Taking Out the Trash

I'm still enjoying Dead Ice, the latest offering in the Anita Blake series by the inimitable Laurell K. Hamilton. As always, Ms. Hamilton provides a ton of material for my blog. One of Anita's most endearing qualities is her willingness to examine her own stuff and to strive to improve. She has been one of my most insightful teachers because she is willing to look at the ugliness most of us like to avoid. Granted, she can get all up in her head to an annoying degree, but how else can we learn, if not through genuine introspection?  There is some utility to navel-gazing. As we've discussed recently, Anita has killed a lot of bad guys and seen a lot of bad shit. And it's all left its mark on her, both physically and emotionally. She struggles to overcome the trauma that she's survived, and she works hard to avoid taking her troubles out on her loved ones. Anita spends a lot of time sorting through her moods to make sure any anger or irritation is both warranted and aimed at the correct target. She is ruthless about dissecting her own motivations and making midcourse corrections when she realizes that her annoyance at something that seems fairly straightforward is actually masking deeper pain or fury that she doesn't feel safe expressing. Her willingness--and ability--to do this is a mature, sophisticated social and emotional skill set.  I don't know many people who can pull it off, including, most of the time, me. 

The more common truth is ‘misery loves company’.  At least my misery does. I learned this lesson early at the knee of my narcissistic mother who insisted that the rest of the family's moods reflect hers. She had absolutely no boundaries and couldn't discern where she ended and the rest of us began. My mother took the aphorism, "When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" to new heights…  or depths as the rest of us experienced it.

 I also remember when I caught chicken pox at ten, which is considered late by childhood disease standards. It was intensely uncomfortable, and my mother put the fear of God into me that if I scratched the scabs I'd be disfigured for life. So I coated myself in calamine lotion and cornstarch. I was simply miserable. At night, I crept into my parents' room and slept on a blanket on their floor. When my father asked my mother why I was there, she said, "No one wants to be alone when they are hurting.  Misery loves company." I definitely learned that "lesson."

It was and is true. It's why, when we are in a bad mood, we want to spew our unhappy venom on those around us, as if their good mood was an offense to our black one. Maybe it is. Perhaps our bad moods resent the happiness of others, and we simply want to bring others down to our level. Or is it that making others feel bad makes us feel better.? That is not a pretty truth, but experience lends credence to the theory. Could it be that we simply like to lash out when we are in pain or distress?

I'm not sure what the mechanism is, but anyone who's been around teenagers knows the drill all too well. The teen gets in a mood. Then he notices that no one else is sharing his mood of the moment, and instead they have the unmitigated gaul  of enjoying a good time and not paying homage to the sullen teen. Then said teen goes about working  to change everyone else's mood. Usually, the teen is successful. I'm not sure if the teen is happier, but everyone around him is usually less joyful than they had been.   Sharing the wealth, as it were.

When teenagers leak all over everyone else, it's usually a lack of impulse control. It's a sign of immaturity and signals a dearth of graciousness on someone's part. If the ‘negative emoter’ is older, in my mind, it's an indicator that the person, if they are a grown adult, is selfish. Which is why it is so unfortunate that I, myself, suck so badly in this area. A friend of mine recently told me about an event where she was decidedly unhappy--with the situation and everyone around her. As there was nothing to be done about it, however, she explained to me that she was careful not to spread her bad cheer. She told me, "No one needed to know how upset I was."  And I thought to myself, "Why ever not?"  But I didn't say that, as my friend obviously thought she had done the right thing by protecting those around her from herself. Clearly, this was a philosophy to contemplate.

It turns out there is a lot to be said for restraint of tongue and pen. Who knew? Not me. I not only wear my heart on my sleeve, but I apparently am generous to a fault in this regard as I believe that everyone is entitled to participate in whatever is going on in my head. Self-centered much?  Nah. Really, I think it is just a lack of impulse control. Kind of sad at fifty, but hey it gives me something to work on.   I want to be pleasant. I don't want to ruin events for others or make them  uncomfortable. I don't want to be the bad mood equivalent of sexual harassment--creating a hostile environment for all the unfortunate souls around me.

I don't want to be the one picking fights, being critical, negative, snarky, sarcastic or mean just because I'm irritated or annoyed. Which I am.  A lot. It's tough to be me. But maybe it's tougher to be near me? I want to be like Anita who carries her own bad mood baggage solo.  Or at least she tries to.

And then there is my struggle and striving toward authenticity in all aspects of my life. Hiding my bad moods behind a smile that doesn't reach my eyes and an insincere, "No really, I'm fine!" seems inauthentic and lame. On the other hand, punishing someone for another's crimes (as when I'm annoyed by something at work and take it out on my family at home) is equally unacceptable.

I have no idea how to reconcile this. I guess I'll have to get all up in my head (even more than I am) and poke and prod at my motives to ensure I'm lashing out appropriately versus inappropriately. Seems exhausting. But if Anita can do it, maybe I can too.

The Color of Truth

I'm enjoying the latest Anita Blake book, Dead Ice. Once again, Laurell Hamilton provides me with a trove of topics to think and write about. I am less than 20% into the book, and my mind is already churning. These novels are as much psychological thrillers as paranormal fantasies, and Ms. Hamilton imbues her characters with enough insights to fill several textbooks, although the "education" is delivered in a truly entertaining way. Today's thought experiment is the contemplation of the claim that, "Almost no one is all bad... There are so few true villains, just other screwed-up people who pass the damage on."  Hmmmm... Truth or Fantasy?  That is the question of the day.

I find that Laurell Hamilton always writes truth. I know she's been criticized (by me, in fact) because her books have become increasingly interior, instead of keeping the action on the outside, where we can read about extreme sex and violence, thanks to the paranormal nature of the genre but there is drama in her exploration of her character’s interior/character. Now, no one should diminish the joy of reading about paranormal-level sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. But Laurell Hamilton also explores the psychological ramifications of all that extreme sex and violence. I guess when you've written 28 books about a set of characters, it's impossible to just say, "And then they lived happily ever after."  She asks the question, what does it do to her characters when they kill the bad guys and love the good guys? It all leaves its mark, just as it does with humans.  And it's those scars that she pokes and prods and exposes to satisfy her readers' curiosity – and provide me with a lot of fodder for blog posts. 

Anita Blake is a complicated character; her psyche is a labyrinth. In the interest of addressing the topic du jour, I will oversimplify and simply say that she is an uber-alpha-warrior of the highest order, with extraordinary and varied paranormal superpowers that she acquires as the series progresses.

Anita worries that the evil she combats is rubbing off on her and that she's becoming one of the monsters she hunts. Her loved ones assure her that it's not true and she spends a lot of time trying to reassure herself  she has done only what is necessary.  It comforts her to think that she only kills bad guys. But, as the series evolves, it gets harder and harder to identify the bad guys and pinpoint, what, exactly, caused them to cross that invisible line from good to evil. It's hard for Anita to hear that there are no true villains, but one of Anita's defining characteristics is her militant insistence on facing unpleasant truths, so she takes this unpalatable fact and tackles it head on.

Because it's true: no one is all good or all bad. The ubiquitous "they" talk about how Hitler loved babies and Himmler loved to dance. These facts humanize our villains, and we don't like that. It is human nature to dehumanize our enemies. In fact, the military does this on purpose, so that soldiers will be able to do their jobs and kill enemy combatants if and when it becomes necessary.

For humans without a personality disorder, killing in cold blood is something that needs to be taught. Killers must be made. Soldiers need to learn to overcome their natural altruistic instincts. One effective way to accomplish this is to erase the shades of grey and leave only the parts that are black or white. I have a friend who used to do that:  when someone betrayed or disappointed her, and it was time to move on, whether in romance, friendship or even more professional relationships, she would need to psyche herself up to make the move by demonizing the other person. It was actually hard to watch her take white out (I'm dating myself again here--look it up!) to all the good in a relationship or a person so that all that was left from her viewpoint was the bad stuff. But I understood why she did it, and I never pointed out the incongruity of her new perspective with the love and affection she felt in the past for those who'd fallen from her grace. She has since learned to temper this tendency of hers, but it's still her go-to defense mechanism.  

We don't want the people we hate to have understandable reasons/motives for their bad behavior. Blaming them for not having the tools to not ‘pass the damage along’ is so much easier than being compassionate about their inability to break the cycle. I don't want to feel sorry for my tormentor. I don't want to believe they are doing the best they can. This actually begs the question of evil, which is a topic for another post. If those we don't like can be classified as evil, we can be justified in ignoring or actively hurting them back. As Anita Blake would say, it's pretty to think so. But the truth is uglier and more complicated.

I never wanted to understand that my mother's serious deficiencies as a parent weren't her fault. Well-meaning friends and relatives repeatedly told me that she couldn't help herself. But my question was always, "Why not?"  Why couldn't she help being an undermining bitch?  I do. A narcissist raised me, but I've managed not to pass the damage along. I’ve broken that cycle with my own children. If I can do it, why can't everyone?  I know,  that is an obnoxious question. 
 
Well, that is the $64,000 question isn’t it? I don’t have the answer, although I've asked the question many times before. I don't think that Laurell Hamilton is trying to suggest that bad guys aren't bad or that they don't deserve to be punished; they are and they do, and Anita is certainly a vehicle of retribution. I think Ms. Hamilton is trying to say something more nuanced; that even the dark can be illuminated to some extent.  It's still dark, but the streaks of light make for a more interesting palette. Grey is the color of truth, even in fantasy.

 
 

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I've just finished the latest installment in Thea Harrison's Elder Races series, Midnight's Kiss. The publication of the book gave me an excuse--not that I really needed one--to re-read the entire series back to back, and it is stellar -  almost unbearably so. I love these characters and their world so much!  Midnight's Kiss is about Julian, the King of the Vampyres, and Melisande, a Faerie Princess. This pairing leads me to fantasize about what would happen if Laurell Hamilton's worlds were to collide, and Jean-Claude were to get together with Merry Gentry? Wouldn't that be something?!  But I digress, predictably.

 Anyway, Julian and Melisande's story is one of perceived betrayal, enduring love and the ability to forgive – otherwise known as personal growth, which, Julian comes to realize, takes time. But, as a Vampyre who was turned– reborn as a vampire – over two thousand years ago, Julian has had quite a bit of time to evolve. So his failure to thrive, emotionally, that is, wasn't a dearth of hours in the day. The missing, magical ingredient in our ability to grow and change--hopefully in a positive direction--is willingness.

