So I realized running errands today that I’d totally forgotten what our neighborhood looked like without boob-high piles of snow all around. Seriously. Or maybe it was the fact that the people who plowed our neighborhood plowed only until about three feet away from the curb so you could barely drive down the snow packed roads, let alone pass someone. Anyway, I was like “wow, spring!” And really, got to admit, I was feeling pretty damn good.

Even better when I heard the forecast. It’s going to snow again. And you know what? I WON’T BE HERE!

Hell YEAH! That’s the moment when you think an angel kissed you on the cheek and gave you a little blessing, you know? Like the street o’ karma was finally headed to a chocolate shop instead of to the car shop. We’re leaving, maybe driving in rain, but pshaw!, after the winter we’ve had, what’s a little sprinkle sprinkle on the windshield? And we’re coming back to 41 and sunny.

Finally, baby, finally, I feel like I’ve done something right. Like the fates, the muses, karma, and maybe even Saint Nick are smiling down on me. Because for someone who loves snow and winter (hey, points to the pen name), the truth is, this year I have had enough! Way enough! Like more than enough that if I ever had to shovel again in twenty lifetimes, it would be too soon.

So hey, I’m feeling on top of the world. And I want to know, what makes you feel like you’ve done something right? (Because I want to do it again!)

During the course of our life, we don’t necessarily think about it but we look for that one special someone. Many times when we do find someone it leaves holes in our hearts and part of our life empty when things don’t work out.

We don’t think like soldiers. Maybe we should and we might have something that would leave our hearts in tack. Go into the “war” with guns blazing and take out everything that stands in your way.  Of course, it doesn’t always work like that when you join the war and your partner doesn’t.

When you look at the battlefield, you’ll see that there are so many wounded and so few to pick up the pieces. If you’re one of the lucky ones that have found their better half, cherish it and give it your all. It might be the only chance you get.

For all the wonderful authors, let’s stop this war and continue to bring all the lonely hearts some loving through our work. We write for the enjoyment but think of all those people that wish the man in your book…was theirs. You’ve made a lonely heart become a loving heart just by bringing your characters to life.

I hope everyone is having an awesome day and may love find their way to you, if not in real life but through our books.

Do you remember your first love?

I think I was 13 when I first fell in love with Allen. He was my 15-year-old next-door neighbor and had the most soulful deep brown eyes and golden blond hair. He played all the sports, had tons of friends, and went to the ‘big’ school, lol. And for the longest time, I didn’t think he even knew I existed.
Way back then, I went to a catholic school in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I was in the middle school, and he was a FRESHMAN in the bigger building just next door. The students over there always looked like they were having so much fun . So, I loved him from afar for a year and a half, and he never knew.
Then came the summer before my freshman year.
Suddenly, he’d stop in front of my house if I was out there or say hello through the window if we happened to catch each other’s eye. Gradually, he began to walk ‘down-street’ with me or come up on the porch to sit and talk for a while at night.
I was beside myself. This Adonis I’d been lusting after for almost two years had finally noticed I was alive. Unfortunately, I became ‘one of the guys’ to him. We hung out all the time, went everywhere together, but he never gave me even the tiniest indication that I was more than a pal. *sigh* Still, you never heard me complain, lol.
August came, and I was really excited about finally going to the ‘big’ school, a freshman. YEAH!

Whoa!! Put on the brakes, missy. Not so fast.
My mother came into my room and dropped the bomb that was sure to decimate my life. “We are moving to Vermont.”
VERMONT?!? Are you effin kidding me? We’re leaving this great city, all my friends, and ALLEN for some hick town in some long forgotten state? Really?

