That Dreaded "H" Word

Housework. Yuck. I think most people don't mind doing housework, although they certainly have least-favorite tasks.

Me? I hate them all.

Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the kitchen, the bathrooms, loading and unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry... You name it--if it's considered to be housework, I hate it.

Why? Cuz I'm a lazy-butt, that's why. Fortunately, though, I'm not a slob, so I do live in relative cleanliness. I'm just completely in a foul mood while I'm cleaning, and it doesn't take much to make me cuss while I'm in that mode. (Well, really, it doesn't take much to make me cuss regardless...)

But I really hate housework.

Please tell me I'm not the only lazy-butt out there...

Your luck's about to change

Yeah, I think that's kind of it for me. Who else remembers that one?

The Big Easy. Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin. New Orleans. They're tumbling around the room, frantically kissing, pulling at clothes...and the phone rings, and he has to leave.

Barkin says, "I've never had much luck with sex, anyway."

And--I'm breathing a little faster as I type this, especially when I think of how amazing Quaid always looked with his shirt off--Quaid grabs her and says, "Your luck's about to change" before planting another champion kiss on her pouty little mouth.

Sigh. It's one of those perfect lines, one of those lines you wish you'd written, one of those lines you wish someone would say to you--and that it was true.

What else? Sexy lines...hmmm...everything John Malkovitch says in Dangerous Liasons is sexy. As Sherrill pointed out, James Bond says a lot of sexy things. "Kiss me, Scarlett...once," is a huge one for me. Is there a sexier man than Rhett Butler?

I've got a few lines in my upcoming Ellora's Cave release, Blood Will Tell (which I hope to have a release date for in the next week!) that make me ridiculously proud. Just as Our Hero, Julian, is leaning in to kiss Our Heroine Cecelia for the first time, they share the following exchange:

He was kneeling before her now, his eyes level with hers. The starched front of his shirt brushed against her bare legs, sending an involuntary tremor though her body. She prayed he hadn’t noticed it, but knew that he had.
“Wait a minute,” she said, as his face drew closer. “I don’t even think I like you.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, and his lips met hers.

Or this one, later on:

The innuendo was so heavy that she laughed. “My mother warned me about men like you,” she said.
He raised one eyebrow. “Come with me,” he said, kissing her hand. “I’ll show you why she was right.”

Got any more sexy lines to share?

Adolescence and the Alpha male

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I'm Cheating!! But not really!

So..I'm supposed to blog about the sexiest line from a movie or book that I have seen or read. You know what? I can NEVER remember anything like that. Phrases don't stick in my mind worth a crap. Especially sexy phrases. If you'd asked me to write about the most ridiculous lines from a song, however, I would have been golden. I could have simply chosen any line from "I am the walrus" by the Beatles and been done with it.

("Here comes old flat top he comes groovin' up slowly he got mojo eyeball he got toe jam football, he's a monkey finger inside coca-cola..." or something like that, you know what I'm talking about.)

So instead I'm posting an excerpt from my latest release in which I have marked in read what I think are two of the sexiest lines. I'd be curious to know, however, what kind of 'bedroom talk' you find sexy in general. Do like it sweet and loving? Do you like it sassy on both sides? Or do you enjoy some flat out 'dirty talk', lol? Let me know!

Happy Wednesday!

Anna J. Evans

Website Blog

MAIN ATTRACTION by Anna J. Evans
(1st in the Perfectly Wicked Series)
Available 4/11/07 from ellorascave.com
ISBN 9781419910326
Link to buy: http://www.ellorascave.com/AuthorsBooks.asp?AuthorCode=AJE



BLURB:

Edna Emily Argent Rella runs the Wicked Stepmother and her Stepsisters S&M parlor in Kingdom City, but she has a secret… She's not so terribly wicked. A dominatrix by necessity, rather than calling, she does her best to capitalize on her naughty reputation. After the smear campaign waged by her stepdaughter Cynthia, there aren't many other employment options.

Frank, the Captain of the Queen's Guard, has been sent to protect Edna from the stalker threatening her life. Posing as a client, this dominant male soon realizes he's in for more trouble than he bargained for.

Because Edna is a born submissive. And Frank can't resist the urge to show her what she's been missing while on the Mistress side of the fence.

EXCERPT:

Edna pressed impossibly closer to the man who had managed to make her forget she ever had any reservations about fucking a client. But then, he wasn’t a client, was he? He was here to help her, to deal with whoever had been writing those horrible letters.

“Frank, what about—”

“Quiet. I don’t want to hear you say another word until you’re coming on my mouth.” He followed the words with a sharp tug at the bottom of her corset. Her breasts sprung free, nipples sliding against the leather with a rough friction that made her moan.