Julian has had centuries to grow, but before he fell in love with Melisande, he lacked the motivation to do the hard work to get there.  There is a reason bookstore shelves, both real and virtual, are chock full of self help books. Many of us want to help ourselves, but have no idea how to go about doing it. The first clue we need to heed is that it takes more than reading a book. As an avid reader, I wish it were that easy. It takes a willingness to go against our basic natures, which seek pleasure and avoid pain at almost any cost. That’s why we eat the ice cream out of the container—oh, did I say that out loud?  It’s also why personal growth is so hard. If it were that easy, everyone would do it.  

The inclination and eventual ability to buck our predispositions is a topic I've explored before. It's something I think about all the time as I strive to improve myself, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. I've asked why some of us achieve the drive toward evolution and some of us are never able to rise above our circumstances. I've wondered why our efforts are sometimes successful, and at other times not, without any discernible explanation. I believe that the key components are willingness plus time, but, as Julian demonstrates, the determination must come first, and we must be willing over and over again, day after day. Only then can we achieve personal growth of any sort.

Change is hard. We humans resist change. Apparently, so do Vampyres. I think there are two schools of thought about our ability to change; the creationist view that says a leopard doesn't change its spots, and the Darwinian school, which believes that with persistent effort, change is possible. I'm with Charles on this one. I have a friend who told me about a fight with her husband where they agreed that things between them needed to change. He didn't believe change was possible and told her so. She responded that if people didn't change, she would have died long before, a victim of extreme self-destruction. Needless to say, that marriage didn't last--how could it when only one partner was willing to evolve?  But happily, my friend, whose whole life is a testament to the human ability to grow and evolve, given willingness, work and time, is enjoying a wonderful relationship with a man who appreciates her and is growing along with her.

Humans resist change because they believe the aphorism "better the devil you know," even when the satanic bastard is you. I say, better to exorcise those demons and become the angel you've always wanted to be. When the Dark Lord asks to introduce himself, I tend to run screaming from the room.

Change will not kill us. Discomfort will not kill us. The pain of vulnerability, even when it results in betrayal, will not kill us. What does kill us is a refusal to be open,  and to accept that love inevitably comes with pain, and that stretching beyond our comfort zone results in the deep sensation that lets us know we are alive,  which is way my yoga instructor describes the soreness that follows a good practice.

Making the decision to tolerate such "deep sensations" is what allows us to become our highest self. We must tolerate discomfort to grow.  And such tolerance is a learned behavior. I have only to look toward my 15-year-old twin boys to see how "natural" it is to choose the proximate good over the more temporally distant better. Without help, support and encouragement -- with metaphorical carrots and sticks -- it's all but impossible for them to choose to delay gratification, even if they understand, intellectually, that it is the right decision.

But that is true for me as well. Without assistance, it's just as hard for me to make good decisions that help me evolve, even though I'm an adult. Just ask Julian, the two-thousand-year-old Vampyre, about it. He'll tell you that time alone can’t get the job done. He needed Melisande to help him learn to grow. He needed her to show him that it was something he wanted to do. Desire was the first step toward growth.

So, to recap today's truth in fantasy, change is hard and we need help to find the desire to be willing, and then to make the effort over time to affect positive change and personal growth. Thanks, Thea, for these insights. It's always a pleasure to learn from my favorite authors--much more entertaining, and effective, than a whole shelf of self-help books.
 

The Secrets That We Keep

Even though it may seem like my life is an open book to those of you who read my blog, I have a few skeletons in my closet. No, nothing really deep, dark and mysterious, just your garden-variety embarrassments and lapses in judgment that come with a typically misspent youth.  We all have secrets. Not the kind that would make us good blackmail subjects, hopefully, but stuff we'd rather not have broadcast to friends and family indiscriminately. And if we are very lucky, we have one or two friends who know all of our secrets. I know I do. And thank God for that. If I know anything it is that we're only as sick as our secrets. And, in truth, I don't have any. Not really. There isn't anything about me that at least one other person on this planet doesn't know. And how awesome is that?  There are people out there that have seen me in the most unflattering light possible and still love me. For a long time, even.  In the words of Pia Cuelebre of Thea Harrison's Elder Races fame, I am so, so lucky.

Why am I contemplating secrets and friends right now?  Because I'm just about finished with Cleo Peitsche's Sharkshifter paranormal romance series (five novella-length books), which has been the most perfect vacation reading ever, by the way--light and hot and not too demanding-- but thought-provoking nonetheless. And Ms. Peitsche has highlighted an important aspect of a truly wonderful life-- friends who will keep our secrets safe and who we can trust with our very selves. No matter what.  

In the Sharkshifter series, Koenraad is a guy with secrets. And not just that he can shape shift into a 20-foot Great White Shark (which is pretty cool--I haven't come across the whole shark shifter sub-genre of paranormal fantasy before, and I'll be on the lookout for others in this category). No, Koenraad has many more secrets than that-- the kind of secrets that would get him into hot water with the Shark shifter ruling council and could cause his son to be summarily executed. Koenraad labors under many burdens, but the good news is that he has a best friend, Spencer, to stand by him and keep his secrets, no matter what.

As you all know by now, I don't have a ton of friends, but the ones I have mean the world to me. I've known some of them for the vast majority of my life (since I was two, four and six, respectively). When someone has known you that long, they know everything. I don't have sisters, but I imagine it's like having a sister you've chosen. We don't have to stay close, but we want to. These women are the sisters of my heart. As I've written about before, they knew me before I knew myself. There is absolutely no hiding from them. And it is such a blessing to be known for exactly who I am and the multiplicity of thoughts, words and deeds that make me tick.

 In the series, the most notable aspect of Koenraad's and Spencer's friendship is Koenraad's unshakable faith that Spencer will stand by him, and keep his secrets. No matter what. There is no fear of betrayal, no doubts, just the certain knowledge that this friend of his heart has his back, even when it's uncomfortable for him to stand firm. It's the most amazing feeling in the world. In the paranormal genre, the situations are exaggerated, of course, to make a point, so the situation with Spencer and Koenraad is life and death, but it makes the feelings between them crystal clear.

 Recently, I was given an opportunity to realize just how valuable and fundamental to my existence these relationships are to me, and how much that unshakable faith defines my identity. While I was away on vacation, I got a text from my oldest friend. She asked me to contact her immediately, which was unusual, so I dropped everything and called her. She was almost inarticulately upset (and she is incredibly articulate), asking me why I betrayed her. Then it was my turn to become inarticulate. In the end, it turned out to be a major misunderstanding/miscommunication that was resolved relatively quickly. But the pain from the phantom limb lingered.

I was shocked at how much my world tilted in an awful roller-coaster kind of way when I thought my friend believed I'd betrayed her trust and broken the sacred girlfriend code of silence (the Mafia has nothing on lifelong friendships among women). Thou shalt not mention youthful indiscretions, old boyfriends, embarrassing anecdotes that involve heavy drinking, or anything having to do with quasi-illegal activity.  The girlfriend code covers all. No exceptions. I was horrified to think she thought I'd broken the rules. She was horrified to think I had. We both had trouble wrapping our heads around any of it--hence the nonsensical babbling that erupted from both our mouths.  It rocked our worlds in a way that said a lot about our friendship and also who we are as people--we are women who have the ability to trust another person so completely that the possibility of betrayal basically scrambled our brains. That says a lot about both of us. It also meant that we immediately looked for alternative explanations for the snafu, which we found.

In Cleo Peitsche's Sharkshifter series, her depiction of the relationship between two old friends who would do anything for the other ranks as deep truth in fantasy fiction, which is my favorite paradox, wrapped up in a bow just for me. For you, too, whether these books inspire us to contemplate true friendship or aspire to it, the stories make us better people. And I'm grateful for the reminder. Not to mention the fun story and provocative erotica. A trifecta of goodness.

 

 

 
 

The Wizard of Id

 One of the things I love most about paranormal and urban fantasy is that there isn't a subject related to human behavior that isn't covered somewhere in the genre. I've written before that reading about supernatural species like vampires, shifters, the Fae and other creatures seems to bring humanity into sharp focus. What does it mean to be human? What separates our human nature from our animal natures? I've contemplated the existence of the soul and the reality of mortality as discriminators. One aspect I haven't touched on is instinct, which will be the subject of another post. Closely related to instinct, however, is compulsion--things we do that we cannot seem to control. When our compulsive behavior crosses a certain line--and I'm not quite sure where that is, just that, like pornography, I know it when I see it, compulsive behavior becomes addiction, the most lethal of all self destructive paths. Addiction pops up all over my beloved paranormal fantasy books, and it is a subject with which I have more familiarity than I would like.

The author who clearly knows the most about addiction, I'm guessing from personal experience, is JR Ward. In the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, it's my man (vampire) Phury who's the hard-core addict and when we get inside his head, it's a dangerous place to be.  In Lover Enshrined, we are introduced to the Wizard, who is the nasty, undermining, devastatingly effective voice in Phury's head, the one constantly telling Phury what a piece of shit he is. More unfortunately, the Wizard is also there to keep the focus squarely on Phury's deeds, misdeeds and missed deeds, enslaving Phury in the bondage of a self-created prison. It is a terrible place to be, relieved only by relying on "red smoke," a narcotic somewhere between marijuana and an opiate. Phury smokes his "blunts" --hand rolled-- which then, appropriately, blunt his experience of the world at large, anesthetizing him against the pain of existence.

I've never read such a realistic account of the horrible, insistent, and consistent muttering inside my skull that was my addiction goading me to do that which I swore I wouldn't do anymore. Thankfully, for me it wasn't narcotics or alcohol. But active addiction will kill you one way or another.  It will kill you quickly, like with drinking and drugging, or slowly, messily, and painfully, like cutting your wrists with an emery board, which is how food addiction will kill you. But, dead is dead, in the end, no matter how long it takes go get there. What nightmares are made of, truly. 

And JR Ward gets it, as always. So many well-meaning, but misguided souls assume that if the addict would just "pick themselves up by their bootstraps," then they could "just say no."  It doesn't work like that. As Phury demonstrates, if we could we would. Non-addicts often assume we who are on the other side of that line lack willpower. In fact, addicts are among the most strong-willed people on the planet. That's not the issue. The issue is the nature of addiction.

