Eloisa James' Special Treat!

by Anna Sugden

Can there be a better way to kick off the holiday season in the Lair than to welcome back one of our favourite guests - Eloisa James?

Join us as we celebrate the launch of Eloisa's latest book in the Duchesses series "When the Duke Returns", find out how to make your holiday special with treats just for yourself ... and be part of the chance to win one of Eloisa's 5 (yes, 5!) prizes.

So without further ado, I'll hand you over to Eloisa.

Thank you, Anna. I'm delighted to return to the Bandita's Lair.

Decembers tend to pass in a whirl of wrapping paper and exhaustion—a month spent creating beautiful memories for other people, most of whom are under the age of consent and are perfectly happy chewing on squeaky toys.

My point is that we often forget something: ourselves. What would make you really happy? As a woman?

My answer is to feel loved. And my prescription is love yourself this holiday. When your children look back over their memories, they'll see it in a whirl of joy, presents, and love. But you're the key to that. The only way you can be the calm center at the heart of their joy is if you yourself are joyful. And the only way you can be joyful is if you are happy with yourself.

Recipe for Self Love

Lingerie. Buy something and wear it under your sweatshirt. The crucial point: you're not doing this for your partner, but for yourself.

Toes. A winter pedicure is delicious, partly because it's a secret known only to you (and perhaps the man you deem lucky enough to kiss your coral pink toes).

Time. That's the main gift you have to give yourself: time. Put on some music, get into the bathtub, and read. I even have suggested reading material: my latest, When the Duke Returns. My duke, Simeon, returns to England after years exploring the wilderness to meet the wife he married by proxy: Isidore. But he takes one look at her and offers an annulment: she’s too beautiful, too sexy, and too angry for him. Typically for a man, he’s underestimating Isidore (not to mention the power of lingerie—see above)!

It’s my hope that in reading how Simeon and Isidore fall in love, even in the midst of terrible problems with water closets (toilets), siblings, a rather horrific mother-in-law and a house renovation, will help you survive your December.

What’s your favorite survival recipe? What do you do to survive in the midst of chaos (and let’s not even talk about Black Friday shopping)?

Don't forget that 5 lucky commenters will win prizes today - Eloisa is giving away two copies of 'Desperate Duchesses', two copies of 'An Affair Before Christmas' and one copy of 'Duchess by Night'. Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Columbus shopping trip...

... a few odds and ends.










Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Epiphany to Write

I get up.

It's damn early, the sun isn't even up. I check the clock and it's ten minutes to four. I turn on my laptop and make a bowl of cereal. I turn on my NETSTUMBLER and it comes alive with signals. @home is not there, 23311e is. I hit it just for shits and giggles and she carries the load of the browser. Poof, I'm back online.

I read email and do my thing, including my exercise. I keep one eye on the clock, because before the ass crack of dawn I plan on going downstairs to Daddy Day Care and get online. I dress heavy, because I don't know what the morning weather will be like. The open window in the room is a poor barometer because it opens out to an alleyway. I have a lovely view of a brick wall and other windows. There is no breeze between these structures. The same hot air that goes out of my room, comes back in.

I'm the first one inside Daddy Day Care, so I guess that means that I get the coveted 'fuck you' prize. The Barrister ignores me for two minutes while I'm standing in front of her, until I wished her death. She must have read it on my face, because she piped up and took my order. But still her and her friend, two little rolly poly motherfuckers, that look like a pair of Oompa Loompas, cast nasty glances and handed over my breakfast as if it was a grenade.

Subsequent guests were treated with at least a hello and a smile. But I don't care. I sit down and unpack. Shortly a rowdy man and woman come in, boisterous and hopping about, they start the fun and games in Day Care. Two people acting like children. Soon I hope to see them chasing each other around the tables.

Next comes in the Dawn of the Dead. A biker type, leather jacket under a wool coat, with a napkin...just kidding, a bandana on his bald head, and jeans with holes at the knees, comes staggering in. He makes it to the counter as if he's walking a tightrope. Later, I see him working his way back to a table and chair, and crash landed his ass in the seat. I turn the sound up in my headsets just as the first Daddy walked through the door. Now I ask you: Really, what the FUCK have you got a little baby up and dressed at 6:30 in the morning for?? I mean, what? Maybe the kid can't sleep and you're walking him around to knock his ass out? But he has this little two year old in a stroller.

