Nice Tits, England.

Per the cake master halfway through this three way conversation with H-Town, "We are not mature enough for birds to be called tits."



amberance: there's a bird here just called a tit*

H-Town: wow, so you could say "look at the tits on that tree!"

and no one would slap you
and if tits landed on a woman, "Look at the tits on that gal?"
brilliant

The cake master: "There are so many tits on that tree! I've never seen so many tits in one place!"

H-Town: I wish I had more tits around my house!
I’m moving

The cake master: "Aren't the tits beautiful?"
Are the tits noisy?

H-Town: we wouldn't have such a mosquito problem if there are more tits
I hear tits make a slapping noise

The cake master: Are they soft and fluffy?

amberance: "HOLY SHIT THAT OWL JUST ATE THOSE TITS!"

H-Town: oh, now those tits just flew right into the window!

The cake master: Do they swing around in circles?

H-Town: do they hang low and/or wobble to and fro?

amberance: I want them to have really pointy beaks
like "man those are some sharp tits"

The cake master: Yeah, are there low-hanging tits?
They're only on the saggy branches?

H-Town: and if they're male, look at those man tits!

amberance: also they should always fly in pairs

H-Town: their nests should be called bras

The cake master: If there a bunch of nests built on top of each other, are they called support bras?

H-Town: training bras
and if the nests are all mashed together into one sort of uni-nest, it's a sports bra
i hope when they walk, they bounce

The cake master: There's birds that look like tits

But they’re fake tits
You can tell by feeling them.

H-Town: you can tell because they don't move as much

The cake master: I hear the male tit is smaller though.
And not as bouncy

H-Town: People must wonder why male tits have beaks

The cake master: I sure do

H-Town: tits usually show up about spring break each year

The cake master: well, in the winter they're all covered up

H-Town: and sometimes it's so cold their beaks could cut glass

The cake master: I hear you can tell if it's cold just by looking at a naked tit
As they get older, the more their beaks point at the ground

H-Town: the older tits just walk around naked at the local YMCA in the locker rooms

*In America we don't have tits, but instead the related titmouse and chickadee.

Second Delay

....and NOW I can't tell you about the party because apparently today is self-hatred and depression day. It's pretty piss poor timing too, since I have a presentation due Thursday and today I've worked on it for exactly zero minutes. Other things I haven't done today: get dressed, work out, turn any lights on, have a rational thought, be nice to StereoNinja, make plans for bonfire night, answer my email or put my contacts in. Things I have done: eat cookie dough, cry, tell H-Town and the cake master that I am a selfish monster, and look at one way flights to Chicago because giving up sounds really good to me today.

I absolutely HATE this part of myself, because I really am not this person. I want things to be fun. I look for things to do that might be fun. I take mundane or unpleasant activities and try to inject them with fun, because if I have to do some chore, it might as well be fun. I made swearing into a hobby reading that 50 Shades of Horseshit right here on this blog. But today it's like I've never even met fun. Like if fun was walking toward me down the sidewalk, I would cross to the other side of the street to avoid it because that dude looks like a creepy weirdo and is scaring me and I want no part of it. And fun is jumping up and down and waving at me like "Hey! HEY! We were supposed to make robot sculptures out of canary feathers and cooked noodles today! Where are you going?" and I'm pretending like I don't see him and muttering "Fuck you, fun. You don't know me. You're not the boss of me!" And then fun starts crying and says "Why are you being like this? I thought we were friends." and look you guys, I JUST MADE FUN CRY. I'M THAT BIG OF AN ASSHOLE TODAY.

So, HOPEFULLY, tomorrow I will not feel like a bag of flaming elephant shit, and I can tell you about what happens when a stripper goes to a party with a bunch of old people, which by the way, is not what you would automatically think would happen. Um, at all. If not, I promise to challenge fun to a fist fight and see if I can make him get stitches in his stupid fun face.

Oh Holy Fuck

As she always does, H-Town reminded me this morning about our favorite Christmas song ever. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

H-Town Rescues Me From The Internets

H-Town:  jesus christ on a pogo stick

a facebook friend just shared "I Fucking Love Science's" FB photo for today

DO NOT LOOK AT IT

 

me:  It has to be spiders. now i am afraid.

no facebook for me today

 

H-Town:  yeah, it's spiders

and it's awful

don't risk it

 

me: there needs to be another facebook page called "Fuck You, Science" where they put all the horrible things

Maryland, My Maryland

I have not stopped crying all day today.

The Fifty Shades readers are probably familiar with my best friend H-Town, but in case anyone is not, let me tell you about her. H-Town and I have known each other more than 16 years since we started college together at Ohio University. We were pretty much instant friends because we are both ridiculous, and also because once you've met her it is almost impossible to not be friends with her. She is intelligent, hysterically funny, loving, loyal, creative, talented, spontaneous, thoughtful - really everything you could possibly ever want in a friend. These days, H-Town is a journalist living in Maryland. She works for a company that does work she truly believes in, and when she's not doing that, she's usually volunteering or doing stuff with the church she recently helped found, or on stage doing improv and killing audiences with her incredible gift for both general humor and physical comedy. She is a devoted wife and a brilliant mother to her two year old daughter. She is also a lesbian.

When H-Town and her (also amazing) wife A-Town got married ten years ago, the government was not in the business of high-fiving gay people on their life choices (a line I've stolen from another awesome lesbian I know). They only got to do it legally a few years ago when it became possible in DC. They did it just before their daughter was born and got to have both their names on her birth certificate. Today they could do it in the state where they live.

It's a subject that is hard for me to discuss with people. It's important to be a good advocate for what is right, but every time someone tries to explain to me why my best friend and one of the best people I've ever known should be treated as a second class citizen in this country using "facts", the first thing that pops into my head to say is "Are you high? What the fuck is wrong with you?" which is neither helpful nor a cogent argument. But I really and truly can't wrap my head around the idea that this is a political issue or even that it should be open for discussion. To me it's very simple: does Citizen A have exactly the same rights and protections under the law as Citizen B? No? THEN FIX IT BECAUSE THAT IS BULLSHIT. Either that or go back and cross out that part where it says "All men are created equal" because clearly you don't actually mean it and it's not particularly funny when it's being used as a punchline.

Don't get me wrong, I advocate when I can. But I feel like I start way too many sentences "Well, my best friend is a lesbian" and it would be great if I didn't need to step in and try to change people's minds every time I mention her to strangers and I got to say "My best friend is a journalist" or "My best friend is a mom" just as often because I don't have to keep explaining to people what "civil rights" means. We're getting there.

Yesterday, the people of Maryland got it right.
The people of Maine got it right.
The people of Washington State got it right.

I have never been happier or more proud. Look how happy they have made my best friend:

50 Fucks Thiser

H-Town and amberance read Fifty Shades Darker so you don't have to.

me: ok let's finish this like mortal kombat - by ripping out it's spine and leaving it to die

H-Town: FINISH HIM
you ready?

me: to be done reading this?
i was born ready

Chapter 20 starts with a bizarre mixture of overly effusive surprise that Ana has said she'll marry him with a bone dry, technical description of the exact model of helicopter Christian flies. As per her custom, this conversation as written by E.L. James makes absolutely no sense and is nothing but a poorly designed vehicle to allow her to foreshadow again that the helicopter was sabotaged. EUROCOPTER EC135S ARE PERFECT HELICOPTERS YOU GUYS. THEY NEVER EVER CRASH. EVER. And then to celebrate their engagement, they take a cold shower with all their clothes on.

me: yay we're getting married, let's take a shower in our clothes
take your pants off i want to wash your boner!

H-Town: Ana Steele's Amazing Boner Wash!
Strong Enough for a Man! But Made for a Woman!

me: the one thing i wrote down from this scene was when she said she "detonated" (actually I also wrote down, "How does the sex keep getting worse?" but the specific line there was "I will spend the rest of my life loving this man, and with that awe-inspiring thought, I detonate around him - a healing, cathartic orgasm, crying out his name as tears flow down my cheeks.")

H-Town: I think I missed that because once again, I was skimming the shit outta this section

me: i wish it were true. i wish she had detonated

H-Town: I would watch that fireworks show with glee

me: so then they wake up the next day and now everything between Jose and Christian is fine because of fishing (Christian and Jose have an amiable conversation about their shared love of fishing, which isn't detailed because Ana says "I zone out. This I do not need to know." In my notes I translated this to "All your interests bore me." This marriage is off to a great start.)

H-Town: fishing is the great equalizer
and Christian walks out in just his special hip pants and no shirt
I had hoped he and Jose would then start making out

me: yes
he should fire his tailor, NONE of his pants fit properly

H-Town: and Ana would say something like, "Men can...kiss?"
because she is dumb

me: "but christian, you don't have a tan!"

H-Town: "You don't have an accent!"
HOW CAN YOU BE GAY?

me: oh, there's something in this chapter about how she's jealous when she finds out charlie tango is a woman
all fucking boats, planes, helicopters etc. are women
and that's basically the whole chapter
the next chapter was birthday sex

(Chapter 20 ends with Christian opening his birthday presents from Ana, including a box containing a bunch of things he already owns that she'd just gone around the apartment collecting and put in a box - the key to the playroom, some nipple clamps, a butt plug, the stupid fucking tie, etc. They take all of these things into the playroom to start Chapter 21 and then end up using almost none of them since she has massively overestimated her own capabilities.)

