Fair Day

Yesterday was that time again: the Deerfield Fair. We go every year, and it's mostly the same year to year, but why not? How often do you get to pet sheep or look at piglets? It's probably bad to enjoy looking at the cute animals and be an unrepentant meat eater, but I never claimed it was logical to think that they're sweet but not feel bothered about the thought of eating them.

This year they had a Portuguese food stand, which disappointed me a little because they didn't offer Portuguese fried dough. I amused myself by getting my friend to try to pronounce chourico, and she was stymied since it is pronounced nothing like it's spelled ("shu-REES"). I hate to admit it, but it's one of the few words in Portuguese I actually know. You'd think that considering that my great-grandfather, who was from the Azores, lived until I was 11, and my great-grandmother, from Bermuda, lived until just before I turned 19, that I'd know some more. But no, their families were very much "now that we've come to the US we speak English only" so not even my grandfather spoke it. So, all I know is "bless me", "so-so" and slang terms for feces and bugs.

In all, it was a pretty decent day at the fair. It would have been better if I hadn't fallen to the communists the day before and been sore and having to deal with it all, (in deference to male readers I'll just say that 7 hours of walking can do unpleasant things to a menstruating woman, and leave it at that) but what can you do? Mother nature's kind of a bitch, and at least it should ease off considerably before Vynce's wedding tomorrow.

"Promises you never gave, but your eyes have told me so much more." - Intruder, Teeth In Your Heart

Stupid Human Tricks

Apparently a lot of people refer to eyes the color of mine as "blue-green hazel" and the classic hazel as "gold-green hazel" to differentiate between the two. At any rate, my eyes change colors. The default color seems hard for people to decide if they're light blue or light green, and at times they're other shades of blue, green, gray and blue-green.

Generally speaking they change color due to how dry they are (drier=greener), if I have gotten almost no sleep (bright blue-green - people ask if I'm wearing contacts), if I'm upset (darker blues and grays), and what color clothes I'm wearing. So what makes them change is not something I really can control beyond deciding what color to wear. Until now.

A few nights ago I decided to try the tongue cleaning section on the back of my new tooth brush, and it triggered my gag reflex. I happened to look up at the mirror and notice that my eyes looked blue-green for a moment, but it passed. Being someone who is willing to do unpleasant things to herself in the name scientific experiment, I did it again. And I'll be damned, for 3 or 4 seconds my eyes changed to that bright blue-green color before fading back to the "normal" color. Weird. And consistent.

So, that's my new stupid human trick. What's yours?


"You're a goddamn fool and I love you" - David Bazan, Wolves At The Door

Nothing is ever set in NH...

I watched the pilot of The Secret Circle last night, which is about the descendants of the Salem witches, and it got me to thinking about something I've thought of before...Why, of the six New England states, are Massachusetts and Maine the one ones to have movies and TV shows set in them regularly? Sure, I adore Stephen King's Maine so I'm always happy to see something set there (like Kingdom Hospital, or my favorite, Haven) and a lot of the Massachusetts things are connected to witches or Boston, but...wouldn't it be nice to see something set in Vermont? Or Connecticut? Or Rhode Island, but not mob related (well, I guess there's Outside Providence too)?

You know I'm a Massachusetts native, but I've lived in New Hampshire nearly twice as long, and we've had, what, that immediately failure of a TV show about Poland NH and the recent and awful Yellowbrickroad movie to represent the state? That's pitiful.

Eventually, after I publish my Pull-Push-Hold trilogy and they become bestsellers, I'll sell the TV rights to Syfy, and they're say, "Shannon, these books are wonderful. But we want to make one little change. We were thinking that it'd be better if we set the show in Maine...." =(

Speaking of making the books into a show (hey, it could happen) I finally have casting ideas.

