I'm Not Listening

I've just started John Hartness' Bubba the Monster Hunter stories. I'm still not entirely sure if this is a novella series like Quincy Harker or more of a collection of short stories, but no matter.  I'm digging Harkness’ style mightily, and I love that he moves these plots along in a timely manner, rather than dragging them out over three hundred pages. You go, John Hartness! Your efficient storytelling style working for me. But, enough literary critique. The topic at hand is the phenomenon of things that go in one ear and out the other. I would love to say that this is an injustice that has been visited on me while my own auditory skills remain wholly unaffected. That would be a bald faced lie (although you know what they say—lie big or go home—you know, like Donald Trump—oops, did I say that out loud?!). What, they don't say that?  I must not have been listening. My bad.  And that's the point. It is my bad.  And yours, and pretty much everyone else's. I started thinking about how little we listen to each other as I was reading about Bubba and Skeeter (fabulous names, by the way) in Hartness' collection (or "Season One" as he calls it) entitled, “Scattered, Smothered and Chunked," which sounds truly unappetizing.  In an exchange between our monster-killing heroes, Skeeter (the brains) explains the current assignment to Bubba (the brawn). It's a last minute explanation, delivered immediately before the action goes down.  To the readers, Bubba explains that Skeeter never tells him anything about a case "until it was time for the killing." Apparently, like many of us, Skeeter doesn’t like repeating himself and Bubba readily admits that he usually only "about half listened" to Skeeter anyway. What a friend, I thought to myself.

But then I thought to myself some more, and I had to retract my sarcasm (I love it when that happens—yes, I'm being sarcastic). Don't many of us "about half listen" to our friends and loved ones? Don't we listen with half an ear, or let others' voices roll off of us like ball bearings in an ice rink? I'm sure I'm guilty of that, and I know absolutely that my husband and kids are repeat offenders.  In fact, the problem is so pervasive that in almost any lecture or workshop about how to communicate better, or be a better partner, friend or employee there is always a section on active listening. I'm pretty sure when I was growing up it was just called "listening." As in you pay attention to what I'm saying and I'll give a shit about whatever you're blathering on about in return. No, I honestly don't mean that. But that used to be the social exchange and the currency was our attention. That all seems to have changed.

These days, when I'm "actively listening" to someone, maintaining full eye contact, making an effort to ask intelligent questions, leaning in and trying to appear as if I'm hanging on your every word, I've often been accused of being "aggressive" and "offensive."  We've watered down our presence and attention to the point where when someone gifts us with the full Monty, it's uncomfortably overwhelming. And how sad is that? It's so sad that when Bubba throws away a line about not fully listening to his partner—you know, the one trying to keep him alive while Bubba hunts the things that go bump in the night—it's meant to inspire a smile, not condemnation. I feel like a geezer bemoaning the state of our youth these days. Gag me.

What's going on here? Why does this happen?  I have a few theories that involve denouncing the state of our society, the world at large, and the like. But I think the epidemic of ADHD (a problem I suffer from myself, in fact), the hyper stimulation offered to all of us who are reasonably affluent and living in the developed world, and the constant competition for our attention are a big part of the problem. And then there is the incessant background noise. One of the things I love and crave about our home on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay is the spectacular sound of silence. In the morning, when I get up before anyone else and watch the sun come up over the water, there is nothing to hear except an occasional bird and sometimes the gentle lapping of the water against the shore. It is bliss.

On the other hand, the cacophony of TVs, radios, iPhones, boom boxes, video games, sports announcers, little kids, dogs and cats, colleagues, bosses, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, ambulances and other noise pollution is deafening. Literally—most of the baby boomers and now the Gen Xers are losing their hearing as a result of all the racket. No wonder we protect our ears by only lending half of then to all the voices vying for our notice.  So I get it. I do it. But what about when it is important for us to listen?  Have we basically lost the ability to separate the auditory wheat from the hum of chaff that surrounds it?  I fear that we have. I rarely feel fully attended to—it isn't often I know that my family members don't have one ear on one of their many electronic devices. It's off-putting and hurtful and can lead to one of two equally unfortunate outcomes—I get louder, or I get a serious case of the f-its. As in FU, I don't want to talk to you anyway.  This does not make for healthy or happy relationships. Nor for long-lived ones. So I "gently" point out to my distracted family that I'm feeling ignored and they respond with their undivided attention. Mostly.

So, let's not follow Bubba's example, even though I seriously like the dude and he kills zombies with battle axes, so he's got to be cool, right?   But I'm afraid his relationship skills leave something to be desired, and his listening skills flat out suck. Let’s give each other the gift of attending. Let’s lend each other both of our ears, instead of just one, or fractions thereof. Please don’t tell me, in any of the myriad ways there are to say, “I’m not listening.” It would be a tragedy of Bubba-like proportions.

Thank You, Thank You Very Much

"Thank you," I said to the woman who held the door open so that I could walk in ahead of her. Our pupils collided and I offered a small smile that made it to my eyes. It was an insignificant exchange, one of many I enjoy. I'd say I thought nothing of it, but that would be a lie. I think a lot about these random connections to strangers, acquaintances, friends and family alike.  These simple contacts mean a great deal to me, and I go out of my way to create, foster and nurture them throughout my day. Not so in the world of the fae, as I've read most recently in Kalayna Price's latest Alex Craft novel, Grave Visions.  In this book we learn, as I've read before, that to thank the fae is to acknowledge a debt that must subsequently be paid, rather than to express appreciation. And I started to think about a world in which I couldn't let my grateful heart shine through. What a dystopian reality, where I needed to stifle my instinct to be thankful.

I'm a gratitude junkie, as I've written about before. The blessing of a grateful heart is a joy in my life, and I love to be able to say and mean those two lovely words, "thank you." The phrase is so much more than letters strung together.  For me, an expression of gratitude is never cursory or perfunctory. Well, almost never—I am far from perfect, of course.

Some of my earliest memories are about gratitude. When I was quite young, I wanted to watch a TV show, but I didn't have my glasses with me (they were new and I wasn't used to wearing them all the time). My friend ran home to get them for me so I could watch. I still remember the feeling of being so thankful to her for that kindness. The feeling was so visceral, my heart so full that she would do that for me (she was asthmatic, and the run cost her lungs, but she did it anyway—that’s true friendship). I remember my gratitude toward my first grade teacher for intervening in my behalf with my mother so that I could go on a field trip my mom had decided was inappropriate for me (which was irrational on her part—it was a school trip, not a day at the casino). Anyway, my point is that my memories of feeling thankful have lingered long and deep, because it feels wonderful. 

When I chronicle the chapters and events of my life, I often think in terms of all the wonderful love and support that has been offered to me over the years. It seems that a deep sense of gratitude is associated with every situation and milestone of my life. When my father died, one of my estranged friends, whom I'd treated shabbily, showed up, despite my bad behavior. When my mother died, and I was away from home without appropriate funeral and mourning clothes, a sales lady in a large New York department store literally took my hand and clothed me from my underwear on outward, so I could meet my responsibilities to bury my mother in a manner she would have applauded. There is no way I would have been so put together without that woman, who didn't know me from Eve, but whose compassion I will forever remember with thanks.

In the Jewish religion, every aspect of every day is an occasion for gratitude toward God. In the Orthodox tradition, there is a blessing for each element of the day, including a satisfying bowel movement in the morning and sexual satisfaction with one's spouse. It's a beautiful tradition to be aware of the many occasions for gratitude throughout the day and throughout our lives. 

While I know that such expressions of heartfelt thanks benefit the recipient, the real winner in theses scenarios is me, the gratitude giver. It would be such a supreme shame for me not to be able to say and express my thanks, if I lived among the fae, for example. How awful to think that any declaration of gratitude engendered indebtedness. It is true that when someone does a kindness it is natural to want to return the favor. But that is a desire, not an obligation.

There are, of course, unfortunates who despise "owing" someone for any kind of benevolence, even when the person offering the consideration wasn't expecting anything in exchange. For some, being in someone's debt through an unreciprocated act of altruism is almost as bad as being the target of malevolence. Poor, misguided souls. They might as well live in Faerie with Alex Craft. I am grateful that I am not amongst those inhabitants and want to thank Kalayna Price for reminding how selfish and great a mere ‘thank you’ can feel – even if it is gratitude for a common courtesy such as holding a door open.

Eye of the Beholder

I'm halfway through the new Alex Craft novel by Kalayna Price, Grave Visions, and I've been struck by the many questions her central premise raises. Magic abounds in these books filled with witches, faeries and the realm of the dead (sounds like a weird combination, but she's making it work). I read the earlier books in this series a number of years ago, and I didn't remember most of the details (which happens often and doesn't speak well of my memory), but Ms. Price does a good job of summarizing past action, which I appreciate.  One of the more interesting aspects of her world-building involves the liberal use of glamour, which is the ability of the fae to change their appearance at will, about which I've written before. In this case, a putative suitor for Alex's hand in marriage morphs his shape to look like one of her old flames.  Neat trick, I thought. Then I proceeded to pull that string until the whole structure collapsed.  I'll explain. At first, I thought it would be über cool to be able to transform into my ideal of beauty. I could look like Natalie—Portman or Dormer, they will both do— and feel confident and secure in my physical charms. Or, I could have the ultimate makeover and look like my husband's dream girl—Meg Ryan before she was ruined by plastic surgery (let us note here that I look absolutely nothing like the young Meg Ryan, which begs the question of why my husband was attracted to me in the first place. On the other hand, he remains interested 23 years later, so I guess it's not worth thinking about. But I digress). Or, I could be the ultimate femme fatale and radically change my appearance as often as I change my hair color. Could be fun, no?

