Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

If you could study a subject that you’ve never had the opportunity to learn, what would you choose? This could be an academic class or the study of a specific skill or art. Tell us your passion about it!
I chose the perfect field of study: history. I can’t imagine having devoted my life, my heart, to a different area of study. Not only does it make me great at Jeopardy, but it always gives me an interesting fact to spew or a tie-in to make at any given moment. And when there is no one around to listen to me ramble on, I just go through it in my own head and entertain myself. Though, I can’t say that history is my only subject of interest. I don’t think that history is the only thing that I could be good at, or happy to make my career/life’s work.

I would have loved (maybe using past tense is incorrect because I still would love to, I just feel like I am to old and missed my chance) to study Mortuary Science and become a Mortician. I’m not ghoulish, I swear! And I don’t wear black lipstick and recite the black mass. I dress in sweater vests and have a personal notebook that is pink with flowers on it. Yet I admit that I do have my own gargoyle, I decorate my room with coffins, and my curtains are black spider web design. Both parts of me aren’t sell outs of the other part at all, I promise.

I don’t romanticize the profession, either. I realize the dangers. I know that some students become desensitized to the dead and become a little cold-hearted– they begin to see the human bodies as objects and nothing more. I know that morticians see some pretty gruesome stuff. I also know that there is a chance of infectious disease contraction. With the proper precautions and safety measures in place, the issue of disease shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Let me tell you why I have always wanted to be a Mortician. It’s not because I love death and morbidity (okay, I DO love morbidity, but that has nothing to do in this case), or that I enjoy looking at dead bodies. There’s nothing pleasant about death, not for the person who might have suffered and for the family still around who continue to suffer.

The job of the Mortician, aside from preparing a body properly for burial, is to treat the family and the body with the last bit of kindness they will experience. The least someone can do for a dead person is treat them with the utmost kindness and respect. It will surely ease some of the stress on the family, too, to know that their loved one is in good, caring, kind hands. The end result, while by no means a substitution for the person they lost, will at least take some of the shock of death away as family says their last goodbye.

Again, my rate of progress is diminishing on a depressing level. I honestly don’t see how people can read so many books a week! It amazes me. Between managing my websites, cleaning, cooking, doing every day things like going out to movies or to the mall, etc, etc, there’s no way that I could get as much reading done as some. It leaves me tremendously jealous, though. Maybe I just need to try harder, right? Perhaps that will speed up my reading.

Anywho, I did get one review in this week:

Refined in the Furnace of Affliction by John McCulloch, which you can read here. As you can read from my review, I had mixed feelings which leaned more towards the negative the further I read into the book. Though I found the McCulloch family charming, the book had a lot of unnecessary details (like just listing one job to the next), had some bizarre twists (talking in tongues), and contained some elements of intolerance (such as with the morality of homosexuality).

I think it is one for the used book store pile, though I might give it away in a contest here. Surely someone will enjoy it more than I did.

What about winnings, Valorie?

Well, I won quite a few this week.

I won My Little Red Book from Books Ahoy, The Ultimatum by Nancy Moser from One Stern Among a Million, and Salvation of the Damned (plus a $20 gift certificate to Wicked Wines Online) by Theresa Meyer’s from Patricia’s Vampire’s Notes.

And yes, I did already place my Wicked Wines Online order! I got the Vampire Cabernet Sauvignon (Vampire vineyards – Paso Robles, California) and a Vampire Wine Glass. I paid the remaining balance of around $9, so I can’t wait for the package to get here! If the wine is good, I might think of getting a gift certificate to give away here around Halloween or Christmas. If anything, it will give me something good to send to friends as presents.

What else did I get?

Terrell Harris Dougan contacted me about receiving a copy of That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister, which I gladly accepted. Another good thing to wait by the mail for.

I also read ebooks, so I got a few of those this week, too. This week, I got Unseen World by Sean Cummings and French Bred: Laughable chronicles of an average Parisian boy by Frederic Guarino. It was a true pleasure to open my email and find the offers from each author. I look forward to reading and reviewing.

Speaking of ebooks, I found a really great digital reader for reading .pdf ebooks just the other day. You can read my post about Adobe Digital Editions if you’d like. It is a program that I so far highly recommend.

What about my book intake?

Don’t forget my contests!
Witch Hunter Vigilante – Ends 03.08 (11.59pm EST)
Sundays at Tiffany’s – Ends 03.08 (11.59pm EST)
Sway – Ends 03.09 (11.59pm EST)