Tag Archive | nerdy

Why I Love Russell Crowe

Jan11

Something happened to me on Christmas.  As I sat in the movie theater watching Les Miserable I thought to myself, “Ah!  This is great!  And I’d forgotten how much I like Russell Crowe!”  And then in the ensuing weeks I started rewatching the best of Russell Crowe’s movies.  I thought to myself, “Man, I really love Russell Crowe!”  But when coworkers and other people started completely and utterly dissing his singing in Les Miz and bringing up his past misbehavior, well, the gloves came off.

I love Russell Crowe, dammit, and I will defend him to the death!

© Sbukley | Dreamstime.com

© Sbukley | Dreamstime.com

Okay, but why (I asked myself) do I love Russell Crowe so much?  He’s absolutely not my type.

When it comes to Hollywood boyfriends I almost always go for the tall, dark, and British types.  Richard Armitage?  Yes.  Jack Davenport?  OH YES.  I’ll even take Daniel Radcliffe in a pinch.  As for the non-British sorts who tickle my fancy, I’ll take Shah Rukh Khan or Michael Emerson, if you please.  (and yes, I do have a major thing for creepy Ben Linus, thank you very much!)

Russell Crowe is not my type.  He’s ‘round about average height, he’s muscly, which isn’t really my thing, and he’s got a tough guy/bad guy reputation.  But I love him.  So how did this happen?

The very first movie I ever saw Russell Crowe in was the deliciously awful Virtuosity, in which he played a computer generated bad guy come to life.  Was it his piercing eyes?  Was it his teasing smile?  Was it the full backal nudity and his shapely assets?  The world may never know.  There was just something about him.  I followed up Virtuosity with another cinematic winner, The Quick and the Dead.  Again, another camp-tastic romp filled with soulful looks and rotten dialog.  I thought to myself, “Who is this awesome Australian and where can I get more of him?”

This was 1995, mind you, and these were the first American movies Russell had made.  Based on those two films alone there was no way to know whether he would make it big or whether I would once again have an obscure, little-known actor to gush over and make people say “who?”  I searched out and watched a bunch of his Australian films, gems like Romper Stomper (I just like to say that title), Proof (also starring Hugo Weaving, and they were both awesome), The Sum of Us (yes, Russell Crowe has played a gay character, and done it well), For the Moment (fair dinkum), and my personal favorite, Silver Stallion: King of the Wild Brumbies (which now has a shortened title for some reason).

And then came L.A. Confidential.  So not my type of movie.  But I dragged myself to watch it anyhow.  And it was just okay, as far as I was concerned.  As far as everyone else was concerned, it was awesome.  Suddenly there was buzz around my stocky Australian Hollywood boyfriend.  That buzz got a whole lot louder after The Insider.

gladiatorWell, then it just exploded when Gladiator came out in 2000.  Gladiator is still one of my top 10 favorite movies.  But Russell didn’t stop there.  I mean, A Beautiful Mind?  Master and Commander?  Cinderella Man?  Need I say more?  Five years after I stared at Russell Crowe’s naked backside on a big screen and thought, “Mmm, I like this man!”, the rest of the world caught on to the fact that he was awesome.

But when you are recognized and celebrated you also become a target.  The whispers and rumors started to pour in.  “Russell Crowe has a bad temper”.  He threw a cell phone at a hotel worker.  He roughed up a producer at an awards show.  “Russell Crowe is difficult to work with and tries to rewrite everyone’s scripts”.  He’s a bully and a thug.  And then, “Russell Crowe got married and had kids and it’s really chilled him out”.  Which has recently turned into, “Russell Crowe and his wife are separated”.  Ah, the price of a life lived in the spotlight!

Here’s the thing about those rumors.  The world treats celebrities terribly.  If I told you some of the stories of things that have happened to my cousins, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, you would be appalled.  Whether you think that celebrities deserve it as the price they pay for fame or whether you think the mob treats them unfairly doesn’t matter.  It is a universal truth that when a celebrity stands up for themselves, the big guns come out.

