Ditty

DITTY
(Written by: Mark R. Slaughter)

O! love to me is but a season –
Seldom does it overstay,
And tho' I pain to seek a reason,
Like the dream, it fades away

To leave me once again in awe
Of how the heart can render raw
In loss of love; but then to soar

Atop anew! – and hail adieu!
To her who fled from chance I gave
To see us wed: Then on,
To court another fairer face –
And lose again in end of chase!

I curse the seasons evermore –
They tease me thro' their metaphor:
Starting fresh, their vigour young,
Yet oversoon, the ditty sung.

I found this poem yesterday as I searched the web for poems I liked for this here blog.  There's something about this one.  Something that makes me wonder..............  To me it's seems so true... the beginning of relationship is so hot... the marriage so romantic... the children another feeling all together and then old age... The four seasons of love... sadly few of us see them all.

Breathe

Breathe

(Performed by: Faith Hill)

I can feel the magic floating in the air
Being with you gets me that way
I watch the sunlight dance across your face
And I've never been this swept away

All my thoughts just seem to settle on the breeze
When I'm lying wrapped up in your arms
The whole world just fades away
The only thing I hear is the beating of your heart

And I can feel you breathe, it's washing over me
And suddenly I'm melting into you
There's nothing left to prove
And baby, all we need is just to be

Caught up in the touch, slow and steady rush
Baby, isn't that the way
That love's supposed to be
I can feel you breathe, just breathe

In a way I know my heart is waking up
As all the walls come tumbling down
Closer than I've ever felt before and I know
And you know there's no need for words right now

As I can feel you breathe, washing over me
And suddenly I'm melting into you
There's nothing left to prove
Baby, all we need is just to be

Caught up in the touch, slow and steady rush
And baby, isn't that the way
That love's supposed to be
I can feel you breathe, just breathe

Caught up in the touch, the slow and steady rush
And baby, isn't that the way
That love's supposed to be
I can feel you breathe, just breathe

I can feel the magic floating in the air
Being with you gets me that way

I love this song.... Next to unchained melody I think it's the most romantic song ever made.... Absolutely beautiful!

 

Perfect

Chorus

It was perfect

The way your hand touched mine

And we held to time

Somehow we died

Life was perfect

For a little while

But everything comes down

Somehow I find

We were young

We were free

We had everything

And wanted nothing

But time gets you

And time breaks you

It tears you apart

We made it so far

And now I know

Chorus

It was perfect

The way your hand touched mine

And we held to time

Somehow we died

Life was perfect

For a little while

But everything comes down

Somehow I find

And life

It’s escaped us now

And the years turn round

And now I’ve found

I wish

I could turn back time

Back to when I’d find

You were still mine

Chorus

It was perfect

The way your hand touched mine

And we held to time

Somehow we died

Life was perfect

For a little while

But everything comes down

Somehow I find

Somehow I find

Chorus

It was perfect

The way your hand touched mine

And we held to time

Somehow we died

Life was perfect

For a little while

But everything comes down

Somehow I find

It all comes down

We all have those moments.... moments that will be idealised in our minds as perfect.  The best moments of our lives, but the truth is... nothings perfect.  Even in the happiest moment if you dig deep there is always something there threatening to destroy it.  The real challenge is blocking out the threat and living in the happy moment.... I think that if we as humans were better at this, we'd all have a lot more "perfect" moments.

Religous Rant

So I left them up to their own hearts lust, so that they may walk in their own counsels (Psalms 81:12)

Okay so everyone has an opinion.  Now it's time for mine.  I've touched on it before.... I don't believe gay people go to hell, I don't believe that eating meat on Sunday makes you a sinner and I am a firm believer in birth control.  I don't buy into anyone religion and choose instead to say I believe.  I believe in God.  I believe in his goodness and not his wrath, in his compassion and not his vindictiveness.  I believe he is more kind than cruel, I believe he does his best.  And believe that's what he asks of us.  Do your best.  Treat people well... Try not to hurt or cheat or steal, try to be fair in your dealings and if you screw up... feel bad about it.  In the world we live.... could anyone ask for more than that?