As always, I need state the caveat that I am not any sort of licensed professional and my opinions are just that. But in my experience, and after contemplating the essence of addiction, I'm going to have to take issue with both Ms. Ward and even with Alcoholics Anonymous, which, for the record, I believe to be an organization that works miracles on a daily basis. But in anthropomorphizing addiction, either as the “Wizard" or according to AA's "disease" model, we view addiction as something outside ourselves, rather than that which is inherent to our nature. The Wizard doesn't live on Oz, down a yellow brick road; he lives in us, in our id, inflating our egos and causing our self-will to run riot. I believe anyone can cross the line from occasional, compulsive behavior to full-blown addiction. In the United States we need only look around at all of those who share my particular brand of addiction.  

So, in my mind, we can all go there. It can be as innocuous as biting our nails or being unable to pass up a deal. It can be more obvious, like smoking or chewing tobacco (or vaping--a new way to enslave the next generation). It can be more insidious, like telling ourselves that we don't need to drink every night, we just like to put a cap on the day, or being "unwilling" but not unable to leave our electronic devices at home for a day, or even an hour. Addiction is all around us, and for me, there is a spectrum. We tend not to do anything about our little habits unless they begin to negatively affect our quality of life.

The Wizard lives in all of us. Sometimes his voice is loud--or maybe it's a whisper saying all those unpleasant things in our heads: "Don't try, you won't succeed. You're fat; you're ugly, that outfit looks awful on you. You are way too stupid to make that work. You are not competent, creative, strong, funny, sexy, clever, or confident enough".

 In the shorthand version of Wizard-speak we hear simply "you are not enough and never will be." Sometimes, the voice might mix it up and say instead, "there isn't enough, and you won't get your share, so give it up."  Such a vicious little voice. We don't like that voice, so we use our substances or compulsive behaviors to soothe and smooth out the edges of a reality we don't feel like facing and to stifle that insufferable voice. But that voice is part of us, not separate. For years I blamed my mother for the obnoxious troll living rent-free in my brain. Then someone pointed out that I was the only one capable of plugging my ears, and saying, "Thanks for sharing, I don't choose to listen to you today."  

Phury learns to stop listening to the Wizard eventually. It's not an easy path, even for characters in paranormal fantasy novels. The path for each of us to do the same is unique.  My path involved putting down my drug of choice and facing my reality squarely, with honesty, openness and willingness to change. Tough stuff. Worthwhile. But my Wizard didn't leave the building. He can't. He's me. But there's more to me than that.

 

 

 
 

BBW WTF

There is something seriously wrong with us. I thought it was a western world kind of problem, but I'm now convinced the contagion is limited only to the United States. I've been traveling in Spain for the past week. Absolutely spectacular country--my new favorite European destination. We've gone from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic via the Pyrenees and the land and seascapes are magnificent. I'm in awe. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the beaches, and, more specifically, the women on the beaches. They come in all shapes and sizes, and, almost without exception, they are gloriously, confidently, beautifully comfortable in their own skins. Practically no one wears a one piece, and I've yet to see a tankini. All the girls and women sport bikinis, some with tops and some without. I've seen bodies of every conceivable age and variety. And no one seems remotely self conscious.

Let's contrast that with how I felt walking down the beach. I'm fifty years old, and I've given birth to twins. I don't exercise as much as I should, and I don't eat as well as I could. Despite all of that, I know I don't look bad, for a middle aged woman with kids who works for a living and doesn't attend to my appearance like it's my job. But, having said that, I am painfully aware that my skin isn't nearly as tight over what muscles I have left, and, as my son told me a number of years ago (and the trend is not going in a good direction), my midsection is "squishy."  In other words, I won't be gracing any magazine covers or be mistaken for a trophy wife any time soon. I was completely self conscious walking on a beach in Barcelona until I noticed that no one else was.

It was true. I saw stretch marks, surgical scars, melting wax thighs, sagging boobs and women blithely bending without a thought to the rolled flesh on their bellies looking like stacked sausages. No one cared. It was a revelation. And I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn't share that degree of insouciance.

All of which led me to think about finding answers in the current series I'm reading by Cleo Peitsche called the Sharkshifter Paranormal Romance series. The author was recommended to me by a friend, and I'm enjoying the series, which is light and entertaining with incredibly hot sex scenes. I'm in, of course. But as I was searching Amazon to buy the rest of the series after reading the first book, I noticed that the books were described as "BBW Paranormal Erotic Romance". Curious, I looked up "BBW."  And learned that we are totally screwed. And not in a good, erotic, paranormal way.

The good news is that I had no idea what "BBW" stood for because that aspect wasn't highlighted in the novel itself. The bad news was that the publishers, or Amazon, or maybe the author felt the need to warn/entice/inform me that I was about to read a book where the heroine--the object of lust and love in this erotic romance--was a Big Beautiful Woman. It's as if they were telling me, "Danger--larger women having sex--don't freak out or get disgusted."  WTF?!

I wasn't sure what to think, except that maybe I was being given a hint that I should be happy that women who don't wear a size two and have full C cups to go with their petite asses can also find happiness in love. I haven't been a size two in a long time and I've never had large breasts, so, good to know, I guess. But how incredibly, unbelievably outrageous that I'd need to know ahead of time that Monroe, the leading lady of the shark shifter books, was "big" (which I really didn't get from the novel itself; she is described as having "generous curves"--nothing wrong or "big" about that).

So, now I understand a little better why my not-size-two (but definitely normal-size, healthy BMI) body is a cause for self consciousness, especially when a lot of it is on display--even at anonymous beaches in Europe. How can I not feel inadequate because my tummy isn't taut and my thighs jiggle a bit?  I'm being told--all over the place, in fact--that not being tight and small is an occasion to comment--and again, not  in a good way. Wow. Sucks to be me. Actually, sucks to be all of us.

I'd much rather be one of the beautiful Spanish women, strutting my stuff on the sands near the sea, confident of my allure and easy in my body, no matter what it looks like. I'm not quite sure how to accomplish that without moving to the Mediterranean, but I'll give it some thought. I may have to stop reading "BBW" paranormal fantasy for a while, and avoid books like Gerry Bartlett's Glory St. Clair series, where Glory is always going on about her weight (real vampires have curves, dontcha know?) I need to spend more time remembering that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and comfort and confidence in our bodies is the most attractive thing in the world. We are so critical about ourselves and there is absolutely no need. At least that's what I'll keep telling myself as I strive to feel beautiful regardless of what Madison Avenue, MTV, and publishers of BBW romance novels tell me.

Marking Time

As you all know by now, time and its inexorable march is one of my favorite subjects. Today, I'm interested in exploring the myriad of way we note its passage. I went to the dentist today for my semiannual visit. Even though it's been six months since my last visit, it seems like a lot less. Same goes for the gynecologist, eye doctor, annual physical (I believe in prevention and taking full advantage of my expensive insurance). The time between visits feels faster than normal. But it isn't. And what's actually happening is that time is just plodding along, or racing by, and these various medical appointments serve to remind me of the lockstep of life moving forward apace. There are also the quotidian rituals we all observe (hopefully) that also serve to mark the passage of time. We get up and brush our teeth, take a shower, and perform other necessary ablutions. We eat at regular intervals. We buy groceries, put fuel in our gas tanks and visit the toilet regularly. I don't know about you, but I can get highly annoyed when pressure on my bladder forces me to stop what I'm doing to relieve myself. At other times, I resent the need to eat when my head starts to pound and I realize that I've got to stop and fill my stomach, even though I'm absorbed in a task that commands my full attention.

And then there's the requirement to find or prepare actual food, not the fast Frankenfood with which so many Americans stuff their faces. It's difficult to eat healthy, whole food, and I fall down on that job more often than I'd like just because there aren't enough hours in the day to do a better job. Not to mention the need to exercise, meditate, spend time with family and friends. I've got to say, that I often wish I had Hermione Granger's Time Turner, just to be able to cram more, more, more into my day. Never enough time, right?  

Which leads to the next paradox of time: the more we rush to fill our minutes and hours with productive, contributory, worthwhile activities, the faster the time goes by. Spike the adrenaline, please. There's something to be said for taking it down a notch, stopping to smell the roses and not the coffee, and being mindful and present in our lives. Speed and busyness tend to take us out of the moment and catapult us into warp drive, as the minutes stream by like so many oncoming headlights in our windshield, blurring together to become a smear on the road.

When we slow down, so does time. When we do less and take more time to be and enjoy, time elongates, at least in my experience. When it is not filled to the brim, our time seems to expand. The occupation of every minute makes time contract. So does time passed in misery. What does any of this have to do with paranormal fantasy?  Well, as I read my books it seems that so many of my favorite types of paranormal creatures don't need to worry about human bodily functions like eating, sleeping, and eliminating. They don't menstruate and they don't need to worry about age-related wear and tear on the body. Without the normal milestones of life, it is impossible to mark the passage of time appropriately. Which may be a moot point, of course, given the whole immortality thing, but almost none of the characters in my beloved books are truly immortal. They can die, just not very easily.

With nothing anchoring them to the here and now and nothing driving a need to do much of anything, how do my precious paranormal characters distinguish their days? Do they pay attention to the seasons?  What if they live in Florida or Southern California where there are no seasons?   They don't see doctors cause they don't get sick. They don't divide their day by mealtimes and bathroom runs and beauty rest. How do they organize their time?  I have no idea. This is one of the reasons I prefer paranormal peeps who poop. No, really. I much prefer when characters eat, sleep and use the bathroom. It makes them much more "normal" and also more relatable. Dragos may be a dragon, but he eats and pees just like the rest of us. Also, it seems to me that if paranormal males can get erections, why wouldn't they have the rest of the bodily functions that bind the rest of us to time?  I like the way JR Ward does it (I like the way she does everything, pretty much). Her vampires eat, drink and make whoopee—and they also pee, vomit and need to sleep regularly too. Woo-hoo.

