Recap Rant: COtL, Chapter 6

OK. I'm trying to keep up here, but the author gets these bursts of writing time and/or inspiration and then I end up four chapters behind. This gets to be a little much since the chapters are so long, but do not fret, dear reader, because I am taking one for the team so you don't have to. ;)

Let me tell you how agonizing it is to know that a laptop that is to be yours is in the house, but you can't have it until Christmas. I haven't felt this keyed up about the big day in years, so that's something, right? I'd be able to do so much more right now, but I have to wait a whole week and a half before that happens. I can make it, right? RIGHT?!

Anyway, I'm trying this with the Windows 7 "Snap" feature, so I can view the story and this post at the same time so it's not as tough to flip back and forth and lose my place.

But enough about me (for now. I mean, it IS my blog). ONWARD.

Chapter 6: Dancing
This awesome chapter starts with an A/N about using her new horse intelligence that people gave her in PMs and reviews since she started this story. I've talked to people online who say her info is wrong, and there's a little info later in this post about where she went wrong and how simple it was to look it up.

And to make matters worse, she then goes on to say that she basically used the real town of Casper, Wyoming in name only, deciding that it didn't suit her needs for a backwater hick town where everyone talks with a Southern accent. Really? Why bother using a real town if you aren't actually using it? Why not just make up a town and go from there? Or if you wanted something more authentic, pick something in the Southern region that would fit what you have in mind? I suppose this isn't surprising, since she doesn't know quack about horses, either.

She also apologizes for her major punctuation faux pas when it comes to dialogue and closing dialogue tags. That's all fine and well, but if it's enough of an issue with your readers that you feel the need to apologize in your opening A/N, don't you think you'd seek out some assistance to fix the problem, instead of saying you're just as flawed as your fucked up Edward? That's not really something you'd want to be compared to, if you really thought about it.

Anyway, this chapter is another delightful journey into Edward's POV. He starts out all hunky-dory because of the relaxing night he had last night. You know, ignoring Bella, fighting with Bella, having a session with Dr. Bella and Dr. Frankencock, have HOURS of kinky sex, a shower and a massage. A massage that reminded him of his buttrape with Sir Kevin, except Bella reassured him throughout that it was her and not some creepy Dom with a fetish for the boy butt. He feels bad about their fight and how he wanted to leave for a while, but remembered the last time he did that: when he left his wife Tanya after a fight and came back to find her barbecued like a marshmallow and Katie burned but alive.

He did admit that it was his fault for his and Bella's fight (isn't it always the man's fault? I mean, isn't that what men are around for? J/k, really), and about how he hates how afraid of his feelings and how he didn't care before when he was a giant manwhore who took it any way his clients liked it. Except for buttrape. That wasn't so awesome for him. So, he goes on about how he likes when Bella is strong and defends him and how she and Stripper Emmett rescued him from Domme Raven's house when Victoria basically sold him to her and how raw her anger and defensive nature was for Edward. After pondering that for a minute or ten, he realized he needed to nut up and be a better man in general, boyfriend for Bella, and dad for Katie. Let's hope so on the last one, because no matter how much I wanted to bond with my daughter, I would NOT fake "marry" her because she loved me and was glad I was back in her scarred life. Then he has some dirty thoughts about Bella calling him Daddy and how sick that makes him. Are we shocked? No. These two can't stop thinking about bumping uglies no matter how dark their previous thoughts were.

Now Edward is on his way back to work and trying to bond with Bob in a cowboy way, over "cow piss"-like coffee. This made him pat himself on the back for being an awesome cook, and then about how Victoria made him such a slaved that he cooked and cleaned for her, gave her pedicures, and shaved her motherfucking legs. Now, ladies, I don't know about you, but I've seen how well guys do with razors when they shave their faces and I would not let one shave my legs. That's why they use the electric razors; they have those safety screens on them so they don't turn their faces into hamburger. I'm as lazy about shaving sometimes as the next gal, but no way would I make my man or slave shave my legs.

