We're havin' a heat wave...

I've been nagging Christine for days to write a post, but she's flat out refused. Normally she's much more receptive to my nagging, but we've been going through a bit of a heat wave here and Christine doesn't deal well with the heat.

Normally it doesn't bother me. I just arrange the fan so it blows right on my face, strip down to the barest minimum of clothes and turn on some old sitcom reruns. But even I've been laid low by this - it was 105 yesterday at 5:00pm, and today is predicted to be even hotter. At least my day job is heavily air conditioned - I think this is the only time Christine's been jealous of my having a job other than writing.

It's supposed to get better by the weekend - down to 92 on Saturday! - so hopefully things will get back to normal around here soon. Christine can emerge from the cave we've turned the guest bedroom into (that's the room where the portable a/c unit is set up) and we can take the dogs to the park again.

Until then, I'm going back to the guest room.

romance what?

Coming home from RWA on Sunday was a bit of an adventure. Canceled flights and credit card snafus made the day much more dramatic than it had to be, and I was never so happy to see my driveway at the end of it. But there were a few amusing moments thrown in among the crap.

On my last flight of the day, the 5:10 from Atlanta to Portland, I was seated in the front exit row on the aisle. Just so you know, this is like the Holy Grail of airplane seating for me (well, actually the Holy Grail would be first class, but in my current financial situation, that Grail is out of reach). I have all the leg room I need, no one is going to climb over me to get to the bathroom - it's perfect.

Or rather, it would be perfect, if it hadn't been for my seat mate. A very tall, very big man was crammed into the middle seat. Not big as in obese, you understand...just big. He was literally jammed into that seat, looking very uncomfortable, but he was cheerful as anything. During the flight attendant's little speech to those of us in the exit row about what to do if we crash (this is how the door opens, the slide comes out of here, etc.), I muttered something about how this plane better not crash because I'd had a hard enough day already, and he turned to me.

"Have you had a hard day?"

"I've had a shit day," I replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry. But you have beautiful brown eyes." (Let me point out that he was looking not at my eyes, but at the v neck on my t-shirt - his height gave him a bird's eye view of my tits).

"Thank you," I replied, not really giving a shit if he was staring at my tits, and turned back to my book.

"Were you part of that mix up in Houston?" he asked, ignoring my I Don't Want To Talk signal.

"No," I replied, barely looking up from my book. "I was in DC, and my flight there was canceled due to mechanical problems."

"Oh. What were you doing in DC?"

"I was at a conference."

"What kind of a conference?"

(I would also like to point out that at this point, any other person would have found a way to politely say "Fuck off, Sluggo, I'm reading", but I kept talking. Social conditioning can be a real burden sometimes.)

"A romance writer's conference," I replied, thinking Fuck off, Sluggo, I'm reading!

He frowned. "Romance fighters?"

"No, romance writers."

His frown intensified. "Romance riders?"

Exasperated, I held up my book. "Romance WRITERS."

"Oh, romance writers!" He chuckled. "Are you a romance writer?"

"Yes, I am." Seriously, fuck off. I turned back to my book.

He nudged me with his elbow, still looking at my tits. "I bet you're real romantic."

At this point I believe the Fuck Off that wouldn't come out of my mouth must have been visible in my eyes - either that orr he just realized that his oh so clever line wasn't working. Either way he patted my arm and said, "I'll let you read."

And he turned his attention back to our flight attendent, Fred, who I'm pretty sure had Turrets Syndrome.

But that's another story.

and away we go!

Today I am packing. Why am I packing? Because in advance of next week's RWA National Convention (which I am attending, and will be signing copies of Secrets 27 - if you're there, come say hi!), I have decided to do something that in all of my thirty something years I have never, ever done.

I am taking the man I'm dating home to meet my parents.

It occurs to me that maybe I should have done this once or twice before. Because the fact that I'm doing it now, when I have never ever done it before, has created an air of significance around the event. Especially for my mother.

My mother has been nagging me for fifteen years to give her grandbabies, although the nagging has abated considerably over the last couple of years. I think she'd finally given up hope that I would follow the example of my many cousins into marriage and motherhood, and I was happy to let her keep that impression since it made my life - and my relationship with Mom - much less complicated.

But now I'm bringing a man home. Across approximately fourteen states. On purpose. And the nagging, it has begun anew.

Thank goodness my boyfriend doesn't scare easy!

Step right up, win a prize!

I can’t believe it’s July - where does the time go? And since it’s July, that means two things:

1. It will soon become so hot outside that I will no longer see Christine in the daylight. Like one of her vampires, she will avoid the sun and the heat it brings, staying in the coffin of the back bedroom with the air conditioning going full blast until nightfall, at which time she will emerge to feed and mingle and bitch about the heat.
   
   
2. It’s time for the July Contest!

I really wanted to do something special to celebrate the launch of Secrets 27, Untamed Pleasures, and my story in it, The Boy Next Door. I learned a lot about bondage while researching this story (oh, my life is SOOOO hard), and in doing so I've become something of an advocate for proper bondage rope - the good stuff, as it were. Oh sure, you can tie up your honey with any old Home Depot rope, but it’s just not as much fun (and frankly not as safe) as using rope that was created specifically for tying up a real person. It's a whole different, and if you ask me about it in person I’ll probably talk your ear off about it.

If you ask me about it in person while I'm drinking, you might get a lot more information than you bargained for.

But really, you should see for yourselves. Which is why my Boy Next Door Launch Contest is all about rope. And the prize is, if I do say so myself, a great one – a full TwistedMonk Curiosity Kit, which comes with everything you need to get started on that bedroom bondage fantasy – the right way.