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Usually, when I come back from a vacation, I’m tan. Not in this case. Of course, maybe next time, I should go to the British Virgin Islands, not the Big Apple. In a snow storm. After packing when the weather forecast said mid sixties and sunny.
On the upside, I now have a totally rocking pair of bright yellow, wedge-heeled galoshes that are so completely Amy I smile every time I look at them.
And I had lunch with Justine, and drinks with Marianne, and I forced my editor to battle tourists in Time Square, and I shopped ’til I dropped (this is especially amusing because I’m not what one would call a “shopper”), and I got made fun of by a shop clerk because I don’t know anything about designers and I fail to be impressed when she name drops — whereas I am completely impressed by pretty things and the people who make them. The conversation went something like this:
Clerk: This dress is made by BigName Designer. She’s incredibly sought-after.
Me: (thinking, “Shouldn’t ’sought after’ be a term used to describe someone whose dresses I can’t just try on for the asking?”) Oh. That’s nice.
Clerk: Everyone wants one of her dresses.
Me: (thinking, “then why do you carry dresses by other designers?”) It’s very pretty.
Clerk: (clearly disappointed with my lack of awe) Well, ask your sister. She knows.
Future Sister-in-Law: (arriving in the dressing room) Ooh, pretty!
(FSIL was correct. The dress was indeed very pretty.)
Clerk: (to FSIL) Who did your dress?
FSIL: BigName Designer. It’s Style Name.
Clerk: (gushes) Oh, that’s what Celebrity’s Trophy Wife wore!
Now, my FSIL has a positively gorgeous dress. I love it. But I loved it even before I knew who had designed it, and I don’t love it any more now for knowing that a celebrity liked it as well. Which is why the clerk works in the fashion industry and I do not, and why I’m glad that the clerk works in the fashion industry and I do not.
I think I’m missing that gene. Which is not to say that I have no interest in fashion. I love pretty clothes, and I definitely prefer certain designers and lines over others. For instance, I buy a lot of my clothing at Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft. I like their style and I find that clothes made by that company fit my body type extremely well. I almost never buy anything at Banana Republic, who, as far as I can tell, make their clothes for people with no hips or waist and legs approximately seven feet long. But I would never buy clothes by a certain person or company just because it was made by that company. I like designers because I like their clothes, not the other way around.
Which is another reason that it bugs me when people assume that chick lit is all about fashion. Trust me, if that were the case, I’d never get into the genre!
I remember when my book came out reading someone saying that they usually aren’t interested in those “books about Manolo Blahniks.” That made me laugh. Amy is a strictly “jeans and sneakers” kind of girl. I don’t think she’d be able to spot a Manolo Blahnik unless it was in a box marked “Manolo Blahnik.” (I’m not even sure I’m spelling Manolo Blahnik correctly.) Her interest in clothing in the novel stretches to wearing a suit at an interview and making sure that her outfits comply with the “no metal” requirements of her society’s initiation rites. The only shoes she owns whose brand she can name are her yellow Converse All-Stars.
And now we’re full circle back to yellow shoes. I may have to take a picture of them so you can all appreciate how cool they are. (I may also have to find out who designed them.) I actually chose them over a pair of galoshes with little skulls and roses on it, which I thought were also pretty perfect from an SSG standpoint, but didn’t fit as well as the yellow ones.
These are the second pair of galoshes I can remember owning. The first are a pair of “cast to fit me” knee high snakeproof rubber Wellingtons I bought in Costa Rica. They’re the color of old tires. I think they might actually be made of old tires. Perhaps I’ll talk more about that in my upcoming blog entry “When Piranhas Attack!”
The winner of last week’s giveaway of SO NOT THE DRAMA is
MIRI
Congrats, Miri!
 First of all, Sailor Boy and I hit Level 24 with our “adorable couple” group on World of Warcraft. We started these two characters, a warrior and a priest, that we play together. They’re draeni, which are these enormous, noble, squid/goat/Klingon/human looking things. So cute. No, really. The female draeni, in particular, are the most bootylicious characters in the game. Plus, we have tails. And we speak with Russian accents.
