The Truth Is Often Stranger Than Fiction

The love of books that is. Yesterday evening Lori and I took an evening ride down to Milford (a one hour drive) to pick up a bunch of children's books I found on a Craigs List listing. The girl was very sweet, a teacher for 6 years who is being moved to a room with no closets and needed to get rid of things. She sold me 117+ books for $40. Granted after going through them there are a few multiples, but it's ok. I needed new books to read to Ericca. You can only read the same Dr. Suess books so many times throughout a lifetime before you get sick of them. Plus she should recite them back to me, time for new ones! I got some pretty cute ones, and some pretty old ones but its all good. As long as she's getting read to, I don't mind.

Then today Lori and I went through a small portion of the children's and chapter books that she has. I grabbed a bunch of chapter books for Alex. She is going to love them! She's another one that needs to read a lot this summer. Tomorrow the plan is to go through the rest of them and sell off any that we don't want. That will of course bring us to the Book Barn in Niantic, which was a destination already for our weekend. Buying and selling books, what a wonderful thing to do for the weekend :)

I don't think any one knows this, but I still can hear him say it in my head, "I don't want to die". Those were some of the last words I heard my father say before I said goodbye to go home and he told me he loved me. I will never forget those words or the days that follow until I found out I lost my best friend. One thing I want to make clear is that I do not dwell on this day, it is just a day that one can not ignore, even if they try with all their might. My body knows when this day is coming, I can feel it in my reactions and in my feelings. I can feel it in my heart, my smile, and my eyes. This time of year is full of so much grief and hurt and I am no longer a fan of the spring. Have I grown as a person, yes. Have I learned to move on, yes. But no matter how much someone grows and moves on, it is always there, it is always part of them. Every day when I look into the mirror I see my father. I see his eyes, his hair, his teeth. I hear his laugh, I hear his voice. I know that he loved me with all his heart, I know he didn't want to leave us. So it is hard not to have some kind of grudge towards God. Why did he have to take such a young father who still had so much to live for? Don't get me wrong, I love my family now. I love my step-father and my step-sisters and I have the greatest nieces a girl could ever have. But if I had to choose between the two lives and families, I would choose to have my dad back in a split second. There is no one that will ever love me as much as he did. To think that today, April 11 2010, makes is 12 years that I had him and 12 years I am without him is dumbfounding. To be gone of someone who is so much still apart of me. I just wonder what my life were to be life if he was still here. What things would have changed, what things would have stayed the same. And I think they hardest part is that there is no one I am more like than him. The scary part is that from the day I found he was gone till somewhere mid fall, those 6 months are a blur. The only thing I can really remember is discovering *N Sync, 5 guys who I consider my saviors and my strength as scary as that sounds. There is still so much I want to say, but for now my heart is weak and my eyes achy from writing and thinking about it. But there is one thing that my daddy will always know, and that is that I love him. And because you never know when you may loose someone, I make sure to tell those I love that I do love them as much as possible. You never know when  you last "goodbye" and "I love you" is truly the last.

It's been awhile since my last post. Since then I have seen Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton. My feeling on it are still haven't made themselves clear, but I did enjoy it. My book collection has also grown of course, with the purchases of The Forgotten Garden, Soulless, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, and This Book Has Issues: Adventures in Popular Psychology. And most recently (within the last 4 days) I have obtained two amazing Tim Burton books, Tim Burton and The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: and Other Stories. These are now part of my most prized books.

I have ditched What the Dog Saw for a bit but I have managed to read Soulless, which was phenomenal and I'm super excited for the sequel, Changless, that comes out tomorrow. I also read most of the short stories in the Tales of H.P. Lovecraft and last night I started A Happy Man, which is part of the Contemporary Art of Novellas Series and I already love it.I'll be done with it before I even have Changless in my possession. I don't know where my sudden ability to constantly find time to read came from but I'm loving it! And I absolutely love when Kenny and I sit in the living room, him doing homework and me reading in the big comfy chair, it's such a nice feeling. I have also picked up my writing notebook again all of the reading and all of the wacky emotions I'm going through due to past and current events in my life make for some inspiration. I'm also thinking of entering a short story contest, especially after reading past winners who were only moderately well done. It makes me feel like I have a chance at winning that $150 or $500 prize, or even the $1000.

 This past week I went and saw the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA, but that gets it's own entry, which will be coming soon.

Ta ta for now!

It is taking all my power to not buy..... this....



I want it sooo bad!! But no books for 2 more weeks, I can totally do it. Thank God February is a short month lol.But I'll have to probably buy it the day the movie comes out. March 5th yay!! I am also probably going to extend my pact, because in reality I don't need 1/2 the things I buy.


