Hey Sunday Brunch lovers – Some of you may notice today is not Sunday. You are getting sleepy… Very sleepy… Today is Sunday… Today is Sunday…
I spent the weekend at Bent-Con in Los Angeles with one of the worst head colds I’ve ever had. I actually spent the weekend trying not to give my germs to my author friends Belinda McBride, James Buchanan, E.M. Lynley, Kimberly Hunter, Lou Harper, LE Franks, Sara York, Damon Suede, Shira Anthony, Rhys Ford and rest of the gang from Dreamspinner, who were also there AND the rest of the attendees. I bonked on scheduling this Sunday Brunch post correctly. Entirely my fault!
Here’s how my Sunday Brunch Blog works: I invite a couple of your favorite authors to my blog and ask them a question. Sometimes my questions are silly, sometimes they’re thought-provoking.
My guests will share their answers with me and you, gentle readers, can give your answer to my question in the comment section below. I’ll choose one random person from the comments and reward them with an ebook surprise, it’s that simple!
Last Week’s winner? Barbra! I’ll be getting in touch with you soon.
Tell me what your answer to today’s question would be in the comments, and you could win an e-book!
This weeks question is:
IF you could live on a ride at Disneyland, which one would it be?
Can I just live in the entire park? No, well okay. There are plenty of rides I could see myself living – The Haunted Mansion, Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, the Great Movie Ride. Disney has so many amazing rides in their parks, which is probably why so many people go to there. But I think if I had to choose only one to be my home, I’d have to go with the Tower of Terror in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
On one hand, you get to scare the living crap out of all the tourists. On the other hand, you get a lovely view of the park and surrounding area from the elevator, at least until it drops you to your death. Plus, it reminds me of getting stuck in the elevator at GRL 2013! (Which was quite amusing once we finally got out.)
Although, I’d much rather live in one of the Harry Potter rides over at Universal Studios…–Author William Cooper
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I have to admit, I haven’t been to Disneyland for a while and don’t remember a lot of the rides, but then, maybe it’s because every time my family visits a Disney property we have some sort of Traumatic Moment. Happiest place on earth, my day-glo white ass. So I’m reinterpreting the question as favorite ride, but even then I’m playing fast and loose with it. My favorite ride was a 1989 Dodge Minivan with fake wood paneling. Yeah, it’s all about the woody.
Classes at UC Davis always to start on a Thursday, at least for the fall quarter, so three friends and I hatched a plan. As soon as the last one of us got out of our last class on Friday, we were hitting the road. So my favorite ride at Disneyland? The Disneyland Expeditionary Force of 1990. One friend had been my best friend since seventh grade: we told everyone we were cousins so they’d stop accusing us of fucking while we were in high school; one friend was the first person I came out to; one of them is now dead.
While names and details have been changed to protect the innocent, Esmé, Margaret, Greg, and I piled into the minivan and hit the road that Friday afternoon with two ice chests and a cheap CD player (because the radio in the minivan was even cheaper) and hit the road. The drive south was unremarkable, and if you’ve ever drive south in I-5 through the Great Valley you know why. That it was dark helped immeasurably. That’s the kind of dumb thing you can do when you’re twenty—drive all night and check into a hotel in Anaheim after midnight. Anaheim looks better in the dark, too.
Greg and Margaret, renamed the Greg and Peg Show by my parents due Greg’s habit of turning summersaults on the furniture and Margaret’s—Peg’s—futile efforts to stop him, took one room because they were dating. Esmé and I took the other one because we weren’t and she knew she was safe as a kitten. More to the point, so did her boyfriend who was doing his year abroad. Once he found out I was gay, he became a big fan of her spending time with me.
Another advantage to doing dumb things when you’re twenty is we were there before the park opened, ready to run amok, and did we ever. Margaret ran varsity track, Greg played rugby, I swam, and Esmé just kept up with us. I’m sure Greg and I scared a number of people out of our way…I’m freakishly tall and Greg, while of average height, was built like refrigerator, and we wore mouse ears and maniacal grins.
I think the best part of the weekend was trying to let Margaret know I had something to tell her and then chickening out…over and over and over. When I finally came out to her at the Foster’s Freeze just north of the Grapevine she looked at me and yelled, “That’s it? I thought you were dying of cancer or something!” Then she slugged me. For such a short woman she had a really good arm.
But all good things, as they say. Margaret’s now a deputy state attorney general. Esmé is now a housewife in the OC and doing her best to subvert her son’s Boy Scout troupe with liberalism. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with her daughter’s Girl Scouts troupe, for some reason. And Greg? Greg’s dead. It’s been a few years, and it’s still a shock to the three of us.
In honor of Greg’s boisterous personality, I give you Tipping the Balance, because Brad Sundstrom, too, has such a personality. — Author Christopher Koehler.
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Oh God, this is so embarrassing! If you’ve met me, take a guess what my answer will be.
Okay yeah. Sigh. It’s a Small World. Yep. That’s the home for me. I am just that ridiculously lame — and optimistic and sunny and all the crap that no writer of super sexy MM romance should be. I’ve lived and traveled all over the world. I started as an Army brat and just never quit. So that part of Small World makes sense.
I also decided as a very small child, that if there was a God, he/she loved us all the best. And if that wasn’t so — if there was “one way” to the truth of living — then I wanted nothing to do with any deity that was so screwed up. So yes, there is “just one moon and one golden sun” in my world and they shine on us all equally and with love. I believe in true love. No, more than believe. As Jung said, “I know.”
That’s what I write about. I feel amazingly lucky to get to share that experience. And, like A Small World, I hope I’m a catchy (slightly crazy-making) tune that never leaves your head. LOL : ) — Author Tara Lain
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I love Disney and it has been far too long since I’ve been there. If I couldn’t just live in fantasy land as a whole, I’m not sure. I would say Cinderella’s castle but I don’t think that counts as a ride. So I think Small World might be mine too. I’ve always loved that ride and it’s message and I always wanted to go on it multiple times even when my family hated me for it (though they did eventually go, if only to get out of the intense Florida heat). And I love to travel so the different countries represented are lots of fun for me.
We all love the Small World ride. I think it’s so pretty, it’s cool, there’s new things to look at every time, it seems, because you can’t focus on everything the first time round.
I grew up so close to Anaheim, that Disneyland is in my back yard. I had my first real grown up date there, got my first kiss in the Haunted Mansion, walked around holding hands with a boy the first time there, I once got my heart broken when a boy changed dates in the middle of the outing… I got a pass when I had my first first baby and we watched the Aladdin parade about a million times.
The funny thing is, I was a nervous mother, afraid to go on outings, but Disneyland felt so much like home, and I felt so safe there on my own with a baby that I cried when I stepped through the gates the first time. All the kids have played in their orchestras numerous times at the Carnation stage.
It would be nearly impossible to pick a single ride for me, I love the Haunted Mansion and of course I thought that would be my first choice, but then I remembered the fireflies and that little shack in the Pirates ride (just before the big drop…Dead Men Tell No Tales….Aaaagh!) and then I remembered that I could live out on Tom Sawyers Island and explore the caves, or I could just move into the big Pirate Galleon that goes around the island…Or I could live on the Space Tours ride, and play with the controls of that ship… Or in Sleeping Beauty’s castle…
Nope. I could not just pick one. So I’ll say the same thing I said when I was a kid: I wish there was a way I could get locked in here after they close so I’d never have to leave.
It would be Haunted Mansion. The ghost are all having a lot of fun dancing and so on.