Far from being just annoying, the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly activities that tether us to this mortal coil are actually the activities that make us mortal. Mortality is the inescapable passage—and eventual ending—of time for us. I figure if it's going to end, I'd like some billboards along the way, letting me know that I'm coming up toward the finish line. I was recently in Ireland where we did a great deal of driving all around that gorgeous, green island. They way they mark exits off the highway is smart and effective:  when one is a fair distance from the exit, there is a sign with three diagonal lines. A little closer is a sign with two lines. And when you are almost upon the ramp off the main road, there is a sign with just one slash, to let you know that time is almost up. It's good to mark time. It's good to be able to speed it up and slow it down, depending on how we manage the hours in our days. Steady, present, mindful and deliberate gets us more time. Rushing, cramming, projecting to our next event makes time pass more quickly, which may be what we want, and allows us to experience as much as possible at the cost of experiencing our lives at warp speed. My problem with the whole thing is that many of us do what we do without thought or planning. We notice the signposts of life slide by, or we don't, and the seconds tick toward their inevitable stop. For me, I'm going to pay more attention to that which marks time in my life and simultaneously reminds me of my humanity. I will not begrudge my dentist his due, nor diss the demands of my stomach for food. I will be more respectful of the seasons, but also of my daily doses of hygiene and disease prevention.  I will mark my time on this earth with all due respect and hope to make the most of my minutes. I'm not immortal—vampire, fae or otherwise. Marking time reminds me of that every day.

When Dreams Die

I've been dreaming lately. Daydreaming, eyes becoming unfocused and the world softening around the edges. It's a pleasant way to spend some time on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Often, I find myself thinking and dreaming about the characters in my favorite books. Today, though, I'm thinking about the nature of dreams themselves. We talk about daring to dream, and I think that is an accurate depiction of the risks involved in making an emotional investment in desiring a certain outcome. When we admit to wanting something, we also subject ourselves to the possibility of disappointment, which leads inevitably to pain. Because most of us avoid pain and even discomfort at all costs, assuming the necessary burden of vulnerability isn't the path of least resistance that most of us prefer to travel. The ability to dream is the engine of great achievement and advances. Dreams inspire and motivate us to work hard and make sacrifices on the altar of delayed gratification. Dreams are the manifestation of our hope. 

And all of that is well and good when our dreams come true and we get what we want, or perhaps even more than we imagined possible. It's even good right up until the time when we are forced to admit that it's just not gonna happen. That is the downside of dreaming, the part where we have to either acknowledge that a train we were desperate to board has left the station without us, or contort into Twister positions to convince ourselves (erroneously) that we might still make it. Because not all dreams come true, despite what we've been told by well-meaning parents, teachers and Walt Disney. There are no magic wands waving to any discernible effect in this plane of reality. And we can't always get what we want, more's the pity.

I'm talking about when we need to acknowledge the mortality of our deepest desires, which, coincidentally, coincides with the mortality of our bodies as they march toward death. For those of us leaving middle age in our dusty wake, there are dreams that we've been forced to abandon, whether we like it or not. Only the most cognitively challenged among us could persist in denying that the dream of everlasting love dies with divorce, or even early death. Some of us must give up dreams of parenthood or athletic achievement as the inevitability of biology robs us of opportunities open only to the young.

When I think about my beloved immortals and the "fact" that they need not attend to the physical indignities of growing older, it occurs to me that they are not immune to other effects of dying dreams. In Mate Claimed, by Jennifer Ashley, part of the Shifter Unbound series, Eric must acknowledge the death of his dreams of a single mating when he falls in love with Iona. Sookie Stackhouse of True Blood fame, while not immortal, mourns her status as a one-man woman when she takes a second lover.  And it is so sad when Mac Lane must acknowledge the demise of her dreams of getting married in her small southern town, raising her children alongside her beloved sister and growing old together because her sister was murdered.

Laurell K. Hamilton offers one of the best-written depictions of this phenomenon in the Anita Blake series. Over the course of almost 20 books, Anita grows and evolves and we see her hold onto and then begin to let go of a specific self image, which is the dream we all share, and which most of us must abandon sooner or later. For Anita, she must grieve the woman she thought she was and wanted to be, someone who would marry and live in a nice house and maybe raise a few kids. Yes, she might raise a few zombies while she was at it, but hey, she saw herself in as conventional a role as possible, given her status as a necromancer.

But Anita, like many of us, saw that dream die. It was hard for her as it is for all of us, and paranormal fantasy works best when it reflects our shared reality (and then adds a little something extra). I've had to let go of many dreams.  I've had to acknowledge the death of my dreams of a beautiful pregnancy and my visions of being a carefree young mother, happily attached to her baby, bonding and seeing the world through new eyes, etc., etc. That particular dream was incredibly well developed, as I'd had many years of infertility to hone its edges to a killing point. And when that dream dissipated like so much steam over a pot of boiling water, the sharpness of the blade just about killed me. That particular dream died very, very hard. And it left scars, much in the same way that the death of a loved one leaves marks on our soul to remind us of our love and our loss.

Perhaps my daydreams are a little weird. That's OK, I'm proud to fly my freak flag high, as I've told you before. Hopefully my rumination on the ruins of my dreams will help others bury their own dead and embrace the reality that lives. All my favorite paranormal characters do it, and so can we. 

Saving Blue

I'm still thinking about Lilo Abernathy's The Light Who Binds. I really love this series and my only complaint is that there aren't more books to read! Bluebell Kildare is an unlikely savior, at least in her own mind, but she has many characteristics that make her a perfect candidate to wield great power responsibly and effectively. She doesn't see herself in this light, but her ability to accomplish what destiny has decreed for her is independent of her own self-image. Which is part of her charm and also one of the reasons why she is the right choice to fulfill the prophesy of delivering the vampires of her world from an agonizing afterlife. Who wants a savior so full of herself she can't she beyond her own fascination with the image in the mirror? No one, that’s for sure. There's nothing more off-putting than a narcissistic hero. Happily, Blue is in no danger of becoming a narcissist. By definition, she could never succumb because her magical Gift, the attribute that sets her apart from human "Norms" who hate her for her abilities, is that she is an Empath. And I've been thinking about what that means, especially as I listen simultaneously to Lover Enshrined, which offers new information about a variety of vampire in the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood called Sympaths.  Sympaths feed off the misery of others. Empaths are just miserable at others’ misery. Big difference. I'd rather be saved by an Empath than a Sympath.  An interesting contrast between the two and more food for the green beast who lives in my breast who is torn between intense admiration for these imaginative authors and despair that I will never feel so inspired. But that is fodder for another post.

Back to Blue and her Empath abilities. In the series, Blue is a law enforcement officer who is routinely subject to horrific crime scenes where murder and mayhem have occurred. As an Empath, Blue is able to feel the terror and agony of crime victims as they experience their last moments on earth. I can't even imagine. Nor would I want to. It is horrific and heartbreaking to think that poor Blue must go through what these unfortunates endured to help ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice. But that's kind of the point of the exercise. Blue feels what they feel and that helps her catch the criminals—murderers, arsonists, rapists, etc.

I've often wondered how mental health professionals do what they do--listen to their patients recount terrible experiences in the hopes of exorcizing the demons from their minds. Some level of transference must occur between doctor and patient so that the patient's loss is the doctor's gain—and in this case, finders don't want to be keepers. No one wants that mess. But head doctors do it all the time so they can help and heal. Blue is the same way, and her Empath abilities are part of what make her an excellent investigator and also what ensure her unending compassion. That compassion, in turn, will keep her away—permanently—from any danger of grandiosity or narcissism. 

But how does it keep her from insanity or despair? For years I worked in the counterterrorism business (I know, that sounds weird—but it is a field of study and work, just like being a lawyer or a plumber). My colleagues and I thought about ways that terrorists do to could hurt or damage our population and our infrastructure and then about ways to thwart their ill intent.  It was important, challenging and engaging work. I was proud of my efforts and our accomplishments. I was good at my job and grateful I could make a difference. But, over time, the contemplation of Armageddon took its toll on my soul and dimmed the light of my own spirit so that others’ spirits could continue to shine. Fighting the transference of evil from those we would oppose to my own aura was an exhausting fight and took a huge amount of effort to resist the urge to give up at the never-ending nature of the battle and the increasingly overwhelming sense of the futility of it all. If we are hell bent on destroying each other and our world, I thought with increasing frequency, we deserve what we get. 

Clearly, it was time to get out. Which I did. More or less. At least I got away from waking halls filled with workaholics who competed with each other to see who could work longer hours and become privy to the most exclusive clubs.  If I never see another pocket protector again it will be too soon. The hardest part of working among those who think about the unthinkable, besides the unrelenting fluorescent lights that is, is the ubiquitous expectation that it's only a matter of when, not if. Soul sucking is what it is. 

So I'm not sure how Blue and all of those like her do it day after day, subjecting themselves to the worst that human nature has to offer our fellow humans. I don't know how doctors do it either, or the Angels who work in hospice care, the heroic men and women who tend the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick. I thank God that there are those who can perform such vital functions without losing their minds, although certainly not all escape intact or unscathed. 

To be empathetic is the highest expression of our humanity, putting ourselves in another's shoes and feel what they feel, the good, the bad and the ugly. Empathy gives us the ability to step back from the brink of our own selfish desires and assess how they might affect others. Empty is the "stop" button on the universal remote that controls our behavior. We might think about doing or saying something, but the knowledge that empathy gives us that we would hurt another through our actions gives us the necessary pause to avoid causing pain. Empathy is why we help when we don't have to, and why we care even when something does not impact us directly. 

I love that Blue's gift is Empathy, of the paranormal variety. I love that it makes her a feeling hero, and that her Empathy keeps her forever humble. Because that is the other consequence of empathy—when we can feel what others feel, we cannot get so full of ourselves that we have no room for thoughts of anyone else. This is a good thing, by the way. So while the talented Ms. Abernathy has not finished Blue's story yet, I'm putting my money on the prediction that the vampires will be delivered by a savior who is perfect for the part. 

Quiet Desperation

I've been noticing a lot of unhappy people lately. People living lives of quiet desperation, in the words of Henry David Thoreau. And this makes me sad. For a long time, I didn't understand. I'm still not sure that I do, but, as always, my beloved paranormal fantasy novels are helping to explain reality to me in ways that my brain can grasp. I'm still thinking deeply about Phury in JR Ward's Lover Enshrined. For the majority of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series up to this point, Phury has been unhappy, surviving his extended existence in a state of quiet desperation that is growing increasingly loud as he begins to devolve. For Phury, like the rest of us, the world isn't much fun when your whole life is "have to." I am not naive, nor am I willfully delusional. I understand that life is more about fate and circumstance than it is about choice. I know that sometimes the only options we have are about the attitude we bring to a bad situation. Having said that, however, we do have some choices, and sometimes, we need to just say "no." I find myself saying "no" a lot. When I was young and unable to fit into the mold I thought I wanted to fit, I decided to say no to all the kids who were saying no to me. I figured if I couldn't be popular or part of the A-crowd, then they could kiss my large round petunia, as Mac Lane would say. Saying no to those who rejected me first gave me the freedom to break out of the mold of the privileged uptown girl I was born to be and look for greener pastures outside my geographic and demographic comfort zone. One of the best moves I ever made. 

