The power went out last night for like three hours. It was kinda neat. It's amazing how we don't realize how much noise electricity makes.

Before Jamie got home I was this: peaceful, kindle reading in the dark with candles and my dog:

Then Jamie got home. (He is the tail. i am the little dog) 

(but not dirty (this time) fyi ....cause I just realized how this could be construed that way ;))

no choice but for him to finally rig his light enough to settle down and read with me.
Thank you Smithsonian channel for kindling his interest in bonnie and clyde (and thank you me for getting him the biography for christmas in hopes he'd actually read it)

I was able to focus on reading mine -  Yes still trudging along. I'm now more informed on the Nazi invasion of France.  And the book itself is actually more interesting as it goes.

So interesting how they go through Basque region to San Sebastian.
We toured up to Saint Jean de Luz ! we were right there! and I know exactly how it's described! 
I love it when that happens.

A lot in reading is just imagination based on the words, but when she describes it, I know exactly how that rain feels and how the Pyrenees angle down forming a natural barrier to that castle point.
Man I wanna go back...it just feels right, there. 

The black out did result in my amazon shopping of a lantern and more candles though. Kinda creepy how being without electricity makes you realize how dependent you are on it.....

thank you for not being a jerkface

well letting your men do things without you (as previously stated) is great.
Even greater is if he woulda thought to pick up the phone to call at least once while he's gone on his guy trip.

So basically.... I guess he forgot that he's supposed to miss me. ha.
He had time to post on facebook though.

awesome.

we'll be having words later. jerkface.

Besides that I had a good weekend.

• Adam Hood, great show...he should definitely be more famous. As with all my bands though...i don't want him to be.
• Girls lunch - we established that we've reached another level of adult-ness cause we talked about politics. ha.
• Marathon watched Golden Girls - i forget how freaking funny it is. 

• Helped my friend pick out paint colors for their new house. I don't know how people build houses from scratch...just picking the paint is exhausting. 

Also watched Star Wars - I guess it was good - i just came away with more questions than answers. I have a feeling it's gonna go on forevvverrrrr.

Still reading the Nightingale, slow going, neither of the leads are really doing anything for me. I think i'm just out of the reading mood right now though.

tryin' to write a love song

the husband is ditching me tomorrow to go play in New Orleans. I'm not upset. He's reminded that he misses me when we go away from each other. ;0)

I'll never understand wives that have a chokehold on their husbands. To me all that says is "RED flag - control and trust issues".

How exhausting to live like that.

Make sure he respects you and the relationship yes  - but once that's locked in let your damn men do things! Let them be men!

And really regardless of trust - if Jamie told me I couldn't do something it'd only make me want to do it (even if I had no interest initially). How are men different?

Besides I got my own plans this weekend - i'm gonna have a grand ol' time.

First though - we're going to check out Adam Hood tonight!

oh for cryin out loud -  I'm not boycotting the oscars or movies.

On the couch, in what looks like a huge house and her  looking amazing with glowing, rested skin - her and her husband's recognized work made it possible to pay for all that.

Besides, and this is just me....I think if I was an actor,  I just in no way would want to wonder if I'm "here" at the oscars out of someone's sense of obligation or pity because last year people complained.

i might just be "in a mood" cause I researched this bi-polar forum to try to get a better idea of what it means - there are so many people on there really truly suffering....

and so i understand the point Jada Pinkett Smith is trying to make about race relations in America, it's valid...I just think she should use another platform OR maybe rather continue to make steady headway by being a talented actor -
 tell stories that mean something to people (or at least get them thinking)!
Like "If These Walls Could Talk" - (the first time I ever wondered who Jada Pinkett was).
Lead by example that way
...boycotting the oscars just seems so trivial.

moving on. - just started the Nightingale - i'm sure another sad one. It started with "as I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA...."  but it's getting rave reviews so i'm giving it a go.

a sight to see

in a don williams mood again today. I need the calmness. 
Didn't know he covered this townes van zandt song? 

I got moved from the outer office edges to the center -  i'm the eye of the storm ugh - too much perfume, too many voices and conference calls. It's making me very twitchy.
And seriously, in my narrowed down field of women in my life, I forgot how dramatic women (who aren't mine) can be on a daily basis.  Exhausting....

saw a documentary called The Four Horsemen - very informative - 
great line "To really understand something is to be liberated from it. Dedicating oneself to a great cause, taking responsibility, and gaining self-knowledge is the essence of being human." 
Scary too cause if what they say is true...our "American empire" has reached the final "decadence" stage before falling. 

also saw a documentary on how the Moors originated in Saudi Arabia and came to Spain. 
Even with the tour we took in Barcelona - my basic thought was that they were unwanted marauders. But apparently this was false - they were accepted, if not welcomed. 
They helped bring spain out of the dark age with knowledge of mathematics, irrigation, etc. for 700 years! Then Catholicism basically eradicated their presence. 
Well...not completely given that a part of the information from my dna test follows almost exactly their migration line. 
Still...now I want to visit Cordoba and Southern Spain. So interesting!