So pardon me for a moment while I geek out about how awesome my draeni priestess and her linebacker warrior draeni luvah are.
But we’re not done with Diana’s descent into geekiness yet. Oh no, my friends, we’re just getting started.
So we’re playing WOW, and we’re in this area called Redfall, and there’s a merchant there, and as soon as I saw her name, I almost lost control of the keyboard. Amy Davenport.
Okay, a lot of you don’t think that’s funny. But here’s why you are wrong. In my book, the main character, Amy, lives in Prescott College, which is the alternate-universe twin to a college at Yale called Davenport. Sometimes Yalies ask me if Amy is in Pierson college, which I suppose makes sense, given that the words Pierson and Prescott look alike, and Pierson and Davenport are right next to one another. But no.
Other times, they ask me why I put her in Davenport/Prescott, when I wasn’t in that college. (“Um, because I’m not Amy?”) Seriously, though, the very simple answer to that is that in the first scene, when I envisioned her in her room, it was Sailor Boy’s junior year suite, which is a really gorgeous suite, and I’ve been told by all the Davenporters who read the book that they knew instantly what room she was in because it’s often the first round draft pick for the junior year room draw. Go, Amy and Lydia!
(And when you read Under the Rose, you’ll learn that they liked the room so much that they decided to deprive a whole year of juniors from getting it by “squatting.”)
But it turned out to fit really well, especially given the character of the college and the development of George Prescott as a main plot point. Yay for serendipity and synergy, yeah?
Still, I couldn’t resist sticking my college dorm room in there at least once. There is a scene in “my” room in Under the Rose.
One last bit of geekiness before I’m off to New York City: The Galley Gallery. If you’re an author and you want a picture of your galleys/ARCs, or a picture of you *with* your galleys/ARCs, let me know!
Thanks for your concern, Patrick, but the weather in D.C. this weekend was actually quite lovely. I’ll be spending the biggest chunk of this week in New York City, where the weather also looks in the sunny-ish family, ranging from the 40s to the 60s. Big sigh of relief here. However, owing to the travel, my blog entries may be a trifle sporadic. It depends.
 So this weekend I went up to Annapolis for Paula Chase’s launch party. So much fun! I picked up two copies of her debut, SO NOT THE DRAMA — one for me, and one for you — yes, you, blog readers! Enter in the comments section to win. I’ll draw a name on Friday. You definitely want to check out the book Booklist called: a “contemporary friendship story, which revels in rich diversity of race, color, and class.” And did I mention it’s the first in a series?
(Oh, and for you aspiring writers who stress out about book length, Drama is 100k. And a non-fantasy YA. Just FYI. And do be sure to check out Paula’s website by clicking on her name, above; it’s one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen.)
The party was amazing. Food and drink and hip hop performances and gospel singing…the event was held at the Bates Legacy Center, which is an historic black high school which recently underwent a huge ($27 million) renovation and was reopened as a community center, Boys & Girls club, senior center, etc. Gorgeous. Really stunning venue.
And Paula was signing her heart out. This, I think, is the downside of so many author events of this nature. The poor author spends most of the party stuck behind a signing table, instead of mingling and flexing her social butterfly tendencies. I don’t know about you, but I like to spend my party time partying. I’d also dropped by her earlier event at the local Borders, and man, that line was out the door! I overheard a few people on the outskirts wondering if JK Rowling had come to town. Go, Paula!
But my favorite part of the festivities was that, instead of a reading, Paula had enlisted the help of her daughter and another young woman to act out a scene from the book. What an amazing idea! I was so impressed.
I know not all authors are terrified of public readings, but then again, we don’t all get cutesy accents, now do we? I, for one, am unimpressed with my reading out loud ability. Sailor Boy says I like to read out loud as fast as I read to myself. Fine. He’s the actor in the family. I like being backstage. I did do one reading for the release of Secret Society Girl. One. And my nerves were through the roof. I fear having to do it again. Talk in public? Fine. Read in public? Red alert!
