Important Update: TV Shows I am Watching

As many of you know, I only acquired mega cable (with DVR!) in the last six months.  At first, I was so freaked out about spending the money and the time I would be wasting now that I had a million channels.  However, as some of you suggested, it would be well worth my money since it would save me so much time.  And you were right.  Now Matt and I record the shows we want to watch, watch them when we want to watch them, and fast forward through the commercials!  But I fall asleep so early, and Romy doesn't go to bed until 8:30 or 8:45, that I only have maybe an hour of TV viewing every night.  Our DVR has been so busy lately that I haven't even had time to watch the Beverly Hills 90210 Season 8 DVDs I have from Netflix!  Read below to find out the scoop on what I am watching:
Treme: I think there's supposed to be an accent in that title.  We actually signed up for HBO again just to watch this (last time we had HBO was for Curb Your Enthusiasm).  They are having a special for only $10 a month!  Hopefully that will take us through True Blood.  Treme is a show about New Orleans, three months post-Katrina.  Lots of great music.  Only one episode so far, but the show does have my favorite actor of all time: John Goodman.
19 Kids and Counting: I am still into the Duggars and their many children.  I hear the uber-preemie, Josie, is finally out of the hospital (but they haven't gotten to that on the show)!  Every time they visit Josie in the hospital on the show I cry, remembering when our little preemie Romy was in there.  Matt and I have started giving nicknames to each of the Duggar children.  Some examples: Fugly Duggar, Stoner Duggar, and Dummy Duggar.  Actually, I don't think Dummy Duggar is one of their names.  But it sounds funny.
Glee: I'm glad the show is back on, but I will admit that the big break has definitely taken away a lot of my initial enthusiasm.  I think Fox messed up on that one.  Hopefully Glee can redeem itself.
Project Runway: This has been a decent season.  I'm not blown away, but I'm not annoyed all of the time.  I think the show may have run its course, but I'll still watch.
Top Chef Masters: I forgot this show was on, so I haven't actually seen this season yet.  But I loved the last season, and my trusty DVR will find it for me.

And when we have time or I actually stay awake longer than an hour or I wake up before everyone else, these are some of the things I watch:
Tori and Dean: I do like Tori, although the more I read from her and the more I see of her and her plastic surgery, the sadder I feel.  I like her kids and her fancy lifestyle, but I really think her husband is a sleaze.  How gross that he is constantly talking about sex, when he knows there is a camera on him and his kid from another marriage, his current kids, and anyone else in the world can hear him.  He disgusts me.  She can do better.
iCarly: Somehow Matt and I have really gotten into this show.  Matt likes the always shirtless Gibby, and I like Carly's over-the-top brother, Spencer.
Kirstie Alley's Big Life: My mom and I watched a bunch of episodes while I was loafing after my surgery.  It seems very staged, but Kirstie is funny, and she has very cool lemur cages.

Show that is over but I can't stop thinking about:
Celebrity Fit Club: This cast was genius: Bobby Brown, Kevin Federline, K-Fed's ex-wife, Shar Jackson, the heavy girl from High School Musical, Sebastian Bach, that girl from Bad Girl's Club who says, "Pop off, Son."  I could not get enough.  And then, they made me cry.  K-Fed made me cry!  He was sweet and stupid and charming, and I totally got what everyone saw in him.  I am glad that he finally gave Shar some closure.  And then there is the brilliance of Sebastian Bach.  I was most impressed by him.  Their antics will be missed.

Time to turn off the TV and get my girl out of bed!

So Long, Appendix! I Didn't Need You Anyway!

I had my appendix taken out Wednesday night.  It was a big tadoo[probably not a word]: WebMD diagnosis, 8 hours in the emergency room, surgery, overnight in a hospital, all that jazz.  It sucked and was scary, and I cried like a freak for a chunk of it.  Many of you may know that I have a needle phobia.  A phobia.  Not like, oh, I'm afraid of needles.  Just don't look, the nurses say.  To that I say: SUCK IT.  Have you moved to Australia after college with your only contact being a friend of an acquaintance, with nowhere to officially go and nothing official to do?  Have you slept on people's couches all summer in New York City so you could not get paid as an intern on a TV show?  Have you spoken in front of 500 high school students without hesitation?  Have you written a novel about your very personal experiences with depression?  I THINK NOT.  [The you to which I referred wasn't aimed at you, my blog readers, but the yous of the nasty nurses.  And I don't care what people say: there are lots of nasty nurses.]  I am still a Gryffindor.  I get to have one phobia, and that is it.  Anywho, that made the experience tripley unpleasant for how it could have been if I did not have that phobia. 

