The highly anticipated Bookish Dynamic Duo Event!

The bare ALL interview with LITERAL ADDICTION's Pack Alpha and Book Monster Reviews's Mastermind of Monster Madness...

The Interview... 

Hey, you asked, so don't blame us for being open and honest!!  LOL.  :-)

Q1):  From C.L Parker:  "They" say everyone puts on their pants one leg at a time...Which one do you start with?

Chelle:  Hmmm, left leg (I think)!??

Carla:   Both at the same time, LOL.  I'm usually in a rush so I sit on the bed and throw both them guys in there at once.

Q2):  From C.L Parker:  Is there a bottle of Patron in your freezer right now? If not Patron, what? If not anything, what the hell is wrong with you? 

Chelle:  Actually, there are 3 bottles of booze in my freezer right now– Patron Silver, Café Patron, and Doug’s bottle of some Russian Standard vodka that he got from some Russian dude at work (bleck!).  I’ll take this a step further and tell you what I like to make when I’m not drinkin’ my sexy ‘tron straight though—A “Pleasure and Pagne”:  Patron Silver, Cointreau, Lime Juice, & Champagne, served on the rocks in a margarita glass with lots of salt.  Holy yum!  <3   

Carla:  Sadly there is NO alcohol in my fridge, freezer or closet right now.  I'm not a big drinker, not crazy about the taste of alcohol.  My favorite drink though is Sex on the Beach.  ;-)

Q3):  From C.L Parker:  Who is your favorite TV celeb and why? Least favorite and why? Who's your go-to guy when fulfilling your wickedly sexy fantasies during your special alone time? Chelle, if you say Jensen, it's about to be on. JSYK, we may have to coordinate our schedules because he's visiting me about 5 times a week, just sayin'. He's a busy, busy hunk of manmeat, but I'm willing to break you off a morsel ;) 

Chelle: 

*        Favorite TV Celeb = Ian Somerhalder in Vampire Diaries because NOBODY does facial expressions like Ian and it amazes me! 

*       Least Favorite = The entire cast of every reality show outside of SYTYCD and American Idol (especially Survivor and Jersey Shore) cuz I hate reality TV outside of those 2 shows (and maybe Ghost Hunters and those types of ‘reality’ shows…).  

*     Go-to guy when fulfilling my wickedly sexy fantasies:  Jensen, JENSEN, JENSEN, JENSEN, JENSEN, JENSEN, and more Jensen!!  Mmmmm….Jensen [sorry A.D.D moment!].  I really don’t do celeb crushes, and admittedly, for whatever reason, it takes quite a bit to make an impression on me (though I’ll ogle, appreciate and comment on the posts you guys put out there like any hot blooded female!). Jensen however, causes a turret’s like syndrome in me, wherein, I cannot see him on TV, the web, or in print without saying -- out loud --“holy hell that man is wicked sexy, yummy, and just downright sinfully delicious!”  So, C.L, you best be sharing a morsel (OR MORE!) cuz I may be small, but I’m frickin’ scrappy!!

Carla:   Hmmmm…..I really don't watch that much TV but I can definitely pick a few, let's see…

·        Favorite TV Celeb - Charlie Hunnam (Jax from Son's of Anarchy) is always yummy to look at, Alexander Skarsgard (Eric from True Blood), The Winchester Boys (Supernatural)

·        Least Favorite I would have to say the entire cast of Jersey Shore!  I HATE HATE HATE that show and all the jackasses on there. (Sorry if any of you like it LOL)

·        I really don't have a go-to guy when it comes to fulfilling fantasies.  Sorry, I know, I'm boring.

Q4):  From C.L Parker:  Ever give yourself an injury during said special alone time? 

Chelle:  LOL.  No!

Carla:   Just a pulled muscle…does that count?  ;-)

Q5):  From C.L Parker:  Thong, bikinis, briefs, boxers, granny panties, or commando? 

Chelle:  Depends…  If I’m at home in PJs or loungewear; commando.  If I’m at work, thong or tanga.  If I’m grocery shopping, running errands, etc, hipsters or boyshorts.

Carla:   Same goes for me with the PJ's:commando.  Otherwise hipsters or boyshorts for me.  I like being comfortable,  Thongs make me feel like something's stuck in my ass..well, I guess there kinda is right?  LOL

Q6):  From C.L Parker:  Landing strip, Brazillian, or full-on African bush?

Chelle:  Soul patch.  