H-Town: and this line "Can one lust after one's husband like this?"
No, Ana, that's not possible
Marriage ends all feelings.

me: I KNOW
I wrote ONE WOULD FUCKING HOPE SO

H-Town:  also best part
OMG IT'S VIBRATING...DOWN THERE!! (It's a little metal bullet vibrator. It's what they fucking do.)

me: oh god

H-Town: and then Christian magically waves his hand/wang and special slow music turns on when they lay down on the bed

me: and she's all where is he going to put that.
HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD PUT FINGERS IN YOUR BUTT
at some point in all the action i wrote "Can you stab sex? i want to stab it so hard"

H-Town: hahaha
BUTT IS EXIT ONLY

me: she makes like this is the dirtiest sex that has ever happened afterwards

H-Town: Anything besides missionary is friggin porn to her

me: i call that "tuesday"
this line: "And I'm aware we don't know each other well, and we have a mountain of issues to overcome..." DO
NOT
GET
 MARRIED

H-Town: hahaha I know
are we to the part where she reveals she saw his photos?
and he admits he's not good at safe combinations? (While Ana was crawling around the house looking for sex toys she has no fucking idea how to use, she came across a pile of naked photos of Christian's former subs tied up in the playroom. She is as usual spectacularly jealous, but when she finally reveals her discovery to Christian, it turns out it isn't what she thinks. But because it's E.L. James writing, what Ana finds comforting is actually so much worse. The naked photos weren't just lying around, they HAD been locked in a safe, but Christian is an absolute goddamn moron and wrote the combination for the safe down pretty much RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO IT. Naturally, Leila had gotten into it and put the photos where she knew Ana would find them. Sadly, this isn't the "worse" part.)

H-Town: Captain Computer Security can't handle locking a goddamn safe?

me: yeah, that was the dumbest
i can't remember my safe combination.
i had to write it down
well what's the point of having one then?
why not just leave it wide open?

H-Town: with some lighted arrows pointing at it?

me: isn't he some kind of trazillionaire?
is there some reason he doesn't have a safe with fingerprint access?

H-Town: more likely it'd be one that would require him to stick his wang in for ID
Robot voice: "Please fuck me to open safe."

me: "Insert boner in identification vag" (THIS is the worse part ---->)
his blackmail photos make no sense by the way
he's afraid his subs are going to tell people he likes beatings with his sex
and to stop them from saying that he...takes pictures of exactly that?

H-Town: did not think that one through

me: for an enterprise that revolves completely around trust, this is pretty much the opposite of that
BDSM fail (Again, and I can't stress this enough - blackmailing people in this situation is not only ALL KINDS OF WRONG, but if you have a reputation for that kind of behavior NO ONE WILL PLAY WITH YOU. RESEARCH, JAMES. FUCK.)
oh fuck this line too, when Taylor calls her ma'am again
"It makes me feel old, at least thirty."
EAT A PILE OF 80 YEAR OLD DICKS

H-Town: hahahahahaha
I'm 34 and gay, so that means I must resemble dust and have a great tan

me: i'm going cane shopping after work, I'm so old oh my god
thirty is also exactly 2 years older than her boyfriend is right now

H-Town: you're nowhere near as successful, Amber.
Better kill yourself now.
I mean, if old age doesn't kill you first

me: shit right, no doubt. i could just drop dead any second at my age

Later on, Ana calls her mother to tell her the big news and is super irritated when her mother 1) asks if Ana's getting married at age 21 to a man she's known less than two months because she's pregnant and 2) has the nerve to mention Ana's dead biological father when discussing one of the major events in a person's life that a normal human being would want to have their parents present for.

Me: when she called her mom i wanted to stab everything
she's all pissed that her mom asks if she's pregnant
um, you are 21 and you have known this person for a month and a half. that is an entirely reasonable question

H-Town: no shit
"oh my god, did you die crossing the street? You're so dumb, Ana."
"Mom, I can't get this bottle of OJ to work. It says to shake well before opening, but I shake myself and the bottle doesn't open?" HELP ME

me: and then her mom is crying because she wishes ana's real dad had lived
also perfectly reasonable, my dad did the same thing when i got engaged
and ana's all "oh great now i have to hear all about my mythical father again"
he's not "mythical", he's dead

H-Town: Maybe her dad was a unicorn, Amber
YOU DON'T KNOW.

me: oh my god or zeus. MAYBE HE WAS ZEUS

Heather: Zeus' kid could never be this stupid
also, we all know anyone related to a god in this story has to be Christian.
OBVIOUSLY.

me: oh right, my bad

H-Town: The God of Hip Pants
brother to the God of Body Wash

me: his bio dad probably was Zeus. Zeus liked to fuck around, right?

H-Town: and daughter to the God of Shut the Fuck Up

me: and all this "there will never be anyone else for me"
I wrote down YOU ARE 21 YEARS OLD three separate times
hey you know what they haven't done in a while? had a fight

H-Town: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

me: if you insist

After speaking to her mother, Ana decides to go down to the store to get the materials needed to bake Christian a birthday cake. She is wearing a blue sundress - a blue sundress that had been purchased for her by Christian's own personal shopper, which seems like it would imply that it met with his approval, but nothing Ana has ever worn or done or said or eaten or breathed on meets with Christian's approval, ever, therefore, it is once again time to have a fight.

me: "hey i'm going to the store"
"NOT IN THAT WHORE DRESS YOU'RE NOT"
you mean the one you bought her?

H-Town: ONLY FOR INSIDE TIME

me: or the beach
IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTEXT WHETHER YOUR DRESS IS SLUTTY OR NOT (Christian concedes he would not be upset with her going out in public in her prostitute's uniform if only she were standing on a beach and not in line at a grocery store. Come the fuck on James, you're not even PRETENDING to try anymore.) 
i feel bad now. let's bone and make up

H-Town: make me a cake and put it on my peener
I SAID CHOCOLATE CAKE, BITCH
FIGHT
sex

me: I WANT TO EAT IT WITH A BIGGER FORK
FIGHT
sex
YOU SNEEZED WHILE I WAS ON THE PHONE
FIGHT
sex

 H-Town: YOU LOOKED AT THE PHOTOS OF YOU!
FIGHT
sex

me: but enough about ana and christian fighting each other. how about instead they go to his birthday party and get in fights with everyone?

H-Town: oh my god, Jerry Springer
fight
CONTRACT!
fight ELENA MEOW!
fight

Picture, if you will, the most uncomfortable party you have ever been to in your life. Now multiply the discomfort level you felt at that party by the total number of atoms that make up the universe to the power of infinity. I once attended a birthday party where the brother of the girl having a birthday broke up with his wife during the party after an alleged friend announced to everyone, including all parties concerned AND all of their parents, that said wife had been fucking her husband's cousin for a year and half. Incidentally, the cousin was himself engaged to the cheating wife's lifelong best friend, who was supposed to be the matron of honor at their wedding. True story. I would attend that same party every day for the rest of my life if the alternative was having to witness the complete fucking shitshow that went down at Christian's birthday party.

Before they'd even managed to get through the door, they were met by an enraged Kate, waving around the email discussing the contract that had never actually been signed and demanding answers from Ana about how she could allow this to happen and from Christian about why he was such a sick, disgusting, rapey fuck. Not long afterward, Christian announces to all the guests that he and Ana are engaged. Naturally, this causes a very drunk Elena to pull Ana aside (I'm not sure why, since she was shouting for all to hear anyway) and tell her that she could NEVER make Christian happy EVER because she is TOO FUCKING VANILLA. Ana responds with poise and maturity by throwing her cocktail in Elena's face. Christian comes to her aid and himself has a shouting match with Elena that is loud enough to draw his mother into the fray, where she finds out to her complete and utter despair that her best friend used to fuck her son and that it was super filthy. In between all this fighting, we are given a series of scenes including but not limited to: a (gasp!) lesbian couple, the world's most socially inept therapist, and some thinly veiled racism. THE ARISTOCRATS!

me: The whole Kate part I was yelling out loud at the book
THIS IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS

H-Town: I hate how EL James tries to insert drama
it only ever lasts for maybe a page or two
COPTER CRASH!
two pages later BFF CONTRACT FIGHT!
one page then everything gets resolved
she tries to work every possible drama-rama into one book, so she just makes them last two pages
and MEEEEEOW, the Elena fight

me: yeah, the elena fight
mother of god
YOU WILL NEVER MAKE HIM HAPPY
i mean, she's sort of right, they are clearly not happy together for longer than five minutes at a stretch

H-Town: Until they have sex, that is
but then yeah, let's fight about mac n cheese and dresses
oh man, before the elena fight, when they're surveying the big party of guests
and Ana points out a black guy
it's almost like a "HEY LOOK Y'ALL, IT'S A BLACK GUY! IN OREGON! WOW!"
sigh
and then HA HA Ros is a lesbian

me: she must have been out of her mind at that party, a black guy AND lesbians?