Reading Ruthie Knox Camelot series....kinda slow going. It's not bad just not all that interested. Got a YA and paranormal in line. 

i insulted the husband the other day by telling him he was a bit of a poser to jump on the lemmy/bowie "change your facebook picture" death bandwagon.

didn't mean to but seriously...in the 12 years i've known him he's never been that much of a fan of either to warrant changing your fb picture. right? i mean come on.

thing was....I kinda came close to being poser myself with the Alan Rickman news. I haven't seen all his movies though (or any of his plays), so I refrained.

still every time Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility comes on, I watch it....I loved it. (one of the few times better than the book.) 
And when he's reading to Kate Winslet after stupid Willoughby ruins the best thing that he'll ever have "for there is nothing lost, that maybe found, if sought."  *gasp swoon Colonel Brandon.* 

*opposite the above gif though cause I'm blind as a bat without my glasses*
(bats aren't blind though are they? umm so maybe blind as a girl who ruined her eyes by reading in the dark too much.)

And so I guess who am I to mock how deeply a person's song or movie affects someone?

i made a t-shirt with my favorite authors and book boyfriends, then wore it to the rt convention for cryin out loud...I might be a little over the top.

Still reading Spindle cove series - still good
 and so it's friday - dinner with friends tonight, and dinner with friends tomorrow. 1100 springs. maybe?
New Randy Rogers out today....can't remember last time I saw him, I got tired of fightin off all those obnoxious kids.
...looking back I realize  that was one of my first signs of going adulting.
(maybe it was just my turn to make room for them)...like he says.
We'll never be that high again
Stoned out our minds on innocence
Used to catch a buzz on the fact that it was Saturday night
We'll never be that high again
Tell me why did it have to end
You're only young once but man you're not too old to try
But you know you'll never be that high 

all this talkin' round in circles hasn't got us anywhere

yep after a years worth of planning (and a beautiful color-coded itinerary!) we've made the decision to scrap this year's UK trip.

There are just too many signs saying this isn't the year.

So I looked up next in line for "best food in the Caribbean" and we're heading to Antigua/Nevis/St Kitts for 7 days instead! ( for the total cost of what would've been just the rt flight to/from the UK). 

I am a little disappointed,  but it's not for forever (hopefully) - and well... even if it is.... i can't complain too much.

There are so many places to see on this side too -

moving on - again the rage (and praise) erupts in my social media feed after the presidential address.

I swear even my car this morning wanted to voice it's opinion.
I have thousands of songs! I hadn't heard this one song, in can't remember how long -

but at this particular time. on this particular day. it said perfectly what I think (but couldn't have possibly said so succinctly). 

Thanks Matt Hilyer (in this case)-
Music ( and my car)  is awesome:

All this talkin' round in circles hasn't got us anywhere, 
We've been travellin down this road so long that we don't even care, 
I cut the palm of my hand and the blood comes tricklin' down, 
You stand there in disbelief and you don't make a sound, 
I turn and try to reach and pull the knife out from my back, 
While you take the opportunity to stage your next attack, 
I just can't win for losin in this game.

Remember back in the day when we were friends, 
If you follow where the money goes you can see where it ends, 
And now you want to talk about respect and loyalty, 
I never thought that money'd get the best of you and me, 
You're countin beans in the corner and you still don't make a sound, 
While I'm givin mine away hopin they'll come back around, 
I still can't win for losin' just the same

No one can say, 
Who is right who is wrong, 
It's just the way it's been done for so long, 
Rich man gets richer, 
While the poor stays the same, 
Can't win for losin in this game

when HEA fails...

my theme in entertainment platforms lately is apparently acceptance and death -

with watching
- Temple Grandin (so interesting about autism)
- Broken Circle Breakdown (foreign film, Blue Grass, stem cell research)

and reading  Me Before You - good story!   More people should read this. 
Also read more Tessa Dare, cause I needed the adventure and the HEA.  Finished Castles Ever after series but so far I'm definitely liking her Spindle Cove much more, finished Week to be Wicked.

other news...submitted an application to up/coming travel company I read about in a Skift article.
Don't think they're even looking for someone remote...but I figured why not, the questions weren't so cookie cutter and at least interesting to answer.

