What I've Been Reading: April

Hi! As I warned earlier today, I've changed the name of this series and unfortunately, there's not too much on it this month. I started out well enough, but when I started on the last book in the list, I just lost interest in reading anything else. lol I'll get to that later. Next month may not be too much better; I'm about to get pretty busy with a new series you should be seeing this weekend and probably won't have much time again until June, but that'll be when my SUTS prep will officially begin so who knows, really. lol Anyway, let's get to this month's books. 

Epiphany by Gemma James

I downloaded this book I think in February, couldn't wait to get around to it in March, read it the first week in April and then promptly forgot I read it. lol Not because it was forgettable, but it wasn't unforgettable for me either, if that makes any sense. In this book, our heroine is a psychic of sorts, able to see the actions of a serial killer and the horrors he visits upon his victims, including their deaths, in her dreams shortly before they happen. A mysterious man she'd been dreaming about suddenly pops up in real life and unbeknownst to her, is more connected to the serial killer and his victims than she knew. The two of them reluctantly join forces and fight off their attraction to the other as they get to the bottom of the murders afflicting a small town. I liked the book, so I don't really have an explanation for why I forgot about it so quickly. The mystery in the book was explored from a psychic angle but not in the typical fashion; our heroine was unaware of the meaning of her dreams nor how they connected with anything until a character close to her ends up dead and she bumps into the figure from her dreams. I also liked that minor characters weren't safe in this book; it added an unpredictable facet to the plot that was fun to read. The author can spin a good tale and I liked both the hero and heroine of the book. She did a great job at creating this web of sexual tension that wasn't acted on right away but was worth it once they finally gave in. I love my smut but I also love a good build-up. There was meat in the plot with different angles and characters to consider as possibilities for the killer and I liked that I didn't immediately figure out who the killer was. It wasn't terrible by any means; the more I write about it the more I remember how much I liked it so even though I forgot I read it, I'd still recommend it. LOL

Triple Beat by Mari Carr

Triple Beat is my 'tame' book of the month despite being a menage romance. In it, a trio of friends make up a band on the cusp of hitting it big, when the lead singer mysteriously runs off to places unknown without telling her bandmates. When they figure out where she is and come to the conclusion that she's going through something intense, they fly to her, resolving not to let her go through it alone. While she battles whether or not to tell them the real reason for her going MIA, they discover that they have feelings for each other and tentatively test out a menage. I'm paraphrasing and glossing over a bunch of stuff, but that's the gist. I consider it a tame book despite its contents because while I enjoyed it, it wasn't a super heavy read. The heroine of the book is an abuse survivor, something she neglected to tell her friends/bandmates, and her reason for going home was to confront her past, namely her father, who is stalking her after his release from prison. Her bandmates fell a little flat for me in terms of personality; while I understood a bit about the heroine and why she was the way she was, I didn't feel like her friends/lovers were quite as fleshed out. Other than that, I don't have any real complaints with the book. It was a good read, explored the menage angle in a way that I enjoyed, and if there was another chapter about the trio I'm open to reading it. 

17 Deadly Women Through the Ages by True Crime Bus Stop Reads

17 Deadly Women is a book I found late last year and wanted to learn more about, mainly because I was looking for Octoberfest material again. lol Through the years I've been doing the series, I've found more female killers than male, even though statistics show that most serial killers are male. I wanted to see if there were any I could use for this year's series so I checked out this book. I'm not finished with it yet; actually haven't gotten too far into it but so far I'm enjoying it. The stories aren't super long or detailed, but they give a pretty good rundown of events and a general listing of the womens' crimes so it'll help you with your research if you decide to find more information on your own.

Wrath: The Lieutenant Harrington Series 1 by E.H. Reinhard

This is actually the book I was reading when 12 Rules was suggested to me, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, so I haven't gotten to finish Wrath yet. From what I've read so far though, it's going to be a good read. A detective has to piece together the separate murders of a man and woman who, at first glance, have no enemies. Upon finding out that the woman is married, however, the hunt for the killer is on. The detective investigating the murders is a bit closer to the killer than he thinks; someone in his close circle has ties with the man that he was not aware of before. I was a little more than a quarter through the book when I stopped and so far it's been a page turner. The reader knows who the killer is right off, but the other characters in the book don't and I kinda like that. I'll update in next month's WIBR once I've finished it. 

