Thoughts, dreams and reality. :-)

Song of the day: “Hallelujah” originally by Leonard Cohen, but I’ve been having covers in my head ever since I got curious and found a whole batch of them on Youtube. Seriously, there have been oodles of people who did the song…and in many beautiful ways, I might add. Worth a spin, if you like the song!

So, yeah. Had a bit of relapse with my cold. It was gone, which had me getting back to my workout routine all excitedly for over a week of daily workouts of over 45 mins a pop, only to end up with my cough coming back full force and a fierce pain in my throat that took me three days to get rid of again. Grrrr. No worries, though. At the moment, considering I don’t have a job or anything (well, I am doing some serious writing at the moment, so that is debatable) I’m not doing my workout in one allotted time (seeing as it is a known fact that for a little while after your workout your immune system has a serious drop) but am stretching it out through the course of the day with five to ten minute exercising sessions. Annoying, for sure, but doable for the moment. Hah.

I have broadened my job search from night reception work at hotels, courier and facility management to--sit down, don’t get caught unawares—work as a jack of all trades in greenhouses. Saw an application for that recently, and thought, what the heck. I’d get to work with plants, be inside a relatively warm place most of the down, and get, according to statistics, decent pay. Now, I’m pretty sure that my resume (and lack of official qualifications) isn’t going to look very impressive to these people, but still, it’s worth a shot.

Been doing a lot of reading online lately, including on American politics. I have friends on either side of the fence, so it can’t really be helped, and considering that this is not a political blog, I am definitely not picking sides, but it is a big event in history, so it’s gotta be mentioned. Admittedly it is a fascinating thing to watch, really, hearing both sides hammering away at each other, guessing what is going to happen based on he said-she said kind of stuff. I can only think back of this blog back when the last president was picked. Basically everyone thought that finally all their troubles were going to be over and he was basically going to achieve world peace. Back then, I said it was going to be pretty tough for the guy to live up to that, and it was. With this future president, I can only say, he’s probably going to surprise people. Right now, there is such a low opinion of him that even if he manages to do one thing right, he’ll astound people, let alone if he does a couple of things moderately well.  Puts the last president at a bit of a disadvantage, but from what I understand of him, he rather likes martyrdom, so basically he got what he wanted.

As with all things, we’re going to have to wait and see what happens in the future.

The other thing I’ve been reading up on is 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd wave feminism (I know, how controversial am I today, right? I swear, I’ll keep it mild, and won’t do this a lot) and have come to the  conclusion that I am more of a 2^nd wave feminist. Serious, the 3^rd wavers are completely bonkers! The hate that is coming from them, the convoluted logic and full blown hatred toward men in general, it’s astounding…especially since these women, well, girls really are either my age, or younger than me, and have not faced the problems that 1^st and 2^nd wave feminists faced. In fact, the majority of these girls seem to have been coddled, helped at every turn, and now think that it is time to get back at the “oppressors” for the evil deeds perpetrated towards the generations preceding them.

Now, if these girls were living in Middle Eastern countries, Asia, Afrika or whatnot, I would understand, seriously, there is some evil shaite going on around the globe, but they’re not. These are girls and women in Western countries where they are protected, supported and helped by not only the law, but by the general public too. They have healthcare, the opportunity to educate themselves, work whichever job they wish to pursue, and basically live their lives the way they want, and yet they figure they have to fight the opposite sex and the establishment for rights that they already have. And all this while there are women in this world who are really bad of. I have to say that the stuff that I have seen online about these so-called feminists is nothing short of embarrassing (for me anyway), if not downright insulting toward women with real problems. Feminism has definitely gotten a bad name because of these entitled girls trying recapture the “magic” of brah-burning for a plain and simple game of “getting back at” and what can only be called an underhanded attempt at gaining power in the world over the back of men, but most especially other women.

Okay, enough silly things that thankfully don’t much affect my world at this juncture in my life, it might, at some point, but not yet. I’ve been having some seriously weird dreams lately. Several have been downright icky, in fact. Like the other day I was dreaming of this evil serial killer who used a metal garrote to literally saw the hands of a woman. He was starting on the second hand, lots of gore, lots of screaming going on, when I finally managed to wake up. I was seriously freaked out from that one, but will admit that this particular dream is going to do really well in a book at some point.