Also present at Paula’s launch was YA author Laura Bowers, whose debut, Beauty Shop for Rent, is out the same day as the paperback for Secret Society Girl. Hi, Laura! Laura, her husband, SB, and I sat around and jawed, and SB and Laura’s hubby commiserated with one another about what it was like to live with writers. Lucky men, huh? Sailor Boy even managed to snap a picture of the two of us, and I feel I must share it, especially in light of his skeptical response to any public readings I may be offered:
Artsy approach, don’t you think? Laura and I definitely don’t have to worry about accidentally revealing skin blemishes or wrinkles. And, while I’m on the topic, the picture of Paula and me, above? I don’t want to tell you how many he had to take before he figured out that I was holding her book up for a REASON and actually got it in the frame. (And yes, Laura, that was the best of the lot.)
Fortunately, Paula had a pro photog there, and I’ve high hopes for those pictures. But we’ll have to wait for the newly famous author to recover from her parties to see.
Meanwhile, visit Paula and Laura’s websites and read their excerpts. I bet you won’t be able to resist ordering a copy or three. And if you want a SIGNED copy of So Not the Drama, leave a comment below.
Yoga class tonight was great. I learned three new poses. This is what happens when you skip two classes; you come back and get to learn a whole bunch of poses all at once. (So much more bang for the time spent in bare feet on a hardwood floor when it’s STILL snowing outside! This girl does not do bare feet until May.*)
I am a yoga newbie, by the way. I know about 12 poses, and I suck at most of them. I particularly suck at all of the supine “relaxation” poses. I may be the worst corpse poser in all of yoga’s lengthy history. My brain, she does not shut off, unless perchance she is hit by a blunt object. What happens when I get in these supine poses and they tell us all to breathe and turn the lights off and cover us in blankets and put little sweet-smelling pillows over our eyes (I know, best exercise class ever!) is that I either a) fall asleep and start dreaming, or b) let all that fabulous deep-breathing oxygen work its way into my brain and I come up with brilliant ideas and then my mind starts whirring.
I rationalize that the yoga gods would be cool with this. I am, um, opening myself up to the universe, and getting in touch with my creative core, and Namaste, shanti, shanti, etc. right?
Something like that. I’m also pretty bad with the philosophy part of yoga. But, lest you think I’m a complete screw up, my downward facing dog totally rocks.
So today, we learned Supta Baddha Konasana, which looks like the picture, although we didn’t use the pilows at the side, but wrapped blankets around our feet for support (I’m in favor of this, given the snow and the bare feet). And there I am, lying in a very vulnerable position, eyes closed, all open to the universe and whatnot, and I begin thinking about a problem I’ve been having with my work. It’s been frustrating me a lot lately.
You know, it occurs to me that I don’t often talk about that on my blog. I rarely come on here and say, “I had such a rotten writing day today. Anyone want to lend me a drill so I can make a hole in my head and force the words out one by frickin’ one?” But I do have those days. Weeks. Months. But mostly, I consider myself so incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do for a living that I don’t want to complain. Or more that I don’t want to complain in Googleable print that someone can then throw in my face later when I talk about how much I love my job. Because I do love it. Even when it’s hard and headache-making.
So yes, FYI, writing sometimes really sucks and I get very frustrated and I want to cry and moan and throw my computer at something hard so as to create a satisfying crashing sound. Nothing is perfect. But the worst writing day is still better than any day I ever spent answering phones at the insurance company. I can’t imagine the blog I would have had had I known of blogs when I worked at that place.**
But I digress. Today was not a bad writing day. I had yoga. But I have been frustrated with a particular facet of my work recently and most of my buddies have heard me whinging about it. (Hi, buddies!) Earlier this week I was whinging to my agent. (Hi, agent!) And she told me that I needed to step back a bit, away from all the advice I was getting from buddies and agents and go with my gut.
So it was a good thing we were doing abdomens at yoga class today, as I became intimately acquainted with my gut. So I spent and hour and a half working my gut off, and then I got in that Supta Somethin’ Somethin’ pose–which, as you can see from the picture, is very gut-centric–and inner and outer spiraled and breathed in the sweet-smell from the eye pillows and started being a very bad supine poser because I was thinkingthinkingthinking…
And I think I know what I need to do.
