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Changing tides

It's amazing how much life can change when you're not paying attention. Yesterday was my birthday and I spent it with my sister, first time in 5 years someone even remembered when I was born. It was a, good feeling honestly. Even more so when I'm a year and a half into my transition, and my sister has accepted it. A while back I spent Easter with her, as a sort of...trial run to see if I wanted to risk bringing her back into my life. So I put on a dress grabbed my purse and headed out to her apartment. I had fun. Fast forward to August 13th, and I was invited over to her place again.

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Unreachable - THE MOVIE

I was on Amazon and saw the Unreachable has received its 60th review. That is quite amazing considering how many fans won't leave a review in fear of being outed. I would like to get to a hundred one day. The reviews are quite interesting to read, a lot are positive, one or two are downright mean or off their rocker. But people from all walks of life are saying something and a lot of the reviews are not from the trans community (why you shouldn't fear leaving a review because you might be outed, you would just seem enlightened).

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And we're back!!! Internet woes and more

So the internet connection issue should be over now. Changed from Frontier to Comcast Xfinity. So instead of using the 30 year old phone lines that are old and need replacing (At our expense) We are going with the wifi thingy from Comcast. And wow, got so used to slow speeds on the old service, this one is 25 Mbps and it's beating the socks off whatever it was we had through frontier, that was also $30 more. No contract on this.

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To Lauren Bacall - Sing me a song Mr Piano Man

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An actress to never forget who was the inspiration to the story I posted about Piano Man. She played the part of Roxy.
A husky voice to never forget and a truly female female.

Surely missed but a very sexy lady and a lucky man tickles the ivories for her for 15 years.
Jules

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Another Birthday! Maggie Finson's!

So, this little birdie whispered in my ear as I awoke this morning and told me that today is our very own Maggie Finson's Birthday! So I take this opportunity to be one of the first to wish Maggie a very Happy Birthday!

Have a great day Maggie and thank you for all your stories. Oh, also, CARPE CAKEM!!!!

CATHERINE LINDA MICHEL

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Life is on top of me right now.

Firstly, an apology. I am sorry that I have not really been around and contributing. I haven't been writing anything over the last few weeks, despite sitting down occasionally and staring at the computer screen. My elderly and cantankerous Dad decided to have a massive stroke about a month ago and was rushed to hospital. He needed regular visiting, which was trying and tiring, as I saw a rapid deterioration in him each time. We had a family holiday booked, with the children and grandchildren, so we took them all away, and I managed to sneak back to the hospital.

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Back home, and glad to be

Well, my adventures in dog-sitting is over, and I'm glad to be home. I was happy to find out I would have Wi-Fi there, so I was able to peek in on you guys to see if you were behaving, and most of you were ...

Now, I would take a moment to be serious, and talk about putting yourself down.

I have been very guilty of it over the years, but finally, someone managed to make me see that in calling myself down I make it true. Every time I call myself stupid, or ugly, or whatever, I help make that the reality.

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Store your private files in Your BigCloset!

Hi Everyone!

As many of you know, we are in the process of starting a few new companies and offering services not only to the T* Community, but expand our services out to the internet as a whole.

One of the services we had the idea of starting, was a "cloud storage" service.

Suddenly we thought: Where better to store your private files, than in Your BigCloset!

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missing stories on front screen

For some reason when I logged in this morning I got a weird front screen, it loads details on left, no stories and nothing on right, I have to click on stories to see what is out, the problem is before I log in can see everything as usual, when I log in it gets wierd

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Question about story source

This morning, one of my mothers dogs and my brothers dog woke me up with incessant barking. I proceeded to lock myself out of my mothers house while she had yet to wake up. I spent a half hour in the backyard, in shorts and a tank top, keeping the dogs quiet until I could get back inside. I then fell back asleep for another four hours where I had a wonderful dream.

It was a dream where my heart ached and my mind yearned to go back.

I then proceeded to spend the rest of the day till now outlining a story completely based on this dream.

My question to BC is where do you get the kernels for your stories?

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Editors work harder than the writers

That great book you read took hundreds of people working behind the scenes working to make the book appear in print. Those great movies aren't made by a few actors-actresses and a camera man. Thousands of people are involved before it is finished and that's not counting the promotions.

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So there were a few things I wanted you all to know

So... because I really want to be able to make it to Pennsylvania for my surgery I started this. It is similar to GoFundMe and allows me to take any donations people want to share. If you want, please donate. If you don't, that's okay, I'll still like you, though maybe not as much. ;)

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Can't Take The Sky From Me! Delay

Hello! This is a heads-up that my MAU story will be a little delayed. Understanding Spouse just got back from being away on a business trip, so we will be spending time together doing this and that! Perhaps we'll even do the dating thing with dinner and a movie. :)

At tjhe latest I should be able to put up the next chapter before the end of the weekend.

Hugs
Grover

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Realism in our stories

I have seen snippets of "Game of Thrones" and find certain scenes far too graphic for my tastes. I am considering purchasing a season of it on DVD to watch and in some of the scenes I have seen on Youtube was greatly surprised to see a whole heart eaten. I hope it was that of a cow or something and not human. I am thinking of not purchasing the series.

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No Bike tonight

It was my son's funeral today. I didn't attend because I knew I'd not be welcome and might have said or done something. According to my ex, some dickhead of a Baptist minister did quite a religious service and didn't mention our family once. It's not just me who is non-religious, my son was as well. One of my daughter's friends told him so afterwards. Again good job I wasn't there or he might still be picking bits of the Old testament from a very tender place.

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"By George, I think she's got it!"