Luckily I had some nice dreams, too. One of them included grandpa still being around, which was rather nice.

So, there was a rather big storm in Spain, which had us worried about family, friends and pets for a while. Seriously, there was a red alert and everything. There were floods that caused two deaths, lots of properties destroyed, animals in distress, a tornado over sea, even, and gawd knows what else. Reassurances were a long time coming, but in the end everyone I knew reported back with an “okay” so that was a big relief. Jeez. The only plus that comes from this that the water reservoirs that have been close to empty for the past decade or so, have filled up to almost 40 percent for the first time in 20 years!

Writing wise I’ve been doing relatively well at the moment. I am doing an average of 2K-3K words a day, at least, so the book is steadily progressing. Yay! At the very least I am completely back IN the story, which certainly helps. Yay

On the cooking front I’ve been doing some experimenting lately. Made a rather interesting pumpkin pie the other day, also a lentil/beet salad that went well with the folks I made it for, but didn’t resonate well with yours truly. Hah.

Littlest brother’s visit has been rescheduled to this weekend. Something came up the last time, so that was a no-go. Considering big brother and I were still battling our colds back then, neither of us minded all that much.

So that about sums up this blog. I’m sure I’m forgetting important stuff, but that can’t be helped. I’ll be back.

Sex, feminism...that sort of thing.

So I’ll have to give another little rant later on, in regard to something I read online. It’s a doozy, and personally it gave me an outraged OMG! But that’s for later. First thing’s first:

Okay. It was a bad night, especially since when I tried to go to sleep the skin of my skull moved (stretching while laying my head on the pillow) and set a headache into a mad frenzy. I was literally cross-eyed for a moment and had to get up to walk it off before I could take a painkiller and finally, very carefully, lied back down, taking great care not to put pressure on anything that wasn’t really necessary.

Not an easy feat, I’ll admit, but I did manage it in the end, drifting off to sleep, only to awaken several times during the night before the morning finally arrived…with sunshine for a change. This has been the wettest winter we’ve had in the two decades since we’ve been visiting and living in Spain. In about four days there was a downpour of approximately 1 cubic meter, which is astounding for this area, for as far as I know. Heck, we’ve been on the edges of full blown hurricanes, or so I’ve heard.

The sun is actually sparkly bright, however, blinding me, and making me stumble back with the reminder of last night’s little problem, brought to the fore with a fierce pounding on both my temples. Great! That’s just great.

I take my time with the morning rituals, sluggishly going through them until I can no longer postpone starting on the day and head for the house with the dogs scattered about, since they get distracted by the nice warm weather.
Chaos is lagging behind, Knight II is already waiting at the gate and Bommel is studiously finding his way by memory, rather than sight. The rest of the pack is just dashing back and forth, doing their very best to evade the crazy Monster Boxer’s feinting attacks with benevolent disinterest.

There are some chores to be done, laundry, some kitchen cleaning, breakfast, and then the fun part; cleaning Tika’s cage. It’s a mess, and we need to clean it out before we release the big pack from the patio.
Tika, our big eclecto parrot sits on her perch when we take the cage down from the ceiling, looking curiously at the few dogs that are seated around the table on which her cage is now set. The dogs are literally trembling with their need to hunt, but obey the frequent commands and warnings we utter as we work. Tika twitches her beady black eyes, walking back and forth on her stick with apparent amusement as she flutters her magnificent wings in challenge.

After she’s had her shower, and the cage is once again clean…as well as the table…the dogs are released from the patio and big brother and I set up our computers.
While big brother starts working on “Calamity’s Luck”, one of the romances I’ve been writing on for that past few years, I open up the latest project and add two more pages to yesterdays scene. That one done I start writing another one for a new scene.

The computer alarm goes off, at the end of the page and it’s time to get ready to head for school, as is our biweekly schedule of late. We arrive at the appointed time, and get busy both on the computers as well as the paper tests.

Though I’m occasionally bothered by the sporadic pounding in my head, the tests go well enough, making me feel relieved that if we had gotten any of these 200 or so questions we would have passed our exams.

Afterwards we take a quick detour towards the home improvement store and then head for home where the dogs and dinner is waiting.
After some relaxation in front of the TV with a recorded episode of “Life” to enjoy, I turn on my computer and start surfing the Net for the latest news and chats, only to come upon, what I can only describe as a new trend in the romance book scene.