Which is a very relaxing thought, indeed. In an exciting, “let’s get to it” kind of way.
See? I’m so bad at relaxing.
I’ll update later with this week’s book giveaway winners.
THIS WEEK’S WINNER IS:
JULIE LETO
And I think she’s out of town.
________________________________________
* Now we all get to hear Robin wax poetic about the joys of hot-room yoga.
** Which was many years ago, and I have had several perfectly lovely day jobs since then, very few of which have ever made me cry, let alone cry daily. I made a rule after working there that never again would I do something evil for employment. Working there felt like being a henchman in a Bond film. Like a Stormtrooper on the Death Star.
I was working on my schedule for the next few months and I almost had a heart attack.
Next week: New York City for family thing
Weekend after: New York City for NYPL reception
Last week in March: Boston for the NEC Conference
Middle of April: WRW Retreat at Harper’s Ferry
Early May: SSG, the Paperback, releases
Mid-May: Tampa, Florida, to speak at TARA
Late May: Launch of Everything I Needed to Know… in Martha’s Vineyard
Mid June: Northern California for A Wedding Sailor Boy is In
Late June: Under the Rose releases
Mid July: Southern California for another Wedding that I am In
August: SSG3 due
Is it any wonder I’m skipping RWA Nationals this year?
In other news, I’m finding that Sailor Boy and I are experiencing a noticeable disconnect between the Netflix people that we are the Netflix people that we want to be, a phenomenon first noticed by one of my very best friends and former college roommate, but now popularized by articles on Slate and the like. The Netflix person that I want to be watches a lot of foreign films and dramas and independent artsy fartsy movies. The Netflix person that I am wants TV shows and comedies and lets these artsy flicks get to the top of her queue and then doesn’t watch them for like, weeks. Because I want to be the person that watches them, I don’t send them back, but in the meantime, I’m repeatedly watching Bridget Jones’s Diary or old episodes of The West Wing or Buffy. Right now, we have The Station Agent, Sex and Lucia, and The Bicycle Thief sitting in their little Netflix envelopes, mocking our plebian tastes while SB catches up on Heroes on NBC.com, and we try to understand the dialogue in Life on Mars. (We also have the last disc of Battlestar Galactica, Season One, but I’m putting it off as long as possible.)
Anyone else do this?
 I just received word that Secret Society Girl has been selected as one of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007.
“This list, now in its 78th year of publication, selects the best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers, 12 to 18 years old. All the titles chosen have been read and reviewed by young adult librarians and recommended for this special publication.”
Thank you, NYPL!
Also, huge congratulations to the other nominees, including Sandy Kring, Ellen Kushner, Anderson Cooper, Meg Cabot, Justine Larbalestier, Maureen Johnson, Cecil Castellucci, Tanya Lee Stone, Lauren Barnholdt, and Scott Westerfeld.
My editor and I will be attending a reception for the authors at the end of the month, where Alice Hoffman will be speaking. I’m so thrilled. I wonder if Anderson will be there?
I also wonder if giggglius, the NYPLibrarian who loved Secret Society Girl, will be present, so I can give her (?) a hug.
I’ve been reading a certain genre of romance novel recently (RWA members can guess why.) It’s a subgenre I read a lot of, and it’s one that I enjoy. I enjoyed several of my recent reads. However, I did notice a few characteristics present in every single one of the books I just read, which I have not seen (or at least not often) in books that I read in any other genre. In one book, fine. But in every one?
* The word sluice. Most often seen when a character is taking a shower, describing the way the water drips down their bodies. Wash, rinse, pour, gush, run, stream, surge, spill… nothing will do except the sluicemeister. In every book. It’s an uncommon enough word that it jumped out at me. Now, it’s a nice word. Heck, I know I’ve used it. But in shower scene after shower scene, it was there. More sluicing per page in a romance than in any other genre, I’m thinking.
* Snaps on jeans. They *always* snap. Nary a button to be seen in the lot of them. Even if the jeans are “button fly,” they are unsnapped. Or maybe the fly is buttoned, but there’s a snap on top? I can’t figure it out. I don’t know about you, but the last time I had a snap on my jeans I was five years old. What kind of jeans are these people wearing that they need to snap and unsnap them?