Later, at my first professional job, I said no to the idea that I was too young and too female to take on more responsibility, and successfully sat for a state exam that my older, male colleagues had previously failed. I said no to the idea that I couldn't call off a wedding that was already planned and paid for. I said no to the idea that just because something hadn't been done before didn't mean I couldn't do it. I said no to my friends and family when they—with undoubtedly good intentions—told me it was making a mistake to go abroad for a year and try something totally different—granted, undercover private investigator was a bit of a stretch, but I said no to everyone who thought I was crazy and was rewarded with the experience of a lifetime. 

Saying no to doing what you don't want to do and yes to doing what you do want to do is the antidote to quiet desperation. This is the truth that Phury, of Black Dagger Brotherhood fame, eventually learns, to his everlasting happiness. Honoring our inner arbiter of yes and no, good and bad is the path to our personal HEAs. Rejecting the should's and have to's is the road to redemption. 

We have to stop listening when others tell us how it has to be. Yes, of course it's important to meet our obligations and commitments. But it's equally important to make sure we are not fulfilling our duty at the expense of our ability to thrive. We need to be resourceful and creative about doing what we need to do so that we have the time and wherewithal to do what we want to do.

So many of us feel like we have no choices, or that we are stuck forever with choices we made before but which no longer serve us. I know so many people who stay in marriages they no longer want, or who care for children in a way that transmutes joy into drudgery. We seem to feel like we have to be there for every football game, even if we hate football. Not me. My son knows I don't enjoy football and have absolutely no idea what is going on in the game (many have tried to teach me, but, honestly, I can't bring myself to care). He also knows that my lack of love for football in no way impacts my abundance of love for him.  We share many things. Just not football. So, I don't have to make myself miserable balancing my butt on a cold, uncomfortable bleacher seat while pretending I’d rather not be reading my book instead of watching his game. I've given him the respect of being honest with him, and he rewards me with the intimacy of authenticity in return. Win-win. 

I was with my aunt recently, my mother's youngest sister. She observed that my husband really "puts up with a lot" because I travel so much apart from my family—for work and to visit friends around the country. What can I say, I'm a peripatetic soul; it feeds something in me to travel and change my environment with some regularity. And I value my friendships and believe in taking the time to nurture them. My family understands this about me and respects my needs. They don't spend a lot of time worrying about how a wife and mother "should" behave, and neither do I. As a result, we are all quite happy as a family, each of us respecting each other's individual needs. It works.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe that this is my life. I've worked hard to create a life I love. It is not perfect, of course, but in the areas where there is room for improvement, I'm always looking for innovative ways to advance the ball. We only get one bite at the apple, and I want to stuff as much in my mouth as I possibly can. I truly do not care how other people think life should be done. I don't even pay much attention to what I think I can or cannot do. I believe in going for it, even when it seems the chances for success are few and far between. I don't mind failing, and each attempt teaches me something new that I can use to tinker at the margins of my life to make it even better. Sometimes I don't just stick to the margins--I make gigantic leaps and hope for a soft landing. This blog is a great example of that.

Like Phury in the end, I reject quiet desperation. I'm all about loud and boisterous joy and exultation. If it's not working for us, we can change it. If we don't like something, we can try something else. If we are spending too many days in a row in the dumps, we can do something radical to shake it up. We have nothing to lose but our misery. And we can always get that back if we really miss it. 

Words Matter

I remember being seventeen and listening to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a leader of the early feminist movement, talk about the vocabulary we use and the differences it makes. I don't remember the whole lecture, but what stuck with me was her observation that the word "history" was a meshing of two words, "his" and "story."  “What about ‘her’ story,” Pogrebin asked. Being the self-absorbed teenager I was I hadn't given that a lot (or any) thought, but she brought me up short, and began my contemplation of words and how we use them. Words are powerful. Words matter. What you say and how you say it are the stock in trade of all writers, of course, and a profound love of words, phrases, analogies and thoughts expressed as lines on a page is one of the reasons I write—and read. But words can be misinterpreted—either the meaning or the intent.

I was reminded of this truth when a friend recently sent me a HuffPost article on "The Most Ridiculous Sexual Phrases from Romance Novels."  The article had lists of "hilarious" euphemisms for the penis, vagina and sex. I think the author missed the point entirely. Words matter. Particularly when reading sex scenes in my favorite paranormal fantasy books.

Sticks and stone may break my bones... But words can always get me hot. And bothered. I've written before about what women want, and what they want is erotica that isn't crude, rude and in-your-face pornographic. While I have nothing against dirty talk—there is definitely a time and place where such language and suggestions are titillating rather than offensive and off-putting—I usually don't want to read about it in my romance novels. I love the euphemistic language that describes love in paranormal fantasy and romance books. I love the soft focus lens that such vocabulary imparts on the images described in these novels. If you really think about it, sex is an awkward, messy business that is wonderful when you're doing it, but can seem tawdry and a little sad when it's a spectator sport. To me, the rounded edges that the more suggestive language offers is more evocative than more explicit descriptions would be.

There must be something to this, because the romance genre is booming. Historical, contemporary and paranormal romances are all the rage. It's also been suggested that the advent of the electronic reader has given a boost to the chick lit market and made the classic "bodice-ripper" more acceptable fare than before we could hide the exact nature of our reading choices from curious eyes on the bus, train, plane or park bench. I've told the story before about my straight-laced boss sitting on a plane next to me, grabbing the latest Meredith Gentry novel out of my hands to read the back cover. Awkward!! These days, no one knows what I'm reading unless I tell them-- although, of course, I'm done with being embarrassed about my reading choices and have used this blog to announce my love of smut to the world.

Except it isn't smut, is it?  Sex in romance books, including the paranormal variety, is so far from smutty that it's like calling a unicorn a horse. It's not. It's an entirely different animal. These characters aren't rutting mindlessly. They are making mad, passionate love after a well-written build-up of will they/won't they. They are soul mates, bonded couples, lovers for life—and if it's a paranormal book, that life could be hundreds, if not thousands of years long. Talk about commitment! But the sex these fictional folks are having is idealized for women--written by women, for women and, usually, from the female perspective. Let’s just say here that nice guys finish last, and they are all nice guys in these books--our heroines wouldn’t have it any other way.

So how these wonderful authors communicate all of this powerful emotion and intense physical and spiritual connection counts. I can't imagine it's easy to write an effective sex scene in romance literature. So my hat is off to those authors who do it well. Not too long ago, I was privileged to be asked to be a beta reader for one of the indie authors I follow. The book was very good, but I did have a number of suggestions (many of which were incorporated into the final version, I'm delighted to say). One question the author asked was whether we, the beta readers, liked the sex scenes and specifically whether we agreed with the vocabulary she used. Perspicacious question.  In the event, I didn't like the specific terms she'd used. I felt they were too clinical. On the other hand, I also dislike Penthouse Forum-type language that tends to focus attention on only the physical aspects of the event and highlight the more salacious perspectives, which always makes me feel like a slightly pervy voyeur. 

Instead, I love the well-written sex scenes that allow me to feel like I'm in the scene itself. I want to imagine myself as the woman within the pages, experiencing the transcendence of the moment. Because, in fact, that transcendent element is exactly what separates the good sex scenes from the cringe-worthy ones, and the pornographic from the erotic and romantic. l love the scenes where the two partners are taken out of themselves and are so into each other that the rest of the world melts away.   And, yes, there are the Laurell Hamilton sex scenes that involve more than two partners, but Laurell is in a class by herself and she can make scenes that can only be described as hard-core pornography work from an erotic/romantic/loving perspective—but she is the only one I've read who can do that. And then, of course, there is the inimitable Kresley Cole who writes in three different genres, including adult erotica. Those books are smoking hot—and could also be characterized as more traditionally- focused pornography, but again, she makes it work from a woman's perspective. One of the things I love about Kresley Cole, and which I've written about before here, is that she celebrates women's healthy and enthusiastic sexuality. Which is awesome. Women like sex as much as men do. The difference is that women like good sex. Men just like sex. 

So, please, all of your writers who are my rock stars (Mick Jagger has nothing on Kresly Cole, Laurell K. Hamilton, JR Ward, Thea Harrison, Nalini Singh, Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris, etc.), please keep watching your language and conveying your descriptions artfully and beautifully.  Women want sex to be beautiful, and that includes the words used to describe every, single, minute detail.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I'm so excited to tell you about Lilo Abernathy's new offering in the Bluebell Kildare series, The Light Who Binds. You all know how much I loved The Light Who Shines, and how much food for thought that book inspired. Book 2 is no different, with a great mystery and lots of answers to questions raised in the first book (I have a pet peeve when an author makes us wait for multiple books to advance the story arc--and I love it when we get answers that make sense and lead us to want even more, as Lilo's books do--but back to the subject at hand). Today, I'm evolving my thoughts about hope and fear, which I've written about before, complements of the fabulous Fever series by Karen Marie Moning and Lilo Abernathy. According to Ms. Moning, and I agree with her, hope strengthens, fear kills. Hope is a major theme that Lilo Abernathy explores in her novels and The Light Who Binds has further illuminated the subject for me.  What happens when what we fear is hope?  In my last post on this subject, I cited the poet James Richardson who wrote that a pessimist fears hope while an optimist fears fear. What does it mean to fear hope and what the hell should we do about it? 

In The Light Who Binds, there are a lot of opportunities for hope. Blue hopes that Jack will become deconflicted and admit that he has romantic feelings toward her. Jack hopes that Blue will be able to forgive him when she finds out what he's been keeping from her all this time. Daylight Vampires (the good guys) hope that Blue will turn out to be the savior of their race so that they can avoid being damned to the Plane of Fire. Gifted humans (those with magical abilities) hope that Norms (non-magical humans) will stop persecuting them and learn to live in peace. Blue hopes that she will be able to meet everyone else's hopes. There is a lot of hope being bandied about. But no one is particularly happy about it. 

