You ever have one of those things that you feel bitter about even though years have passed and you know you should have let it go long ago?

My mom has an entire list of those things. There are some subjects we just don't bring up to her...like how my father's siblings wanted him to pay taxes on a farm they all owned and on which he did all the work...that'll get her spitting mad almost instantly, and it happened about 35 years ago.

Turns out I have one of those things too, and I just feel like writing about it. You know...because writing about it will make me feel better. Or because I'm shallow and just can't let it go.

I was with my ex-girlfriend She-Ra for about three years. I loooooved her. We fought all the time, she had a terrible temper, we rarely had sex, but I adored her and would have walked over hot coals if I thought it would have made her happy. So naturally, she left me for another woman.

Oddly, this is not the part I'm bitter about. Really...she did me a favor. I realize that every morning when I wake up beside Jadyn.

When I was with She-Ra, we had a little business together. Basically, I was self-employed doing an art-sign-ish type thing, and she helped me. When we broke up, I continued with my business, but she was essentially out of a job. I tried to continue working with her, but it was ultimately too painful and I had to stop for the sake of my sanity. Thereafter ensued several months of bickering and unhappiness with her threatening to sue to prevent me from plying my trade (something I could do without her but she couldn't do without me), and me giving her money when I could (I did, after all, have Nate to support), and just generally being about as miserable as I'd ever been.

So about nine months after we broke up, Christmas rolled around. By that time, we'd managed to get on more or less civilized speaking terms again. She began campaigning for a cowboy hat. She desperately wanted one and let me know that she didn't think her new girlfriend was going to provide this cowboy hat. She also let me know that she didn't have any money to buy christmas presents for her parents.

So I gave her about a third of my earnings for December (my busiest month), and bought her a very nice black cowboy hat.

She did buy presents for her parents, but also spent a good bit of that money buying presents for the new girlfriend.

This is still not the part about which I am bitter. As it turns out, I've always liked her new girlfriend and begrudge her very little.

She invited me to come to her parent's house so that we could exchange gifts (so that I could give her the cowboy hat). She loved the hat. It looked great on her. Very sexy. And then I opened her gift to me.

And here's the part that still grinds my ass unto this very day: It was a cassette tape. To be exact, it was Cassette 3 of a motown collection. I'd seen that tape and the other dozen or so that were part of the collection in pretty much every gas station I'd stopped in during the previous few months. They weren't free with gasoline purchase or anything, but my guess is that she bought that tape with change from a twenty after she'd filled her tank at the gas station.

So there it is. My ugly underbelly, displayed for anyone cares to view it.

You know what makes me feel really bad about still being bitter about this? We really are good friends now. She-Ra and her girlfriend (who once said I should call her Wiz or Diz or Fiz on my blog) are two of my very best friends. They've supported me through some rough times. And the real irony is that Nate and I have spent a couple of christmases with them, and they couldn't possibly be warmer or more generous.

Which just goes to show...well...something, I guess.

It's alright...no need for panic...I've hijacked my blog back.

I am not, in fact, having any sort of obscene relationship with a book. A little fondling is not so terrible, is it? After all, it's filled with all these wonderful illustrations...I couldn't help myself.

Actually, I am in the midst of a big reading phase these days. I've always been a bookworm, but here lately there seem to be so many wonderful things to read that I can't bear to finish one book without the next already in hand and waiting for me.

Right now I'm reading Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower', which is the last of the gunslinger series. As I mentioned before, the illustrations are beautiful, and I'm hoping the story is equally good. I'm actually almost afraid to read this one, because my expectations are so high. How could they not be after reading the previous six books in the series and mostly loving them? What's going to happen? Will Roland breach the Tower? Will the Crimson King fall? What of Jake and Eddie and Susannah? And Oy? Will there be an ultimately satisfying ending for them? And how is Stephen King going to deal with the fact that he killed himself off in the last book? And what about the little teasing threads of the Tower series that have appeared in his other books? I am anxiously awaiting an appearance by Jack from 'The Talisman' and 'Black House.' I'm afraid I'll be disappointed if he doesn't show up. I will post a follow up to this, wherein I won't answer these questions (don't want to spoil it for anyone else), but I will indicate my general level of satisfaction with the outcome.

The book I just finished is called 'The Passage' by Connie Willis. It was excellent. I blew through about 800 pages in record time, even for me. This one was about a couple of people who were researching the Near Death Experience and what it's purpose might be. It wasn't a 'light at the end of the tunnel' kind of cheesy thing, either. It was more scientific, and very compelling. Kept me turning pages.

In addition to that, I'm also in the middle of reading 'Blow Fly' by Patricia Cornwell. I put it down to read 'The Dark Tower'. I don't have a very high expectation for this book, but I'm reading it because I used to love Patricia Cornwell and I'm giving her one more chance. Basically my problem with her is that her character, Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner, has gotten progressively more depressed and the degree to which her life sucks has increased significantly over the course of this series of books...until after the last book, 'Black Notice', I just wanted her to go throw herself under a bus. I don't know how this character gets up in the mornings. But...being an eternal optimist, I'm hoping things will be looking up for ol' Kay. We'll see. There's yet another book in this series which is out in hardback now, and if this one turns out to be less relentlessly miserable and depressing than the last few, I'll buy it.

Another series of books I'm really enjoying are Janet Evanovich's 'One for the Money', 'Two for the Dough', etc. series. These are great! They are the literary equivalent of potato chips and you can't eat just one. There are ten of these, and I'm up to the fifth. As soon as I finish with Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell, I'll be returning to Janet Evanovich. With this author, it's all about the story and the characters. She doesn't bother much with flowery language, but the story will grab you and drag you right along, and the characters are so quirky and fun that you end up really bonding with them. Stephanie Plum, Evanovich's main character, is a fledgling bounty hunter, who has an entire array of unlikely sidekicks to help her out -- chief among them is Lula, an ex-hooker, but there's also a drag queen, a dwarf, a hamster, and Stephanie's crazy grandmother -- and who knows who else will turn up in the next five books. I can't wait.

Another writer I've recently discovered who deserves a mention is Lisa Scottoline. She gets compared to John Grisham because they are both lawyers and write legal thrillers, but I actually prefer her stories to his. Firstly, her main characters are pretty much always women, which is fun, but secondly and most importantly, her pacing is incredible. Don't pick up one of her books if you aren't prepared to be engaged right from the first page. Her stories start off fast and only speed up as they go. Go to www.scottoline.com to see what I mean - she has first chapters to most of her books posted online.

What's everyone else reading? :)

This site has been hijacked by none other than the Queen of the Ferrari's.

I thought I would let the public at large know that Charlotte is being held hostage by Stephen King and his newest book which arrived by Amazon Messenger at my front door yesterday.

I am offering a HUGE ransom for the safe return of my darling wife before I am submerged in the gloom of weekend turmoils by my lonesome.

Why......it was just last night she could be found in a GROCERY store of all places FONDLING the book! Sniffing it even! Her eyes were wide with anticipation! She just stood there! Transfixed! Licking her lips! Her heart was racing!

Good God! It was almost obscene, I tell you!

And, then, out of nowhere, out of the blue, just at lunch today..... He's got her in his grasp!!!

::faint::

What is a worried wife to do?!