Actually, forget Russell Crowe, I love the coat!© Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

Actually, forget Russell Crowe, I love the coat!
© Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

From what I have observed in the course of my nearly 20 year obsession, Russell Crowe’s biggest problem is that he’s smart and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly.  I honestly believe the man is incredibly intelligent, but celebrity is so much easier to navigate when you’re dumb as a rock and shallow as a looking-glass.  When you’re smart enough to see the bullshit and strong enough to fight back against it, you’re setting yourself up for a PR nightmare.  I’m convinced that that’s Russell Crowe’s biggest problem.  And I’m equally convinced that when he does something like sing in Les Miz, the critics go in ready to savage him for who he is, not how he sings.

It’s also why I love him.  Because I feel like I know what it’s like to be aware of the crap of the world and to feel compelled to fight against it instead of taking a passive, non-confrontational stance.  It gets you in trouble.  But it also enables you to believe in yourself in your own darkest hours.  And everyone has dark hours, even celebrities.

I have an Australian friend who has met Russell Crowe (or maybe it was her husband) and she reports that he is astoundingly nice and far more grounded than you would think.  I believe it!  If you look beyond the sensational headlines about the man you will see small stories about amazing philanthropic efforts he has made … along with his statement that celebrities shouldn’t necessarily boast and invite camera flashes when they help people out.  There seem to be a lot of people out there quietly saying that people have no idea how much good he’s done for the people and places that are important to him.

But for me the kicker in my adoration of Russell Crowe comes from a statement he made just a few weeks ago after wrapping up a film he was shooting in New York.  He’d been separated from his wife for a few months, shooting and promoting films back-to-back-to-back, and it (probably along with other things) destroyed his marriage.  A reporter asked him what he was going to do next, and he answered, “I just want to go home to Australia and patch things up with my wife” (or something to that effect).

Yep, I love Russell Crowe because he’s just a normal guy with a difficult, high-profile job.  He’s a jerk sometimes, he’s an angel sometimes.  He’s made mistakes and he’s gotten some things very right.  And I will stand by my man through thick and thin and fight anyone who tries to tell me he can’t sing.  He can!  And boy can he act!

crowe apple

P.S.  I’d just like to thank all of the Russell Crowe fans who came out to read and comment on my blog today.  You all are such a great bunch of positive people!  It warms my heart to see so many people wishing well in the world.  =D

That Was Then, This Is Now

Nov16

Aliens!  It’s going to be aliens, I tell you!

So I was sitting around the other day thinking about Ancient Rome.  Yes, these are the kinds of things I think about when I’m bored.  I was thinking about how similar our modern society is to ancient Rome.  There are a ton of similarities.  Here, check this out….

Rome was a vast commercial empire, the center of trends and fashion.  It was originally a colony of another great but faded empire (Greece).  Rome prospered because its citizens worked hard and took advantage of their natural resources to sustain themselves.  Then it broke away from its parent empire.

© Stefanov764 | Dreamstime.com

Rome was an advanced civilization.  We hear that all the time but I don’t think that modern people really appreciate just how comfortable life was in your average Roman city.  Buildings had running water.  Bathing was common.  Technology had advanced to the point where nature could be harnessed for the benefit of mankind.  The government was complex and organized with a democracy of sorts in which all citizens had a say.  (Whether you qualified as a citizen was another story though.)

But in its decline Rome’s advancement became its downfall.  They stretched their military resources over too vast a theater of operations.  Citizens of Rome became too reliant on foreign workers to do the jobs they didn’t want to do.  Entertainment became more important than work.  The later Romans developed obsessions with health and fitness as it affected their attractiveness to their neighbors.  The wealthy were more interested in displaying their wealth instead of working for it and the poor preferred “bread and circuses” to an honest day’s work.  Gladiatorial events were the reality TV of the 4th and 5th centuries.

And then it all fell apart spectacularly.  Barbarian hoards infiltrated and sacked Rome.  And most of those hoards had lived within the Roman empire for generations and integrated into the military and workforce.  They were looked down on by the “true” citizens and eventually turned on them.  Which opened the way for a bunch of other tribes of barbarians no one had ever heard of until recently to sweep in and clobber the advanced empire.

Yep, there are a lot of eerie similarities between ancient Rome and modern America.  But one thing isn’t similar.  There are no barbarian hoards these days.

No, really, there aren’t.  We might be tempted to think that China will be the new Visigoths, but I don’t think so.  The Chinese are as enamored of the culture we’ve created as anyone else.  The invaders that decimated Rome came from nowhere (well, as far as the Romans of the time knew they came from “out there”, but no one had ever been there).  They had a vastly different culture and different ideas about things.  They didn’t just march in and replace the Roman heads of states, continuing with life the way it had been.  They obliterated the culture of the empire.  They set the course of progress back by hundreds of years.

