Part rite-of-passage, part torture session, my introduction to the world of hairless legs was followed up by mom’s pit-shaving tutorial, along with a package of knee-skinning disposable razors.  (Anyone ever note how Bic rhymes with nick?) But after one particularly bloody slip-up on my ankle (no one ever believed me, but I swear I saw bone), I decided to take matters into my own hands and biked down to the local pharmacy to buy myself a sturdy, grown-up and sophisticated Personal Touch.  The package came with three free replacement blades and I remember thinking its fake tortoise shell appearance was “classy.”

Goodbye, old friend. I know you'll be shaving armpits in heaven.

Ten years later, when I lost my razor, I was disappointed to learn that Personal Touch had replaced the yellow-flecked brown of the faux tortoise shell with a more uniformly-colored plain brown plastic.  But what that second razor lacked in style, it made up for in reliability, lasting me all the way from my early 20’s up until this morning.  And it still works just fine.

The sad thing is, I can’t find blades for it because they stopped making Personal Touch razors about five or six years ago.  Much like that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine stockpiles boxes of the discontinued Today Sponge, I hoarded my finite supply of Personal Touch razor blades for years.  Then, when my stash ran out, I bought them on eBay.  And then that just got crazy.  Or, I guess, crazier.

Elaine contemplates her date's spongeworthiness.

So last week, I finally caved in and bought a slick, overly packaged mega-blade monstrosity, but only because it promised to give me creamy-smooth legs like J-Lo.  Which means I’m officially saying goodbye to my Personal Touch razor blade.   Goodbye, old friend.  I know you’ll be shaving armpits in heaven.

Oh, and while you're there, you may want to download some songs. For free!

Or enter here, on Goodreads.

Also– win a road trip mixed CD (made by yours truly) over at Reading Wishes.

There’s Colby, the bowtie-wearing “people’s cheese,” and Cheddar Jack, adorned in a bowler tie and cowboy hat (not to be confused with Pepper Jack who wears a top hat and monocle, because the guy apparently thinks he’s Brie).   The whole thing is completely cheesy.  Maybe it’s supposed to be.   So why am I so upset that only one of the candidates for Top Cheese is a woman?

Poor Mozzarella, batting her long eyelashes demurely in her matching pearl earrings and necklace.  She looks more like Baby Swiss’s mother than the next Commander in Cheese, even as she promises to be a “cheese for change.”  Surely such a bland cheese will never win the office of Top Cheese.  But I know that someday there’ll be a female Cheez-It worthy of that role.

So, I was similarly overwhelmed with emotion when my baby, now almost eight, went to Build-a-Bear with his grammie and came home with this.

 Behold Rex, the coolest teddy bear in the universe.  Note the aviator sunglasses, camo skin, and jeans slouched down to Lil’ Wayne proportions.  Yet, at the end of the day, Rex is still just a fuzzy, snuggly teddy bear.  Because even though my little boy aspires to be cool like Rex someday, right now he is a second grader who likes to sleep with his stuffed animals.  Bad-ass, skater-dude stuffed animals.

Thanks for entering, and stay tuned for more great giveaways, including road trip mixed CD and an ARC of my book, REUNITED.

Did you know that it takes 3 minutes and 24 seconds to unravel one 30-minute VHS tape end to end?

Turns out that smashing old videotapes is way more fun than actually watching them.

I normally don’t read a lot of dystopian fiction, but when I got the ARC of UNDER THE NEVER SKY by fellow Apocalypsie Veronica Rossi, I thought I’d give it a try.  And boy, am I glad I did!

Reverie, where Aria comes from, is a place where people “live” only in virtual realities, where enhanced experiences supplant real ones, and people no longer have a need to touch each other, even to procreate.   Conversely, Perry’s world of the Outsiders is savage and visceral, and its inhabitants have developed heightened, animalistic senses.  Rossi builds the worlds of Reverie and the Outer Wasteland with great humanity and intelligence and a deep understanding of the struggles present in our own society.  And this clash of cultures is the perfect setting for a love story, and watching the restrained, almost clinical Aria give herself over to Perry and his very primal world of love, pain, and emotion is not only compelling, but also a very apt metaphor for anyone falling in love.

GIVEAWAY INFO:

If you would like to WIN A COPY OF THE ARC for UNDER THE NEVER SKY, just leave a comment on this post and you’ll automatically be entered in the drawing!  And you can snag  extra entries by completing any of the following:

• Follow my blog
• Leave a comment on this post
• LIKE my author page on Facebook
• Follow me on Twitter @HilaryGraham
• Add REUNITED on Goodreads

And if you do all five you’ll be entered five times!  But make sure to leave your entry total in your comment.  The giveaway will be open until Friday Feb. 3rd at noon, and I’ll announce the winner shortly thereafter.

