After a month of not being able to settle on a book to read, I’m drowning in books at the moment. Got Minette Walters’ The Devil’s Feather and Ruth Rendell’s Thirteen Steps Down out of the library, and am waiting on the new Deborah Crombie, Water Like a Stone. New books by favorite authors! Finally.

Of course, the other day I forgot to bring my book to work. With an hour break for dinner, the idea of being bookless struck me with terror. So I wandered over to the Waldenbooks and not only picked up a new Laurie R. King, The Art of Detection (which I didn’t even know was out — my radar must be faulty), but I found ROOM SERVICE on the front wall under New Releases! Very cool.

where has this side of you been hiding?

(Okay, I know it’s really Jared Padalecki, not Sam, but whatever. This picture is HOT. I am such a sucker for brooding + facial hair.)

I’ve uploaded a bunch more, but it’s not enough! I can have 107 now! (And, apparently, being sick with a splitting headache doesn’t keep me from spamming my journal.)

I need some kind of Mets baseball icon for the summer, a TV icon (especially something about how much I watch), possibly some Princess Bride icons … Ah, the list goes on. How much is PhotoShop again?

I’m sick. Like, really really Sick, with a capital S. Sinuses, chest, head, throat — blech. I got out of bed only to go to the bathroom yesterday, and it’s looking like the thing to do today, too.

And my TV is not cooperating with my pathetic need to be entertained. I’m too tired and have too much of a headache to actually do anything serious, like decide on a DVD to pop in. I was counting on the TV gods to supply decent movies, or possibly one of those serendipitous marathons of a show I need to catch up on (SciFi did this with Heroes a few weeks ago). Yesterday I caught Saved! from the beginning, which was great, since I hadn’t seen it before, and later I watched parts of Shrek and the horrible Die Another Day, which is saved only by the presence of occasionally shirtless Pierce Brosnan.

But not today! TNT is apparently falling back on its gigantic library of Law and Order episodes. No offense to fans of the show, but if I never see another episode of any of the many incarnations of this series it will be too soon. SciFi is running Red Dragon, which was disappointing the first time around — I actually like Ed Norton when he’s the crazy one, and Ralph Fiennes when he’s not. And I missed Meet Me in St. Louis on TCM.

Feh. I’m too congested and achy to be expected to make my own viewing choices. So help me!

Should I watch:

* Gosford Park
* more episodes of Supernatural, Season 1
* Sin City
* something else?

Not *that* kind of fun, sadly.

Favorites lists always change for me — my top five favorite songs, or books, or movies, will vary depending on the day. (I mean, you have to account for things like PMS, lack of caffeine, squabbling children, etc. On days where all three are an issue, my top five movies probably all include spectacularly fiery explosions.)

But my favorite [book, movie, song, what-have-you] by a particular *artist* is a little more static. What about you?

If you want to play, tell me your favorite song by:

Prince

Bruce Springsteen

The Rolling Stones

Joni Mitchell (because EVERYONE should have a favorite JM song)

any original Motown artist

That covers a lot of bases, doesn’t it? And if you don’t have favorite songs by any of those artists, well … we’ll talk.

I have Type II diabetes. I take medication for it. Two years ago, my prescription changed from one medication to another, and since then I’ve been losing weight. Steadily. Despite the fact that I eat (and yeah, I know, I have diabetes, I have no self-control, sue me) plenty of ice cream, and I have a problem with cake, and I generally don’t manage my carbs as well as I should. (It’s all carbs, people — at least, that’s the new theory behind a diabetic diet. A donut is no worse than a piece of bread, really — it’s just *more carbs,* which you have to take into account. The days of diabetics being denied all refined sugar are over, as long as said sugar is tracked and comsumed in moderation.)

I heard on the news a few months back that the drug I’m on is actually being abused off-market for weight loss. (Apparently, it works especially well in decreasing weight around the middle, although I have no idea how a drug targets that, intentionally or not. It does seem to be true for me, though.)

So, you’re thinking, well, yeah, why is she complaining? Weight loss is not bad, for most of us! Weight loss is hard for most of us! All true. The problem is, I can’t afford it.

I bought all new shorts and pants last summer because the stuff I had was literally slipping off my hips. And belts only worked to the extent that they bunched up the waistbands and thereby created less than attractive bulgy action in back. (Also, I hate belts. Especially in the summer.)

I didn’t splurge, either. We’re talking KMart and Target stuff here. And this summer … it’s all too big again. Big like in some cases I’m actually sticking my stomach out to hold the damn things up. Buying new clothes is a lot less fun when it’s not really in the budget. It also sort of sucks when you bought stuff you really liked last time around, cheap or not, and you don’t really want to give it up.

All About Romance has given Room Service a B+!

Here are a few of the snippets that made me preen:

“I really enjoyed this book; it was fun, had an interesting plot, and featured likable characters. My mouth watered reading about Rhys’ cooking and his food descriptions. Rhys and Olivia were interesting people.”

“This sweet and entertaining novel is lots of fun. I recommend it highly.”

Want to read the whole review? Look here.