I've been with my company for 8 years - and it's not that I'm unhappy (which is why I'm very wary of trying something new).
it's not even about the money - i just kinda feel like I'm not living up to my full potential. And now that I'm a little older ...it's kinda disappointing to settle.

it's like I'm stuck in the middle of an old-school mentality of "find a job and stay loyal to it for the rest of your life"  and the new-school mentality of  "i'm worth more than settling"

It's interesting the whole applying for a job thing....
Really I think my resume is pretty well rounded - if I had a company I'd certainly hire me - mainly because I want to get things done right with little-to-no fuckery while still keeping consideration of people around me.  (almost unheard of in the world of media and advertising sales in my experience)

Anyway, it just seems like any position I apply for, my resume just goes into a black hole?
It's almost impossible to get an interview in (or maybe because of?) this "hot" DFW market.

And even in those rare times I do get an interview,  its basically an exhausted (or Dallas complex) person that's really not all that interested in who I am.

So it makes me wonder what kinds of people are considered "good candidates". And when they're hired, was it actually a good decision? or were they just better at bullshitting than I am for the whole process?

I guess it's like Jamie said...you just need to know somebody. But any new and actually interesting people I meet nowadays are at bars and/or when we travel - working is the last thing I want to talk about....I'd rather know what they've seen or where they've been. ugh.

oh well...for now (like most everyone else) just put in $ for the billion+ lotto with my work peeps. 

the gal my husband might've married

So I'm facebook friends with a gal I only met once, randomly over drinks/dinner.

I usually unfriend these "randoms" after a month or so (cause honestly... they don't really care about my goings on).
I haven't yet with this one though...she's got me curious with stuff she posts.
Mainly for the fact that we don't have a lot in common. 

In a weird way, she's what I think Jamie would've married. She looks like most of his friends wives and his old girlfriends.  40s, two children, prettyish, blondish, educated, nice, born/raised in Dallas suburbs, divorced.

Annnnd based on her postings....it doesn't seem that she's really ever gotten to know someone that doesn't look like (and act like and thinks like and has the same financial status) as her.

I don't think she posts things to be intentionally offensive though either - (and it is her site, she can say what she wants)....but maybe perhaps she just doesn't consider that there's a whole world of people with other/opposite opinions based on their own life experiences and cultures. Or that her point of view isn't universal.

But well....it's certainly interesting to be invited/"friended" to view a persons bubble I once randomly crossed paths with.

ooo (subject shift) I'm reading "Me Before You". I have a feeling it's not gonna end so happy. But I like the lead...especially like that she's not psycho selfish like some of the last book characters I've read.

Be kind 2016.

I'm going bullet points -

• our NYday open house party- So interesting how the older we get the less people want to make the effort to keep friends. I get it. I understand. People showed, people didn't but it is nice to catch up with people you care about. i was beat though- it took all day yesterday to recover.  
• not so good on the extended family side - death and jail and health news already.  I mean... i get bad news happens - but not all that bad news in the first few days would be ok. It makes me very wary for the year. And am I the only one that gets bothered by people that say "sorry" for when someone dies?  guess I'm weird cause really I think the best thing is to say I'll remember and give a reason why. Or ask how you can help. Or just say i'm here if you need to talk. or don't say anything at all (especially if you're not that close).  but "sorry" is just...sorry.  that's just me though...cause I don't see people doing that...same ol' generic wasted words wagon. yes i went on a tirade...oh well. 
• umm Hateful Eight - not bad but not my favorite of his. The intro and intermission "Gone with the Wind" style was pretty cool and definitely added to the movie.  They used the "n" word to excess, (it didn't add to the story so it was mostly unnecessary IMO)  And I didn't see the female angle as misogyny. I really think people need to stop being so freaking offended by everything. She got her own. (ish)  And the bigger picture here is how hatred hasn't changed.

Books

• Anything For You - again not bad just not my favorite of hers and ....really... to hold on that long for someone who keeps pushing you away?....it just made me not like the gal lead, even though I liked that she's different from most every other gal lead.
• Read a Tessa Dare - Romancing the Duke -  plain gal catches mostly blind hot guy fairy tale. eh. (but i finished it). 
• I think I've read at least one more? - this is why I shouldn't wait to write about it cause now I'll probably buy it somewhere, read it half way through, then realize that I've already read it....ugh. 

umm what else? Just finished putting the christmas stuff away (and now the house is boring). 

Not at all looking forward to work tomorrow. But like I said:

Here's to family, friends, coffee, books, fun people at the bar, the fine art of pushing my husband's buttons annnnnd stickers. (cause stickers...that's why!) ooooo and adult coloring books and yummy food and Anguilla!!!! 

Be kind 2016.

And Slaid Cleaves cause Yes
It’s New Years Day
Just like the day before
Same old skies of grey
Same empty bottles on the floor
Another year gone by
And I’m thinking once again
How can I take this losing hand
And somehow win