H-Town: a lesbian that wears heels on a helicopter and then still wears them once it crashes?
Not likely

me: THANK YOU THAT'S WHAT I SAID
*confirmed by actual lesbian*

H-Town: anyway
ELENA SMASH
and then a drink gets thrown
I wish it would've been a fistfight and then the whole party comes in, someone accidentally dumps jello or mud, and then it's a wrestling match
*how this lesbian writes* 
*while not wearing heels*

me: and then they'd be all dirty after so WET TSHIRT CONTEST
this party would have been so much more awesome if we were in charge of it
oh there was also that conversation with Dr. Flynn and his wife

H-Town: his younger wife
oh mah god

me: his wife says "life would be dull and penurious without you"
and then he makes a cricket reference that nobody gets because teehee oh he's so British
i can't relate to you Americans and your fancy baseball sports

H-Town: crikey bowlers sticky wickets chimney sweep carry on carry on car park crisps

me: No one talks like that

H-Town: That's how the English talk, I know.
Come on, Amber, we know everyone in England sounds like Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" before she gets trained
aaaaeeeeeiiiiooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
then the fight, Christian's mom comes in, and I wish she would've piled-drive someone

me: yeah the mom, wow  

H-Town: so, christian and his mom talk it out and Ana runs away to his room and then the worst ending ever

me: oh that epilogue was atrocious

The book ends with Ana's former boss/attempted rapist hiding in the bushes outside Christian's parents' house. He is upset that his sabotaging of the helicopter failed to kill Christian, which is a totally reasoned and proportionate response to getting fired for your own blatant misconduct. For some reason, James feels the need to point out that he grew up poor in Detroit, as if this somehow explains why a mid level publishing executive at a small unknown company would become a savage murderer over losing his job.

H-Town: OH BOY, I WONDER WHO IT IS SITTING OUTSIDE THE HOUSE PLOTTING?

me: you mean the helicopter WAS sabotaged?
HUGE PLOT TWIST!

H-Town: I hope in the next book there's a baby Grey and it emerges from Ana like an Alien, punches Christian in the dick, and then runs over Jack L Hyde in an Audi, all while carrying a helicopter with Elena and the crazy ex in it.

me: that would be epic

H-Town: Did you see one of your commenters mention an upcoming baby?

me: yes, that apparently digs "the sexing"
WTF

H-Town: w t f
if that's true I don't even...

me: i just can't...
so, what is your final recommendation to people considering reading this book?

H-Town: Are you fucking stupid?
that's my initial reaction
and then a more measured, "Do you want to have a reason to gouge out your eyes and almost give up on fiction forever?"
and then a crazier, "I could just shit in this box right here and it'd be better written and edited than this book."

me: i CAN'T BELIEVE I have to read ANOTHER volume of this fucktarded abortion of a book

H-Town: reminds me of this quote from Tommy Boy:
"If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time."

me: i miss chris farley
i want him to play christian grey in the movie

H-Town: oh my god YES

me: it would be the greatest movie of all time

I have so many questions about the third book:

• Will Elena team up with Jack Hyde and try to kill everyone?
• Will Leila cut her wrists when she finds out that Christian is going to marry someone?
• Does this baby have the slightest fucking chance of turning out to be a stable, healthy, happy human being?
• Will both of my eyeballs still be intact and attached to my face when I'm done reading?

I've put it off as long as I could. Let's get this thing over with, shall we?

Butthoven's Fifth

H-Town suggested to me last week that one thing that could help me in coming up with something to post every single day for a month is if I posted a few links to some of my favorite burlesque performances. And since I got to see one of my favorite burlesque performances in history live and in person last Wednesday at Naked Girls Reading, and also since I am backdating this post because I am a lazy fucking blogger (or possibly because I got drunk during a 6 and a half hour Skype call yesterday (in which I may or may not have also been naked and reading) and subsequently passed out before writing anything), I am going to do exactly that.

A year ago, the queen of Chicago burlesque, Michelle L'Amour, who also happens to be my dance teacher, walked into class and said "You guys, last night I did the most ridiculous thing I think I have ever done on stage. I played Beethoven with my butt." In the year that has passed since then she's been to Spain and France specifically to perform Butthoven's Fifth on television. Last Wednesday was the one year anniversary of that first performance, and to celebrate she performed it in between reading us stories about a guy who accidentally marries a big yellow cat and demonstrating that despite what countless movie adaptations would have you believe, Frankenstein's monster as portrayed in the actual book is exceptionally fucking articulate.

So, here is a video of the original performance of Butthoven's Fifth, which I can tell you from experience does not do justice to seeing it live.

Many thanks to H-Town for once again saving me from myself on this blog.

NaBloPoMo = Amberance Is Out Of Excuses

NaBloPoMo is starting today, which means I have no choice but to cease being lazy and write some damn blog posts already. It is hard to come up with something to write every single day for 30 days in a row, which is why I will now FINALLY be getting around to reading that last Fifty Shades book on behalf of all of you. I'll also tell you about my trip which I'd promised to do a month ago, start talking about Christmas way too early for most of you, and repeatedly remind you that my birthday is a mere two and a half months away.

Today, I am happy to report that my best friend H-Town and her lovely wife and daughter who live in Baltimore are all doing ok after the hurricane. The power is back on at their house after being out about a day and a half, and they are in the process of helping out people who didn't fare as well, including this blog post from H-Town about things you can do to help.

One other note: I am probably being overly ambitious with this, but in addition to participating in NaBloPoMo on Bizzybiz, I am also going to participate elsewhere on the internets IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. If you do know what I mean, don't run over there right this second - I haven't written for today yet because, come on, I am at work you perverts. I'll work on something at Tai's tonight (hopefully without any creepy dudes looking over my shoulder) and post it tonight before I go to bed.

My sincerest apologies to Xenu for the extreme delay in doing any of the things I have promised to do this autumn.

50 Cries Sadder

H-Town and amberance read Fifty Shades Darker so you don't have to.

H-Town: oh my god, fuck this book in its stupid dumb fucking face

me: oh my god this book

H-Town: KILL IT WITH FIRE

me: every time I read this I notice my face is hurting after. I think I am making monster faces the entire time

H-Town: lol

Chapter 18 begins with Christian (driving Ana’s car since she can’t be trusted to drive it herself) and Ana on their way to yet another surprise. They pull up to a massive fucking house in a massive fucking yard that is right on the coast. The house is old, but opulent. She makes a point of telling us there are four crystal chandeliers – in one room. They go out to the balcony and the view of the Sound nearly knocks her over. Turns out Christian is thinking of buying this house (from the realtor who Ana is instantly jealous of because she smiled at Christian, natch). You know, for when they are married. Assuming they are getting married. She hasn’t answered him yet, and we have been reminded about it on every fucking page since four chapters ago because he keeps trying to demand an answer from her.

me: So we left off all the way back at them looking at that house

H-Town: yes I love that she describes how he puts down the window in his car as he drives up to the house stupid stupid descriptions
also, how does one smile ironically?

me: I'm not sure. I should learn so I can smile ironically at this book

H-Town: I know how to smile demonically, because that's what I do when I think of hunting down EL James

me: her description of the sky is equally bad

H-Town: yes, the field - she wants to lay down in it and look at the sky. And I want to run over her with a tractor

me: "vermilion hues bleed into the cerulean sky, with opals and aquamarines"
I wrote "you're going to lose those crayons up your cooz"

H-Town: HAHAHAHA
her blood is pooling DOWN THERE in a lovely deep bronzey red
gross
sorry
OH AND THERE ARE FOUR CRYSTAL CHANDELIERS
I took that as sort of a "Fuck you" to all readers who don't live in a house like that

me: yes, so the obvious thing to do is tear the whole thing down and start over (“I want to buy it, demolish it, and build a new house – for us,” says Christian before going on to explain that he wants a house more eco friendly and sustainable. Or you could just go BUY A SUSTAINABLE HOUSE.)

H-Town: I KNOW
"I want to rebuild it eco"
wtf Christian
that is not at all Eco
you stupid bag of body wash

me: Oh you mean I can renovate what’s there to be more eco? I had no idea
you have INFINITE MONEY

H-Town: "I'll have to ask Elliot."
YOU ARE DUMB
EL James is dumber than 100% post-consumer waste
also, come on Christian, if you're really into being green, you wouldn't have 700 giant houses and 400 gas-guzzling cars
 
me: correct. maybe just get the one Prius and be done with it

H-Town: the sexiest Prius ever
0-60 in 15 seconds
AW YEAH
anywhore
she goes, "Christian, you had me at the meadow."
you mean the meadow he just said he was going to build a horse paddock in?
because he just shit on your field
FUCK OPEN SPACE, I WANT TO BE GREEN AND BUILD ON IT
ECO HORSES!!! THEY RUN ON HAY!

me: LOLOL
which she then called horses 4-legged fiends of Satan?

H-Town: horses aren't evil
they're lovely
spiders are eight-legged fiends of Satan

me: EXACTLY
so then let's go the club and celebrate your stupid promotion that you somehow forgot about even though it just happened 6 hours ago (Christian specifies “one of” his clubs. Because, you guys, he is so rich oh my god. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that yet.)

