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Browsing Tag: #fantasy
I was the girl who found the genie in the bottle a few years ago. You probably read about me, or heaven forbid, saw me on TV. I’m not much to look at, what with my unruly hair and more-to-love waistline. And yeah, my spectacles and the prominent nose they perch upon. My ears stick out. I should use the past tense. I was all those things. All that has changed now, and my looks change invariably. With every little thought in my head, actually. It’s hard to get things just right and sometimes I revert back to my old look, that God gave me, because it’s so exhausting being things other than what I am. I sometimes wish back to my old life, too, but it’s a double edged sword. I bounce around because it’s impossible to be content when you know things can be better…or at least different. I was fishing, is how it happened. I thought I’d found an urn of somebody’s kin they no longer wanted to be responsible for that they cast out. Maybe a long dead relative they had no memory of. I could understand, I don’t want no bad ju-ju, myself. I was rubbing the goop off the side to see if there was any engraving and out pops this dude who looked like Cheech of Cheech and Chong. It was clear…
{WP #942 The City Behind the Waterfall} My backpack weighed only eight pounds, but it may as well have been eighty. The mosquitoes were literally eating me alive, and I wondered how effective my malaria shots were if the swarm sucked all my blood and I had to have a transfusion from a native who had NOT had the recommended rounds of anti-malarial antibodies? Something else to worry about. Writing for National Geographic had been a dream of mine since I was old enough to look at the pictures, and I knew I was beyond fortunate to have this experience, but the tribesman scout that I had been assigned to was a brutal hiker and I was dog tired. I missed my dog, speaking of dogs. I missed chili dogs from street vendors in Chicago. I missed going to the movies to see a chick flick. I missed my beautiful canary yellow Volkswagon Beetle. I missed getting all the electricity I needed from a wall socket. I missed makeup and uncomfortably high heels, and most especially, I missed my books. I collapsed on a rock covered with vines. I didn’t have the energy to look for snakes. All I’d seen were lizards lately, anyway. They liked lounging on my tent. My Bushman stopped his whacking and faced me with the universal quizzical “How can she be tired already? Wimpy girl” look. I feel sure that if he knew how to roll his eyes…
Day 3 of the rest of my life. And the rest of yours. I’m digging these prompts, I hope you are too. {#240 You are taking medicine that you’ve been required to take for a year now. You notice that the label seems strange though, you peel it back to find something curious.} 6:00 a.m. A struggle. One eye open to mash the big silver button. Sleep. 6:13 a.m. Did you know you could set your snooze to more than nine minutes? You do now. Although I could probably use at least another hour of REM, the team could use me. I rise, and is my custom, head for the medicine cabinet. I should really invest in one of the those pill-a-day containers, because halfway through my first cup of coffee I’ll be wondering if I already took it. But of course I did. I do it first thing every day so I know I did. My eyes are adjusting as I try to focus on my face in the mirror. Law, another zit. How come when you hit nineteen they don’t just up and disappear? Here I am, nearly twice that, and they’re still popping up unwanted on my chin. Or on my cheek. On the inside of the my nose. Those little bastards HURT. I shake out my allergy pill, my vitamin, and my script. It’s a small thing, innocuous…
It terrifies and saddens me that I almost lived a life without Neil Gaiman. He is most wonderful and gifted and unique and I was thisclose to never knowing. If you need a vacation for your brain, if you want to slip into something more comfortable, if you’re tired of the pretentious books with parallel meanings and readers’ guides (why can’t they just say what the want to, for the LOVE), if you can’t stand the thought of another book hailed as a “gripping suspenseful novel with a twist, the likes of which have been unseen since Gone Girl” THEN READ NEIL GAIMAN. On second thought, just read him for the love of reading. Read for the childhood you think you’ve lost. It’s just there, around the bend. Step in. Step through the wall. Perhaps you’ll meet your hearts desire. Maybe you’ll catch a star. Buy it here I don’t know why it’s not showing the picture….it’s a pretty fantastic cover. There’s a unicorn in this book, for Pete’s sake. A UNICORN…
Well, it took me a month but I did it. I listened to all the people who said I would love it, and indeed I did, once I got past the initial hump. These big books…they gotta hook you and drag you under. I channeled my reserves, like when I committed to The Goldfinch and The Witching Hour. This book literally has it all. While I would still probably classify it as chick lit, there’s something for everyone, if you keep an open mind. Time travel, sci-fi, fantasy, suspense, war and adventure, romance, and religion. It’s a lot to put yourself through. I read the majority in three days’ time, and I’m feeling the exertion. But I’m glad it’s behind me and i can gush with the rest of the population, “It’s so good!!” Because it is. And Jamie Fraser is most definitely worth sacrificing hot baths and penicillin for…
Had you asked me Sunday morning what my favorite book is, I would have answered with absolutely no hesitation: “Gone With the Wind”. Like, it’s a part of my SOUL. Hello? It was the theme of my WEDDING. But today….today things changed. If I were going to be exiled on a deserted island for all of eternity & I could take only one book…well, I would still take Gone With The Wind because it’s longer but I would sneak this one under my shirt. It’s the most wonderful book in the whole wide world. It’s a FAIRY TALE. For ADULTS. Why did we ever stop reading fairy tales? They’re like a vacation from LIFE. They’re fun. They’re not pretentious. You don’t have to pretend to like them. You get lost & forget to eat or talk to your husband or answer your boss’s emails. I mean… I’ve heard you might do those things. I am ever diligent. And vigilant. And I will probably cry when I return this one to the library tomorrow, even though I have six of his books en route to me right now. Including this one. Here’s a convenient link for you to buy your own: 2nd greatest. Seriously. or if you want to buy me the ultra swanky signed, leatherbound edition, find it here: https://www…