Here’s my rant:

Seriously, I’ve read blurbs, excerpts and have come to the conclusion that the so-called mild erotica is worse than the average playboy. Forget a fun plotline, characters and even a hint of actual emotions. It’s blatant in-your-face Sex with a capital S.

I’ve known for years that these kinds of stories exist, heck I’ve even read one or two, but they’re getting worse and more explicit by the year. (And then I’m not even mentioning the trend of not just millionaires for heroes, but billionaires instead. What is that? Money and sex are all that sells, or something?)
And it’s not just man/woman, man/man, woman/woman or whatever. Heck I can understand loving a person no matter what the sex, but this is different. According to these tales the “good” and really erotic lays are about ménages of whatever sex is available, quartets and genuine orgies.

Remember all those once so despised badly filmed porn flicks, anyone? Were those considered pinnacles of literary excellence, or were they considered be crude animalist things that only perverted people watched?
Remember all the TV shows where women looked down on men because they couldn’t get their minds out of the gutter?
Guess things have changed considerably while I wasn’t paying attention.

But back to these “titillating” orgies…
Now, from where I stand one woman getting “done” by three men without her actually knowing them, or even getting on a first name basis, is considered to be a threatening thing.
I mean, I clearly remember “The Accused” being seen as something atrocious. Was that just me?
But from what I understand of these stories it is “exciting” for women to do this kind of thing because it’s “FUN”. Explore their sexual side, men, women, who cares, and all that.
No wonder guys no longer know which way is up when it concerns the signals women give. Heck, I’m a women and I’m completely confused.

Here I thought that feminism had been all about women having the right to say no to Tom, Dick and Harry while they looked for a man they could love, or care about…little did those poor women fighting for our rights know that by what they put in motion, women were going to be inclined to do that sort of thing voluntarily.
Heck, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed it.

Since when is sex a form of recreation and a matter of “the more the merrier?” anyway? I mean, the electricity goes off for a night in some heavily populated area in a city and nine months later there’s a birth wave going on. Aaargh.

I do know that originally, it (sex) is supposed to be a procreation method, no matter which way you turn it, and in the best of cases a way to show true affection…but showing such intimate, ehm, “liberation” to a bunch of strangers? I don’t know. I can’t see the attraction. Seems a little like devolution to me, actually. We’re supposed to be intelligent, aren’t we? Able to control our most basic urges? Hmmm.

For years men get to be called pervs and whatnot for reading dirty magazines and now the big bucks are being raked in from women who basically buy the same thing, only under the guise of mainstream literature…and enjoy it to boot. For all intents and purposes these stories are promoting: “Try it out! It’s fun to get “busy” with a quartet.”

What is that, I wonder? It reminds me of a piece I once read where a psychiatrist explained that the reason why a girl (in the story) was an “easy lay”. It was because she had been gang raped once and had decided in her post-traumatic shock that for her to prevent that event from ever happening again she would just have to stop saying “no” entirely.
Something along the lines “If ya enjoy it, it’s not rape!” Baffling!

Then there are those that claim that by having casual sex, just for fun, is the ultimate freedom of men…HUH? Now, logically speaking it would appear that those who think as much have been led to believe some huge scam made by men, so they can get what they want from women, without having to make a single effort, or being accused of rape…now that would be an interesting topic for a novel, if it wasn’t for the fact that a lot men have “changed their ways” over the last couple of generations due to tedious and strenuous sensitivity propaganda, forced upon them by the first feminists.

It all just seems like we’re trading places, of something. So what happens next, women treat men like toys for the next few generations to get back at them for centuries of forced submissions and then its turnabout’s fair game again? The old adage of history repeating itself, does come to mind.

Right! I’ll better stop my rant before I end up yapping about it for ages, but I think it reflects poorly on those who still like to consider sex as something special which should only be shared with a person you care deeply for, not an itch that should be scratched…which reminds me: How can anyone in their right mind even think about casual sex with all the illnesses and viruses running amuck?

I mean, eating from a used plate is icky, but having orgies with strangers is “just sex”? Bodily fluids mix in both cases, if I remember correctly. Right?