H-Town: also, the Mile High Club
REALLY?
I jumped out the window when I read that

me: I know, I wrote NO IT IS NOT FUCKING CALLED THAT

H-Town: as if no one's going to get that joke
seriously, that's like calling a restaurant Hooters
it's not exactly subtle

me: The bartender used to work at a gay bar called Manhole

H-Town: haha, I remember him saying that
HEY GUYS, WANNA COME TO MY NEW RESTAURANT CALLED "SEXY TITS AND CUNT LAND"?
YOULL NEVER GUESS WHAT IT'S LIKE!!
tell him to change the name of Tai's to "Sexy Tits and Cunt Land"

me: I would totally drink at that establishment

H-Town: same here
anyway, now they do a stupid no-panties dinner
blah blah seduction with seafood (Christian makes her take her panties off before dinner and then refuses to touch her at all while they’re eating. We are then subjected to six – SIX – pages of detailed descriptions on how they sexily ate food at each other. It is not sexy. It is fucking ludicrously irritating.)
I'm such a square, I was all, "I hoped he washed his hands before touching his slacks."
Think of the dry cleaning!

me: my only note from that whole 6 pages was "oh my god make this stop"
"I suck the hollandaise sauce off the asparagus"

H-Town: yeah, I wrote "HA HA Why talk about issues when we can just bang?!"
because she almost said that exact thing

me: OH THAT"S RIGHT
"issues, schmissues" is what she said
awesome
you are obviously carefully considering this marriage

H-Town: let's just screw, that will solve any problems we have
and then later, "Let's not talk about my weight. I like being slim."
You are not slim, you are starving.
People in Darfur eat more than her.
*goes to hell*

me: Karen Carpenter was a face stuffing fat ass next to Ana

H-Town: Kate Moss is all, "Hey, maybe eat a cracker."

me: a talking broom was like "you should really put on some weight"

H-Town: The fake skeleton in my anatomy class was all, "Eat a goddamn sandwich, you waif."

me: A guitar string told her she should get some help for her disorder
then more elevator tension (Christian fingers her in the elevator with other people around who don’t notice, then Ana makes a joke about having never had sex in a car which obviously makes Christian angry with her. By “obviously” I mean because he gets angry for no goddamn reason every time she figures out how to string together a complete sentence, not because anger in that situation would make any fucking sense. Then they barely make it back into the apartment before desperately fucking on the table in the foyer.)

H-Town: INTERCOURSE
then she goes to work, right?

me: oh right, in a low cut skin tight red dress (I’m not sure why James points this out since no one tries to rape her later. Force of habit I guess.)

H-Town: she says something about how the day flies by
and I wrote "Oh how the day flies by when you are not at all qualified for the job you have."

me: she's George Costanza with the Penske file

H-Town: hahaha
and now we've arrived at one of the stupidest things EVER

Ana goes out for drinks after work with Jose, who is in town to deliver the photos Christian bought so no one but him can ever look at Ana. Ana keeps trying to get in touch with Christian, but he refuses to respond to her. She assumes this because drinks with Jose has made him into the Hulk once again. She would probably be right under normal circumstances, but that day is not today. Instead she gets a phone call from Christian’s brother informing her that Christian and his helicopter are missing. Chapter 19 starts with every person Christian has ever met in his life gathered in his apartment, all terrified because he is obviously dead and the authorities have called off the search. Mind you he has only been missing for eight hours, an amount of time that would not even trigger a search unless the person missing is 7 years old. It is also all over the news. Ana spends most of this chapter in a trance, staring at the fireplace, lamenting about how she can’t go on without him, and recalling everything he’s ever said to her. Included in Ana’s thoughts here is the line “And we don’t know where he is.” Thank you, Einstein, I had no idea that’s what “missing” meant.

me: oh my fuck

H-Town: he goes missing
FOR EIGHT HOURS
EIGHT GODDAMN HOURS
no one would've gone looking for him yet

me: the last note I wrote for chapter 18 was "good. maybe he's dead."
especially no one would have gone looking for him and also ALREADY CALLED OFF THE SEARCH

H-Town: apparently you should never go missing in the northwest

me: Noted

H-Town: because they just give up very easily
they're all rapists, but you can hide pretty easily, I guess they stop looking

me: well I’m not going there anyway since everyone is a rapist
"I'll be nothing without him"
Jesus, you could try being an individual

H-Town: also, you can't just step out for a few minutes, because they'll put you on TV as missing and you'll be all, "Dammit, I was just going to get some takeout."

me: yes but this was because it's CHRISTIAN GREY, H-Town

H-Town: EVERYONE KNOWS HIM
the world mourns

me: if it was a lesser man like the President they'd wait and see first

Turns out Christian is alive and well, which we find out when he walks through the door and is startled to find that his entire family is upset that he was missing because he is a bad bad man who doesn’t deserve love. His explanation: The person he was flying with had never seen Mount Saint Helens so he decided to do a quickie fly by (which I’m pretty sure you can’t do without registering a flight plan, but whatever) when all of a sudden there is a fire in the tail and both his engines and the electronics all died (or he cut them intentionally because of the fire, it varies from page to page because E.L. James has the attention span of a frightened gerbil on cocaine). He manages to land Charlie Tango and put out the fire, but now he is in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception, so he and his companion walk for four hours (he claims it take four hours because she’s wearing heels. No woman alive would walk through the woods in heels for four hours, she would take them off and keep an eye out for pointy sticks) until they find a road, by which time both their cell phones have died. In the course of him telling this story, and then later in the next chapters, it is foreshadowed no less than six times that all those malfunctions happening at once might mean the helicopter was sabotaged.

H-Town: and two remarkably stupid quotes from this chapter
"oh the feel of this warm, vital, sensual man beneath my fingers."
and
"you are my talisman, Ana."
You are a fuckstick, Christian.

me: the whole series of events:
everything that can break on a helicopter breaks at the same time

H-Town: but there's intrigue!

me: somehow there is not time to radio for help before shutting off the electronics

H-Town: they let on like someone did it!

me: no cell phone reception
walking for 100 miles
then cell phone dies
...if someone I was dating gave me that story after going missing all day my first reaction would be "Yeah right. Who are you fucking?"

H-Town: speaking of silly
The baby just got home from the library and immediately removed her dress
she's now in her shoes and underwear

me: that's my girl

We had to end the conversation here because H-Town was rudely interrupted by people who want her to do work, but the only thing left in the chapter now that Christian is home and safe and Ana doesn’t have to throw herself off a bridge is that since it’s after midnight, Ana tells Christian he can open his birthday present. It’s a stupid piece of shit tourist keychain of the Seattle skyline with flashy lights. On the back of it the flashy lights are blinking the word “YES”. SIX FUCKING WEEKS SHE HAS KNOWN THIS ASSHOLE. You know what? Fine. Fucking marry him so this whole thing can end in a murder suicide and I can stop reading this.

50 Hurrs Derper

H-Town and amberance read Fifty Shades Darker so you don't have to.

H-Town: I'm pretty sure that if you read "50 shades darker" out loud in a forest, every living thing would run/fly/jump away in sheer terror.

Me: truer words have never been spoken

H-Town: every sentence gets worse and worse
Every time A-Town asks me to tell her what's going on, I just shake my head "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START."
How many English teachers have been driven to drink or worse because of this book?

Me: In the future this year will be known as "The Year The English Teachers Jumped Off A Bridge"

Chapter 16 picks up where the last one left off - with our worthless fuckhole of a protagonist getting cornered by her blatantly creepy boss after hours. Instead of immediately crotch punching his rapist ass, she stands there listening to his insane and disparate ramblings which range from "You owe me because I fought for you to get this job since Elizabeth thinks you're worthless" to "you are obviously a spy sent here by Christian Grey to get me fired" to "quit acting coy, I can totally tell you want to jump on my happy stick right now". Predictably, because it has been endlessly foreshadowed since the second she showed up on her first day, Jack has noticed that she sends an inordinate number of ridiculous and sex laced emails to Christian all fucking day long. He has also noticed that Christian's return emails all seem to have mysteriously disappeared. For some reason he thinks this is something he can blackmail her with (to whom?) and he tells her he'll stop looking into what happened to Christian's magic emails if she'll just suck his dick on command et cetera from now on. Eventually it dawns on her to actually defend herself and she kicks him in the nuts, runs outside, and dramatically sinks to the ground in a near faint, at which point Christian arrives just in time to catch her before she hits the ground and I throw up in my mouth a little.

Me: So Chapter 16
Everyone Wants To Rape You
I am never going to Seattle; evidently it is a rapist colony
My first note in this chapter is "I KNEW she sucked"
when he was all "You should totes blow me for getting you this job since Elizabeth thinks you're dumber than a houseplant"

H-Town: HAHAHAHAHA
Also, hurr durr blackberry

Me: yep, that wasn't foreshadowed to death or anything
IDIOT

H-Town: I can't wait to see what Jack Mehoff Hyde has on his hard drive
pr0n

Me: I know right

H-Town: watch, it'll be something tame but she'll treat it like it's a deviant lifestyle
MEN HAVING SEX!

Me: EGADS!
I also wrote down "a smart blackmail rapist would have saved all her emails on a thumb drive"
and then I thought it's a good thing I’m not a criminal because I’d be scary good at it
I was confused why she didn't just immediately crotch punch him, but then she did eventually so I decided to let it go

H-Town: no shit
go all "Office Space" printer on him

Me: but then on page 370, when she runs outside and then DRAMATICALLY crumples to the ground because she almost fainted because she hasn't eaten in 6 months
I rote "please be kidding with this"
wrote

H-Town: lol, rote
u r EL James
I would have a hard time not driving the car over the boss as he left

Me: that was another thing that made no sense
"oh my boss tried to rape me just now...no please don't hurt him"
uh, no Christian gets to do whatever the fuck he wants to jack right now
so jack totes gets fired and she thinks she'll get fired for getting him fired?

H-Town: no one said Ana is smart
well, Christian did

Me: in between yelling at her for being stupid, that is (Christian goes ballistic when Ana tells him that the basis of Jack's blackmail attempt was her idiotic emails. He makes a phone call to have all of Ana's emails to him erased (why he didn't do this when he had his OWN emails erased off the server would be a mystery if we didn't already know that E.L. James can't write her way out of a paper bag and has to manufacture plot points). He will continue yelling at her for this the entire way home. She will continue to have absolutely no idea why he is upset with her.)