His eyes drank her in with a single-minded intensity that took her breath away, and his large hands moved to cup her full, swollen breasts. He tested the weight and feel of her softly, almost reverently, before he swept the pads of his thumbs over her tightened tips. A bolt of pure arousal zinged from her nipples down to burn hotly between her legs. Her clit was already aching for stimulation, and her pussy was past the point of mere readiness. She couldn’t wait for him to touch her.

But god, what would he think when he felt how wet she was? Would he find her ridiculously slick folds a pathetic testimony to how easily she was seduced?

“Frank, I—” Her breath hissed in through her parted lips as he pinched her nipples, hard, between his fingers and thumbs.

“I said no talking.” He tightened his grip on her aroused flesh until she moaned. Moaned and arched into his hands, her body wickedly craving more. She raked her fingernails down his exposed back, digging her hands into his muscled ass and pulling him even closer. Hungrily, she ground up and down his rock-hard length, her clit humming with excitement as it was granted the much-needed friction, even as her pussy clenched and shuddered.

“Is that a gun in your diaper or you just happy to see me?” she breathed, unable to believe even Frank was truly that large. His cock felt at least ten inches long, maybe eleven, and bigger around than her own wrist.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?” He followed the words with a swift smack on her bare thigh. The unexpected sting made her gasp and wiggle her hips into closer contact with his cock. She’d never had any fantasies about being spanked, but she was having plenty of them now. She wanted her bare bottom turned over his knees, her slick pussy completely exposed to him as he used the flat of his large palm to redden her ass.

“Kind of like someone else I know,” she said as she flicked her tongue across the seam of his lips, dying for another taste of him.

“True, but I think we both know by now that I enjoy taking the lead. Can you let me do that, Edna? Can you trust me to give you pleasure?” His strong hands were cupping her ass, helping her find a gentle, rocking rhythm against his cock that had things low in her body tightening, already climbing toward release.

“Yes.” She mumbled the words against his neck, inhaling the purely male scent of him. Even his smell made her hotter, wetter, and she knew it wouldn’t take much to send her spiraling over the edge.

“So for the next ten minutes this pussy is mine?”

“I wish we had more than ten minutes.”

“Me too,” he said with a heated smile before his features grew serious once more. “I want to hear you say it, Edna. Tell me this is my pussy.”

“It’s your pussy,” she whispered, the words almost enough to bring her the rest of the way. They would have been if he hadn’t picked that second to pull away from her clit and urge her back onto the couch.

“Good. I want to see my pussy. Take your shorts off, but leave the corset.”

Edna forced herself to obey without hesitation, despite the hint of nervousness that swept through her as soon as she was denied access to the drugging contact of his body. She trusted him, she did, despite the fact she’d been half convinced he was a psycho killer a few minutes past. Whether it was crazy or not, trusting him wasn’t the problem. The problem was herself. Would she know how to please him? Would she be able to give up control, to let him direct the course of this encounter? The last thing she’d expected was to take a turn on the submissive side of the scene tonight, or any night, and she was suddenly feeling tremendously unprepared.

Her fingers fumbled with the leather ties at the side of her shorts, and Edna watched her hands begin to shake.

“Hurry, I’m ready to see what’s mine.” The way he said the words made her nipples harden to the point of pain and her plump, engorged clit practically scream for release.

She shimmied her leather hot pants and black thong panties down her legs and flicked them off one six-inch heel before she could think twice about it. There was no point asking questions, wondering if she was ready for a man like Frank. There was no longer any choice to be made. Her body had decided for her. It would do anything this man asked as long as he would fulfill the promise shining in those blue eyes.

Absolutely anything.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said as she sat back on her elbows and spread her legs wide, obediently showing him every last inch of her. Her pussy let forth another rush of heat as his eyes explored her, taking in every inch of her most intimate of places. Thank goodness, he didn’t seem to find her state of readiness repulsive in the least.

“Frank, please…”

“You were supposed to be quiet, Edna,” he said with a small smile as he spread her legs impossibly wider and then moved gentle hands to spread the petals of her sex open, exposing her completely. It became hard to breathe, hard to move, hard not to move, she wanted him to touch her so desperately.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she watched him lower his face between her legs, bringing his mouth close enough that she could feel his hot breath on her mound, but no closer.

“It’s okay. You can make it up to me,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers without moving his mouth.

“Anything.”

“I want you to watch me. Never take your eyes off me while I eat my pussy.”

What seduces me...