One last note: AAR has come under fire in the past for being too brutal. I disagree. One of the reasons I love the site and love their honesty is because books cost money. I don’t want to buy something that’s going to turn out to be a waste of my time *or* my hard-earned dollars.

And in this review, of my book? Every nit they pick is something I can nod at and say, “Yup, I should have done that, I should have developed that plot point or that character.” The AAR reviewers are smart women (and men), and I appreciate their frank reviews, especially when romance is so often accused of being a rainbows and kittens girls club.

Room Service hits stores today (although I hear it was available in some places over the weekend).

Here’s the back cover copy:

WELCOME TO CALLENDER HOUSE

Olivia Callender needs a wake-up call. With a hundred-year-old hotel to rehabilitate, a staff of lovable eccentrics to marshal, and guests to keep happy, she has no one but herself to blame for daydreaming through the past few years–or her uncle’s threat to take over the hotel.

And Rhys Spencer isn’t helping. When the sexy British chef checked in, Olivia’s common sense checked out. She doesn’t have time to let him distract her, even if he is feeding her hottest fantasies. But the heat they create together is too much to resist, and when they spend a luscious night in bed, Olivia truly wakes up for the first time–only to realize just what a mess her beloved hotel is. Throw in a pair of bumbling saboteurs, a cranky ex-ballerina, a gorilla costume, a lovesick writer, and tofurkey for fifty, and Olivia has her work cut out for her. All of which might be easier than convincing a certain brash Brit that he needs to wake up, too–and realize that he’s hungry for her love.

Sound good? You can find the book in stores or online, through Amazon or B&N.com! If you read it and like it, let me know! If you read it and hate it, well…you can let me know that, too, but I won’t be as happy about it.

This looks like fun. I haven’t thought about high school in a while.

Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be.

1. Who was your best friend?
We were a group — me, C, L, S, D, and M, more or less.

2.What sports did you play?
None. Unless required in that bastion of torture, PE.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
A Pontiac T-1000, a close cousin of the Chevette. Little, silver, manual steering and windows, but it did have a tape deck.

4. It’s Friday night, where were you?
Either hanging at someone’s house, drinking beer and smoking, or at a movie, or possibly at work.

5. Were you a party animal?:
We weren’t a “party” crowd in the usual sense of the word — usually, if someone’s parents were going to be out, it was the six of us mentioned above, plus boyfriends and a few other friends. Same group, more or less, with beer and cigarettes and music, and very little drama.

6. Were you considered a flirt?
Not really. I had two long-term boyfriends, so except for a period in between them I was attached to someone.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Not after ninth grade.

8. Were you a nerd?
Hard to say. I was on the paper, and a good student, in terms of grades, but I cut as often as I could get away with, which was a lot since my teachers all thought I was an angel, and the crowd I ran with drank and smoked and had sex (not all at the same time. Usually.).

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Nope.

10. Can you sing the fight song?
I don’t know if we had one. I’m sure we did, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

11. Who was your favorite teacher?
Paula Roy, AP English.

12.What was your school’s full name?
Westfield Senior High School

13. School mascot?
Blue devil.

14. Did you go to prom?
Yup. We spent the day preparing by sitting on L’s deck, mourning the fact that Bruce Springsteen had gotten married (the first time) that week, and making strawberry dacquiris.

15. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
Maybe not by choice, but if I had to, I would. I enjoyed senior year, and actually most of high school.

16. What do you remember most about graduation?
That it rained that morning, which meant the ceremony would be held across the street in the (damp, humid, gray) armory.

17. Where were you on senior skip day?
My friends and I had so many unofficial skip days (we considered the fourth marking period a four-day-week thing), we were probably in class that day.

18. Did you have a job your senior year?
An outside job? Yup. I worked at the mall in Short Hills, in the juniors department of Bloomingdale’s.

19. Where did you go most often for lunch?
There was a place a few blocks away called Roots, a true corner coffee shop place, that made the best Taylor ham and cheese sandwiches. We were there a lot, or outside in the smoking section (which is long gone now). After I met Stephen in late December, I was at his house a lot at lunchtime — he went to the community college and his parents both worked at the time. Good times.

20. Have you gained weight since then?
Uh, yeah.

21. What did you do after graduation?
We party-hopped a little bit, and ended up at L’s boyfriend’s house — his parents owned a restaurant in town so they were always out late on weekend nights. (We spent many a night there.) I cried (shocker) and a few days later the six of us mentioned above left for a week at the beach together, crammed into a tiny little two-bedroom upstairs place just a block from the beach.

22. When did you graduate?
1985.

23. Who was your senior prom date?
Stephen! We didn’t stay long, though.

24. Are you going to your ten-year reunion?
I went. It sort of sucked. Stephen had pneumonia and couldn’t go with me, but almost all six of us went together. A lot of people stayed in Westfield or the area after college, so it wasn’t much of a revelation — a lot of people I bumped into on a regular basis.

25. Who was your home room teacher?
Walter Jackson, RIP, who was the journalism teacher. Once you were on the paper, that was your homeroom for the rest of high school (unless you quit the paper, obviously).