What's up this week?

Another lesson learned: I am perceptibly getting older.  My birthday is coming up later this month, and when I look at my sheer lack of resilience in the face of young people things, I know that I am becoming old.  When I stay out late a single night, my schedule is irreversibly fucked up for a week or more.  I become a night creature who can neither force herself to go to sleep earlier nor stay up until the next night to make herself tired, the latter of the two being my usual go-to.  And when I finally crawl out of bed the next day at 1 in the afternoon, I feel like death.  I am not a morning (afternoon) person at all.  I just sit there, feeling ill and foul and grumpy for hours if I don't force myself to make me some coffee, and lord forbid if anyone talks to me before then.

What bothers me the most about being helpless to correct my sleep schedule is that the rest of the world closes at 4 pm, so by the time I drag my ass off the couch and get dressed, things are winding down for everyone else.  I keep trying to get to the doctor for some walk-in blood work, but I can only fit in so many things before 4 after waking up so late.

I can't handle liquor anymore, and I get hangovers now.  And  EVERYTHING gives me heartburn.  I can't even have the odd bit of raw onion on a sandwich every now and then without suffering like a sinner in Hell.  Sometimes it's so bad that the pain keeps me up all night, or all morning rather, because I can't get to bed before 4 or 5 am.  I have to sleep with Tums and Pepto by the bed.  Pretty sure I have developed acid reflux in my old age, but I don't want to have to endure the esophageal probing to be diagnosed.

And the allergies, omfg, the allergies.  They never used to be this way.  I cannot exit the house without a Claritin, and if I make the mistake of doing so, my ears stop up.  I cannot hear anything, and I just wander around, grumpy af, aiming my ear at things I'm trying to listen to.  It basically cancels out human interaction, because I can't follow a conversation like a human.
First world problems, people.

Bleh, I said I wouldn't rant this week.  Well, I'm not particularly grumpy, just wish I could get on a slightly normal schedule.  Or eat an onion.  And the climb toward 25 doesn't fill me with mortal dread anymore, so woot about that.

Like a give a fuck

So I've begun planning for my birthday party, so excited over here!  It's going to be Harry Potter themed.  I'm going to make treats from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, decorate in the colors of the four Hogwarts houses, and have an epic Potter movie marathon.  Also, Quidditch Beer Pong is a thing, and it is going to be at my party, both to satisfy my love for Harry Potter-themed party games and to entertain my husband and his buddies who love beer pong like a brother (I don't get it).  The game will be played OUTSIDE, and people better stay off the lawn...

What am I reading?

Lord, I wish it was something else, but I'm reading The Chamber by John Grisham.  It is just seems to go on forever, and I'm just so sick of his shit right now.  The man is not writing lawyery crime books or even touching lawyer-type general fiction stuff; he is writing complaints about the penal system and the poor state of society under the guise of badly written stories.  The protagonists in his books absolutely lack souls; they exist only to facilitate his epicly long lectures on how everything is fucked up and everyone is too much of a selfish fuck to care.  It is like those episodes of Law and Order: SVU that go on and on, but in the end, the bad guy gets away or the good guy gets raped/killed because of the failures of society and the law.  It's like that, but it's so much longer than an hour.

Also, there's none of this

I know he's very popular and all, but there are lots of popular writers that suck.  And he sucks.  Or at least the lawyery novels he became famous for do.  I actually liked Bleachers, but more about that in a second.  His subject has potential, but his stories are bad.  Sure, people should be made aware of the problems he addresses and made to question the morality of turning a blind eye to the plight of the homeless or death row inmates; I'm all for that aspect of his books.  However, the man cannot write a good story or good characters, no matter how much he obviously is trying.  If he spent more time focusing on writing relevant events into the story to teach the lesson rather than unabashedly lecturing about it page after page, he might just change the world.  But as it is, he has only succeeded in making me irritated at his style and frustrated that he didn't do a better job at his attempt to raise awareness.

But I suppose that his lawyer books are an easy read and an easy way to draw people in at the airport unsuspectingly and teach them a lesson.  However, I think that if a denizen of airport paperbacks, looking for some entertainment, were to read one of his books, it could go one of two ways: they might become either enlightened or bored.  Bored like when the teacher is lecturing angrily about something you've never heard of that you will forget the moment you leave the room.  And they would never come back to learn any more lessons.

For me, his veil of fiction is just too thin, and it makes his works unprofound where there is so much room to be profound indeed.  He wants to get his message out there, but at his core, he is a lawyer first and an author of fiction second.  For anything good to come out of a writer, they must be a writer first when writing.  Because he is a writer second and a lawyer first, his lesson is well fleshed out, but his fiction is wrapped poorly and thinly around it and never comes to its potential.
BUT THEN AGAIN, maybe he knows that his audience of bad paperback connoisseurs  aren't exactly profound people themselves and would understand the direct approach better.

Although I've only read a handful of his books, I don't think he ever came into his own as a writer until one of his most recent, Bleachers, which has absolutely zero to do with lawyering and is actually very relatable, especially for someone who grew up in the Southern football culture.


What is my current muse?

I thought that reading some more modern fiction would get me out of it, but it didn't: I'm completely obsessed with everything 1920s.  I love the people and everything they did, touched, lived, wore.  I love their haughty, jaded attitudes, their vampy makeup, their unusual and experimental fashion, their slang, their music, their hair, their drinks, their homes, their writing...  Eee, I have to go roll around with glee just thinking about it.

Appropriate gif is appropriate

I'm eating up pictures, poetry, magazine articles, magazine covers, books, catalogs, biographies of celebrities, art, fashion plates, anything I can find.  It's all beautiful.  I've been obsessed with this era before, and I'm ready to be again.  A very long time ago, I wrote a serial short story that took place during prohibition called "The Black Dog," and I always thought it could be better.  I think that this is a great time to either look at that story again or start something new and special.  One idea that occurred to me involved an apartment or flat haunted by a '20s girl.  I won't reveal any more of that one's plot, because I think it has a lot of potential and I fear plagiarism like I fear death.

While all this '20s stuff is on my mind, I'll try to make it a point to share some of what I've found in a Writspo post, because I know it will be appreciated.  It's all so good, how could it not be?!  If you know of any movies, books, poems, or anything else from the era that I absolutely must see, don't hesitate to share in the comments!