Ok that's all for now. Maybe I'll read :)

More and more I come across situations that make the title of this blog truer and truer. the situation at the present moment is nothing but ridiculous and childish, and also hard to believe for an outsider to understand. Children and adults being passive aggressive to each other on a topic that is only to be understood by the wise, or rather the experienced. And all in all when it comes to emotions we only know what we feel and can not judge what others feel. But let it be known that affirmation does not make an emotion true and real.

Whether that makes sense or not, I don't know, but it could definitely be written into fiction.

I have vowed not to buy a single book during the month of February. But there are 2 exceptions. If Kenny and I go to MOMA I am allowed to buy the Tim Burton book and when Mikey and I go to an antique book shop. Other than that NO Borders or Barnes & Noble buys. I will also refrain from buying shoes, clothes and other unnecessary items. Plus maybe if I stop buying books I can catch up on the ones I already own. I bought 11 alone this month...11. That is outrageous and unnecessary. That is clearly over $100 I could have saved, although a couple were bought with a gift card.

Now I'm going to make sure I take some time and read a bit of "What the Dog Saw".

3 more books! AH!! Imagine how rich I would be if I didn't buy so many books. But I guess it's better to be rich in words than it is in cash.

I bought to classics Great Expectations (because even thought I have the whole Dickens collection that is the one I am missing), Wuthering Heights (because it's Bella's favorite haha) and a newer novel My Name is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare (because I am a Shake buff). Oh and here's a funny store about Borders.

The sales guy at Borders thought I was pulling a scam. Last week I got $5 Borders bucks in my e-mail which I thought was fun because I didn't think I had reached the qualifying purchase amount. But I didn't think much of it. I noticed that the rewards didn't show up on my Borders account online, but at the same time my account had been acting up so I didn't think much of that as well. So I go to check out with my new Shake novel and the first thing he did was remind me that I can only use one coupon, this was because he saw me take a coupon from a pile that I had in my purse, because a) I printed out a Borders coupon for myself and for Mikey just in case he needed it and b) I printed out coupons for several stores. Then I gave him that Borders Bucks print out that I assumed were my Bucks since they were e-mailed to me. Well apparently they weren't. Some how I got sent someone elses Borders Bucks which meant it had a different Borders Rewards number on it. Oh well, it didn't really bother me so I shrugged it off. Well he insisted on checking my card info and verified that it was mine then asked me if I knew the other person who's card number was on the Bucks. I of course, did not. So then he read of the e-mail address to see if I recognized it. Well if I don't know the person, I won't know the e-mail. Throughout this whole thing I just shrugged it off and said how weird and funny that was that I got some other guy's Bucks. Well the cashier didn't even smirk. I would understand if I was making a scene about it or was arguing but I wasn't. I didn't care. It was probably some e-mail malfunction because we both had the same e-mail provider. And the book I was buying was only $8 so I could live not getting that $5. It was all VERY weird. And I don't think I would believe I lived it if I didn't have Mikey there to talk to about it after lol. I really wasn't trying to scam Borders, I mean really I spend way too much money and time there to be ridiculous enough to try and scam them. All and all, it's quite entertaining.

What is going on with this world? Now we all know I LOVE Stephen King, but WHAT is he thinking?!?! He is allegedly collaborating with John Mellencamp to make a musical, a freaking MUSICAL! This supposed musical is called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, with the likings of Elvis Costello and Sheryl Crow as part of the cast. No, No, No!!!!

Here is the article that is on Playbill.com


The horror!!! (both literally and figuratively)


Two of my favorite things, should not be combined! But I am sure, that since it is the combination of two of my favorite things, horror and musicals, I will indeed watch it with happiness. UGH!

It's been quite a while since I wrote. I tried finishing Songs for the Missing, and I mean I TRIED. But it was a no go. I skimmed the rest of it to get the jist of the ending. And Christmas came and went and took all of my time and my money haha. But it was so much fun at the same time. Santa brought my a beautiful new 32" flat screen, which will just prolong my inability to read when I want to. He also brought my some cute Coach shoes and a cute Coach bag, which ended up being the wrong color so after 40 minutes at the Coach store right one is on its way from California, but it should have been here already. I also got a nice Hartford Whalers sweatshirt from my brother. Its retro NHL wear and I love it! Now...back to books...

I bought Kenny's sister a Twilight parody called Nightlight. And because of her enthusiasm when she opened it I decided to go buy it with the Borders gift card I got. Well Borders didn't have it so I ended up getting What the Dog Saw and The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, and then went across the street and bought Nightlight at Barnes & Noble. I'm currently reading Nightlight, but with only 40 pages left. It is hilarious, the Harvard Lampoon did a wonderful job. I'm hoping that tonight I'll get to start What the Dog Saw, it's a Malcolm Gladwell book so it is practically guaranteed to be great :)