EdgeofGloria

This is probably my least favorite holiday of the year. I don't know why, but it is. I'm spending it by myself. Did a little cleaning, but not much. Working on my juice video right now, and watching One Hour Photo. It's a much better movie than the one I watched before, called My Date With Drew . The premise seemed interesting: an ordinary guy who has had a crush on Drew Barrymore since he was six or so decided to try and get a date with her and to film the experience. He gets a camera from Circuit City (and has to return it in 30 days) and sets out to make a film. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect. He lives in Los Angeles, so he's actually close by to her. He takes the six degrees approach, and starts searching by who knows Drew's people: publicist, facialist, etc. He only has $1,100 to spend on the film, so he tries to get free stuff when he can. Some guy put together a website for him. He gets an interview on some radio station, and five minutes later, t...

Elaine has written about where she lives; I wrote about Fort Wayne for her blog. I'm not from Fresno. Really. I grew up in Southern California, and it's still home. However, I've lived in and near Fresno for longer than I've lived anywhere else. A  lot longer. And, even before that, I spent several summers in the area when I was a kid and my dad was a produce inspector and got sent here to inspect the grapes and cataloupes. I've always found Fresno to be...odd. It's a big city (over 500,000 population in the city limits as of last year), but in a lot of ways it seems like - and is run like - a small town. It's a very conservative place, both politically and religiously. Not so much as it was fifteen or twenty  years ago, but official Fresno still hasn't quite figure out that it's the 21st century as far as I can see. Despite all that, Fresno is very diverse culturally. Last time I looked there were over 100 languages spoken b...

So here it is, Christmas Eve. I checked the mail and found out two books I ordered from Amazon came. That makes three total. All of them are books that I remember from childhood that were thrown away, or disappeared for some reason. I think I'm getting sick. I woke up yesterday with a cough. My throat feels scratchy. Usually colds start in my throat, which becomes sore. This time, I'm coughing. So I spent the entire day in bed, almost. I got up at 7 p.m. or so to feed my pets and to get something for myself. I bought a ton of food the other night, so I'm good for a while. I really didn't need to go anywhere today anyway. I could have gone and got some toothpaste, and some cleaning supplies, but a couple days won't matter. I have enough to brush my teeth, and I have enough Pine Sol Sparkling Wave to mop if I feel like it. But I do feel a bit under the weather. I will probably read my books and watch movies and daydream. I have nowhere I have to be and no one to s...

Holy shit, what an awesome day. A Facebook friend asked me for coffee. I am on the sixth day of a seven day juice fast (I've lost a little over 10 pounds) so I had hot chocolate. The friend wanted to go to Indy, and I said we should sometime, and she said, "today?" And I said, "why not?" I didn't have to work, I had some money, and we were off. Discovered a great store in Castleton called Five Below. It's like a dollar store, except some of the stuff is nicer and well worth it, for $5. I spent $62 there. I even found some retro toys I've had back in the day, got pet beds, a couple of cool tin boxes, headphones, and a few cellphone cases. Eighty-second street was bumper-to-bumper, but we persevered and found The Container Store. I'd never been to this place either, and I just about fainted. Lots of boxes and cool gadgets and shelf organizers and shelves and geez Louise. LOVE it. Also loved Five Below, and both stores need to open up in Fort Wa...

After seeing Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead about a dozen times, I decided to get a juicer and start juicing. I had my heart set on a Breville juicer, but the one I wanted cost $300. I gave it some thought, and realized if Joe Cross could talk to me, I think he'd say, "doesn't matter what kind of juicer you get, mate, just start juicing!" I started out juicing every other day, then decided to juice every day. Now, I'm on day two of a seven-day juice fast. For the most part, the juices I've been making taste really good. Even the "mean green," which is what Cross drank a lot of in the movie, isn't too bad. I've mainly been using Granny Smith apples and Clementines as a base, then throwing in whatever else I had. Cranberries, celery, cherries, carrots, even cucumber. I can't even taste the cucumber when I put it in the juice. The juice I made this evening though, was a bit of a disappointment. It consisted of carrots, red kale, celery, cra...

I was born in northern Indiana, and this is the only place I've ever lived. We have the four seasons here. We have snow. People who live here, and who were born here, should realize this. Why people totally fucking freak out when we get a MILD snowstorm, is beyond me. A prediction of five to eight inches of snow has people panicking. They stock up on Doritos, soda, beer, wings, pizza, and other kinds of crap in the case they get snowed in for oh, a whole whopping 24 hours. Then, we end up with three inches of snow. Ha ha, joke's on you. I've driven semi-trucks in really bad winter weather. I've lived through the Blizzard of 1978. So dire predictions of snowstorms really don't scare me. And it pisses me off how everyone is terrified of a few inches of snow. It's INCHES, not feet. So I went out shopping. Hyde Bros. had a thing last night. Shopping from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., and I went to it. By myself. I had to work, so I was out anyway, and book shopping after...

My dad would have been 91 years old today. I wonder what he would think of all that has happened in his lifetime, if he'd still been alive. He would probably marvel at smartphones, and he'd probably get a kick out of looking up facts. Maybe he'd be on YouTube, seeing who has uploaded big band music, or his favorite Latin performers from the early 1950s. They're up there, dad. Back when music was good, LOL. Maybe he'd be making his own music. He might have a music editing program and be messing around with it. Who knows where I'd be if he were still alive. Probably here in this house. I miss him. There are so many things I wish I could ask him. Like what scared him the most? How did he get through it? What could he change if he could? And did he ever regret not moving back to Puerto Rico? We make choices in life, and hope that things turn out for the best. Because time can't be rewound. Some things cannot be undone. And I hope there's a Heaven. And ...

I will be signing books and chatting about my new projects from 2 to 5 p.m. The Bookmark is at 3420 North Anthony Boulevard in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I just checked the stats for my erotic fiction, and I'm at over 97,000 views on www.short-fiction.co.uk. I will be giving away FREE samples of the erotic romance I'm working on. It's three chapters of hot goodness, so come and check it out. I also have other projects I'm working on, and I hope to make headway on those during the Christmas break. P.S. My pen name for the erotic fiction is Janell Elizabeth Meyer.

Here is another guest post from Elaine of Littlemissattitude.blogspot.com. She's had some proximity to some famous killers. Whereas I've just worked with Ben Blauvelt , one of three men who murdered Chinese professor Maurice Lam at IPFW, Elaine has had invites to the Spahn Ranch and known people who've interacted with some notorious men. Enjoy! I've always been fascinated by the whole Six Degrees of Separation phenomenon, ever since I first read about it back in, oh, must have been in the Eighties sometimes, in an article in the old Omni magazine (which I miss horribly, by the way). I'm sure you're familiar with the idea, even if only through the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" meme, that any individual in the world can link to any other individual person in the world through six other people or less. It's an interesting idea, but one that I didn't believe when I first read about it. It just didn't seem a likely proposition. How woul...