Maybe. But maybe not. If I spend some time wearing the face of one of the Natalies, how will I feel when I need to don my own visage again?  Kind of like the morning after a big night out—eyes puffy, hair on end, with black eyeliner making me look beaten up. Not my best look. But not my real look either, more of a passing disaster. But if I was wont to wear another's face, would I begin to feel that mine was the passing disaster, and would I start to avoid wearing it in the same way that I avoid extra-late, wine-fueled nights more than a few times a year? That would be sad. Not to mention highly faux. And we all know how I feel about fake. Fake is not fabulous.  If all of us could wear glamour, surely many of us would never wear our real selves on the outside. Which tends to lead to faking it on the inside as well. Kind of like how power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. The mind follows where the body leads, etc. What would that mean for the pursuit of authenticity?  I'm sure there would be some who would put a premium on being au naturel, but the pressure to be beautiful would likely be immense. And without the price – in terms of both financial and physical risk— of needing to undergo needles or surgery to look different than we are, wouldn't many of us be tempted to "improve" our appearances to some degree?  I think so.

And what would that do to the health consequences of bad choices?  Currently, if we do the crime, our faces and bodies tend to do the time. When we eat poorly or in excess, our weight shows our inability to eat wisely or well. If we smoke, not only do our lungs feel the pain, but the grey tinge to our skin gives us away every time. When we overindulge in alcohol, our eyes, noses and cheeks often sport the broken capillaries that are the hallmark of excess drink. It's hard to hide our bad choices without magic.  And if such glamour were widely available, wouldn't someone, or more than one someone, quickly come up with a way to pierce the veil of illusion?  Surely they would, because all of us would wish to "see" the wizard behind the curtain, so that we could make judgments based on truth, not fantasy. So in the end, what would be the point?  Would it make the world any prettier, or would we simply grow to understand the truly superficial and ephemeral nature of beauty?  Would we appreciate inner beauty more than outward appearances? Would we finally, finally stop putting a premium on physical perfection and begin emphasizing health, strength, flexibility and endurance?  One can only hope.

If everyone were objectively beautiful, would beauty cease existing in the eye of the beholder and shift to the subject? And if that happened, would it change anything? Would it matter if we were beautiful to our mates, or to our children? Would beauty stop being used as the preferred currency? And wouldn't that be something?

I have no answers to these questions, and it probably doesn't matter, as we don't live in such a world. But I'm grateful to Ms. Price for sparking such interesting food for thought and proving to me once again that there is profundity in fantasy and truth to be found in digging into supposedly frivolous fiction. 

Helping the Parentals

I’m intrigued by adult authors who write so convincingly about being in high school.  Personally, I’ve blocked out a lot of what I went through during those years. But it came flooding back to me as I read John G. Hartness’ foray into YA lit, From the Stone (New Knights of the Round Table, Book 1), a re-imagining of the King Arthur story where the characters are the geeks and freaks of our teenaged memories. Mr. Hartness captures the gestalt of that phase perfectly—the camaraderie, the debilitating insecurities, the ubiquitous stereotypes walking around masquerading as originals, because no one at that age really wants to be original—even the outsiders trying to be original do so in distinctly unoriginal ways.  You remember, right?  It was a nightmare. I love it when an author nails the teenaged zeitgeist, mostly so I can be grateful that I’m well past that particular circle of Hell (Dante failed to write about that one—it’s the eighth circle, I’m pretty sure). It’s a clever story, and my only complaint is that I have to wait for the next one to come out—hurry, Mr. Hartness, hurry.   In one scene, Gwen, one of the protagonists, responds to her mother’s concerned questions by assuring her worried parent that all was well, when it clearly was not.  In another scene, Gwen tells her parents that she’s dating Rex (aka Arthur) even though they’re friends not lovers, so that they won’t be so afraid she will grow up to be a crazy cat lady.  When Rex asks why Gwen had been so untruthful to her mom and dad, she responds that, “It's all about helping the Parentals make it through these difficult teenaged years, right?”

I will say that when I was a teenager I was in no way concerned about sparing my parents' feelings or helping them deal with me in all my hormonal, angst-ridden glory. They owed me for having the audacity to bring me into the world. All the responsibility was on them, not me. Mature, I know. But I wasn't, no matter how much I thought I was or wanted to be. 

The relationship between young adult children and their parents is tricky. It's a time of significant transition and one that often goes disastrously wrong. Parents often have a hard time letting go and kids often overestimate their ability to thrive in the real world without the direct and indirect support of their elders. Even when parents are prepared to let go to an appropriate extent over time, it's almost impossible to know where to draw the lines between encouraging independence and establishing necessary boundaries, no matter how earnest the efforts. I know this from first-hand experience.

I also understand the concept of managing one's parents.  I definitely did that, all the time, in fact. It wasn't for their benefit, but for mine.  A complacent parent was an unconcerned parent. Moreover, I always equated parental management with the strategies of ancient Roman administrators; it's all about the bread and circuses, dude. Feed the 'rents a steady diet of good grades and entertain them with the bullshit they want to hear about how much we want to succeed and go to a good school and get a good job and give them grandchildren. Problem: solved. But it mattered not at all to me whether their motivation to stay out of my biz was because they felt authentically calm and confident about my future, or because of my uncanny knack for lulling them into a false sense of security with my razzle dazzle. These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for.

In short, I didn't care at all about my parents' feelings. It was of no concern to me if they worried about the job that they were doing; I was a very typical, self-centered teenager interested mostly in what I could get away with. My strategy was to keep the focus firmly on my brother and his issues—thus keeping all eyes off me. I was not above convincing my brother to wear eyeliner like Mick Jagger and then pointing out to Mom and Dad that their son was wearing makeup and might be gay—and yes, back in the day, there would have been something wrong with that for my parents, sad to say.

As demonstrated by my willingness to impugn my brother’s reputation, my primary approach to dealing with the Parentals was to lie.  All the time. About everything. I'm told that that's the best way to pass a lie detector test (although I don't actually think it’s true).  By lying constantly, I completely lost sight of the line between harmless exaggerations and little white lies  (like Gwen telling her mother she was dating Rex) and soul-sucking deceptions that obscured my identity and corrupted my essential self.  Such lies are destructive—self-destructive, mostly, although they don't do anything for the target of the deceit, either. But back to Rex, Gwen, Lance and the gang. As I thought back on Gwen’s comments, I had to acknowledge that maybe the reasons for her misdirection concerning the nature of her relationship with Rex were self-promoting, but I don't think so. These kids seemed genuinely concerned about assuaging their parents' fears, which struck me as sweet.  I hope that if my kids are going to lie to me, it will be with similarly generous motives, misguided though they may be. Mostly, I just hope they’re not like me at that age.  That would be the ninth circle of Hell.

Everyone's a Winner

Welcome to my faithful followers and to all my new friends!  I am so excited to unveil my new site—(big shout out to Jamie Higdon at The Balanced Biz for all of her help!), now powered by Word Press, with an all-new look and a lot more functionality.  I’m grateful that you’ve joined me so far, and I hope you will continue to walk with me on this amazing journey.  It’s definitely been a road less traveled, and I’ve been delighted with the companions I’ve met along the way, including and especially YOU! Thank you and ENJOY!! I've just started digging into Elle Boca's latest Weeia novel, Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia. Fortunately for readers everywhere, this series is getting better with each installment. This most recent offering starts with a bang and hasn't let up.  Anyway, the bang that opens this novel got me thinking--and you know what that means!

As the book begins, Danni, our kick-ass protagonist, is preparing to take her field exam to progress to the next level as a Weeia Marshall. As we learn later, Danni has her share of detractors who don’t believe that she belongs at the Academy. In fact, her unpopularity with certain factions has led someone to play a cruel prank, sending a note saying the exam had been pushed back by two hours. Luckily, Danni has some good friends among the student body (and the faculty, as it turns out), and she arrives to the exam late, but nonetheless able to pass with flying colors. Her victory is clouded, however, by the malevolence of her peers and the desire of some to succeed based on her failure. For this faction – you know the type, they exist in truth as well as fantasy – someone has to lose in order for someone else to win.

I take issue with this zero sum view of winning, as does Elle Boca, if the characters she writes are any reflection of her life philosophy (which I believe they are, as I've written before).  And I've been thinking about these very concepts since I just saw a great quote on Twitter that said, "I don't believe in competition. I want us all to win."  

Before I get a slew of irate comments and emails about the fallacy of giving all participants participation awards and the annihilation of merit-based promotion, not to mention the equality of everyone, let me say I hear you and I don't necessarily disagree. It's foolish and delusional to insist that there are no such things as winners and losers in this world, Little League trophies for showing up to the contrary. But that isn't what I'm talking about.  Clearly, we can't all win at everything.