Me: I like how she explains that she knew how to kick jack in the balls because her dad was in the army
I was picturing weeks of boot camp where everyone is just kicking each other in the balls constantly
though he probably did need to teach her that since she's never had any instinct for self-preservation at all
So now that everyone is home safe from the near-rape experience, it's time to have a fight (The apparently minor issue of "my boss just tried to rape me" now forgotten, Ana tells Christian that Jose wants to come visit, touching of the second argument between them in as many hours.)

Me: "I should get to see Jose because I don't moan about you seeing Elena"
SAY WHAT NOW?

H-Town: STUPID BULLSHIT

Me: she CONSTANTLY complains about his friendship with Elena
every waking minute of her life

H-Town: I wish this book would quickly end in a murder suicide

Me: that would be more realistic than any end she could come up with where anyone lives
she's like "you are always mad at me"
I wrote "TOTES marry him, it will be puppies and rainbows!"

H-Town: I bet Ana would even make Ellen DeGeneres mad
Also, there are never any disagreements or arguments in marriage
ever.

Me: Ellen DeGeneres AND Delilah

H-Town: hahaha

Me: and then he's like "nuh-uh, I wasn't mad at you this morning"

H-Town: "There was a period of 30 seconds when I was totes happy with you."

Me: oh great, that one time, for five minutes, while you were fucking?
sure, that counts

H-Town: "Then I punched a hole through Charlie Tango's vagina."

Me: no, no you're right, this relationship is entirely stable

Following that argument, Christian goes off to work, while Ana wanders into the playroom and discovers - GASP - it has sex toys in it. Christian conveniently comes along to explain what all these mysterious gadgets do, which sounds as though he's reading descriptions out of a catalog.

Me: And then the tour of all those CRAZY WEIRD sex toys!

H-Town: YOU ARE A DEVIANT!

Me: also known as "an inventory of things in my bedroom right now"
butt plugs?
OMGWTFBBQ

H-Town: This was just EL James retyping the list of things she once saw for sale online at a sex toy shop
I'm surprised she didn't leave them in alphabetical order

Me: when she said "the butt drawer"
I got this stuck in my head for HOURS

H-Town: hahaha

Me: "how does he make that sound so erotic?" (This is an actual line in response to the following description of nipple clamps: "You can wear them very tight...or not. Depending on your mood.")
well, you are talking about sex toys, it really shouldn’t be that hard
also, she’s cool looking at: butt plugs, anal beads, nipple clamps, a ball gag, a Wartenberg pinwheel....
but when he's like "these are vibrators"
she's all NNOOOOOOOOO
 I CAN'T LOOK

H-Town: FAKE PENII!
(plural of penis)

Me: and then INTERCOURSE
but first on the way to the intercourse

H-Town: which does exist, by the way
Intercourse, PA
so you can actually be on your way to Intercourse in real life, yo

Me: we HAVE to go there and take our photos by the sign

H-Town: and then have our status say "WE'RE HAVING (lunch in) INTERCOURSE!!!"

Me: YES

H-Town: I've been there, it is a cute little Amish town right near Blue Ball, PA
seriously

Me: NO WAY

H-Town: Yes way

Me: *starts packing*

H-Town: directions for you

Me: and this is why I love you
anywhore, on the way to intercourse
James writes another thing that is so ignorant and wrong I completely lost my shit

H-Town: you have no more shit to lose with this book
your shit is so far gone it came back and got lost again.

Me: this book may very well kill me, it's true
she compares wanting to participate in kink
TO ALCOHOLISM (Christian: "I'm like a recovering alcoholic, okay? That's the only comparison I can draw." NO NO NO. A THOUSAND FUCKING TIMES NO.)
YOU JUDGEMENTAL TWAT KAZOO

H-Town: Twat Kazoo
that deserves an award

Me: it deserves to be a real thing
What instrument do you play?
Twat kazoo
and I really thought that was going to be the high point of my rage for this section, I really honestly did
but it never works that way
never
because every single sentence in chapter 17 is the worst sentence I’ve ever read

H-Town: oh my god, the hate

After they wake up the next day and have some morning sex that includes the following vagina drying description: "as his lips journey leisurely across my clavicle", Christian takes Ana out to see her new Saab, which she then drives to work. This journey includes an argument about whether or not she is capable of driving and listening to music at the same time. I'm not making that up.

H-Town: Let’s start with the car where he describes all of it like a commercial
also, IT PLAYS CDS, MP3S AND YOUR IPOD?!?1
WHAT KIND OF CRAZY FUTURE TECHNOLOGY IS THIS?!?!

Me: that was ridiculous
and mp3 "discs"

H-Town: Yes EL James, clearly into technology
she probably looks for the "any" key

Me: HAHAHA
"The key goes here"

H-Town: Cars need keys?
Can't Christian just make it go with his thoughts? or his wang?

Me: he can make anything work with his wang
he flies Charlie Tango with it

H-Town: signed,
Christian Grey,
CEO Grey Enterprise Holdings
Personal Tripod

Me: Then she goes to work and again, I thought "this is the single stupidest thing in this entire book"
let me get this straight: Elizabeth didn't want to hire you because you are less competent than a drunk turtle, so when your boss gets fired a week and a half after you start working there, they decide to give you his job? (This ACTUALLY HAPPENS. After 9 DAYS on a job that seems to mostly involve picking up lunch and making coffee, Elizabeth, who never wanted to hire her in the first place, gives Ana Jack's position, based solely on Jack having been "a champion of her abilities" which we already know was only because he wanted to fuck her. Even better, Elizabeth gives her the promotion and then AFTERWORDS hands her a copy of the actual job description. I just...no.)

H-Town: OH MY GOD
yes

Me: I only wrote "NO. THAT IS RETARDED."

H-Town: She gets to take his job?
what in the stupid bastard batshit badminton assfuckery fuck?!?!?

Me: she is NEGATIVE 79% qualified for his job
MY CAT is more qualified for that job than Ana is

H-Town: The baby made something in her diaper that's more qualified than Ana
they must be the worst publishing company in the world
i.e., the one that published the 50 shades series
HEY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
and we've come full circle
I just created a rip in the space time continuum

Me: awesome, does that mean we can stop reading it?

H-Town: I wish

Me: fuck, oh well

H-Town: oh my god, then back to Christian and this line "His mood swings are like a metronome set at presto."

Me: I WROTE THAT DOWN TOO

H-Town: that made me fly to a small country, overthrow a dictator, and then go nuclear

Me: I for one welcome you as our new overlord

H-Town: Excellent

Me: right after that she was saying something about not having eaten, again
I wrote" almost through two entire books and she's eaten a cracker and half a grape"

After an argument I can't even explain because I have no idea what it was about, and another near argument because Ana has decided to play matchmaker and fix up Ethan with Christian's little sister, we come to a part in the book that has caused me to give up on my life entirely.

Me: So my outrage over the promotion lasted about four pages before the story gets EVEN DUMBER
because you can't go quiz you boyfriend's doctor about his mental issues.
you CAN'T do it. YOU CAN NOT DO THAT

H-Town: I know

Me: the entire second half of this chapter doesn't exist in real life

H-Town: that was a WTF so big that this dog's head blew up:

Me: and Dr. Flynn says "just so you know, these sessions are confidential"
yes, they are so confidential SHE SHOULD NOT BE INVITED
but it's ok because she signed that completely unenforceable NDA

H-Town: HATE
This chapter, I just don't even...
I mean COME the fuck ON

Me: when they get into the actual details of things they have no business discussing
and he keeps saying "haphephobia, parasomnia, SFBT therapy"
So, I'm supposed to believe that he's a therapist but he has no fucking idea how to talk to actual people?
He must be really effective
but, ultimately it doesn't even matter
because the entire conversation CAN'T BE HAPPENING

H-Town: This book deserves to be shot into the sun

Me: the sun is too good for this book.
It should be dissolved in a vat of toxic compost
oh, and can I just take this opportunity to say
the next fucking time she writes "whoa, quick change of direction" when Christian changes the subject I am going to rent a tank and drive it through her house

H-Town: that and all these "holy fuck" and "holy shit" parts
sometimes in italics, sometimes not

Me: every one of these things has happened 800 times.
YOU ARE NOT SURPRISED ANYMORE
SHUT UP

H-Town: also, driveatank.com

Me: that is exactly what I needed, thank you kindly
so yeah, except for the fight about who is going to drive, that's the chapter.
A promotion that would never happen, followed by a doctor's visit that would also never happen

H-Town: Chapter 17 does not exist

Me: exactly. it is a bad dream I had, not something that was actually written down on actual paper
I’m glad, can you imagine if that was something we actually read?
I would have to impale myself on a stake

H-Town: this has all been a horrible, horrible dream

It's about to get worse. After I told my informant how outrageous I found the entirety of these two chapters she told me I haven't seen anything yet, and it's the next two chapters that are going to cause me to beg you all to decapitate me in the most gruesome manner possible.