Carla:   Depends on my mood at the time. 

Q7):  From C.L Parker:  When I see an attractive man, the first thing I check out on him is his hands, and then his neck. Which part of the magnificent male body do you check out first and why? What's second on the list? 

Chelle:  Eyes, immediately followed by upper arms.

Carla:   I always look at his arms first, then his hands.  If his hands are gross… then they aren't touching me. 

Q8):  From C.L Parker:  What's your ultimate feel good song? Girl anthem? I feel sexy and you're about to get really, REALLY lucky song? I'm about to whoop some ass cadence? 

Chelle:  Oh geezus, music questions...  I’m a music FREAK & was once referred to as a walking musical dictionary by a group of people I met at a Psychedelic Furs concert, so it’s VERY hard for me not to ramble during music discussions…I’ll do my best to keep it to a paragraph each bullet though.  LOL.    

•  Feel good song:  OMG, there are SO MANY, but off the top of my head, some that always make me smile, get me moving, & make me turn the volume up to deafening levels are (people are SO going to laugh at me for a couple of these!):  Enola Gay (OMD), Stacy’s Mom (Fountains of Wayne), Run Runaway (Slade), Blue Monday (both the original and the Orgy remake), Funkytown (Lipps, Inc), Tainted Love (Softcell), The Globe (Big Audio Dynamite), anything by Depeche Mode, 1985 (Bowling for Soup), Why Can’t I Be You & Hot, Hot, Hot (The Cure) and Porn Star Dancing (My  Darkest Days)
• Girl Anthems (mine anyway. LOL):  Single Ladies (Beyonce), Addicted (Saving Abel), Bad Girlfriend (Theory of a Deadman), Bad Influence (P!nk), Something in your Mouth (Nickelback), Love Me or Hate Me (Lady Sovereign), Lips of an Angel (Hinder) and Beautiful (Akon).
•  Feelin’ Sexy & you’re gonna get lucky songs (these are SO not going to make sense to anyone, but it’s because of the memories they bring back for me personally…):  Fade to Black (Metallica), Come Undone (Duran Duran), More Human than Human (White Zombie), Three Days (Jane’s Addiction), Zombie (The Cranberries), Get Stoned (Hinder)
•   Kick ass cadences:  Hell Yeah (Rev Theory), Cowboy’s from Hell (Pantera), Black Sunshine (White Zombie), and anything by Rammstein

o   And here’s an extra category I couldn’t resist:

•  ‘Dark Days’ songs:  Metallica – The Day that Never Comes, Jeremy – Pearl Jam, Simon and Garfunkel – Sound of Silence, Dust in the Wind - Kansas, Mad World -Tears for Fears, How Soon is Now - The Smiths, My Immortal - Evanescence, Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles, Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd, Everybody Hurts – R.E.M, A Night Like This – The Cure

Carla:  The only 2 things that get me through life are my music and my books.  I can go on forever so I will try to just name a few favs off the top of my head but this is gonna be hard!!

• Feel Good Song:  I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas or pretty much anything by the BEP, I LOVE them.  Raise Your Glass by Pink cuz I'm a dirty little freak ;-) , Party Rock by LMFAO Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson (love the beat to that song!!) I'll be here for an hour so let's leave it at those.
• Girl Anthem:  Hmmm…U + UR Hand by Pink, I blast that song in my car all the time lol, I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor, Dynamite by Taio Cruz (never get tired of that song)
• Feelin Sexy & your gonna get lucky songs: Ummm I've been married for 13 years……what's get lucky mean?? LMAO!!
• Kick Ass Cadences: This is more like it lol…..You're Going Down by Sick Puppies, One Step Closer by Linkin Park, Let Go by Red
• Dark Days Songs: In My Darkest Hour by Megadeth, Sober by Pink, Without You (acoustic version) by Breaking Benjamin, Fight Inside by Red, Fade to Black by Metallica, Back 2 Good by Matchbox 20

Q9):  From C.L Parker:  Why did each of you decide to create our little piece of heaven we know as Literal Addiction/Monster Book Reviews? How did you meet? Have you ever met face to face? What was that like? Please do give all the dirty deets :) 