What we're talking about here is the ugly underbelly of competition, the one Ms. Boca illuminates with the fraudulent note intended to ensure Danni failed her test, leaving more slots and better assignments for others. That kind of competitiveness depends on the fallacy of insufficiency--that there is not enough--of anything--to go around. Of course, there are a limited number of Americans who will be our nation’s President, and as each election cycle teaches us, many who want the job. And, as we know from 50 years of Super Bowl games, not every team's members will get one of those coveted rings, which always makes me a little sad, as they seem to mean so much to those folks. And as I watched my family and friends watching the Super Bowl, they were focused on the winners and their platitudes ("I'm just grateful to have played; I couldn't have done it without my teammates," do these guys read off the same script?!), while my eyes were on the team that didn't win and feeling sorry for their loss.

One of my favorite museums in Washington, DC, is called the Newseum, a museum of news. They have a gallery where all of the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs ever taken are displayed. They are all arresting, but one that particularly caught my eye was a photo of the 1992 Nigerian women's track and field team, after the 4x100 meter race. While all the other photographers were training their lenses on the winning American team, one photographer captured the moment when the Nigerian women realized they had won the bronze--third place--medal. Their incandescent happiness was infectious and the photo is a joy to behold. No losers there.

When I was in graduate school, I studied for my PhD comprehensive exams with two fellow students. The experience of studying together created an incredible bond, despite the fierce competition between us. In the end, when the exams were graded, each of us had passed, which was a relief, but on top of that, each of us had "won" in a way: one of us had the highest scores on an individual question; one had the highest score from the first reader; while the last of us received the highest score from the second reader. We all had a claim to fame, and it made the shared success that much sweeter.

That's what I want, for everyone to win. In Elle Boca's book, Danni has a similar attitude, and she's dismayed when others don't share her generous view of the world. I feel her pain. Why can't we all be happy for each other's wins, big and small?  Why does someone need to lose for someone else to win? Does it count if we win on the backs of our fellows? Not to me. I want the world to celebrate my successes, as I celebrate everyone else’s. And yes, I will take off my rose-colored glasses very soon. But the world is so lovely when it's blushing. Just ask Danni.

Contempt and Doubt

'm having an interesting problem, to which I alluded in my last post. It’s one of the main reasons I don't read much straight fantasy. You see, I started with the best; I read all five books of A Song of Ice and Fire and was blown away. I lived in Westeros for month after glorious, enthralling month. I never wanted to leave. But when I finally finished the last page and realized how long it could be before there were any new works from George R. R. Martin, I was devastated. The best was now behind me. What was the point of reading other fantasy if it couldn’t compare?  Right now, I'm feeling the same way about my beloved paranormal and urban fantasy; I feel like I've read all the best, and now I can only wait for new books to be published. So when they are, I don't want to read them, because then I won't be able to look forward to spending time between their pages in the future. My sublime reading experiences will be over and leave me bereft.

o, as I’ve mentioned, I'm reading Burned again instead of Feverborn. And I'm reading very, very slowly. I'm pacing myself and allowing myself only a few minutes of paradise at a time. Luckily, I have a new idea for a blog post every few pages of Karen Marie Moning's books. Today's topic is self-doubt and self-loathing. Fun stuff, I know. But necessary to contemplate, and conveniently addressed by Mac Lane, one of my all-time favorite characters.

In Burned, Mac has gone from MVP to bench warmer in the quest to save the world, fight the Fae, and right injustice. She has good reasons to ‘ride the pines’ Mac is compromised by a monster inhabiting her body, who continually tempts her to acts of extreme power—and destruction. So she needs to lie low. Unfortunately for Mac, her fallow season has coincided with an impending, multi-faceted apocalypse. Timing is everything, now isn’t it? Anyhoo… being benched and prevented from action makes Mac frustrated, to say the least. To say the most, it's making her not only doubt herself, but also hate herself. As she says, "I do nothing. And my self-contempt grows."  I can relate. 

Obviously, I'm not being called on to save the world. Good thing for the world. But I do have responsibilities.  And I have the calling of my desire—that which I want to do and accomplish and achieve. Problem is, I often find myself where Mac is. I do nothing. And my self-contempt grows. Except when those feelings are eclipsed by my feelings of self-doubt.  Self-contempt presupposes I can do something, I just won't.  Self-doubt undermines this assumption with persistent thoughts that I won't because I can't. Sucks any way you slice it. 

I want to write books. Originally, this blog was intended to be a book written in thousand-word increments.  I thought I was pretty clever. The blog book would be my first offering. My second effort would go beyond the first, and dig deeper into all that I've learned about being human from my non-human teachers within the pages of my beloved fantasy books. My third tome – predicated on people actually reading my first and second - was to be my foray into fiction. I want to be like my writer rock stars—the authors I yearn to emulate, including, of course, Karen Marie Moning, as well as JR Ward, Thea Harrison, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Jeaniene Frost, Patricia Briggs and Faith Hunter. I want to join this club so much it hurts. 

But I do nothing—or almost nothing—or at least not enough. And my self-contempt grows. As does my doubt. Who am I to seek to join these august ranks? I've never been much of a fiction writer—just an avid reader—so what makes me think I can don the mantle in middle age?  If it were going to happen, wouldn't it have done so already? And if I can't even produce a non-fiction book when I have more than 500 pages of material, what does that say about my chances of being a published fiction writer? I know what it says about my chances for drinking too much.

The mind spins and the brain boggles. I'm paralyzed with contempt and doubt. I don't have a demon inside tempting me to destruction as Mac does… or do I? Maybe my demons are the doubt and insecurity that plague me and tell me I can't. Maybe those demons are in league with the others that tell me I'm shit because I waste time on Facebook or staring into space or watching paint dry instead of writing. Maybe I'm exactly like Mac with enormous power within, but too afraid of the destruction that could attend it.

Maybe I think entirely too much and I should just shut up and freaking ‘do it’ already. And maybe I should also consider that like Mac, doing something can sometimes look like doing nothing.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stand down until the time to act is right. Maybe my expectations of what ‘doing something’ looks like are incorrect, and I'm doing more than I think.

And there I go, thinking again. Maybe I need to shut my brain down for a while and see what flows.  Maybe then I won't be consumed with contempt and I can stop drowning in doubt. It could happen… I hope.

The Four Faces of Fear

've decided to savor my “to be read” list, so I'm saving the cream of the crop for my next vacation— if I can wait that long. The excitement is just about killing me. I’ve got two offerings by Thea Harrison, a new Iron Druid novel, and, of course, Karen Marie Moning’s newest book, Feverborn, which I’m positively salivating to read. To keep the hunger pains at bay for now, I’m rereading Burned, which I've only read once (unlike the first five Fever books, which I've read at least five times each). As you know, I live in abject fear that I will run out of great paranormal urban fantasy books, leaving me bereft and desperate. I'm sure there's a name for this, like aneobibliophobia—fear of no new books. What do you think?  Can we start a meme? Anyway, my fear that I will run out of amazing stories in which to immerse myself got me to thinking about fear generally.

As I've written about several times, it was Ms. Moning who taught me that hope strengthens, fear kills. True enough. But what is it about fear that makes it so commanding?  In the beginning of Burned, we read about the Unseelie King, an entity so powerful, so vast, that nothing threatens him. He knows no fear until he loves. At that point, he becomes vulnerable, as we all do. Then the king knows true fear: the fear of losing something he loves more than anything.

The fear of losing something we have is one of the four faces of fear. It is the counterpart to being afraid that we won't get what we want in the first place. These fears, in turn, go hand in hand with our fear of not being enough, and the terror that there won't be enough—of anything—to go around; the fear that we won’t get our share. The first two aspects of fear are specific— we know what we want and we are scared we won't get it or we’re scared we'll lose it. The second set of fears is more existential and diffuse. Together they can leave us running for our lives, belligerently fighting against fate, friends and enemies alike, or paralyzed with dread. Fear leads us to flight, fight or freeze. It never leads to anything good.

There was a time when my whole existence was mired in fear. I felt like a puppet whose strings were being controlled by my extreme reactivity to all that frightened me, which was pretty much everything. I was afraid of people and also of being abandoned and left alone. I was afraid of nature and scared in the city. I was afraid of failing and I was afraid of succeeding. I was afraid of being seen, and afraid of being invisible. I was afraid of being used, and afraid of being ignored. I was miserable, mired in the suffocating web of my paranoia.

But fear is a funny thing. Turns out we can overdose on the stuff and become desensitized to it. If we are in a constant state of panic, eventually the panic recedes to the point where we can become sufficiently sentient to realize we have neither died from what we feared nor has the fear itself killed us. At least not yet. It's why I'm generally only terrified in the beginning of a plane ride. The takeoff finds me gripping the armrests, or, on occasion, my traveling companion, whether I know them or not. By the time we level out at 35,000 feet, my panic is easing, and when the flight attendants are coming around to take drink orders, I'm getting bored.

Maintaining a specific fear is generally unsustainable. We can rally for a new source of terror, but consistently being fearful about the same thing gets old. For example, when our twins were babies, I used to check their breathing incessantly while they slept—to make sure they were alive. My husband was actually very happy about that, because it meant that I had stopped checking his breathing incessantly while he slept (which invariably led to his not being able to stay asleep). But the constant checking got old, and my fears about something happening to my family while they slept peacefully in our home slowly abated.