Never Know

How do you describe the summer’s air

When you’ve never felt its breeze

How do you describe the mountains top

When you can’t get past the trees

How do you describe the smell of rain

If you’ve never felt it pour

How do you describe the oceans blue

If you can’t get past the shore

How do you describe happiness

If you’ve only been in pain

How do you regret what you’ve done

If you’ve never been ashamed

How do you let go of such pure joy

When you’ve never known that kind

How do you keep on looking

When there is nothing left to find

How do you know that it is love

If you’ve never loved before

How can you be happy

When the hurt is so much more

Why can you recall the small things

When yesterday is gone

Why do memories reappear

As each dusk turns to dawn

How can you feel all alone

When there are so many near

How can you ever feel secure

When all you’ve known is fear

When life has let you down

And the heartache just won’t go

How do you move on

I guess I’ll never know

awwww.... I was so sad :)  It's funny how it is so easy to look back on your past heartaches and say... what was I thinking cause during the time the heartbreak is so intense.  All consuming.  And I guess that's what we have to remember when the worst happens... life goes on.... this too shall pass... whatever corny, stereotypical phrase gets us through the day....

Just close my eyes

Just Close My Eyes

(Author - unknown)

Now the tears roll down my cheek

They just prove my mind set’s weak

Could I maybe join my friend

Choose the time my life will end

Leave this world that I despise

Feel my heart stop, close my eyes

Accepting all that we call death

Gasping for my final breath

Pray to God my final time

Commit my final moral crime

Rest in peace, I wish I could

End my life I think I should

Now I sleep pray I don’t wake

Beg the Lord my soul to take

Look up to the darkened skies

Just hold my breath, just close my eyes

Disregard that I exist

Now I leave the world like this

Glancing at the wicked knife

I can’t believe this was my life

Letting down all those who cared

Overlooked, those few seem rare

Life now ripping at the seams

Why now chase those nonsense dreams

Now I start my final trip

I now accept I lost my grip

Journey where my lifeline ends

Viewing where my life begins

Reflect on life, why question why

Accept I’ve failed, just close my eyes

Hope is a funny thing... without it you are empty... there is no future before you... no goodness yet to come.  With it you are strong, you are naive.  There is a happy medium between desperate hope and no hope at all and finding is a struggle for those who have lead tough lives.  But hope can truly break your soul. 



Big Brother

1984

(Written By:  George Orwell)

With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite toward him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon-not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words-which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:

times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling.

With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last. The other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures.

Winston dialed "back numbers" on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify. For example, it appeared from the Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or again, the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones. As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a "categorical pledge" were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grams to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April.

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs-to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. En this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one in which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.

But actually, he thought as he readjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at a hundred and forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than a hundred and forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. A11 one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen. He looked up, and his spectacles darted a hostile flash in Winston's direction.

Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what work he was employed on. People in the Records Department did not readily talk about their jobs. In the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its endless rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know by name, though he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the corridors or gesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in, day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. There was a certain fitness in this, since her own husband had been vaporized a couple of years earlier. And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and meters, was engaged in producing garbled versions definitive texts, they were called-of poems which had become ideologically offensive but which for one reason or another were to be retained in the anthologies. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one subsection, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were the huge printing shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the teleprograms section with its engineers, its producers, and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices. There were the armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall. There were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somehow or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who coordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence.

And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels-with every conceivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling book to a Newspeak dictionary. And the Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of the Party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat. There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers, containing almost nothing except sport, crime, and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even a whole subsection- Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak ~ engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.

Three messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while Winston was working; but they were simple matters, and he had disposed of them before the Two Minutes Hate interrupted him. When the Hate was over he returned to his cubicle, took the Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, pushed the speakwrite to one side, cleaned his spectacles, and settled down to his main job of the morning.

Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem-delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of the Times leading articles, which were written entirely in Newspeak. He unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran:

times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling.

In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might be rendered:

The reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in the Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to nonexistent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.

Winston read through the offending article. Big Brother's Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an organization known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors in the Floating Fortresses. A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.

Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the press or on the telescreen. That was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special showpieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might not even be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.

Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper clip. In the cubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head for a moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work would never be entrusted to a single person; on the other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And presently some master brain in the Inner Party would select this version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes of cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth.

Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps-what was likeliest of all-the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words "refs unpersons," which indicated that Withers was already dead. You could not invariably assume this to be the case when people were arrested. Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty for as much as a year or two years before being executed. Very occasionally some persons whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly reappearance at some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of others by his testimony before vanishing, this time forever. Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist; he had never existed. Winston decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse the tendency of Big Brother's speech. It was better to make it deal with something totally unconnected with its original subject.

He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much. What was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready-made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed. Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence.

Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite toward him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them ("What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades? The lessons-which is also one of the fundamental principles of Ingsoc-that," etc., etc.), easy to imitate.

