Author / Lexine

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Posts by Lexine

Published poet, short story writer, and now novelist! My 1st eBook The Playgirl is out now!
by Lexine

Staying Sane In Uncertainty

It’s my Saturday and also MLK Day today. Something else happened and I have no idea what became of it. I’ve chosen to stay home and stay off Bluesky (my lone social media outlet now), opting to do some cooking, yoga, reading, listening to KCSM Jazz 91, and lots of lazing around. I only turned on the TV to reconfigure my internet, and if I’m gonna watch some TV, it will be for sports or a movie on the TCM Channel. Eventually, I’ll find out what became of that other event, but I’m choosing not to get worked up about it for now. Anything to maintain what’s left I have of my sanity. And staying sane is what I gotta do in this supposed new era of, as I call it, unprecedented fuckery.

This is not the first time I’ve had to do so. When I realized the household I was growing up in was a toxic, abusive hellhole, I chose to distance myself from it, working more and staying out more. The sanity I reclaimed when I left the people I once called “family” and went no-contact with them was freeing. I was glad to have like-minded friends to vent to when W Bush got reelected in November 2004, and before he went off the leftist deep end, Michael Moore and his documentaries that decade spoke the truth. Social media had yet to exist, and (IIRC) mainstream media except Faux News wasn’t kissing the ring of the then-powers that be. There was also The Daily Show at its prime, giving me laughs to mask the pain in seeing my generation fight and die in a useless war. (You’ll never see us elder millennials sane-wash W Bush; we still haaaaate his warmongering ass!) And I don’t know how I managed to maintain in November 2016/January 2017 (probably the weed), but I did and I’m still here with my sanity that’s about to get tested yet again. *sighs*

Edited to add more to this entry! 

by Lexine

Kings Over Crooks

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day–the lone event worth celebrating today. Given what’s happened to this damn country in the past three months alone, this holiday hits different this year. Through ongoing education and activism, the beliefs of MLK Jr will not only live on, but will assist those who choose to resist the incoming tyranny. After all, it’s better to honor a king over a felon.

If you’re choosing to stay at home today like me, give his Letter From Birmingham Jail a read. (It’s free!)

by Lexine

The Vegas Trip, Pt. 4: Rocking The Vote

(Side note: I notice that many of my pics from past installments of this series is no longer showing up. I recently had an issue with the photo hosting site I uploaded my pics to (they blocked my account for no good reason and I still haven’t heard back from them), so I moved all my pics to a new site and y’all should see them now!) 

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I didn’t expect my Vegas trip to get political. I had already voted prior to my trip, and while I knew I couldn’t escape it  given that my trip occurred the week before Election Day, I thought my trip would involve politics, aside from flipping off all those unsightly Trump ads. I even had my Halloween plans set: go people-watching around the Strip and Fremont Street while dressed as Regina George from Mean Girls. 

Then I found out that thee VP herself Kamala Harris was going to appear at a rally in North Las Vegas. On Halloween. My janky Regina George can wait another year, for I wasn’t going to pass up on a historic opportunity! 

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by Lexine

New Cover Alert!

I have my reasons why I changed the cover of my chart-topping bestseller (in my dreams) The Playgirl. Yesterday marked the end of my book’s exclusivity to KDP Select after being on it for 14 months, and, with its return to wide distribution, I felt like a cover change was needed. If you’ve been keeping track, yes, this is not the first time I changed it. And if you’re a cover collector, here’s another one to add to the trove!

If you’re wondering about the image I selected for the cover…I wanted something that embodied the salaciousness and drama of my story (which has not been changed, by the way). Somehow, I never considered using illustrated stock photos for cover art until recently. (My last cover was a photo of a nude woman silhouette, edited to make it look almost illustrated.) And when I eyed that simple yet striking illustration, after looking through pages and pages of stock photos, I thought, wait…I think I found her. After playing with fonts and line placements, I had done it again. I gave my story a new face. Compared to my last cover, it’s quite minimalist. And I actually like it!