The Invasion Continues

me: there was another spider in my living room last night

H-Town: wtf, amber
W
T
F
burn your apt down

me: right? i might have to move
luckily it stayed where it was all night so the bartender could kill it when he got home

H-Town: a HUGE spider keeps building a web across our back lawn
I don't know how they do that
I walk into it every morning
and yesterday HE WAS ON IT

me: NOOOOOOOOOOOO

H-Town: OH GOD
thankfully he didn't get on me
but I did say, out loud, "Holy crap, you're a huge fucker!"
thankfully no neighbors were outside

me: you'd think he would get tired of you ruining his hard work every day and go somewhere else

H-Town: I know that's what i was hoping
the huge ones on our front porch got the hint when i kept destroying their webs with a broom each day
only took two days, they figured it out moved it off to the side

me: they should have a talk with him

H-Town: spider meeting
"come on, man, stop trying to catch humans. it won't work"

me: "it's really not worth the effort. you're better off hanging out over here with us. we have some great flies."

H-Town: "We're right by the front porch light - it's a freakin' buffet, man."

For those of you keeping track at home, that's EIGHT spiders in my house in two weeks. EIGHT OF THEM.

H-Town apologizes for not reading more (i.e. at all) this week. She has good excuses though. Wednesday was her birthday. She's going camping this weekend for some reason. And today is her 10th wedding anniversary. Please join me in congratulating H-Town and A-Town on 10 years of destroying the sanctity of straight marriages everywhere. Ladies, I love you both. Or, more creepily, I love you both, ladies.

50 Heaves Drier

H-Town and amberance read and review 50 Shades Darker so you don't have to.

me: How can a book as ridiculous as this one have jumped the shark?
 it should not have been able to get more stupid
AND YET

H-Town: IT IS SO DUMB
I am running out of ways to describe how much I hate it

Chapter 13 opens with Ana facing down Leila who is standing there in Ana's kitchen pointing a gun at her. To Ana's credit, she does repeatedly wonder if Ethan is ok. It is the only thing I'm willing to give her credit for in this entire chapter. Ana asks Leila if she's alone, touching off a repetition of the word "alone" from Leila as though the record is skipping, then asks for the gun causing a disturbing gollumesque scene of Leila petting it and insisting it's all she has left. Leila's movements are described as "unnatural" and James would have us believe she's never heard of the word inadequate: "'In-ad-e-quate.' She tests the word, sounding it out, seeing how it feels on her tongue." Leila is one very sad android.

Suddenly, Christian and Taylor burst through the door to save the day like knights in shining douche water. BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID. I can't even be mad anymore. It's like I have battle fatigue. When Christian comes in the room, Leila goes into automated submissive mode. She immediately puts down the gun, drops to her knees, puts her hand on her thighs, and points her eyes at the floor. I am actually still naive enough to think this is a good thing - the threat is eliminated, everyone can relax. Everyone, that is, except Ana: "Christian's expression is raw, full of some unnamed emotion. It could be pity, fear, affection...or is it love? No, please, not love!" Good god, the word you are looking for is COMPASSION. It should be in the thesaurus you have shoved up your snatch, right next to pity in fact. But no, everything in this universe and in every unseen parallel universe revolves around ANA, so instead we are treated to NINE PAGES worth of Ana thinking, both to herself and out loud, that Christian doesn't want her anymore because he is in love with a filthy waif on the floor of her apartment who ANYONE can see is in desperate need of someone to help her. EXCEPT FOR ANA.

me: really, all i have to say about the entire chapter is exactly what christian said to her
"This is not about you, Ana"
because OH MY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER

H-Town: dumb stupid crap

me: some of my notes:
HOLY ASS SPACKLE you know what she means.
YOU SELF CENTERED TURD POPSICLE
I LOATHE YOU YOU STUPID ASSHOLE CUNTWAD BITCH TACO

H-Town: those are epic

me: I wanted to take the gun and shoot Ana myself

H-Town: yes, I was thinking, "Shoot! Hurry, shoot!"

me: get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment!
"I think he's trying to convey some sort of message"
ACTUAL FUCKING LINE (Christian tells Ana to leave the apartment FOUR TIMES before that sentence appeared. And in the end, Taylor had to pick her up and carry her outside.)

Downstairs, Ana finds out to her relief that Ethan had just got there and had never been in the apartment. She promptly bursts into tears (because Christian might love Leila, not because she narrowly escaped being shot). She tells Taylor, she TELLS Taylor - I'm repeating this because you'll need it later - that she and Ethan are going to go get a drink. Conveniently there is a bar directly across the street, and they sit, we are told, "by the window". They proceed to get drunk whilst Ana tells Ethan all about Leila and how sad she is that Christian is probably about to leave her. Once she is good and loaded (alcohol being the perfect balm for the "hideous blossoming pain" in her heart), Ethan walks her home, where she finds Christian has worked himself into a frenzy wondering where she was because she'd left her purse in the car.

H-Town:he couldn't find her
IN A BAR ACROSS THE STREET FROM HER APT
yet he can stalk her in every other way?

me:oh that was a great line
"I couldn't even track you!"
Tomorrow they will be installing a GPS locator inside her head to fix that problem

H-Town: well, he's tried installing himself into her vagina enough times
HEY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

me: BOOM

After Ana breaks down, they go through another insane round of co-dependant bullshit showing us once again that they both are entirely too insecure for an adult relationship and also that they never, ever listen to what the other has to say. Please don't leave me! No, you don't leave! No YOU don't leave! Which goes on until finally, inexplicably, Christian gets down in the same submissive posture Leila had been in earlier.

me: So I'm very confused at the end of 13/beginning of 14 what submissive Christian was all about

H-Town: desperation?
not a clue

me: she's not in the lifestyle. that reaction would make no sense to her. and didn't

H-Town: well, no one said Christian was smart
besides Ana, anyway
a pencil would seem smart to Ana

Chapter 14 consists entirely of a conversation that is so bizarre and goes absolutely nowhere, I wound up taking almost no notes for the entire first half of it. But eventually we find out this: the reason Christian is so afraid Ana will leave, and the reason all his submissives have looked just like Ana, is because that is what his mother looked like, and as a sadist, he needs them to look that way so he can pretend he's whipping his terrible, terrible mother. And then apparently fucking her afterward. I don't even know anymore.

me:let's see, blah blah blah melodrama
this entire chapter needs to die in a fire.
every single word of it
oh right, after pages and pages of oh my poor broken damaged christian i must save him! then she's like "You're a fucking sicko!"
MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND

H-Town: "i screw little girls who look like my crackwhore mom"
nice, real nice

me: i can't even process that. as a participant in the lifestyle, that she would even fucking go there is too insulting for me to think about it

H-Town: and then she closes it out with a cherry on top "deviant sexual life style"
FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK HAMMER
Eat a bowl of whale dicks, EL

me: Mommy issues is not a some kind of common problem in this community
but H-Town, there is only one way he can be sure that she won't run away from him

H-Town: mawwiage

Seriously, he proposes. And the reason he proposes is so that he'll stop being afraid that Ana might run away now that she knows he has mommy issues and doesn't understand the term sadist.

H-Town: no one ever runs from marriage, Amber
NO ONE (this is funnier if you know that I have planned to get married three times in my life, and then turned around and decided NOT to do that three times.)

me: FIVE GODDAMN WEEKS, first of all
and yeah

H-Town: because they are teens

me: Christian lives in a magical fantasyland where no one has ever gotten divorced
Then more eating
I'm hungry, but you said something i don't like so now I'm not hungry

H-Town: and then THEY FIGHT AGAIN
SUCK A BAG OF SHIT

me: oh AND
James calls macaroni and cheese "nursery food"
I took personal exception to that
and it proves that she's never met a live American in her entire life
because ALL AMERICANS love mac and cheese FOREVER
we DEEP FRY that noise and call it a delicacy

The fight starts when Ana tells Christian that she was having a drink with Ethan that whole time she was "missing", and Christian immediately turns into a jealous rage monster. It continues with her asking in an accusatory tone what he'd been doing with Leila that whole time, and then gets an answer for which she is legitimately upset.

me: i liked the part where she was all "two can play at this game"
and tries to make him jealous about Ethan
I wrote in my notes "everyone is blindingly jealous all the time because love should make you feel angry and paranoid constantly"
in that fight though, i do have to say
seriously, you gave her a bath?

H-Town: BUT SHE WAS SO DIRTY AND IN NEED OF HELP!
whatever Christian, you just wanted to see her boobs and cootch again
just be honest

me: i hope you don't mind i GAVE HER YOUR CLOTHES
has he even met Ana?

H-Town: I ogled and touched her in the tub, then gave her your clothes
Now, suck my dick because it's dreamy and covered in Mac n Cheese and I'm Christian Grey

me: she freaks out when total strangers eye fuck him from 100 yards away, but no, go ahead and dress your ex lover that almost just killed me in my clothes, I'm cool with it

H-Town: oh, earlier she had a sentence about "whipping and caning and shit"
and I thought she'd said "Whipping and canning.'
And I thought, now there's a pastime
whipping, while canning some veggies for the winter
pleasure and pain

me: hang on I'll hit you again in a minute, i just have to finish canning these apricot preserves

H-Town: "Smells delicious! NOW HIT ME AGAIN, BITCH."
aaaand scene

me: S and Martha Stewart

After the fight, Ana storms off to go to bed and winds up in a Lifetime Movie Network special.

me: So much to process!
here let me just crumple up dramatically on the bathroom floor and sob like they do in the movies
I've cried on the bathroom floor too, but not over an abusive boyfriend playing happy tub time with a crazy broad and them asking me to marry him right after
usually it's just because i drank too much
sob sob "why did i drink 9 margaritas?"
for example
so, Chapter 15
sad sad christian has a scary dream because Ana was thirsty (Ana gets up to get a drink, and in the 5 minutes it takes her to do this, Christian somehow magically knows in his sleep that she has left the bed and therefore starts having a nightmare.)