At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a submachine gun, and a model helicopter. At six-a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules-he had joined the Spies; at nine he had been a troop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a district organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand grenade which had been adopted by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had killed thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst. At twenty-three he had perished in action. Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and all-an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate without feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity and singlemindedness of Comrade Ogilvy's life. He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four hour-a-day devotion to duty. He had no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc, and no aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting-down of spies, saboteurs, thought-criminals, and traitors generally.

Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit; and in the end he decided against it because of the unnecessary cross-referencing that it would entail.

Once again he glanced at his rival in the opposite cubicle. Something seemed to tell him with certainty that Tillotson was busy on the same job as himself. There was no way of knowing whose version would finally be adopted, but he felt a profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

Another season of Big Brother is over :(  But I once again loved the ending.  I think it's why I keep watching almost every year I am happy with the winner.... not true of most the reality shows which I now refuse to watch.  Heck this year even America's Choice was right!  Can't wait for Big Brother Canada in February.  Above is an excerpt fro "1984" A great book and also the idea from which the TV show Big Brother stemmed.  Read it some time.... I loved it!

Because you loved me

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right
For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful baby
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through through it all


You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me


You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by you


You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me


You were always there for me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you


You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me


I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

A beautiful song.... For those people in my life who've been there for me...  You know who you are.

                                        

 

Dark Lover

Dark Lover

(Written by: J.R. Ward)

Walking through Screamer's, Wrath sneered as the bar crowd tripped over itself to get out of his way.

 Fear and a morbid, lusty curiosity wafted out of their pores. He breathed in the rank odor. Cattle. All of them.

From behind his dark glasses, his eyes strained against the dim lights and he shut his lids. His vision was so

bad that he was just as comfortable with total blindness. Focusing on his hearing, he sorted through the beats

of the music, isolating the shuffling of feet, the whisper of words, the sound of another glass hitting the floor.

If he ran into something, he didn't care. Whether it was a chair, a table, a human, he'd just walk over the

damn thing.

He sensed Darius clearly because his was the only body in the place that wasn't reeking of panic.

Although even the warrior was on edge tonight.

Wrath opened his eyes when he stood in front of the other vampire. Darius was a blurry shape,

his dark coloring and black clothes the only information Wrath's vision gave him.

"Where'd Tohrment go?" he asked as he caught a whiff of scotch.

"He's taking a breather. Thanks for coming."

Wrath lowered himself into a chair. He stared straight ahead and watched the crowd gradually swallow

up the path he'd made.

He waited.

The pounding beat of Ludacris faded into old school Cypress Hill.

This was going to be good. Darius was a real straight-shooter who knew Wrath couldn't stand having his

time wasted. If there was silence, something was up.

Darius tipped back his beer then let out a deep breath. "My lord-"

“If you want something from me, don’t lead with that,” Wrath drawled, sensing a waitress

approaching them. He had the impression of big breasts and a strip of flesh between her tight

shirt and her short skirt.

“You need a drink?” she asked slowly.

He was tempted to suggest she lay herself on the table and let him go to work on her carotid.

Human blood wouldn’t keep him alive for long, but it sure as hell tasted better than watered-down alcohol.

“Not right now,” he said. His tight smile spiked her anxiety and gave her a shot of lust at the same time.

He took her scent into his lungs.

Not interested, he thought.

The waitress nodded, but didn’t move away. She kept staring at him, her short blonde hair a halo in the

darkness around her face. Spellbound, she seemed to have forgotten her own name, much less her job.

And how annoying was that.

Darius shifted impatiently.

“That’s all,” he muttered. “We’re good.”

As she backed up, getting lost in the crowd, Wrath heard Darius clear his throat. “Thanks for coming.”

“You already said that.”

“Yeah. Right. Ah, you and I go way back.”

“We do.”

“We’ve fought some damn good fights together. Cut down a lot of lessers.”

Wrath nodded. The Black Dagger Brotherhood had been protecting the race against the Lessening Society

for generations. There was Darius. Tohrment. The four others. The brothers were vastly outnumbered by

lessers, de-souled humans who served a nasty-ass master, the Omega. But Wrath and his warriors managed

to hold their own.

And then some.

Darius cleared his throat. “After all these years-”

“D, you’ve got to cut to the point. Marissa needs to do a little business tonight.”

“Do you want to use your room at my place again? You know I don’t let anyone else stay there.” Darius let

out an awkward laugh. “No doubt her brother would prefer you not show up at his house.”

Wrath crossed his arms over his chest, pushing the table out with his boot to give himself a little more room.

He didn’t give a crap that Marissa’s brother had delicate sensibilities and was offended by the life Wrath lived.