Caitlin - protagonist, brings the dead back to life: Alona Tal.
Danny - Caitlin's foster son who shares her ablities: Zane Huett
Kyler - Caitlin's dead boyfriend who just won't commit...to living: Sean Faris
Lori - Manchester police detective who enlists Caitlin's help in the serial killer case: Kelly Rowan
Max - the first person Caitlin rescued, now her neurotic ex-fiance: Taylor Kinney
Jasmine - Caitlin's first paying client, sends her referrals from grief support groups: Elaine Cassidy
Reilly- one of the murder victims Caitlin interacts with in the afterlife: Ariel Gade

I haven't decided on who would be ideal to play the serial killer or his unwilling "assistant" yet, but they'd be actors in their mid-to-late 30s.

"Stormed my winter palace but they couldn’t take it" - Santagold featuring Karen O, Go

Your musical taste kinda sucks

Not you, the specific you reading this blog for some reason, but people in general. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you realize that I listen to a lot more indie music than mainstream, so it seemed like downloading other people's monthly indie playlists would be a good idea. It'd be faster than combing through the music blogs I usually read, so it's a good idea.

But it's not a good idea after all.

I suppose I should have doubted the wisdom of this after taking note of how often bands I hate, like Animal Collective, end up on people's "best of" lists, but surely they couldn't just like terrible bands, right? There's seldom been one of those lists I didn't find some agreement with, so I downloaded a few playlists.

Okay...there are definitely a few great songs on each, but most of them are not diamonds in the rough. They're just the rough. For every song I like, another 10 end up in my reject folder*. For some reason so many of these bands sound the same too, like badly cloned copies of Coldplay recorded at too low a volume.  Don't get me wrong, "Trouble" was a good song back in the day, but do we need a million homages?

They say 90% of anything is crap, but why do you [music playlist complilers] like the crap? Why? Huh, huh, why?

*As an aside, I don't really know why I keep copies of songs I don't like on data DVDs, I just...always have. Once in a great while I go through them and rescue a song or three I've reconsidered, but it's hardly worth the effort. Good thing blank DVDs are cheap...


"I wouldn’t let you spark the fire I’m starting now" -  Tracing Figures, Bury Me

Hatchbacks part II

Back what feels like a million years ago, but was really 2006, I posted about things that surprisingly fit in my then vehicle, a Dodge Shadow hatchback. That car has since gone to the junkyard in the sky, and I hope the vehicle after that, a Kia Sephia, is languishing in what passes as the vehicle equivalent of hell, but my current vehicle is another hatchback, a Nissan Versa. I actually don't like it as much as the Shadow (it's bad to distrust a vehicle with 18,000 miles on it, right? I did already had to replace the tires, though), but it is useful. Around here both hatchbacks and Jeep Wranglers are considered kind of girly, and it stands to reason because guys who tend to want utility buy pick ups or big SUVs. It's practical to have something you can haul stuff around here, rather than pretentious. I think.

I think I had a point when I started this post, sorry. Anyway, surprising stuff that fits in a hatchback. I have a new entry to the list: a 24" dual stage snow thrower. God only knows why the old one was impossible to replace in January, but now that it's time for  Labor Day week sales, they're everywhere. If there's a God in heaven a snow thrower will never be useful in September, even here. Dual stage this time, because in retrospect a single stage one having our winters inflicted upon it was only asking for an early death for it. Poor snow thrower 1.0, it did try so hard.

Some people hate to make a big purchase like this one, a weather dependant one, but I'll tell you, if $500 is the price for not getting enough snow to make this thing useful, it's money well spent. I'd gladly pay $500 a year for mild winters.


"Say you're confused. You want me and you want to hurt me. To beat out the cold that keeps you from having me completely. Say I'm so cold I rip your skin. Brag that I've got a bitterness in my chest where my love should be." - The Shondes, Winter

August Music

Bondage Fairies - 1-0 buy

Brainless Wankers - Pogo Prose buy

Conditions - Illuminati buy

Crossfade - Killing Me Inside buy

Darker My Love - Dear Author

Eisley - Better Love buy

El Ten Eleven - Jumping Frenchmen of Maine buy if you don't know what JFoM are, google it

Faunts - Out on a Limb buy

Field Mouse - Anomie buy

Fight Like Apes - Tie Me Up With Jackets buy

Flashguns - St George

Florence And The Machine - Blinding buy

Har Mar Superstar - Tall Boy buy I found this song a little confusing until I learned it was written for Britney Spears

Hey Rosetta - Yes! Yes! Yes!

