking beer and eating pralines WTH!! I'm sleepy now but can you believe I lost weight! So stoked! Stoked but sleepy, we'll have to leave the drama off until tomorrow...As far as DEAC, I'm working on it folks, but the progress is slow, gotta tie up a lot of loose ends - I think there will be three more chapters at least. Having a hard time letting go...:( Take care of yourselves.

7/3 In case you're wondering - no, this story isn't finished, I just got real busy with vacation and stuff, and then yesterday I found out my beloved English bulldog Thelma Lou has two types of cancer, heart and breast. They were going to do a boob job on her yesterday to remove the breast tumor, when they found an erratic heartbeat in pre-op and diagnosed the heart tumor. The doc says there's no treatment, we are just gonna have to watch her waste away and hopefully die in her sleep. I went through chemo with her brother Sweet Jellyroll Jackson last summer, and I don't think I will ever put an animal through that again, so I'm almost relieved there's no treatment, and I feel guilty about that. Anyway, I'm still working through this story in my head 'cause once it's over, it's over, and I don't want to leave anything out. Hopefully I'll have it all outlined out and a chapter up by the end of next week. Take care y'all ;)

7/6 Chapter 33 is done and at the beta's - but I haven't talked to Wanda in three weeks, so I hope she's okay! Anyway, as soon as I get it back I'll post, thanks for your patience :)

7/10 Thank you all for the wonderful response to Chapter 33, I promise not to get too sentimental on you guys, but, I needed that chapter to be done the way I did it. Why, I don't know, I don't examine my reasons too closely LOL. I gained two pounds this week, but I'm all hormonal and everything, so I'm not too down about it. Also I had a sucky, sucky week, and they told me I could start eating food again, and I kinda freaked out and ate a bunch of junk. The bariatric doctor gave me a big speech about how I'd spent all this time shrinking my stomach by subsisting on a 800 calorie a day, liquid diet, and if I go off eating big again I'll just stretch it out. So apparently I'm like an alcoholic, who can't have just have one drink or I'm off the wagon; problem is, you can live without alcohol, you can't live without food, and they say the 800 calorie liquid diet is not safe for long-term use. So I have to learn how to eat in moderation. it's that late in the day snacking thing that gets me every time, and I started doing it again like I had never stopped, it scared the fire out of me.

So preparation, preparation, plan, plan, plan. I'm a little light in the food-planning department, it's just boring to me. I'd rather wait until I'm starving and eat everything in sight, apparently. Think that may be the problem? heehee. My crazy aunt did try to confront me at the beach, and I was a little tipsy the night she did it, and I just blew her off. But wait, don't yell at me, I got a chance later. She wanted me to go to an anti-tax, anti-government tea party thing with her on the fourth, and since I work for the state, I told her maybe it wouldn't look so good for me to show up at one of those things. Not that I like everything that's going on right now, but, it's a crazy economy and I can't risk my job for a rally. So she started screaming at me that Obama's a Marxist (I'm going to have to Google Marxism, I'm not being a smartass, I just get Marxism and Fascism and all that mixed up, been out of school a long time). So then she goes all Mel Gibson -Conspiracy Theory on me, and she actually said "How are you going to look your children in the face when you've helped to piss our country away?" and then "Where's Timothy McVeigh when we need him?" and then, by golly, I went off. I mean I really went off, and told her I didn't need her crazyass worst-case scenario views in my world anymore, and she could go to hell and take her big bag of psycho with her. That woman is so nuts, you should have seen what she did for Y2K, it's been ten years and I'm still not over that crap. So, crazy aunt's out, yahoo!

In other family reunion news, I now have a funny uncle just like Sookie! Yes, my long-lost uncle, also my crazy aunt's brother, made a pass at my daughter's 18-year-old friend! Great! just great! He got hopped up on tequila and started rubbing her knees one night! Can I go shoot someone now! It just keeps getting better! Now my daughter's traumatized and I'm going to have to make a therapist appointment! Better see about the friend too!

Did anything good happen at the reunion, you might ask. Well, it was pretty okay besides that gross stuff I just wrote about. My favorite uncle (the one who is not a sicko, and who has always been wonderful to me) was really sweet and fun to hang around with. My control-freak brother keep his bossy tendencies to a minimum. My chain-smoking sister didn't break the rules and smoke in the house and piss all the nonsmokers off like she usuallly does. The weather was beautiful. They all want to do it again next year, but I don't know about all that. I can't in good conscious make my daughter spend time around my uncle again. Shit. I hate perverts. :0

7/11 Sorry if that was TMI about my family above. We'll get back on the diet subject now. I'm trying really hard to work through my plateau. The dietician of course said get all unhealthy foods out of your house, so today I'm going to the farmer's market and buying fruits and veggies. She said I can have salsa and fresh veggies, I just don't know if I can pass up on chips when I'm having salsa. Does anyone know a good substitute for tortilla chips with salsa? I love salsa. I had to buy new bras because the old ones were getting baggy. I was a 40D. The bra lady at Dillard's (heehee I shop at Dillard's just like Bill) said I am now a 38C. I am not. I am a 38D. There was all kinds of boobage hanging out of that C cup. By the way, why are all bra-fitters frowning Hun-like women? I do not like having my naked chest frowned at. That's not the response I'm going for. I don't want them to leer at it necessarily, but no frowning at the rack, please. You guys with me on this? Talk to you later :)

7/13 I went to the dermatologist to have some moles removed to cheer myself up. I'm getting all the moles removed on my body, no exceptions. It's going to take a while, because when I turned 45 all these new ones popped up on my abdomen, like, seven or eight of them, and five or six small new ones on my neck. They are all 'age-related' according to the dermatologist. She said nothing was skin cancer. I guess I'm lucky, right? (grumbles about age-related skin bullshit). Anyway, it's always been one of my personal peeves when an otherwise attractive woman will let some big mole mar her appearance and then she pretends it's not there. A co-worker of mine is like that, she's a couple years older than me, but terribly fit, mountain bikes, skis, has a lovely home and wears expensive clothes and uses hundred-buck-a-jar face cream. She's got a huge dark mole in the middle of her forehead and another one jutting out of her chin just like a witch, and I'm like, what's the deal? Get those suckers frozen off!

Another pet peeve is mustaches on women who are not so old that it doesn't matter any more. Many women with mustaches simply pretend they are not there, much like with moles. Case in point, my sister-in-law, age 35, who drives only the latest model Mercedes and gets 80-buck haircuts, parted her thick, blond mustache to apply lipstick in front of me at the family reunion. My question is this: when you have to part the mustache, how can you deny its existence? Also, bleaching only works when there are a few hairs; if it's as thick as Tom Selleck's in Magnum PI reruns, no amount of blonding is going to help matters. Time to wax, ladies. I'm sure you guys know all this, I'm just venting. I've told my best friend, I don't care if I'm 95, you ever see me sporting a Fu Manchu knock me over the head and drag me to the nearest salon. Moles and mustaches are not Botox and facelifts, there's just no excuse.

I have to wonder, as I write this, however, what I'm doing that violates another woman's Pet Peeve. When I was heavy, was it my ass? Did another woman, much like myself, look at me and say in her head "There's no excuse for an ass like that?" I'm sure she did. Food for thought...;)

7/21 Well, I lost .6 lbs this week, and I should be happy, but I'm not. I didn't post it last week I don't think, but I gained a pound then, now I'm just kinda dancing around this number on the scale that I'm seeing in my sleep. Just call me Ishmael. That number has become my white whale. Wait, I guess that makes me Ahab then. Anyhow, I can't seem to get under that number, and it's driving me insane.

So the exercise specialist told us tonight that our bodies will now be trying to get back to the 'set point' - the weight we were when we started. She said that our bodies think that is the weight we should be; that for twelve weeks it let us lose weight because the no food thing and the 800 calories a day were like a shock to it, but now that we are adding back food our bodies will think the crisis is over and we can go back to the comfortable weight. That only confirms my suspicions that my body is, indeed, working against me and also helps to understand why so many people gain back what they lost so quickly. She said it takes a good two years to permanently change your set point. They didn't tell us that crap at the first of the program because they knew if they did they might not ever get that three grand out of us.

So, shit. More hard work, it will never end. She says I need to walk for an hour a day now, thirty minutes won't cut it. I don't really have an hour, because my knees won't hold up that long without me starting to limp and look like a cripple. So, I gotta figure something out.

Good news is, my fundus is gone! You remember when you were pregnant, and they measured your 'fundus' - that swelling under your breasts that goes to your pubic bone, which shows how the baby is developing - well, I got a little bump just like it under my boobs last year. The doctor said it was menopause, and I'm not having any other menopausal symptoms, but she said that's what it was and there was nothing to do. But guess what! I got up this morning and that bump was gone! It had shrunk, but not disappeared, but this morning the whole sucker had disappeared yahoo! Better not come back or I'll be pissed. I need to have a Goodbye to My Fundus party (FYI, I don't know why I use that word, I haven't been pregnant in more than fifteen years, but I don't care to ever hear the terms 'fundus' , 'ripening cervix', 'or, my personal favorite, 'mucus plug' again) So anyway, my abdomen is flatter than it's been in a long, long time, but I still have a ways to go, I still have a little belly but it's shrinking. Y'all take care :)

7/24 I'm working on finishing Chapter 35 folks, but I may wait until I have a couple or three chapters done before I post again - I'll probably change my mind, but that's what I'm thinking right now. Daughter made it to Vancouver and she's getting on a cruise ship to Alaska for 10 days tomorrow, lucky little dog. My uncle and aunt are taking her on this trip as a graduation present. have a great weekend :)

7/30 I lost one-tenth of a pound this week. WTH. That's like a bracelet or something. Anyway, I have been really rotten, and I don't have anything to complain about, because I didn't really deserve to lose anything. I've had to meet with my husband's accountant for his business this week, and get screamed at and reamed for things my husband has done (or more accurately, hasn't done, like write anything down). My husband doesn't have 'time,' and is dyslexic and ADHD can't deal with 'paper issues' so I have to do it. Did you ever see that old Twilight Zone episode where that guy who played John Boy on The Waltons is a medieval sin-eater? Back then, when someone died they'd hire a sin-eater to come take on all the dead person's sins by eating food by their dead body, so the sinner could go to heaven. So that's what I feel like, a sin-eater, when I go to those meetings, or a whipping-boy, either one. Anyway, the whole thing makes me kinda nervous and sick with anxiety. So I need comfort and eat. And I have eaten and eaten, but now the meeting's over and as soon as the tension headache/mind fog lifts, boy am I going to be back on it. The exercise specialist has me lifting weights now, and I like it pretty well for some reason. I just do it while I'm watching TV, and it goes in no time. Why wasn't I doing this before? Just keep some weights by your sofa and work out during commercials. Heck, you can do crunches while you're laying on the sofa with you feet up, for gosh sakes.

The nutritionist told us something else very important. She showed us articles about the evolvement of the food industry, and showed how scientists discovered that when people are presented with foods that have fat plus sugar plus salt, their satiety response gets way out of whack. In other words, that combination of foods causes you to overeat. It's in the chemistry. So almost restaurant foods have that combination, even things you think won't have sugar like steaks and chicken, will have in a small amount. Then they just throw in more fat and salt and you have the perfect-flavored food, something that makes you keep eating and eating. Scary. All I could think of the whole time was how I love to spread goat cheese in a roasted red pepper slice and then dollop it with fig preserves. I thought it was a healthy snack and look, whoa, no flour or bread, but, still, it's fat plus salt plus sugar. Damn. Damn Damn.

In other news, Chapter 36 is at the beta's and if we're lucky it will be posted for the weekend! Love you guys and take care, Cindy

Chapter 37 is up! I had a link to Octavia's wedding gown, but apparently the shop sold the dress yesterday and took down the photo, so sorry.

Here's Sookie's dress for the wedding:

http://www.poshgirlvintage.com/1950s-blue-velvet-beaded-dress-p-217.html

And here's Madelyn's dress for the wedding:

http://www.poshgirlvintage.com/1950s-iridescent-organza-party-dress-lrg-p-1098.html

Thanks!

8/13 Chapter 38 is in the works, folks, but it's a trying one for me, there's some action, you know how that slows me down! It may be next week before it's up! In the meantime, here's Sookie's hotel in New Orleans:

http://www.hotelmonteleone.com/history/index.cfm

This hotel is great! Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and Truman Capote liked to hang here! And it's haunted! Here's the link to haunted New Orleans hotels:

http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/hauntedhotels/

Here's the bakery Sookie visits in the French Quarter:

http://www.gambinos.com/shop/default.php?cPath=22

Here's the cake she buys:

http://www.gambinos.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=32&osCsid=o7p6ke50mk7f28m0od3o3ebce1

And, of course, Cafe Du Monde, where she drinks cafe' au lait with the mysterious stranger:

http://www.cafedumonde.com/

This is what one of my characters will look like when she dyes her hair and gets dressed up in an upcoming chapter:

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/photogalleries/2007_bambi_awards/1-photo.jpg

8/19 I haven't put anything here about my weight struggle lately because I've been screwing up, but I am still going to class and trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I have to think about food differently or I will go back to where I was before. This week we learned more about how we as a nation have been seduced into overeating by the food industry. it's called hypereating, and boy, will this book scare the hell out of you if you do it. After you read it, though, you will feel empowered. In the words of one reviewer, if you've ever wondered why you can't eat just one potato chip, or you take one bite and the next thing you know the whole plate's empty, then this book is for you.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605297852/ref=cm_rdp_product

They're controlling our minds, and therefore our bodies, people. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And yes, I do live vicariously through Sookie when I have her going to restaurants and bakeries, heehee. Yeah, I know it's wrong. But it is fiction, after all.

Chapter 40 spoiler - here's a link to the dress Sookie runs around the French Quarter in with Eric (oops, did I just tell you that Sookie runs through the French Quarter tipsy and plays with Eric, no I didn't):

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=930060&parentid=CLOTHES-DRESSES&pushId=CLOTHES-DRESSES&popId=CLOTHES&sortProperties=&navCount=320&navAction=top&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=059&colorName=PURPLE20MOTIF&isSubcategory=true

Shoebuy.com sold out of my purple shoes so I'll have to find some more.

8/21 hello everyone, I am working hard as I can on Chapter 40, but it is the longest chapter I've ever written (over 7000 words at this point) and there's a lot of stuff in it, so in the interest of quality control I need the weekend to tweak. I could split it and publish one chapter now, but it would cut out Eric and some much-needed lemony fun and I did promise that, so, we will have to wait. Is it just me, or has there been not much fan fic lately, and kind of a lagging interest? Maybe people are getting restless, or maybe TrueBlood's feeding their addiction. All I can say is, Bill's got purple bangs and Sookie wears white flats, how am I supposed to take that show seriously? Can the same stylist who picked out those fabulous pink Betsy Johnson pumps for Pam be responsible for those keds with the yellow ribbons Sookie wore at the jail to see Jason that time, or those horrible things she wore with the pink dress this past week? How is that possible? Anyway, I will post one day early next week, it's nearly finished, and I love this chapter myself, hope you guys do too! Have a great weekend, missacyn.