Back to the coffee. Bob is so freaking impressed by Edward's coffee and E is beaming like a kid who discovered Santa is real and actually does slip his mama the tongue every Christmas. Bob asks for Edward's secret and Edward refuses to tell, stating he's been trying to duplicate Starbuck's flavor for years. Darling Edward, you'd have to actually roast your own beans, hand picked by Colombians getting paid $5 a day to get the beans from the trees, and brew them a certain way before you could even come close to Starbuck's flavor. And then to say people have said yours is better? Sorry, sweetie, I think they were just trying to be nice. I know some people don't prefer Starbucks, and that's OK, but there's a lot more to having a certain flavor to coffee than picking out a tasty Coffeemate creamer to jazz it up and make it "unique."

When Bob lets on that he has no idea what Starbucks is, Edward has to hold back his conniption fit because Bob has not tasted the liquid manna from heaven. And Edward thinking that he'd die because he'd never tasted Starbucks before? If you've never tasted it, you wouldn't feel the need to die, right? But of course, this melancholic line of thought reminds him of Stripper Emmett making Sbux runs after a long night of stripping and stroking, and he misses Emmett and Stripper Jasper, too. Edward then has to remind himself that Bob is a friend now, too, and he needs to let down his walls some. He feels like such a sissy and that if he gets hurt one more time he'll break and never be fixed. He needs armor. Like Reynolds Wrap, only stronger. Maybe the kind for the ovens or something. That's tougher stuff, I think.

Then he asks Bob if he knows what a Slurpee is. /headdesk.

Now we switch to the lovely Bella's head. She starts her portion by berating herself on the way to school about how she'd treated Edward the night before, comparing herself to Victoria. As whiny as she is, I disagree with her, because she DIDN'T MAKE HIM SHAVE HER GODDAMN LEGS. Yet. I bet it's coming, though. Anyway, she gets herself so worked up over how she treated him, that she end up having to pull over and check out how her breakfast looks half digested. It burns! It burns!

Then some random person asks if she's okay before switching back to EPOV. YOUR POV CHANGES ARE GIVING ME WHIPLASH, AUTHOR DEAREST.

Now Edward is learning what boy horsies and girl horsies are called. Boys are geldings and girls are mares. I was told this was wrong, being woefully uneducated in horses myself, but since it was as simple for me to check Wikipedia for the correct information, I'm left to assume the author has trouble remembering Wiki's web address so she can be accurate too. Anyway, had she done a little research, and a little differentiation or more detail, she'd know that boy horses that are geldings are castrated. Unless this stable doesn't plan on studding their males, this is completely incorrect. The male horses (going chronologically from youngest to oldest) are either foals, yearlings, colts, or stallions. The same goes for females: they're either a foal, yearling, filly, or mare, depending on age. See how easy that was? I know Wiki isn't always reliable, but the horse page wasn't marked as incorrect, so I assume that the majority of horse people can agree on this info. The more you know, kids, the more you know.

So then Edward finds out he's being picked on for being the new guy, and that the horses eat out of mangers (Baby Jesus had better watch out) and not the plastic bowls. The horses were trying to communicate that the day before when they were attacking him during feeding time. The other cowboys apologized for being dicks and welcome to the Brokeback Family. He realized how badly he'd have fucked things up with Bella and Katie if he'd punked out and stopped working at the rodeo. Bob won a hundred bucks because no one else thought he'd come back the second day. Awesome.

The horses seemed to like him better today, except Psycho, who knows better and peed on him again. And apparently boy horse piss is appealing to "mares" (to which the author either entered in her own A/N about her new knowledge, or put an aside from Edward in parentheses). He talked to the horses as he went and they seemed to warm up to him. Then he has another idiot moment. He asks a horse whose name is Hot Gossip, if she knows where he can find a Slurpee machine in town, and was disappointed that the horse didn't say anything. A horse called Bella Donna flirted a little when he tipped his hat at her and he felt all virile because the Bellas seemed to have a thing for him.