In our modern world there really isn’t anyone who has a culture that is so different from ours that their ascendency would mean the total annihilation of everything we know and the establishment of a new order.

Unless….

We’re totally going to be invaded by aliens, people!  That’s the only answer.  We’ve gotten to the point in our re-creation of the Roman empire where the only people who can come in and destroy life as we know it will have to come from a different planet.  The truth is out there, and it’s coming to get us, Independence Day-style!

© Cccsss | Dreamstime.com

Yep, the writing is on the wall.  We’ve tossed enough probes out there into space that they know exactly where to find us.  And one day in the not-too-distant future, while we’re all busy watching The Voice or Big Brother, they’ll show up on our doorstep.  And you know what we’ll do?  We’ll turn on the TiVo, put down our Cokes and our McDonald’s, and step outside to look up at the sky and say “Dude, wtf?”

Of course, we won’t stand a chance against these aliens.  We will have become too used to our instant internet access and partisan politics, our nutritionless food and reality TV.  We won’t even know what hit us.  By the time we realize that we’re under attack, we’ll be so busy texting our friends or posting Instagram pics to Facebook that the attack will already be over.  We will lose and a whole new, practically unrecognizable way of life will begin.

The aliens will probably spread everyone out to make better use of the land.  People weren’t meant to cluster together in concrete blocks, living vertically.  The aliens will likely outlaw gyms in favor of making humans walk, farm, and do housework.  Since all those radio-waves will most likely give them headaches, they’ll outlaw television and the internet and force people to talk to each other or read books for entertainment.  Communities will have to rely on each other for moral and material support.

Yep, just like ancient Rome, we’ll all be set back several hundred years.  It will be such a tragedy to have to eat food from identifiable sources without chemicals in it.  How will we ever survive without exhaust fumes from cars and trucks?  How do the aliens expect us to buy anything without credit cards?  And entertaining ourselves?  How will we cope?

Yes, life as we know it will change when the aliens come.  They’ll set us so far back that we’ll enter another Dark Ages.

Personally, I can’t wait!

The Age of Know-Nothing Know-It-Alls

Nov9

What will History think of us?  How will the times we live in now be viewed in 20, 50, or 100 years?  With everything going on right now, all of the political and social and economic issues that seem important in our lives today, what will last and what will disappear?

Ooo, yeah, that’s deep for a Fun Friday post!  But as the election ended and the celebrations and hand-wringing began across our nation this week, I caught myself wondering how much it will really matter.

To put it into perspective, I was a History major in college.  Twice.  I have two bachelor’s degrees in History.  And if there’s one thing you learn while studying history, it’s how to look at the big picture.  History isn’t studied year-by-year, day-by-day, it’s studied in terms of eras, ages, periods, and trends.  Everything is always changing.  Good or bad, eras don’t last.  Regardless of how change happens, people go on waking up in the morning, going to work, and interacting with other people.

So!  Since we’re not going to be remembered for the exact, specific things going on right now that the media dissects in detail, what are we going to be remembered for?

Ah, research!
© Abdone | Dreamstime.com

Well, first of all, I think we can pretty much all agree that we entered another era of history on September 11th, 2001.  So very many things changed around that time that I’m reasonably certain the era we’re living in right now will be recorded as having started that day.  But it goes far beyond the attacks in NYC.  I think this era will also be known for the economic downturn.  But more than anything else, maybe even more than 9/11, I think right now will forever be known as the Internet Age.  Maybe more than that.  Maybe it will be the Age of Social Media.

Now I love social media.  It has opened the world up like nothing ever has before.  I have daily conversations with people in Australia, New Zealand, and England, not to mention occasional discussions with folks in India and other non-English-as-a-first-language countries.  How awesome is that?  Communication is easier and freer than it’s ever been.  Sit back and watch the ideas flow!

Except that there’s one glaring problem with this way of communicating.  The way we get our information has changed, and not for the better.

Once upon a time, many years ago, when I was a young and impressionable girl who liked to know about things, I had an intimate relationship with the card catalog at my local college library.  Let me tell you, I knew how to find stuff out!  It wasn’t just the card catalog and the books housed at the library either.  We had this set of books called The Guide to Periodic Literature.  Basically it was a bound catalog of every magazine article that had been written about every subject.  I would look stuff up and order copies of serious academic and scientific journals sent to me through Interlibrary Loan.

