YES

I finally found it, LOL ...

When I was 11, I started sneaking bodice rippers off my grandma's shelves to read the good parts. The most memorable paperback, I still have - it's called Captain's Woman, and is fabulously chock-full of piratical romance novel schlock (back when it wasn't quite yet overhashed schlock just yet).

( Cut for visual schlock )

It's the story of a girl named Mary, highborn and happy as a small girl with her parents; she is forced to go live with her grandmother for some reason or other as a small child, though, and disguised as a boy for the old lady (the parents didn't live near the grandmother, who wanted a grandson and would have withheld family money if she wasn't given one - so they've lied about little Mary being a boy all along). She grows up like this, with the mean old bat, and when she's accused of a crime and arrested as a young woman, she's forced to dress as a boy and escape to sea to get away from the grabby hands of two dastardly lawmen who have their way with her.

She ends up on a pirate ship as cabin boy, having to sleep in the captain's cabin (of course - this is standard operating procedure of pirate romance novels; believe me, I read tons as a teenager). Her true gender is revealed during battle (of course); the captain protects her from the lustful crew, but falls in love with her (of course) despite their arguing and bickering (of course). It turns out (of course) that the captain is not just a dirty pirate - he is actually a disinherited member of the aristocracy (of course). There's a great battle in which they both realize how much they love each other (of course), and in the end, they settle with their impending baby in a great home he's had built on land (of course) while his trusty first mate sails the ship and commands the crew (duhhh). Oh well - better than setting fire to it, at least.

Anyway, this is where I first got the romantic ideal of the pirate, and my interest in them. I read the cover off that damn book, and I actually still have it. For schlock, it isn't half bad - it's certainly better than the ones where the pirate rapes the unwilling lady and THEN she falls in love with him. Gag me with a spoon.

So now you understand why most J/E doesn't excite me. I've read it a hundred times before - with bustier wenches and purpler prose. LOL!

Priorities, we haz them

The town I live in is quite small - under 20,000 people - but the new library in proportion is friggin' HUGE. I used to live in a city of several hundred thousand, and I'd say their main downtown library is maybe only twice the size of this one. Big parking lot, fabulous furniture, free high-speed wireless, and obscure books to boot. I'm hanging out for the afternoon because Turner is getting the molding in his back glass replaced, and what the hell else am I going to do for three hours while I wait for it to set?

(For those of you new to this space - yes, Turner is the black Impala there, having his picture taken outside a town called Winchester. Somewhere earlier, I posted the larger photo with the town sign.)

I want to write more on my Old West J/W AU. I intended to do so. But I'm not quite sure how to abbreviate what I was originally going to write a few years ago when I started the thing. I know how I wanted it to go and how I wanted it to end (it's basically a rewrite of CotBP with a decidedly Turrow slant in the American West; trust me, I don't think it's better than the original, LOL). I just need to DO it.

Damn, I'm lazy ...

Ah, politics

Oh, Joe. I want to like you in spite of your war positions.

Don't fuck up the next two months, OK?