Hark! I see a little correct info! Edward is talking to a horse he's grooming and remembers that the horse's dad was Apollo, another horse on the farm, and since Apollo mated, that meant he was a stallion, not a gelding who couldn't make behbeh horsies. Can I get an 'amen'?

While grooming horses, he's listening to the radio and hears a song come on that he'd danced to in the club and starts dancing for the horses. I am speechless. He's performing a stripper dance, sans actual stripping, for the horses. To make it better, the author inserts an A/N stating that she sucks at describing dance moves and that we should all just envision John Travolta dancing in "Staying Alive", though Edward is dancing to "Let's Get Lost" by Beck and Bat For Lashes from the Eclipse soundtrack.

Then.... he... starts... singing along. While dancing. And not just stripper dancing anymore, he's trying out some non-stripper dance moves, like a Baryshnikov in the making or something. He becomes empowered during all of this and I expect something from Rent to come from his mouth or something. He does a nearly impossible split and stand move that Stripper Emmett of all people taught him over the years. After the song is over and he's finally done, the horses applaud by snickering and whinnying at him. Which gets covered up by Bob applauding his mad dance skills, along with Sharon and a mystery woman that turns out to be Sharon's daughter Jenna. Jenna takes a liking to him like he's a freaking Chihuahua and she has a Louis Vuitton handbag with his name on it. Jenna turns out to be a horse rider, the star of the rodeo, and thinks that Edward's on to something with a dancing cowboy routine.

Jenna turns into this big slut who is suddenly keen on teaching Edward to ride the horses like she'd want him to ride her and Bob's like, "No! I'll teach him to ride... horses." Jenna says Bob's old and has a family to get home to and she has all the time in the world to ride... horses and teach Edward. Sharon says it's up to Edward and he picks Bob, thank fucking God. All we need is another fucked up love triangle and eighty chapters of hurt feelings and childish inner monologues. After it's settled and Jenna walks away, saying she'll see Edward around, the author decides it's time for another randomly placed A/N, going on about how she typed a line Bob said before she'd heard Rob say the same thing in the commentary for Eclipse. Really? Was it that necessary to put IN the chapter, instead of giggling about it in an A/N at the end?

So Bob explains how Jenna is newly single and has to be all strong woman in this hillbilly town. Whatever. I just see unnecessary trouble in the future. Misunderstandings abound, I'm sure.

So Edward asks Bob if he has anything to say about Edward's dancing, since he ended up shirtless at some point during the entertaining and Bob could have  seen his scars. Bob either plays dumb or didn't actually see them, and I don't care at this point. They make up and she switched to goddamn Bella's POV AGAIN for this chapter.

She's talking to her counselor, who happens to be some guy from the show Lost (Sorry, I've never seen it to say who's who), and she inserts ANOTHER motherfucking A/N talking about the counselor being the guy from Lost and how dreamy his is, though her loyalty is still with Edward. After that little nibble of joy, Bella describes what Counselor Josh looks like and what he sounds like and she pretty much needs a change of panties by the time she's done. Apparently he's the guy who asked if she was OK when she upchucked on the side of the road.

So after that embarrassment and guilt is worked through, they talk about how unfair it is that she can't transfer anything to this new school and has to start over. Um, if she's supposed to be someone who never went to that school in New York, isn't it moot, since she'd be giving her real identity away? She told Counselor Josh that she'd had to move and change her name, but nothing about why. Doesn't say she told him her old name, so maybe she wasn't a complete fuckwit who endangered everyone again.

So Counselor Josh offers his ear for her whenever she wants, being an actual psychiatrist, even though he can't really be her therapist because of conflict of interest. Then he writes her a note to get out of the rest of her classes. Wish I'd had a counselor like that in college. Jeez.

Anyway, I think I'll stop there, since this chapter was nearly 9k words alone and mashing it into one post with chapter 7 will just suck for you to read and me to write. :) Enjoy and leave some love!