PS Got a great diet tip for you. If you buy some sketchy 38 percent peroxide tooth whitening bleach from an online company based in Bombay, and then use it with their flimsy rubber tray, it will get all over the inside of your mouth and burn all the mucus membranes and your lips and tongue too, and you won't won't be able to taste anything for a week, maybe not ever, and - here's the great part- you'll lose a couple of pounds in a matter of days! At least I did! I am so freaking brilliant...

8/21 Chapter 40 is at the beta's! Happy TrueBlooding this Sunday!

8/30 Just a quick note - I'm working on Chapter 41, and it's a doozy for me, I'm having to stretch myself here for the bedroom scene - but just as a tiny spoiler, I'm letting you know there will be lemons, lemons, lemons, and some heavy-hitting pillow talk as well - just FYI and to give ya somethin' to look forward to - hopefully by the end of the week, for a little Labor Day fireworks and fun wink misscyn

9/2 Guys, I'm so sorry, but I don't think I'll have Chapter 41 ready until next week. The bedroom scene is kicking my ass, my muses have already packed up and left for the holiday, so I'm out of luck here. I want to do something a little different, and I want to do it justice and be proud of it, so I need a little more time. It's important to me, I hope you understand. I have some diet stuff to post later, maybe tomorrow, I'll let you know :o

9/8 Folks, don't kill me, but I'm having a hard time gettin' to where I want to be, please be patient, you don't want me to post something I'm not happy with, right? Here's what I'm listening to, to get in the mood:

http://www.billie-holiday.net/

I'm working, people, I'm working. Love y'all, misscyn

9/9 Chapter 41 is done and at the beta's, I need a cigarette now and I don't smoke - that one was like pulling teeth! Wanda's a real busy lady, but you guys know I'll post it as soon as I get it back. :):):)

9/13 Chapter 41 links Below 9/13 Chapter 41 links Below 9/13 Chapter 41 links Below

A link for Muddy Water's Got My Mojo Workin'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V25iA2XPzuA

This is another Muddy Water's tune, Can't Lose What You Never Had

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgHQalqG6E8

A better link than above for Billie Holiday's Spreadin' Rhythm Around

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxeJAWXr1Kk

TRIVIA: THE VIEUX CARRÉ COCKTAIL This drink was invented in 1938 by Walter Bergeron, (aren't there bitters by the brand name Bergeron? Are they named after him? I'll research it and get back to you) the head bartender at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans, and is named after the French term for what we call "The French Quarter" ... le Vieux Carré ("Old Square").

The Monteleone is one of the Quarter's grand old hotels, and now features the marvelous Carousel Lounge, which is an actual revolving carousel -- you sit, and it revolves around the bartenders (just slowly enough so that you only get dizzy from drinks, not the ride).

1 ounce rye whiskey 1 ounce Cognac 1 ounce sweet vermouth 1 teaspoon Bénédictine D.O.M. 2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters 2 dashes Angostura Bitters Mix all ingredients in a double Old Fashioned glass over ice; stir.

More Trivia - Ponchatoula, Louisiana is the official "Strawberry Capitol of the World"

If you are fascinated by the bayou country, as I obviously am, then gumbopages.com is a real interesting place to hang out.

Further notes about Chapter 41:

As far as the wedding being cancelled, guys, it just go to be too big a deal, more of a Supernatural event of the century than a wedding, the guest list was getting out of hand, Octavia started freaking hard on me and things just weren't coming together so I just shit-canned the whole idea...hee hee, just kidding. Stuff happens, but everything's gonna turn out okay in the end, don't worry :)

FANFIC MANIFESTO - GO NO FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO THINK

One of the reasons this chapter was so hard was because, quite frankly, I've become a little disturbed, once again, at some of the growing trends in Eric/Sookie fan fic. I don't, and have never, seen Sookie as a submissive or bondage queen - and, in this chapter, I had her react exactly the way I think she would if Eric ever suggested restraining her. I don't see her as a masochist, she doesn't want to have sex with Pam, and the addition of another Supe male in the bedroom seems not only unlikely considering the parties involved, but potentially dangerous (she is mostly human, after all) and gratuitous with a capital G. A good friend of mine who is also an SVM fan fic aficionado and I have discussed this subject at length. I know that there's only so much 'white bread' sex material to talk about, and that people get bored, there's been so much written, and that's when things on here get - interesting, shall we say - but I don't think it's really fair to be so OOC - particularly in a dark and disturbed way. Just my opinion. I like variety, and I don't want censorship, but some stuff goes too far, and it feels like we're getting off track here, at least to me it does. Maybe there's no track, maybe it's Thunderdome and anything goes, what do you think?

So, my whole thing with this chapter, and with this story now, is that true intimacy is a whole lot harder to reach than fantastic sex, and that's the area that's going to be the hardest for our dear couple. Maybe other people don't want to read that, but it's what I've decided to write. So many people read and don't review - and I'm not fussing at those people - but my point is, it's kinda like complaining about the new president when you didn't bother to vote. If the folks who want the kinkier and out of character stuff are the ones doing most of the reviewing, well, the results are kinda predictable, ya know?

I'm not saying that stuff can't be erotic and sexy, because it very definitely can and is. But we all came here, at least initially, because we wanted the story and characters developed further, not changed completely. It's all in fun, no one's getting paid or hurt, I get that, but I think you see my point. Again, what do you think? Are you getting what you need, are you seeing what you need to see?

IF you read nothing else in this diatribe, please, please read this - I'm not saying one way is right, and the other way is wrong. My main point, and motivation for writing all this, is this - the more extreme stuff appears to get the most attention, so it's really hard to say how the majority feels. I want to know, and this is your chance to say what may have been on your own mind for a while. I don't want to piss other readers or writers off, we are a community here. But my whole life I've been the person who points out the elephant in the room, the little kid in The Emperor's New Clothes who says "Hey everybody, that guy's naked!" So stand up and be counted, and remember, it's all in the quest for knowledge and understanding, nothing more.

Okay, and finally, the way it went down in this chapter is the way it goes down in real life - at least for me, and I'm trying to keep it real, at least a little bit folks, because, well, just because that's what I want to do. Any time my husband and I have tried to go 'outside the box' in the sack there's a lot of 'Time Out!' and 'What the hell was that?', a good bit of snark, and laughter, and well, you write what you know, and that's just my life, so that's what I write, and it's fine with me.

I guess I should add another disclaimer here - there are many talented writers on this site, many much more talented than I am. For me, telling a good story is the reason I write, letting the reader become engrossed in my world, my intent. Story, with a little sex sprinkled in, is what I've been trying to write here. Story, however, is the main motivation. If we've run the course, and it's all going to be about sex from here on out, with very little story sprinkled in, well, that's just not that interesting to me, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

So do me a favor, and let me know how you feel about all this. If you agree with me, tell me; if you don't, then tell me. I'd just like to know what most other folks think - and so would some other readers and writers, I believe. My friend and I are wondering if we're the only ones who feel this way, 'cause so few others say anything. I'm coming to the end of this story, I don't think I'll be writing another, at least not for a while, so don't worry about holding back on my account. It's so hard to gauge reaction when so many people are silent. Talk to me readers, talk to me...

UPDATE ON THE ABOVE

I'm going to compile my results and report what I find about how people feel regarding OOC sex, etc, in Eric/Sookie fan fic, as I addressed in the above manifesto. So far about ten people have responded and agreed for the most part that the more prurient and salacious stuff is off-putting, but a few have pointed out that there's something for everyone here, and, I suppose they are right. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and this girl from down the street would come over to my house and do perverted things with my Barbie and Ken dolls, but, hey, they're not my dolls, now, are they? We're all adults and everyone gets to play. I don't want to curtail anyone's creativity or bust their balloon. Discouragement is not my bag. I just think when people are trying to think of something creative to write, it's pushing the Easy button to automatically reach for the kink. There have been a few stories where I'm wondering if the authors didn't just take a couple of Penthouse Letters and change the names to Eric and Sookie. Not that writing sex is easy for all of us, it's hard for me, and I'm really just learning. So stretch yourselves writers, and I'll try to do the same.

On another subject - while I was writing all this I googled the term 'fan fic manifesto' to see what someone else might have written, and found this link:

http://www.writer.sgacreative.com/manifesto.html

Really interesting story of how fan fic can lead to something else. Of course this guy is mega-talented, but I like his take. And wouldn't it be great if some of our writers pitched ideas to Alan Ball, 'cause God knows he needs them? As I posted on the Sookieverse forum the other day, that last episode was a cluster-fvck of nonsense and idiocy, it's like he took Charlaine's work, plus some other half-baked garbage he pulled out of his ass, threw it all in a blender and hit Frappe'. What I'm really hoping is that a certain MIA writer and her cadre of dreamy Spanish royalty vampires somehow captured AB's attention, (which is why we haven't heard from her) and there's hope for Sookie to be with one of those guys at least. After AB's last interview it's apparent that he doesn't 'get' Eric - called him a 'bad boy' with no 'future' with Sookie. So I'm rooting for another vampire, I know it's dreaming, but it could happen, hell, he's changed so much, so why not? I can't stand to see her with Bill, especially after that last episode - he was so damn cheesy and stiff, and he looked like a pervy fourteen-year-old in his Daddy's suit. Not appealing. At all. He was cute in the first season, they've really hosed Bill up. Oh well, I digress. Thank you for all your support, and I will be reporting on the results of my informal poll in about a week.

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT, OR MAYBE LESS

Diet stuff: I haven't been writing about my diet because I've been screwing up and gained 4 pounds. I was really distressed to the point of being distraught about it, and then I read that book I told y'all about above, the whole thing, and the proverbial light bulb came on. I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore. I'm back on the plan, and I get it now. I REALLY get it, and it feels great. I'll be updating more on that later. :)

I found this exerpt on the internet, for all my fellow writers out there:

The Manifesto of the Fan Fiction Author~ Based on Jane Austen's famous "Defense of the Novel" from Northanger Abbey ~

Yes, fan fiction; -- for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with some fanfic-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding -- joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever admitting them to be read by themselves, who, if she accidentally uploads a fanfic story, is sure to scroll down its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the writer of one fanfic be not patronized by the writer of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Purists to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new fanfic to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the Internet now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body...

'We are an injured body' . How apropos. So yeah, I want to say that, too.

Check out this discussion forum A Twelve Step Program for Fan Fic Addiction:

http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/55534/18769404/1/

If you'd like to talk about your fan fic addiction! I felt like some of us might need to vent about how the SVM book series has become such an integral part of our lives. So if you're as bewildered about that as some of us are, then come confess!

9/20 Chapter 42 is about half-way done, my muse is being petulant and contrary, much like myself. Sometimes, I just can't bring the funny, folks, and if it don't come natural it usually isn't any good. I know I owe y'all a chapter, but I also know y'all don't want a sucky chapter, so I need a little more time. I got a pm from a reader who said she's been following me 'like from March, dude' and 'I like your story, but you take forever to update, and it's really irritating.' Well, all I can say to that is, sorry. I do have a job, and children, and I neglect both to work on this story just about as much as I think I can get away with, and sometimes a little more. Most fan fic writers are just like me. We are not unemployed thirty-and forty-something losers living in our parent's basements, smoking weed, guzzling wine, chomping on Cheetos and Oreos, and playing on the internet all day long because we got nothing else and writing about romance and sex because we've never had any of that either. Okay. Sorry about that little rant. What we are doing is letting the paint peel and the grass grow, and the kids have hot dogs and mac n' cheese a few times too many to get the stuff out, and I know most of you realize this, because you have lives too. I take timeliness very seriously and do the best I can, truly I do, because it is important to me - probably far more important than it should be if the truth be known.

I know I've been grumpy lately. I blame it on the ubiquitous economy and the rainiest summer in my memory as well as a deep and abiding disgust with what AB did in the season finale. I've also had some kind of muscle-achy virus all week, plus I think a spider crawled into my bed and bit me on the ass twice last night. Seriously, I'm fumigating my bedroom as we speak. Anyway, I love writing my story and I love reading your thoughts and comments. Many times they are the brightest points in my day. Please bear with me, the clouds have to pass eventually :)

So anyway, if you want to talk abut how fan fic has changed your life, (and not necessarily in a good way) visit the above forum! We can commiserate! Commiseration is a good thing!

9/26 Somebody quit at my job and there's a hiring freeze so I'm having to juggle between two departments, plus I caught a nasty virus on top of the one I had last week, so, still no chapter guys, but I'm studying on what to do next, it's never far from my thoughts. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I gotta eat and pay my bills. I hope I'll be able to get something out this week. Take care misscyn

9/29 Chapter 42 is at the beta's! hope to post it soon :)

10/3 My beta's had the flu, folks, I hope I get to post Chapter 42 soon. Here's a little spoiler:

davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/734258

Click on the photo of the Parrot. Yep, they fly around New Orleans! Sorry you have to cut and paste, I will fiddle with the link more later.

As far as the response to my manifesto, everyone who wrote me agreed with me, but I'm thinking there were those that don't, and they did not respond. Suffice it to say, apparently there is a natural progression in fan fic to the more graphic and out-there stuff, and vampires just make it more so likely; so, well, live and let live. Hell, in my research I found Seinfeld fan fic involving George and Elaine doing S & M; George was the dom. Can you get any more out of character than that? (misscyn shakes head and can't help but snort/giggle here)

Supply and demand is what it is, the market will bear what it will bear, and I'm getting over it. I still say, however, that if readers want and appreciate a certain type of fic, then it would be in their best interests to make their voices heard. I realize I don't know that much about fan fic, I just know what I like. If I have time after tonight I will post some of the responses, anonymously, of course.

Viva la weekend! Some comments on the manifesto, as promised:

One fanfic author wrote:

I have also been slightly (and in some cases more than slightly) disturbed at weak Sookies and mean Erics. Sookie is a strong and stubborn woman who speaks her mind. She may be wrong and she may be annoying, but she is who she is. Making her into someone very submissive is just wrong in my opinion.

A reader said:

Also, and not that you asked: what the HELL is with the Sookie has a kid with Eric thing. Really people? Really? I'll confess every-time Sookie gets knocked up by a vampire I stop reading.

Another reader wrote:

...Now, I also do not mind fanfic writers taking the SVM to an OOC or even an AH level either - hey making Sookie a little less stubborn here and there, I am totally cool with that or making Eric "sweeter" than he would be in the real books, sure why not...but making Sookie a masochist who wants a threesome with her supe buddies and lovers is WAY OOC...I mean really just change the names and no one would ever know you are writing about CH's beloved characters since the world becomes completely off base!!

My favorite author/reader wrote:

I HATE to read about Machiavellian Eric and willing victim Sookie...Yes, there is plenty of nasty sexy plotless drivel on here...But that's what fanfiction is. There's something for everyone. So, trust me, there is plenty of plotless sex and probably always will be.

So there you go. Fan fic is a melting pot of tastes and proclivities, a slice of our culture, who knew? Apparently I'm a purist, and I'm not alone, which makes me feel better, anyway.