* One word: “cream.” One word used many, many times. I’m not a particularly squeamish person, but wowsa.
* The heroes call the heroines “baby.” A lot. Sometimes in every line of their dialogue.
(Now, I myself took a lot of crap for the term “girl” in my book. Apparently, it’s offensive to some people that a twenty-something female would refer to herself or her girlfriends (oops, there I go again) as “girls.” I don’t find it offensive, but then again, the character would also refer to the males her age as “boys.” Fair, right? And if all else fails, I figure if the word is in the title, they’d expect it to be used.) I’m not dead prejudiced against the hero using this particular term of endearment. In fact, I don’t mind it at all. I can remember occasions in which Sailor Boy has directed it at me, and I don’t take it literally, no more than I would if he called me his little cabbage. (Apparently, that is a common French term of endearment.) But every line?
* In no instance of a heroine being stalked/surveilled/targeted/etc. by the bad guys, would she gratefully accept the hero’s offer of protection and say, “Yes, it makes perfect sense that I’d like someone around to have my back while I’m under attack, and I do not necessarily view the logical application of assistance under these circumstances as a symbol of weakness.” No, she always, always said, “I can take care of myself.” Cue disaster. Again, I’m not against the plot device, but if you really want to wow me with a woman-in-jeopardy story, give me a girl who goes out of her way to get herself protected, but still winds up in danger and kicking as by her protector’s side. Real strength is knowing when you need help and how to accept it gracefully.
I’m trying to figure out the cause of these phrasing trends. The last one is a pretty standard trope in the genre, though it’s one that bugs me. I guess, outside the last one, that it’s a matter of authors reading within their genre and feeding off one another, or the usual Collective Unconscious deciding that this will be the Year of the Sluice.
I’ve been guilty of this. I’m sure my editor and copyeditor have a grand old giggle at some of my pet phrases or fallback references. My editor has a talent for politely pointing out to me when I’m not doing myself any favors in this realm. I remember a particular bout of throat clearing over one too many Cosmo references a few months back. I still cringe about a particular shortcut phrase I took in book one that is going to haunt me throughout the series. The character deserved better than that, but it’s the description they are stuck with.
Eh, it happens.
What repeat offenders have you been noticing lately? (Please, do not name particular books.)
I was tagged by Carrie to provide a detailed commentary about my bookshelves and their contents: “give us a general breakdown of your bookshelf, by number of authors, genre, series, anything you want.”
Ha. Okay. Thing one about my bookshelves is that I need more of them. We have these huge floor to ceiling Ikea jobs, but I need another one. At least. Possibly two more. I have about three cardboard boxes of books still packed. I dream of the day when I get a Beauty-and-the-Beast style library, complete with one of those rolling ladders. Ooh. Ahhh.
Thing two about my bookshelves is that organization eludes me. Originally, I had a romance shelf, and a YA shelf, and a non-fiction shelf, and a TBR shelf, but that bubble has long since been popped. Now I have books. Lots of them. Most shelves, as you can see, have several rows, stacked sideways so I can fit more books onto them. When I get my library with the rolling ladders (or at least another few bookshelves) I’ll reorganize.
 Okay, first bookshelf. This is the “small” one, since it is both narrower and shorter than the other two. However, it’s where I put my oversized books, since it has a “tall” shelf. As you can see, the top shelf is devoted to lot of my trade erotic romances, including the ones with me on the cover. However, I apparently have a Stanislaw Lem (Fiasco), a Guy Gavriel Kay (The Lions of Something-or-other-Moorish that I haven’t read), and a Stephen Baxter (Timelike Infinity) shelved in next to all the Secrets and Bravas. The second shelf is devoted to my oversized coffee table books, and four huge stacks of Mass market paperbacks, mostly romances, with the Stephen King doorstopper IT, a “Best American Short Stories”, the Hugo-winning Spin, and a herbalist gide thrown in there for good measure.