Fear is no fun. Fear causes us to live in the wreckage of our future where the fearful event will take place (where we lose what we currently have, or never get what we currently want and don't have).  Fear is always about what will happen later, because we can't be afraid about the present moment--either we have what we want in that moment or we don't. We don't need to be afraid about it; we can be sad or mad or happy about an existing situation, but we can't be afraid about this exact moment, only what will happen in the next one.

So, while hope can strengthen and fear can kill – it’s not always like that.  Fear reminds us of what we value, that which we do not want to lose, and also of our strength – flights and nights that we lived through – and how to prioritize our time.  If we keep fear in its place, we can use it to go after what we want, work to keep and protect it, and not take it for granted once we get it. Many, although not all of my fears are shadows of their former selves, thankfully. I’ve learned to live with most of them, and I’m at the stage where I’m being asked, “Coffee or tea?” by a friendly flight attendant. So, I will say, “Thank you, Ms. Moning, now please get back to the keyboard… my aneobibliophobia is acting up.”

Great Expectations

went to a yoga retreat with one of my closest friends in Costa Rica, one of my favorite places. I love yoga; it's changed my life. So

I was expecting fireworks. Ecstasy. Inner transformation and killer abs.

Bliss, right? Well… not so much. This trip was nothing that I expected. It's possible it was everything I needed, but that remains to be seen, and, frankly, I'm doubtful. Moreover,

I was there a freaking week and only got one book read

, Darynda Jones'

Dirt on Ninth Grave

, the latest in the Charley Davidson series. Thankfully, it was excellent, although it wasn't anything I was expecting, either. Sometimes that's okay, and sometimes it's not. In yoga, they talk a lot about letting go of expectations. Unmet expectations usually create suffering. I can testify that this is true.

Suffering takes us out of the present moment

, which is not a good thing. My friend noted several times that I didn't seem to be in the moment during my yoga retreat. Kind of ironic. I came on this retreat to be more present in time and space. And I totally blew it. Because the whole experience didn't meet my expectations. So basically, I put myself in a revolved half moon pose—you know—twisted and off balance.

But I couldn't help myself. I tried. I did. But with twenty people, most of whom I didn't know, there were constant distractions.

Clearly, group travel is not in my future.

Good to know, I guess. And I felt like Goldilocks—the ocean was too rough, the humidity was too high, the massage therapist missed each and every trigger point on my body. Yes, I know that I sound like an ungrateful idiot princess who didn't get her way and can't appreciate all the blessings and abundance in my life.

Except that isn't true. Or, at least, it's not entirely true. But I struggled mightily with my unrealized expectations the whole trip. Also, it was a retreat, and, as I've written about before, it wasn't supposed to be entirely comfortable. Just enlightening. Which it was, I think. But that is fodder for another post. Today we're talking about expectations. I found myself wishing, repeatedly, that I were more like Charley Davidson as the retreat progressed.

In Dirt on Ninth Grave, Charley has lost her memory and is living in upstate New York, working as a waitress. The amnesia thing is a problem, because she is The Grim Reaper, and souls pass through her and onto the other side (up or down, depending).  But regardless of her extraordinary status, in this book she is clueless, scared, and confused. But none of that negates her true nature as a deeply caring, morally good, if slightly flighty, person. In addition to that, one thing I noticed about Charley as I was reading and cogitating on my own unhappiness over my unmet expectations, is the fluidity with which Charley lets her own expectations roll off her back. She's a duck. In several passages, Charley (who doesn't actually remember her own name), encounters an unexpected situation, takes note that it wasn't what she expected, and simply moves on.

Interestingly, I used to believe I was just like Charley. Flexibility and Spontaneity were my middle names, followed by resourcefulness when situations weren't what I'd predicted or assumed. I was, or so I thought, a ‘roll with the punches’, ‘turn on a dime’, ‘silver lining’ kinda gal. Just like Charley. But in Costa Rica, that chick was nowhere to be found.

Instead, she was replaced with Nervous Nellie, Debbie Downer, and Goldilocks, for whom nothing was ever just right. What happened?  Damned if I know. (Well, I might have some thoughts on that, however, they need to coalesce a bit before I share them). I will say this: expectations become a major problem when the stakes are perceived to be high. It seems the greater the expectations, the greater the suffering associated with their remaining unfulfilled.

Unlike my last retreat, where I had no clue what to expect, I had a lot of expectations around this one. I expected to enhance my yoga practice. I did get into Crow pose, but beyond that, I'm not sure I advanced. I expected to have deep and meaningful conversations with my fellow yogis and yoginis. Except for my close friend and travel companion that didn’t happen.  It's hard to create intimacy among strangers. I expected to go deep, but I found I couldn't get there with the schedule, and the people and the chitchat and the expectations of others weighed heavily on me, despite my best efforts to ignore them. Tough to ignore the energy of so many interconnected people. Perhaps if I were more enlightened, it would have worked better. But I'm just not there yet. I had expectations about directed conversations, about leadership and about the activities that were based wholly on my imagination. Apparently, my imagination, about which I sometimes despair, is working just fine. The trouble was my inability to find truth in any of my fantasies in Costa Rica.

None of this is to say that there weren't moments of happiness, joy and freedom. There were. There were moments of ‘ground-ed-ness’ in the sands of the beach and the waves of the ocean surrounding me. There were moments of authentic connection with people I'd never met or didn't know well, which was nurturing. And there was the inspiration of great natural beauty that always uplifts me. I just wish I could have strung a few more of those moments together, into say a whole day or even a week.

Then I had a weekend alone in Houston to contemplate all of my great expectations and my great disappointments thanks to an unexpected blizzard. All in all, life is good and my memory is intact, unlike poor Charley. And I had a weekend to myself to read, write and do yoga. Sounds like a great retreat to me. Namaste.

<img src="https://www.facebook.com/tr"/>

Newton's Third Law

I'm not much for science. Haven't studied it since high school and did not excel at it even when my brain was younger. But it turns out that sometimes what we learned in high school math and science can be useful, contrary to what we thought to ourselves (or even dared say out loud) during Algebra II, "This is so DUMB! When will I EVER need this in real life?"  Come on, all of us said it. We were wrong. Today I'm contemplating Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This holds true in real life, and it more or less applies to my beloved paranormal and urban fantasy novels. Even in my make-believe worlds, what goes up, must come down. 

This truth in fantasy is what separates the high octane from the decaf among authors, in my opinion. I love it when writers offer a pseudo-scientific explanation for the paranormal quirks and characteristics of their characters.  In John Hartness' Quincy Harker series, Q is the son of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murry Harker, both of whom served as snacks for Dracula. Apparently the regular donations affected the DNA of Quincy's parents, resulting in a human child with a little something extra in the magical ability, strength and longevity departments. Another example, Lynsay Sands' Argeneau vampires, are the product of scientists on Atlantis mixing nanobots with mitochondria, giving them long lives, superhuman strength and vitality in exchange for replenishing their blood through ingesting that of humans. Cool stuff.

But I digress. I know you're flabbergasted. Back to Newton's third law and how in the real world it posits that you cannot create something out of nothing. Nor can you do something without some sort of karmic retribution, whether of the positive or negative variety. Karma's a bitch, baby, don't you forget it. 

This truth also holds in the paranormal and urban fantasy arenas. In most of the books I read, balance must be maintained. The most explicit expression of this is in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward. In her world of vigilante vampires protecting their kind from soul-less humans intent on their destruction, everything comes with a hefty price tag. Save your beloved from death by disease? Okay--provided you forgo the possibility of children. Bring a ghost back from the dead? No problem, if your mother is willing to sacrifice her most prized possession. Obtain the power to inhale the life force from your enemies? Piece of cake, as long as you understand that it will taint your own life essence in the process.

It turns out that Goethe got it right--if you want an extra serving of whatever earthly delights tempt you most, you gotta make a deal with the devil. As I've written about before, there ain't no free lunch. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We need to obey gravity, you know, because it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

So where does that leave those of us who ride the see-saw of life going endlessly up and down?  Well, to begin with, we shouldn't be surprised when the other shoe falls-- we tossed it to the sky in the first place, after all. What goes up must come down. Secondly, we need to savor, savor, savor the high times, knowing they will inexorably be followed by the inevitable lows. Whatever is happening will stop at some point, and whatever wheels we set in motion will continue to turn -- until they don’t (which may actually violate Newton's First Law of Motion, but I'm not sure--I think I mentioned I wasn't a science geek).

Sometimes, however, it appears as though the world doesn't really work this way. Some people seem to have a disproportionate amount of grief and trouble, while others seems to perch on top of the world and remain there. For me, I always think that these instances of putative inequity might not be what they seem. Alternatively, we may all be living out our karma from past lives or alternate universes. I don't really know, except to say that on most days, I prefer to think there is a big weighing scale with two side-by-side plates, racking and stacking our actions and responding with equal and opposite reactions. Anything to believe that it's not all just random chaos out there. That would be depressing. 

So for today, I'm going to choose to give credence to karma as if it were dogma--I believe in the power of balance; I worship at the bottom of the apple tree where Newton was inspired to articulate his Third Law of Motion; and I will continue to read fantasy books that reinforce my concepts of truth.

Forced Intimacy

hristie Brinkley has been all over the news lately because although she is 60 years old, she looks 30 in photographs. And while she's best known for being highly ornamental (which is my least favorite thing for a woman to be known for), she's also been in the news on other occasions, such as when she and her then boyfriend, Rick Taubman, were in a helicopter crash in the Colorado mountains. After the crash, Brinkley married Taubman and gave birth to their son, only to get divorced eight months after the wedding. Why am I discussing a former supermodel's love life?
 