The first movie lines that ever seduced me:

Alexei Kolchin: In Union of Soviet, when I am only young boy, many are saying, Americanski are bad people, they will attack Russia. So all mistrust American. But I think that I do not mistrust American... not really sinceriously. I wish not to hate... anybody!
[He throws a stone into the sea]
Alexei Kolchin: This make good reason to you, Alison Palmer?
Alison Palmer: Well, of course it does. It doesn't make sense to hate people. It's such a waste of time.

I was only six at the time, but John Philip Law was HAWT! For me, lines that seduce me aren't always what you'd consider particularly sexy, but when you factor in whose mouth they're coming out of and the context, they just melt me every time. Once again, context:

Little John: Let me introduce you to my best friend: Will Scarlet.
Scarlet: Scarlet's my middle name. My full name is Will Scarlet O'Hara.
[pause]
Scarlet: We're from Georgia.

Matthew Porretta, so hot.

Ramon Sanchez: So, uh, what's your interest in Kate Libby, eh? Academic? Purely sexual?
Dade Murphy: Homicidal.

and

Mrs. Murphy: What did you learn in school today?
Dade Murphy: Revenge.

Jonny Lee Miller, king of my college-angst dreams.

Yes, most of the most seductive lines in movies for me have just a tad bit of sarcastic edge to them, but the men, oh the men...yes, I'm off in my own little world and I hope you all are too thinking about those lines that send you into burning fits of lust :)

Sexiness In The Movies

I’ve been on a James Bond kick ever since I saw Casino Royale on Thanksgiving Day. I really enjoyed the movie, and there are a few lines that I just can’t get out of my head. Both occur toward the end of the movie and involve Bond and his love interest, Vesper.



The first line - Vesper says: “If the only thing left of you was your smile and your little finger, you’d still be more of a man than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Oooh. That just makes me shiver.

The other line that I find to be very sexy comes a little while later (same scene). Vesper complains that he won’t let her in, that he’s put his armor back on. Bond’s response: “I have no armor left. You’ve stripped it from me. Whatever is left of me… Whatever is left of me… Whatever I am, is yours.”

Another oooh.

(Interestingly enough, when I watched this on DVD a few weeks ago with my critique group, the comment was made “That sounds like something Sherrill would write.” I’ll take that compliment. LOL)

Do you have a favorite sexy line from a movie? Or a book?

Spring!

I was thinking, as I clicked the "New Post" button, how I was not going to call this post "The Rites of Spring" because, aside from not being about rites at all, I'm so tired of that cliche. My weariness for the phrase usually starts by about the sixth time I see it, which happens every spring.

So as I congratulated myself on my cleverness, I realized that I had in fact typed "The Rites of Spring" into the little title box.

Doh!

Another doh!--I planned to take a photo of the spring blooms around here, but didn't get to it. Sorry.

For the record, it's totally spring here, all of the sudden. Two weeks ago the skies were gray and the temps hovered around freezing. Now the skies are blue and we're in the 70s every day. Gorgeous weather.

I'm sure it will revert. I remember last year having to wear a jacket in June. But for the moment, it's nice.

And why do you care? You probably don't. But I do, because with the return of the sun I'm also finding a ovely return to productivity for myself. It's bad in that it gives me less time to blog and do my online buddy stuff, but more actual writing gets done.It's funny, because spring used to have the exact opposite effect on me. I used to get spring fever so, so badly that I would be unable to concentrate on anything. I'd run around outside in a t-shirt when it was 50 degrees outside just because it felt a little warmer than it had. I remember begging to be allowed to pull weeds outside my job just because it meant I could be outside.

Do you find that spring makes you more productive, or less?

BRING IT ON!!!!

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Spring Cleaning.......ARGH!!!

At this point I would gladly let these nasty little pink demons loose in my house if it meant I didn't have to clean it. The thing is FILTHY I tell you. It's mostly due to a rather prolonnnnggged bout of bronchitis that has had me doing nothing much for over a week. Get a week behind in this house and you're screwed. Get a week behind after you'd already let things get a little dirty in the name of being productive at the old writing gig and well...it's just gross.

To me at least.

I'm a bit of neat freak, but only in the spring and summer. I have no problem with a little mess in the autumn and winter, but come spring I NEED to have my living/working space tidy in order to function. (Maybe it has something to do with the whole 'renewal' 'fresh start' theme of the season.) But needless to say, that's not been happening right now. I'm lucky to catch up on all the laundry I've missed out on--and I do say 'missed out on' because I DO SO LOVE to do laundry!

Sigh...so I think I'm going to hire someone--just this once, to pull it back from the brink, so to speak--to clean it...while I go hide in our town's new Starbucks and try not to think about the poor woman who is looking at my stepdaughters' filthy toilet (I don't care what they say about boys....they can't be worse than girls!!).

