I have had one and a half lousy boyfriends in this life. Fortunately I had those fellows early enough that I learned right quick what I wouldn’t stand for, and when the time came to get married I was able to pick a guy who had either grown out of the “Baby, I won’t do it again, I promise” stage or who had never been there in the first place.
Yet here I find myself once again at a place in my life where I keep believing what I suspect deep down to be horrible lies. All because I am desperate to love. I yearn to love, I hunger for it. So over and over again I fall for the line, the handsome face, the impressive size. I give willingly of my time, my money, and my passion only to have it all be wasted on another liar.
“Best Book of 2011″
“Reminiscent of The Stand“
“If you love Game Of Thrones, you’ll be swept away by this epic tale.”
The people who write book blurbs and book reviews are becoming more and more like that boyfriend I once had who would promise me a great date on Saturday night but then content himself to hanging around my house watching videos when Saturday actually rolled around. (If he showed up at all, that is.) I hang so much hope on the promises of a great story and then Whoosh! It’s gone with the wind. But not Gone With The Wind, which is actually an epic classic I love.
Every time I go to Amazon or GoodReads now, I feel like an embittered crone stepping into a smokey bar, resigned to overpriced booze and unoriginal come-ons, but always hoping in the deepest part of my soul that I’ll find someone real to go home with at closing time. I haven’t had much luck lately, though. That handsome popular guy all the girls wanted turned out to be an empty-headed windbag.* The old-fashioned, good-hearted guy was actually a preacher more interested in hearing himself bloviate than in sharing a good time with me.** The smart, sexy Oxonian turned out to be the kinkiest fetishist this side of Krafft-Ebing.***
A good book is hard to find, my friends. I’ve even been tempted to check out the bar down the street where Sandman Slim hangs out, because I read that I should call him for a good time. But I don’t usually swing that way. Urban fantasy is not my thing.
Part of my problem is that my True Love and I are being kept apart by some wicked plot by the folks who can’t get their act together and run Pottermore in a decent enough fashion for me to be able to buy the promised Harry Potter ebooks. I know Harry is technically a little bit young for me, but I don’t go to him for the gritty passion. We hang out for the pure, unsullied good time, the memories, the joy of having it all ahead of us.
Since all the new guys have been such a let-down and the first flower of youth is lost to me, I decided to ring up an old lover. Yes, I’ve been there already and it ended on kind of a shaky note. And I don’t know if he’ll really be there for me all the way through, because he has a track record of not showing up on time. But I’m familiar enough with him that I can enjoy his good qualities while overlooking the bad ones. So it’s back to A Song Of Ice And Fire I go. Until I’m ready to try believing the next fellow.
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* Fall Of Giants
**North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
***The Company Of Fellowes
Have you read the Safehold series by David Weber? I’m reading the 5th book now and really enjoy it.
Jason, that’s the one that I tried but had so much problem with the naming I couldn’t keep up with it. I feel guilty because you recommended it so highly. But I just couldn’t do it.
And it really throws me that this blog entry was over a year ago. It feels like just a couple of months.
http://mycropht.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/y-ever-not/
Why Sandman Slim?
I know a ton of people who are reading it and seem to enjoy it. i think you were one of them who mentioned you were reading it; maybe not.
I can’t remember….have you read the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold? I don’t know if you would enjoy it or not, but it got me through bed rest…..It’s kinda sci fi but written in a historical fiction style.
I have her Curse of Chalion in my TBR pile (which is now a folder on my Kindle, but whatevs) and I think when I’m in the mood for a fantasy I haven’t read yet I’ll give that a whirl. Last time I checked, about six months ago, the entire VSaga wasn’t available for Kindle, so I went with this other title. I’ll check on it again. I know a lot of people rave about it and it seems like my kind of thing. I just don’t want to get into another thing where all the parts aren’t available.
That makes sense. I know Baen.com has much of the series available in Kindle format, but I don’t know if all of it is available yet.
You know they say that if you keep moving from one partner to another it’s because of something in you, not them. And you need to take some time to sit back and reassess about who you are and what you want in a lover. If you can manage to work that all out by September, Michael Chabon will have a new novel out.
You are so funny. But what’s worse is that yesterday afternoon I did exactly that. I was so tired of not having something to read for which I was in the mood so I had a little talk with myself. And then I realised I’m a lesbian. Or should I say lesbiographian…keeping up with this analogy is starting to make me sound crazy. er. Anyway, I went ahead and got the new, acclaimed Lincoln biography and am drinking that like cold lemonade on a hot day. It helps, of course, that it is about Lincoln. But I figured in honour of his birthday I would doubly enjoy it and so far that’s true. I’m still in New Salem though, and eager to see how it bears up under the busier aspects of his life. So far there’s been no mention of his alleged romance with Ann Rutledge, which I would have hoped he would address even though it’s fallen out of fashion with historians. The schtick behind this biography is that we’re walking in Lincoln’s shoes and we know what he knew when he knew it and nothing outside of that, except the little the author provides for context. I would have hoped he’d at least say “there was no mention of Ann Rutledge in any of Lincoln’s papers” or some such.
So combine your interests in fiction and lesbiograpy! (I’m not sure what to call the combo, but I’m sure the latest DSM has a name for it.) Read Durham’s book on Hannibal.