It's because I've been thinking about high adrenaline situations that lead to a false sense of intimacy, which in turn leads some to mistake what should be only a moment for forever. That's what happened to poor Ms. Brinkley. It's also happened to some of my favorite fictional friends. The whole near-death-experience-leading-to-happily-ever-after is a common trope in paranormal and urban fantasy, and one I'd like to explore. So come on in and sit for a spell while I contemplate crisis-based communion.

I'm just finishing John Hartness’ Quincy Harker novella series (I know… they’re short… but life has a habit of getting in the way of pleasure – aka reading and writing). In the second book, our favorite demon hunter saves the life of his favorite nemesis and sometime partner, Detective Rebecca Flynn, using magic. By doing so, Quincy opens an irrevocable mind link with the detective. So not only do they share an extreme situation that results in Quincy healing Rebecca’s mortal wounds, but now they're permanently in each other's heads. It doesn't get much more intimate than that. 

As an avid fan of the proverbial HEA, I've been expecting them to ride off into the sunset together ever since, even if they remain snarky as they lope along to their HEA. But so far, my expectations have been dashed. Grrr…I have about 45 minutes left to read in the final installment, and I'll update you if things change, but it seems that Quincy and Rebecca’s relationship is unusually restrained given the mortal wound scenario they conquered – together. Even Q acknowledges that the particular chain of events could lead one or both of them to misconstrue the intense emotions around the unfortunate occurrences as true love. Yet, they are rational enough enough to understand the resulting mind link has led only to feelings of warmth and affection, where perhaps they hadn't existed before. But not to passion. There’s not a sex scene in sight, more’s the pity.

Contrast that with the experience of my very favorite paranormal couple, Dragos and Pia Cuelebre. In their original story, Dragon Bound, author Thea Harrison throws our protagonists into all sorts of harrowing situations, including a car crash, kidnapping, imprisonment and subsequent escape. These plot twists serve to cement their adrenaline-fueled feelings for each other fast, leading to satisfactorily steamy and intensely emotional sex scenes and an eventual HEA (after more harrowing, near death experiences, of course). 

And because this is fantasy and not truth, Pia and Dragos don't get divorced after a few months. Instead, they commit to an eternity together (which for practically immortal beings is a BIG freaking deal). But because this blog is called Truth in Fantasy, let's see where we might find some reality amongst the rainbows and unicorns. 

It's true that stressful or critical conditions can create a crucible in which artificially intense emotions may brew. It's why so many workplace romances develop. When people work together meeting deadlines for demanding bosses, sparks ignite and things can smolder pretty quickly. Sadly, such short-term intensity can mask underlying fissures in compatibility, values, and the ability to communicate in ways both can understand. Then, sex distorts everything further, rendering vision and common sense collateral damage. We've all seen it happen to our colleagues. Hell, we may have seen it happen to ourselves.  It's rarely pretty. 

Except when it works.
 
Early in my relationship with my now husband, we had a crisis. Long story short, my ex-fiancé, the Green Beret, figured out that I was seeing someone else and he was angry. He had no standing, mind you, as we were definitively broken up, but that wasn't his perspective. To add insult to injury, my new boyfriend was driving my old boyfriend's car, which I still had. Needless to say, we didn't want the Special Forces officer to find out his replacement was driving his car. It’s bad enough to be supplanted – but the car was the dangerous cherry on top. It was not a good scene. I was terrified of my ex's anger. My then-new boyfriend also had a healthy respect for the damage his predecessor could do. We were co-conspirators in a made-for-TV movie, trying to figure out how to hide my new boyfriend's identity from the old boyfriend (we considered removing the name plate from the newbie’s office door as a good first step), and get out of Dodge ahead of the shooter. The whole ordeal culminated in my new boyfriend and me going away for our first weekend together -- taking the relationship to the next level.

Almost twenty-three years later, we're still playing kissy face – this time in our own car though – so it all worked out. Perhaps not like in Dragon Bound, but better than it did for Christie Brinkley. Sometimes truth and fantasy are more of a journey than a destination, which sometimes works out just fine. 



 

A Hostess with the Mostess

'm still enjoying the Quincy Harker novella series by John Hartness. I especially like Quincy's irreverent attitude and general ‘badass-ery’.  Maybe a novel length Harker story would be too much of a good thing, like when Dave Barry turned his hilarious columns into a book-length rant, but it's possible I would enjoy this character in a more developed plot with additional back story and maybe a bit of romance thrown into the mix.

Make it so, Mr. Hartness. Pretty please?

Anyhoo, now, onto my point, which is the plot of book two in the series,

Straight to Hell

. In this novella, Quincy must avert the end of the world by preventing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from riding off into the sunset and triggering Revelation in all its glory. Q and his team deal with Pestilence and Famine pretty handily, but War and Death give them a run for their money.  It's all very exciting. And, along the way to averting Armageddon, there was an interesting subplot involving the Sword of Ares’ search for a new host to be the incarnation of War.  

Turns out, incarnating War involves a fair amount of anger.

When the Sword scanned Quincy for the requisite environment in which to thrive, it found him wanting. In Quincy's words, "I felt the magical essence of War search through my soul, and eventually decide that I was lacking. I wasn't the avatar War wanted."

This got me thinking, naturally. What, you don't contemplate becoming an avatar for War, aka Anger?  How about Lust?  Sloth? Greed? Gluttony? Pride? Envy?  Have I covered the bases? Did any of you see the movie "Seven," with Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey?  At the end of the movie Spacey exhorts Pitt to kill him, urging Pitt to embody Anger. It’s a brilliant and very disturbing movie because of one of its core questions; would we make an acceptable host for any or all of the Seven Deadly Sins? If so, is there any desire to become less accommodating and hospitable?

I seem to be an excellent hostess for the scourge of Pride, and I make a cozy hangout for Envy as well. I'm not proud of my affinity for these mortal sins, and I'm envious of those whose heads and hearts are better protected from these invaders. But my chemical makeup seems to beckon Pride and Envy like mosquitos to ankles in high grass at dusk. I'm riddled with the stuff. 

For me, being a good host to Pride means that I don't fight the urge to ride high on my righteous horse.  Most of the time, I'm certain I know it all, and I'm positive that what I don't know isn't all that interesting or important anyway.  I'm the one who said, when asked by my boss why I always act like I'm the smartest person in the room, "Because I am." I've written about my pride before. It precedes the fall each and every time, but I'm a slow learner. I’m not proud of that.

There was also a time when War might’ve found me a comfy home. Those were not good times. But I got over my Anger, and settled more securely into Pride and Envy.  For me, Envy is about wanting something to be other than it is. Envy is paging through catalogues, imagining myself wearing, using, and buying whatever crap is being peddled. It's reading People magazine and fantasizing about what it would be like to be Princess Kate or Jennifer Lawrence. It's thinking about acting, looking or being something I'm not and likely never will be. I don't just make a decent hangout for Envy, I'm putting out home-baked cookies on my best china to welcome it this particular wickedness.

I wish this weren't the case (Envy again). I'm not holding my head high (Pride in its alternate guise of self pity).  I actually strive for self-awareness and to show the door to Sins when they come to call ("What's your hurry, here's your hat."). I meditate, journal, practice yoga and gratitude. And I've definitely made progress. But I can't say with any certainty at all that any Sins would find me lacking. I'm desperately afraid they would find me all too willing to make me their vessel. What does that say for the state of my soul?

I have no idea. But, if Quincy is sufficiently morally ambivalent (what with acting as judge, jury and executioner for a wide variety of human and paranormal baddies) that if his soul is not in danger of being an acceptable avatar for War, mine is probably not any worse than most – especially as I neither judge nor condemn anyone with any actual authority behind my adjudication. So maybe I'm just a garden-variety sinner, nothing more than another bozo on the ethical bus. Which strangely enough hurts my pride and makes me envious of those hosting the big Sins. Guess I'm not the hostess with the mostess after all. Probably a good thing in the long run.  I’ll let you know.

<img src="https://www.facebook.com/tr"/>

A Blessing or a Curse?

I'm still thinking about Kresley Cole's book, No Rest for the Wicked, part of the Immortals After Dark series. I talked about Kaderin the Cold (aka Kaderin the Coldhearted) last week, and her quest to turn back time and resurrect her slain sisters.  Today, I'm contemplating her title. Kaderin is Cold because she was struck icy after the death of her sisters. In her pain and guilt over their passing, Kaderin prayed to whomever was listening in the hope of relieving her wrenching grief. Apparently, someone heard her, and just like that, Kaderin’s grief, sorrow, pain, and guilt vanished. But so did all of her feelings, not just the unpleasant ones. For a thousand years, Kaderin has felt nothing. She calls this her "blessing."  Her family and friends call it a curse. I started to wonder about the winner of this name game. Feelings are funny things. We love them when they feel good, and avoid them like the plague when they feel bad. We identify with them, as if our feelings were all that we are - which would suck, by the way, if it were true. Some of us believe them to be ground truth. Others do their best to deny their existence… only for it all to come out sideways in the end, because, hey, we're not Vulcans. We indulge our feelings, restrain our feelings, become slaves to them, try to detach from them, and generally make a mess of the whole thing more often than not. So, what would it feel like to feel nothing?