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

I was bullied into reading this book a few weeks ago and like I said earlier, it is the main reason why there aren't too many other books on the list this month. It's not a super long book, but because its a non-fiction, there's no dialogue to skip through and I want to absorb as much of what I read as I can. I don't normally read or recommend self-help books, I honestly try to stay away from the majority of books in that genre lol, but there are some that cut through the bullshit and 12 Rules is one of those books. It's blunt, so much so that you come away from multiple chapters with hurt feelings, but you can't help but come back and finish it out. Jordan Peterson encourages you to take a hard, honest look at your life, the people in it, how you respond to situations--both good and bad but mainly bad because duh, it's a self-help manual lol--and how to break free of the chaos cycle in order to have more day-to-day peace. It's not full of the fluff or typical vague statements you find in these books; it cuts through all of that and tells you where you're going wrong, what you can do about it, and how in the long run it'll help. I want to say I'm about halfway through the book but there are a lot of statements and sometimes entire pages that have resonated with me so deeply that I already feel a shift in how I look at or respond to certain situations. I'm withholding the rest of my judgment until I'm finished reading, but so far I've enjoyed the hell out of it.


What am I currently reading? 12 Rules for Life, Wrath

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What I've Been Watching: April

Hi! This month I have a pretty full list of things to show ya; I was on the mend with my tooth/facial nerve problems for a little while, but mid-month it struck again and I was down for the count, so I had a little time to watch some programs. I also have a couple of shows that are actually rollovers from last month but didn't make the deadline for when I finish these posts, so I just stuck them in here. This post is longer than the WIBR (that was originally a typo but that's it, I'm changing the name of that series to What I've Been Reading LOL) you're going to see this evening so go on and get your snack now; you won't be needing it later. lol

Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48

Grace vs Abrams

Love After Lockup

NXT TakeOver: New Orleans

Wrestlemania XXXIV

Trump: An American Dream

Unveiled

Beauty and the Beach

Sofia Nino de Rivera: Seleccion Natural

Cody Ko

Noel Miller

Let's start with regular tv. The standout show by far for me this month is the new true crime drama Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48. It's based off of the A&E investigative homicide drama The First 48, which follows detectives of various precincts in the first 48 hours of their homicide investigations. The Marcia Clark version of this series revisits infamous homicide cases which captivated the country, with the goal of trying to see if the police missed any crucial steps in the first 2 days of their investigation into a case. So far, the show has revisited the Caylee Anthony, Stacy Peterson and Chandra Levy cases and while new information has been uncovered or revealed in each case, I don't think it does much really to change the outcome other than make us even angrier that these crimes could have been prevented, that these victims somehow could have been helped.


Grace v Abrams is the follow-up show to Marcia Clark Investigates, and this is much more of a debate show than anything else. Nancy Grace and Dan Abrams, while being friends, have hardly agreed on anything over the years they've butted heads on tv during her show, so they've made a show of it. They discuss the case Marcia Clark has just finished investigating, reviewing the evidence, bringing on witnesses connected to the case, and making their own inferences and conclusions as to what actually happened. It's not a show I could watch all the time, but when I want to hear other ideas about the case we all just finished watching, it's a good follow-up. 

Even though Love After Lockup isn't a new show, it's new to me. I found it on We last month after an episode of Bridezillas, and thought it was great. It follows the lives of various couples, one of whom has just gotten released from prison, and watches the former inmate acclimate, with varying results, back to life on the outside. I went through this myself back when I was 17 and 18, so there's a part of me that relates to the unique struggle these couples are experiencing. I find the females to be a bit naggy and that can get annoying, like when they refuse to understand that their spouses need time to readjust, but I can also understand their desire to just forget it happened and try to move on as quickly as possible. Maturity is why I now understand the need and time required to adjust back to life on the outside, but honestly when I was going through this I was much more of a 'forget it and move on' person myself so I can understand both sides. It's a fine line to navigate and it requires communication on both ends, which I can see is a point of failure with the majority of the couples on the show. Each of the couples have a major point of contention between them, and it's been kinda cool getting to see it played out. It's an un-glamorous but painfully real scenario for many couples and I like that it's being included on tv. 

NXT TakeOver: New Orleans came on the night before Wrestlemania and it was truly an amazing show. NXT has always impressed me; while there isn't a ton of focus on dialogue, shenanigans and ridiculous storylines, all the entertainment is saved for the ring. And these wrestlers (I will not call them sports entertainers--sorry, Vince LOL) bring it every time. The difference between the NXT roster and the main rosters is very obvious, and the word on the street about that is that the main rosters are still firmly in Vinny Mac's control, while this current iteration of NXT is Triple H's brainchild. Whether this is true or not, the difference in management and direction between the sets of rosters is obvious, as is the entertainment they provide. The main roster is about a story, whereas the NXT roster is about putting on a solid show.

