Cheat Work Thursday

MUST READ: ALL THREE The Whistler (2016) A once disbarred, ex-con lawyer named Ramsey Mix contacts the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct (BJC) with the information of the most corrupt judge in US history. Lacy Stoltz, an investigator with the Board, and her partner, Hugo Hatch, are assigned to the case. The judge in question has been aiding the local mafia skimming money from the Indian casinos and covering for the mafia’s various crimes, including murders. She is revealed to be Claudia McDover, and Mix supplies the information on behalf of a mole who wants to file a claim under the Florida Whistleblower Statute and collect possibly millions from it. This is a story of two mice trying to corner several huge cats. For five minutes, it spooked me to drive alone at night. Also, after Gray Mountain, this pattern of pulling the rug from under the feet in the middle of the plotlines feels familiar to me. Is this new? I don’t remember this in Grisham's older books. What did he d...

MUST READ: GRAY MOUNTAIN It has been a while since I last read Grisham. I’m catching up, because loyalty. (As usual, this may contain spoilers.) The Racketeer (2012) It’s a story about a Black attorney Malcolm Bannister from a small town in Virginia who was set up and convicted for racketeering. He's sentenced to 10 years and pretty much loses everything in his life: career, marriage, contact with his young son, and people who care – except for his aging father, who visits him once a month in prison. Halfway doing time, a federal judge and his mistress are brutally murdered. Malcolm makes a deal with the FBI, giving them the name of the murderer in exchange for his release and a witness protection programme. He demands for a face-changing surgery under the programme, then disappears. Halfway reading it, you can already sense where the story is going – of the long plot he’s planned with his best friend and girlfriend – which you’ll read with an urgent need to warn him ...

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Cancer is rare in my family -- even in my extended one. But my mother was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive uterine cancer last year. It was an early stage, so she had a hysterectomy, followed by radiotherapy. Then we found out it had spread to other organs early this year, just a few months post-radiotherapy. So my mother's currently undergoing chemo -- the fourth out of six was last Thursday. I think the night she had her first chemo while hospitalized for ascites was one of the scariest moments I've ever experienced in my life. Since her first diagnosis, we've learned a lot of things about cancer for the first time -- there are types and grades, whether they are aggressive or not; there are specific caregiving needs after chemo, which are all news to me; and there are traumas, exhaustion and a whole lot of emotional roller coaster as well. I'm embarrassed for making this about me. I'm sorry. I'm not the patient in ...

Photo by Finn on Unsplash I still stupidly think I’m going to maintain this blog. It was supposed to be an escape. But I learn that you can’t even comb your hair if you are lazy, let alone escape . Escaping cannot be a small amount of work. So here I am, still, dragging my feet in a circle of no motivation or inspiration. I understand that this whole paragraph may disrupt the flow of good energy to some of you, and to that I say, stop reading stupid Instagram quotes. But I feel like I need the blog now more than ever. I feel like I could use some sharing, venting, laughing, spilling, judging and screaming. Maybe those sad events in the past few years will seem less sad if I write them down. (And this is kind of against my self-respect policy because why am I dedicating my time and energy to this but) maybe those bitchy colleagues from a gazillion years ago do deserve to be ratted out. Maybe reminding myself of the few good choices or changes that I’ve made in my life, or th...