Of course, maybe it won't be a woman who will come to clean...maybe it will be someone like this...



In that case, of course...I might stay home :).

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!!! GOD I LOVE MY CAPS LOCK TODAY!!!

Anna J. Evans

http://laughoutloudsexy.com
http://annajevans.blogspot.com

What happened to spring?

This will be short because the library where I'm hopping onto the wireless network is closing in 15 minutes. I've been driving around part of the state today, getting to know people who I help in my daytime profession. It's been a gorgeous day, and I've had the window down for most of it. This time last week, the temps were barely above freezing! I want to know what happened to Spring 'cause it feels like it went from winter to summer as I saw a bank's time/temp sign reading 84 degrees! I think spring happened when we weren't noticing. There was a stretch of days back in March where the temps were in the 60's and 70's, but that was a jump up too. I know spring's supposed to be unpredictable, but this has been a crazy one, even by Midwestern standards!

One other benefit to today was I got to see pelicans in the wild! I stopped and took some pictures, but I don't have my camera cable with me, otherwise I'd upload them here. Today's been the first day I've really had a chance to appreciate everything that means spring to me: birds I haven't seen in a while, the scent of cut grass permeating the air, and being able to drive with the window down, wind blowing through my hair. I'm just crossing my fingers we don't fall back into the freezing temps again next week!

Spring--And Second Chances

Spring has arrived to the desert Southwest, and with it the return of warm (or should I say warmer?) temps. We had wind gusts last Thursday of up to 40 mph, but we got some rain out of it overnight, which we desperately need, and also some snow up on the mountains.

It’s a beautiful time of year here. Nights are still cool (in the 50s and 60s), and as the days get longer we can take advantage of the abundant sunshine. (At least, until summer arrives and the temps climb—and stay—over 100 degrees.) And even though the pollen count is high and wreaking havoc on a lot of people (me to a certain extent, but nothing like I’ve seen other people suffering), it’s still one of my favorite times of the year.

Some of the cacti has already been blooming, plus the palo verde trees, bringing color to the browns and greens of the desert. Put it all underneath a robin’s egg blue sky, and you have…paradise.

You know what Spring makes me think of? Renewal. Renewal of hope—a second chance at doing things you perhaps missed out on before, or have put off. It’s a new time for those New Year’s Resolutions—dust ’em off and make a commitment to yourself to start over. Doesn’t matter if it’s the second time, or the fiftieth. Just start again. This time might just be the time.

What would you like a “do over” for?

Triskiadekaphobia

It's Friday the 13th. Yay!

I love Friday the 13th, although I must admit this is a rather disappointing one. I mean, it's April. There is absolutely nothing spooky about April. At all. The moon is waning, not full. We're (finally!) having some lovely, spring-like weather here in the middle of nowhere--I mean, the beautiful, rural Southwest of England.

There are little lambs everywhere. There is nothing spooky about little lambs.

Although, having said that, an idea forms. An erotic horror tale set in a rural area, where the sheep go crazy at lambing time and...yeah, I don't really have much more than that (but give me time!) I did read a horror novel involving crazy cannibal goats a couple of months ago, called "The Farm" by Scott Nicholson. Not bad. I digress.

So. I love the number 13, and I love Friday the 13th (although I am not a particular fan of the films.)

Which is odd, because I am a terribly superstitious. I knock on wood all the time. I cross my fingers. I throw salt over my left shoulder when I spill it. I count magpies and bad things (they happen in threes, you know.) I never walk with one shoe on and one shoe off.

I also have lots of my own superstitions. Don't talk too much about a project before it gets off the ground or you'll jinx it. Don't start a new project during a waning moon or it won't be successful. Don't start a project on a Monday or it won't be successful.

And a slew of others far too embarrassing to discuss.

Are you superstitious? What are yours?

Happy Friday the 13th!

I Feel Lucky...

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Lousy Luck In Lists

I don't even want to go here....into the luck zone...this place where our dear Kelly apparently feels so at home...

Because I am Kelly's unlucky twin, the girl who nervously raps on wood every chance she gets and is terrified to say she's ever *not* had a bad thing happen to her for fear that it most absolutely, certainly WILL HAPPEN!!! and probably in the VERY NEAR FUTURE!!!

So here is my unluckyness in list format, for that feels less intimidating to the non-lucky:

1. Number of times I've won money on a slot machine (and I've done my share of gambling)--0

2. The number of close friends/family under the age of 50 I've had die (and I'm only 29)-7

3. Number of times I've won a lotto scratch card-1 (for $50.00)

4. The number of times my condo-complex has been embezzled leaving me with an $8,000.00 bill to pay a disgruntled construction worker-1

(Those two HARDLY even each other out!!)