When I was pregnant, I had to have a minor surgery to safeguard my babies. Because I was pregnant, general anesthesia was not an option, so I had a spinal block instead. The cordial anesthesiologist explained to me that I would feel nothing below my waist and that I wouldn't be able to move my hips or legs. "Alrighty then," I thought to myself. "No problemo," I replied. Well, in the event, problemo grande, with me hyperventilating and thrashing my upper body around wildly while I had a full blown panic attack on the operating table (I'm told by my doctor friends that they strongly prefer unconscious patients.  I can see why). That kind anesthesiologist pulled me off the ceiling, and talked me down to earth, assuring me I was okay--even though I COULDN'T FEEL MY LEGS!-- and then held my hand and talked to me through the whole ordeal. So, my brief experience with not feeling was fairly horrendous – and not just for me. 

But what if we weren't talking about physical feeling, but emotions instead?  What if we could eradicate the heartbreak, the grief, the guilt, the shame, the anxiety and fear, the frustration, impatience, disgust, annoyance, overwhelm, regret, pain and discomfort. Wouldn't that be lovely? 

Many of us (and I am a prime offender here, so I know from whence I speak) run as fast as we can away from anything that feels even mildly unpleasant, much less uncomfortable or painful. In fact, we behave in ways that can become compulsive or downright addictive when we make a habit of hiding from our feelings. Yep, the root of addiction is a desire to anesthetize our uncomfortable feelings. And we do it without a nice doctor holding our hands, like my anesthesiologist during that nasty surgery. We do addiction all by our lonesomes, for the most part. And isn't that fun? No, no it's not. But then we are stuck, not feeling our feelings until they erupt in an explosion of self-hatred we are powerlessness to stop. I don't recommend it at all.

But what about the good feelings, you may ask?  Isn't it fun to pursue those?  Doesn't that make us happy?  In reply, I have two words for you: Paris Hilton. Now, there's a gal who has the ability to chase pleasure all over the world. She's the original trend-setting jet-setter. Yet, she doesn't look all that happy from my vantage point, not that I'm spending a whole lot of time looking. But hedonistic hunting--the unrelenting pursuit of pleasure without meaning--is pretty awful, to tell the truth. In the end, it just doesn't feel good--although it might take a while to get to that point, admittedly. And it might be fun to check it out for a while, certainly. But in in the final analysis, that way lies madness. I repeat, Paris Hilton.

So where is the path between Scylla and Charybdis?  How do we face our unpleasant feelings and avoid the meaningless pursuit of the pleasant ones? Why are you asking me?  Actually, I've given this some thought (shocked you are). I've determined a few things about the nature of feelings. First, I believe whole-heartedly that feelings are not facts. We absolutely do not need to act on them, no matter how compelling they feel. We can just let them flow through us. We can just feel them. They will eventually pass, just as everything does. Moreover, the more we allow our feelings to flow through us, rather than trying to avoid them or wallow in them, the better we feel.

Feeling our feelings makes us feel better. If the feelings are good, then we can enjoy the experience of feeling them. If they are bad, the sooner we let them permeate our beings, the faster they dissipate. Sometimes, like with grief, we need to learn to live with them, sometimes forever. At other times, like with love, we find our capacity to feel expands with increased use. My heart swelled to accommodate the love that engulfed me for my kids. I feel confident that if I'd had more children, my heart would have stretched commensurately – it is a muscle after all.

We are not our feelings and we can learn to detach from them as the yogis and Buddhists teach us. In the end, being human means having feelings--the good, the bad and the excruciating. It's all part of this wild ride we call life. And I wouldn't change it for the world. So bring it on. I would never want to be Kaderin the Cold. Her "blessing" is a curse from my perspective. And while I don't want to give anything away, I will say that Kaderin comes to see it my way in the end. Smart immortal.

If I Could Turn Back Time

I'm enjoying the Audible version of Kresley Cole's entertaining book, No Rest for the Wicked. It's an early entry in the Immortals After Dark series, which is one of my all-time faves. In this installment of the saga, Kaderin the Cold is competing in the Talisman Hie, a contest among immortal creatures, sponsored by a bored deity who enjoys watching what amounts to a paranormal scavenger hunt. Different strokes for different paranormal folks, I guess. The grand prize is compelling, which is why so many choose to compete. In this contest, the prize is Thrane's Key, purported to unlock the door to time travel. Kaderin is desperate to win this prize so that she can save her sisters from death on the battlefield. She longs to go back a thousand years to the moment she let her compassion for a wounded vampire stay her hand from killing him. In sparing his life, she doomed her sisters, whom the vampire killed as soon as Kaderin let him go. I've given this contrivance a lot of thought lately as it presents an interesting set of questions. First, would we want to travel back in time for any reason at all?  And secondly, are there moments we can identify that would change the trajectory of our lives so profoundly that the future would be demonstrably different? As I thought about it, a few moments came to mind.

Wednesday was the anniversary of my father's death. I miss him terribly, even after more than 25 years. He was a remarkable man, and he never got to meet my husband or my kids. He never got to know me as an adult (even though I was technically of age when he died—I was a later bloomer). Moreover, my family of origin fell apart after he died; everything was sadly different.

So, would I use Thrane's key to bring my Daddy back? Absolutely. For sure. It’s a no brainer. Or so I thought… at first.  

But then I thought about it some more. My father was old fashioned. He felt strongly that his only daughter should marry immediately upon college graduation. She had other ideas. But I am fairly certain my dad would have pressured my then-boyfriend (to whom I became engaged years later), to propose, and I would have had a disastrous first marriage (instead, I broke off the engagement and spared myself an unpleasant divorce).  And, my dad was ailing, Would I have wanted to prolong his existence on this plane any longer than necessary?  He suffered so, and it feels like the ultimate selfishness to contemplate making him stay for me, when his poor body was so worn out.

So, in the end, I'm not at all sure that I would use Thrane's key to bring back my father.

But what about using it to go back in time and have a do-over of my pregnancy, which was an unmitigated nightmare—mostly because I did not know then what I know now about nutrition and how it affects pretty much everything. Or, I could go back to the early days of my children's lives and re-do mistakes I made—with their foods, medicines, how we played, etc., etc., etc. I could go back in time and finish my dissertation, or my theology degree (I was so close to getting that darn degree and then I had a huge fight with the Dean and quit in a huff—maybe I could undo the huff?).

I could go back  and rescue myself from the poodle perm I sported at my high school prom—that paired so beautifully with my Laura Ashley dress (of which there was far too much photographic evidence— hopefully all of which I’ve burned) looked like Scarlett O'Hara's window curtains. Or, I could turn back time and decide to study history instead of political science, or change the course of events that led me to run for my life after my cover was blown while working as a private investigator in Israel. So many times where I could have made much better choices.

But if I did any of that, would I still be me?  Ah, there's the rub. If I'd married my first fiancé, even if we'd gotten divorced, would I still have met and married my beloved husband? And if I hadn't married him, we wouldn't have the kids that we do, and wouldn't have the life that I have. So, any way you slice it, I wouldn't be me, and I wouldn't be living a life that I love. And then where would I be?  No flipping clue, that's where. I suppose my life might be better than it is now, but honestly, I can't imagine it. Nor do I really want to. Every single experience I've had--the good, the bad and the ugly (I told you about my prom look, right?  I left out the white patent leather sky-high platform pumps with the ankle chain and metal lifts—with the Scarlett O'Hara dress and the electrocuted hair)— has contributed to who I am today. And while I am as far from perfect as Rhett Butler is from Ashley Wilkes, I can finally say, at the tender age of 50, that I like myself and I love my life (this is where I break my arm patting myself on the back). So when it comes right down to it, I don't think I'd want Thrane's Key at all. In fact, if I found it, I'd probably be tempted to throw it back to wherever it came from—hoping not to offend the goddess who sponsored the scavenger hunt, of course, cause that would be bad—and then I'd need the key to undo the damage I'd caused. But generally speaking, I'm good, thanks. No turning back time for me.  I'll take my past, warts and all, not to mention heartbreak, humiliation and imperfection.  It's all good.

I Love My Potty Mouth

I've been having trouble focusing on my beloved fantasy books of late. I would be in a panic over this development, except that it's happened before and, thankfully, I know that this sickness will pass...eventually. I have no idea what causes it, and I don't know why it happens when it does, but I will be profoundly grateful when it blows out the same hole in my brain that it entered. In the interim, I've found the best remedy is reading a short story or novella, requiring only a small commitment, which is perfect right now. Normally, I don’t love short works because it's too traumatic when I become invested in characters and worlds, only to have the party end prematurely, leaving me bereft. However, when I'm feeling squirrelly like this, less really is more. Especially when the novelette is good—and it’s doubly excellent when there is more than one. A novella series! And John Hartness has just what the doctor ordered; Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter. I'm digging Quincy. He's a total badass with an engaging voice and cool attitude -- I want to have a beer with this dude. You know,if I drank beer. And one of the things I've learned to love about him in a gratifyingly short period of time is his potty mouth. It's fucking awesome. 