Chelle:  L.A started back in February of 2010 as a pie in the sky idea of a book club between my B.F.F Jen and I.  Being the OCD person I am, that little ‘idea’ turned into a website, business cards, a facebook group, a GoodReads group, etc about 2 weeks later.  Jen added members with her connections from the Salon, I added some friends and neighbors, and with 6 of us, I decided that our Book Club needed some excitement and started trying to get the authors of the books that we were reading to do Interviews.  We had Adrian Phoenix, and then booked Laura Wright, which is where I met Carla (online in Laura’s chat on L.A).  After Laura’s chat and finding out that Carla was creating a book blog (which I think I was the 2^nd follower for), I asked her if she wanted to team up for the True Blood Season 4 premier contest.  I contacted Charlaine to see if she’d sign the books (which surprisingly her assistant agreed to), Book Monster and LITERAL ADDICTION hooked up for that contest, and oddly, without us even really discussing it further; we sort of just started doing EVERYTHING together from that point on.  From the first week of June until now, L.A went from 9 members to 32, 32 to 54, 54 to 158, and now we’re over 200 private members with over 800 followers/fans and are recognized by name and logo pretty much everywhere (Jen got stopped in B&N the other day when some girls saw her LITERAL ADDICTION backpack that I designed and were all excited that it was someone who knew about L.A.  Little did they know that they were talking to L.A’s co-founder….).  With A LOT of hard work, & some major sanity supporting of one another, the L.A/BMR Dynamic Duo of Carla and I has become something truly amazing.

As for meeting, as I said, we met in Laura’s chat, but we haven’t met face to face… YET.  We text A LOT (I had to up my text plan to Unlimited because in the first month I knew her I had gone over my texts by over 400 messages. LOL

Carla:   I started Book Monster Reviews on June 4th 2011.  I love reading, it's my daily escape from life and keeps me sane.  I wanted to share my love of books and be able to talk to people with the same interests so I started BMR.  I totally did not expect it to take off so quickly.   BMR is only a little over 4 months old now and I already have over 530 blog followers and 585 Facebook followers.

As Michelle said, I met her on her LITERAL ADDICTION chat with Laura Wright and we started talking.  We did the True Blood contest and it's history form there.  We get along so well together and we think pretty much exactly the same things, at exactly the same time too lol.

We have never met face to face YET but hopefully that will change in 2012 but we text each other like 20 times a day and when I call her we talk for at least an hour (I had to get my minutes increased).  We get along and work together so well, I am so happy to have met her during the chat.

Q10):  From C.L Parker:  Are you married? Have children? Gone through an "experimental" phase? 

Chelle:  Nope, not married.  Not even engaged, though Doug and I have been together for 15 years.  No children either (I can’t have them) unless you count the furry variety, of which I have 2 – Dali (Dali’s Picture Perfect, named after Salvador Dali) our 6 year old Chocolate Lab, and Poe Rayvn (name after Edgar Allan Poe), my 1 year old black Bombay kitten that I just adopted in April.  I had a cat before Poe, Ziggy (a long haired orange tabby), who I had to put to sleep on 8/7/10, 1 day short of his 14^th birthday. And nope, no experimental phase for moi.

Carla:   Yes, I am married for 13 years but have been with my hubby for 16 years.  I have an amazing 11 year old son plus 2 cats (Gray and Mama) and a dog (Coco) and NO, no experimental phases for me.;-)

Q11):  From C.L Parker:  What was the toughest time in your life? The happiest? 

Chelle:  Toughest… aside from the numerous health issues I’ve had and battled with my entire life, the toughest was by far my childhood. 

I grew up in a tiny town in WI where everyone knows your business but is to chickenshit to do anything about it, and my stepfather, was the devil incarnate. I was abused in every possible way throughout my entire childhood & early adulthood until I left home for MN when I was 17 to try and start over and go to college.  Only that didn’t work, because I found out that he had forged my mom’s signature on our bank book & wiped out every penny of inheritance I had from my grandpa therefore leaving me nothing left to use for school or to live on.  Then, he didn’t pay a bunch of medical insurance bills that he was supposed to in the divorce agreement, so when I turned 18 it completely ruined my credit before I even had any. 

Growing up I had a signed contract of chores, and if he couldn’t smell the pinesol in the air when he’d get home from work at 10 at night, he’d make me scrub the floors with a toothbrush in front of him.  I once left 3 things out of place in my room when I was told to clean it, only to come home from school and find everything I had on a bonfire in the back yard.  I’d get my mouth washed out with Ajax just for saying ‘no’, and had my jaw broken when I was 5 trying to get between him and my mom during a fight.  Holidays were referred to as annual dish throwing days in my home… 

I was left alone to fend for myself at age 8, and started working at age 14 because I had to buy my own lunch, supplies, and clothes for school as well as anything I might want for myself at home because I didn’t get to see a penny of my dad’s child support. 