H-Town: She was SO FAR AWAY

me: how did his body know she left while he was still sleeping?

H-Town: his penis went on a journey to Great Vagina Cave, but it wasn't there so he freaked out

me: "she's gone! quick! START THE HORROR SHOW BEFORE SHE COMES BACK!"
also apparently she has to lay in bed all night long no matter what so christian can find his happy place until the end of time i guess?
she's going to have to start wearing Depends to bed

All is forgotten from the fight earlier because you see guys? He NEEDS her. So they fuck first and then talk about their feelings. They stay up so long talking about them that she winds up being late to work in the morning.

me: before she left for work
he says she should marry him because "we can get to know each other then"

H-Town: oh my god yes
Because that's how marriage works
I met A-Town two days before we got married
We like excitement and awkward discussion

me: that's totally the best order for that to happen
you should have had the baby first, then met her, then got married immediately, then got to know each other
you failed

H-Town: She's late to work and Jack is an angryface and he wants her to type up a letter he wrote.
W T F
He actually wrote a letter by hand despite having a computer then he wants her to type it up

me: this dude is allegedly in publishing?

H-Town: COMPUTERZ R HARD

me: also, make 100 copies of that and snail mail them to all our authors.
don't send them an email or anything, they'd never see that because writers don't use computers either
I like how we're supposed to think Jack is an asshole because he expects her to show up on time and do her job

H-Town: and she still fucks away with time emailing Christian

me: whatevs, i was only 15 minutes late, why can't i email my boyfriend all day and constantly take personal calls? (In the course of the day, after she was already late to work on her 8th day at this job, she takes calls from Jose, Ethan and Mia. In the conversation with Ethan, she calls her boss "nasty and ugly", then realizes he's looking right at her. Classy.)

H-Town: We all know work is for working, and for gchatting about stupid books.

me: he wants me to get coffee and bring him lunch? what am I, his assistant?
signed,
Ana Steele, assistant to Jack Rapist Hyde
also, she won't use her blackberry no matter how many fucking times Christian tells her, therefore TIME TO FIGHT
this line was awesome "I make my way to the copy machine - which, of course, is suffering from a paper jam - and when I've fixed it, I find it's out of paper."
must have been jammed with that fancy imaginary paper i guess

H-Town: "Oh hey, there's my hairbrush!"

me: "christian must have left my underwear in there"
it's suffering from a jam jam.
never do whipping and canning in the copy room

Ana spends the entirety of the day complaining that her angry boss is asking her to do things, every single one of which is part of her job description. We are supposed to feel that her boss is unreasonable, and that this is because he is angry at her not for being late and then refusing to work, but for having a boyfriend. Because she actually has to do some work for once, several of Christian's emails go unanswered. He panics that something terrible must have happened to her because no one in this book understands how working works. And then, of course, James ends the chapter with something terrible about to happen to her. After hours when the office is deserted, her creepy boss corners her in the kitchen, closes the door behind him and: "His lips twitch into a grotesque smile, and his eyes gleam deep, dark cobalt. 'At last, I have you on your own,' he says, and he slowly licks his lower lip."

H-Town: did you read chapter 16? with Jack McCreepy RapeHyde

me: no not yet
I am looking forward to that because at the end of 15 I wrote "Rapist boss is rapey"

H-Town: yeah, wait til you read that chapter you will want to set something else on fire

me: one other thing, from when she's zoning out at lunch wondering if she should marry an abusive stalker who wants to fuck his dead mom

H-Town: i skimmed that section SO HARD

me: he needs to learn little things, like empathy and boundaries
LITTLE THINGS
he needs to learn little things, like how to be a HUMAN BEING
he's completely out of control and can't relate to other people at all, but hey, no big whoop
even now I'm still stunned that people think this is a romance

H-Town: I saw someone reading it on a Kindle the other day and I wanted to knock it out of their hands like I was blocking them from a bullet or something all slo-mo
NOOOOOOOOO *slap*
then the crowd nearby applauds

me: you should get a medal for that
maybe this is why i suck at relationships.
because i keep forgetting the rules
abuse is romantic and being rich excuses you from being a douchebag

H-Town: "Oh Amber, I love you."
"I'm stalking you."
"LET'S BANG."
that's how it always is

me: in all fairness, that last part is basically true
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse!"
"Well then do me!"

H-Town: You're not like that
You're much more nuanced.
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse. Wanna do it?"
"Sure!"
see?

me: you caught me. I just wanted to use "do me" in a sentence

Bonus Fifty Shades Review Material For Your Eyeballs And Earballs

While I was in Baltimore this weekend visiting H-Town, we took a few minutes out of our busy schedule for a special supplement to our Fifty Shades Darker review in the form of a dramatic reading of an email exchange between Christian and Ana from near the end of Chapter 12. For those of you who haven't read the books, and dear readers, I sincerely hope for your sake that it's most of you, whenever Christian and Ana email each other, two really annoying things happen (apart from the fact that they should be using instant messenger and not email in the first fucking place). One is that instead of just replying to the email that preceded it, they start a new email with a different subject line for every response. The other is that Christian edits his email signature EVERY SINGLE TIME, which not only makes him look like the world's most childish CEO, but also completely defeats the purpose of having a standard email signature in the first place. For these reasons, we left the subject lines and Christian's email signatures in for our dramatic interpretation instead of just reading the text of the emails. This exchange is representative of every email exchange Christian and Ana have ever had. Have fun pondering that while you're trying to fall asleep tonight.

The audio is very quiet for the first few seconds, but it gets better. Enjoy.

50 Shrieks Higher

Chapter 11 begins with the dramatic resolution to the “Who will win this game of pool?” Mystery Theater. Turns out it’s Christian. They proceed to have some spanky sex right there on the pool table, as you do.

H-Town: chapter 11: Spanky Spanky

Me: Christian wins! TIME TO BANG

H-Town: this sentence make me el oh el
"I am hot and bothered and damp in all the right places."
I read it out loud to A-Town
and said, "I sure hope she doesn't mean her basement. Damp basements are a sign of a more serious problem."

Me: bothered and damp in all the right places, bothered and damp

H-Town: I should recommend a basement guy to her

Me: yeah, he can help her figure out what's wrong DOWN THERE

H-Town: Also, again, fuck her stupid inner goddess
all this goddam "my inner goddess prepares her floor dance routine" and "my inner goddess does a backflip"
SHUT THE FUCK UP
I hope her inner goddess has a terrible training accident and ends up paralyzed

Me: as soon as I see "inne.." I skip to the next sentence

H-Town: good idea

Me: I got extremely angry in this sex scene.
See if you can guess why

H-Town: because this book sucks huge yak balls?

Me: yes, but there is another reason
"We're lovers, Anastasia. Lovers don't need safewords."
I'M SORRY WHAT?

H-Town: That was my second guess

Me: exactly who DO you need a safeword with then? The gardener?
"I was thinking about putting some geraniums over..." "SAFEWORD! SAFEWORD!"

H-Town: when you're entering a seedy bar
no wait, that's a password
"bubbalicious! BUBBALICIOUS!"
(example safeword)

Me: Also completely stupid:
Here bend over naked and try to hit that ball
Now he JUST SAID he was going to spank her
and she says "It's so unexpected I yelp"
FUCK YOU. STEVIE WONDER SAW THAT COMING
Also, here’s a thing that keeps bothering me
we haven't really addressed directly yet

H-Town: yes?

Me: all that shit she writes in italics

H-Town: Oh right, when he goes, "Now I'm going to give it to you"
and she's all WHAT? GIVE WHAT?!
FUCK YOU ANA

Me: NO ONE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

H-Town: and all that HOLY COW, HE'S SO HOT
Stop saying holy cow
You are not robin of batman and robin

Me: Holy cow, Batman! What could “let me have it” mean?
POW
It means that, tard wonder

H-Town: BAM!
ZAP!
CUM!
oh wait
THESAURUS!
ZOT!
BOOM!

Me: Thesaurus is EL's safeword I bet

H-Town: CUNT WAFFLE!

Me: I took a lot more notes on this sex scene than I thought actually
"He eases two fingers inside me and moves them in a circular motion"
Wow, he is amazing
That’s so different from all those other guys doing trapezoids in there

H-Town: I had hoped for trapezoid
haha

Me: YES
THIS IS WHY YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND

H-Town: "he tries a parallelogram, and I lose my shit."

Me: he attempts a pentagram, but Jesus shows up and says "guess again"
ok, that's enough banging for one day
something I have never said in real life

The next day they both get up for work. In the spirit of “you aren’t allowed to leave your office because a girl I used to fuck might shoot you”, Christian has his house wench or whatever pack Ana a lunch. She is amazed at this because in all of her life she has never once brown bagged it to school. Ana gets to work and her first order of business is to begin emailing back and forth a bunch of nonsense with Christian. She is interrupted by her boss, Creepy McRapistpants, who tells her he’s going on a business trip to New York next week and needs her to come along. And stay overnight. Ana decides not to tell Christian right away and then does it anyway about four asinine emails later. True to form, Christian loses his shit, starts an argument with her over it, and eventually gets in touch with his magical “people” and has her trip blocked. She sends back a tirade of ANGRY CAPS LOCK about it that includes references to spanking, fucking, and whipping. Not for the first time, she’s using her work email account for this. Christian loses his shit some more, but his magical IT faeries are able to wipe the offending email from the server because that’s fucking likely.