One writer I really respect wrote me and said she saw my point, but that she felt like the more kinky/profane and graphic stuff had its place and was okay, as long as the author made it very clear in the summary what they were doing. I would go one more and add that if there are any components of sexual violence, that needs to be pointed out in an extremely prominent manner. What are the stats, two out of three women have been sexually abused in some manner? Let's show some respect for the sisters, folks, and let everyone know what they are getting into when they click on a fic. That's all I'm saying. Love you guys, misscyn

One more note to the above and I'll shut up for now - I have all the sympathy in the world for my fellow fan fic writers and the criticism they have to deal with. What we do here is not easy, and trying to incorporate smart, pithy, sensual physical closeness between the characters without going over the line is difficult. I've worked as a journalist, a freelance writer and as a technical writer, and I have written fiction as a hobby for years, but I had never done a sex scene before I started Death Eatin' A Cracker. (I would also like to point out that I haven't worked as a professional writer since 1996, and have forgotten more about MLA style than I ever knew, so please don't judge me too harshly here, I am rusty as hell).

A talented and respected writer on this site criticized my first attempts very heavily and ran her mouth both on the threads on this site and over at the HBO wiki about how I had screwed my story up early on with 'crazy amounts of PWP' (porn without plot). I'm sure to a certain extent she may have had a point, although I'm equally as certain that she didn't need to be quite such a supercilious ass about it. I was a newbie at fan fic and made some mistakes, but as long as I've been at it and as much work as I've put into my plot overall, I do have the temerity to believe from the bottom of my heart that I have made up for any early transgressions.

Anyway, I in no way want to do to any other writer what that individual did to me. I want to encourage all the creativity out there, from the seasoned writers to the folks who have never written anything, because that's when it gets interesting. As Sookie tells Eric in Chapter 42 (which will be posted soon, I swear), even Einstein said creativity is more valuable than knowledge. So whatever you guys do, don't stop writing, 'cause we need you, each and every one.

Just keep in mind that other writers will see what you do and try to use it as a pattern and emulate it - right or wrong. That's what happened to me. I didn't know what was cool, so I read other fics and guessed. (Maybe I should have had more sense, but hey, if I had an overabundance of good sense I wouldn't be here all the time in the first place.) There are no guidelines, so the body of work becomes the guidelines. If there's a lot of rape/violence fics, and those fics are supremely popular, then eventually we will end up with a glut of rape/violence fics, and that's what the Sookieverse will come to represent. The medium becomes the message. (yeah, forgive me, I'm so old I quote Marshall McLuhan). It's a small responsibility, but one to take into consideration. I will step off the soapbox now. Take care, misscyn

10/5 Thank you, readers, for all your support and positive reinforcement. I asked myself today why I take this stuff so seriously, when others obviously don't and are fine with that. I guess it's just the way I'm built. I love the printed word more than I can express, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that the printed word is a serious matter. Once you put something in black and white, there it is. Even if you destroy it, someone, somewhere will remember what you wrote. (Ask a lawyer if you don't believe me, and it's the same theory behind never, ever mailing that angry letter to an ex-lover, it will come back to bite you in the ass). And there, in the words of Sookie herself, lies my point. I don't want what we're doing here to come back and bite us all in our collective ass. A little consideration for the future is a good thing. Later, misscyn

10/12 Hello everyone, I 've been neglecting my profile lately because I feel like I've been somewhat of a mouthy biotch on it, but, hey, it's kind of a one-sided conversation, and you all were going to figure out my dark side eventually anyway, it was only a matter of time. Anywho, Chapter 43 is in the works, but it's perculating, not really cooking, if you know what I mean. True inspiration appears to take at least two weeks, lately three weeks, for me. Right now I'm working on a little extracurricular activity for Eric and Sookie (no, it's not sex) that I'm having a real good time doing.

So, let me putter, and mull, and tweak, please. It's when I do my best work. Also when I'm lit, but haven't been drinking lately as I'm back on the regimen and alcohol is not a part of the plan. I need to lose at least 10 pounds by Thanksgiving or the rabid in-laws will eat me alive instead of the turkey. So, have faith that I'm working on it, but my job change has been tough, also I have to get yelled at by the accountant again this week for my husband's sins, so pray for me. I'm not kidding when I ask for that, seriously, I would appreciate your prayers. I'm sending out warm thoughts to you all, take care, misscyn :)

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2732871/1/

Okay, guys, I know I've been saying I was gonna do it and I finally submitted one short story, it's really an excerpt from my novel. So here's the link to fiction press. Apparently there's another misscyn, so to avoid confusion I'm misscyn2 there. If people like it I will post another by the end of the week.

And yes, I'm working on Chapter 43. I have to wait on a shipment from amazon.com to wrap it up, you all will see what I mean when I post it. :)

10/24 Do you believe it? Chapter 43 is almost done, I'm wrapping it up now! I will post a teaser on the teaser board Monday, and will post the rest of the chapter on Tuesday..what's that? What did you say? You want a teaser now? Okay...

Eric apparently tired of the subject and picked up the book again. “There is something in here I’d like to show you,” he said, his eyes lighting up. He thumbed for a few pages, and then found it. Wordlessly he passed the book to me.

He’d turned to the glossy photo pages and opened a section on the Les Temps des Vampires Vampire Lestat Ball, circa 1998.

There, taking up nearly the entire page, stood Eric in full 18th century dress. Oh. My. God.

He wore an ice blue brocade smoking jacket and vest, ruffled white blouse with wide sleeves, and a broach at his neck, tight pants to his knees, silk white stockings covering those gorgeous calves, and buckled shoes. It was very foppish, almost Oscar Wilde- like attire – and I’m here to tell you, I’ve never seen anything more masculine in my entire life.

Eric smoldered, his eyes fixated on the camera. He stood in what appeared to be a period-type drawing room, next to an antique table, one hand braced on its surface, leaning slightly forward. Man, those knickers were really tight right around where it mattered in the front. I blushed and looked away, but immediately my gaze returned, captivated. His wavy, curled hair was pulled loosely back, with strands wisping around his face. His eyes bore into me, just like he knew I’d be there, and knew what I was thinking. My fingers moved of their own accord to the page, itching to trace the outline of that sculptured jaw.

‘The Vampire Lestat as portrayed by Shreveport entrepreneur Eric Northman’ the caption under the photo read. Oh my. That photo was radiating heat to the point that I felt like I could warm my hands over it. It was getting really stuffy in that cabin.

“That’s really something,” I said breathlessly, completely consumed by Eric’s full-on eye-fuck at the camera. I didn’t feel so tired anymore. “Do you still have that costume?”

He laughed. “I do, somewhere,” he said. “It wasn’t a costume. That is authentic attire, from my pre-Victorian days,” he continued. “I just used it for the ball because it was so much better than the cheap rags they wanted me to wear.”

Oh shit. Oh shit. I fanned myself a little. “Are you all right, lover?” Eric asked, smirking.

“I think I need a glass of water,” I said, and bolted off the sofa for the kitchen.

Guys, I'm so sorry, I was trying to replace Chapter 42 with an update at the bottom leading to this teaser and somehow I listed it as a new chapter by mistake. I'm so sorry, Chapter 43 will be up by Tuesday. So, so sorry. :(

11/2 I have to confess that I'm as nervous as Sookie is about confronting Aunt Minnie; hell, she scares me, and I gave birth to her. I intend to force the issue this week, it's going to be exhausting I can tell already. Thelma Lou has taken a sudden turn for the worse, and may not last the week, so if I turn into a nut job I probably won't get very far, but I will keep you posted. We're giving her meds, and she's not in any pain, but the vet says if the lymphatic swelling doesn't go down- well, you know the drill.

We're headed for the grand finale folks, but it's still several chapters away. I know I've told you that before, but I'm truly shooting for the end of the year, or at least by January 12, the story's one-year anniversary. I know, I can't believe it myself. I'm probably going to do a few outtakes, perhaps a Wizno-Octavia short story, maybe a Madelyn one-shot, and very definitely a Sookie and Eric role-playing that Lestat chase through the French Quarter, so I'll be around for a bit.

So thank you again, all my little Cracker crunchers. You make the work a joy, truly :)

11/9 I'm shooting for getting something out this week folks, still struggling, but, I'm really excited because I heard Ann Madison is back to good health and will be finishing Dead Ahead soon! Whooppeee! God bless Ann, I hope she can hear the collective fan fic roar across the internet! Go check out her profile, she's updated a bit!

11/11 Hey, there's a Tasting Sin update, and later this week maybe a Dead Ahead, and if I'm lucky there will be a Death Eatin' a Cracker, so, let's here it for the stories that have been around a while! Although I may not have a right to mention my tale in the same sentence as Ann and Leia, well, I've stuck it out almost as long as they have, anyway. So I know there's a quantity/quality thing, but, whatever. Good news is I've had some late night inspiration and although Chapter 44 is a hot mess right now, all the conceptualization, research and outlining is out of the way, and all I have left to do really is clean up and tweak!! Whoopeeeee! May take a few days, but I'm on the downslide!

Chapter 44 Teaser

Minnie stood to the side and let me in. I walked through the door and gave a sigh. It still looked the same, for which I was grateful. I wasn’t ready for my aunt’s house to be rejuvenated along with her.

“Can I get you a Coke or some iced tea?” Minnie asked solicitously.

“Perhaps a beer or a glass of wine,” I conceded. "I might need to take the edge off."

She busied herself in the kitchen while I took in my surroundings. Nothing had changed much, except for a strange cloth contraption hanging from the post and beam ceiling in the living room.

“What is that?” I asked her as she returned with my Pale Ale.

“A yoga inversion swing,” Minnie said. “Niall bought it in New Orleans for my back.”

I looked at her, then quickly down at my hands and swallowed. “No, no, it’s not a yoga inversion swing, Minnie.”

She looked at me questioningly. I think she was sincerely confused.

“That’s a sex swing, Minnie. There’s no back support to it. Yoga inversion swings have a little back support.”

“Huh,” she said thoughtfully. She walked to the swing and lifted it slightly. “These are handles,” she said. “And these are-“

“Stirrups,” I provided with a groan.

11/14 Chapter 44 is done and at the beta's!

11/19 teaser by Friday y'all!

Chapter 45 Teaser! This is a rough cut!

"..I bought the clownfish for Berta to have a mate. I bought the blue tang because he's so magnificent and he was crowded in his tank at that shop. But if Berta likes the tang better, then it's her business." I pressed my lips together as I looked at Eric.

"It doesn't make any sense," he said evenly. “She can't mate with the tang.”

“She'll do what she wants to do, you can't control it.” I folded my arms across my chest as I spoke.

“I can take that tang out of the tank if she becomes obsessed with him,” Eric returned stridently. Somebody’s injuries were making them a little grumpy, apparently.

“Why would you do that? If she wants to be with him, if he makes her happy, why would you interfere? She knows what she wants better than you do,” My voice rose several octaves. We were on a slippery slope, and if I had any sense I would have shut up, but since when have I ever done the prudent thing where Eric is concerned?

“If I make an executive decision, then that decision will stand,” Eric stated in a tone that brooked no argument. I, of course, paid him no heed. I closed the distance between us and poked him in the chest with my index finger.

“Who died and made you God? What makes you think you know anything about matters of the heart, especially where a female is concerned?”

Eric’s eyes flew wide and filled with rage as his jaw clenched. “Remove your finger from my chest this instant,” he growled in a tone I had rarely heard. “Before I do something we will both regret.”

11/21 Working on Chapter 45! Link for my original short story:

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2732871/1/Afternoon_Tea

Y'all have a good weekend!

11/27 Chaper 45 is done and at the Beta's! I'll post as soon as I get it back!

PS My biotch aunt brought a woman to Thanksgiving, and from her unchacteristically euphoric and giddy demeanor, I can only assume that they are doing it. Maybe I've been reading smut too long, but my instincts are rarely wrong in these matters, and let's just say, there have been clues before, ahem. Also, she was practically glowing, for God's sake. Whatever rings her bell, but I fail to understand the efficacy of the sex swing in light of this new development. I guess that's why I'm not a lesbian, you gotta think outside the box. (Okay, bad, bad pun but I could not resist.)

12/5 Okay, after studiously avoiding it I have started reading a few Twilight fics here and there because they have been so heavily recommended. And they are great. I tried to read the actual book Twilight some months ago and found the style too sophomoric for my taste and never got past the first chapter. The fanfic is much better, IMO. While reading the fics, however, much to my horror, I have found both mention of the 1918 Spanish flu and Weres as Native Americans! I did not steal those aspects of my story from Twilight, I swear, and I feel sick that folks probably think I did. The Native Americans and Weres just made sense to me when I created Lance, the outdoors and woods, you know, 'Dancing With Wolves,' and I live in Western North Carolina, close to a Cherokee Indian reservation, and there's a lot of Native American art around here depicting wolves.

As far as the 1918 Spanish flu, which was killing Edward when he was turned in the books, I had no idea. When my grandmother died in 2000 and we visited her gravesite I found the small grave of a child by my great-grandparents by the name of Stanley Bennett. (My maiden name is Bennett) who died in 1918. When I asked my mother who he was she confirmed that he was her uncle, who died at the age of 2 of the Spanish flu. I asked why no one ever spoke of him, and she said that my great-grandfather, a physician, was so terribly distraught and guilt-ridden over being unable to save his infant son that the family never spoke of it after his death. She explained to me then how deadly the flu was, and how it wasn't my great-grandfather's fault because the child's own immune system turned against him, and nothing could have saved him. People didn't know that then, of course. I thought it terribly tragic that my great-grandfather carried around all that unnecessary guilt and pain all of his life, and also I was resentful on Stanley's behalf, as his memory was cut out of the family for no reason. I never forgot that story, and when I was trying to think of a disease, plus all the crap going on in the media about different types of flu all the time, it just clicked.

Anyway, I'm embarrassed. It is terribly difficult to be original in this genre, I'm afraid. And I know I am borrowing another person's characters, and my story carries literary and modern culture allusions, etc., and I take a lot of artistic liberty, and so on, but I didn't do these particular things on purpose. I would have found another disease and another tie-in for character if I had known. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

12/6 Sometime this morning Death Eatin' A Cracker passed the 200,000 hits mark, yahoo! Thanks to all of you, the big number milestones make me kinda weepy and proud. God bless for all the joy you've given me. I may not write this, but I'll never stop writing again because of what's happened here, and it wouldn't have happened without you readers. You are doing good, just by reading and responding, never doubt it :) misscyn

12/9 Chapter 46 is done and beta'd! I'm doing some last minute tweaking and will post ASAP.

12/12 I'm outlining Chapter 47 and I think I should warn you that Bill will have a cameo. Now, don't freak out; Bill has never had a scene in my story because I've been angry at him for about a year now and also because I had no idea how to write Bill; his actions and character development in the books did not add up at all to me. So I sent him to Europe and basically left him there so I wouldn't have to deal with him.

But I had an epiphany last night, and I think you will like my one little ole scene with Bill. Don't worry, he will not dominate the chapter. (We all know who's the boss in my story, don't we?) But I will tie up some loose ends, and I'm pumped about that. Hope to get it out before Christmas. Love y'all, misscyn

12/13

Chapter 47 teaser rough cut!

… I sat on the porch steps with a glass of wine. The dinner had been an overall success, and I just wanted to bask in a little down time. I was staring at my feet, spacing out a bit when I heard a sound I hadn’t heard in a long, long time.

“Sookie,” that familiar, cool voice rang out in the night. I looked up to see Bill standing just a few feet in front of me. “How have you been?”