So it seems I'm going to contradict myself, for those of you keeping score in a less than generous mood. If you are more charitably inclined, I'm going to refine my arguments (of course, few of us are allowed to refine or change our minds these days--if we said something or did something--anything--that was recorded for posterity no matter how long ago, we are now forever being held to that position or belief in perpetuity. God forbid our thinking should be allowed to develop without our being accused of being a total hypocrite—(but I think I've strayed fairly far afield again, sorry). Hope strengthens, fear kills, except when fear of hope is justified and letting go of hope--without falling into despair--is sometimes the thing to do.

Are you baffled yet, 'cause I'm making my own head spin. Let's take this one step at a time. I think what I'm saying is that like love, we can sometimes unclench the fist we've wrapped around our hope and let it fly away. If it comes back, it's ours forever. If it doesn't, it never was. For example, Blue loves Jack. But she's gotten her hopes up so many times, only to have them dashed against the cliffs of Jack's ambivalence and unwillingness to commit his feelings one way or the other, that she is afraid to hope that things might change. Such hope is painful and sets up a roller coaster of feelings that could leave anyone feeling weak and nauseated. But rather than falling into despair, Blue charts a different, more effective course (if efficacy is measured in terms of whether she gets what she wants with the least amount of drama and extremes of emotion). Blue decides, or is somehow able, to accept that circumstances are not what she'd prefer in the moment, and she's not going to invest a lot of energy in future expectations that may not be met, but she will be content to let the potential unfold the way it will. This approach is much like I imagine Zen to be (I'm not much of a Zen girl, although I do aspire to a more balanced and even-keeled existence--except when I prefer to pay the price of ridiculous highs with the counterweight of abysmal lows--I'll keep you posted on how that all works out for me; I know you're waiting with baited breath).

So Blue is neither hopeful nor fearful. And she’s not in despair. She's taking it as it comes. I think I know what that feels like, maybe. I have a brother. He's my only sibling. We were extremely close growing up. We have been estranged for the past twenty years, and had a complete break two years ago when my mother died. For twenty years, I hoped that we could repair our relationship. But every time I reached out to him, it ended badly, with my heart a little more broken by him than it was before. But I refused to let go of my hope that things would improve. I was terrified by that hope; however, because like Pavlov's dog, I had become conditioned to believe that any hope associated with my brother would inevitably lead to excruciating pain shortly thereafter. I'd gotten burned so often I was a hot mess (to paraphrase one of Lilo’s particularly awesome sentences).

How does this story end?  I think I've finally gotten to where Blue hangs out; I accept that the situation is what it is. I have no expectations that the relationship with my brother will improve. On the other hand, if I were convinced that something had fundamentally changed, I could be persuaded to open the door to hope once again and invite it to come in and take a load off.

The lesson here, I think, is that if we can divorce hope from expectation, then we can hold onto hope--which strengthens--and let go of fear--which kills. When we get to the place where we fear that which strengthens us, we need to look at the nature of our hope and question whether it has morphed into expectation, which is just a short hop from making demands. In my experience, demands are rarely met with joyful compliance on the other end. I try to avoid making demands, as success is usually specious, engendering resentment and resistance that inevitably come back to make us regret the whole endeavor.

Have I come full circle?  Can I still say hope strengthens and fear kills?  And can I also say that maybe hope isn't such a schizophrenic bitch, but that expectation masquerading as hope is?  Does this formula work for you?  Do I need to contemplate this subject some more? Perhaps I'll have to wait for the next books in the Fever and Bluebell Kildare series to say for sure. In the meantime, I'll hope to avoid false hope and to embrace its more authentic expression. I'll eschew fear in all its forms to the best of my ability and have faith that I'll be able to recognize all these variations when I encounter them. I’ll choose the audacity of hope and remember that courage is fear that has said its prayers. 

Moves Like Jagger

I saw the Rolling Stones in concert last night in Raleigh, North Carolina. The tickets and the trip were a 50th birthday gift from my beloved husband, who knows how much I love the Stones and Mick Jagger in particular. And let me just say this right up front: I will be eternally grateful that Mick still has great hair and not an ounce of fat on him. He may not be moving like he did when I was seventeen and saw him for the first time at Madison Square Garden, but then again, neither am I. If I'm in half as good shape as he is when I hit my seventies, I will be a happy girl. But I've digressed before I've even started. Toward the end of the concert, Mick told the audience (which was composed of people as old or older than me, some of whom brought their grown children) that when the Stones played Raleigh for the first time, it was FIFTY YEARS ago. Basically before I was born. And that got me to thinking about the nature of longevity and deification, because the Stones have been treated like gods for a very long time now. The Rolling Stones are one of the few bands that have A) lived this long; B) stayed together; and C) are still performing in packed stadiums to screaming, adoring crowds. To me, they offer a lesson in what it must be like to be one of the immortal alpha males of my beloved fantasy novels. I've written about the burden of immortality before here. My thoughts have evolved as a result of seeing actual humans whose lives approximate, in a small way,  characters such as Karen Marie Moning's Barrons, Thea Harrison's Dragos,  and Nalini Singh's Raphael —if these characters actually existed (I think about them like they are real, but I am aware that they are fictional projections created by brilliant authors—no matter how realistic my fantasies may seem—but I’m wandering off the reservation again, aren’t I?).  These [fictional] creatures have lived for thousands of years, were worshiped as gods, and possessed remarkable powers. Kind of like Mick and the boys—with fewer years behind them, of course. Is it possible to come out the other end of that kind of time, power and consistent adulation with any amount of perspective or humility?  Seems like it wouldn't be, doesn't it?

In Ancient Rome,  general celebrated a military triumph with a procession through Rome, the populace stood on the side of the road cheering uproariously.  Amid all of this glorification, however, there was a guy standing just behind that general, whispering in his ear, "Remember thou art mortal."  Talk about raining on someone's parade! But the wet washcloth routine was carefully designed by the same folks who thought of feathers and vomitoriums--you know, so you can have your cake and eat it too-- to ensure that these military superheroes didn't go off the narcissistic deep end. Mostly, they did anyway (can you say "Caligula?"-even though he was an emperor, I know, but Julius Caesar was pretty full of himself too). One has to ask, could anyone stay sane and even a little humble under such circumstances?

There might be a way--a safety valve, if you will. I'm thinking that even when life comes in the extra-large size, both in terms of length and attributes, it also throws enough curve balls at us so that if we have a modicum of common sense, we are forced, sooner or later, to understand that the vicissitudes of fate do not spare the rich, the powerful or the beautiful. Life bites us in the ass every time. The longer we live, the more opportunity for dentition in the region of our backsides.

I'm not saying life isn't grand. For me, right now, it certainly is. I am savoring the sweetness of being in love, being on vacation, having adventures and extraordinary experiences (my husband and I have agreed that the best gifts at this point in our lives are activities not stuff). But the point of this appreciation is that it isn't always like this. Life is often hard, even for the likes of Mick Jagger, who is certainly living an extraordinary existence by any measure. But even Mick is not immune to suffering; he lost his partner to suicide not too long ago, which had to bring him up short. For the likes of Barrons, Dragos and Raphael, the reversals of fortune multiplied in direct proportion to the number of years on this plane. As I've written about before, the deathwatch list for them must be interminable. Such realities keep us humble.  Mostly.

But, as we know from reading misses Moning, Harrison and Singh, not all immortal powerhouses got the humility memo. Many just lose their marbles and become sociopathic nightmares. But hey, that happens to us mortals, too, especially the ones who are lulled into a specious sense of self-importance because they have achieved some measure of success, fame, or influence. They forget that we are given our gifts to use for the higher good, not to inspire the likes of Carly Simon to write songs about our outsized vanity.

I'm thinking the Romans got it right, although maybe not about the group bulimia thing. Remembering thou art mortal, even when it's not true, like for my paranormal alpha gods, is good advice. It's good advice me, and it's good advice for Mick Jagger too, because while he has held up remarkably well, his strut is a little more subdued and his voice has a little less projection than it once did.  He’s got to be feeling the burden of his years, and the inexorable march of time makes everyone humble, even the giants.  Still, I'd give a lot to have the moves like Jagger, for however long his longevity lasts.

Mixing It Up

I'm still enjoying Jennifer Ashley's Shifters Unbound series. The characters are well developed, the world building is interesting, the plots move along nicely and the sex is hot. What more can I ask?  Not much, I'll tell you. In Ms. Ashley's world, there are several varieties of shifters, including Feline (cats), Lupine (wolves) and Ursine (bears). Each variety is a souped-up combination of species found in the wild, so each type of shifter already represents a mix. Then, when the shifters are brought in from the wild, they begin to mix with each other and with humans. Talk about your blended families.  This mixology got me thinking about the difficulties that ensue when people from different countries, cultures, religions, races, and ethnicities get together and try to make a go of marriage or committed relationships. I remember my mother warning me about the challenges of interfaith marriage (I don't think she could have contemplated an interracial marriage).  She told me that marriage is hard and requires a lot of work. She said that coming from different religions just makes it harder. I think I was five when we had this conversation. 

Fast-forward about twenty-five years, and the gist of what she was talking about began to make sense. My husband and I had a little Green Acres action going on (I know I'm dating myself with this reference to sitcoms from the seventies, but you already know how old I am). I grew up on Park Avenue in Manhattan. My husband grew up in rural Washington State, in a locale whose claim to fame was that it was first in line to get ashed when Mt. St. Helens erupted. My apartment building had a larger population than his hometown. Suffice to say that we had some differences in our experiences, our approach to life, our respective cultures, religions, you name it. And yet, while we had almost nothing in common on paper, we had everything in common that counted. Still do, in fact.

This phenomenon of mates who come together not in spite of their differences but because of them is a common trope in paranormal fantasy. In Jennifer Ashley's world, it's relationships between Felines and Lupines, but also between shifters and humans. In many of my amazing paranormal fantasy books, humans mate with all sorts of paranormal creatures and the supernaturals mate inside and outside of their own kinds. Interestingly, in many of these series, Ms. Ashley’s included, interspecies marriage is illegal (also in the Sookie Stackhouse series, where vampires and humans are not allowed to marry). I’m sure this is a commentary on what was the law of the land, but is no longer.  I wonder, given the Supreme Court’s landmark decision, whether this new reality will be reflected in my beloved fantasy books.  I bet it will.  But I digress.  Again.

