'A Girl Like You' by Gemma Burgess, a Book Review

I read Gemma Burgess's A Girl Like You recently. 

Spite Houses

So. In case you don't already know about "spite houses", I'd like to present you with links to pictures of places like a 10-foot-wide home in California and the rainbow house across the street from the wee but horrendous Westboro Baptist Church.

In history, there have been moments where people became angry, vengeful, making a stand against either a spouse or a corporation, a rival or a local government.

Here we go!

Spite Houses: 12 Structures Built Just to Annoy People (Web Urbanist)


Spite House in Wikipedia (Wikipedia)

By the way, a child was so inspired by the rainbow Equality House for the LGTBQ community that the group running the rainbow house, Planting Peace, bought one right next door in her honor.

Papermag.com

#TheBrlnWall

Clllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiick.

2020

I'd like it to be the year 2020 already.

While looking over my blog yesterday, I clicked the button "new post" while brainstorming what to write about. Did I possibly want to write a follow-up to 'A Wedding, a Grudge and Miss Havisham' after being interrogated by a friend who was clearly judging me and hoping I'd want to mend things with my ex-friend Goldie? By the way, I am looking at that part of my past differently.
But as I tried to think of how to start the piece, I kept procrastinating, avidly reading and watching the news. I'm gobbling up stuff about progress in environmental science and about President-elect Trump's official Cabinet choices. There are simply far more important things than my inconsequential past.

'Worth the Trouble' by Jamie Beck, a Book Review

Everything's okay. That's the summary of my reaction to this romance novel. Two good-looking, decent people struggle with their mutual attraction, have sex that is enjoyable without being explicit and eventually find a good middle ground with a happy ending. It's okay.

Thoughts

1. I cannot think of anything to write for a joking article titled, "How to Prove to Coworkers That You Are, In Fact, Not a Cat". I haven't yet been able to turn out something like this.

2. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I've watched the now-defunct show "Magic City" because of him. Love him. And I want Steven Strait. That said, the show, which unfortunately was cancelled in 2013, was just pretty good. It contains things I find compelling, but...it was sometimes as if I was drawn up to a front row seat and left...disappointed, shifting in my chair, reaching for my phone. To help alleviate my guilt about saying that, I have to mention that Danny Huston was awesome, playing a self-centered murderer for whom torture came as naturally and mundanely as blinking, with more screen time, and possibly more darkness, than the Axe Man he played on "American Horror Story". Also, Jessica Marais was both a survivor with an ugly past and a ridiculously attractive manipulator who broke a young man's heart. Elena Satine was magnetic as a self-respecting working woman and embodiment of female sexual empowerment, and Olga Kurylenko, played one of my favorites - a well-meaning, talented, bighearted stepmother in love with her husband. That said, yeah, I'm sorry, but it was mediocre.

3. Saw the movie Steel Magnolias for the first time recently and liked it more than I expected to. After all, it ends with the Easter Bunny riding on a motorcycle.

Stacey Ballis' Writing

I'm having thoughts about a novel I read, Off the Menu.