The shelf beneath is all literary criticism, except for the Donna Tartt on the far right side, and the stack in front, which is a mix of cookbooks, Westerfeld’s The Last Days, and an Annotated Bible, which I was using during the copyedits of Under the Rose and never properly reshelved. Also, candles.
 The next shelf. Obviously the top tier is given over to Sailor Boy’s law school books, study packets, and… what’s this? Why, it’s an avenging unicorn impaling a besuited lawyer! Watch, out, SB!
Second shelf is a mish mash of fantasy, lit fic, and hardcover non fiction, with front stacks that are so disorganized, you’ve got everything from an ARC of Gena Showalter’s Enslave me Sweetly to a college text book of Hume and and Italian-language guide to symbolism in Renaissance art.
Wow, is this embarrassing.
Third shelf you’ve got my hardcover Austen collection, Little Women, The Complete Aristotle, the annotated Inferno, two gift copies of Dipped in Chocolate (one of which I’m giving away on my blog this week!), The Book Thief (I could clearly use one of those right about now!), my personally autographed hardcover of Valiant, and another ARC. (I got a lot of ARCs at BEA last year.)
The bottom of this bookshelf (told you the IKEA jobbies were huge) has a bunch of Very Important Literary Novels, philosophy, and lit crit books completely overwhelmed by stacks of popular fiction, which I think indeed says a lot about me. Glimpsed between the stacks of romance novels, urban fantasy, and chick lit, you can see some Nabokov, a Latin primer, a Locke, and The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker.
Down one shelf, you’ve got more important literary type books, including The Tale of Genji, Maus I and II, the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, which someone gave me in honor of his namesake in SSG, a Golden Bough (which also makes an appearance in Under the Rose), Godel, Escher, Bach, which belongs to SB and he says it’s good, The Lord of the Rings copy we lugged through Australia and New Zealand, *another* Aristotle, because we both took Philosophy in school, and now readers of SSG know where the chapter three joke comes from, more lit crit, a Pelican Shakespeare volume of SB’s, and my Betty Crocker. Below that, reference books on everything from the GRE, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a gag gift from SB) to travel guides.
The next shelf was supposed to be for science in the original incarnation, which can still be glimpsed by all my old Geology textbooks in the mix. But somehow, Dan Brown got shelved next to The Holocene, and Clarissa found her way in there as well. The horizontal middle stack is a mish mash of women’s fiction, urban fantasy, YA and at the bottom there, a textbook on cloud formations. Yay, meterology.
One shelf down we have my original “childrens” shelf, with Heidi, Wizard of Oz, complete Grimms, Harry Potter, etc., and, then things break down with stacks of books shoved in where they fit and, most clearly, four copies of SSG.
These final shelves are where you really start to see my organizational structure break down. Here I’m just trying to cram as many books on shelves as possible, with little notice for genre or author. A bunch of ARCs from Harlequin I got at BEA (they do that color wash thing) next to The Far Pavillions, YA novels, an “upperback” that won’t fit ANYWHERE with ease, extra copies of Hit Reply (love that book!), more and more genre fiction, my Penguin Classics Monte Cristo, which I always keep in the front in case the house catches on fire and I want to make sure I have an entertaining read at my fingertips…
Down a shelf I have more college textbooks on the left warring for stack space against my last few copies of SSG’s ARC on the right, and then the shelf below that is my category romance “keeper” shelf, which is at the moment more than half-full of TBRs.
Now I feel bad for going to the bookstore earlier today. Clearly I have more than enough books to last me a lifetime. But I had to buy Night Rising and Scent of Shadows. Oh, dear. I have a problem.
My name is Diana, and I’m a bookaholic.
I tag the first three people to volunteer in the comments.
Really busy this week. Plus Sailor Boy is on Spring Break, so there’s a bit of an expectation of spending quality time with him as well.
Unfortunately, he’s currently using my computer to watch Heroes so that Julie will also buy him a nice dinner (kidding! kidding!) so I can’t get to my files or my list of giveaway books. I know we’re giving away Valiant, On Writing, and Dipped in Chocolate, but I’m not sure about the fourth, or if there is a fourth. Those might be our choices for the week.
I’ll update later.