Back to mixed marriages and all the questions they engender. To begin, what will they raise the kids?  Jennifer Ashley handles this question with aplomb, saying that if two kinds of shifters make a baby, the "cub" becomes the dominant form of shifter. In most of these books, however, interspecies breeding is rare, so when it happens, it’s usually an event that progresses a book plot. In some series, it's not possible for disparate species to make babies, so problem solved. In the real world, it’s a little less cut and dried when questions about how to honor and respect the heritage, history and customs of various cultures, beliefs and traditions need to be negotiated. For interfaith unions, there is the "December Dilemma." Do we celebrate Christmas, Hanukah or both?  Passover, Easter or both?  Or, do we do nothing and let the young ‘uns figure it out for themselves? How do we keep from confusing the children? Or ourselves? What about keeping multiple languages alive for the next generation?  Or teaching multiple history lessons at home?  Not to mention the faux pas we make when we don't fully understand or assimilate our mate's social mores or vocabulary into our everyday lives (have you ever heard a Gentile try to pronoun common Yiddish words and phrases?  Oy vey).  The whole thing is exhausting. And it can certainly lead to discord.

In my own household, even after more than two decades together, my husband is still dismayed when I pop the last bite of food in my mouth and there is none left for him. I assumed if he wanted some, he would have taken some off my plate. He expected me to offer. On the other hand, he’s consistently incredulous that I haven't yet learned that interrupting him to anticipate the end of his sentences is not an expression of my interest and love, which it is for me. For him, it's just rude and annoying. Go figure.

And then there is the issue that no matter how much we love each other and no matter now much we learn about each other, there are still aspects of ourselves that our partners may appreciate, but will never truly relate to. My husband is still slightly horrified by my misspent youth in 1980s New York City, while I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that he lived in such a homogenous town he had to travel at least an hour before he might encounter someone with skin darker than his, or someone who didn't worship Jesus. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it?  

And sometimes, no matter how much we love our mates, we need to be with our peeps. You know, the ones who get us, not just because they love us, but because they lived our reality.  We may not even know these folks a long time but we feel an instant connection with someone and then bonded over similar geographic or cultural backgrounds. I love it when meet someone of my own species, New Yorkus Privilegus . It’s nice not to have to explain things sometimes,

So, paranormal fantasy authors gets it right when they explore the challenges and humor associated with dating and mating outside one's own tribe. The rewards are many, the least of which is avoiding having a family tree with no branches, but which also include expanding our horizons and perspectives and creating something unique and precious together. As always, we must ask ourselves, is the cake worth the bake?  If the love is strong and both partners have the courage of commitment, then yes, yes it is. If one or the other participant is weak, it may not work out so well. In the end, mixing it up may not be for everyone, but it’s amazing that everyone may now have the right to decide what works for each of them.

The Coin of the Realm

I'm still listening to the Black Dagger Brotherhood and once again, I was struck by the wisdom of JR Ward.  I'm listening to Lover Enshrined, Phury's book. Phury, IMHO, is one of the greatest characters ever written. He is so complex and so well developed I am sure he exists somewhere out in the world. Except he's a vampire and a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, so maybe not. But despite being a badass who lives in a mansion existing at the pinnacle of the social pile, Phury has had a difficult life. And those difficulties have left scars that no amount of health, wealth, friends, family or status can smooth over. Phury is a hot mess, and, in Lover Enshrined, we become privy to his devolution and descent into the abyss of addiction and self-destruction.

The way JR Ward describes the reasons behind Phury's addiction and the inevitable progression of his disease makes me think she has some experience in this arena. So do I, but that will be a topic for another post. What captured my attention today is a line where Phury is thinking about his existence and believes that, "life was a coin that had disaster on one side and waiting for disaster on the other."  I could relate.

Suffice to say that when Phury talks about life being either disaster or waiting for disaster, he knows what he's talking about. All children who live with addiction and neglect take on a certain measure of waiting for the other shoe to drop. But living under the sword of Damocles is a very difficult and draining way to live. All that waiting and worrying and peering upward or over our shoulders screws with a person's head.

I should know. For much of my life, I spent my time in the same useless place—living in disaster or waiting for it to hit. Such a way of life sucks the joy out of every moment. Because I couldn't be in the moment when I was distracted by my own misery or the certainty that misery was just around the corner. For a a lot of my childhood, I was justified in my wariness. Life with my mother was no party, I can assure you. But eventually I grew up and interacted with the source of my insanity only when I chose to do so. As an adult, my mother didn't control my thoughts, words or deeds. Except she did. She had taught me to expect bad things to happen, and to paraphrase Henry Ford, whether you think something bad will happen or you don't, you're probably right. 

We can waste our whole lives waiting for Godot, or disaster. I thought I had made progress with this particular problem, only to be reminded of how insidious the lessons we learn as children can be. As you know (cause I've talked about it ad nauseum), I turned 50 three weeks ago and planned a party. Yay me. In fact, and again, as you are all more than aware to the point of being thoroughly sick of it, I had prepared long and hard for this milestone, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was feeling good—dare I say, even joyful. I was embracing my new status as a card-carrying member of AARP and reveling in the blessings of age while trying—more or less successfully—to stave off the worst of the inevitable melting thighs and jiggling arms. Life was good. I had stopped waiting for disaster. 

So, of course, that's when it came. A few days before my big party, one of our dogs bit my husband on the nose (this was my husband's fault for putting his face near the dog's mouth—he's a great dog, in fact). Well, to make a long story short enough to prevent your eyes from glazing over, the dog bite became horribly infected and was not responding to any antibiotics. This was not good. In fact, it was disastrous. I hadn't taken my umbrella. So it rained. 

I was angry. I was disappointed. I felt betrayed by the Universe. I had actually let go of waiting for the other shoe to fall and had some faith that I could be unreservedly happy—for just a little while at least—and my world came crashing down around my ears with portents of becoming a young widow and facing single parenthood (yes, I totally went there).

And as I pondered the coin that is my life and railed against the gods for dangling joy in front of my face, only to have it snatched away like some sadistic asshole teasing a dog with a bone he'll never have, someone told me a story that shifted my whole perspective. It's a Zen story about the tigers and the strawberry. Essentially, some poor shmuck ends up being chased by tigers over a cliff. He catches himself on a branch protruding from the side of the mountain, but realizes he won't be able to hold on for long. When he looks down, he sees a long drop and another tiger waiting at the bottom of the cliff. But he also notices a perfect, plump, ripe strawberry growing out of the side of the mountain. He reaches out and plucks the strawberry, savoring its sweet taste.

This is a powerful story about living in the moment and wresting everything we can from life by being present to the reality of our lives as it is RIGHT NOW. In the moment, my husband wasn't dead, or in the hospital, or disabled, or battling a protracted illness. In the moment, I didn't have to cancel my party or our upcoming vacation or life as I knew it. In the moment, my friends all came to celebrate with me and show their love, and I was able to receive all of it. In the moment, though, I wasn't completely there—because I was so distracted by the tigers, I couldn't fully appreciate the sweetness of the strawberry. I was Phury and his blasted coin of disaster.

I don't think I'll be spoiling anyone's experience by saying that Phury eventually overcomes his affinity for disaster and finds his own personal HEA, which for him involves hitting rock bottom and then overcoming his addiction, finding true love and fulfilling his destiny. Phury trades his coin of disaster in for a different currency—one of hope and faith and peace. I need to find a new ATM. 

The Lullaby of Letting Go

There's an adage I love that says that nothing I've ever let go of didn't have claw marks on it. There's another that tells us that we must let go or be dragged  (anyone who's water skied knows that one). Why is to so very hard to let go, once we've got ahold of something, whether it's a person, a job, an idea or philosophy, a situation, stuff, etc.?  Why do we hold on well past the expiration date of relationships gone bad, situations that have begun to stink with decay and possessions that have turned the tables and now possess us, rather than the other way around? In the fifth installment of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Lover Unbound, there’s one of those scenes that is so real, it's like a splash of cold water to the face. To the point where I felt the need to check my makeup to ensure I didn't have raccoon eyes from the drip. Sometimes, I completely forget I'm reading paranormal fantasy. So even though the scene in question involves a dead woman deciding whether to leave Limbo and ascend to heaven by letting go of her earthly love, the emotions were so raw and so real, I felt like I was that character, struggling with how to let go the ties that bind her to her love, knowing that she needed to do it, but having no idea how.

How many of you have been there?  God knows I have, more times than I care to count. Because even if the will is there, or at least the intellectual understanding that the time has come to pry our fingers loose, sometimes the letting go just doesn't happen. This is where misery comes to visit—sometimes for a long time.

I can't be the only one who tells myself that I'm going to be ruthless about spring cleaning and that I’m going to throw or give away all the stuff I haven't used in a year, only to have a pathetically small pile at the end of the day. Because, you know, I might fit into that fabulous little black dress that is definitely too little for me these days sometime in the unspecified future. And I know I'm not the only one who used to make deals with myself, and also my friends, that if he put me down one more time, I was going to tell him it's over, only to find myself making excuses so that I didn’t have to make good on my promises to let go. 

The truth is I'm not very good at letting go, but in my defense I don't actually understand the mechanics of the whole experience. Luckily, I have JR Ward to teach me life lessons that she puts in the mouths of ghosts and vampires. Ms. Ward tells us that letting go means accepting what cannot be changed without any hope or expectation. Letting go, according to JR Ward, means acceptance without bargaining or trying to control outcomes. It means accepting that love doesn't necessarily conquer all, life isn't always fair, and the good guys don't always win. These are tough truths to swallow, even when they are sugar-coated in some of my very favorite fantasy stories. 

Letting go is hard. No two ways about it and no getting around it except for through it. I hate that. It’s getting to the place where we can look at reality with the scales fallen off our eyes and accept what is in front of us to see without thinking there is any escape from reality. Getting to a place where we can let go is a process. For me, it's an expression of grace, something I cannot will myself to do, that comes when it comes, on someone's timeline not my own.

If I were a Vulcan, it would probably be easier. I could apply my not-inconsequential intellectual skills to completing a cost/benefit analysis on should I stay or should I go now. And then do whatever logic dictates is the best choice. Because if I go there will be trouble, and if I stay it will be double. Go, it is. Except it doesn't work quite as cleanly as The Clash would have us believe. It's not always a matter of the mind, but rather a total eclipse of the heart (OK—no more song lyric references—I've been watching too much Lip Sync Battle, apparently). We get attached and stay attached. Like barnacles on the bottom of a boat. We need to be scraped away from that which no longer serves us, painful and messy as that can be.

But the payoff is Divine.  The payoff is serenity. The payoff for letting go is peace.  It is the most beautiful lullaby I’ve ever heard, lulling me to a place of deep surrender and harmony.  The price is high, but the reward is worth it.