5. Number of times I've had a boyfriend dump me because I had cervical cancer-1

6. The number of times I've dumped a boyfriend because his cock was too small-1

(Those two really DO even each other out. The first wasn't bad luck so much as choosing an asshole boyfriend. And the second was me just being an asshole. I mean...the motion of the ocean right?...right...I could have at least given the man a chance...)

7. Number of times I've drawn the short straw at Thanksgiving and had to wash all the dishes--5 (fairly horrible considering I was only elligible for entry at age 18)

8. The number of times I've had a tattoo artist insert his name in the artwork he inked on my body without my knowledge-1

9. The number of times I've missed a bus, thusly enabling me to snag a ride in a car that was later involved in a horrible wreck--2 (kid you not)

10. The number of times I figured it was okay to streak the senior dorms on a dare in college and was nearly apprehended by policeman, but managed to escape into a room that I thought was my boyfriend's but ended up being a pot dealer's and ended up being carted in for questioning at 2 in the morning buck naked-1

And I could go on and on and on and on....but the important thing to realize here is that, in all the situations that REALLY count...I've been incredibly lucky. My son was born healthy, happy, and smarter than your average rugrat. My second husband is the answer to my romantic dreams, and even my first husband wasn't THAT bad. I had incredibly loving parents, and the blessings of many dear friends to help me through the unlucky times.

But still...I'll admit to being superstitious enough that I'll try to forget this post ever came into being. If I never blogged about luck, then the 'bad luck' gods won't have their attention drawn to me...yet again....right? Right!!!

*knock on wood*

Anna J. Evans (who has a release today....go check out "Main Attraction" HERE)

Feeling lucky?

My somewhat phenomenal streak of luck first made its presence known when I was a mere 2 1/2. Some kid selling raffle tickets for a school fundraiser came to my Grandma's door. She decided to buy a few and when trying to figure out who's name to put on the last ticket, she looked down. There I stood, looking all innocent and demure (probably not, but it makes the story better). Furiously penning my name, she returned the tickets to the kid. A little while later, my parents got a call. I had won $250. Not bad for a toddler.

In grammar school, I was absurdly PO'd that my mom couldn't have kept me in another week, resulting in me being born 4 weeks late, so that my 13th birthday would fall on Friday the 13th.

When I was in high school, I attended a softball all-star series that my young sister was playing in. I won the Split the Pot raffle the last two days of the series. I think the total haul that time was around $90. One year, I also won the grand prize Easter basket for filling out the Career Day fair questionnaire.

In college, not much happened luck-wise, but I realized that I seemed to have good things happen to me on Friday the 13ths. The first one I remember noticing this was a payday, and finding some really nice dresses and shoes majorly on sale and having an all around good day.

After college, the streak of luck returned. I won a 32" TV at an event I was helping my aunt out with. At another event where my mom was a co-chair (it was a Mom's Club thing for my brothers' high school), we both bought lots of raffle tickets so that we had a shot at winning the adirondack chair and table set my dad had built and donated for the second prize. She won the third place painting, and I won the first prize $400 airplane ticket voucher. I've also been attending a fan event almost every year for an author I love. We've been having a fundraising basket raffle for probably the last 7 years or so. I think I've only not won one year. For that one, however, I make sure the law of probability is on my side. My friends from that group of people have long been proclaiming I'm one of the luckiest persons they know and even gave me the moniker "Goddess of Good Luck". It didn't help my reputation that when I attended an RWA conference a few years ago, I won two of their baskets AND an Alphasmart Dana.

My most recent spate of luck was within the last month. I went to my local Borders' event for teachers and librarians during their Educator Appreciation Weekend. They were having a gift bag drawing. My name was the first name drawn after I walked in the door. Last week, I was telling a friend this at a conference right before we got roped into a demonstration by a vendor. Well, as a thank you for sitting through the demo, the vendor drew a name from those attending for a $10 gift card to Starbucks. My friend said "Watch, they'll pick your name." I was in the middle of saying "Don't even say that!" when they did. I greatly appreciate my luck, I just wish I could win money on the order of a nice Lotto prize one of these days. I've yet to break that original $250 for a flat out cash prize. I came close last year at my grammar school's all-school reunion, though.

Is It Luck...?

I was going to start this post by saying I'm not a superstitious person. But...