Life was over as I knew it. I was heartbroken, crushed, destroyed, distraught, devastated and any other adjective you can think of. I may have even been a little MAD!
The day we left, I sat in the doorframe of my mother’s VW bus (his name was Willie, but that’s another story), waiting for her to finish up inside the house—okay fine, I may have been sulking—when across the back lawn saunters Allen in all his golden glory. I swear, he always had a golden aura surrounding him. Oh, why am I being punished so greatly?
“So, this is it, huh?” he states with all the esteemed knowledge of the older man he was.
“Yup. It sucks,” I reply. I so don’t want to talk about this with him because I know I’ll start bawling like a baby.
And here it comes folks…
Since I’m here writing this, I obviously didn’t die…but I damn near did. And as I’m remembering all this and jotting it down, the butterflies are swarming in my tummy and my chest is constricting. I shit you not; the memory still gets to me. Wow.
“It sure does suck, Debbie,” he replies. “But I’ll always love you, and I’m gonna miss you forever.”
Before his words even registered in my foggy little brain, he leaned in and planted a 90 second kiss on my lips, came up for air, and goes in again. At this point, I know I’ve transported to some other realm of reality, because when his lips touched mine this time, his hands cradled my head and his tongue begged for permission to enter.
PERMISSION GRANTED, HELLLOO.
The kiss must have lasted for hours—okay well, until we couldn’t breathe any more. Then he just turned and walked away. (Not the last time that happened to me, but alas that’s another story as well.)
WHAT??? I mean, come on! He loved me? Just kissed me like I’ve never been kissed before or since and now he’s gone and I’m leaving for some god forsaken cold-ass country backwoods state and I’ll never see him again? Did it even happen? I touch my hand to my mouth and the moistness remains. Hell yeah it happened.
NOT FAIR I TELL YOU!!
And so began the story of my life. Yes, I am happily married, and yes, I survived the heartbreak (that one and the others to follow) though I don’t know how. But I will never forget my golden boy neighbor and the irony that was our relationship.
As an aside, the following summer I went to the Jersey shore to visit a friend and her family for a couple of weeks. The day before I was to leave, I saw Allen’s sisters on the beach. (Oh, did I forget to mention he had sisters?) Anyway, I asked them if he was there and they said he was working and wouldn’t make it to the beach till the following night. UGGHH!!
I have so often wondered where he is now, what he’s doing, and who the lucky woman is that grabbed his heart. But I like to tell myself I was the first one who had it. Ah, well.
So, who was your first love?

Much as I love my guy, I couldn’t live without my sisters. I’m lucky to have three (all older than me, ha ha!). They were my mentors, my friends, my cheerleaders, my confidants. Thankfully, never my rivals. I still turn to them when I need a quick boost. No one else understands me like they do. And vice versa. It amazes me how we sometimes have the sensibility of twins. I once bought a new bathroom ensemble – shower curtain, window curtain, rugs. Imagine my surprise when I visited my next-oldest sister Claudia’s house only to find the very same ensemble! We live nearly three hours away, so I had no idea she’d been shopping. Our tastes are deeply ingrained in our DNA apparently.

Because we used to help each other practice our French, we still sometimes lapse into silly routines from years ago. I’ve long forgotten the meaning of the phrases, but when prompted, still respond in a lilting tone, “Oui, qui a ta la pareya” (spelling verification needed!). Our humor tends to run toward black, so

I’m lucky to have several good friends whom I count as sisters as well. We’ve known each other since grade school, and our lives have shot off on trajectories we’d never imagined as kids. But as soon as we’re together, it’s like coming home. We talk and laugh as if we’d never been separated.

Cheesy as it is, the Hanes Sisters in White Christmas captured the essence of sisterhood. My sisters and I actually sing it to each other.

So today, I raise a cheer for sisterhood. My sisters knew how housebound I’d been this winter, so for my birthday surprised me with tickets to a Broadway play. I can’t wait! We’re going to see A Behanding in Spokane, which is advertised as “explosively funny” – just what I need. Christopher Walken is such a wide-ranging actor, who “finds the sunny side in the spookiest of souls,” as the New York Times wrote. His SNL skits kill me. But I love that he wanted to play a regular, nice guy – with a wife, house and dog. Okay, so he happens to be a creepy character too.