I Might Be Wrong - Elliot buy

Kanute - Tangle Me

Ke$ha featuring 3OH!3 - Blah Blah Blah buy If you aren't amused by her adopted persona, I don't know what to tell you

Ke$ha - Dancing With Tears In My Eyes buy

Lamb & Damien Rice - Back To Beginning (2011 version)

LAW - XXX buy

Loch Lomond - Wax and Wire buy

Miles Kane - Before Its Midnight

Mono Inc. - Gothic Queen buy

Múm - Guilty Rocks buy

Patrick Wolf - Damaris buy

Singing Adams - I Need Your Mind buy

Skeletal Family - Promised Land (Extended Version) buy

Some Kind of Giant Mudfish - My Heroin  free MP3 this song is sort of hypnotic

Sweet Talk Radio - We All Fall Down buy

Testing Tomorrow - Revolver

The Domino State - Pillow Song

The Kills - Future Starts Slow buy

The Rapture - How Deep Is Your Love buy

Tracing Figures - Bury Me

White Lies - Holy Ghost buy

Wintersleep - Experience The Jewel buy

Woods - Mad At You

As usual:
Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
Neither = never heard of them before


"I'm holding out but not getting an answer. I'm finding out that cheating gets it faster." - Jimmy Eat World, Get It Faster

Words That [don't] Work

Let's talk about Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank I. Luntz.

Apparently this book is being touted on some Fox News show, because my mother recommended it for me given that I'm looking for a part-time job to compliment my "real" job, and probably would benefit from advice about resume/cover letter writing. So, I decided that reading the book couldn't hurt.

It didn't hurt, but it sure didn't help. There are only two types of people who probably got anything out of reading it: people writing political speeches, and people writing commericals. Sure, I now have a greater store of useless triva knowledge of the TV jingle kind, but that's not what I was hoping for. The part that the book jacket says is helpful in everyday situations? That's in one 10-page chapter.

Reading an unhelpful book might not have been so bad if it hadn't also annoyed the hell out of me too. The funny thing is, as someone who votes Republican (though I'm a libertarian leaning moderate) I'm part of the target audience for this book, and I still found the tone unbearably smug. And for someone who thinks he's a maven of words, he jumped all over the place and repeated himself more times than I could count.

Skip this book. It's full of hot air.


"You could be the reason I love. You could be the reason I cry. You could, you could, you could" - Jakalope, Pretty Life

Come on, Irene

Well, that was no fun.

Hurricane Irene was rather weak by the time she got here, and there are a few storms every year that have higher winds and so on, but because PSNH is such a lousy power company, we got to experience the first multi-day summer power failure in my lifetime. I now know that 60+ hour power failures also suck during the summer, not just the winter. I would have been content going to my grave without learning that, but what can you do?

You know how some people wistfully say they wish they'd been born in another time? Take away the power for a few days, and you'll cure most of their romantic longings for by-gone days. Everything is harder without power, and you really notice how much you depend on heat or cooling when you can't turn up the thermostat in the winter, or put on the air conditioner or a fan in the summer.  I like it hotter than most so it was only slightly annoying to me, but a lot of people suffered in the heat. Plus, you know how in the X-Files episode "Home" Scully told Mulder that he'd fall into a catatonic state if he's without a cellphone for two days? I'm not much better than that without internet access. Since age 18 the longest I've ever gone without checking my e-mail is five days - during, of course, a different power failure...

I feel bad for the folks in Vermont who had no warning that the storm was going to nail them - a lot of them will be without power for days yet, and some have had main roads go so they're inaccessable expect by helicopter...the scary thing is that I can imagine Portsmouth, NH getting cut off the same way if something nailed the bridge (you might be able to get out via route 33, though, I don't remember since it's been a decade since I traveled to Portsmouth weekly). It's hard to believe that this is the best we can do predicting storm movement in 2011. Hopefully they'll be back to normal soon, with roads repaired and the rest of the damage cleaned up.


