The last two love stories I read were so especially bad (romance novels, no matter who they are for, that are all sex and no love, are nothing but disappointing) I decided to reread an old favorite (Blessed Twice) I knew would be very pleasant and dependable.

Lynn Galli (thankfully!) is one of the best in her field, heck, one of the best writers, period! Discovering her books is one of my favorite things about this past year, as has realizing Kindle is probably one of the best ways to access lesfic in a world where libraries and bookstores don't give you much to pick from (if they even carry it in the first place.)

Blessed Twice is amazing, even better than Wasted Hearts and Imagining Reality.

The only pet peeve I have is the same that Briony has until she falls in love and everything changes for her: why is it that people (friends, relatives, society) put a time stamp on how long you should grieve for the love of your life?

Briony, like many people who lose their beloved partner or spouse, has needed more time to mend her broken heart than society thinks is normal.

Having come at this book with the corny, maybe even unrealistic, view that there is one true love per person per life, I had trouble (at first) with the concept of Blessed Twice. But Lynn Galli's wonderful characters and her ability to tell a really good story made me forget everything else.

As a main character, Briony is more developed and fleshed out than she is in Imagining Reality. And M is a very unique lady who is painfully shy and socially awkward, yet has so much to give when it comes to love.

I cannot say enough good things about Blessed Twice. Even the title speaks to the fact that finding new love doesn't negate your first love.

We should all be so lucky to find the kind of love that is Lynn Galli's fictional world.

I have loved teddy bears since I was a child. It's not at all abnormal to collect and love them as a kid, I know, but is it okay to have a huge collection of these adorably stuffed creatures as an adult?

Teddy bears, especially when coupled together (now I know I sound kooky), make me think of love...a safe kind of love, the kind of love someone who has no experience with can build up in her mind.

Having completely lived on my own for almost eighteen years, I usually am more alone than lonely. I gave up on love a while back, not out of cynicism (to be cynical would almost be a luxury when a huge part of you is still an unrealistically hopeless romantic) but out of practicality. Personal history has shown it's just not in the cards for me and I'm okay with that.

They say unrequited love is just a way of holding off the real thing, that people like me (relationship-challenged, secretly shy, totally out of sync with how romantic and physical love work) fall into it as a way of avoiding a chance with someone who might actually like us back.

I don't buy that. Sure, it might come across as easier to like someone from afar and enjoy those interior dancing butterflies and the little moments of joy that come from seeing your crush walk into a room. But there's also a lot of pain (the guilt...the futility of it...the knowledge your feelings for them might actually make them dislike you upon discovery.) Unrequited love (or crushes or whatever you want to call it) sucks...plain and simple. I hate the word "suck," but it's the only word I can think of right now.

It'd be much nicer and less hard on the heart to find someone with whom to be in a mutually loving relationship...that would be happier, more free and flowing. Yes, of course, relationships can be hard work. But the idea of having someone to come home to...to cook for...to share quiet nights on the couch watching old movies with or to go to the park or just be (just be as in the simplest sense of the word, peacefully and comfortably)...that sounds wonderful, not something to avoid or for which to find a substitute.

And, if they also happen to be great at being emotionally available for hugs and some kind words after you wake up from a nightmare, that would be nice too...'cause turning talk radio on in the middle of the night just to hear another human, well that gets kind of old after awhile.

...just some rambling thoughts on a cloudy Friday afternoon. :)

Fidgety at 3 a.m. with that weird "I have a million books all around me, but I don't know what to read next," I remembered an article I had read about underrated (and sometimes easily dismissed) authors of the 50s and 60s so I downloaded a book by one of those mentioned: Theodora Keogh.

The granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, she focused on rather unconventional and provocative (to the say the least) topics for her era and was sometimes even thrown in with the "ilk" of pulp fiction writers. Even so, I'm finding The Mistress to be far less sensationalistic and much more in tune with human emotions, even if they are sometimes detached ones.

The writing is sincere and surprisingly fresh even if somehow at the same time a sign of its times. Some of the passages already 'speak' to me:

-What's the difference when it's over now? she begged silently and insistently of some listener within. Because it's over, however it was—and does not too much worship break the shrine? 

-She enjoyed, however, really enjoyed listening to classical music on the radio. One is safer with music.

This profile in The Paris Review is intriguing and dispels some of the exaggerations about events in her life. Since I find myself now wanting to know more about Theodora Keogh I just had to read:

       http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/08/22/the-late-great-theodora-keogh/
 

As someone who is far more fascinated with people's voices than their looks I loved this passage, especially, though the rest of it's darn good, too:

It was Theodora’s amour propre that kept us from meeting face to face. She said she felt “diminished” physically, but “herself” on the telephone. In her early eighties when we started speaking, Theodora could have passed a voice audition for a worldly thirty-eight-year-old. Her voice was an emollient—smooth, chaleureuse, empathetic, and buffered by an elegant American diction which has been almost lost in the present day.

I'm listening to my Styx's Greatest Hits album and wondering why I feel a bit shameful for it. "Babe" gets so much hate, even if I'm convinced some people secretly love it. "Mr. Roberto" seems to be many people's guilty pleasure. I admit neither song is very deep or always pleasing to the ear, but there's something kind of wonderfully hammy about both of them.

On songfacts.com there's much to be said from the lovers and the haters. I like this comment since I've always loved "I Go Crazy" by Paul Davis:

In the refrain to this song, just before the "Babe, I love you!" lyric, is some unknown instrument playing a pattern of 5 notes (4 notes, one played twice), & the pattern played multiple times. It's perfectly identical to that note pattern at the end of the refrain of "I Go Crazy" by Paul Davis. Same time signature in fact. Only a different key & octave, & probably a diff. instrument. But whenever I hear one, I always think of the other. Coincidence or not? Of course, "Babe" also has the same time signature & very similar melody to "The Best of Times", which I'm *quite sure* was no coincidence, since it's by the same group. Again, when I hear one, it reminds me of the other.

- Drew, B'ham, AL

On the straight dope message board, someone asks "What's with the Styx hate?"

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=633146

I have picked up and put down What Has Become of You so many times, not because it isn't good (I still can't decide on that yet) or boring (it's definitely not that!) but because the level of creepiness to it unnerves me.

The really weird thing is that I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel creepy about the main character or the events going on in her life. Vera Lundy is sometimes someone to empathize with, other times someone you just don't understand. She can even be dislikable when it comes to how she relates with strangers, though many parts of her strike me as realistic even if those parts aren't something you want in a teacher.

The stars on Amazon are pretty much straight down the line:

20 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

Author and book review publications seem to like it:

“It takes a lot to creep me out--I spent my youth reading Stephen King under the covers--but Jan Elizabeth Watson has more than succeeded in this gripping literary thriller. Part gloss on The Catcher in the Rye, part millennial The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, What Has Become of You is that rare beast: a page-turner that asks dark, difficult questions about the state of contemporary American society.” –Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of A Fortunate Age


Kirkus gives it a glowing review with a great opening line:

Vera Lundy's had a little trouble letting go of her high school demons, so teaching 10th-grade English might not have been the wisest career choice.
 
I'll give the novel another chance because I honestly want to know what happens and there are times when I feel like I'm almost reading a Shirley Jackson novel (which is a good thing.)

There's also the side of Vera that I truly feel for which keeps her human for me, even if later on she makes colossal personal and professional mistakes.