After the play, we’re going to eat at the fantastic Carmine’s,  “NYC’s Legendary Family Style Italian Restaurant.” Oh you haven’t tasted tiramisu until you’ve tasted Carmine’s. Bellisimo! And their margaritas are great too.

So look out, New York – my sisters and I will be on the loose in your city for a Girls Day Out. But now for the all-important question: What to wear??

Do you remember the first piece of erotic fiction you ever read?

I do.

At University, I took a course in sexual diversity studies. Censorship was on the syllabus. We studied the case of the Little Sister’s Bookstore in Vancouver. As part of our studies, we were assigned to read a short work of erotica that appeared in one of the books stopped at the border.

The book was “Macho Sluts.” The story was “The Surprise Party” by Pat Califia. It’s about a lesbian who’s picked up by three gay cops, and taken to a dirty hotel room to be subjected to an enema before they take her in every orifice.

To this day, Califia’s story is one of the most intense works of erotic fiction I’ve ever had the sexual pleasure of reading. But that’s not the only reason I remember it so specifically. It just so happens that when I read this story from my unassuming Printing House collection of essays and articles, I was sitting squished between two complete strangers on a city bus.

I remember glancing side to side, praying neither would look down and see the words on the page. Cunt. Cock. Blowjob. Leather. Yes, I was reading a school assignment, but Califia’s work is no statistics textbook. This was hard-core stuff. Far beyond anything I’ve ever read since, and beyond anything I’ve written myself as a writer of LGBT erotica.

Looking back, I find it difficult to believe I’d never read a work of erotic fiction before University. Certainly, I’d seen pornography before then. Perhaps the intensity and situation surrounding Califia’s story simply made it stick with me. Or, maybe my internal definition of erotica is too narrow. My grandmother, who is the greatest supporter of my career in erotic fiction, considers Gone With the Wind an erotic novel. Perhaps my generation is too over-exposed to view the hardness in anything soft.

But I leave you with my initial question: Do you remember the first piece of erotic fiction you ever read? And were you, like me, between strangers on a city bus at the time? For your sake, I hope not.

Bright Blessings,
Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

http://www.freewebs.com/gisellerenarde

http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

My three boys. I love ‘em. Truly I do. But as each day passes, I’m starting to believe that they’re conspiring to drive me nuts. I imagine them, meeting in my oldest child’s room, devising a plan on how to systematically undermine my control and destroy any sense of order I’ve set in place. And man, are they good.
     I know when they have their meetings, too. That part is pretty easy to figure out. The oldest and middle boys go in their bedroom under the pretense of playing video games or watching a DVD, and then a few minutes later, the youngest toddles in after them and closes the door. Don’t let that sweet 18-month-old smile lure you in…he’s in it with them. I know it.
    My husband and I used to refer to our youngest as Lil Sampson because when he was learning to walk, he pushed chairs, his playpen, and the ottoman all around the room. It was so cute. But now he’s grown and moved on to bigger and better things. Why just the other day, he managed to pull his crib sheet off. Have you ever put a crib sheet on a crib mattress? I pulled a neck muscle just forcing the elastic-lined sheet over the final corner. I swear, I almost lost a finger when that puppy snapped into place. But what I struggled with, Lil Sampson removed with ease. And if that wasn’t enough, he managed to rip off one corner of the outer plastic covering on the mattress. How he managed to do that, I’ll never know…but I’m sure it involved a great deal of patience.
    In my little guy’s plan to show who’s in charge, he greeted me this morning with a cheerful, “Mom-mee!” while he stood there in nothing but his diaper. In his hands, the offending clothes that he didn’t want to wear. It was like he was telling me, “You dressed me in this outfit, and I want you to know I didn’t care for it.”
    But I know, just know he’s got something far worse planned for me. When he’s sure he’s worn me down and maneuvered me to his liking, that diaper will come off. He’ll wait though. Yes, until he’s had an upset tummy and filled his diaper with the good stuff. Then he’ll send Mom-mee over the edge by wiping that diaper on everything he can reach.
Baby: 3 
Mom: 0