Credit to Dasha Kovtun on Dreamstime.com for the artwork. It’s coincidence that the green lashes and dark brown locks of the illustration mirror the look of my green-eyed brunette protagonist. And this time, I’m sticking with this cover!

ETA: she’s now back on Wide Distribution! And on the jungle site too.

by Lexine

The Vegas Trip, Pt. 3: The 40th

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I turned 10, 18, and 20 at home in the city I was born in. I celebrated my 21st at some waterfront restaurant in SF with my first-ever drink, my 25th in Santa Cruz, and my 30th in LA, trolling Dodger fans after another SF Giants World Series victory the day before. I had plans for my 40th since 2022, but none of them didn’t involve Vegas. I thought I’d go to Hawaii, or Europe on one of those seven-day European tour specials I’d see on Travelzoo. Some plans don’t come to fruition due to life’s curveballs hitting my head, however. (I felt like I’ve taken a lot of those curveballs to my head this year.) And then there are the rare times in life when I hit a grand slam. Finding a great place in Vegas at an amazing weekly rate on my exact travel dates was one of them. 

I usually stay home on my born days, simply to avoid my special day being potentially ruined by assholes being assholes. But I also have this thing where I need to get a massage wherever I travel. In-home massage is costly as hell, so I found a good deal via Groupon at a massage clinic in Summerlin. The soonest opening they had on their schedule was, yep, on my birthday, so I ended up going out. The drive wasn’t bad, I didn’t encounter any assholes, and the massage was amazing. 

I stayed home the rest of the time, though I took some time to explore the rest of the hotel. 

My suite is up there. No, UP there!

It looks like Vegas paradise, but trust me, it was coooooold that day. 

I had the option to go to LA again for my 40th, but there was that pesky blue baseball team and its fans. Naturally, there just had to be a World Series game on my born day, and a closeout game, too. Ten years ago, I sported my Giants hat while roaming the streets of LA, proud to be repping the winners. (Not once did I get jumped, if you can believe that.) I guess the evil gods of that blue baseball team must’ve remembered that because ten years later, guess who would win the World Series, and on my 40th, too? (And thus begins my revenge story!) 

I eased my nerves in my private, jacuzzi-style bathtub, and it was a huge bathtub. With actual jacuzzi jets! The lights were mine, by the way. 

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by Lexine

The Vegas Trip, Pt. 2: The Adventure

The behemoth sight of The Sphere, taken from my ride on The High Roller. 

After my last visit to Vegas back in 2018, I thought the city had everything and the kitchen sink. Sprawling buffets, 24-hour weed dispensaries, replicas of the Eiffel Tower and Brooklyn Bridge, fountain shows at the Bellagio, light shows at Fremont Street, and “Elvis” posing with families on the Strip sidewalks while trucks advertising near-nude escorts drive past. I guess I underestimated Vegas and its penchant for excess for they added more things since my last visit, namely The High Roller and The Sphere. Sooooo many more things to see, and yet…

…with a view like this from my room, it was kind of tough getting out. (That’s how much of a slut I am for pretty views from my home.)

By the way, after seeing more Trump ads on those digital billboards and on every other street corner, I think the next time I visit Vegas, it will be on a non-Presidental election year. It’s bad enough the convicted felon’s hotel is there, although it was also easy to miss since other buildings caught my eye. (In fairness, there were more Kamala ads around, including one on that big-ass Sphere.) 

This was taken from observation deck at The Strat (more on this later), and I found out earlier that day that her ads would be featured on that Sphere. So glorious! 🥹

Not so glorious but amusing is seeing a gold-plated eyesore pull up to the Dollar Tree, of all places. Only in Vegas. I’d say people who voluntarily buy those abominations on wheels (after all the batshit crazy things its creator has said and done) have Dollar Tree morals, but that would be insulting to Dollar Tree.

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