Since I figured you folks needed a break from yet another blog post detailing the myriad reasons I don't have the talent to write, the courage to write, or the experience to write, I thought I'd talk about my trip a week ago to Green Bay to see a speech pathologist (hey, it ain't a trip to Lambeau Field, but I at least got a chance to get out of the apartment).

No, no. I'm not going to replace 500 words of whining about my writing or lack of same with 500 words of whining about my voice.

Well...maybe a little whining, but for the most part this is good news. It might not seem like it at first, but...well, just read on:

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Nice hair color

Over all appearance makes the first impression. Different people rate different things first in appearance. Clean fresh look of course is important. Makeup tricks so the "wow" appeal is visual impact. Clothes are up there at the top of first appearance. How many don't pay attention to their crowning glory, their hair? Sure they brushed it but did they style it and make sure the color is theirs?

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Skype problem. Major update

It now appears that skype has BLOCKED any attempts to download and install older versions that will work on my MacBook OS 10.5.8 the new version of skype won't run on my OS. I cannot afford, at this time, an upgrade to my OS, so I guess I'm pretty much screwed. I can't even recover all my contacts and phone number, since I can't sign in to skype. This means my entire phone number list is lost.

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stl having issues with connections

Well I figured I would post again and let you all know the connection issues are getting worse. First of all, I hate Frontier. At first the connection came and went. It was more off than on. Finally it is just gone. Looking into Comcast. Not too sure. As for the stories, I'd teather my phone to a computer, but have gone over the monthly allotment of internet, so it is darn slow.

I shall post again with more news

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A pressing Bikini Beach question

I recently read the latest bikini beach installment on FM today and I had a pressing question that I wondered the answer to. When it comes to the magicks of bikini beach, is it just a transformation as in they were born female or is it a permanent female template in the case of lifetime passes.

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Fight or Flight is stuck on

I've discovered that I can't write effectively with my flight or fight instinct broken and on. It's been a while since it was this bad. My writing is suffering. I'm here with my limited work area, setup in the room I'm sleeping in at my mothers house. My brain screams at me that there is danger, and I know that there isn't, but it won't shut up. Not easy to write when that's ongoing. I had high hopes that my vacation would be a lot of writing, and it's been the opposite.

At least my mood stabilizer is keeping me stable in regards to moods.

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More on stories

It's been a little strange going back over stories I wrote 5 years ago and hadn't looked at for 2 years. Whilst I can remember the Eve plot, some of the chapters surprise me when I read them, prior to editing & revision. Of course, that does help the grammar checking as it's not a very familiar text.

I'm running several chapters ahead with Eve, but as I warned earlier the chapter numbers have changed.

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Scattered Notes From a Scattered Mind

I think there are two or three of you out there who might have noticed that I haven’t posted anything in almost six months. It’s interesting how easy it is to slip below the horizon when you are not actively contributing to the literature. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. It’s just that it’s becoming more and more difficult to produce anything more than a few hundred words at a time. I am still working on what may be the last novel in the California Saga series.

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Living the dream - almost

As long as I could remember I have wanted to be an author. This was before wanting to be a teacher or wanting to be an Olympic wrestler. Ever since the third grade I knew I wanted to see my name in print, I wanted to tell stories and I wanted to write books. Are there any out there that had his desire for so long?

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Still a bit short in the Hatbox Donations

We have several bills coming due at the end of the month, ISP service, domain renewals, paying off the loans we took out for equipment and personal bills like rent. If you can help, it will be appreciated.

Donations to make sure these sites keep operating can be made via the Amazon Hatbox Page or via the links on the Janglewood Page.

Thank you and hugs from all of us,
Erin, Piper, Cat and all the volunteers

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Coming out of the closet

There was an interesting article in a local paper yesterday about a woman who had lost her hair due to an autoimmune disease, and for the last 3 years refused to be seen in public without a wig, until she finally decided to "come out of the hair closet" by letting herself be photographed without it.

In some ways, my transition has been like her story - years of hiding and self-hate, then coming out and discovering just a big a relief it is to be honest, and then finding out that most people ignore me, some accept me, and some love me regardless.

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Stories update

Eve is being extensively revised and my re-editing is running a few chapters ahead of publishing at the moment. The chapter numbers will no longer tally with the previous publication of Eve. Book 2 is planned but not written. That might be an autumn/winter project.

Unaccounted Gains is a side project that will appear irregularly. Tammy requires plenty of work before I see it fit again, although Gabi was my editor first time around so the spelling should be okay!

Shiraz

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Unhappy Anniversary---What Have We Done?

Today, 28 July 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WW1. Next month is the 75th anniversary if WW2 and the 200th anniversary of the writing of the “Star Spangle Banner” which was near the end of the War of 1812 (US)/American War of 1812-15 (UK). We are in the mist of the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s exile at Elba, the 160th anniversary of the Crimean War and 150th anniversary of the siege of Richmond and Petersburg, which virtually ended the US Civil War. The siege had trenches that were repeated in WW1 with disastrous results.

Caution: 

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Real Life changes gear

So here we are, in the hottest part of the UK year, and I'm unable to do things most of the day because of the heat. That doesn't seem to phaze Real Life, of course, which just keeps piling it on.

Short result: Somewhere Else Entirely may be delayed for the next two months or so. See below for details.

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Brown Recluse bites and other things

Not sure how many times I've been bitten (dozen or more) by that spider with two names. Brown Recluse or Fiddle Back. There is no anti venom. The horror stories of being bit by that little critter abound. Within hours of the bite the familiar Bulls Eye forms. White point in the middle with a spreading red circle around the center. Then the nightmare of tales begin as told by the victims. With in a week the flesh starts to rot until a quarter or nickle size hole is left behind.

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