H-Town: then she's at work and they act like fucking moron kids
seriously, Ana and Christian are those two friends you have that are dating and drive you insane because of all that stupid ass drama
you try to stay away from it, but it sucks you in
sort of like a Kardashian vagina

Me: HEY-OO

H-Town: their stupidity and drama have their own gravitational pull

Me: it's like a black hole of stupid
again, why does she continue to use her work email for personal shit?

H-Town: Black Hole of Stupid

Me: oh right, my bad

H-Town: oh and big surprise her boss is a creepster
another plot feature Stevie Wonder pointed out

Me: oh question: how does this shitpencil have a job? he harassed the two girls before Ana bad enough for them to quit, please explain how HR hasn’t fired him (Christian somehow has knowledge that the two assistants Jack had before Ana both quit due to his sexual harassment, though apparently this was never actually reported to anyone and he just knows it by magical telepathy. In the meantime, Jack has asked Ana to stay late and work on some edits to a memo. He then stands close enough to her to keep brushing up against her and watches her do it while asking her a series of inappropriately personal questions.)

H-Town: WE ARE IN MAGIC CANDYLAND
"HEY CAN YOU STAY LATE AND LOOK AT MY COCK -- I MEAN THIS ESSAY THAT NEEDS MY COCK - I MEAN EDITS."

Me: and speaking of HR, why doesn't she realize that is a viable option for making creepypants stop? he's brushing up against me, whatever do I do?

H-Town: COCK PUNCH

Me: you tell him to BACK THE FUCK UP before you saw his balls off with blunt scissors
but no
the answer is
of course
you mention that you are dating Christian Grey (This is precisely how she gets him to stop touching her. Actual thought from Ana: “You see, Christian? Even your name protects me.” Mother of Jesus, help me.)
THIS IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERY PROBLEM THAT EXISTS

H-Town: Ana: "Man, I have to take a massive dump. But there's no bathroom around!"
Ana: CHRISTIAN GRRREEEY!
*bathroom appears*
and a dump is taken
*scene*

Me: holy shit, Christian is the State Farm guy!
"Like a good neighbor, Christian is there!"
With a plunger!

H-Town: oh my god
YES
Like a big stalker, Christian is there...WITH A DOSSIER ON ME!

Me: Like a huge asshole, Christian is there....TELLING ME I CAN'T TAKE A WORK TRIP!

H-Town: Like a big fuck-up, Christian is there...BUYING EVERY COMPANY I WORK FOR!
are we to chapter 12 yet?

Me: almost, first they bang in the elevator
then it's chapter 12

H-Town: oh right
I'M SO MAD AT YOU
SEXY ELECTRICAL FEELINGS
INTERCOURSE

Me: I did write never ever ever open a condom with your teeth
pretty sure that's the first thing I ever learned about condoms
1. this is a condom. 2. don't open it with your teeth

H-Town: I like that she recognizes the foil ripping sound
when I hear foil ripping, it means we're about to defrost some turkey for dinner.
sexy and I know it

Me: wigglewigglewiggle

H-Town: yeah

At the start of Chapter 12, Elena shows up at the house to announce to Christian that someone is blackmailing her. Ana eavesdrops on the conversation, during which Elena says nothing but nice things about Christian and Ana being together, which of course makes Ana angry because HOW DARE THAT EVIL WOMAN APPROVE OF ME? She starts up again with the insane “how can you associate with that child molester” for which I swear I have now read 3000 times.

Me: ok so chapter 12
HERE COMES THAT BITCH WHO IS ALWAYS NICE TO YOU

H-Town: and she's being blackmailed, I like that they set up fake intrigue.
Also, here comes one of the funniest parts of the whole book.
She creates the name "Lincoln Timber."
LOLOLOLOL

Me: hahahahaha right?
this is another place where I was 100% agreeing with Christian and I hate myself for it
why are you mad that I’m obsessing about something that's none of my business?
BECAUSE IT IS OVER AND THEREFORE IRRELEVANT

H-Town: they are stupid annoying teens
DRAMA RAMA

Me: "Can we ever have a normal conversation without it disintegrating into an argument?"
not so far
the solution to which, obviously, is to move in together (Earlier, during the emailing back and forth from work, Christian had asked Ana to move in with him and she has agreed. Five weeks. They have known each other FIVE WEEKS.)

H-Town: sex solves everything
Heal the world...bang it into a better place
for you and for me and the..entire human race

Me: just bang a lot and moving in with someone you've known for five weeks and can't get along with will totally work out for the best!
It went really well for Chad Johnson

H-Town: ZING!

Me: Then we have another awful episode of CHRISTIAN GREY - MASTER PIANIST

H-Town: and a Pretty Woman piano sex scene
I hope her feet on the keyboard during sex sounded either like this
or like this

Me: I'm impressed that Christian didn't accidentally play Beethoven’s 5th with his wang gyrations

H-Town: she goes, "When did he take off all his clothes?"

Me: he didn't. he has smart clothes, they fall off and fold themselves neatly on a chair when they sense he wants to bang
it's super convenient, way more practical than crotchless panties

H-Town: Like a big creeper, Christian is there....WITH SELF-REMOVING CLOTHES!

Me: AND A MUSICAL WANG!

The next morning, they wake up and have a conversation over breakfast in which Christian refers to his birth mother as “the crack whore”.

Me: the next day, she awakes from her dream of "overly blonde and dark haired women"
so....most of them? because she's pretty much only missing the darker blondes and the gingers

H-Town: oh my god, the part where she asks Christian to think of good memories and he goes, "I remember the crack whore baking and the smell."
HA HA HA

Me: oh my god I know

H-Town: the smell of the ho, or the ho's cookies?

Me: or maybe of the crack?

H-Town: Nabisco presents "Crack Whore Cookies"
NO WAIT
BETTY CRACKWHORE
OH MY GOD

Me: you just won the internet

Kate’s brother is moving into the apartment Ana shares (for now) with Kate, and he stops by Ana’s office to pick up the key. The dialogue between Ana and the receptionist is some of the least believable dialogue James has written to date, and that is saying something.

Me: "your boyfriend is so dreamy Ana"
no one says dreamy unless they are mocking you

H-Town: so true

Me: and that same girl with the dreamy, when Ethan stop by
"you sure know some hunky guys"
the front desk is in some kind of weird time vortex where it's 1950, just right there
all the time, forever

H-Town: "Golly gee, Ana, you sure are the bee's knees!"

Me: "Work after I'm married? Ha ha ha, you sure do have some funny ideas!"

H-Town: "I can't believe I have a job!" *has a baby*

Me: vacuum cleaner magically appears

Ana’s work day is largely uneventful since all she ever does is email Christian all day long and his name is a magical shield that protects her from her boss. After work, Christian and Taylor pick her up at her office and drive to her apartment, where they are to pick up Ethan and all go out for dinner together.

Me: so did you make a note of it? on page 307?

H-Town: pants hanging from hips?

Me: YES

H-Town: why of course!

Me: THE MAGIC HOVERING PANTS HAVE RETURNED
ALL HAIL THE BELTLESS WONDER PANTS
we should redo these books, but everywhere it says "his pants hang from his hips" change it to "his ass crack beckons to me"

H-Town: "his pants bulge uncomfortably in the front”

Me: "his pants sag down to his ankles and he raps a hello greeting"

H-Town: "his pants droop, showing off this 'FREE LUNCH' tattoo, complete with arrow."

Me: "his pants fall off and he trips and face plants into a vat of acid"

H-Town: "his pants fall down and out walk a family of clowns."

Me: and they all stab Ana. because that's what clowns do. They stab you.
"He farts in his baggy pants and drifts off like a beautiful fucked up balloon"
the end of the chapter is a perfect example of what I mean when I say James has no continuity in her characters
she knows she wants a scene where Ana is alone with Leila pointing a gun at her
so even though Christian never lets her out of his sight, and even though he knows Ethan is in the house and ALL MEN WHO KNOW ANA MUST DIE, and even though he forces her to take a bodyguard to work every day because they still haven’t found Leila, he's all "yeah, go get Ethan all by yourself. I have no problem with this in any way"
I’m sorry Ms. James, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call shenanigans on you

H-Town: call more than that on her

Me: for once she did actually end a chapter with a legitimately dramatic cliff hanger (Ana walks into the apartment assuming Ethan has kindly left the door open for her and runs smack in to Leila standing in her kitchen holding “a small revolver”.)

H-Town: I started reading the next chapter because I was really hoping it'd start with a "BLAM" and she'd die

Me: no, that's the choose your own adventure ending we are about to write
"Leila levels the gun at me and I freeze like a character in some sort of obscure style of painting that will make me sound educated."

H-Town: also, Leila talks like Gollum
so that's all I could think of

Me: yeah that's about it for that
I WONDER HOW SHE WILL WRITE HER WAY OUT OF THIS ONE?
like a Chuck Norris Christian is there....WITH A DROP KICK TO LEILA'S FACE JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME

H-Town: I have no more adjectives.

Tomorrow morning, I will be getting on a plane and flying to Baltimore to visit with H-Town and A-Town live and in person. The bad news is that we have shit to do all weekend and won’t be having any standard chat reviews. The good news is that I am bringing both the book and a video camera with me.