Category Archives: Personal Posts

#90sinJuly – July 4 – No Rain

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“And I don’t understand why I sleep all day
And I start to complain that there’s no rain
And all I can do is read a book to stay awake
And it rips my life away but it’s a great escape
Escape, escape, escape”

Oooo I identify with this. I’m hypothyroid, and despite being medicated, I still have bad fatigue days sometimes. Sometimes that means I can’t pull myself out of bed to go do things I’d planned to do. I tend to write and schedule a bunch of blog posts on my good days, so even if I have a bad fatigue day, something still posts on the blog here. So this is my book today – it’s taught me a lot about my condition and what I can do to mitigate it.20170626_134908

#90sinJuly – July 2 – Tearin Up My Heart

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“It’s tearin’ up my heart when I’m with you
But when we are apart, I feel it too
And no matter what I do, I feel the pain
With or without you”

So here’s an interesting tidbit I’m not sure I’ve mentioned: I’m polyamorous. That means my husband and I have multiple romantic relationships at the same time. We’ve been married ten years (on the 11th!) and he has a girlfriend of 3 years. I do not yet have a boyfriend, though there have been a few flirtations over the last few years. (We opened up shortly before he and his girlfriend started dating.) So this lyric made me think of something he’s said about poly – that no matter who he’s with he’s always missing someone, so it’s kind of bittersweet.

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So I’m posting More Than Two today, which is a magnificent, and fairly recent, addition to books about polyamory.

Other excellent books include Opening Up, The Ethical Slut (though I’ve found that to be more about ethical non-monogamy than poly – it’s a small difference but significant – often more casual sex involved) Polyamory in the 21st Century, and The Jealousy Workbook, for people that struggle with that. (Which I do sometimes.)

 

The 90s in July Index post can be found here.

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My To-Read Stack

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I haven’t actually done a lot of reading in the past week. We’ve been pretty busy prepping for the Maryland Renaissance Fair, which kicks off on Saturday! We help a friend out with her booth, so we’ve been going to her house a lot to work on inventory. I do have several books out from the library, though, so I’ll try to give a real quick description of what I’ll be reading soon!

I checked out several books on the history of LGBT rights in the US – Gay America, which I’ve now read, was FANTASTIC. I’ve already turned it back in, though, so it’s a little hard to write up a review. I still have The Gay Revolution: the story of the struggle, by Lillian Faderman, Gay Lives by Robert Aldrich, and Stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution, by David Carter.

I also checked out a batch on the history of Baltimore, our adopted home city. I reviewed Walking Baltimore last week, but I also have The Baltimore Book: new views of local history, by Elizabeth Fee, Linda Shopes, and Linda Zeidman, and Charm City: a walk through Baltimore by Madison Smartt Bell.

In more fun reading, I have Steampunk II, a book of short stories edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, Smoke by Dan Vyleta, and The Young Elites and The Rose Society, both by Marie Lu.

In searching for something else, I stumbled across Eve of a Hundred Midnights by Bill Lascher. It’s “the star-crossed love story of two WWII correspondents and their epic escape across the Pacific.” It sounded interesting, but we’ll see if it holds my attention.

So that’s my current reading list!

Once More, With Feeling

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I dropped off for almost two years, came back, posted three reviews, and dropped off again. Like before, I never stopped reading, so why have I stopped posting? That’s a complicated question.

The short answer is I haven’t had the energy.

The long answer is a combination of health problems, household duties taking what energy I have, and stress. I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and migraines. Some of the side effects of those are extreme fatigue and lack of motivation. In addition to that, I’m the stay-at-home member of the household, making me responsible for the majority of the housework and cooking. The heat of summer also sucks energy right out of me – being hypothyroid affects the body’s ability to regulate its own temperature, and I overheat VERY easily. Summer is not my favorite season, especially in the humid mid-Atlantic!

I’ve been reading a lot of fascinating non-fiction recently – subjects of interest being GLBT history, and the history of Baltimore, Maryland, my adopted home. I’ve also gotten into DC’s New 52, so I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately. Not just DC Comics – I stumbled across Fables and Y: The Last Man at my local library. Both are excellent. I bought a handful of $1 paperbacks at my local Roses – some of which were good, one was cringy, and a couple I haven’t read yet. I finally read The Hero and the Crown, and The Blue Sword, both by Robin McKinley. Classic fantasy, and excellent reads. Caught up on the most recent books by Patricia Briggs in the Mercy series and the Alpha and Omega series. So you can see I have plenty of material to write about! I’ve just been too lethargic to do much more than read them.

I finally have meds and supplements figured out, and I feel that I have more good days than bad lately. I think I’ll try to start with an entry every week – possibly every two weeks, we’ll see how it goes – and ramp up from there as I can. I’d like to get back into the swing of things, but I don’t want to jump right back in and burn out. So we’ll try this.

A Return, Perhaps?

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I have been surprised and flattered by the occasional like or follow this blog still receives – I haven’t updated it in two years! Life has been very hectic, and stressed. But the blogging bug has bit again, and I actually started a new blog to chronicle the progress of turning our new home’s yard into a vegetable garden. But then I remembered my little book blog over here, still getting the occasional like….it’s not like I quit reading! I just haven’t reviewed and posted! I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to keep up with two blogs, but I AM reviewing gardening/homesteading books over on my new blog, Badger Sett Farm, so I thought – I can cross post those reviews here. And maybe – maybe I can fit in some reviews for everything else I’m reading too.

Right now I’m in the process of going back through my old posts and updating links where they need to be updated. I’ll be cross-posting the two reviews I’ve done over on Badger Sett, and then I might just get some new content up!