After a dearth of camping going on in my life—I hadn’t been since before I started back in school, over four years ago—E and I have gone camping twice in the last month.

The first time was over spring break. We camped two of the nights, since we were going with the flow. We actually had to buy the tent down in Laguna Beach, since we had originally planned to sleep in the back of the Jeep, but completely forgot that we had stuffed it full with all of our gear and thus had no room for us.

Those two nights, we camped in San Clemente and Oceano Dunes. It was the first time I had camped that close to the ocean and not been freezing, previous experience being Dillon Beach, near Petaluma, which I recommend to no one in a tent.

Then last weekend, we went camping at Lake Shasta for E’s birthday.

It was our first two-day stay, meaning we didn’t take down camp immediately the next morning, and was our lesson in being better prepared. Which we were not.

E’s parents have these really awesome “camp boxes” which hold everything you need to camp, besides food, tent, and sleeping bags. Because we took the boxes this time (not over spring break), we didn’t really look through them to see what we needed. Turns out, we still needed a lot.

For example, I am the official camp dishwasher. I don’t mind this job¹ as long as I am well prepared. And still, not prepared. I was expected to clean caked-on pans with… napkins. We forgot a scrubbie, again. At least we remembered to grab the soap from the kitchen sink, otherwise we would have been without that, too.

We were also minus a hatchet, which would have made it much easier to gather firewood, since we couldn’t break the larger pieces that would have burned better.

I love camping, though. It’s always nice to find more things that E and I seriously enjoy doing together. I’ve missed camping, as my parents have pretty much given it up since their RV went down the crapper, and they won’t camp without it. I have great memories of camping, and really do think it’s a great way to get away.

E and I have plans to try to go camping every month or so. We’re working on our own camping boxes², planing on scoping yard sales for items on the cheep. After all, silverware doesn’t have to match when we’re camping.

And while we’re not “green” people in the sense that we try to be as green as possible, we both agree that we should limit our camping paper products. It’s much cheaper to use cloth towels and plastic plates, then using a bunch of paper that is just going to get thrown in the fire.

I’m so glad we went camping. It was fun to get away, and finally get caught up on our reading³. And also to unconnect. It was the first time in awhile that I took a weekend away from the laptop, and being unconnected with the world is pretty relaxing. I couldn’t do it for a long time, but a few days here and there is a good call.

(P.S.: This post isn’t anything where I thought it would go. I thought I’d write about our unintentional three-mile hike, but instead got distracted into the thought of getting back into camping. In another time, I would have held of and re-written it to be where I thought I wanted to go, but I promised to try a post a week, and if I tried to rewrite it, it would sit in post-limbo for another month.)

1. Since I love doing dishes, it’s natural that this roll falls to me. And I know it’s wierd that I love doing dishes
2. We seriously sat down with a notepad and listed everything we needed, that we never remember. Flashlight, anyone?
3. Anyone walking by camp would have thought we were devout… we were both catching up on our Bible as Lit reading, so we had our bibles out and about all weekend.

However, as many of my online friends have noticed, I’ve been busy. I’ve been taking 20 units this semester, which is two more than I wanted, and probably five more than I should have done. But I’ve been keeping up with my coursework, even if I can’t keep up with the rest of my life.

With three weeks left in the semester, and three major projects still to work on (oh, wait, I should be working on one right now…oops), odds are pretty good that there will still be no well-thought out, “this is my life” blog posts that this site is known for. If its still known for anything, that is.

Feeling guilty about my lack of posting, I thought I should run down a list of things that have happened since the last time I did this, which seems to be the only way I talk about the important things in my life:

• E, the cause of so much drama in my life (not that it was a bad thing) finally decided what he wanted, and surprise, it was me. Damn good thing I’m persistent and always right. He makes me ridiculously happy, and was totally worth the effort.
• My internship was moved up a semester, so I designed the fall Watershed—mostly because the spring one was cut due to budget cuts. Turned in my files last week, and am very relieved to be done, though I can’t wait to see it when it gets back from the printer.
• Open Mic Night for Sigma Tau was very wishy-washy this semester. We weren’t sure if we were even going to be able to get a date this semester, but December 5th is all ours at Has Beans… I should probably design that flier soon.
• Alturas came home with me for Thanksgiving, and it’s a good thing she did. If she wasn’t here, I’d probably be sleeping in late everyday, and not getting anything done. At least now I’m waking up early and not getting anything done.
• Ran into the ex this morning at Wal-Mart. Not surprised, since he works overnights, and we were there at 5am to get a gift for my sister. Didn’t talk to him, but still awkward, just the same.
• Can’t wait to bake cookies with Ally on Sunday night. If I’m not to exhausted by then.

That’s pretty much it. We’ve been playing Magic the Gathering (like I needed that addiction again), partying in our own non-partyish ways, and pretty much trying to cram as much fun into this semester as is possible when there’s practically no time to do anything.

I’ll try to blog when I can. Predidicting that it’s not happening until January. Sorry. It’ll take at least two weeks to decompress after the semester is done. But I miss you, even while I ignore you.

The promotion was for a Marjorie M. Liu novel, Soul Song. It’s the sixth book in the Dirk & Steele series. I came into this book having never read a previous book in this series, nor any of Liu’s previous novels. It is a paranormal romance, and not one I would have picked up in the bookstore, had I seen it on the shelf. Getting an ARC was a great way to try out a book I normally wouldn’t want to spend my money on. I now have an urge to look up Liu’s backlist, and gorge myself on her paranormal.