Basic logical thinking seems to be…Oh wait, there’s not much thinking involved in casual sex, is there?
As for safe sex…let’s face it, except for abstinence or “self-help” there’s no such thing possible when all’s said and done.

Ah well, to each his own, I guess. It just stuck in my craw, and I had to get it out before I popped a vein, or something. Hah.
Hmm. Guess I'm getting more conservative with age. Who'd have thought that was possible? Not me, that's for sure.

But anyways, after discussing this matter with the sibs, (who completely agree) rather heatedly, since it is ruining a genre that we’ve enjoyed for years…aka Romance, the real kind…I gather up my things and dogs and head for my quarters to prepare for the night.

I'm going to rant a little. Never mind.

OMG! I know, this is not my usual way to start the day’s Blog, but it has to come out. OMG!…I’ll explain later. Promise.

So, I’m late waking up this morning. By some unfathomable reason I forgot to set my alarm last night, so I wake almost an hour after I was supposed to. There I went through a lot of trouble in order to get to bed in time, just so I’d have an extra hour for writing, only to win thirty minutes instead ninety. Bugger!

The air is moist today but the temperature wonderfully mild, making getting out of bed an not altogether unpleasant sensation since I can peel out of several layers without getting the usual shivers. Wonderful. I can actually move around without several fabrics obstructing my movements. Now, if only the sun would shine too, all would be perfect.

I hurry on through the morning rituals, skipping my few minutes of reading and head for the house with my computer bag and the dogs in tow. The Monster is alternating her position from behind, side, to front and back again, jumping on all fours like a lunatic as she tries to feint some attacks on my person. Thankfully, however, she seems to comprehend my dire warnings and stays a good yard away.

The dogs funnel at the gate of the courtyard, the way they always do, each of them eager to go through first as I hang on to the wall for dear life, and try to use my one free hand to open the latch so they can pass. It takes some fumbling, but in the end they burst through like a tide, swirling out into the courtyard in random patterns.

I’m first to arrive at the house, well the first human anyway, and set my baggage away before getting into my workout clothes. Since I’ve been feeling so on-edge these past few weeks, I figured, what the heck, I’ll fit in a few more workout sessions in order to blunt the impact of that emotional state a bit.

It goes well enough, some of the muscles protest during the warm up, but it’s not as bad as it was when I first started with the routines months ago and was still doing a five-days-a-week course. Some progress at least.

There are jumps, bends, pushes, punches, kicks and lifts, the usual sequence going right on schedule and bringing an hour to a rapid end. After the much-needed shower, and a foray into the laundry room I find that this is most likely the last day in a row where I won’t need to hang laundry. The piles are growing and I’m thinking that middle sister is going to throw in several piles during the night.

Breakfast over and done with, I take my coffee to the table and get down to business behind the computer in an attempt to get some serious writing done before it is time for us to leave for town and our bi-weekly lessons.

Though I had figured yesterday’s scene to be over and done with, it isn’t, and for the next two hours I pound the keys…I know that pounding is no longer required on the fancy new keyboards, but I’m old-school that way. Back when I learned how to type it was still on one of those mechanical typewriters so I’m used to it. Gawd, that’s gotta make me so old! Hah…adding another scene to the first.

The first true vampire scene, I’ll admit. Feeding. Now, I know that it has been done over and over again over the years, now that vampires are so popular, but the new angle on these types of vampires in my stories, give it a nice twist.
It’s more basic, I think. Not the sensual drama, or the “magical” aspect around it, but a basic need, nourishment that needs to be seen to. I like it better this way, less distracting and more…normal, perhaps? We’ll see.

I’m actually sorry when it is time to start to get ready for school. I would have liked to add more to the scene, rather than waste time changing clothes, going to town, sitting in that narrow little room staring at computer screens while filling in test after test.

It’s for the better good, however. It needs to be done, and that’s all there is too it. So there I go, heading up the mountain once more, changing into neat clothes and then climbing into the truck with my two brothers so we can go to town.

My dogs are all standing in the courtyard, looking up miserably as they see us moving back and forth in the carport, getting ready to leave. An occasional howl drifts up. Some yapping from Mosha too, while Dax squeezes his way through the fence and comes sniffing up to the fence that separates the carport from the main garden.