While I'm bitching about hospital staff, I would also like to say to the woman who WOKE ME UP (Why would she wake me up?  I just had surgery.  Shouldn't I be getting my rest?  Plus, everyone was all "You'll sleep because of the anesthesia."  Nope.  I was up every hour starting at 2:30 a.m., calling a nurse to help me pee.  God I hate hospitals.) to teach me how to use a breathing apparatus so I don't get pneumonia.  I must have had such an awful look on my face.  I hate this woman.  Any good teacher, or any human being should know that you don't try to teach someone anything remotely important a) the moment you wake them up b) at an ungodly hour c) without writing it down.  That still super pisses me off.

So now I'm home, all slow, but not in too much pain anymore.  Although I did have to have my antibiotics switched because I was insanely nauseous twenty-four hours a day.  Which I told them would happen.  Did they listen?  Why don't people listen?  Why do they think I'm some alarmist freak?  I knew I couldn't sleep, and I didn't.  I knew I'd get nauseous, and I did.  I knew my body well enough to know that I needed to go the hospital, even with my phobia, SO WELL that my appendix didn't even have time to rupture (which can happen within 36 hours).  All in all, I rate my appendix experience a B-.  The surgeon was excellent, and I think I am on the road to recovery, so I certainly can't complain about that.  But many of the aspects of the hospital, particularly the lame nursing staff (the ones during my birth experience, at a different hospital, were far superior), left much to be desired.

Proust Questionnaire! Today's Special Guest: Jessica Leader

The Proust Questionnaire is back, without a day in its title, because that is how my blogging rolls right now.  After this, I have one more author's answers, and the Questionnaire will go on hiatus indefinitely.  S'all good.

Jessica Leader has a fabbity fab website where I learned the wonderful fact that bees have feet.  I wish all websites had facts like that laying about.  We would all be better off for it.  Jessica likes being in school, it seems, whether that means taking or teaching courses on writing.  Her first novel, NICE AND MEAN, comes out this June.  She is running her first ARC giveaway on her blog (www.jessicaleader.com/blog), where people can also win other books and bookmarks.Visit her at www.jessicaleader.com.

The following questions are based on James Lipton's questions from Inside the Actors Studio, which, in turn, are based on the Proust Questionnaire. One of the questions is about swearing, so please excuse our French.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Jessica Leader!

1. What is your favorite word? "Yank." I would use it in every scene I wrote if nobody noticed. Also, "Marvy."
2. What is your least favorite word? "Precious." Barf.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Unalike people coming together.
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Lack of curiosity.
5. What sound or noise do you love? My wedding present seltzer maker making seltzer just for me.
6. What sound or noise do you hate? Wedding present pots and pans, scraping against each other. They're like a blessing and a curse.
7. What is your favorite curse word? The Sh word. It's concise.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Olympic gymnast, now and forever.
9. What profession would you not like to do? Anything that involves telling people to turn down their music. I falter. I cringe.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? "You were right! You were right about almost everything!"

Next week's author: Jessica Verday!

Blogging... Or Lack Thereof

I am through apologizing for not blogging. I don't even know if I am missed when I don't. Some day, I will have lots of time to write about all of the TV shows I'm watching and funny things that pop into my mind. I like doing that. But for now, random and sporadic is all you will get. Here are some of the quicky reasons for my blogging absence, as well as some news to report:

• Officially, wonderfully, holy crappily I will be taking a year of (unpaid!) leave from work next year to be with my beautiful daughter and to work on my books. It is an amazing opportunity to see what life as a full-time mom/full-time author is like. One year. Then I'm back to my great job as a librarian.
• I am working on my revisions for DON'T STOP NOW, my third novel, as we speak. I have a deadline, so that is a big reason for not blogging.
• There have been a lot of great reviews for INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER online that I want to link to every time I read them, but, again, there's that whole blogging thing that I am not so good at lately. The latest one is at Jen Robinson's Book Page. Thank you to everyone for such kind reviews! NERD should be out in paperback in less than a year, for those of you who only like to read soft books (?).
• During my year off, I intend to subject my family to a visit to the new Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. I am afraid they will leave me from sheer embarrassment after I implode from excitement. Need I remind you of my Weasley Family Peeps Diorama?
  

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Movie News

Doesn't my post title sound exciting? Well, it's not really. The only actual movie news (and by that I mean movie news about my books) is this blog post where they try to cast my novel, INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER. They also say some nice things about the book, and some not as nice things regarding all of the ASIDES and PARENTHESES I use (I enjoy a good parenthesis. So nyah.). I like the casting, except for the Barrett guy. The person they chose, Jesse Bradford, just looks like some dumb jock. Not that I know who I'd cast. Ooh! Yes I do! It would be that guy, Charlie Hunnam, who played Nicholas Nickleby in the movie of the same name, if he were still that young. Casting is fun! But I am too tired to cast any more. And I do realize, for anyone who noticed, that I am once again two weeks behind on my Proust Questionnaires. I will get to them some day. These days, I am too busy dreaming about what I will wear to the Oscars.

How Cute is This?

Something I found while surfing the web (do people say that anymore? Well, I do!):