Soul Song

Although Soul Song is the sixth in a book series, the average reader wouldn’t know it unless they had read the previous books. At no point did I feel lost, wishing that I started at the beginning instead of the middle.

Liu opens the novel up in a parked car. Our future hero M’cal² is a male prostitute—and a soul stealer. He takes the soul of the woman accompanying him, leaving her an empty shell of a woman who’s body will most likely die within a day or two. He doesn’t want to steal her soul, though, and when he’s through with the act, he returns to the water, and to the witch that compels him to do it.

Enslaved by the witch and forced to do what she commands, M’cal is powerless to stop what she has compelled him to do. The witch has demanded the soul of Kitalia Bell, a violin virtuoso, and a woman not without her own powers. Kitalia can “see” murders—she can see the violent manner of peoples death, but has no power to fight it.

On the night that M’cal first locates her, Kitalia sees a woman with a knife in her eyeball sitting in the front row during her concert. After the concert, she sees the woman again on the street. Normally she would ignore the vision—most people wouldn’t believe her if she told them they were going to be murdered, and she didn’t actually know when they were going to die. For some reason, though, Kitalia feels compelled to warn the woman, which in turn snowballs into the main conflict of the story. Caught in the cross fire, M’cal saves Kitalia from the woman’s pursuers, but informs her that he himself has been sent to kill her.

“I was sent here to kill you,”he rasped, jerking her around to face him. “I am still supposed to kill you. And I will, if you don not leave this place. Right now.”

She did not blink, though he could hear her heart fluttering, wild. “You rescued me.”

“No,” he breathed. “Do not trust that.”

M’cal is a Krackeni, a merman who can shift between his fin and his legs. There are other shape-shifters in the novel, some of who hint at backstory which is probably contained in previous books, although there was no sense of missing connections and references to previous novels. The conflict escalates, as does the romance, until both are resolved in a final climactic scene.

Opinion

Soul Song was a very well written romance novel. There were only a few places where I thought the description or narration could be more polished, but that’s to be expected in an ARC. The confrontations were believable, and I truly did not know which direction the story was going until we finally got there.

My only real gripe was the passage of time. According to the characters, who comment on it, the entire novel, from the moment M’cal first sees Kitalia to the moment they have defeated the evil witch, is only two days. Two days in which two characters who had separately sworn off love for different reasons fall so madly in love that M’cal actually performs a Krackeni marriage ceremony, which bonds him with Kitalia for the rest of his life, unable to take another. Granted, this gives them a connection that later in the final scene helps the two of them come out relatively unscathed, but at the same time it makes M’cal seem like he can’t learn from the past. After all, he was enslaved to the witch because he’d not known her very long and thought he was in love with her.

Until I had been informed of the time frame from the characters, I truly thought the book had taken about a week through time, which would have helped explain the super-fast, super-hot love affair of two people who from first appearances shouldn’t be together. After all, who falls in love with their hired killer?

Also, Liu drops in four shape-shifters, when after the introduction, we really only see one of them again. It appears that their whole purpose is to fill a car with non-human men, and thus convince the reader that it’s perfectly all right that Kitalia is in love with this man who can become a fish. Which is just silly, since the reader wants Kitalia with M’cal from the first moment he saves her.

Conclusion

While this isn’t my first foray into paranormal romance, this is my first encounter with Liu’s work. I enjoyed it immensely, and couldn’t put it down. I read it in one sitting, putting aside everything else I had planned to do yesterday evening.

If you’ve been looking to start a new genre—whether you read romances, and want to try paranormal, or you read paranormal and want to try romances—this is as good a place as any.

I really hadn’t expected to like it as much as I did; I’d had the book on my bookshelf for over a week, and normally new romances don’t last that long on my reading pile.

Soul Song will be available in stores next Tuesday, July 3.

Rating

[rate 3]

1. Advanced Reading Copy
2. The entire time I was reading, I misread this name. I know it’s supposed to be mm-cal, but I have a friend named Mi’cal—seriously, with the apostrophe and all—and I kept hearing my-cal in my head

I really didn’t feel like writing a post, so video instead. I’ve got class in half an hour, and I’ve been doing random not-writing stuff. I love this library. I’m going to miss it next semester, although I’ll have a new library to fall in love with.

I tag Erin, Josh, and everyone else who does video. I want to see ‘em! And why not use Viddler while you’re at it? Because it’s so much more awesome than youtube.

And since my camera does video, I thought I’d test it too.

But I did do a vidcast, so there is 13 minutesof me rambling on about stuff that I, apparently, didn’t feel like writing about.

I hope I get out of this lethargy soon. But, if not, video to the rescue.

I’ve been waiting all week for this day, if only because I know that tomorrow I get to sleep in. I’m still a bit sicky–I stayed home from school again, even though I went to work. I’m really tired of feeling like my eardrums are trying to rub up on one another.

Anyway, got my webcam last night, so of course it means a new vidcast. I’m shooting for one a week now, since it’s literally like minutes from when I shoot it to when I upload it. Which is just awesome for my quick and dirty lifesyle.

So, that’s it. I’m looking forward to the weekend, unless it brings me an earache, and then I’ll be very very bitter.

– “Endlessly, She Said,” Decemberunderground: AFI