My middle boy had multiple personalities. When he smiles, the sun shines, birds chirp, and a choir of angels sing from on high. He body slams me and professes his love. An hour later, his narrow-eyed glares make me wonder if I’ll be clutching my heart and heading for the hospital. And after that, he’s in tears, wanting me to fix a toy his older brother broke.
    One of his tactics to drive me over the edge is to wipe his face on my clothes. Drives me crazy! “Use a napkin,” I say, and he grins. I just know he’s waiting for the day I allow him to eat BBQ ribs.
    For now, his dream is to win the gold in the Burp Olympics…and I think he’ll do it, too. For a 4-year-old, he’s beyond his years in talent. He’s burped his ABCs, named shapes and colors, and even burped, “Excuse me,” in order to offset his actions with a normal apology. But the night he burped the blessing? That was too much! That was too far!
Middle child: 3
Mom: 0

The oldest boy we’ve dubbed Mr. Chaos. When a situation goes wrong, when life is just kicking you in the butt, the oldest has to go bananas and make it all a million times more chaotic. He thrives on chaos. I know he does.
    But he did get mom’s gene in the storytelling department. For Cub Scouts he had to create a frame, put a picture in it, and then show it to his den. The frame turned out fabulous. The story however…
    “This is the frame I made,” he said, proudly holding it up. “This is the sweetest baby in the world. His name is Tyger.”
    Okay, so far so good. I smiled, watched my son with pride. But we all know about pride…
    “This is my other brother, Kaspir. He’s the toughest little guy you’ll ever meet. But there’s only one thing that he does that drives me nuts. After he goes to the potty, he forgets to flush. And then I have to go in there find it. It’s really gross.”
    While all the other parents chuckled, I wanted to hide beneath the table.
    And then there was the cleanliness conversation he had with his Nana and Grandpa in the Mexican restaurant.
    “Oh, mom makes us wash real well. We wash all over so we’re clean. Our arms. Our legs. Our bottoms. Why, I wash my wee-wee until it sparkles like a diamond.”
    Yeah, the tables around us cracked up. My parents found his profession hysterical. I, on the other hand, wanted to crawl under the table…again.
Oldest child: 3
Mom: 0

Yes, there’s a conspiracy. I have no doubt. Three against one? Yeah, I don’t stand a chance. And did I mention I’m home schooling?
Yep. I’m insane. Certifiably nuts.
But I love ‘em.

Laura
L.J. Garland
Intense. Involved. Unforgettable.
www.lj-garland.com

When love is new and fresh it’s called “puppy love”. It’s called so because of the devotion a puppy oftentimes gives its owner, and we see that in the boy with a crush following a girl, or vice versa, that happens in our younger years. Sure, wikipedia says it’s also called “kitten love”, but here at the Winter household, we have true kitten love. We have the cute and cuddly kind like you see in the picture. And we have the other kind too, which more often than not resembles an old married couple. Baxter (He’s the spotted guy in the picture), will stand on Delta and do his “thing” (even though they’re both fixed), while she’s sleeping in the kitty bed. She’ll give him a look that says “not right now, I’m trying to sleep” and put her head back down while he’s stomping away on top of her. Eventually he’ll figure out she’s more interested in snoozing and flop over right on top of her.

Yep, sounds like an old married couple.

The truth is the love and devotion these two show each other would be the envy of any couple from a romance book. I’ll see them curled up together in the recliner. Or sometimes, one will come to snuggle with the other, providing lots of ear and face licks in the process.

So I vote we rename it “kitten love”, because really, who needs puppies when you have these two around?

And you know what’s better than kittens? The guy who let you adopt them.

I know I have been absent way too much lately…but you know how life can be.  It is now Christmas here in Jacksonville, FL.  For the first time in way too many years, I have my daughter with me this holiday season.  Her father remarried (again) and her new step-mom does not like our daughter.  Since it was the step mothers goal in life to make Claire’s life miserable…and she succeeded, I have now been blessed with my beautiful 17 year old.  She is suppose to be a sophomore in high school.  As many of you know, I travel for a living and since she will be with me until she decides she does not want to be here anymore, I have gotten her out of a traditional school and am now “home schooling” her via correspondence courses.  If she needed all 4 years worth of credits then it would cost me about $1450 but it is suppose to be less once they get her transcripts.  I am working with her so that she can study and get the stuff done sooner rather than later…hopefully that is.