For someone who doesn’t have a TV, I certainly watched a lot of it and talked about it a lot this past week.
No, the show I was speaking of in Monday’s post is not MI5. I’ve actually never even heard of that show. I’m halfway through the fourth disc of the show I am watching, and I’m less and less sold on it all the time. It seems to… well, okay, fine, I give up, it’s BSG, and I have to use this joke — it likes frakking with you for the sake of frakking with you, you know? Not for any dramatic worth, but just to have entire episodes where everyone just goes, “Oh, well, we won’t worry about this anymore, instead we’ll get up in arms over something else that isn’t important in the scheme of things next time around.” Are they making some kind of statement about bureaucracy and the futility and overwhelming stupidity and weakness of the human race? That’s all I can figure. Which is deep and all, but doesn’t actually make for good television. And then there are entire scenes that are just so… tense without any discernable motivation. Except for sex. Apparently all anyone cares about on this show is sex. But I have promised people I’ll give it until the end of the season, so I will. It has two more discs to win me over.
Speaking of shows, NBC.com only has the first episode of Heroes available, and then there is nothing available until about episode 13. So after I watched the first episode and got hooked, I actually had to buy subsequent episodes on iTunes for $1.99 a pop. Thanks a lot, Julie. You totally owe me beaucoup bucks. I’m not embarrassed to admit how many episodes I’ve seen, but let’s just say that I’m just about ready to start watching them on NBC.com again. Now you see why I don’t have TV. It’s pretty good. I love the way you can’t make up your mind about Mr. Bennet. I also remember why I resisted watching this show. I thought it was an X-Men ripoff, and thought it’s not, it does owe a lot to the X-Men premise, and if you are at all familiar with X-Men, a lot of the “twists” aren’t really twists at all. (I actually wonder if that’s why they didn’t make a big deal of the “Rogue” character figuring out the true nature of his powers, since they figured that, with Rogue being such a big part of the X-Men movies, we’d all already guessed what he was. And boy does he have it better than Rogue.)
Also, so much eye candy. Everyone is just as cute as a button on this show. Even the serial killer. I can’t decide who I think is the cutest. Probably the geneticist. Let’s take a quick poll:
Sorry, I’m just concentrating on the guys in this round. Besides, my vote for cutest girl is Eden, hands down.
I’m enjoying it, with reservations. I always have reservations about these “there’s a big secret” type of shows, because I’ve been burned so many times before when the show runners tried to sustain the secret so they could sustain the show and it started getting… bad. (Yes, Chris Carter, I’m looking at you.) I’m wondering how much longer it can sustain the premise. The whole idea of “chapters” for each episode makes me feel more like it’s a movie or a miniseries. Also, love Clea Duvall. Just love her. All the time.
More TV blogging. Was anyone else completely underwhelmed by the mini-finale of Veronica Mars this week? Yawn. Yawn. I wasn’t dramatically engaged by any of it. Perhaps because, for the first time, the solving of the mystery did not involve our girl putting herself in harm’s way, nor did it involve any emotional oomph. I was more moved by the basketball player and his coach father a few weeks ago. I actually thought Veronica was in danger a few times there. I just didn’t even care. And if they think they are pulling my whole heart strings with the new love triangle, they can think again. As far as I can tell, Logan is actually interested in dating this girl, not in pulling some weird twisted Hannah crap like last year. Also, I like this girl, whereas I hated Hannah and found her enormously annoying. SB always accused me of hating Hannah merely because she was an “other woman.” But I’m no simple LoVe shipper. No, my love for Logan is pure. I just want him to be happy. If Veronica can’t make it happen then let’s move along to the next girl that can. (In white text: I actually think Parker is a lot like Lilly, only maybe not quite so screwed up — fun loving, brave, spunky, sexy. I think they’d be really good together. She’s also so perky and happy, even considering what she’s been through, that she may be a good choice for him, since he does have that tendency to brood.) So I’m all for this pairing. Well played, Rob Thomas.
Okay, now I’m really televisioned out. Let’s give away an ARC. The winner this week, despite Patrick and Heather’s attempts to stuff the ballot box, is:
Gina Black
Woo hoo!
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