NERD!

Nowadays if people want to know those same sorts of things that I would look up what do they do?

I’m pretty sure you just answered “They look it up on Wikipedia or online”.

Yes, information is at our fingertips.  We can find answers to things with a click of a mouse.  But what exactly are we finding?

Granted, this is not news.  We all know that the validity of information found on the internet has to be carefully scrutinized for quality before we can believe it.  The thing is, people are lazy.  They don’t verify things.  It’s there online so we cut corners and assume it’s right, end of story.

I smacked hard into the wall of this kind of thinking last weekend, and it wasn’t pretty.  I had posted a blog about The True Story of King Richard and King John at the website for my online RWA chapter.  And I got slammed for the facts I presented.  Boy did people argue with me!  All because I was stating an alternative view to the commonly held image of Richard as a good king and John as a bad one.  Granted, I know that this is a subject of fierce scholarly debate.  There is evidence to support both interpretations of the facts.  That’s what history is.  It’s a constant debate.  Facts are mutable and people spend their entire careers trying to make sense of them and argue for their theories.

Yeah.  I was getting impatient with the arguments against my viewpoints.  Especially since I said repeatedly in comments that renowned medievalists of sterling reputation have and continue to make cases on both sides of the argument and that it is just that, a debate.  But no.  I had a couple of people out for blood, intent on making me retract everything I said in favor of their viewpoint.

Let’s not go there, people!
© Olgalis | Dreamstime.com

But the moment of crowning glory came when one of these commenters included a link to the source of their opinion, their “definitive argument”.  It was an article from About.com.  Said article was written by some freelance writer with a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Texas, Austin (which we all know is a hotbed of medievalism … in Texas).  Meanwhile, I had my actual hardcover paper books written by world-class medievalists (like Rhodes Scholar, Princeton PhD, professor at Columbia University Norman F. Cantor) open across my table as I fact-checked myself and my commenters.

Well, after that I gave up.  I closed the books and the argument.  (And I was cranky and ungracious about it too)  I’m sorry, but I am not arguing academics with someone who uses About.com (or Wikipedia or anything online) as their primary source.  Call me a snob, but my Rhodes Scholar outranks your U of T undergrad.

Okay, so I digressed a bit telling that story.  The point is this.  At the title of this post implies, I think this current era of readily-available “information” and communication will ensure that we are remembered as the age of Know-Nothing Know-It-Alls.  Because really.  We all think we know everything because we think we can click our way to online content that is written in a persuasive style.

Granted, I still think it’s a great thing that information is in the hands of the masses now and not the hands of a privileged elite.  But at the same time, let’s face it, the masses haven’t learned to discern the quality of the information coming at them.  There is no respect for scholarship and research anymore.  It’s all about the McInfo.  And that makes the giant nerd in me who used to order academic journals through Interlibrary Loan really sad.

So there you have it.  We think we know everything because so many things that sound persuasive are just a click away, but because no one stops to verify any sources or do the hard work of real research, we actually know nothing.  And that’s what we will be remembered for.

Do you think I’m on to something here?  What do you think our current age will be remembered for?

Bad Boys … No, the OTHER Bad Boys

Oct5

It’s Fun Friday, so let’s have some fun, shall we?  And what’s more fun than men?

Some girls like bad boys.  You know, those sexy rebels who break all the rules and approach life with a devil-may-care attitude, possibly on a motorcycle, usually wearing leather.  For whatever reason, misbehavior really turns them on.

Me?  I like bad boys.  Sure I do.  But not that kind of bad boy.  The bad boys I like are more like evil geniuses.  Yes, I have a thing for the villain, for the misunderstood antagonist intent on world domination.  Or at least local domination.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about….

Lost.  One of my favorite TV shows ever.  Really great, gripping drama there, right?  And who is the classic bad boy in this equation?  Sawyer, of course.  Sawyer is the guy that all the girls fall for, particularly the good girls.  I have a wonderful, old-fashioned friend who just loves Sawyer.  So is Sawyer the bad boy I love and adore?  Nope.  Not even close.