And then I get a epiphany. As if the cloudy skies opened and a bolt of light sliced down through the darkness and illuminated my face.

I love to write.

I have to describe my world and put it on paper, and describe it so that I can practically see it clearly through words... why?? Because I'm a writer. I have to. I love to. I must. That's not crazy, that's focused. Blind, white hot, naked focus. I'm always typing. Always. When I get home, I sit down at my desk and knock away, so fucking busy doing so many things that I have no time to worry about being lonely, destitute, uneducated, whatever. Such thoughts are unnecessary and useless to me. I have work to do. Suddenly I love my privacy, I am a man rich in character, I have a hundred skills, whatever. I fit into this world because I'm a writer, and not because of anything else.

Talking through e-mail with a friend of mine, who has just about started their own business, reminds me so much of when I had mine, that it gave me the spark of an idea. I need to market my skills as a writer more, and push it like I would push a computer service. Shoot for articles in magazines, book publishers, anthologies...whatever. I've got all that I need, and I have a base of operations now. I need to get started. I am pleased with myself suddenly. I am happy to be sitting in Daddy Day Care, typing on my laptop.

Now, back to my problem. Those signals in the room. I surf the web, learning more and more about how Window's manages WIFI signals and what terms like SSID and BSSID and all those fucking SSIDS whatever, are. I find that I need a new Connection Manager. That the Connection Manager that comes with Windows is klutzy and has many flaws that make it hard to work with in certain situations. So I surf for one. I find NETSWITCHER. Supposedly a superior signal locator and Connection Manager. Once it finds a signal it bites down on it like an old man with new dentures. I download and install it.

After finishing everything that I have to be online for to finish, I close up shop and head back upstairs. I lay out my baby on my desk, boot up and then sit with my two tools. NETSTUMBLER and NETSWITCHER, along with the old, reliable Windows Zero Config.

NETSTUMBLER does it's thing, telling me what signals are bopping around in the room. I set up NETSWITCHER, and train it on @home as soon as it appears. It chomps down on the signal, locking it in. I go back to NETSTUMBLER and bring up the signal's weak sine wave, like the weak heart of someone dying fast.

NETSWITCHER holds on...until the signal dies. You can't ask the tool to save the dying, or ressurect the dead. It can't force the signal to stay around, it can only hold on to what you give it. Software tools can only do so much. What I need now is something more mechanical, something more physical. A Signal Booster! But like an antenna, it can only relay what it catches. For that to work, I would have to put the repeater on the roof or something like that. I'm not THAT crazy.

Watch me...I'll solve this one.

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Carnival of Pain

I awaken pretty early in the morning. I get up, take a leak, take my pills, do all of that shit. I straighten up the room, do my exercise, which was a pain. I've grown noticeably weaker. I groan out twenty one push ups. Either I'm getting older or heavier. I believe it to be the latter. I get up and begin vacuuming food. This time, the cereal is the victim. I should just stick the bowl behind my lower lip like those African tribesmen and just pour the cereal in my face.

Pissed with myself I go over to NET- STUMBLER to find it quiet as ever. Then an eerie feeling creeps into my head. Reboot the system. Yeah, rule number one with technicians, when you are not getting the output that you expect from a system...when in doubt...reboot. My baby came back up and I threw up NETSTUMBLER immediately. The signals came back, whole and hearty, ringing off the walls. Damn.

I check out at @home. She is weak, crawling in like a bullet holed dog. There is nothing that I can do. I just look around at the other signals, my connection jumping from one to the other, like a jockey in a geriatric horse race, changing horses in mid-race. Nothing helps at all. Just as I grow bored of the motherfucker, up pops @home like a teenage erection. Her signal turns green all over the place, as if she was poked in the ass.

I jump on her and suddenly ride the shit out of a pretty strong Internet connection. Strangely though, all of the fireworks began all of a sudden, at 10:27:35, and she stays steady. I surf, but now it's so late that I have to get ready. It's time for me to call Social Services about the rent check for this glorious room. I know to expect shit, so I really don't care. I'm numb to the hoopla that I'm about to experience. It's going to be a long, hard day, and I am no help either. I have a way of fucking up myself at times like this. I dread today.