It’s sad but true that everything I let go of has claw marks on it.  Even though I know that it’s something I need to do and that I will feel glorious when I actually manage to do it.   On the other hand, acceptance and letting go are not for the faint-hearted. This is the stuff of epics, don't kid yourself. Take it one day at a time and ask for help. I certainly do. In fact, I'm going to finish this post and go back to my current life coach, JR Ward, and get all the help I can get. That lady knows from whence she speaks. She's as real as they come, imbuing all her fantasy with ground truth. I'm holding onto that. 

The Burden of Beauty

I've spent my whole life wanting to be beautiful and not making it. In my mother's world, the one where I spent my formative years, being beautiful was all that really counted—followed closely by being rich, which being beautiful would inevitably achieve. In the world according to my mother, it was never too early to start planning for plastic surgery (she dragged me to have my nose fixed when I was 15), watching my figure like a hawk (which resulted in my developing a major eating disorder), and happily shelling out ridiculous sums of money for couture clothing while balking at buying me a computer for school. The bitch of it  (besides her) was that I never did live up to her standards of beauty and I was therefore always a disappointment to her.  So imagine my surprise as I'm reading the eighth installment of Darynda Jones' entertaining Charley Davidson series, Eighth Grave After Dark, when Ms. Jones introduces the idea that beauty can be a burden, something that is undesirable and even annoying (to be fair, this may not have been the first time she introduced the idea, but maybe the first time I was able to hear it). In the series, Charley, a supernatural being of great power, cleverly disguised as a rather flighty private investigator, falls in love with the ultimate bad boy (about whom I've written here), the son of Satan, a man of impossible beauty named Reyes Farrow. Reyes is smoking hot. As in literally—he burns with the fires of Hell. But he's also figuratively sizzling, with temperatures approaching asphalt in Death Valley in July. Men want to be him. Women want to be with him.

The way Darynda Jones describes him, Reyes can't go to the restroom without throngs of women throwing their thongs at him. Ladies lose IQ points as well as their ability to speak coherently when Reyes walks into the room. And he can cook!  Not to mention his sexual prowess. Sounds like a fairy story, right? Right. But the interesting part of this cautionary tale involves the fact that for Reyes, his beauty is definitely a liability rather than an advantage. He has no interest in the female interest he generates, because he only has eyes for one woman—the one he came to earth to claim, Charley. He doesn't even glance at other women, not even in the "I may be happily married but I'm not dead" sense of the word. And when there is no possibility of these women's attentions being returned, it's like finding out your secret crush is gay. Huge bummer—for the women, that is.

As I have no real idea what it would be like to be so beautiful that men fall over themselves when they behold my visage, I'll have to use my imagination and consider what a day in the life of Angelina Jolie must be like. It seems like the problem with beauty is that it's hard to see beyond it. I mean, you've got to feel sorry for Brad Pitt—yes, he gets to have sex with Angelina Jolie, but no one really takes his acting as seriously as he'd like because he's just too pretty to be talented. I think folks assume that when God gives out the goodies, it would be too unfair to heap too much goodness in any one place. In fact, female actors who hope to garner Academy Awards have to go ugly—think Halle Berry in Monster's Ball or Charlize Theron in Monster—are we sensing a theme here?

Beauty can also be a crutch, a shortcut someone uses to avoid working too hard or expending too much effort beyond making sure hair and makeup are looking fresh and crisp. Humans are attracted to beauty, defined by our lizard brains as symmetry, because being balanced apparently signals strong genetic stock, suitable for breeding and passing along our DNA to the next generation. So beautiful people get stuff the rest of us don't.

I remember during my misspent youth that my friends and I would go to the New York clubs like Area and Studio 54 and try to get in.  And some guy would be standing above the multitudes, looking down and choosing who can come in and who would get kicked to the curb, stranded on the sidewalk because they weren't good looking enough to warrant entry. I had one friend (she's still my friend) who would come to visit from LA and inevitably, when she was with me, we'd get picked to go in. I was always grateful, but also wistful that I didn't have that kind of mojo. 

I have another friend who dislikes getting any sort of compliment or comment on her appearance because she feels that by focusing on her physicality, others are dissing her spirit. I'm not sure I agree with her, but it's an interesting point. I do agree that there is far too much focus on our physical appearance and not enough on our characters and our personalities. Not to mention my personal favorite, our intelligence in all its aspects—academic, emotional, cultural, street smarts, common sense, etc. How we look has no bearing on any of that, except that a good brain can sometimes provide work-arounds for less-than-beautiful areas of our physical selves (a good sense of style and knowledge of hair products are key here).

So, all in all, it's hard to say whether beauty is a gift or a curse or both. I think the most difficult aspect of beauty must be the prospect of losing it. Beauty fades. Character endures. Sometimes, as in my mother's case, the wilting of her rose over time meant her useful life was over (in her mind). It was very sad to watch her wither and withdraw into herself, as she perceived her looks to diminish and finally disappear altogether (in fact, she was more beautiful as a mature woman than she'd been as a young woman, but she never saw that, sadly).

So, I think my mother was dead wrong, and there is so much more to life than what we look like. I aspire to be beautiful to my husband, but behind that, I can't see that it makes much difference. I like to take care and pride in my appearance, but that reflects my sense of self respect and self worth more than a need or desire to be attractive to others. And, as I never achieved true beauty in this lifetime, I'll thank Ms. Jones for the object lesson on the pitfalls of being Brad Pitt. Or Reyes Farrow. And I'll be grateful for the perspective and truth I continue to find in my beloved fantasy books. 

The Politics of Prejudice

I'm enjoying a new author, Jennifer Ashley, and the first book of her Shifters Unbound series, Pride Mates. It's light and airy, mostly, and the perfect antidote to the marvelous but depressingly heavy Robin Hobb trilogy I just finished. But even when an author colors inside the lines of the paranormal fantasy genre, as Ms. Ashley does (and this is not at all a criticism, I read these books with a certain expectation of knowing what to expect), there is a depth to the best of the genre that transcends the stereotypes of strong, independent women, hot alpha males, hotter sex, and inevitable HEAs. In this case, Ms. Ashley writes about beautiful people, who happen also to change into feline and lupine alter egos (or alter bodies, really), and the decidedly not beautiful consequences of prejudice that attend their ability to transform. Ms. Ashley is not the first to explore the ugly underbelly of human hatred and the small mindedness of judgment before the fact attendant to the “other” in our society. Charlaine Harris explores the consequences of racial discrimination against the newly revealed vampires living among humans and what happens when vampires "come out of the coffin."  The inimitable Laurell Hamilton writes movingly about the prejudice experienced by those unfortunates who have been stricken with lycanthropy (the disease that causes a human to shift into a beast), and who now have no option but to let their animal natures out to play, and maybe to kill. Patricia Briggs expounds on the systematic internment of the Fae into mandatory reservations and the consequences of that decision by the federal government against an element of the population. Lilo Abernathy investigates, as a central theme of her Bluebell Kildare series, the civil unrest that occurs as a result of the antipathy between "norms," or non-magical humans, and their Gifted counterparts.

In each of these cases, the author explores the universal human need to identify a group, "them," for the sole purpose of more clearly defining "us." What a shame and a waste. But we humans do it again and again. That which is not "us" is, by definition, "them." Those who are "them" are, by extension and necessity, evil or, at a minimum, worse than "us." They are who we use to make us look and feel better about ourselves.

Are we hard-wired to hate? It seems so. Hatred of the other, which I've written about before, gives us unity, camaraderie, and a sense of shared purpose. It makes us feel like we belong—but it is a perversion of fellowship and community, not an authentic expression of fellowship. This phenomenon of human existence also serves to help some of us feel superior to others. We do this in a bizarre and seemingly nonsensical way (as if prejudice could ever have any basis in logic or reality, which makes makes sense in a twisted way, if you know what I mean).

In all of these distasteful scenarios, and quite explicitly in the world of Shifters Unbound, the non-human, supernatural beings are considered less than human. These are not beings with full rights because they are not considered full persons. They, like American slaves, along with Jews, gypsies and homosexuals in Nazi Germany before them, are fractional people, so that more than one is needed to make a whole. What a concept. Personally, I have trouble wrapping my mind around it, which is a good thing and I won't expend too much effort trying. It's not clear to me how someone or more than one someone, can look at a living, breathing entity in front of them who has two eyes, ears, arms and legs just like they do, whose faces form smiles and frowns and whose voices speak truth and beauty just like theirs do, and see them as less than human.

As you know, I love the world of paranormal fiction because it allows authors to explore ideas and philosophies in an exaggerated way to make their points. In Jennifer Ashley's world, shifters are herded into ghettos called Shiftertowns in different cities. These are analogous to internment and refugee camps or Native American reservations. After all, we need to keep them contained and accountable. If they are all forced to live in one place, we'll know where to find them, won't we? And then we’ll be able to control them, and isn't that what this little exercise in fear and prejudice is all about?  This way of thinking is very warped, but seems to be prevalent, nonetheless. In Pride Mates, not only are shifters forced to live in Shiftertowns, they are also forced to wear magical collars that supposedly keep their beasts in check. Talk about taking control to the next level. 

And, while the shifters (or any disenfranchised population) is corralled into ghettos and forced to wear symbols of their status, their captors (those would be the humans) like to practice deprivation. In Pride Mates, shifters aren't allowed access to cable TV or high-speed internet (controlling access to information, presumably), and they are not allowed to hold any job where they might come into physical contact with human (gee—not even as manicurists?).  This deprivation is partly preventive, because it ensures that the dominated population can never become too rich or too powerful, but it’s also punative—a punishment for being less than—as if those who are denigrated in this way have any choice in the matter. And while deprivation might serve to keep the population down, physically and psychologically, it is also, as we’ve seen time and again, a recipe for fomenting discontent and rebellion. Stupid is as stupid does.  Again, I’m talking about the humans in this scenario.

Because, of course, all of this says a great deal more about “us” than it does about “them.”  Anyone who would subjugate a population just because it’s different or because they can doesn’t actually deserve to be called human, at least in my book. People who enslave, or imprison or degrade others to prop themselves up are the beasts, the savages, the ones unworthy of the status of personhood.  That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to live or to do as they want—as long as what they want doesn’t involve putting and keeping others down. So, along with my light and airy read, my paranormal fantasy also provokes deep and meaningful thoughts.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.