Cause I'm feeling like a criminal.

Whatever happened to Fiona Apple?   I went to see her in concert when I was 15.   I went with my best friend, we were both obsessed with her!    I'm pretty sure Fiona was either drunk or high through the whole thing, and about half way through her set she crawled under her piano and started rocking back in forth.  About that time my friend took pot from these 40 year old men sitting next to us and started smoking with them.    Somehow I managed to cover for her when her mom picked us up an hour later.  Good times, good times.  BUT I did get a pretty rocking Fiona Apple t-shirt from some man on the street, which I still sleep in these days.  And I'm pretty sure I still have the "No Fur" sticker that PETA was handing out at her concert, stuck to one of my old journals.   Oh Fiona.... you take me back to those angry-teenage-girl-days of my youth.  

Knowing is better than wondering

"A couple hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. “Never leave that ’till tomorrow,” he said, “which you can do today.”

This is the man who discovered electricity. You’d think more of us would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d say it has a lot to do with fear.
Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of rejection… Sometimes the fear is just of making a decision. Because, what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo?


Whatever it is we’re afraid of, one thing holds true… that, by the time the pain of not doing a thing, gets worse than the fear of doing it, it can feel like we’re carrying around a giant tumor.

The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we haven’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the poets urging us to seize the day.

Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug, until we can’t anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves, what Benjamin Franklin meant:

That knowing, is better than wondering. That waking, is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying."

-Grey's Anatomy

BTW, I have a Tumblr now... any of you have one?  If so, send me your link so I can follow you!

Weather

The weather in the south is a strange and unpredictable thing.  Seasons change suddenly, and are sometimes forgotten all together.   More often than not, the summer heat scorches into the 90's, only to be followed the very next day by 50 degree weather, and snow the next week.   Tank tops turn to jackets and flip flops to boots overnight.   Temperatures rise and fall suddenly, sirens wail in the night, tornadoes and lightening leave a wake of destruction in their path.  

That's what he was to her, a sunny day interrupted by torrential rain, a tornado that passes through... or sometimes even a moment of sunshine on a gloomy day.   He was as unpredictable as the weather, a powerful force that often left a wake of destruction in her path.

(From my WIP)

"May the odds be ever in your favor."

Last Wednesday I was headed to the pool without a book to read!   I had just finished "The Castaways," (Very Good) and hadn't picked up anything else.    So, I grabbed "The Hunger Games" off of Jake's nightstand and decided to give it a try.   

I couldn't put it down!!!!   I started reading that afternoon and finished it early the next morning.  I immediately drove to Barnes and Noble to buy the second book in the series, "Catching Fire," and stayed up until 4AM reading, and finished it!  The next day I bought the third and final book, "Mockingjay" and finished it on Saturday!  Needless to say, I accomplished nothing last week because I was so obsessed with these books.   If you haven't read them yet, run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore and pick up your copy.  You won't be sorry!  Here's a little information about the first book, "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins: 

"In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love."

I definitely recommend these books.  And best of all, they are making a series of movies that come out in March!  I can't wait!

In other news..... I'm now without a book.... what should I read next?