Wrestlemania 34 was a couple of weeks ago, and even though it's supposed to be the show of the year, it didn't live up to the hype for me. Honestly, the show hasn't lived up to its hype for me personally for a few years now but it's trying. lol It wasn't terrible by any means and I can tell everyone involved busted their asses to put on a performance--and they did--but ultimately, it is individual matches that stood out to me rather than the show as a whole. I think the real culprit here is that it didn't meet my expectations, which were probably unrealistically high, but many of the actual matches were amazing.


Trump: An American Dream is a mini-series chronicling your president's rise to fame and fortune back during the '70s and '80s. It's a more personal look into the things that shaped him, his professional successes and failures, and for me, it was an eye-opening experience. I haven't admitted this to anyone other than my mom, but from a professional standpoint, I used Donald Trump as the blueprint of what I wanted to be when I was older. I even considered writing him a letter to ask how he did it. I didn't do much research on him or anything, I just looked at the image he represented, how many times he was name-dropped on tv shows, in movies, and in general. He was obviously someone important, someone people wanted to be around and associate with. Everyone mentioned his overwhelming success in business and since celebrities mentioned him all the time, I knew he'd done something to bridge the gap between the professional and celebrity worlds. I didn't want the latter world, but I wanted to be someone important, someone whose name preceded them and he represented that mentality. He seemed to epitomize wealth, success and business for me and this made complete sense when someone in the mini-doc said, "Donald Trump is a poor person's idea of what a rich person looks like." I grew up--and still am--extremely poor. For me, the image he represented was one as far away from my humble beginnings as you could get and it was everything I wanted. But then he opened his mouth. LOL To watch someone I'd admired as a youth turn out to be such a monster was an exercise in supreme disillusionment. The mini-doc showed me everything I didn't get to see about him before I was born, everything I was too young to understand, everything that wasn't portrayed on the multiple tv shows and movies that dropped his name between other important figures. And even though those days of using him as the prototype for my professional ambitions are looooooong gone, a little part of me was still....disappointed, I guess? to see what the situation really was. It also explained a hell of a lot.


Unveiled is a show based out of Australia, I believe, and follows several brides who are seeking cosmetic procedures ahead of their weddings. Nothing super notable about it, I enjoyed it, wouldn't mind watching another season, and that's about it. lol Beauty and the Beach is a show in a similar vein; women from New Zealand and Australia book trips to a cosmetic retreat in Thailand, with the best cosmetic surgeons, to have long-awaited procedures. I think I like this one a bit more.


Seleccion Natural (Natural Selection) is the newest stand-up special by Sofia Nino de Rivera and it, much like her first special, was a riot. This special had her explaining why during arguments are the best time for men to propose, her trip to an African country, and her case for good vs bad first and last names. Per usual, she includes herself in her shtick and it's both dry and self-deprecating. She continues to give her audience shit during the show lol, and she hasn't changed her delivery from the last special to this one, which is partly why she's so funny to me. I'm glad she didn't tweak that. I think this show may be better than the first one but I'd watch both of them again. In case it wasn't already apparent, this special is in Spanish so put your subtitles on.


Moving on to YouTube, I'm rolling the last two together again since they're friends, frequently collaborate with each other and I found one from watching the other. Cody Ko and Noel Miller are former Viners who jumped to YouTube but I much prefer their videos over other former Viners who adapted their content for the 'Tube. Cody's more of a commentary roast channel; he's all about killing the obvious, 'relatable' brand of jokes through his explanations and sarcastic quips and a lot of times, that's funnier than the video he's roasting. Sometimes he's a bit of a wet blanket about things but when your sense of humor is different, I can understand that the rise of obvious 'relatable' comedy can be extremely annoying to have to see all the time. Noel's humor seems to be darker and more politically incorrect than Cody's; he does more satirical spoofs and sketches of things going on. They have a podcast together called Tiny Meat Gang, and while it doesn't seem to have much substance it is pretty funny. lol If you're sensitive to certain lines of jokes, however, then stay away. 