Because I had to give up my job to bring my daughter to my mothers, there is not much of a Christmas this year.  I have 1 present for her, and that is only because I bought it months ago and had it put up.  She knows this and says it is ok.  I am doing more for her now than her father has done for her in the 2 years she was living with him this time.  And I know it is a lot more than my sister did for her in the 5 years she lived there.

In many ways I am glad that there is not a lot of money to spend on stuff that we really do not need.  It means that we are doing more together as a family than we normally would.  None of us has spent more than a small bit of money.  In a time when so many people go into big debt to give their children a “Christmas to remember” they tend to forget that the real reason we celebrate was cause God allowed his only child to come to earth to live as an example for us and to die so that we can spend eternity in a better place.

It does not matter what you believe.  If you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan or any other faith.  Have faith that things could always be worse than they are at the moment.  For those of us that still have them, we have families that we can spend time with.  We here in the U.S. at least have our freedom thanks to the wonderful Men and Women of Our Armed Forces that are not home with their families this time of year.  Live your life so that you are not ashamed of yourself when you look back on your life.  Remember that the things we do comes back onto us.  Forgive people that have wronged you in any way.  Love everyone and be the kind of friend to others that you want others to be to you.  Above all, enjoy the time you have with friends and family because none of us are promised anything other than this moment.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year

It’s the holiday season, and one of the things that I like to do is make up goofy songs to the tunes of well-known Christmas carols. It’s silly, but it’s fun and helps me stay in the spirit of the season. Like the start of this little gem…

On the first day of Christmas my kitty gave to me…
a knocked over Christmas tree.

On the second day of Christmas my kitty gave to me…
two hairballs and a knocked over Christmas tree.

On the third day of Christmas my kitty gave to me…
three french sneezes, two hairballs, and a knocked over Christmas tree. (My cat sneezes a lot, okay?)

On the fourth day of Christmas my kitty gave to me…
four catnip mice, three french sneezes, two hairballs, and a knocked over Christmas tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas my kitty gave to me…
five sparkly poops!
Four catnip mice, three french sneezes, two hairballs, and a knocked over Christmas tree.

Alas, I didn’t get to finish my masterpiece of holiday music because I laughed at my own silliness so hard I lost my train of thought.

So, what verses would you put in your silly holiday songs? Or maybe help me finish mine!

Winter Festival at Pink Petal Books

And don’t forget about our Winter Festival at Pink Petal Books. It runs through the 23rd of December, so there are still lots of goodies to be given away.

Ok first off I am going to apologize…my blog is a couple of days late and I am a few dollars short.  But then my usual day fell on a Monday and Monday is of course our jump day here at work.

Work, shall we go into that subject.  My roommate is a jerk from hell.  The lowest rung of hell at that.  He seems to think that everything should revolve around him.  As in suck my cock, each my shit…whatever I want goes.  Yes my roommate is a guy…no I am not fucking him.  Wouldn’t if he was the last dick on earth and having sex with him meant that the world would be saved and all that.  He is just rude and to make matters worse thinks he is God’s gift to women.  I have curtains in my bunkhouse room.   In this picture the curtain is up in the air…but for some reason he has a problem with it being closed at night.  He always comes in and opens the corner of the curtain “so that he can have the air conditioner” yet he then closes his curtain which goes all the way to the ground?  HUH  this makes no sence to me, but then I am not a guy so.  He also seems to think it is alright for him to move my fan so that it is pushing the air towards his room instead of towards mine.  The result is that my room ends up hotter than hell while he gets a small amount of air.