I keep a wary eye on the tiny dog that has a tendency to find narrow places to go through the fence up here as well, making a nuisance of himself because he can’t stand being left behind. None of them can, really. If it were up to the dogs they would all squeeze into the car and go where I went, no questions asked.

In the end we depart, heading down the massive mountain over-looking the sea town and mixing in with heavy traffic until we arrive at the school and are dropped off there to do our lessons inside.

We stay for about an hour and a half, going through tedious tests of A B C answers. On the overall it goes well, except for that particular one that has questions in it that have absolutely nothing to do with our lesson material.
It frustrates me that they put in trick question, inconsequentials and whatnot for what is really just a very basic thing.

It shouldn’t be like a quiz, for crying out loud! It is just a matter of what is allowed and what isn’t, for as far as I’m concerned, but whoever created the lesson material seemed to think otherwise. You’ve got stuff like: You can NEVER do this, and the next paragraph you’ve got: Except when this and that. So very maddening! It makes me want to go out and kick some butt. Idiots!

But enough ranting, the best one’s still to come. While little brother was keeping busy during the hour and a half, he rented three DVDs, which are going to see us through the weekend.

By the time we come home, I find that since all the sibs are ill (meaning that I’m likely to become ill too, soon. Drat!) no one cooked dinner, which of course obliges me to do that myself.

I decide on pasta with a couple of fresh tomatoes, onion, cottage cheese and some Italian herbs. Since it is such a light dish it is rapidly consumed by the siblings who come slinking down the stairs at the sound of “dinner’s ready!”

Our choice of tonight’s viewing is “P.S. I love you”…which is the reason for my starting OMG! I’m sorry to say. There might be some ***SPOILERS*** in my rant, so if you still want to see it, stay clear!

Seriously. Oh My God! I was bored out of my friggin’ mind watching the endless…well, whining about how “amazing” the Gerard Butler character thought his wife to be.
The wife, played by Hilary Swank, was an insecure, annoying and a downright pain in the butt character, for as far as I could see that I couldn’t live with if my life depended on it.

There was not one really redeeming character trait in the person she played, except, perhaps that she regretted that she’d been a whiner during the time when her husband was still alive.
Now, all this wouldn’t have been too bad, if the story had been remotely interesting. It wasn’t! There were some funny aspects, which mostly involved Butler’s character, but that’s it. Even the sad bits…or the bits that were supposed to be sad…failed to touch the right spot.

I think it was even worse than “The Notebook”, which is saying something since that one was horrid…or maybe not. Thinking back of that one, I might have to declare a tie between the two. Hah.

Now, what really got my dander up, was the Lisa Kudrow character who made some, so-called women’s lib remark when one of the guys (Spike from Buffy) called her worse than a womanizer, because she was treating men as dirt and then complained about not being appreciated as a woman. She started ranting about it being her right to treat men as such for all the centuries during which SHE had been suppressed.
She was allowed to behave like a cold-hearted b*tch because men had stared at her breasts instead of her face all her life. Because they had pinched her butt instead of greeted her with a handshake, and was generally looked upon as a pretty plaything rather than a person.

Now, if she were the personification of women all over the earth–through time and space–that would have been a justified remark on which the fellow female character responded with a lusty “Amen”, but since she was/is a modern woman in her mid-thirties who has undoubtedly had all the opportunities available to men and women alike in this day and age, that really just grossed me out.

Even if she HAD experienced all that herself (her character, naturally)–which I find unlikely that doesn’t make acting that way towards men any more right than the men who used to…and some undoubtedly still…do such things. How is such behavior of a sex that is purported to be more civilized than the clichéd Neanderthal, going to help making the world a better place to live in? Isn’t that just changing places?
Isn’t taking “revenge” as it is claimed to be in many of these chick flicks, just going to give men the same excuse a few decades from now, when they’ve been treated in the same fashion as they once treated women?
Way to make it all a vicious circle, Lisa Kudrow character.

I’ve got to admit that I don’t get it. Wasn’t feminism supposed to be all about making men more sensitive, like women, and not the other way around once the scales evened out?
So much for women being more civilized, I guess. Hah.

It’s sad really. It’s just women taking men’s places in the power games, which doesn’t make things any better for as far as I can see.

But enough of the rant: After that disappointing flick, I gather my things and head on up to the cabin to feed the dogs, do some more review reading and get online for my daily surfing on the Net.