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Broken Glass and Spilled Glitter

Say you knock over a bottle of glitter. It's finely milled, so it catches to the air and spreads over a large area in such a short amount of time you don't even realize it at first. The bulk of the glitter is in one concentrated area, so you get that up first and try to put it back in the container. But if you aren't smart with how you do it, you'll end up spilling it again. So you get the majority of the glitter back in the container. But without realizing, you've gotten glitter on your feet, in your hair, on your face, on your clothes, on random surfaces, maybe even on the wall. For years, you spot random tiny glimmering pieces of glitter in places you didn't think the spill had reached. You can never clean it all up. You can mop the floor several times and still find glitter in places you know you'd cleaned meticulously. You'll take a shower and wash your face but still find a random speck of glitter in your eyebrow. lol It is impossible to not only count individual specks of glitter, but to ensure that you put the same number of specks back in the container after it's been spilled. I feel like that spill is my recovery process with anxiety. It's everywhere. It bleeds into places I didn't think it could reach. And of course, I could always spill the container again. I have to be careful with where I place it, what I place it around, and make sure the cap is on tightly or I could knock it over. Anxiety feels a lot like that. I have most of the glitter back in the container, but I always find specks of it where and when I least expect to. It's with me for life and I'll probably never be completely rid of it.

With glass, say you break a knick-knack. You can't just toss the figurine; say it's a one of a kind piece and was made just for you. You can't have the piece recommissioned. And even if you did, it wouldn't be the same. You can't recall from memory exactly what it looked like before the break because you never paid any attention to it, but you hope that its a clean break so you can put the pieces back together and for the most part, it is. You've got some loose shards and tiny fragments but you'll be able to put the figurine back together. But when you do that, you notice tiny pieces are missing that are so small you'll never be able to glue them back to the figurine, but they don't cause the piece to lose its shape. Those missing pieces, however tiny, are obvious though, and the figurine no longer fits on the shelf with the other pieces in the same way it once did. Once you've done all you can do with it, it has new value because you don't want it to break again. You know the figurine won't survive another break. It's still beautiful, but you kick yourself for not taking the time to really look at it before it broke. You know and get used to it for the imperfect piece it is now, not for the whole piece it was before the break. Now it's more fragile and demands you handle it with more care. You have to find beauty in its new shape, with all of the cracks and splits and missing pieces. Some people will pass it up, deeming it damaged and beyond repair. Others will feel you should have thrown the whole thing away when it broke and bought something different. It feels like a lot of the time, the only one who sees the true beauty in this broken piece is you. So you keep it close to you, to make sure nobody else breaks it but keep it just far enough out of your reach so you don't break it either. Time passes and you nearly forget about your figurine again, until you step on a piece of glass you didn't see before and it reminds you, painfully, that you missed a piece in your cleanup efforts. And that's how I've felt trying to rebuild myself after that breakdown. Pieces of myself that I didn't realize were missing at first aren't there now. Sometimes I can see flashes of old Mandy in different scenarios, but most of the time I just feel incomplete. I feel whole, but somehow still incomplete. I'm always afraid I'll break again, always afraid that I won't be able to put the pieces back together in a way that allows me to function. 

Ten years ago today, my anxiety relapsed and when that happened, the 'normal' chapter of my life came to an end. I can no longer be that person and can no longer see where her road was supposed to lead. I had to put as much of myself back together as I could and make sure I didn't spill anything else, and find a way to create something worthwhile from that. Who I am now is not at all who I expected to be, and days like today are always rough for me to get through. Despite the amount of time that has gone by since then, it still feels a bit like a death to me and today, I'm struggling. I can't say I'm entirely ungrateful for what my relapse gave me; in retrospect I was seeing things in black and white before and I feel like I see things in color now. I feel like I have more depth as a person, as a woman, than I would have had if I hadn't made it to the other side of my relapse. The way that things happened following my relapse make sense so I can't say there are any decisions in there that I flat out regret. Each of those decisions, each of those events, did a lot to shape me into the person I am now. I love the person I am now, however damaged and fragile I may feel. I didn't love me at 20. Was trying to, probably even thought I did, but I didn't. Ten years after that relapse, my life looks similar and I've been struggling with a lot of anger. The overwhelming lesson I continue to face now that I've hit my 30s is acceptance. I have to accept both what is and what isn't, and I don't know how. Both my 30th birthday and today have made me confront some painful realities of my life, both as they were a decade ago and as they are now. I wish I could say I'm in a much better place, but I'm not. I guess in a sentence that's what I'm having trouble accepting today: the truth of my life, the broken glass and spilled glitter of it all. 

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