First step in the carnival of pain is to follow the instructions left me: "For Checks Infor- mation, please call the numbers below on 11/28/08 after 11:00am to find out whether your checks are ready on the first floor." I grab a shower in the wheelchair accessible shower, because it's nice and spacious in there. I think that I will make this bathroom 'mine', like the guy did the one on the left. I get dressed, clean up the apartment a little more, and then head downstairs to a phone booth on the corner where I make my first call of the day. I get an answering machine, which tells me to leave my name, case number and a number for them to call me back. What?? How the fuck am I going to do that? I have no phone.

Don't panic I tell myself. I head upstairs and find my case number in a bunch of papers that I'm continually handed by Social Services, which was a source of annoyance when one is a Streeter, because, really, where do you put all of that shit?? Then I rifle off an email to a friend upstate if I could use her cell phone number, and if she gets the call, can she email me back? My plan, go to the library, make the calls and monitor the Internet for the email. I'm going to get these checks today if it kills me. I should watch what I wish for.

I pack up my gear and head downstairs to the corner phone booth and try once more to call, but a nearby garbage truck comes alive with an inhumanly loud machine howl, drowning out the phone call. But it sounded like the damn answering machine again. Fuck it. I'm off!

I hop the Way down to 33rd street, and head for the library. Upon walking in, I remember that I have several books waiting for me on order. Three books and a video to be exact. I stop and pick them up. My new plan, leave everything with Electra as I run down to Duffield Street for the checks. To my surprise, Electra is not there. I then look for my brother OBSIDIAN, and he can't be found. Fuck. I go to a telephone booth and dial the number for the checks and sure enough someone answers. They tell me that my checks are ready.

Now here I am, a stack of books under one arm, and a heavy back pack. Par for the course, I say. I leave the library, stuffing the books into the backpack and head back to the Way. The ride into Brooklyn is torturous, as the MTA is working on the track lines, and getting into the largest borough is nothing more than a series of train switching and waiting until I make it to Nevins street.

To make a long story short, because you already know what happens when someone walks into the lovely Riverview Job Center, which I call THE NIGHTMARISH PIT OF DOOM!!! You wait on lines. You wait on lines and then lines that you don't have to wait on, because there aren't enough signs to steer you in the proper direction. Which is also what happened to me. But before I knew it, I was standing with two checks in my hand. One for one months rent, the other for furniture for my room. To you, probably not a king's fortune. Both checks no more than a hundred dollars apiece, but to me a pirate's treasure.

I was sent to the most seediest check cashing place to cash the checks, which should have been called the 'check robbery' place. All in the front of the establishment were these thug types, loitering; good for nothing men, doing just that, nothing. With great reservations, I enter in, and with even greater relief, I exit.

I shoot back uptown and the first thing that I purchase with my newfound furniture money? A broom and a dustpan.

Shit, you gotta sweep the floor you know.

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Thanks, But No Thanks

by Jo Robertson

Since Thanksgiving just passed and families and friends often comment on the things they’re thankful for during the year, I thought it'd be fun to share our "thanks” and “no thanks” for the year’s happenings.

First of all, a great big wahooooo thanks for Johnny Depp. Honestly, did you ever think when he was in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "21 Jump Street" that he’d also be capable of such a variety of acting roles as “Sweeney Todd” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”?


No thanks to Angelina Jolie. Okay, okay, she’s apparently a fine actor, philantropist and mother, but those lips just give me the creeps. Oh, come on! I just said what everyone’s thinking!


Thanks to FX for “Sons of Anarchy.” That show is utterly amoral, inappropriate, and unfit for the ears and eyes of children of any age, but Jax Teller, played by Brit Charlie Nunnam, has got to be the cutest thing since, well, Johnny Depp, and I’d tune in to the Biker Gang, drug-running, gun-running show just to watch his cute self.

No thanks to the new Blackberry Storm. Really, do we need one more electronic device to engage people’s attention when they’re actually supposed to be listening to you?






On the other hand, it has so many features I think I can cancel my housecleaning service. It'll probably do that too.







