I Ain't Said Nothin' But A Word...

So my favorite beautician has packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles. Although I was quite happy for the woman, her move did not make me happy. Finding a beautician you gel with takes some time and doing. In my search for a new stylist and salon I’m pointed in the direction of “William”. I’m told that “William” is sheer genius. Flamboyant and loud, William declares that my head is a one fine mess. “How many color’s you got up in here”, he asks as he pulls the strands one by one like they might be infested. “The one God gave me and the gray Satan slapped up there,” I reply. Now I’m watching his expression in the mirror as he screws up his face and goes, “Humph!” Now there’s maybe five more minutes of him pulling at each strand. I start to feel like there’s some dark secret sitting on top of my skull and he’s trying to decipher the code. Then I ask him what the problem is. “Chile’ you know what the problem is,” he says to me. “Ain’t that why you here to see William?” At this point I sh

Whew! I've been blessed to see another year. The bones are creaking just a little bit more, and every now and then something hurts that didn't hurt before. But thankfully, I'm still standing strong, still kicking up dirt and still having myself one hell of a good time! Enjoy the day! I certainly plan to enjoy mine.

We’ve all been there. At the threshold of adulthood where you’re no longer a child but you’re not quite ready for the responsibilities that being grown requires from you. Where you know everything and old people don’t know a damn thing. Many more of us tripped over that line than traversed it smoothly. In fact, I don’t know many who were able to cross into the pit of adulthood without any hitches. I personally tripped and fell flat on my wide behind with many a bruise or two to show for my fall. Growing up was truly hard to do. When I was seventeen no one could tell me anything. I had the world figured out and it was everyone else who didn’t have a clue. I swore up and down that what I should have spent years searching for I’d already found and there wasn’t a soul, mother or father, who could tell me I was wrong. Hell, I was grown and I defied anyone to say different. Casey is seventeen going on forty-five. She’s got it all figured out and I wish I could just grab her by the shoulders

It’s Valentine’s Day! Today is that traditional day when lovers express their love for each other by sending Hallmark cards, FTD floral arrangements, and those nasty chocolates with the gushy centers. Somewhere there’ll be a wedding or two, a few may enjoy a night of passionate sexual fulfillment, and then there will be those of us who’ll curl up with a good book and cup of hot chocolate by our lonesome. Valentine’s Day goes way, way back and is named after two early Christian martyrs aptly named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love back in AD 1000 - 1300 when the tradition of courtly love flourished. Courtly love was this medieval European concept of exalting erotic desire and spiritual attainment. Nowadays, some will get the erotic but I’m not so sure many are concerned about any spiritual anything. Either way, Valentine's Day has truly withstood the test of time. All of us have our own idea of what the perfect romantic Valentine’s Day encounter entails. I had

As romance love scenes go, mine have typically been quite tame in comparison to what other authors are writing. It took me a while to work up enough mojo to go into detailed specifics about my heroine and hero banging each other on the kitchen counter. And even then I tried to use as many lily-scented descriptions as I could muster. Then one day I was eavesdropping on a conversation between die-hard romance fans who were saying how much they preferred reading about that hard core, head-grabbing, nipple twisting, sexual encounter complete with the four-letter words and very non-technical descriptions of body parts. Shortly thereafter I got that book review where the reviewer said that if you wanted a romance book without the romance then mine was surely the one to read. At that point I figured I needed to step up my game but then the question became how far was I willing or even able to step. By no means am I a prude. I have no problems reading about sexual encounters that have a couple

Marcus spends an exorbitant amount of time denying his relationship with Dara. Marcus seems to think he has good reason to want to keep what’s between them under wraps. Dara use to think so as well. Now she thinks Marcus is using his good reason to mask the fact that he’s rethinking whether or not he truly wants a relationship with her. Dara had been ending another relationship when she and Marcus became involved. Marcus went into the relationship hoping that Dara could get her baggage unpacked and sorted out quickly. Although her emotional ties had clearly been severed, Dara was navigating the dissolution of the legal ties that were holding her hostage. Through no fault of Dara’s quick didn’t happen quickly enough. Now Marcus is rethinking his commitment to the woman he professes to love. Those pesky legal ties are clearly rubbing him the wrong way. The couple acknowledges that they probably should have waited before acting on the interest they had for each other but that didn’t happe