Interstitial Cystitis & the Battle of the Book Clubs

Living with IC just plain sucks. There are good days and bad days--just like with most diseases and disorders. Today happens to be a bad day...as was yesterday and the night before that. So now, its 1pm on Monday and I have a ton to do (especially since I only have two days off this week, despite the fact that I'm a parttime employee who should only be working twenty hours a week) but I'm stuck in bed today--which normally I wouldn't mind, except for the pain. I've taken the pain meds--which didn't help diddly squat.

Since I'm stranded in a sea of blankets and pillows with only my laptop and a Colleen Gleason novel for company, I've been surfing the Internet for Interstitial Cystitis homemade, pain remedies (since the Rx stuff seems to be a joke). On the ic-network they are starting a new "series" of videos which feture info on IC, the diet, the pain management and so on.



So, being desperate, I watch this video. TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW!!

Now, I'm not generally this ungrateful--really I'm not. I'm sarcastic, but not ungrateful. I realize that this woman went through the time and effort of posting a video of IC pain management online. Good for her. But when I'm in a pain all of my own, I'm just not a very nice person. As a matter of fact, she can take that video and shove it right up her ass.

But I'm not going to let it take me out of the game. Today, I'm going to use my bed rest to my advantage; I'll write a chapter in my book, read a bit, maybe do some online shopping. I joined an online book club on Twitter called BookClubUSA. Its a brand new group and the administrator invited me to join, which happened to to be a great coincidence because I had just started searching for book clubs. Our first book is by Sherrilyn Kenyon called Born of Night. Its the first book in her new League series. I've never read any of Kenyon's book because she's always had too many shelves dedicated to her works at Borders and I was a bit intimidated, or, well--overwhelmed. Where should I even start? But Ms. BookClubUSA seems to like her and its a new series, so I'll give it a go.

Now, not to say BookClubUSA isn't for me, because I haven't even made it to the first discussion, but let's just say I'd like to keep my options open. Recently I joined a site called Goodreads. I have had the app on my facebook account and loved it, so I joined the site...and I love it. Just to see where I belong, I joined three other bookclubs. Three? you say. Yes, three. (Lets face it, I could keep up with all four if I wanted to). Obviously, with my taste in books, I won't belong to four different clubs for long, but I'd like to go over the stats and the upcoming crusade I like to call, The Battle of the Book Clubs.

Our first BC is, as I already said, BookClubUSA --but we'll call them, TeamTwitter. Now TeamTwitter is currently reading one book a month, this month being what? That's right, Sherrilyn Kenyon's Born of Night. So far, I have no idea when the "due date" is for reading this book but I hope to find out soon since I have tweeted the Admin. Haha! Tweeted the Admin. Is it just me or does that sound naughty? I'm also not clear on how one holds a discussion group on Twitter (as TeamTwitter does not have a seperate website). Perhaps we members will be added to a group at a later date? Perhaps the Admin is losing interest in his or her newly formed club? Time will tell.

Our second BC is called The Next Best Book Club. They are currently reading two books; one called Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and another called The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. They are both Halloween themed because of the month, and they give one month to read the books before the online discussion. The discussions are forum based, which I can handle without any problems. The downside, however, is that this book club is very large with over 5000 members. Wowsa! That a quite a bit of members...which makes me think, "hey, maybe this isn't the place for me". But they do have this cute little logo (shown below) and come on, I just had to join... We'll call this BC TeamCuteLogo.

Book Club #3 is more "my style" than TeamCuteLogo. It's called Who's Your Author? and it only has about 600 members. That's still more than I was considering but they specialize in Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. Currently they are reading two books: Rogue by Rachel Vincent (a book I've read twice) and Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr. They are also forum based and give a month to read the books. However, this group also has discussions for non-book-of-the-month books. Yay! They are very liberal on posting--they even have TV show threads---Tru Blood, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural... So far, I like this group. We'll call them TeamFantasy.

Last but not least, we have the Chatting Chicks. The Chatting Chicks are much like the TeamFantasy because they read books that I know I like. This month is Deadly Game by Christine Freehan and Red Hot Lies by Laura Caldwell. Suspence and fantasy? Yes, please. They also list next months reads (You Suck by Christopher Moore (which I own but have yet to get around to reading) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley). Great reading so far. With only 200 members, you have to be approved by the admin to join this group (the others were join-at-will). This group is a nice group of women who are a little more structured the TeamFantasy. The structure kind of scares me because I'm afraid I'll get booted out if I post to the wrong thread!

So, with four teams competing for my love and time, who will get the boot? I have my doubts, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe someone will surprise me...