Thanks to Pink’s “Wait.” Love the beat, love the music, love the sassy theme.


No thanks to Pink’s “Wait” video. One word: bleeeeeech!



See it here: http://www.mtv.com/videos/pink/266933/so-what.jhtml#artist=710231









Thanks for the cast of “The Mentalist." This is one of the most cleverly-written shows of the fall television season.













No thanks Sara Tancredi's return to “Prison Break.” I thought her head – and her acting – was better in the box.

And whatever happened to T.J.? (He's in the middle of the photo, right in front of Sara Tancredi.









Thanks to Tina Fey who played Sarah Palin so well on SNL that when the Alaskan governor actually appeared on the hit comedy show, many Americans thought Palin was the fake.


No Thanks to botox. Who wants to inject botulinum toxin Type A produced in culture to your face?


Thanks for wrinkles. I like to pretend they’re the verification that I’ve actually lived and have been around the block a few times.






Thanks for electronic mail, instant message, and especially, for writers, electronic contests. Do we really want to leave our grandchildren tree-less?



What about you, Banditas, Bandita Buddies, and visitors? What great big shout out of “thanks” or “no thanks” would you give?


Thanks for a new favorite TV show this year? A great movie -- Daniel Craig's James Bond, anyone? A new addition to your family? No thanks to something you're sick to death of seeing/hearing -- annoying commercials, drivers with cell phones, bad coffee? A new gadget that just plain doesn't work? A bad movie that was highly touted? Or something you could do without?
Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Of Dropped Pings and Dingalings

I wake to the sound of the fucking door buzzer again.

Some kind of garbled response comes from the speaker. I don't move to answer it. I've long come to realize that the only people who can activate the stupid thing is security downstairs. No one can come in by ringing the bell. So what did I care about security? They were probably letting people know that there was some function going on downstairs. I don't like arbitrary groups, so I stay where I am.

I stay in bed for a moment, thinking about going back to sleep when I noticed that NET- STUMBLER was no longing pinging out a lovely tune. I jump up and check out my screen. The software was on full scan, sweeping the room vigorously but the status kept reading NO AP's ACTIVE. AP meaning Access Points or channels that the signals ride upon. But the problem wasn't that @home was down, which would have been logical, but that they were ALL down. It's like having sixteen dancing, naked women hopping up and down in your room, and you take a nap, and awake to find them all gone. I mean, I know that I have that kind of luck, but DAMN. Not one stray signal passed through my silent tomb.

Interference. But it had to be the mother of all interference to knock down sixteen signals. I instantly looked at my microwave. These things are notorious for fucking with communications. It just hung there from my cabinet, it's digital face saying: "Not Me Boss," with an obscene yawn. Well, if it wasn't my microwave, then it had to be something outside. I look out my window, which opens into a back alley, a narrow passage for a signal to make its way though. I guess that I'm just fucking lucky to have a signal at all.

Something out there, something that someone likes to turn on, like a microwave, cordless phone, or ham radio, was making my life miserable. These things wreak havoc with WIFI signals. Someone in that fucking alleyway, had something on that put the kibosh on my surfing. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!! Let's say I spent that $79.00 for that WIFI antenna...that bitch would be having the same problem! There is absolutely no signal to amplify. That would have been good money down the drain. What I needed now was a GPS adapter for my laptop, which would allow NETSTUMBLER to pinpoint where and how far the interference was, go there and when I find the character with the offending device, AIR HIS ASS OUT! Fill'em full'a lead.

I sit down like Jabba the Hut and eat snacks.

I drink 800ml of water to fill myself up. Now that's a lot of water; close to five cups. That keeps me from stuffing my face, but I'll pay for it the minute that I take my evening water pill. I check the NETSTUMBLER, and it's still stumbling. The signals are down like a clown. Depressing to say the least, to have had such a lively afternoon of nothing but pings from signals bouncing around in my room, to abject silence. Nothing. As if someone landed a large glass, upside down, over my apartment like a dome. I am shut down solid. Deaf to the world outside.

I turn everything off and grab my book, The Night of the Gun, stretch out across my bed and read. I read until my eyelids grow heavy and my head bobs and my lights go out.

HobobobSource URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2008/11/
Visit extra vagance de plumes for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection