You know how some days you wake up, the pretty yellow and black bird outside your window is singing, you come downstairs and realize you really need to do some housework, you sit down to check your email, and then realize you forgot something? Something important? Something you just can’t put your finger on…until you log onto the Goddess Blogs and realize that yesterday’s blog from Rachel Gibson is still up? And then you realize you’re on the West Coast, and that it’s already 11:30 am on the East Coast. And then you realize your family is coming over for breakfast in half an hour and that you have a Little League Baseball game today, and that it’s supposed to rain later and your car’s still in the driveway because you haven’t finished going through your duplicate action figure collection yet. Yes, it’s been one of those days today. So. Have you ever just…forgotten something important? What do you use to help you remember things?

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My prejudices hit me the other day. I am very, very picky about what e-mails I open. And I’m even pickier about what e-mails I reply to.

A friend who knows I love animals forwards delightful e-mails about puppies and dolphins and piglets, etc. As usual, I eagerly open her e-mails and laugh and coo at the adorable pics. But then I quickly zap the next several from my in-box.

I respond to any business mail, to good friends, and to most family. But there are a lot that I don’t bother reading.

You know those chain mail thingies, where the sender promises your ears will fall off and you’ll have ten thousand years of bad luck if you don’t forward their precious message on to ten of your friends? Now why would I want to inflict that curse on my friends?

Dh gets tons of jokes from friends and relatives, but he knows better than to send them on to me unless they are really great. And my family darn well knows better than to send me political commentary, since we are 180 degrees out of sync. We just politely agree to disagree. If you don’t want me to reply with a tirade, just keep your contrary political opinions to yourself, thank you very much.

I zap a lot of e-mail without opening it. Along with the junk mail asking me if I want an implant to enlarge an organ I don’t even posses, or to inspire ecstasy in my woman lover, which I don’t have either, or to buy watches for a great price, I get repeated Facebook invitations from people I don’t even know. It irks me that because I don’t respond the first time, they automatically send me notices half a dozen more times.

I’ve made enemies of friends when I ask them to stop sending me jokes. To keep my friends, I’ve learned I have to gently train them in my preferences.

Part of my problem, I suppose, is that I actually have 5 e-mail addresses (which I use for entirely different purposes), so I have to check a lot of different places, which takes more time. And I keep most of my spam filters turned off so that I don’t accidently miss the e-mails I really want to read, which means I open myself up to junk mail.

It worries me that some folks don’t get my e-mails because they get zapped by spam filters. Especially readers who take the time out of their busy schedule to write me about my books. But I confess that reading fan mail is the second favorite part of my on-line day – next to checking out The Goddess Blogs, of course.

What’s your fave and least fave kind of e-mail? Do you feel obliged to respond or do you zap without remorse? Do you have your family and friends trained? And do you forward those chain mail thingies? If not, can you tell if you’ve incurred ten thousand years of bad luck?

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They say “information is power.”  Not sure who the “they” are, but “they” must be wise, right?

Hmmm.  Not so sure about that anymore.  In this age of info-at-a-click, we get deluged with data, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling any more powerful than I did before.  In fact, I’m feeling a lot less powerful than before.

“Before what?” you ask.  Ahh.  Before THIS (cue scary music):

This is a dust mite.  It lives in your carpet and feeds on your dust.  (ICK!)

“Eat my dust!” you might say.  “Welcome to it!  Eat it all!  Saves me the trouble of vacuuming!”  You might say that, but you would be WRONG! (cue more scary music)

Because living in your dust is more ICK than you can shake a stick at.  Leading scientists say so, and we know they are never wrong.  So, living in your dust is:

• Shed bits of human skin, animal fur, decomposing insects
• Food debris
• Lint and organic fibers from clothes, bedding and other fabrics
• Tracked-in soil, soot, particulate matter from smoking and cooking
• And, disturbingly, lead, arsenic and even DDT.

These scientists have even come up with a computer algorithm to model how the dust gets in and leaves — IT NEVER LEAVES — and how your dust is different than your neighbors’ and your Aunt Didi who lives in Poughkeepsie.

This, my friends, is far more than I want to know.  I do not want to think about the bits of shed skin in my carpet or the decomposing insects that get into my food.  I am far, far happier not knowing.

Information may be power, but ignorance is bliss.  I like bliss.  Unfortunately, I’m also a power-hungry information junkie, so I’m totally conflicted.

The best thing I can do is not click on the articles with disturbing titles like “Dust’s Disturbing Components,” “Space Junk Collision Averted,” (whew!), and “Danger Lurks Under Megacities,” opting instead for comfort-reads such as “Kardashian’s Sizzling Mini” (it did indeed sizzle) and “Surprising Things You Can Recycle.”  (That recycling one was a real nail-biter.)

“How Asexual Species Survive” was one I couldn’t resist.  I clicked, therefore I know.  Whether I wanted to or not.

Are you an information junkie?  Do you click on articles?  Do you feel more informationally powerful than you did before?  What have you learned that you really did not want to know?  Did you read the one about Kardashian’s sizzling miniskirt?

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I get annoyed sometimes. Maybe more often than I used to. I don’t think this is about me (let’s agree about that, okay?); I think this is about the world getting more annoying.  I have examples.

For instance:

I hate when I’m watching television and an ad for an upcoming show on that channel takes up 1/5 of the screen. Hey! I’m watching a show here! The hero is holding the essential clue in his  hand, looking meaningfully at his partner, and I can’t see it because it’s covered up by that stupid ad! What’s with that? Ads while I’m watching a show? Aren’t there enough ads on television already?

Deep breath.

Then there’s the fact that I know they turn up the volume for the ads. I’m watching the show, the stupid corner-of-the-screen ad having finally disappeared, and then the commercial comes on and I’m suddenly being yelled at. By someone selling laundry detergent. Or car insurance. Or alcohol. I can’t watch television anymore without holding the remote control at the ready, waiting to adjust the volume. Do they think I’m stupid? Do they think I’m going to buy something because someone yelled at me to?

Do they think I don’t own a remote and have the power of volume at my fingertips?

And then there’s the cable company (or whoever) who is responsible for the show guide. The guide should be accurate. If it says that Million Dollar Listing is going to be on at 10 PM on Wednesday night, and I set the DVR to record, I should find Million Dollar Listing recorded, not that hair salon takeover show (which I happen to like), but did not tell the DVR to record!  I pull this example from last week’s television adventure. One of many, I assure you.

Speaking of the show guide on my cable network, what is it with this new way they have of describing movies? “Southern belle loses man” isn’t much of a description. The stars aren’t mentioned consistently either. Is this movie Gone With The Wind or Jezebel? Of course I can tell by the title, but if I’ve never seen the movie before, a more thorough description would be nice. And would it kill them to tell me Bette Davis and Henry Fonda are in it? As to that, it could have been Sweet Home Alabama! Description, people! Don’t be afraid of it.

And before I step off the rant platform, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taped a show or a movie that I had never heard of before only because the descriptor said “Comedy.” I spent two hours one night watching an old movie, thinking desperately the whole time, ‘when is this going to get funny?’ Because ladies, it was not funny. It was a DRAMA.

Whoever is writing the guide for the cable company should be forced to take a course in…something. How to tell a comedy from a drama? Can that even be taught?

What sets your Grouch Meter off?

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On a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, uber-geek physicist Sheldon said this immortal line about Valentine’s Day: “Given that St. Valentine was a 3rd century Roman Priest who was stoned and beheaded, wouldn’t a more appropriate celebration of the evening be taking one’s steady gal to witness a brutal murder?”

He had a point. If you delve deeper into Valentine’s Day, you learn that the priest thing might have only been an excuse for the Roman church to get rid of a persistent pagan holiday–Lupercalia, a fertility festival falling between February 13th and 15th. Two lucky bachelors participated in the sacrifice of two goats and a dog, made whips out of the flesh, dipped them in sacrificial blood, and whipped the bystanders with them. Women LINED UP for miles to get a bloody lash to enhance their fertility. Because nothing says fertility like the blood of a dead animal whipped onto your bare flesh by a drunk Roman guy.

Whose idea was this? Did some Roman frat boy sitting around at the orgy with his friends say, “Hey guys, you know what would be really fun? We get this goat, see, and then we line up a bunch of women …” Because no WOMAN would come up with that custom.

The other custom from Lupercalia was a lottery in which the bachelors drew the names of the single women to determine who was their “love” for a year. The English were still using that one during the Regency. I even used it in The Truth about Lord Stoneville. Of course, Stoneville never leaves anything to chance, so he fixes the draw in order to get the heroine. (P.S. The eye candy today, for those of you missing FROS, is Andres Velencoso, my inspiration for Stoneville.)

Stoneville also tries to manipulate one other long-standing English Valentine’s Day superstition–that the first man a maiden sees on Valentine’s Day will be her sweetheart. He shows up at the heroine’s door in the wee hours of the morning to be the first man she sees. This was a genuine superstition–some women even went around covering their eyes until they encountered the man they really wanted, so they wouldn’t be stuck with, say, the chimney sweep they ran into while polishing the silver first thing in the morning. Oh, if only it were that easy. How many women would cover their eyes until they could show up at Hugh Jackman’s door on Valentine’s Day ?

Thankfully, we now celebrate in less peculiar ways–flowers, cards, chocolate (the pic on the right is the gorgeous bouquet hubby bought me for Valentine’s Day). But it’s hard not to notice that red is the color of choice that day, and a heart … well, that’s just one beat away from being the blood of a sacrifice, right?

So maybe Sheldon is right. Next year, we should all take in a slasher film in honor of Valentine’s Day, and leave the flowers and cards and chocolate to the faint of heart.

Do you have any unique Valentine’s Day traditions between you and your loved one? Is there a standard tradition you hate? Do you like getting flowers or would you rather skip that and go straight to the chocolate? And have you ever seen a slasher film on Valentine’s Day?

Remember, today is your last chance to post a comment that will be included in the drawing for a Sony e-reader! The winner will be chosen at random at midnight from all the comments that were made this week. So get in there and post, people!

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Our special blog celebration coincides with a week that ends on Valentine’s Day. That is appropriate for a romance blog, don’t you think?  But I have a confession to make. I have had a love/hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. Due to February 14th, I have been to both hell and heaven.

Valentine’s Day has a way of creating romance expectations that the significant others of the world (translation: men) often don’t meet. In my case, a whole series of boyfriends seemed to go out of their way to make Valentine’s Day miserable for me.

There was the guy who broke up with me on Valentine’s Day. In his defense I will acknowledge that he did not realize he was warping my view of the day forever. See, he had forgotten what day it was. All my friends had big plans with their boyfriends, and I assumed he was going to surprise me , only the big day came and —nothing. at. all.  So we had a big fight over the usual–he was thoughtless, I was crowding him—you know how it goes, right? The result was we split. I should have blamed him, or myself. Instead I blamed Valentine’s Day.

But we will put him aside, as an unusually tragic case. The others ran much the same way, only I had learned not to make a big deal about it. I tended to go out with guys who had that as their favorite line– why make a big deal about it? As I became wiser (it did take a while) I realized that what they were really saying was– why make a big deal about ME? So Valentine’s Day became a day when I often faced more than I wanted to face about just where a relationship really was going.

By the time I was 24, I had given up on Valentine’s Day. Nothing but trouble there. No expectations at all. February came and went and I didn’t  much notice when Valentine’s Day had passed.

That fall some friends insisted on setting me up with another friend of theirs.  I broke my rule about blind dates under their persistence. I didn’t have high hopes. One dinner, I figured, and I would get my friends off my case.

Instead I was pleasantly surprised.  He wasn’t bad at all. It was not the date from hell that I had anticipated. He was a little older than I was. He was established. He was responsible. He was, oh thank you Lord, a grown up man. We began seeing each other. And when February rolled around, one day he showed up with a dozen red roses. Picture me looking impressed, dumbfounded, and confused. Valentine’s Day, he hinted. Oh, yeah. Valentine’s Day. I looked at those roses, at that BIG DEAL, and I almost cried.

I had nothing for him, of course . But I had cooked something I knew he liked, for him to take home. So he gave me a dozen red roses, and I gave him a jar of pickled mushrooms.

Then, dear readers, I married him.

We still celebrate Valentine’s Day. We exchange sentimental cards, and go out for dinner. But flowers— he gives me those all the time, just because. I think he knew that day that I had never been anyone’s Valentine before, and that those flowers told me that he thought I was worth making a big deal about.

DH was a blind date that worked out splendidly. Many others that I had were dates from hell. Do you have a blind date story, one that goes either way?

If you were planning a big deal for Valentine’s Day, what would you do?

Do you love Valentine’s Day? Hate it? Love/hate it?

PRIZE: One of the visitors who posts will receive a winter reader’s box that includes a knit ruana wrap for snuggling while you read, a leather journal for keeping track of your thoughts and TBR list, a card-sized magnifier for when your eyes get tired, and signed copies of both Ravishing in Red and my forthcoming Provocative in Pearls (pre-release copy, hot off the press). Two others will receive $20 gift cards to either Borders or B & N.

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I just got a new Droid phone.  It’s a very cool phone and I’ve been playing with it for days.  One of the apps I downloaded was ringtones.  My ringtone used to be the Law & Order theme, then the Mission Impossible theme, for years.

But a new phone should have a new ringtone!  So many choices!  I downloaded lots of fun tones.  Right now the main tone is Travis Tritt’s A Great Day To Be Alive because it always makes me smile.  Dedicated tone for Mr. R is Martina McBride’s My Baby Loves Me (just the way that I am).  And notification for messages is “Grrr Argh.” (You’ll know this if you’re a Joss Whedon fan.)

My most recent heroine, Detective Olivia Sutherland in SILENT SCREAM, has the Loony Tunes theme play on her phone and when her boss calls, it rings “Bad To The Bone.”  I’ve given special ringtones to quite a few characters – it’s another way to individualize them, and it’s fun.

I think it would be fun to assign ringtones to historical characters, too, both fictional and real.  For example, George Washington’s phone would play We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister.  Take that, English monarchy!

What’s your ring tone?  If you don’t have one, but could pick one, what would it be? What tone do you think your fave book character might pick, either historical or contemp?  What about real historical figures?

And just to make it interesting, I’m giving away an arc of SILENT SCREAM to one lucky poster!

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