Now, my kids and husband read my blogs, so I am mindful of my language, trying to keep it mostly PG-13. Also, I had completely bought into the bullshit that using profanity was indicative of a paucity of imagination, not to mention class. So I've controlled myself. And I'll go back to doing so when this particular post is finished. But for today, Quincy Harker has inspired me to let my profanity out of the box. Whee!

So, to begin my peon to profanity, Mr. Hartness employs my favorite cuss word of all time: "fucktard." No, it is not a nice word, nor is it particularly PC. But my, oh, my, is it descriptive. And so often eerily accurate. Kind of like a Ouija board when used correctly. And good old Quincy bandies it about with aplomb. Which leads to the second reason I'm rapidly falling in love with John Abraham Quincy Holmwood Harker; he actually knows how to use profanity effectively. So few do.

Which is why the nasty rumor got started that people who have filthy mouths are ignorant and offensive. It's because some people do use cuss words when they can't find any others. Mouth breathers come to mind. But for the rest of us, John Hartness' fictional firebrand included, cursing makes us stronger, more resilient, more satisfied, less stressed and more imaginative— did you know, for example, that the word "fuck" can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and interjection and still make sense?

Apparently science backs me up on this, folks. It's true! Cursing helps us tolerate pain and discomfort better than if we didn't acknowledge that shit hurts. It makes us feel stronger and more confident (fuck yeah!), and can also help in forming and strengthening social or communal bonds (do you remember the first time you let the F-bomb slip in front of your boss and how boss the moment turned out to be when she cussed right back at you?). When we share the forbidden fruit of a mutual potty mouth, we feel closer to our fellows.

Except when to do so alienates those around us. And aren't they the party poopers? Yep, there are those who find swearing, especially when coming out of the mouths of "ladies," to be quite offensive. Which can put a serious harsh on my mellow, I'll say that here and now. I've actually been asked if I kiss my children with "that mouth."  Shocking, really. Not to mention sexist and misogynistic. Not that that's not totally offensive. No way.

Having said that, though, I must confess that my beloved family despises my foul mouth and routinely exhorts me to stop swearing. They've tried the cuss jar, the disapproving glares, pleading and begging. And while I do try to contain my colorful language, or at least curb the most excessive of the excesses, I really can't say I've met with overwhelming success.

But to that I say, "Fuck it." I do the best I can. Because I I love to swear. It makes me happy. It truly does make me feel strong and confident—the kind of woman who is un-fuck-with-able. The kind of woman who doesn't give a flying fuck what other people think of her. The kind of woman who is creative and resilient, with a high tolerance for pain and discomfort, which is a requisite quality for living with integrity in this world, since you asked. And anything that helps me live my truth with more ease and joy is not something I'm giving up any time soon.

So, my apologies to those I've offended and will continue to offend. I will rein it in for my blog posts, because, mostly at least, these aren't rants. But I did feel a burning need to take a moment to express my appreciation to John Hartness and Quincy Harker for reminding me why I find cursing to be so fucking satisfying.

Tempting Temptation

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… a new author to enjoy! Oh, yeah and a partridge in a pear tree. So… thank you, Alexandra Ivy for the Guardians of Eternity series. I'm enjoying the world and the characters Ms. Ivy has created as much as I would any thoughtful Christmas gift, even though it's always a challenge for me to contain my impatience as I read the first book in a series while the author gets to all the backstory and the rules of the world and the introduction of major themes explicated. And you wonder why I only made it to the fourth day of Christmas? Anyhoo, the payoff is often worthwhile, and I think it will be with Guardians of Eternity too. Shockingly, this is not my topic of the day. Surprise!? My topic, friends, is temptation--ya know, all the stuff you desperately want to enjoy, but understand is really bad for you? There's been a lot of gnashing of teeth as we say ‘no’ when we want desperately to say ‘yes’ during the holiday season.  My molars are now shadows of themselves. Grrr.

Ms. Ivy tackles this issue head on by making our heroine, Abby, a spiritually pure and therefore compellingly attractive figure to the undead and other dark creatures: her soul is a beacon of shining light to those who live in the shadows. But when Abby’s purity is pointed out to her, she disagrees, saying, "I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else."  But no, her vampire host, Viper, assures her, "You have known tragedy and even despair, but you remain untainted... Evil, lust, greed--the darker passions that so easily tempt mortals."  Abby protests again, explaining, "Well, I suppose everyone is tempted." "Yes," Viper agrees, "And so few resist." Grrr. 

Fascinating exchange. And so true. Why so few of us resist is a question that has plagued me for a long time. Probably since grad school when a professor asked it in an ethics class.  "And who,” he mused, “Put the snake in the Garden in the first place?"  The question stopped me cold. The snake is the symbol of all temptation, seducing us to do that which we should not--making the forbidden attractive, alluring, compelling—even irresistible. This has always struck me as grossly unfair. Why does doing bad always seem to feel so good, while doing right is so difficult, uncomfortable or unpleasant, at least by comparison? I know I'm not the only one whose inquiring mind wants to know, because there's a One Republic song, Loves Runs Out, that asks the same question. I guess temptation hasn’t changed much in a few millennia.

So, who did put the snake in the Garden of Eden to tempt poor Eve who then convinced her hapless mate to also taste the forbidden fruit, dooming all of us in the process? It was God, of course.  There is no other answer. If your beliefs run in that direction (my personal interest is more academic, but still), God made everything, and so He was the one who created temptation and also the one who determined that doing the right thing is always just a ‘touch’ harder than doing the wrong thing. Which makes sense, of course. Because, if it were easy, everyone would gosh darn do it, right?

Exactly. Which is why the right thing to do must be the hard thing to do. Because if the right thing were easy, then free will goes out the window.  And that would be bad, I'm told (by the Bible, no less). Free will means we have to stretch beyond our comfort zones to do what's good… for us, our fellows and our planet. Sure, it's a lot easier to do what we want, sleep as late as we like, spend wantonly, engage in mind-numbing activities, accrete too much stuff, lust after people we shouldn't, enjoy righteous indignation—I could go on. Couldn’t we all? Yup. All of us could wallow in the seven deadly sins quite well, thank you very much--or maybe it's just me, and the rest of you are paragons of moderation? Nah, I just checked Facebook and we’re all hosed.

All of us overindulge -- and then we try to clean up the mess. Grrr. We give into temptation rather than resist, as Viper observes. And then we resolve to do better… next time. In fact, this is exactly the time of year that many of us make resolutions to become better versions of ourselves in the coming journey around the sun. But, as I've written about several times, change is hard. Changing ourselves may be the hardest thing of all. Grrr.

But many of us will resolve to do so anyway over the coming days, weeks and months—oh, who are we kidding?—minutes, hours and days, maybe.  In anticipation of the rocking New Year, someone asked me the other day, "What needs to change in order for you to realize your goals and fulfill your intentions for 2016?"   I answered, "I'm pretty sure it's my brain that needs an overhaul – or maybe I need a personality transplant."  My friend thought I was being too harsh, but I'm not so sure.  I always want to change and improve. I always want to resist temptation. And my results so far have been ambivalent, at best. Grrr.

But today begins another year, and the possibilities are endless. So I'll say,  "Bring it on!" to that snake, and see where it gets me. In the interim, the Guardians of Eternity series continues over many books, my TBR list is robust (although I'm being abstemious with it), and life is very, very good. What more do I need that temptation should have its way with me? Not much. But… stay tuned in 2016.

Can't Live With It, Can't Live Without It

As the year draws to a close, I'm gearing up to set my annual intentions. I prefer intentions to goals, as they seem more flexible -- if I fall somewhat short of the mark, as we are all wont to do from time to time, I don’t judge myself as harshly as I would if I don’t achieve a goal. As I contemplate the New Year, and begin to visualize serenity, joy, freedom and happiness, I'm thinking about the meaning of these now – and a year from now — in the hope of positioning myself on the right path for 2016.

As you know, I would rather think about fictional characters who speak to my soul rather than real, cacophonous people. So, I'm manifesting the wisdom of Karen Marie Moning’s Jericho Barrons to help chart my 2016 course. Specifically, I’m contemplating the most profound thing Barrons ever said: "There's nothing I can't live with. Only things I won't live without." (Shadowfever). ) I've thought about this concept a lot. What does it mean? Could I be more content if I reoriented my thinking along the lines he suggests?  I suspect so. Should such a reorientation become part of my intentions for the New Year?  Probably.

I've always been a ‘can't live with it’ kind of girl. My prohibition list is long. I hate mint can't handle the taste or even the smell. I can't abide the aroma of bananas or cigarette smoke. I need complete privacy to shower in hotel rooms, even if the bathroom door locks. I can't handle random noises, like when my son starts to hum or whistle. I forbid reality TV in my house, as well as Fox News. I can't handle mess— it messes with my OCD. I can't live with being ignored or dismissed. I can't handle being wrong—so I'm a slave to my need to be right over all other values. I can't live with my brother or his wife being in the same time zone. I can't live with complacency, mediocrity, stupidity, intolerance, homophobia, pedophilia, bullies and queen bees. I can't live with hypocrites and hypocrisy. Etc., etc., etc.

Contrast the above with what Jericho Barrons said-there's nothing he can't live with. Sounds a lot simpler than my life. And simple is good, I know this for a fact. And because there's nothing he can't live with, his equanimity is rarely destabilized. Which contrasts with my near constant teetering on the brink of insanity.  Everything I can't live with exists on my last nerve. And then, as my children remind me, my nerves will be shot, sending me over the edge.  Seems to me there's a lot Jericho Barrons could teach me. 