Havers was a snob and a dilettante who had his head up his ass. He was totally incapable of understanding

the kind of enemies the race had and what it took to defend the population.

Wrath wasn’t about to play dandy while civilians were getting slaughtered. He needed to be in the field with

his warriors, not taking up space on some throne. So Havers could shove it.

Although Marissa shouldn’t have to deal with her brother’s attitude.

“I just might take you up on that offer.”

“Good.”

“Now talk.”

“I have a daughter.”

Wrath slowly turned his head. “Since when?”

“A while.”

“Who’s the mother?”

“You don’t know her. And she, ah, she died.”

Darius’s sorrow rose up around him, the acrid smell of old pain cutting through the stench of human sweat,

alcohol, and sex in the club.

“How old is she?” Wrath demanded. He had a feeling where this might be headed.

“Twenty-five.”

Wrath cursed under his breath. “Don’t ask me, Darius. Don’t ask me to do it.”

“I have to. My lord, your blood is-”

“Call me that again and I’ll close your mouth for you. Permanently.”

“You don’t understand. She’s-”

Wrath started to get up. Darius’s hand grasped his forearm and then was quickly removed.

“She’s half-human.”

“Jesus Christ-”

“So she might not survive the transition if she goes through it. Look, if you help her, at least she has a chance

of living. Your blood is so strong, it would increase the likelihood of her making it through the change as a

half-breed. I’m not asking you to take her on as a shellan. Or to protect her because I can do that. I’m just

trying to... Please. My other sons are dead. She’s all that could be left of me. And I... her mother is one I

loved.”

If it had been anyone else, Wrath would have used his favorite pair of words, fuck and off. As far as he was

concerned, there were only two good positions for a human. A female on her back. And a male face down

and not breathing.

But Darius was almost a friend. Or would have been one, if Wrath had let him get close.

As Wrath stood up, he closed his eyes. Hatred washed through him, directed into the center of his own chest.

He despised himself for walking away, but he just wasn’t the kind of male who could help some poor

half-breed through such a painful and dangerous time. Gentleness, mercy, they were not in his make up.

“I can’t do it. Not even for you.”

Darius’s agony hit him in a great swell and Wrath actually swayed under the emotion’s force.

He squeezed the vampire’s shoulder.

“If you really love her, do her a favor. Ask someone else.”

Wrath turned and stalked out of the bar. On his way to the door, he wiped the memory of himself from every

human cerebral cortex in the place. The strong ones would think they had dreamed him. The weak ones

wouldn’t remember him at all.

Out on the street, he headed for a dark corner behind Screamer’s so that he could dematerialize. He passed

a woman getting felt up by some guy in the shadows, a bum who’d collapsed in a stupor, a drug dealer arguing

on a cell phone about the going price for crack.

Wrath knew the moment he was followed. And who it was. The sweet smell of baby powder was a dead

giveaway.

He smiled widely, opened his leather jacket, and took out one of his hira shuriken. The stainless steel throwing

star felt comfortable in his palm. Three ounces of death ready to hit the air waves.

With the weapon in his hand, Wrath didn’t change his stride, even though he wanted to rush into the shadows.

He was spoiling for a fight after shutting down Darius and the Lessening Society member behind him had

perfect fucking timing.

Killing the soulless human was just what he needed to take the edge off.

As he drew the lesser into the dense darkness, Wrath’s body primed for the fight, his heart pumping steadily, t

he muscles in his arms and thighs twitching in anticipation. His ears picked up the sound of a gun being cocked

and he triangulated the weapon’s aim. It was pointed at the back of his head.

In a fluid motion, he wheeled around just as the bullet exploded out of the muzzle. He ducked and threw the

star which flashed silver and twirled in a deadly arc. It caught the lesser right in the neck, splitting his throat

open before continuing on its path into the darkness. The gun dropped to the ground, clattering across the

asphalt.

The lesser grabbed his neck with both hands and fell to his knees.

Wrath walked over and went through its pockets. He took the wallet and the cell phone he found and put

them into his jacket.

And then he withdrew a long, black-bladed knife from his chest holster. He was disappointed the fight hadn’t

lasted longer, but going by the dark, curly hair and relatively inept attack, this was a new recruit. With a quick

thrust, he pushed the lesser on to its back, flipped the weapon in the air and caught the handle with a swipe of

his palm. The blade plunged into flesh, cut through bone, reached the black heart.

With a strangled sound, the lesser disintegrated.

Wrath wiped the blade off on his leather pants, slipped it back where it belonged, and stood up. He looked

around. And then dematerialized himself.