"I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer. Is there something more than what i've been handed?" - Hoobastank, Crawing In The Dark

Tick-y Situation

So...back in mid-July I got what felt like the flu, with a temp of 103, extreme fatigue, chills, headache and muscle aches from neck to knee. In 48 hours I started to feel better. Temp went down, only my neck and head ached any more, so I figured I was on the mend. Oddly, my appetite disappeared just as I was starting to feel better that Friday.

But that Saturday I woke up and knew that I wasn't better, and wouldn't be for a while. See, I had a rash on my belly. And it had a faint bullseye for a few hours. Then it spread and swallowed the bulleye up. Mostly it was pink and purple, like my back was the time I woke up to go to the bathroom as a teenager and fell down the stairs.

It sure didn't look like all the pictures on the internet, but I had every single other symptom for lyme disease, so I forced myself to go to the doctor since I know that early treatment has the highest cure rate. The doctor looked at me for about thirty seconds, and said, yup, there's no point in even doing a blood test because that's what the non-bullseye rash looks like. Or rashes by that point - I got a dozen of them in varying sizes by the time the meds kicked in.

The doctor also said nine people came in in one day the week before, so apparently there's an epidemic of it in my town given there's all of 8,000 people here. NH has been between the #1 and #3 highest infection rate the last five years, so it's probably not too surprising...but in a way it is. I always spend a lot of time outside, and I didn't even see the tick that bit me.

I'm through with the antibiotics by now, and the only lingering ill effects are that I'm still more tired than usual (six and a half to seven hours sleep is no longer enough) and I'm still losing weight because my appetite isn't back to normal yet either. It's okay, I could probably lose 20 pounds before anyone got upset about me being too thin.

The moral of the story is this Boys and Girls: if you get "the flu" and then a rash, have it checked out for lyme disease. Only 40% of people get a rash that looks like the ones we're warned about. Apparently a lot of people never get a rash at all. Who knew?


"Lay me up, then heave-ho. You're sick and beautiful. Peel my bandage slowly, it's psychological. You're napalm with novocaine, A kite in a hurricane..." - Artificial Joy Club, Sick and Beautiful

July Music

All Ends - Apologize
Symphony Of Life - Avantasia  buy
Bandito - Veneno (Mexico City)
Black Heaven - Agony buy
Captain Phoenix - Pistols & Hearts buy
Dave Gahan - Deeper and Deeper buy
Erik Sumo - Friday I'll Be There
Fixmer/Mccarthy - Look To Me buy
Flokati - Sun buy
Fredrik - Locked In the Basement buy
Goose - Words 
Hook & The Twin - Race for the Bone
Howls - Hammock buy
IAMX - Spit It Out (SRLremix) 
Jesus On Extasy - Tonight buy
Juliette & The Licks - Got Love To Kill
Kane - Wanna Make It Happen
Korn - Hushabye buy
Lilofee - Where The Fallen Stars Lay
Pamela Hute - You Made Me Lady buy
Ratatat - Neckbrace buy
Red On Red - Just a Little Bit Further buy
Robyn - Love Kills  buy
Shyama - Chemical Arrest buy
SinFuRoco - Monkey Planet buy
State Of The Union - Dancing In The Dark (Aqualite Remix)
Superdrag- She is a Holy Grail buy
Swell - What I Always Wanted buy
The Boy Judas - My Real Self
The Cat Empire - Waiting buy
The Charlatans UK - Trust in Desire buy
The Cutaway - Never Been Alone buy
The Fast Forwards - No One Left
The Parlor Mob - The Kids buy
To All Our Saviors - Don't You Know
Uncle Ho - Euphoria
Wayne Hussey - Garden Of Delight buy


As usual:
Bold = I have other songs by them in my mp3/cd collection
Italic = I'd heard but didn't like other songs by them
Neither = never heard of them before


"All I want is your soul. Well..." - Law, XXX