It's a tradition in my family to serve pork and sauer kraut on New Year's Day, so we'll have good luck throughout the year. While I'm not a huge fan of sauer kraut, this is the one day of the year when I'll fix it. Another "good luck" thing--I'm in the habit of saying "knock on wood" after I voice a "I'm lucky that...(fill in the blank of nothing bad has happened) kind of statement. And if I'm walking with a friend and we pass on opposite sides of a pole/tree/whatever, I say "bread and butter" to protect the friendship.

All that aside, I've also been known to walk under a ladder, laughing in the face of danger. Of course, I then throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder.

The number 13 doesn't hold any significant source of misgivings for me (as a matter of fact, in some parts of the world--and with at least one of the Deliciously Naughty Writers--13 is considered to be lucky), I don't carry a rabbit's foot or four-leaf clover, I don't have an upside-down horseshoe hanging anywhere in or on my house, and there are no other "good luck" items that I carry or rituals that I observe in order for good luck to grace my path. Because, pragmatically, I believe that we make our own luck, and hard work and persistence go a long way toward getting what you want.

But let me consult my Magic Eight Ball before I say that with any authority...



Remember that earlier I wrote about knocking on wood? In olden times when (most) people believed in sprites and faeries, they would knock on wood to scare the wood sprite back into the table so he or she wouldn't do the person harm. Not sure if it works by knocking yourself on the head, which I've been known to do, too. Though that could explain the voices...

So, what sort of things do you (or people you know, if you don't want to own up to it) do to make sure you have good luck?

~ * ~

Oh, and hey! My newest book is due out today. Check out Edge of Night at Liquid Silver Books!



For an excerpt, click here.

Bad jobs?

Oh, yeah.

I've done some awful things, let me tell you. Some really fun things--working at a movie theatre when you're a teenager who loves movies is still, in my opinion, one of the best jobs ever--but boy, it's all kind of been downhill from there.

The worst one, though? Aside from waitressing, which is just a terrible job, no matter where, or how you look at it?

I worked the phones for a large credit card bank--one of the largest, in fact. It was awful. It wasn't the work that was so terrible. That, like any work when you're dealing with the public, ran the gamut from absolutely miserable to tons of fun. I remember a few callers who I just hit it off with immediately, people who I literally ended up spending half and hour or an hour chatting with. Ever get that? And suddenly you're not working at all, you're just having a good time and helping a friend with a problem they might be having, and (let's face it) doing whatever you can do to help your friend out, including sneakily crediting them back finance charges or giving them a rate you're not supposed to offer.

But the company I worked for? Awful. And it was even worse because they were one of these companies always talking about how great they are, how well they treat their employees.

But it's a lie. They don't treat you well, they do things like buy you a lousy pizza to get you to work through lunch. And I don't mean lousy like an adverb, I mean it like an adjective--it was a greasy, cheap pizza. No, they didn't have to buy it for us, but I'd rather be paid overtime than given pizza, you know?

It was just a sea of management behaving unprofessionally, while reminding us at every minute how professional we had to be. Have you ever tried to deal with a customer issue while your managers play baseball behind your head? It's not fun. Or trying to hold your tongue while your managers make racist comments when they think nobody can ehar them? Or while they inform you that a coworker has been fired and why? Or call the doctor you took a day off to go see, to find out why you were there (I am not making that up, I got an outraged phone call from my doctor about that one)?

I totally should have sued.

See, I think any work, even the most dull or physically demanding, can be made tolerable by a good working environment. The easiest job can be made intolerable.

The bank? Intolerable. I will never work in that sort of world again.

Gods I love writing! Even when it's going terribly it's the best job in the world!

The daily bump & grind...

Yup. Yup, I was, for a brief period of time in my very early 20s, a stripper. And as seedy and nasty a job as it was (and actually waaaay too close a look at that particular aspect of male sexuality for my comfort), it wasn't the worst. But it made a good blog title, I thought! :)

OMG, jobs. Can you say perennially underemployed? It's a talent of mine, although I've also gotten paid for such wonderful things as teaching college theater (the students were great, the administrative politics were a crock), directing, screenwriting, acting... Part of the reason I've continually taken B.S. jobs was to have the time to do the things I truly loved: acting, directing, writing -- although the screenwriting came damn close to being the worst job I ever had. Some seriously cool things about it, including getting to fly out to L.A. and spend a month hanging out at a producer's house (she even let me drive her Jag, once). But screenwriting...

Do you know how many screenwriters work on your average Hollywood movie? In fact, there's almost a direct correlation -- the more 'average' the movie, generally speaking, the more screenwriters worked on it. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, thinks they have some God-given right to give you 'notes'. 'Notes' are these (often-dreaded) little comments -- from anyone, from the producers on down to the girl who keep's the starlet's pet Pekinese's toenails clean -- including such gems as, "We ought to have an elephant in here" (I shit you not -- I think Operation Dumbo Drop was some screenwriter's way of venting before he blew a gasket). Ask why -- go ahead. The answer? "I dunno, I just think it needs an elephant."