This is the series I am reading now.... It's very dark... very sexy.... This excerpt is from the first book and I am

 currently almost done the second one.  The series is about a group of vampire warriors who are trying to save

their race from extinction... I am already fully attached to some of the characters.  There are 10 books in the

series so far with another slated to come out in March... I plan to hunker down and do some reading in the

coming months.....

Marriage quote

Ø      A man in love is incomplete until he’s married, then he’s finished (Zsa Zsa Gabor)

So this weekend we went to the Boob Tour.... Both me and my hubby love comedy and this was amazing.  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  The comics were hilarious and easily picked apart the things in peoples lives that one can't help to laugh about.  Marriage, children, even work.  These things all have moments where you want to turn and walk away but you don't... because you need them.... no matter how much they might drive you batty!

Slipped Away

Slipped Away
(Performed by: Avril Lavigne)

Na na, na na na, na na
I miss you, miss you so bad
I don't forget you, oh it's so sad
I hope you can hear me
I remember it clearly

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found it won't be the same
Oh

Na na na na na na na

I didn't get around to kiss you
Goodbye on the hand
I wish that I could see you again
I know that I can't

Oh
I hope you can hear me cause I remember it clearly

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found it won't be the same
Oh

I had my wake up
Won't you wake up
I keep asking why
And I can't take it
It wasn't fake
It happened, you passed by

Now you are gone, now you are gone
There you go, there you go
Somewhere I can't bring you back
Now you are gone, now you are gone
There you go, there you go,
Somewhere you're not coming back

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found it won't be the same no..
The day you slipped away
Was the day that I found it won't be the same oh...

Na na, na na na, na na
I miss you

It's been a week of reminiscing for me.  First talking to my first love for the first time in a decade.  Then last night I heard the news that friend I grew up with.  My best friend at one point in time passed away, leaving behind two little children.  Her and I were no longer really friends.  Not that we disliked each other... Just grown apart with time but I can't help thinking about the good times.  Her family which was like an extension of my own at one time in my life is left behind and I cant help feeling heartbroken for them as well.  To Susanne Bardwell.  This one is for you :)

 

Scared

I see the anger deep inside of you

Screaming with the hatred of life

I want to run to you and comfort you

But at the same time I’m scared

Scared to touch you or get close to you in any way

You may think wrongly of my intentions

You may think I don’t feel bad

You may hold me and cry on my shoulder

I may take pleasure in your pain

I don’t want you to hurt

I curse thee that brings pain unto you

With a broken heart I turn and leave

With no backbone

I got a facebook message yesterday from an old friend.  My first love in fact.  Shane Jacobs :)  To say I was obsessed with this guy is an understatement.  But needless to say of out grown it now.... That's why it surprised me how delighted I was after talking to him.  It was nice to be able to talk to him without feeling like my heart was going to rip out of my chest.... He was a good friend... It was nice to go back in time a bit... I wrote this poem for him a very long time ago.

A Little Space For Me

I know you sprawl beneath your blankets

Kicking, tossing, turning

Leave a little space for me

I know you spread your arms out

Hog the blankets and the pillows

Just leave a little space for me

I know your life is full

The days are long, you work till dawn

But leave a little space for me

Romantic.... Love this poem I wrote over 10 years ago :)

True Quote

Conscience is the inner voice that tells you someone is looking (H. L. Mencken)

I love this quote... Okay so maybe it's not the whole truth but it's always fascinated me that some of us can be tormented by skipping a day of work while others can rape or kill with no remorse.  Is it in the way we are raised?  The way we are born?  What makes some of us sadistic and some of us saintly?  Could I just as easily have been a murder if I were raised by someone else or is it just not in me to do something like that?  These are questions I'm sure there will never be answers for but its something worth thinking about.

Gone Away

 Once in a lifetime we fall

Once in a lifetime

We are bound to lose it all

Once in a lifetime it goes away

We’re not the same

When we’ve lost the pain

Chorus

Never thought I’d know this much

Never thought I’d know this rush

Now I see with my eyes shut

See the passion in your touch

Never thought I’d feel this way

I don’t regret a single day

Now I feel you where I lay

So you’re never gone away

Once in a lifetime we see

The different people that we have come to be

Once in a lifetime we pay the cost

For all we’ve got

But love cannot be lost

Chorus

If I should cry

If I should scream

It won’t be goodbye

It will be for me

Chorus

If I should cry (3x)

It’s not goodbye

I like this song... it seems so sad to me... I wrote it about 8 years ago but it sticks with me a lot.... If anyone would like me to hear all done up cause they want to work on it... feel free :)