“Bill,” I said a little stiffly, sitting up straighter. “You’re back.”

“Don’t get up.” He moved to sit beside me on the step. I glanced at him surreptitiously from the corner of my eye. I hadn’t seen Bill in forever, since before Christmas. France apparently agreed with him. He was wearing a tight-fitting blue-gray t shirt and jeans with boots, and looked a little Euro-rock star, his hair cut and tousled in a fairly hot bed-head way.

It sure beat the hell out of that khaki and button-down history teacher look he’d had going on before he left. It was a good thing, too; I’m not sure how much more of that I could have stood.

“Wizno’s rehearsal dinner?” he asked, nodding toward the house. He had a bottle of Trueblood in his hand.

“Yes,” I said, still a little startled at his appearance. “When did you get back?”

“Last night,” he replied, taking a sip of his blood. “It’s been six months.”

“A lot has happened,” I fidgeted with the button on my blouse.

“I’ve heard.”

The silence stretched out between us. I didn’t know what to say.

“So,” that voice like chilled water washed over me again. Bill turned to me with a penetrating gaze. “Are you going to hate me forever?”

My eyes widened at the unexpected question. I felt a little punch drunk from exhaustion, and the ridiculousness of the situation struck me as terribly ironic and funny.

I tipped my glass and finished my wine, and then I leaned over and elbowed him in the ribs conspiratorially. “Of course not,” I murmured sarcastically in his ear. “Unlike you, I don’t have forever.” I leaned back and winked, then chuckled at his shocked expression.

“She’s exhausted and not exactly lucid right now,” Pam’s voice rang out from the door as she walked onto the porch. “I’d advise you not to sit so closely.” She glared at Bill.

12/18 guys, I'm working on it, but it may be a few more days until I can post Chapter 47. Christmas is bearing down like a freight train and I have some drama. Will let you know misscyn

12/19 Chapter 47 will be up as soon as I get it back from the beta's!

12/21 We lost Thelma Lou the day before Thanksgiving, guys. I can't really talk about it yet. She went peacefully but she did suffer her last few days and we had to put her down. Breast cancer is evil beyond comprehension, and God bless all you survivors, because that's a hell of a hill to climb. I've never had up-front experience with breast cancer, and I know she was a dog, but that was brutal. I'm gonna take this opportunity to ask everyone to pay attention to their lymphatic systems through massage. Rebounding is also great, I love my mini-trampoline. Take care of yourselves, ladies.

http://www.breasthealthproject.com/lymphatic-breast-massage.html

If you go to this site there's a youtube link to a self-massage video. The lymphatic system is largely ignored by American doctors but lymphatic problems are one of the top four health diagnoses by European physicians. So please visit this site. Do it for Thelma Lou.

12/27 I know I said maybe by the New Year, and I have a chapter almost ready, but I'm gonna get a few done before I post again. I need to keep my eye on the prize and not get distracted at this point. So bear with me, guys misscyn

This is off subject, but funny as hell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4RNb3tt0LM

I think I know that guy. Keep listening it gets better toward the end.

1/2 Chapter 48 is done and at the beta's. I will probably go ahead and post it this week, just had to get it straight in my head where I was going.

I've been neglecting my profile for the last couple of months due to the job change but things have settled on that front and I should be able to do better now. Y'all will never guess what happened! Crazy aunt struck again, she didn't ruin Christmas but she managed to bomb New Year's Day and now I'm not speaking to her or my brother! Woo hoo 2010! Details later, you folks will know that I'm stupid when I tell you this one.

1/3 Why Bill is in Chapter 48

Okay, I told y'all I had an epiphany about Bill. I avoided writing Bill for so long, because, as he states himself in Chapter 48, his actions and words made him come off as a tool to me. I think what happened with Charlaine is what several creative writing professors have explained to me, and it's a common occurence. I think Charlaine understands Bill very well, so well that she assumed that we did too, and kind of left out key things about his character unwittingly. I can tell you that I never really got Bill.

Reading comprehension is a very strong suit of mine, I have always scored in the 99th percentile on any reading comprehension test; not to brag, I suck at a lot of things, but that is one of my greatest strengths. I'm human, I could have missed something. Still, I felt like there were great, big gaping holes in Bill's character. Only Charlaine really knows if she did it by accident or design. Writing professors also tell you to show, not tell, and that after writing you should peel away words down to the bare minimum; they say that the 'ghosts' of your words will still remain, and shape the story. Sometimes I think that works, sometimes I think it's bullshit. Often I go ahead and tell the reader what I want them to know, because life is short, and on with the show. If this makes me a crappy writer, then, well, there you go. I will admit that I would give my left pinkie toe to be able to create the kind of compelling characters Charlaine can, hands down. I do bow to Ms. Harris.

Anyway, I came up with what I thought was a feasible reason for Bill's transgressions. Have you ever fucked up, really bad, couldn't fix it, and freaked? That's my assessment of Bill. He choked. Also, his personality kind of sucks, but it doesn't completely make him a bad person. We all know folks like that. So I hope my explanation of what was going on in Bill's head helps, guys. I know that the frustration I felt in Books 2 and 3 still drives me crazy, so this is my solution. Even now when I go back and read those books I'm like 'WTF? WTF?' when it comes to Bill's actions. I believe deep in my heart that Charlaine expects us to know something that we just don't.

I will have to say that in Charlaine's story, he does try to fix it, albeit belately and somewhat over-dramatically. Here, I tried to go a more direct route.

Also, I wanted to put the Bill issue to bed with Sookie, so to speak. She needed to let go of that crap, so she can get on with her man, you all know who I mean :) Thanks for reading, misscyn

A blast from the past if you'd like to see that old Mother Nature commercial again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8

According to my research that commercial has been playing on TV Land for the last several years, so Sookie could have feasibly seen it. It was originally on the air in the seventies, God I feel old.

1/13 I have the freaking flu. I haven't had the flu in fifteen years. I can't go to work because I'm contagious. If I'm up later I may explain my aunt's newest bullshit. Or start Chapter 50. Thank you for all the reviews last two chapters, guys. Things have been ... hard, and they have cheered me. It's risky business in Eric Land to be kind to Bill, but keep in mind that I don't really like Bill, I just want Sookie to get over it so she and Eric can get on with it. Plus, I really don't think Bill is evil incarnate; however, he is basically a douchebag who dresses like an old fart in the books, and the show, for that matter. There, I said it. Blame it on the Alka Seltzer Cold Plus.

Okay, so this is what my bitch aunt did. Y'all remember my perv uncle from the family reunion back in June, right? In a drunken moment of holiday madness, I told my bitch aunt about my perv uncle making a pass at Maddie's friend. I know how stupid that was. I only did it because she was pushing for another family reunion. Do not throw things at the computer screen. Well, Perv Uncle had heart surgery about two weeks ago, and nearly died on the table, and my good uncle who loves his little brother to death and doesn't know he's a perv, called the bitch aunt and asked her to ask everyone to check on Perv Uncle. So Bitch Aunt called my Control Freak Brother (I'm capitalizing so you can keep everyone straight) and said, " By the way, CINDY is worried you will mention the unpleasantness at the beach to (Perv Uncle's real name) while he is recovering from heart surgery and WE think you shouldn't do it as he is not well." Cindy never said anything, Cindy didn't give a shit. Bitch Aunt just used me to say what she was worried about.

So Control Freak Brother did what control freaks do, and freaked. He called me and screamed and yelled about me getting him involved in the nastiness. Also berated me for even telling Bitch Aunt, which I admitted was beyond dumb. Then Bitch Aunt called me and said I was a drama queen and the whole thing at the beach was a 'misunderstanding.' Now, I may very well be a drama queen, but there's one thing I know for sure, and that's when a young girl comes to you and tells you a fifty something year old male relative has touched her inappropriately, you do not call it a misunderstanding.

We've had plenty of insanity in our family, but never any pervy stuff, and it's really hard for anyone to handle. But the facts are the facts, and you can't run from them, especially when they involve children.

So I basically told Bitch Aunt that due to her existence on this earth alone I knew there had to be a God, because he knew what he was doing when he made sure she never reproduced. Then Control Freak Brother called me back and yelled some more. And so did Bitch Aunt. I hung up on both of them about five times total. I think hanging up is immature, but they would not stop yelling. The whole thing culminated in me telling them both that I didn't give a fuck if I never heard from anyone in my family again.

This happened on New Year's Day. Last Christmas Day Bitch Aunt told me I was abusing my children by being a fatass. I subsequently lost forty-one pounds, but not because of or for her. She's always been a major, toxic pain in the ass, but I put up with her shit all these years because my poor mother wanted me too, and she treated my mother worst of all. Well, my mother is not with us anymore, and I think I am done with Bitch Aunt for good. Control Freak Brother, eh, I can do without him for a good while also. So I'll have to find another crazy relative to amuse everyone with, don't worry, folks, I won't have to look very hard. :)

If none of this makes any sense, I blame the flu. Happy January, I'm working on Chapter 50 slowly but surely, guys. It might be a while on this one, I'm a little sad and unmotivated. :( Hopefully I won't stay that way for long.

1/21 Started on Chapter 51 tonight, it's going well so far. Update on my crazy family, my brother can't stand that I'm not talking to him, and calls my husband up to ten times a day to complain. Yesterday they met for lunch (and they don't even like each other) to have a big ole 'let's bitch about Cindy' bonding party, where my brother dredged up every wrong move I've made since kindergarten and my husband basically said, 'hey, I've lived with her for twenty years, I hear ya." Then after their little boy party/Cindy roast they had somebody at the Cracker Barrel take their picture on my husband's cell phone and sent it to me, with them all hugged up on each other, which is completely out of character. Both those jackasses know that if they make me laugh I can't stay mad. I hate men. They get away with murder when they turn on that boyish charm and they know it. I'm holding strong, folks, I texted them back and told them both to go screw themselves. Keep the power, that's my motto.

Here's something that will be in Chapter 51:

http://www.bettybeauty.com/bridal.php

Hee hee. You can thank Duckbutt for that shit.

I'm having to change Sookie's dress because now we have the pearls and I thinks she needs to wear them; alas, they don't go with the dress I picked out in June. Here's the new one:

http://www.poshvintage.com/prod_one.cfm?id=2835&srow1=48&isspan=0

and maybe these shoes

http://www.zappos.com/diba-betsie-belle-gold

Okay, I don't really like those shoes that much. Imagine something more delicate and lighter, but still high and gold. This is fiction. Use your imagination, please ma'am.

Amelia's dress:

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-GOTHIC-VELVETFLEUR-COCKTAIL-SATIN-EVENING-DRESS_W0QQitemZ320476487059QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_CSA_WC_Dresses?hash=item4a9de31d93

Tell me if you likey :)

1/30 About two-three chapters left cracker crunchers, if I had to say. Then again, you know how I am :)

Ha ha.

And Octavia's cootch dye again:

http://www.bettybeauty.com/bridal.php

That shit makes me laugh every time.

Chapter 52 links

Etta James At Last

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADDigK8LwyE

And this is the processional

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjtzdummdCA&feature=related

Catherine (leper colony!) sings this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiQqPy6qPA0&feature=related

Don't go hating on me, I'm not a Celine fan and no Whitney is allowed in my house; but of the choices on youtube, hers was the best.

Catherine will wear this, and she may dance with Bill:

http://www.poshvintage.com/prod_one.cfm?id=6854&srow1=36&isspan=0

Here's Madelyn's dress again:

http://www.poshgirlvintage.com/1950s-iridescent-organza-party-dress-lrg-p-1098.html

Don't go hating on Maddie, she's not a bad guy, I promise.

Hey, I got to put somebody in this dress, I wore a ton of Young Edwardian back in the day (tacky to wear black to a wedding, so Thalia's a bartender and can get away with it as service staff):

http://www.poshvintage.com/prod_one.cfm?id=5368&srow1=60&isspan=0

Wizno's wearing a cravat, because frankly he would look funny in a bow tie IMO:

I'm still looking for that pic of his suspenders.

Hey, Jason and Sookie dance to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5OoQadZTPk:

Little Eva's the real thing, but this video makes me laugh like hell:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/grand-funk-railroad-the-locomotion/B5435A38993AA76F39C5B5435A38993AA76F39C5

Cajun Waltz

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/an-old-cajun-waltz-local-music-in-louisiana-by-jon-bowermaster/3EDAEB13BBA0B5D307303EDAEB13BBA0B5D30730

Chapter 53

Is in the works. But it has - oh horrors - a protracted action scene. You know that scene in the Visa commercial when the lady writes the check at the garden center? That's what an action scene does to me. All progress halts while I painstakingly muddle, crawl, and suffer through the process. But I'm working, folks, maybe by next weekend it'll be ready.

Here's a tension reliever for those feeling anxious after the last chapter:

Teaser for Chapter 53

Eric never took his eyes off me. “Tell me,” he said again, ignoring Amelia and the guards as they entered the cabin, Pam trailing behind. I stubbornly refused to meet his gaze. A corner of his mouth lifted. “Turnabout’s fair play,” he said then, still holding my face.

My eyes shot up then. “What?”

“A human expression,” he smirked.

“Not funny,” I shot back as I jerked my chin out of his grasp. “And not fair.”

“All’s fair,” he repeated, and I wanted to smack him. I looked at Pam, who was unsuccessfully trying not to cackle.

“You just lost a massage, lady,” I snapped.

“Oh, dear, Sookie,” she returned, her eyes filled with glee. “And were you going to give it? That would be a tragedy indeed.”

2/18 I have to be honest, guys, I'm really struggling with Chapter 53. I know what I want to do, but I'm uninspired at the moment. Inspiration comes at funny times for me. I'll have a breakthrough soon. If I try to force it, it will be crappy probably, and y'all don't want a crappy chapter, right? I didn't think so.

My quote for the day comes from Twilight fic Take the Cake:

Procrastination is like masturbation. In the end you're just screwing yourself.

I will repeat that mantra throughout the day :)

2/21 Sooooo, I'm not going to post a chapter today. Because it would suck. We went through that above. I guess I broke some kind of teaser rule by posting that blurb above on the teaser forum. Maybe I won't get tarred and feathered, I think overall I have been very consistent.

But if you really want to know what's going on with the next one, here's the scoop:

1. It is 2000 words long so far. It will probably be about 4000-5000 words when completed. So it's halfway complete.

2. The second half is outlined.

3. I have worked through most of the action scene. Hallelujah.

4. I have a sinus infection, I feel like shit, but I anticipate posting something this week.

5. And finally, I completely understand now why so many authors don't finish long stories. It is extremely difficult to do. There are many details, and the end is just hard to tie everything up in a semi-cool way.

Now, this isn't the last chapter, but it's the next to last. And I think I probably will write an epilogue, as folks are most likely going to have a hissy fit when they see my somewhat unconventional ending. It's all good folks, take a deep breath :)

Song choices for next chapter, sorry you have to cut and paste:

Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait Lucky

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=49776296

Nina Simone I Put A Spell on You

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=44035234&searchid=f53d32d6-b457-48dc-ab47-25df717ce8d4

and Sookie and Eric dance to I'll Be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2YZYjjonCg&feature=related

in Chapter 54.

2/23

I have no idea why links aren't posting, I'll look into it. I also have no idea if anyone's paying attention here, but I do know that 40-50 people click on my profile every day, so just letting you folks know that Chapter 53 is nearly done, it should be completed in the next day or two and sent to the beta, who hopefully will get it back fast. So maybe this weekend? That's what I'm shooting for.

2/27

Chapter 53 is done! So it looks like folks are enjoying it. Thanks to you all, that chapter was fun to write, even though action is challenging for me, and it's fun not to go out in a whimper. Whimpering sucks.

DEAC is being featured this week on this website:

http://bloodbondsblog.com/

So I thought I'd plug it :)

2/28 Several folks have asked me what my plans are, so here's the scoop if you haven't read it somewhere already:

1. DEAC has one chapter left. There's a possibility it could be two, because I haven't started writing it yet, and stuff happens. But I do know how this story is going to end, I'm not full of shit this time.

2. I'm going to write an epilogue if there's enough demand. And I have a pretty good one in mind too.

3. I will write a few outtakes, but I don't know when. I really want to write the 'Eric as Lestat' chase through the French Quarter, that'll be fun.

4. I don't have another SVM fic in mind. As much as I love Charlaine's world, her characterizations seem to be fading to me, like old pictures in a coloring book, instead of enriching, here lately. I think she may be tired or something. I dunno. Maybe she'll step up in the next book, but if she continues DAG's trend into making her own characters, who have so much potential, into caricatures of themselves, it will not be inspiring. I think it's a damn sin, but it ain't my call.

5. My next creative project will be a co-effort with a dear friend I met here at ff dot net. I don't want to mention her name because it might embarrass her, but I am super excited because I think we will do well together. She is very creative and detail-oriented, and absolutely focused when she has a goal. So I'm stoked. This will probably be an original work; if it is introduced to ff dot net, it will be in another fandom.

6. I won't be writing any AH Erics, sorry to those who have requested it. I love Eric, obviously, but to me he is a Viking vampire, and when you take that away, I just don't know who he is anymore. I like AH Twilight fics, I think Edward makes a better human than Eric for some reason. Go figure.

7. You may not care to hear it, but you wanna know what I've learned from fanfic? I like to write romance and fluff! And here I thought I was a serious writer all these years!

Death Eatin' A Cracker Chapter 54 Rough Cut ...

Eric stood and walked to within a few feet of the bed. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door jam as he regarded me from beneath hooded eyes.

"I assure you, my dove," he said in a measured tone, "I am being perfectly serious at the present moment in time."

We stared at each other. Eric looked just a little pissed. What the hell is his problem? I frowned. He frowned back.

All of a sudden he snorted a laugh and shook his head. I crinkled my brow.

"You're going to be the death of me, Sookie Stackhouse," he said, still shaking his head and turning toward the door as he finished buttoning his shirt. "Of that I have no doubt."

"Where are you going?"

"I told you, back down to the reception," he said as he opened the door and stepped outside. "There are guards here. Do not go anywhere without them."

"Mmph," I said.

"I won't be long," and he shut the door.

I sat back down on the bed and contemplated what to do next. I found myself in one of those strange, wired up states, where I should just go to bed, but I had nervous energy.

I picked up the business plan and flipped back through it, once again impressed with all his efforts. A manila envelope fell out and hit the rug. I picked it up and turned it over.

'The List' was written across the front in black Sharpie, in Eric's handwriting, with a note attached:

Sookie,

You asked me for this once

And you're going to need it if you go into business

I'm sure you'll have questions, and I'll be here to answer them

E.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the paperwork. I scanned it for just a second, then shoved it quickly back into the envelope. No way. Not that list.

If you know which list it is drop me a line :)

3/3 Okay guys, an SVM fic has been pulled for content. Thanks to meads and sunkisz I have backups. I'll let you know if I have to move. This bites, I have to say.

3/6 I am writing this weekend, but as this is the last chapter and is uber important, I will not get it posted until some time next week. Sorry, but I can't screw this up. I have very specific things to accomplish. Satisfaction is my goal, has always been my goal, crunchers. You guys remember this. I want to give you all the bang for your buck, not just pack up and get the hell out of Dodge. I've seen the quick wrap done before, and after a year of dragging you on my little adventure, it would be unfair, and it would haunt me, quite frankly, if I didn't take proper time and care. Love y'all misscyn

3/6 I've worked through my little snit over someone using my themes, ideas, etc. It is terribly hard to be original in this genre. I know I have been influenced by some powerfully talented writers here. This particular person went too far, and too often with me, and it screwed with my plans; but, such is life. So, I'm over it. Just to let you know :)

3/7 Chapter 54 is at 4300 words right now. I would say it will probably be about 6000 words long, give or take. But quality over quantity guys, and Eric does a lot of talking in this chapter. Yep, it's time for him to share, you know he never really did. And I struggle with his voice, I will not lie. You see, I am a female, through and through, a ruffly, ribbons and lace, pink-loving, girlie girl. No sports for me in school, spent all my time in the library, etc. You get the picture, an introverted female to the core. So action and male voices are a stretch.

But I refuse to compromise and unlike a certain unfortunate Andromeda, Eric will not be dropping his nads. He will, however, lay it all out. Fortunately for me, I've lived with a big alpha male for 20 some-odd years, but I still have to pay close attention. So give me some time to find that balance, I'm doing my damnedest not to disappoint :)

My allergies are acting up! That means it's spring! Get thee to the park, now!

PS For anyone who's worried that I won't deliver a HEA (although it will be my type of HEA) just check out my avatar change. It says it all.

I'd like to stop and thank Wanda again. When a person who writes their own fics – and in another fandom to boot - takes time out to work on someone else’s story – well, there’s some heart going on there. Wanda, you’re beautiful, you’re talented, and you’re a saint. I’m not the easiest person in the world to get along with, just ask my family. But you’ve been sweet and giving even when I acted like a petulant brat. Everybody, hug your beta.

3/11 Still working guys, I'm gonna really try to get it together tonight, but I'm getting sleepy really early. It may be next week, sorry about that, but it's just not ready :)

3/14 MAN! chapter 54 is done and at the beta's. That shit was hard. I had already written the very end of it months ago, and still it was like a freakin root canal. Off to the beta's, should be up in a couple days.

3/14 I thought Daylight Savings Time was the worst thing that happened to me today :) Ah well, the beat goes on, eh guys?

3/15 I’m sure many of you are aware, and many more of you are unaware, of the recent unpleasantness concerning SVM fics. I am currently editing Death Eatin’ A Cracker for content. I do apologize if some of the chapters seem choppy or don’t make sense as a result.

I had planned to post the last chapter this week, but I find myself in an unsettled state of mind. I know many folks are fighting this, and I applaud their efforts. At the risk of sounding defeatist, I do not think there is much that can be done. If the Twilight writers, who collectively raised 80,000 for Haiti relief, cannot stop these people, I highly doubt our community can.

Mostly because, if we broke the rules, then we broke the rules. And even though these folks, who are volunteers, not employees, of ff dot net, remind me of Gomer Pyle running around shouting ‘Citizens Arrest! Citizens Arrest!’ (showing my age, once again) the fact remains that the rules are on their side.

I don’t want to do anything wrong. I certainly don’t want to pander. And I really never thought I was doing anything that would offend anyone. I picked up some of Laurell K Hamilton’s stuff in the freakin’ public library on Saturday, and if those books are in the library, well then, I’m super confused.

But I agreed to the TOS when I started this story. I felt like what I wrote was within an M rating, and I did it responsibly. There was no perversion, not even promiscuity in my story, just the physical expression of love between two characters I care deeply about.

I am truly sorry if it offended anyone.

When I got here, I looked around, saw what everyone else was doing, and then proceeded with what I thought was fitting. I guess it’s like when then speed limit is 65, but everyone is going 70, so you assume 68 is cool. Well, we all know where assumptions can get you. It’s all okay until somebody cares. And something, or someone, brought us to the attention of these folks, and that’s the end of that.

We live in a puritanical society, and sexuality is treated very strangely sometimes. I wrote a love story. I considered the ‘juicier’ tidbits a complement to the main course, not the meal. I figured anyone who just wanted smut wouldn’t wade through my wordy fic anyway. There have been irresponsible stories posted here, but I don’t want to get into that. Right now I’m too upset about the mass exodus of some very talented writers whose stories I enjoyed, who made my pleasure edify, at times more than the original work.

And please don't complain or draw any attention on my behalf. It only spurs them on to do more damage, and they want the attention, badly. These people love it, they suck it up. They are watching, right now. And they say we don't have lives.

If you want to help send me a good joke. Because I could really, really, REALLY use a good laugh right now.

So I needed to say something. I probably won’t leave this message up long in case someone wants to use it against me. Take care, cracker crunchers. I’m still here.

3/16 I just want to make it clear to whoever may be interested that Chapter 54 was completed late Saturday night, before the recent unpleasantness. I had never planned to put any lemony material in it. It has not been altered or influenced in any way by recent nasty events. FYI, misscyn

3/18 I anticipate posting Chapter 54 as soon as I get it back from the beta's.

I want to take a minute here and thank some folks. Sonjita, dear friend, fellow fanfic aficionado, and future partner in crime; you've been my muse and inspiration since way back when; Duckbutt, you're one classy lady who always seems to know what to say when I need comfort or a swift kick in the ass; HopeStreet, who's helped me several times on absolutely no notice; Hdgcat, who never fails to review, and always calls it like she see's it; and so many more, forgive me if I haven't mentioned your name, I will add them as they come to me.

And Violhaine, just so you know, Chapter 16 belongs to you :)

3/19 I am tired. Put the finishing touches on today and sent my baby to the prom. I will be doing an epilogue, and it will be all romantic and tender and stuff, so stop worrying, crunchers. I had to end the story the way I did for artistic reasons I can't yet put into words; that was just the ending I saw, so I wrote it. The epilogue will be very satisfying and answer a lot of your questions. So relax and know I love you :)

Wanna know something funny? I've been doing a little research on the side on writing paranormal/supernatural romances, and I was reading this pretty prestigious manual on fiction publishing, and did you know that the Southern gothic genre is dead? I laughed my ass off. I've been writing a Southern gothic novel for five-plus years, and the genre is kaput? Why did no one tell me? Shit.

But the funnier part of this story is that this manual divided up kinds of stories, romantic, historical, etc. There was a supernatural/paranormal section, but vampires were not listed under it. Vampires were listed under romance novels. Yes, crunchers, I am telling the truth. Apparently the publishers know what I want better than I do.

I'm trying not to get all mushy here, but I am reflecting on this story and the past year. You know, until last week I never intended for Sookie to consider changing. I thought I didn't want it, and Charlaine said she wouldn't, so I thought I couldn't write her even thinking about it. But Charlaine exercises her right to completely change integral concepts half-way through, so what the hell was I clinging to? So I wrote what I felt like, just like she does.

3/20 It seems a couple people didn't really get the ending, and I'm asking them to come back and read it again after a break. It appears that if you read it in a certain frame of mind, it doesn't appear to be a happy ending to some folks. I hate that.

This is a happy ending, guys. Not a simple ending, but a happy one. I cried when I wrote it, tears of joy, not sorrow. I tried to show that even though Eric thinks Sookie's running away (she's actually running to him, to their memories together) and that although he said one day she would run and he would not follow, he actually did catch her, and everything is going to be okay. I wanted the possibility of immortality, Eric's speech and Sookie's epiphanies, and the fact that they are kinda standing on the cusp of change in the world, to end this story on a hopeful note. Remember that Charlaine said Sookie would find love, but not uncomplicated love. I did stay true to that concept, because it makes sense to me that Sookie's life will never be uncomplicated.

I think maybe people are reacting too soon after they read, and this may be a thinker-type ending. Or maybe I just missed the mark. Complicated week for DEAC, it seems.

I don't want to shortchange all the folks who've left wonderful reviews and pm'd me in support here, because there have been many. Thank you all so much, it's been wonderful getting to know you. I feel blessed. This is a fabulous fandom, really supportive people. I like to think Charlaine's books bring out the best kind of readers, because I don't think other fandoms have the solidarity we have here, truly. I will be writing the epilogue, I started it today, actually. I won't make you wait too long ... .

Alas, we do find ourselves in a much more somber place now than just a little over a year ago when I started this tale. While I was finishing up Chapter 54, I kept singing those Steve Winwood lyrics 'While you see a chance you take it, find romance ...' and it became a theme in my head. So crunchers, here's my question for today; What do you do when you're offered a chance at immortality?

You take it :)

3/23 I am offering a 5,000 word minimum story on the supportstacie.com auction starting this Friday. I will add links later today. Stacie is a fellow fanfic writer with no insurance who is suffering from breast cancer. If you win, you tell me what you want, and I write it :)

http://www.supportstacie.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=24&sid=b4f67c7ad7a1815339d81761a133d237

3/25 The epilogue is finished and at the beta's guys. sigh.

3/26 I'm kinda sad but I'm trying to remain upbeat. I am really proud I finished this bohemoth, dear readers, not to pat myself on the back, but I truly am. It took a lot of juice to wrap it up in style, particularily the last three chapters, and after a year of putting out nearly a chapter a week, I was tired. I had to push myself, and it would have been so easy to walk away, but I couldn't do it to y'all, and I couldn't do it to myself. I don't have a lot of time to write, two jobs, two kids, big dirty house, etc. My youngest child has autism and takes up a good deal of time. But writing makes me happy when nothing else can. So I haven't watched the news or tv much in the past year, because I spent those evening hours at the computer. It will be nice to spend a little more time in the real world, but I don't regret it. Y'all gave me so much, I thank you :)

3/28 You guys be sure to stop by Support Stacie and check out the auctions! Some of the authors are doing interesting things on the board :)

Here's my reward to the bidders and participants of Support Stacie. I will update this throughout the day. Some of the authors are going prettty high, (squeek! I feel loved right now!), but some are still affordable, please check it out. Remember guys, you don't have to be the top bidder to participate, just five bucks can be donated through the main page. Tell me if you do it, so I can thank you! Five bucks buys a prescription, and Stacie needs so many meds. Here's some encouragement:

Hunger

At three in the morning, most of the Halloween revelers were gone, although a few stragglers remained here and there. In this particular portion of the French Quarter, however, the vendors had long closed, and the street appeared mostly empty. The blonde-headed woman in the long skirt and peasant blouse ran breathlessly down the cobbled stone, looking over her shoulder every few seconds, her eyes wide with fear.

Dawn would be here in a few hours. The vampire needed to feed.

The street lamps dimmed as the night went on, and gargoyles cast long shadows against the ground, mocking her. Were they not supposed to protect from evil?

Every whisper of a sound made her jump. She moved forward, steadily, in spite of her fright. Suddenly a whoosh of wind surrounded her, and then right before her he stood. Her mouth dropped open involuntarily as she took him in. She'd seen this one before, somewhere, she couldn't recall the details, but she knew that form. Shiny blond hair sprung forth from the masculine forehead, the strong jawline, high cheekbones and long nose emphasized by the shadows. He was huge, a monster of a man, his arms nearly as big as her thighs, nearly bursting through the ice blue brocade jacket, the ruffles of his shirt at his throat only emphasizing his raw male power. Her eyes drifted down to the snug winter white britches, and she gasped at what they could not hide.

"I know who you are," she whispered, defiantly meeting his crystal blue eyes with her own.

"Do you?" his dark voice rang out in the night as he quirked an eyebrow at her, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. "Then you know what I want." He stepped forward, and she stepped back.

Her bravado faded as her stomach sank. She knew she was in over her head, but she would not go down without a fight.

She raised her chin and looked down her nose at him as best she could. "My friends are back at the inn, and they are expecting me," she said. "They will come looking."

"They will not find you," he countered with an evil grin. "And if they do, it will be too late."

Her courage left her as she wrung her hands. "I shouldn't be out this late," she whispered again. "My Gran always told me nothing good happens after midnight."

"Unfortunately, your Gran," here he reached out and traced the curve of her cheek with his index finger, "never met me."

She jerked away from his hand. "She knew of your kind," she snapped. "She knew what you are, just as I know what you are now. I have met your type before."

He drew himself up to his full height and towered over her, imposing, terrifying, threatening. Her mouth went completely dry.

"You may have knowledge of the undead, you silly woman, but you have no knowledge of me, or you would not speak to me so rashly," he snarled. "As far as any other vampire you may be acquainted with, it would be foolish to judge me by their standards. Let me assure you, little mortal; I am one of a kind."

3/29

The auction's over, guys. Duckbutt, Violhaine, Hopestreet, nycsnowbird and Sonjita! pulled together and bid SEVEN HUNDRED BUCKS for a one-shot for me to support Stacie in her battle against breast and ovarian cancer. I feel so blessed right now that these ladies have been so generous and are allowing me to be a part of what they are doing!!

So I'm a little giddy. Tonight with the big auction numbers, and DEAC will pass three hundred thousand hits sometime before the a.m. It's all thanks to you, dear readers.

My personal life is really stinkin' it up, but my virtual life here is ... just lovely. You know, for the longest time I had a love/hate relationship with fanfic, to be brutally honest. I thought I was wasting time, avoiding reality, not getting paid for my efforts, blah, blah, blah. I have made a hundred and eighty degree turnaround. The fact of the matter is, fanfic has enriched my life in many, many ways. For years I lacked discipline in my writing, just couldn't finish big projects, couldn't find my niche, didn't have an audience. Fanfic has helped me with all those challenges, helped me make extremely valuable contacts, given me a much-needed partner in crime, and has pointed me in the direction I want to go.

It's not perfect, it has its downsides, but I honestly think the positives way outweigh the negatives here. I've made wonderful friends here, and tonight, some of my friends helped a very sick lady, and I'm gonna show my appreciation by doing something for them that I enjoy anyway. Just exactly where else do you get that? It's all about perspective, folks. I'm going to bed now, you all take care, misscyn

3/30 It's spring and my sap's up. I'm gonna try to think of something positive to post here every day, and maybe I won't be convinced my life sucks so bad . That's my spring resolution.

3/31 Today I started researching sexy places in the French Quarter, and that is fun! I forgot to post something positive yesterday. Well, my daughter has a three-month old Pekinese puppy, and his testicles finally descended. That might seem like a funny thing to be worried about, but we were concerned as the pet store sold him when he was barely five weeks old, and we've been kinda worried about his development. Thought I was gonna have to channel Octavia there to help along.

It's supposed to be eighty degrees here tomorrow, woot! Gotta go shop for Easter basket stuff today. I love hyacinths and daffodils and that kinda stuff. I used to tell my husband I was pregnant with twins on April Fool's, for like three years in a row, and he fell for it every time. You ladies think of a mean trick to play on your hubbie, and I'll do the same :)

4/1 Ha ha I signed my husband up for some kinda senior people matchmaking site for April Fool's and he's been getting emails from 'Lookslikealady' and 'Georgiagirl' all day long. He's mad as hell. With my luck he'll hook up with one, won't that be a story? I crack myself up :)

4/2 Some crappy reality to face today. I'm nearly hyperventilating. On to more pleasant things - Duckbutt, Hopestreet, nycsnowbird, Sonjita and Violhaine - I'm working on the outtake this weekend, and found myself a little inspired yesterday, me think you will likey :)

4/3 Happy Easter, everyone :)

4/4 Jesus rose, Jesus wept. I just had a pretty dysfunctional Easter dinner but no one screamed, so I guess that's good. Gonna go down to my creek in a minute and play with the crawdads, they are cute.

I wanted to tell a funny story, but it's been a little short on the funny around my life lately. But I did not tell you about a couple of months ago, when my husband and I were messing around, and something funny happened. He thinks I am obsessed with vampires in general, which is not really true, but anyway, I guess in his mind he thought that meant I wanted to be bitten, and he bit my behind really hard when we were in the middle of it.

I was so frikkin' pissed, yelling 'WTF? WTF?!' and he got all abashed and shit, rubbing his face and saying he thought that was what I wanted. I was mad as hell for three or four days, especially when I looked at the row of tooth-shaped bruises on my ass, but then I started thinking about him trying to figure out the angle and coming up with that, and it got funny. Now when I think about it I snort-laugh my ass off. So there you go, that's my funny story. Happy Easter, again, crunchers. I miss you guys :)

4/5 I'm finishing up the Eric as Lestat chase through the French Quarter outtake for Support Stacie today!! I can't call him Lestat in the fic though, because Anne Rice forbids it. Maybe it would be all right since they are role-playing, but just to be safe, I never call him that, like Charlaine never calls Bubba Elvis. I don't know where my beta is, but I will let you all know. Hope to post in the next couple of days :)

4/6 A couple of recent messages have given me pause, and I feel I must comment here. Never fear that your words are inadequate when you review or message an author. It is our responsibility to make an attempt at eloquence, not yours, and we are lucky to have you. All you as a reader need to do is be present, and allow whatever pleasure the story may provide to edify.

Anything you give beyond that is a joy, and thank you again for all your wonderful responses.

4/6 Yesterday I got the idea to give my bidders Hitchcockian cameos in the outtake and that was fun to do! I stayed up all night to finish it though. I be tired but happy about it :)

4/7 Okay, by order of appearance, my bidders as they appear at the Halloween ball:

1. The strawberry-blonde in the Vera Wang wedding gown - Sonjita

2. Wickedly fun Dominatrix with the bodacious knockers we all wish we had - our very own Violhaine

3. Statuesque event organizer (and Eric's computer girl) in the gorgeous kimono - nycsnowbird

4. Freckled-faced fortune teller with the smart mouth - HopeStreet

5. Last but not least, the curvy hotel manager with the roaming eyes and the beautiful male foot fetish - that would be Duckbutt. hee hee.

I love you ladies :)

4/10 Not very verbose this week. I took off some time and didn't do much with it, but I did read alot. Check out the Dead In The Family thread, there's some good spoilers there. Can y'all believe it's less than a month away? Woohoo!

My birthday is Tuesday, I'm gettin' on up there. Gonna go to a French restaurant and eat some escargot. Sounds gross, but I grew up eating strange things, they don't bother me too much. We used to eat everything, and parts of pigs the most. Souse, hog's head cheese, and mountain oysters (bull's balls). Catfish from the bottom of the Mississippi so full of mud you could taste it in the flesh. My stepfather made me eat chitlins twice, once fried and once boiled. You don't come back from that. So, snails in butter and garlic? Ain't nothin' but a thang.

4/13 Didn't eat escargot, but I had a lovely Greek yellow eyed pea and spinach broth with a sundried tomato pie and the best creme brulee in the world. It was a nice birthday dinner, and my crazy friend from work danced for me in front of my desk for my birthday and I laughed so hard my head hurt. I kept saying that if somebody was going to dance for my birthday they were going to lap dance, and she just got crazier and crazier, (although she did stay out of my lap, thankfully.) The whole office was rolling on the floor, and then our former big boss walked in, which made it that much more hysterical. We started tipping her, and I had no cash so I gave her fifty cents and a peanut butter Reese's egg left over from Easter, and she put that shit down her shirt and kept dancing and it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I think someone else gave her a Dole mixed fruit cup. We were snorting and begging her to stop because we couldn't breathe. I love that crazy girl.

Missing my story, and trying to get started on the next one. I did post the auction outtake, and that helped, but it was bittersweet, as I know that's the end of my tale for a while. I suppose it is time to move on, and I'm a little melancholy about it, truth be told. To be honest with y'all, I've started taking some anti-depressants, because my funk just isn't lifting, going through some nasty real life stuff. I know there's folks who stop by every day, and I appreciate you all. As Oscar Wilde would say, we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Take care, cracker crunchers. I'll keep you posted :)

4/14 Adjusting to the meds. Sleepy alot, but I did write 200 words on a new story today despite the rising waters around me. Not much, but it's so hard to get started. RL still bites balls. Tell you what, you guys send me some good prayers, vibes, karma and well wishes, and I'll do the same for you, deal? It'll be just like fishes and loaves, baby, (wink) misscyn

4/21 Yesterday was National Pot Smoking Day. Woo hoo. Too old to care, I guess. You all be careful out on the roads, the stoners will still be blazed today and will be in rare form. Have you ever been to a website can Texts From Last Night? Dirty as all get out, but funny as hell. Here's a link:

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

I thought I was a semi-slut in my twenties. I blame the advice of Helen Gurley Brown and her Cosmopolitan magazine, both of which touted the advantages of having sex with whoever you might want to have sex with, regardless. But compared to the current generation, I was nearly a freakin' nun. Thanks, you drunk-texting morally bereft twenty-year-olds. Did your mother never tell you that it's stupid to write bad shit you've done while wasted down in black and white?

4/21 Has it been a week since I updated? Having a hard time with the meds, guys, anybody know anything about Cymbalta? It makes me sleepy one day, keeps me awake the next. It's like my anxiety meds are making me bi-polar, snort. So I haven't written a thing in a week but my co-hort has gathered gobs of information for our next story and she is doing such an excellent job, I really need to step up to the plate. Everyone's getting excited about DITF, from what I hear it may be a corker! RL still sucking, you guys keep sending out those good vibes, and pm me with a joke if you have one. I'm still here :) misscyn

4/24 Obama's in town so I'm not going anywhere this weekend. They've been shutting down the expressway and shit. Apparently he and Michelle like the Grove Park Inn and Spa. Well, that spa is killer, I've been there exactly once for a massage that was so incredibly fantastic I couldn't talk about it without blushing and almost felt like I'd cheated on my husband. That good. I need to go there again. One more week guys, have you been trollin' the net for spoilers!! I think CH is gonna try to make up a little for DAG with this one. After next week there will be a whole new generation of fic out there, because something tells me Eric appears very vulnerable and almost human in this book. Sigh. You know, some folks think my Eric is too soft. I beg to differ. I will admit that writing Eric is a very delicate balance. I try really hard. I will also have to point out that I never read other vampire books before this series, (other than Interview with the Vampire, of course), and I didn't know about all the dominant/overbearing/sometimes cruel vampire erotica out there. And to tell you the truth, I don't much care. That ain't SVM, and all us bookies know it :)

4/25 Wrote the first chapter on a new story, so maybe my dry spell is over. Hope you all are doin' okay!

5/1 I have a funny. I told Sonjita about it last night. This shit happened yesterday. I've told you folks before, I'm a freak magnet. Seriously, if someone is going to do something inappropriate, they will find me to do it right in front of. It's a gift, what can I say?

There's this crazy fat redhead at work, (she looks like a cross between Little Orphan Annie and the Penguin from Batman, I have nicknamed her Little Orphan Penquin), who's been married four times. We've all been telling her she's our idol and pumping her up because she kicks them to the curb so fast, because she just moved to our department from the ground floor and everyone down there said she was a hot-headed nut job, and we're trying to get on her good side. She already got in a road-rage fight with me and another lady in the parking garage, so we're trying to keep the peace. Anyway, she's 37, with permed and dyed flaming red hair, and she looks like she's nine months pregnant, but she's not pregnant at all. Her husband is 47, about five foot four with a big comb-over and drives a Little Debbie truck. Also fat. Yes, she's diabetic and she married a Little Debbie man. That's some white trash irony, right there.

Anyway, yesterday she gets a call from him and she just loses it and starts talking divorce, which, given her track record, is kinda scary. We all steered clear, and then she comes up to me and this other girl and confesses that her husband can't get it up, AND NEVER HAS WITH HER. She married an impotent man. The phone call was from him, he had just been to the doctor who was trying to help him (the doctor gave him viagra, cialis, the pump, etc) and he said the doctor said they was nothing to be done, he was not gonna get hard no matter what.

She went around for about an hour saying it didn't matter. And then you could see her working herself up. She told us she suspects he has never been able to get it up, even though he told her he has in the past. And then she started screaming "He's a virgin, goddammit, I married a 47-year-old virgin who can't get it up!" They have been married three years and have never consummated the union, but apparently, this was some kind of epiphany. When I tried to gently question her along the lines of 'What the hell were you thinking when you married a man you had never slept with?', she replied that the whole courtship took place around her mother's sickness and death, and she herself was going through an ultra-Pentecostal religious phase, and it seemed alright at the time.

So I have to say to you, no matter what our shortcomings may be, at least we're not idiotic, troll-like, redheaded snake-handling women with huge bellies who waddle around the office like sugar-deficient penguins, screaming about our impotent husbands who we've never even had sex with after three years of marriage, and it just now occurs to us that this might be a problem. So, there's that.

5/4 If you have not read DITF do not go any further! Spoilers ahead!

Okay, guys, it is a good book, way better than the last. I like Hunter in it. I like Claude in it. I like how Eric is never shown in a really bad light. But I have questions, boy, do I have questions. Gonna read it again this weekend:)

5/5 Cinco de Mayo, I went to a Mexican restaurant and they were not celebrating! I guess our cultures are really melding!

This pic is in honor of my new work friend Little Orphan Penguin:

http://www.twitpic.com/1lcs7q

5/18 Hey guys, I know I haven't written in a while. I know some folks stop by here nearly every day, so, I'm sorry. The meds soften all the edges; unfortunately, they also take away my desire to create. Don't know what to do about that, frankly. Anyone have any ideas? I am hoping to be able to go off them after RL gets a little better, sometime in the next few months hopefully.

So what's up with me? I got into a discussion on one of the threads about slash fics and man on man action. Lots of girls around here think that's hot. I don't understand. If a guy wants to be with a guy, chances are he doesn't want to be with a girl. Not hot. Not in my book. Basically the verdict was, I'm an old fart who doesn't get it. Whatev. If you have an opinion, let me know, I am keeping an open mind :)

5/28 Happy Memorial Day, peeps. I've been thinking about Norway a little lately. I think I may have a plot bunny running around :)

Here's a collection of one liners made famous by George Carlin:

1. Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

2. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

3. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

4. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

5. I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

6. What if there were no hypothetical questions?

7. If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?

8. If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him... is he still wrong?

9. If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

10. Is there another word for synonym?

11. Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?

12. Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

13. What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

14. If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?

15. Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

16. Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

17. If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

18. Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

19. Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

20. If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

21. Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?

22. How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?

23. What was the best thing before sliced bread?

24. One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.

25. How is it possible to have a civil war?

26. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too?

27. If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?

28. If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

29. Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have a "S" in it?

30. Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

31. If the "black box" flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

32. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?

33. If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times, does he become disoriented?

5/31 Happy Memorial Day folks. My husband did a job for the guy who invented Liquid Ass and he gave him an entire case. This stuff smells like a dead animal rotting in a septic tank. The way my husband looks at it, it would be evil to actually buy the stuff, but since it was a gift, it would be rude not to use it. So he's running around town spraying down the property of anyone he doesn't like. This is a long list. If you see any news clips of some random middle aged guy going postal with Liquid Ass, then you will know that's my sweetie. I'm so proud :)

6/11

TrueBlood clips:

http://seat42f.com/index.php/tv/tv-shows-mainmenu-241/hbo/true-blood/2 34-true-blood/7736-true-blood-season-3-sneak-peek-clips.html

6/12 Okay guys, I have a confession to make. This is hard to do, but those of you who have been following deserve to know. I have gained 20 of the 41 pounds I lost back. Yes, I have a Kim Kardashian ass once more. I looked in the mirror and saw it last night.

The office I was transferred to is not a healthy one. Three diabetics, two of which have had gallbladder surgery. I have been in deep shit, and these kindly, overweight women have brought comfort food to work time and time again, cakes, pies, bread puddings, etc. Every day someone puts something fattening on my desk.

But last week, after two different people brought two cakes to work and it was no one's birthday, I said enough. I am back on the plan, and it feels really good right now. I know I will be tempted, but I have eaten so much crap I am really enjoying the healthy food.

So today I had two portobello mushrooms for lunch. Tonight, grilled chicken with veggies and watermelon. Because of the meds I haven't been drinking so that won't be a problem. The worst time will be the late night sweet cravings, but I bought a bunch of fruit.

So now you know my secret. I'll keep you posted on the results. I spent six months learning out to eat and six months forgetting. Now I'm on a quest to bring it all back.

6/19

Drive-by Texts From Last Night clip:

His whole family saw that I had come in my hair once they turned on the blacklight at the bowling alley. You should have seen his mother's face.

Sometime, somehow in my life, I have to use that.

June 2010 I have posted this message lots of places. Last night, 6/20/2010, the second episode of the third season of HBO's True Blood had several similarities to DEAC. Terry Bellefleur nursing the baby armadillo back to health - that is what Catherine did months ago in my story, and how she contracted leprosy. The dinner served at Russell Edgington's was remarkably similar to the vampire blood'oevres Sookie served at Octavia's wedding to Wizno, particularly the blood gelato (which I called Italian blood ice, very close). Finally, the scene in which Godric kills the naked woman and gives Eric the speech about vampires and emotion is reminiscent of the story Eric told about his maker killing women he became attached to after he was turned to show him that emotion was to be avoided. So I am making the following statement on record:

6/21/10 Welcome, newcomers, to my little corner of the SVM Universe. I appreciate you being here. I do have one thing to say to any less than honest visitors: Please do not steal my ideas, concepts, etc. This means you, HBO. I know it's fanfic, but plagiarism is plagiarism, you writers need to use your own damn imaginations. You wouldn't like it if someone did it to you.

I don't want to have to take this story down, so please.

If you need some ideas, pm me and offer to pay me. I'll be glad to help you, and I work cheap. I know many highly talented writers on this site that would do the same, just let us know what you need. We know these books better than you could ever hope, because we have talked about them, and written about them, for nearly two years now. And that's just because we love the story, not because we are being paid.

The exact Catherine quote from Chapter 30 of DEAC:

"The summer I graduated high school. I grew up out side of Dallas. I found a baby armadillo by the side of the road. His mother had been hit by a car. He was all pink and so cute. I took him home and nursed him back to health. The symptoms started a few weeks later."

Fuck. My. Life.

I didn't edit this, I swear, and it could use some editing. Outside is one word, too many short sentences etc. Why do I care now? You got me.

I will shut up now. But if you google 'armadillo' and 'True Blood' together, it will make you sick how many people think Terry's so precious with my fucking baby armadillo.

And BTW I love Terry. That's why I let him save the world in the Andromeda War. I would have probably given him the armadillo, if someone had just asked.

The thing with Sookie and Jason and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and shit? Eric makes fun of Sookie for asking if Mother Nature is real in DEAC. And Eric and Wizno both tease Octavia about thinking mermaids were real on her honeymoon near the end of DEAC.

6/22 I'm still pissed.

Now, you can say some things are coincidence, and likely to be thought up by more than one person working in the genre. But all together, in one episode? That is a big buttload of my story in one frikkin episode, my friends. And please give me some credit for some intelligence. What are the odds of a SVM fanfic writer and a Trueblood script writer both deciding, independent of one another, to have a character decide to find a baby armadillo on the side of the road and nurse it back to health? And that's word for word copying, pretty much. Ladies and gentlemen, I hand you the True Blood smoking plagiarism gun.

Just as a side note - why did I write about a baby armadillo? Because the fall before, I took my kids to the San Francisco zoo and they had a tiny baby armadillo in the petting area and let people pet it. It was cute and pink, but something niggled in the back of my mind while I petted it.

I grew up near New Orleans and one time on the way to Texas we saw an injured armadillo on the side of the road and of course, my mom stopped. And everyone screamed not to touch it and I didn't remember why. When I got back home and googled it I found the leprosy connection.

Fast forward a year later and I am writing DEAC and I remembered a House episode where they had to get the medication for some form of leprosy from the Carville leprosarium. And I started reading about it. I read excerpts from patients saying they could hear the armadillos screaming at night from inside the leprosarium. These were really old first-hand experiences, I really had to search to find them. And it was so poignant the way the patients saw the irony in hearing the armadillos, and knowing that they probably made them sick in the first place.

I decided I needed a leper so I could use the leprosarium, remembered the baby armadillo at the zoo, and created Catherine, and her story of finding the injured armadillo on the side of the road as a reason for her to have the disease.

I challenge the HBO writers to come up with a similar arc of development. Oh, I am sure they could fabricate something, but they can kiss my ass. Most people think armadillos only exist in Texas.

6/24 To regroup:

1. In DEAC I serve an elaborate menu at a supernatural affair complete with sophisticated blood dishes, ending with an Italian blood ice, made from real Sicilians. Trueblood S3 E2 had an elaborate vampire dinner complete with sophisticated blood dishes, ending with a blood gelato.

2. In DEAC I have Eric's maker kill two women in front of him to demonstrate how vampires should never be ruled by their emotions. In True Blood Eric's maker kills a woman in front of him and chastises him about being ruled by his emotions.

3. In DEAC, after the werewolves come out of the closet, Sookie asks Eric if Mother Nature is real. In True Blood, after the werewolves come out, Jason asks Sookie if Big Foot and Santa Claus are real.

Wizno also plays a joke on Octavia on their honeymoon in DEAC, telling her that he's going to show her magical underwater creatures. She thinks its mermaids, when in fact, its a bunch of overfed manatees.

4. And for the kicker. In DEAC I had a character find a baby armadillo on the side of the road and nurse in back to health. True Blood also had a character find a baby armadillo on the side of the road and nurse it back to health.

There you go guys, just had to state it altogether there. You folks keep on reading and writing. I'll try not to drop the soap.

6/26 Hello, lovelies. Tomorrow morning I leave on a week-long sabbatical to the Outer Banks. I'm dropping off my one remaining minor child at camp outside Raleigh, then pushing on to Nag's Head. The beauty of it is, I will be by myself in an RV on the sound side of Waterlily. Although I am from Mississippi, I have ancestral ties to an antebellum home that washed into the Atlantic at Harvey's Point. (I'm a Harvey). Now they use the property to train Navy Seals. So I'm going to visit the graves of some really old people who are related to me somehow because my father wants me to. Southerners are big on stuff like that.

But the point of the trip is to relax and write. I've never done this before. There's not good phone service at the camper, and no internet. No husband or kids or even a puppy, I'll have no distractions. I plan to work on the new story, and maybe even my unfinished novel. I also plan to stuff myself with all things crab, drink beer, and stare at the ocean until my mind is clear. I hope I can put all this crap in perspective, something about the meditative state of the ocean helps me do that. I also plan to get lots of exercise, walking Jockey's Ridge and Kitty Hawk, etc. The heat wave is supposed to break with highs only 85 most days. A couple of days of rain, but those will be good writing days. Anyway, I haven't had this kind of time to myself in 19 years. I hope to do some good. Keep you fingers crossed for me :)

6/27 Leaving for the beach, don't know when I'll be back. I think I need time and space, and I'm headed that way.

6/29 All the beach. Already feeling some clarity. Life is a bittersweet proposition, anyway you look at it. You can quote me on that :)

7/3 Wrote an outtake for DEAC at the beach. Viking War Bed Games. Check it out, crunchers :)

7/17 I've been posting some stories over on the blog, and I just remembered I hadn't posted anything here.

I'm in the bed so it's morning to me. Woke up and couldn't move. My whole left side is sore, from my neck down to my wrist, and my right leg is acting up for the first time in a year. I have a lot of stress in my life right now, and I think that's what this is. It's also one of the reasons I've been on here so much lately. You guys are great stress relievers :)

Anyway, I have something to share. Yesterday I came home at lunch, since my house is ten minutes from work, and as I pulled into my subdivision I saw a full-grown black bear loping down the hill from my house. We have a lot of bears in western NC anyway, and I happen to live on an ancient bear crossing. A Lumbee Native American friend of mine, who is also the local wildlife resources officer, told me years ago that he had records dating back to the 1600's showing the road right in front of my house to be a bear and Indian crossing. My neighbor has found one in her hot tub on more than one occasion. I had a run-in a few years back when one got in my trash and I thought was my neighbor's Labrador and I barked at it. That bear rose up on its hind legs and looked at me and I ran so hard to the house that I did a face plant on the front door.

So a bear sighting happens a couple of times a year, but not that much in the middle of the day, so this was unusual. Back a couple months ago my daughter's boyfriend saw a bear in front of our house on two separate occasions, but it was late at night both times. The wildlife folks say the heat is driving them down, as acid rain has damaged some of their habitat, and the high temps have dried up some mountain springs. and they are looking for cool and water. A lady at work hit one during daylight hours a couple of weeks ago and totaled her car. It sadly killed the bear, but she is okay.

So anyway, I stop and look at the bear and the bear looks at me. I figure I should just stay in the car and wait. The bear sat on its haunches and proceeded to eat the wild raspberries and blackberries that are currently ripe and growing on the side of the road. After a few minutes, the bear looked at me again, and loped off.

So, I had been planning all week to bake a blackberry cobbler this morning, and I had picked a couple of pints, but my kids ate them. And I needed that blackberry cobbler as I had promised it to a friend. So I took my daughter in the car down to the bushes late last evening and had her sit in the car, cell phone in hand, and watch for the bear while I picked. I was a little nervous, to say the least. But I got my berries and hightailed it out of there.

The cobbler is in the oven, as I hobbled around this morning and managed to make it. I don't know what's up with my body, but I have another story to share that I'll probably type up here in a minute.

This week's pic from Texts From Last Night:

Get the fuck buddy a birthday present or not? He def deserves one, but how do I explain the debit card charge to my husband?

Call me naive, but I had no idea married people could have fuck buddies. This changes EVERYTHING.

7/18 Total change of topic!

I have been in such a sharing mood lately. Hope it’s not getting on anyone’s nerves.

A lady at my job just got custody of her two grandchildren, who were sexually abused at the hands of their father for years. Their mother, her daughter, is an alcoholic and never lived with the children. They left their former home with the shirts on their backs, literally. I'm gonna take her all the stuff my girls have filled my attic with. Jeez, do I have a lot of junk, but my oldest daughter has always been a clothes horse, so the kids will get some good stuff. I have all the Harry Potters on tape as well as the books, and the whole Lemony Snicket series, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have complete tea sets, American Dolls and American doll books, skateboards, board games, an extra Playstation 2 and games, etc. The teenagers will have to help me load them up, and I want to make sure everything is complete, clean and in good condition. These kids are so pitiful because their dad was a drug addict, as well as his second wife, and didn't keep much food in the house. So their grandmother has told me that they are so excited to live in a house with food that they eat everything in sight. If I have enough energy, I may make them another cobbler, bear willing. It's fun to cook and give stuff to children who appreciate it, even when it breaks your heart.

The grandmother won’t take a dime. As it is I’m going to have to assure her that all these things were gathering dust in my storage area, which is true. And even the cobbler will be made from free berries I picked in the wild. The courts at first awarded custody to the addict mother. You would have thought after an eighteen month trial, in which someone must have asked why the kids weren’t with her in the first place, that someone would have noticed that she wasn’t right. But anyway, the father went to prison and the worthless mother got them. She had no place to live, and moved in with my friend. They were crowded, and the family owned an old mobile home out in the sticks that was in a bad state of disrepair.

Anyway, my husband redid the electrical service on the trailer pro bono, several people at work donated furniture and appliances, and we all got them in that mobile home, only for the mother to start drinking again and fold in on herself, and my friend got the kids back anyway. She says she’s taken enough from people, and will not be a burden.

My friend loves her daughter, so I can’t say anything, but I can’t stand the girl. She had an older daughter who just graduated high school, and my friend raised her too. She’s had one heart attack already, and I’m afraid these kids are gonna give her another, because the kids, of course, have emotional problems. They are really clingy, have even tried to go into the bathroom with her. One of them fractured her knee and had to walk on crutches for a while. She got mad at her sister and beat the shit out of her with one of the crutches.

Sigh. I have a real soft spot for my friend, even though her family is worthless, she has a heart of gold. When I first moved to that department, she could tell I wasn’t happy. We didn’t know each other then, but she saw I was in pain, and started doing little things. I would come back to my desk after a break and find a cup of coffee or tea, just the way I liked it, and a chocolate or pastry. She saw that I often didn’t get lunch because I had to run errands, and she started bringing me lunch, home-cooked meals she’d made herself. Now my mother didn’t cook, and I’d never had anyone cook for me like that, really. So it touched me deeply.

I don’t care for organized religion for myself, for a myriad of reasons. These children are in therapy, but I am thinking going to church might help them. You know, how the little Bible stories can be very comforting to a child, and they have had no religious experience or education. The thing is, because of the way I grew up, and I won’t go into it, I nearly have a panic attack during a church service. I could go to Sunday School, but I can’t sit through a formal sanctuary service. Funerals are about all I can do. So I’m going to have to think about that. I know that there are casual churches out there, that meet in school gyms and everyone wears blue jeans, I just need to find them.

7/21 Queer As Blood, Season 3, Episode

I wrote this at the dentist's office in about fifteen minutes, out of sheer frustration. Just call me Alanna Ball, Alan's evil (er) twin sister.

Scene opens as Cooter and Random Bald Vamp drag Sookie into Russell Edgington's mansion, followed by Weres dragging Alcide and Bill. Sookie is struggling but not using her white hand power because it doesn't work for me right now and I'm the boss, damn it.

Enter Russell and Talbot, followed by Eric who still looks almost inconceivably scrumptious in his celadon sweater, due to the fact that wardrobe has finally figured out that his cool Nordic looks are complemented by water and jewel tones. Talbot, whose eyeliner I just love, continues to drool over him. Alcide is still shirtless, because that's his job, and Bill is being Bill so we won't go there.