In all fairness, I have to add that I once got to work on a script with an agent from CAA who gave absolutely brilliant notes, and then LEFT ME ALONE to execute them. Dude was good -- and smart. It's a great script. I hope it gets made some day.

Other jobs... oh, my. Migrant farm labor. Grunt and sweat and get fifty bucks for it at the end of the day. Of course, back in the 80s, fifty bucks went a lot father. Tree-planting sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? Helping the environment, all that... Wanna see the reality?


You're hiking across the remains of massive clearcuts, with brushpiles the size of... elephants (AUGH!!!) swinging a tool called a hoedad, sort of half-spade, half axe. It starts out weighing about seven pounds and by the end of the day weighs about thirty. My biceps were a thing of beauty, I tell ya.

Or blueberry raking -- that was another one. Starting in July, on the Barrens of Washington County, Maine, the annual blueberry crop comes due and the entire county, practically, descends on the Barrens to get the crop in. Or did, at least, back in the day. Now a lot of it is done by machine and by Mexican laborers who come up for six weeks, harvest the crop, and disappear again. Sometimes I wonder where to... One thing about Mexicans. They work like the devil. They have to -- they're usually supporting a whole extended family, ten or twelve people whose lives ride on their efforts.

But, hard as it was, blueberry raking had some wonderful advantages. Summer in Maine? Oh yeah. And very often you simply camped out on the Barrens, and in the evenings you'd crack open a beer, and someone'd pull out a guitar... And of course, there was the scenery.

And then there was a loooooong stint as an overnight waitress at Denny's. I was in college, my son was in preschool, for two years I don't think I slept more than four hours a day.

I work the late night shift from eight till four
Getting staler than the coffee that I pour
Seems I'm passing out my best days with the danish and the dinner trays
and the pay is barely worth the working for...

And at 1:05 am every weekend night, the drunks'd descend. Not your homeless street drunks, either. The partiers. The revelers. The college kids who thought leaving four quarters under an upturned (and full) water glass was the height of cleverness. Yeah. Okay. That one was the worst. :)

No moral here, just a travelogue...

-- Sierra

Timesharing and crack is whack

It was the Spring of 2001 and New York City was still swelling with tourists. I'd quit my job as a junior waiter at a restaurant near Carnegie Hall after a run in with a pair of gay musicians from L.A. who complained to management that I'd given them inferior service and therefore they weren't going to pay their check. My inferior service? I'd asked if I could transfer them to another waiter when I was supposed to go off shift at 10p.m....simply because I'd been there since 9:30 in the morning!! I quit on the spot rather than pay for their meal out of my tips, telling my coke-snorting manager where he could stuff his coconut shrimp in the process just to make SURE there was no way I could ever show my face at the corners of 56th and 7th streets ever again.

But pride alone never paid anyone's rent so I was in need of another job--fast. If I hadn't been in such dire need, I doubt I would have accepted the gig as a timeshare salesgirl, in charge of luring tourists in for a two-hour presentation in exchange for Broadway tickets or restaurant vouchers. I mean, I'd hated cold-calling the 2 hours I'd spent as a telemarketer, so I didn't really think I'd enjoy cold-face-to-facing much more.

And I didn't. It was horrible. Despite my short blonde bob, and perky face. Despite my carefully chosen 1960's Gidget-esque skirts and blouses, and well-rehearsed speeches...I never managed to bring in ONE SINGLE FREAKING COUPLE in the two months I worked in timeshares. Which meant I was making NO MONEY, of course, and I probably would have starved to death if my weird, one-eyed Polish boss hadn't bought me lunch every day because he felt sorry for me. He also got me a job in a dive bar down in the Village that paid quite well--thusly allowing me to pay my rent--on the condition that I give the timeshare thing at least two months before I quit.

He'd been POSITIVE I was going to start bringing in the big bucks. He said he'd never seen someone who looked so wholesomely All American fail in the Timeshare business. Guess he didn't bargain on the big bad city making all the tourists certain my very wholesomeness was part of a wicked plot to lure them into a back alley and steal all of their travellers' checks and maybe their children as well. The looks I received from people those two months were among some of the most scornful and hate-filled of my life. It made the time Edward Albee told his casting assistant I was 'too fat to play a teenager'--as if ALL teenagers are thin, even if I wasn't wearing a size 2 at the time--look like a walk in the park.