As far as I’m concerned, Ben Linus is where it’s at.  Yes, Ben!  Creepy Ben, the sadistic mastermind behind so much of the drama on The Island.  But is he really all that sadistic?  Is he actually as evil as everyone makes him out to be?  Absolutely not!  And I will argue this one with you for days.

See, the thing about Ben that I love so much and the thing that draws me to him is that he is flawed.  At the same time, he is single-minded in his mission and dedicated to his definition of authority or a higher power, The Island.  Every crazy, messed-up thing he does, he does for The Island.  I love a man who has a clear mission and sticks to it for all he’s worth!  Nothing gets in his way, nothing stops him from doing what needs to be done.  Determination, drive, and dedication.  Imagine if that innate intensity was directed into a romance.  Aren’t we ladies saying all the time that we want a man who will fight for us and protect us and stand up for us in even the most high-stakes situations?

Okay, another example.  One that more people might be on board with.  Another of my current favorite obsession TV shows is Smash.  And who am I ridiculously in love with on this show?  The seedy, obsessive director, Derek Wills.  He’s controlling, manipulative, and heartless. … Or is he?

I’ve directed for the theater before.  I know what it takes to wrangle a production into shape.  I’ve only ever really spearheaded community theater productions.  Derek Wills is the prime force in bringing a Broadway musical to fruition.  Millions of dollars are hinging on his work along with the lives and careers of countless hopefuls.  You’d better believe that he’s going to be as cold and calculating as he has to be to see that happen and that he’ll use every tool in his arsenal to get the job done.  Is he evil?  Nope, he’s just in charge.  You can’t be a normal person and do that job.

Right.  So I can hear you balking and disagreeing with me.  I bet you think that I’m nuts to have the hots for such despicable characters.  Ah, but am I?  Ben Linus and Derek Wills may have been designed by their creators to produce a certain amount of repulsion, but guess what?  There are other characters out there who I bet you just love that aren’t all that different.

Take the character of John Thornton from the fantastic British mini-series North and South, for example.  He’s been touted as the new Mr. Darcy.  Women worldwide swoon over his brooding stares and tormented soul.  They might be forgetting that he is an iron-fisted factory owner who beats his employees, hires replacement workers when his go on strike, and who ultimately nearly loses everyone’s jobs for them through is inability to keep the factory going in hard times.  And he’s not particularly nice to the heroine as he attempts to run from his feelings.  But everyone loves him, including me, even though in any other story he would have been a villain.

Now, I will admit one thing in this exploration of what makes me love the really bad boys.  In all three of these examples it’s the skill of the actor playing the part that intrigues me the most.  I would probably think Ben Linus was creepy too if I met him alone in a dark alley, but Michael Emerson plays him with such panache that he gives me shivers in the good way.  Derek Wills is, frankly, an ass.  But Jack Davenport plays him with nuance and style, so I’m sold.  And Richard Armitage is the master of the dark, brooding hero, no matter how nasty he’s being.  It’s all in the packaging.  I’m attracted to talent.

At the same time, I like a hero who sticks out from the rest.  I write in a genre where all too often you see the same alpha male hunk playing the role of the hero every time.  It worked for me in high school, but now it’s just boring.  In reality people are flawed.  It’s how they deal with those flaws and what they accomplish with them that turns me on.  My character Michael West in Our Little Secrets is a good example of this.  He’s not your typical alpha male by definition and he’s got a dark past.  Even in the course of the novel he doesn’t make the best of choices.  But it’s his ultimate dedication to the heroine, his wife-of-convenience, that makes my heart go pitter-pat.

Ultimately I think villainy or heroism depends to a great extent on context.  It also depends on the judgments we pass on characters before they’ve been given a chance to defend themselves.  We do it all the time in our everyday lives.  We rush to conclusions and make assumptions about people’s motivations based on the things we want and the goals we want to achieve.  People think Ben was evil because he was in opposition to the folks from the plane.  But as I think the writers and producers pointed out through the course of the show, the plane folks were the intruders.  And in the end Hurley asked Ben if he wanted to come with them.  If that’s not a glowing endorsement then I don’t know what is!

Or maybe, by championing the angry and the misunderstood I’m really just trying to find acceptance and love for myself.  Crazy people need love too.

So what about you?  What bad boy or unlikely hero floats your boat?  Are you willing to admit it?

Why I Don’t Have a Blog Post Today

Sep17

Blogs are an essential part of the writer’s experience.  I think most writers have them these days, which makes perfect sense.  Our blog posts are aimed to entertain, educate, and keep in touch with our readers.  They’re also here to find new readers by providing a sampling of what we have to offer in our books free of charge to people who randomly stumble across us while searching the internet.

Blogs are the one thing that I feel like most writers are doing right.  Twitter is a dismal wasteland of people barking, or rather tweeting up the wrong tree.  Facebook is something most writers almost have right, but at the same time I’m not sure if all of us know what we’re doing with the tool.  Everything else, from LinkedIn to Google+ to Pinterest, is sort of catch as catch can but mostly head-scratching on the part of writers.

But blogs are something we’ve got right.  And it makes perfect sense.  Blogs are all about writing.  Strangely enough, that’s what we writers do best.  I’ve come across some of the most fascinating bits and pieces about everything from the writing craft to up and coming books to slices of wisdom about the particular writer’s area of expertise or interest.  I’ve learned so much and been so entertained just by reading blogs.  So bravo for the writers out there.

© Aleksey Ipatov | Dreamstime.com

If I had one complaint about the way that writers write their blogs it would be the same complaint I have with the rest of the way we do social media.  Too much of what I see is aimed at other writers instead of at the reader.  It’s an easy trap to fall into because other writers are the “low-hanging fruit” of the social media audience world.  Other writers are looking for attention, readers aren’t necessarily.  Writers are like the people at the airport hanging around baggage claim with signs that say “Smith” as they try to attract the attention of their audience.  Readers are just there to get their bags and move on.  They’re much smarter than we writers are.Anyhow, blogs are the best way to attract the attention of the people we’re trying to reach.  Here in this forum we can be ourselves and we can do what we do best.  And we don’t have to go out and aggressively recruit readers the same way we would with Twitter or Facebook.  We do have to reach out, but not as invasively.

Yep, blogs are important, but today I didn’t have time to write one.

You see, I usually write my blog posts for the week over the weekend.  I aim for three blog posts a week these days, four if I’m feeling chatty.  I try to include one about history, one about writing, and one fun or silly post about me each week.  But this weekend I just didn’t have time to write.

Saturday I spent more than six hours working on revisions for my next book, The Courageous Heart.  See, I wrote the first draft under less than ideal circumstances, gave it to my trusted beta readers, who kind of quirked their eyebrow at me and said “Really?” and then I rewrote the entire first half.  In the process I changed so much of the plot and focus of my characters that it’s kind of a whole new story.  Which would be fine under normal circumstances, but I have a deadline.  It’s due at my editor a week from today.  So my nose was firmly to the grindstone of work on Saturday.  I don’t think that the majority of the world understands how hard writers have to work to produce something readable.  Remember writing term papers in school?  Multiply that by a thousand and you’ll begin to have an idea.

I also ended up grocery shopping on Saturday, which was depressing because of how much money I don’t have.  And I ended up buying twice as much meat as I needed because I got distracted talking to the nice butcher guy at The Fresh Market who I like.  What?  Merry distracted by a man?  NEVER!

Now I would have had time to catch up on my blog writing on Sunday, but once again I had to work on the book in the morning, then I went to help my friend Kristine move some of her stuff into my brother’s apartment (they’re getting married in December).  My brother, Stewart, lives on the second floor.  He has a wonderful balcony up there.  We had to hoist a mattress and a sofa up over the balcony and into the apartment and move two chairs and a different mattress out over the balcony and down.  We did this by backing the U-Haul up to the side of the house and working in teams to lift stuff.  Note to anyone who might want to try this in the future: the roofs of U-Hauls are made of very, very thin sheets of tin foil.  Be careful.

This wasn’t yesterday, but that’s what yesterday looked like

After that I went to a cricket match.  My team won pretty easily.  But the best part about that was that my “cricket daddy” Mike had come down from Boston, where he moved last year.  I haven’t seen him since April, and it was SO wonderful to catch up with him.  After the game I went to the pub with the guys and ate nachos and drank a shandy while watching the end of the Eagles game.  Then we talked loudly about cricket for over an hour.  So much fun.After that I had to go to my aunt’s house for a family dinner.  I didn’t get home until well after 8, and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t look at the computer, let alone write a blog post.

So that’s why I didn’t write a blog post today, even though blogs are essential for writers.  Oh well, the week is young yet.  I’m sure I’ll get something out there by Wednesday.  ;)