Plus, as a bonus, the winner of the ARC, and 3 additional winners, will receive an assortment of Apocalypsies bookmarks and postcards from including:

• Jill Hathaway’s SLIDE (signed)
• Jessica Spotswood’s BORN WICKED (signed)
• Jenny Lundquist’s SEEING CINDERELLA
• Robin Bridge’s THE GATHERING STORM (signed)
• Elissa Jane Hoole’s KISS THE MORNING STAR (signed)
• Megan Miranda’s FRACTURE
• A.C. Gaughen’s SCARLET
• Caroline Rose Star’s MAY B.
• Lissa Price’s STARTERS (signed)
• and of course, my bookmarks Hilary Weisman Graham’s REUNITED (signed)

THREE’S A CROWD

By Angel R., age 14 

I remember sometime last year, lying on my best friend’s bed with my nose stuck in a book as she complained about yet another boy that had ‘broken her heart’. This one only lasted a week. The pair of us, I realize now, must have looked like those cheesy best friends that you see in all the 1990’s movies. Phoebe Smith* and I had been best friends since she stood on my foot on the first day of primary school and, at 13 years a piece, had been through so much together: first bras, first boyfriends, first break-ups, and first periods. You name it, we had been through it together.

It was around this time that my feelings towards Phoebe started to change. We went from being BFFs to me being madly in love with her and her being completely clueless as usual. I think that I’d always had a special place in my heart for Phoebe and, once I discovered it was okay to like girls, finally admitted my feelings to myself. I remember her falling beside me on the bed and asking why she didn’t like girls instead, it would be so much easier. We talked about sexuality for about an hour and both agreed that yes, it was okay to date other girls but no, she and I wouldn’t be doing it anytime soon after all, as Phoebe said “Neither of us are really lesbians”

A couple of months after the ‘bedroom incident’, a new girl showed up at school. Her name was Laura Slough and she was one of these girls that always wears designer clothes and has a giggle that reverberates around in your skull for hours after hearing it, which is why it surprised me so much when Phoebe invited her to hang around with us. Now, I’m all for making someone feel welcome, so of course I played nice.  But as Phoebe and Katy started to grow closer I couldn’t help but get slightly jealous. So, I did the only thing I could think of: not let it get to me. It worked, for the rest of that school year and the start of the next one. Sure, our cozy duo became a trio, but we were all friends and we all loved each other.  Or so I thought.

With the new addition to our group, my feelings towards Phoebe only got stronger and stronger and, I realized as the world was changing around me, I didn’t like boys the way other girls did, I liked girls and I had to face up to that fact and stop hiding it. I was happy with my new, clearer, knowledge of myself and wanted to share it with my friends, after all Phoebe had basically told me that it was okay to be gay and if Laura didn’t like it, well I wasn’t really losing much was I? So I was going to do it one day at school, I managed to get them into a quiet part of the school by telling them I had ‘something important to tell them’ but when it came around to actually saying something I found I couldn’t do it so quickly ran off leaving two very confused teenagers behind me.

I decided that the easiest way to do it would be over MSN so, during our 6pm scheduled chat I was almost forced into it by Laura. Here’s a snippet of that conversation: 

Phoebe: Or vegas! Wat bout u Ang do u wanna go vegas wiv me?

Me: I’d love to go with you Phoebe.

Laura: Oh, ang. Wat u wanted to tell us?

Me: Oh, right. Um, it doesn’t matter?

Phoebe: Go on babes, tell us

Me: Well, its kinda important.

Laura: Just spit it out!

Me: I’m gay.

Laura: WAT? Wind up rite?

Me: No, I’m being serious. I’m in love with another girl

Phoebe: I don’t know what to say baby o_O

Laura: hows bout: thats gross! Wat girl would wanna kiss u?

Me: Phoebe?

Phoebe has signed out

The conversation continued (via text now) with lots of swearing and derogatory names thrown at myself, mainly by Laura but a few coming from the girl I love too.

The next day I walked into school with my head held high even though I could hear the gossip about me spreading like wildfire through the hallways. I came face to face with the two girls that had haunted my dreams the previous night and, looking me straight in the face, Laura simply spat on my shoe and told me that if she saw me again she would do it in my face. I looked to Phoebe for support, but she just linked arms with Laura and spat on my shoe as well. I knew in that moment that letting Laura into our duo was the worst mistake of my life so far.

A few weeks later, after avoiding both girls in the hallways, Phoebe was announced to be on a long holiday, visiting family in Australia apparently. But Phoebe doesn’t have any family in Australia, so I am not certain why she is really gone, but the one thing I am certain of is that when she returns, I am going to talk to her alone.  Because, let’s be honest:  three’s a crowd.

*Actual names have been changed

About the Author:  Angel is a 14-year old girl. She has been in girlguiding for 10 years now and currently helps at both a Rainbow (young girls aged 5-7) and a Brownie (girls aged 7-10) unit, she also helps at two local charity shops (British heart foundation and Scope). In the little free time she gets she likes to listen to both classical music and the top 40 whilst writing the several novels she has on the go. She, one day, aspires to be a primary teacher along with publishing several of her own novels and leading Rainbow, Brownie and Guide (girls aged 10-14) units during the week and at the weekend continue to volunteer at local charity shops.