Russell, pointing to Sookie: What is this?

Eric: I don't know what it is, but I want to fuck it, for some reason no one really understands.

Franklin strolls in, followed by Tara on a rope leash. He surveys the room.

Franklin: Crazy shit? Count me in.

Tara: Sookie!

Sookie: Tara! What are you doing here?

Franklin lets go of the leash so the two can embrace, because it's two chicks, and, you know.

Tara points to Franklin: That vamp brought me. He's bat-shit crazy, but, still , there's something about him that makes me want to spread him like peanut butter on a Ritz cracker and then bite it off.

(okay, this could be the narrator talking here, always had a thing for bad boys, don't judge me)

Franklin: I grow on people. It's a gift.

Tara: Sookie, Bill won't help me. He's a bigger pussy here than he was in Season Two!

Sookie: Shut the fuck up!

Tara: No shit! And Eric's a pussy, too!

Sookie turns disbelieving eyes to Eric, who hangs his head and hunches his shoulders in an abashed, yet still charming and delicious manner.

Eric: It's true. The magister has my balls. He found them in Pam's pocketbook.

Sookie: So you lost your nut sac?

Eric: I used to have balls, and a nut sac! Big Viking balls in a big Viking nut sac! Just watch last week's post mortem if you don't believe me.

Bill, chomping at the bit: You need to get Sookie out of here before Lorena comes down the stairs impeccably dressed and ruins everything that I have already FUBAR'd anyway.

On cue, Lorena descends the stairs in yet another Mr. Blackwell-approved ensemble. Where the hell are these costumers when Sookie's getting dressed? Seriously, what's the point in having all these nattily dressed gay characters if one of them won't help a sister out?

Lorena smiles at Sookie, who prepares to open a big can of whup ass, Bon Temps style. Tara moves to her side in support. The male supes all back up against the walls to give them room, because it's a chick fight, dude, and they are men, mostly, after all. Talbot huffs and heads for the blood wine cellar for refreshments.

Scene cuts to the woods where Jason and Crystal are still screwing around against a tree. Hey, is Hot Shot not supposed to be full of were panthers? Where are the were panthers?

Crystal and Jason try to find chemistry by sticking their hands down each other's pants. It ain't there. An owl yawns mid-screech in spite of himself and falls out of a tree.

*fade out*

8/8

Okay, can’t sleep, so I’m writing this. We did a little poll on the Sookieverse the other day and this is the results:

The Official Sookieverse Word on the G-Spot AKA The Holy Grail of the Hoohah

Misscyn puts on her studious looking reading glasses and clears her throat.

Please keep in mind that this is a qualitative, not a quantitative study. The participants are fifteen ladies from the Sookieverse. The women involved are not only sexually active and functional; they all also, admittedly, and openly, take getting their freak on real, real seriously.

At first it looked like there might, in fact, be no g spot, at least not in the Sookieverse. However, several hours into the study various late-coming (heehee) participants rolled out of bed, patted down their sex hair, and weighed in. After compiling the results the final tally was ten no spot, five spot.

Which means, based on this Viking-loving cross-section of society, that about two-thirds of women either do not have or cannot find such a spot. Apparently it can be, as Lanyap so eloquently put it, an elusive little bugger.

Most interesting was the fact that at least two of the spot-finders admitted that the g wasn’t necessarily all that wonderful, although I will have to say that evenflo is the luckiest biotch in the group with her ‘powerful orgasms that could go on all night.’ Sigh. FDM said she felt hers had perhaps not been used to its full advantage, and you just know with that chick it ain’t for lack of trying.

Two of the no-spot participants admitted to having experienced female ejaculation (misscyn waves at Duckbutt, I knew we were sisters, girl) without having zeroed in on the purportedly related spot.

The overall consensus was, meeeehhhh. Apparently the sensation has to do with feeling the urge to urinate, and the area itself is almost painfully sensitive to touch. Looks like we’ve been played, frankly. It’s the hype and the not knowing that is killing us have-nots. I personally take it as another slight against womanhood. So if the clit is our penis, and the g spot our prostate, I guess it makes sense that it would be a tiny, tiny, hard as hell to find thing. I have never heard of a man complaining that his prostate can’t be located, however. Why, oh why, does the female body have to be such a frikkin mystery? *misscyn bangs head on table*

So spotters, thanks for sharing. No-spotters, you can stop worrying now. Our results indicate that few have it, most don’t, and of the ones who do have it, even fewer still think it deserves all the hype. All us have-nots can just assume that even if our g’s are buried with Jimmy Hoffa, or perhaps Amelia Earhart dropped them over the Bermuda Triangle, it doesn’t appear to make a whole helluva lot of difference anyway.

Bottom line? The Clitoris Rules, Baby.

(you pervs knew that anyway, didn’t you? *snickers*)

Thanks to Gaijin for inspiration, and all the participants for stepping up. This kind of thing is what our little community is really valuable for, in my opinion, and I enjoyed the discussion. Life is short ladies, let’s not waste time being shy when we could all benefit from the info, yanno? Okay, I’m quits.

8/8

Watch True Blood tonight you all. That's all I'm sayin' for now.

I should have clarified that the above survey was completed on the Sookieverse last week, when we were talking about smut/lemons and somehow got on the subject of the g spot.

8/10

True Blood sucks. If they keep fucking it up it will be canceled, and a great book series will have been wasted. That is all.

I have a story, guys. Sorry if it bores you, just ignore it. But storytelling, well, it's just what I do.

All that talk earlier about my high school boyfriend reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in years. I've told you all I was a freak magnet, many times, and I always have been. Well, the original, the Number One Freak Magnet Episode happened the summer I was sixteen, after I moved to a tiny Delta town by the name of Marigold, Ms.

This town had a population of 323, if I recall the highway sign correctly. There was a Chinese-run grocery and a general store. No restaurants, and a good fifteen miles from the next town. I'd totaled my car a couple of months before and my parents refused to buy me another for a year. I'd just moved to that town and I knew no one.

You have to picture where I found myself at this time. It's June, 1979, in the Mississippi Delta, averaging about 102 degrees in the shade with 98% humidity most of the time. It's flat, flat, flat, like you've never seen flat before, and this town was just a spattering of houses surrounded by soybean fields in the middle of a God-forsaken nowhere. I'd lived in Starkville before, a veritable metropolis, the home of MSU, and I was miserable. We had television, but then no one really watched TV but old people. You did stuff, and what was I supposed to do?

I checked out cooking books from the library and tried to teach myself to cook. I read a lot. And I rode my bike all over, for hours, because the one good thing about flat land is that it's good for bike riding.

So after my boyfriend and I reconciled, I had to ride my bike to the post office every day to pick up his letters, and mail mine.

Right by this post office was a tiny clapboard house with peeling green paint. In that house lived a passel of inbred folk by the name of Brown. The Browns were all red-headed, and mentally challenged as well. I never saw the parents, not once, but there were six or seven children, aged from three to nineteen, and there was damn well something wrong with every one of them, in varying degrees of severity. It was really freaky to walk or drive by there and see them all out in the postage-stamp yard, beating on old tires or yelling or whatever. Some of them had really strange foreheads, others had extremely small teeth, all of them were funny about the eyes. I wasn't sure if the daughter my age wasn't the mother of some of the younger ones. Anyway, I walked real fast past that house on my way up the sidewalk.

Apparently, not fast enough.

The oldest boy's name was Donald. He was nineteen, with the requisite red hair, and his front teeth stuck straight out and to the sides, making it impossible for him to close his mouth fully. Because of this, or because of his apparently woefully lacking IQ, he drooled. He also couldn't take straight, and again, it may have been partly due to his teeth, but I assumed it was also closely related to the fact that his grandmother and his cousin were the same woman. Anyway, Donald took a liking to me, lucky girl that I was.

He waited for me every day. Someone told me he had a night job, and I don't know when that boy slept, because no matter what time I went to the post office, and I changed it up to avoid him, he was there, in the front yard, right by the sidewalk I had to pass. He'd smile and wave and mumble something every time, and I'd been raised right, so I always replied, albeit as briefly as I could.

Donald wanted more. So he rustled up some old piece of shit bike from somewhere, and started following me. He never pulled up beside me, but every summer morning, when I pulled out of my driveway, he must have been hiding somewhere on my street. Because I wouldn't get a quarter of a mile down the road before I'd turn around and see him tailing me, always a good twenty or thirty feet behind.

This made me angry. The bike, and the bike riding, was all I had. I wasn't giving it up, so I went about my business, with him behind, every time I went out. To the library, the post office, the store or wherever, I rode my bike and he followed. I decided to ignore him, as the few people I 'd met and talked to said he was harmless.

Until one night I wanted a coke and a candy bar, and it was almost dark, but I was sure Donald had already given up the chase since I never went out in the late afternoon, (the mosquitoes would eat you alive after four), and I also knew Donald had to go to work and surely he went home to rest. So I took off on my bike and didn't even look back, I was so confident. I got to the store and got my Coke and a variety of candy. I started back to the house and heard a noise, looked behind me, and there was Donald, following me in the dark.

I tried to play it cool but it being night freaked me out. I started peddling faster, and looked behind again. Donald was gaining on me, and had a really intent look on his face. I peddled faster, hitting bumps and nearly wrecking; he was getting closer, yelling something, holding out his hand. I went faster and faster, screaming at him to leave me alone. I was sweating, my heart pumping, scared to death. There was no one on the streets, never was that time of night. It was just Donald and me, both fish-tailing it down the road to my house like the devil was on our heels.

I flew into my driveway, spewing gravel every which way as I threw my bike down. I ran up to the front porch with him behind me. He grabbed my elbow just as I reached the front door and I screamed for my stepfather. I turned around and saw he was holding a Baby Ruth in his hand.

"You dropped this outside the store," he said, although it sounded more like, "Ew dwopped dis owd sigh da stow."

He handed me the limp and ruined candy bar, which he must have been gripping tightly the entire time. I breathed heavily, voiced my thanks, and went inside, exhausted. I knew I had to resolve the Donald situation.

Now, ladies, where I grew up, 'nice' folks didn't call the law, as funny as that might seem. Only trash and ne'er do wells got law enforcement involved in their business. Upstanding citizens handled things on their own. My brother had taken up with some scoundrel-like boys who sometimes hung out with Donald, mostly to use his car, so I asked him if they could tell him that following me was freaking me out, and would he please stop. He said he would, and for the next few days, I stayed inside the house.

My brother came to me one afternoon soon after and said, "It's done. We told Donald to stop following you on the bike, and to stop waiting for you on the sidewalk." I took a deep breath.

"Were you nice?" I asked. He nodded. "Yeah, we were nice about it, and he seemed to understand. He said he'd stop hanging around outside and looking in your bedroom window at night, too."

Well, hell, I didn't know the son of a bitch was looking in my window! I didn't know he was hanging around outside my house at night, either!

It gets worse.

Don't ask me why I didn't involve my parents at least. For some reason I didn't want to tell my boyfriend, (I think I was embarrassed), and back then, you didn't get your parents involved in your shit, anymore than they called the law when things went down. Parents were like the teachers in those old Charlie Brown cartoons. They just made a lot of unintelligible noise, and they lived in their own world. 'Cool' kids solved their own problems.

So my brother and his brilliant friends had apparently told Donald that the way to get to know a girl that you like is to ask her out on a real date. They must have been a little light on the details, however, because the next Saturday night at approximately 7 pm, I answered a knock on the door to find Donald on the front porch, freshly showered and with a new haircut and clothes. He'd gotten paid, and he'd cashed his check and fanned the money out in his hands, holding it out to me, much as he had that fated Baby Ruth.

"I have money," he said, though it sounded like, "Ah ha munney."

"Okay," I replied, confused.

"Ah come ta take ew on a date," he said with a big grin, which made the drool a good deal worse. "Ah got munney," he repeated, flourishing the bills in the air.

"I have a boyfriend, Donald," I said, as gently as I could, and boy, was I glad this was true, and that I had thought of it quickly.

He looked confused, shook his head, and brandished the money some more.

"I can't go out with you. I have a boyfriend. It would be wrong," I explained slowly. "Do you understand?"

He furrowed his brow for a second, then nodded. He turned to go, then spun around, his face brighter.

"If eww break up wid him, then will eww go?"

I hesitated for a second, saw his face begin to fall, and decided to give him a break.

"Sure, Donald, if we break up, I'll go out with you. But I don't think we're going to break up for a long time," I said. "You probably need to find another girlfriend for now."

He grinned widely and bounced off the steps to his car. I mentally resolved to marry my high school sweetheart, or move to Brazil in the night, if it came down to it.

So anyway, Donald quit following me around. I didn't get another stalker for a good six years after that. I heard he kept his job and found a girlfriend who wasn't related to him, whew, close call, that. Eventually he got married, and I was officially off the hook.

I drove by that post office at my twentieth high school reunion, and the house was still there, and still green to boot, but I didn't see any inbred redheads outside. Next year is my thirtieth, I'll let you folks know.

Thanks for letting me tell you this. I enjoyed the reminiscing :)

I have a blog now thanks to my friend AOP:

http://deatheatinacracker.blogspot.com/

I'm getting ready to start posting stuff in the next few days. I'm gonna tell stories and bitch my ass off there about fic thieving and other sorry practices. It ain't going to be pretty, and I'm not holding back. Be prepared.

12/27/10

Merry merry cracker crunchers! Here's a teaser for my next DEAC outtake, the famous Norway trip:

He doesn't fidget. Period. Yet fidgeting is what you would call the current behavior, tapping the lap tray, playing with my fingers, occasionally humming an unknown tune. We are comfortably ensconced in first class on Wideroe Airlines Flight 1246, and everyone else is planning to sleep the entire night flight. If he doesn't wake them, that is.

Thanksgiving I celebrated with my family in Bon Temps, and we exchanged Christmas gifts then, too. The day after Eric and I left for London on a combination of Anubis Air and commercial flights.

They say England changes, yet stays the same. I felt the true meaning of that phrase as we stood in the garden where he drained his then-human child some three hundred years ago. A strange reverence permeated the air as he solemnly led me to the exact spot.

We took photos. It felt like a slightly weird thing to do, but hey, who knows when some construction company might decide to plow through that historic area and put up a rash of condos, day spas, and fish n' chip shops?

Tonight we left London at 7 pm, right after Eric rose for the evening, which is the reason he's sitting here and not in some travel coffin tossed carelessly in baggage.

Beside me, he shuffles his feet and shifts his body once more. My wine goblet sloshes a tiny bit of pinot noir on my hand as a result.

"What is your problem?" I hiss. I can't help it, he's usually such a statue, and now he's acting so strange. His eyes shift to me in surprise, and a small smile curves his beautiful, sculptured lips.

"It is unsettling for a vampire my age to feel the urge to bounce in his airplane seat," he confides in a whisper just a tiny bit sheepishly, then tempers it with a sex-filled wink and a squeeze of his large hand.

I smile, charmed yet again. You don't have to give me that look; I have been aware for some time that I haven't a prayer, believe you me.

I settle back into my seat, still holding his hand as we gaze out the window at the starry, cold sky. We both smile in spite of ourselves as our plane hurls through the endless dark, making our way to the Polar Nights.

5/27/11

Saturday, May 2 20at

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