The day I left home for MN my stepdad tried to kill my mom and she finally filed for divorce after I told her I wouldn’t speak to her if she didn’t.  He tried to have us both killed by hiring someone to shoot out our livingroom windows during hunting season and we finally took off to stay with my aunt and uncle in TX until the divorce was finalized and the restraining order upheld.

That’s the cliffnotes version, but it wasn’t pretty, at all, and yet it made me who I am!! 

Happiest?  Probably the last 2 years despite the cancer and things.  I found my soulmate in a best friend, I gained you guys, I’ve lived my dream of seeing some of my favorite bands in concert and ‘meeting’ A LOT of my favorite authors, and I’ve gotten to do things I never thought I’d get a chance to do.  It’s been a magickal whirlwind. J 

Carla:  UGH!  I hate these questions!  Thanks CL, but I still luv ya!!!!

Toughest…..Just like Michelle my childhood sucked.  My biological father was an alcoholic that used to come home a destroy everything.  He used to think it was funny to come crawling into bedroom at 3am growling to scare the hell out of me.  It worked.  I was only 3 or 4 at the time.  He also used to lock me in my bedroom and go out to the bar while my mom was at work.  My mom found out about everything and divorced him when I was around 5.  I saw him once or twice after that but I was terrified of him and didn’t want anything to do with him.  Until I was 10 years old I was terrified to sleep in my bedroom alone.  I would scream and cry and beg my mom and grandparents not to leave me alone.  My mom remarried when I was around 8.  My younger sister was born when I was 10 and we shared a room so once she was born and I was not alone in my room anymore I was finally able to sleep peacefully again.

My grandfather was my hero and my acting father.  He did everything for me.  He died when I was 12 and a part of me went with him. 

From the time I was 14 years old I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol.  I hate alcohol so it was never more than a half a beer but drugs were a totally different story.  I did everything, weed, cocaine, acid, ecstasy, crack and then I tried the drug that finally destroyed me…heroin.  I used occasionally on the weekends and then I started to use during the weekdays too.  I stopped using when I found out I was pregnant but the day I had come home from the hospital it all went downhill from there.  It's pretty much impossible to quit when your partner is using right in front of your face.

I lost 4 years of my life addicted to heroin.  We lost out apartment and moved in with my parents until I ruined that too.  I lied and stole from them numerous amounts of time until they had no choice but to throw us out.  From there I we went into a homeless shelter which was one of the worst experiences I have gone through.  I made the hardest decision of my life and asked my parents to take care of my son who was 2 at the time.  He didn’t deserve to be dragged through hell with me for my mistakes so I gave my parents temporary custody of him until I got myself out of hell.  I then went on to still use, more depressed than ever.  I used to cry myself to sleep every night because I missed my son so much and I wanted to be there for him but couldn’t be like I was.  I finally had enough of ruining my life and put myself in a 7 day detox and then a 30 day rehab program (my husband did the same).  We came out and stayed clean for a while but then went back to getting high again.  Finally one night I cried myself to sleep and asked God to please take the feeling away from me that I want to get high.  I was sick of wasting my life and wanted to be a mother to my son.  I swear, the next day I woke up and NEVER touched anything again.  I crawled out of the depths of hell and started to make a new life for myself.  I got a job and with the help of my parents (who always stood by me no matter what I did to them) and my grandmother, we got an apartment and I FINALLY got my son back.  It has now been 7 years since I have touched any kind of drug and I can honestly say that I have no urges to ever touch any again.  I will NEVER go back to that hell I was living and put my son through that again.   If it wasn't for my family always standing by me, I never would have made it.  We now live upstairs from my parents, we rent the apartment from them and I try to do whatever I can to make up for the horrible things I put them through.  I can honestly say that the girl I was back then was destroyed and I will never be the same again.  But like the saying goes "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" definitely applies.   I've learned a lot from my experience in hell and I will never let anyone or anything get the better of me again.

The happiest time of my life I would have to say was when my son was born.  There are no words to describe what a woman experiences carrying a baby for 9 months and going through childbirth.  When you finally get to see and hold that perfect little baby it's beyond amazing.  It's been 11 years since and my son is the light of my life.  He's my world and I would do anything for him!!

THE BIG CONTEST PRIZE: 

*ALL of this will go to our lucky winner...