I was so miserable about my day job that I took to staying a little too late at my night job, drowning my sorrows with the largely Polish population of the dive bar and the former lead singer of America who I drunkenly told how much I loved the songs from 'The Last Unicorn' as he tried to convince me in a very sad, old, alchoholic way to come back to his place and sleep with a legend. This soon became incredibly depressing as well, so I ended up quitting both the day and the night job and taking a low paying summer theatre gig in upstate New York. I would barely be making enough to clear my rent back in the city, but the lodging was free and I was needing a break from all things timeshare or alchohol oriented or involving people who spoke an eastern European language I didn't understand.

Sigh....I could go on from there, but I *think* that was the worst job I ever had. Though the cocktail waitressing at a jazz club that left me partially deaf and forced me to ride the N train late enough at night that it was only me and the rats hanging out on the platform was pretty bad....and the job as the personal assistant to an ex-con who made internet greeting cards wasn't very much fun...and the movie where the producer was arrested by the IRS in the middle of filming, thusly freezing the funds intended to pay the starving actors was fairly sucky...and...

God! I can't believe, just days ago, I was thinking stepmommying was the hardest job I'd ever had. I must have been smoking crack to forget all those other jobs.

And as we all know--crack is whack.

Peace--

Anna J. Evans

http://laughoutloudsexy.com
Blogging at http://annajevans.blogspot.com

Worst job evah...

I've been lucky with my jobs. Even my worst job ever, and it was bad, wasn't as bad as it could have been as everyone who I worked with was great. My worst job ever? I was an auto claim adjuster for an insurance company in a major metropolitan area. Can we say overwhelmed? I'm not naming the company because I would do business with them as a client, I just know I never want to work that kind of job ever again in my life. It is so very soul-sucking to assign monetary values to someone's pain and suffering if you can't find a way to distance yourself. I've never been that good at distancing myself. I'm not complaining though, because a truly bad job is one where you don't learn anything at all. With this job, while I left it almost a complete basket case, I finally committed to trying a profession I had put off even considering. I'm now in a profession I love, well, two of them, and a day job that I'm really enjoying. All roads lead you to where you need to be, it just gets *really* bumpy at times.

You Did What...?

This week we're blogging about the Worst Job Ever. I have to say, I've been lucky in my job choices. Although I've had ups and downs, each job hasn't been too bad. Let me give you a brief history:

In my junior and senior year of high school, I took Cooperative Office Education (in addition to the normal College Prep classes I also took typing and shorthand), which meant that by my senior year I was in class in the morning, and then worked in the afternoon. I was an Accounting Assistant and made minimum wage which, at the time, was $3.10 an hour. I did so well I received a raise to $3.55. About a month after that, minimum wage was raised to $3.50. My salary did not increase as well, so I ended up making just 5 cents over the minimum wage. (Keep in mind this was, oh, over 25 years ago. Yikes!)

I graduated from high school and went to college, where I took 13-15 credit hours of class (full-time) and worked about 35 hours a week at a shoe store in the local mall. I don't remember what I made, but I'm sure it wasn't much above minimum wage. What I do remember from there is some of the women would come in and pull a wad of sweaty money out of their bras (yes, I'm serious!) and hand it to me when they paid for their purchases. Then they'd make an oh-shape with their fingers and thumb and expect me to pour their change into their hand. I finally got to the place where I'd just put their change on the counter. (Oh, and when they wanted to get your attention, they'd go "Pssssst." I ignored the sound and would turn to them when they actually treated me like a human being by saying, "Excuse me" or something along those lines.)

Then I dropped out of college and went back home (cuz, you know, parents never really can get rid of their kids), and started working at a personnel recruiting firm. The rest, as they say, is history. In human resources I've been a secretary, recruiter, office manager, benefits specialist, risk administrator, HR generalist and, finally, a VP. And though the stress was through the roof sometimes (especially in that last position), the pay was decent and allowed me the freedom to do something I really wanted to do, which was take time off to write.

I've never had to work in the restaurant industry which, if you know me and my predilection for knocking over full glasses of iced tea, is probably a good thing! I have done my stint in retail (twice!) and...no thanks. Not interested in doing that anymore. My back and hips won't take being on my feet that much.

But I've never had to, oh, I dunno, be elbow deep in grease or knee deep in manure. So, all in all, like I said, I've been lucky. But enquiring minds wanna know... What's the worst job you've ever had?

~ * ~

Please join me in the 3D chat room at The Romance Galleria (you have to download the software, but it doesn't seem to be too much of a drain on the computer) tonight from 9-10 p.m. EST. I've never hosted there before--it's gonna be an experience, I know. LOL