Now as for him thinking he is God’s gift to women.  He had tried on several occasions to have sex with me.  I am so not going there.  One is is not my type.  Two he is nasty.  Three I know for a fact he tested positive for an STD not that long ago.  I know this cause he got arrested and my boss found out about it and told me about it.  Hell when I said something to someone else about him having tested positive for one, he yelled at me for talking about him but did NOT deny that he had to get treated for one.  He is one of them guys that has at least 2 woman a week he is having sex with.  The final straw for me today was something that is actually pretty stupid but it was just the be all to end all.  He took the garbage bag out of my room (sounds nice right) filled it with his garbage and left it open just outside the door.  Where if I had not bitched about it, it would have sat for most of the rest of this week.  Until someone else took it out to the big can to get collected.

Then there is DC…he is one of the drivers for the show.  He is another one that gets pissy cause I have turned him down.  He is a pot head.  Now I have smoked a little in my time, but I have never done it and then gotten behind the wheel of anything.  He will get stoned then drive a rig, or even worse he smokes it while driving.  He has been pissy lately cause I won’t do what he tells me to do.  In our weekly “church” meeting…we have a work meeting everyweek that the boss calls “church”…a couple of weeks ago, he tells everyone at the meeting that he will take the show bus to do laundry in the morning and that I am going to drive it that night to take them all to Walmart.  I informed him in no uncertain terms that he had no right to volunteer me for anything.  When he tried to say that Timmy(the boss) does it all the time, I let him know that he was not my boss and he couldnt volunteer me to do anything.  Ever since that night, see I embarrased his ass in front of the whole show, he has been really bitchy with me.  Today in fact, he got pissed cause I parked my truck where he did not want it.  When I called my boss Mary and asked her if there was some place that I could or could not park the pickup and told her where I was and that DC was telling me I couldnt park there, she said fuck him tell him I told you to park there.

It is all not that bad…Really it isnt.  I had 5 interesting weeks with my teenage daughter out here.  Unfortunately, she has decided that she in in love with a guy I was sort of involved with.  I do not mind them dating, he was nothing to me but a friend with benefits.  What bothers me is that everyone else has a problem with it and I am getting all kinds of flack about letting them even hang out together.  Everyone else is convinced that he is taking advantage of her.  Yet I have talked to both of them…they really do like each other.  He is a nice kid…he maybe 26 but he is in so many ways still just a kid himself.  He does his best to take care of her AND he REFUSES to do anything physically with her until she is at least 18…which mind you is in March.  In fact to listen to her, she tried to get him to but he said NO.  They talk on the phone every day now.  He is suppose to be paying her phone bill so that they can continue to talk daily until she is either 18 or no longer living with her father.

I do not have a problem with the age thing, cause I have dated older guys…guys that were a whole lot more than 9 years older than I was.  I have also dated much younger guys.  In fact, at one point I was like 32 and dating a guy that was 17…with his mother and legal guardian’s permission.  So I am a firm believer that I have no ground to stand on to bitch about their age differences.  And I have watched them when they did not know I was looking…the look on both faces is someone that is in LOVE.  Yes she is young…yes she may very well change her mind about him…but I also remember being 17 & 18 and my parents telling me NO…I was bound and determined to prove them wrong.  I was old enough to make my own decisions and I was going to.  I would much rather let them date and have a modeum of control over something than to forbid it like her father wants to do, and have her run off as soon as she turns 18 and have no way of knowing if she is safe or if she is still in school.

She is just a sophmore in high school this year.  She had to stay back in kindergarten and in 5th grade so she is 2 years behind where she should be.  But I want her to GRADUATE high school.  My boyfriend/fiance had to drop out of school in order to support his child when he was like 16 or 17.  He has fought for the last 13 years to finish high school.  He just this year finally got his GED.  I am so proud of him for doing this…but even he says it is so much easier if she just stays in school and does it that way.  I agree.

I have just about 2 weeks left until it is time to leave for home.  I am counting the days…almost counting the hours and minutes until I am able to pack up my stuff and head for Savannah and be with my boyfriend again!!!  The days cannot pass fast enough.