So let me catalogue the items I can't live without:  my husband and my children; my friends; food and shelter. I think that's it. It’s a much shorter list. A much simpler list. A list that streamlines life and distills it down to its essential elements.  What would it be like to live with a focus only on what I can't live without? To live with the—relatively minor, more of an inconvenience really—discomfort of tolerating that which previously I believed was completely unacceptable? Would such a reorientation set me more firmly on the road to serenity, joy, freedom and happiness?  Maybe so. But that is a big ask. And I'm not sure I have any idea how to do it.

I'm equally whether Barrons provides much in the way of guidance for living life on his terms. He just does it. And, of course, he's had millennia to work on his technique, as compared to my paltry five decades. But I've got to try. Because living with a focus on what I can't live with isn't getting me where I want to be. Maybe it's time to reread the Fever series. There's a new installment coming out in January—Hallelujah!—so it's probably time to refresh my memory of all the wise philosophy embodied in those remarkable books.

So, as I contemplate my New Year’s intentions, I will look to the truths I find in my beloved fantasy books, and seek help with living in reality from my fictional friends. My books never fail me, and I'm confident I'll find what I seek. I intend to look closely.

I'm Dreaming of A paranormal Christmas

s we are all hopefully cozying up to a Christmas fire, hanging out with family and friends eating lots of delicious food, it seems a good time to think about divinity and the nature of the Divine in my beloved fantasy books. As a former serious student of theology (seven years in a seminary), I'm quite interested in the subject, specifically with respect to the relationship between God and humanity and how different religions and cultures express their beliefs.  I'm always interested in Genesis stories, as well as how a particular tradition experiences time--either as cyclical, including the concepts of karma and reincarnation, or linear, encompassing the notion of time moving forward toward a certain end--as in universal (or selective) salvation. What I find particularly noteworthy in most--but not all--of my paranormal and urban fantasy novels is that a concept of the Divine, with a capital D, is largely missing, which raises some complex questions about being created in God's image, self-referential entities, and what a lack of spirituality will do to creatures over the eons.

Now, I understand that George R. R. Martin is in a class by himself. I'm not sure anyone else has counted, but I have, and there are no fewer than seven religions described in the Game of Thrones series--so far (and yes, for all you purists out there, I am aware the series is formally called A Song of Ice and Fire, but that takes too long say).  Seven theologies, seven different descriptions of deities, rituals, beliefs, the man is amazing. And I don't expect that from anyone else. The only one who comes even a little close to good old George is one of my author crushes, JR Ward. In her highly developed world, the Scribe Virgin and her dark counterpart, the Omega, are god-like creatures, although reference is made to both of them being the offspring or creations of a single Deity who is never seen or heard from (except to impose strict balance in the world so that everything has a price so that symmetry is maintained.)

One of the things I appreciate about JR Ward's world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood is that the Brothers, and even the King, are not the ultimate arbiters of their own fates. Because of the existence of the Scribe Virgin, all the Brothers must serve someone or something greater than themselves. In contrast, some of my other all-time favorite characters are essentially self-referential--meaning there is no authority greater than themselves. In Thea Harrison's Elder Races world, there is reference to the original seven gods, although those references come later in the series. But Ms. Harrison suggests that  Dragos Cuelebre, the dragon of my dreams, is also one of the gods. This is never explored at any length, and Dragos is portrayed as not abusing his power, but you've got to wonder about his past, which is never drawn in any detail and what being regarded as, or actually being a god does to a creature.

And then there is my other favorite book boyfriend, Jericho Barrons. We never find out what Barrons is--I've read that Karen Marie Moning wanted to free Barrons and the Nine from the strictures of labels--but we know that he and his kind have been revered as gods. Not to mention the Fae princes in the same Fever series--they have certainly been worshiped as gods and no power can seem to impact them, and they are almost unanimously monstrous as a result. That's what you get when there's no higher authority to hold your feet to the fire of good behavior.

Without a concept of the Divine, or an absolute (or even relative) moral code, it's hard to imagine what keeps decorum decorous. Why aren't all of these immortal, powerful, dominant, demanding and controlling beings taking headers off the deep end on a regular basis?  Some of them are, of course. Nalini Singh suggests that it is love or the lack therefore that keeps quasi-omnipotent beings like Archangels on the straight and narrow. Lijuan, the archangel of China, is worshiped as a goddess and is out of her mind, totally mental, which is a problem when you control an army of the undead. Ms. Singh suggests that it is because Lijuan killed her mortal lover when she realized that her love for him would render her vulnerable, and therefore weak.  Raphael, on the other hand, has the love of Elena to keep him sane and steady. I've written about this elsewhere. But what I hadn't stopped to wonder until right this minute was where is God in this world of archangels? I thought they went hand in hand, but there is no allusion to the Divine at all in the Guild Hunter series.

And then there is the issue of humanity being created in God's image. In the same way that the potential existence of life beyond Earth poses some sticky wickets for Christian theologians, so too would the existence of shapeshifters, vampires, elves, faeries, and the occasional deities of mythology come to life. A few series examine these questions, such as Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series. In Sooie Stackhouse's world, the humans who have recently learned that they share the planet with the undead wonder about the state of the vampires' souls. But what about the whole God made flesh issue? If beings could transform between humanoid and animal, as so many of my beloved characters can, what does that say about the state of their souls or the image of God?  The mind reels.

I'm guessing that at this point I've lost many of you entirely. My apologies. But I do think about this stuff, and Christmas Eve seemed as good a time as any to vent some of my musings. I did warn you that this blog was about deep thoughts I've had while reading vampire porn, right?  OK, OK, less deep thoughts and more deep throat, I've got it. Until next time, dear readers, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in time for the New Year.

The Parent Trap

I've just started Blood Kiss, the first of the Black Dagger Legacy series by JR Ward. I love this book – makes me feel like I’m catching up with well-loved friends with each turn of the page, and meeting some new ones along the way. And I can always count on the inimitable Ms. Ward to provide food for thought and fodder for this blog. Within the first twenty pages of the novel, Abalone, First Adviser to the King, sits contemplating the need to let his beloved daughter, Paradise, live her life on her terms. He fears her failure and consequent disappointment and desperately wishes he could spare her that pain, but he knows that he cannot protect her from herself, her choices or the vagaries of fate. Abalone anguishes in the face of this harsh reality. I can relate.

Parenting is often called the toughest job we'll ever love. I've also heard that having children is to decide to forever have your heart go walking outside your body. And as trite as these aphorisms are, they are nonetheless true. Having children is by turns terrifying, fulfilling, soul sating, terrifying, joyful, terrifying and beyond frustrating. I've written before about my frustration. Today I'm focused on the terror. When I find the words to describe the joy and fulfillment of parenthood without sounding like a Hallmark card, I’ll get back to you with my thoughts and feelings on that subject.

It’s almost mind numbing to catalogue my list of parental fears. So we'll do that another time, shall we?  Or not. But one thing front and center lately is the necessity, as Abalone described, of having to stand back and let my children fail—and then suffer the agony of defeat. I'm not sure, but I think it's worse for me than it is for them. And, man oh man, do I want to spare them. Which would be bad. For them. I know, I know. But it is so... damn... hard. It's almost beyond bearing. Almost. 

I want my children to succeed. I want them to have everything that I had growing up, and then so much more. I want them to have every conceivable opportunity that my not-inconsequential resources can provide. I want them to enjoy academic, social and athletic success. I want them to sail through life on waters whose currents sweep them around any obstacles in their paths. I was hoping, because they are so much more together than I was at their age, that they could avoid some of the pitfalls that tripped me up during my own adolescence. And they have, for the most part. What I did not anticipate was that in sidestepping the stumbling blocks that made my teenaged years a misery, they would encounter walls of their very own making and undoing. I hate that.

When I was in middle school I was at the bottom of the social heap. I was considered an aloof bookworm not fit to lick the shoes of the popular kids. I would come home crying after school, asking my clueless mother what was so wrong with me that those ‘in kids’ wouldn't let me in their stinking clique. She had no answers – I’m not sure to this day what they might’ve been – to offer me. By the time I got to high school, I'd had enough of my own boo-hooing and decided to disengage from the high school social scene entirely. I dated a good-looking, older bad boy and never looked back. It was gratifying at the time, but upon reflection, I realize I missed out completely on anything remotely resembling a normal high school experience. 

As a result of all of this, I wanted my children to be social successes. I wanted them to be popular, student leaders, the kids all the other kids wanted to be with. And they are. Shockingly (to me, at least) so. But running with the in crowd brings its own set of perils. Who would’ve thunk it? One son is constantly worried about his social standing, spending far too much time ensuring his place at the top of the heap. The other son is somewhat less concerned, but spends a lot of his time maintaining his prominence at the apex of the athletic pyramid. When they each teeter on their perches, the ensuing paranoia and pain are heartbreaking to behold. Boy, I don't miss high school one little bit, have I mentioned that lately?

And I was so thrilled that my secure, confident kids were not suck ups. They didn't spend a lot of time worrying about people pleasing— they are sure of themselves and speak their truth. Which is awesome. But it hasn't made them very popular with their teachers or the school administration. In posturing for their peers, they are essentially giving the finger to the adults in their lives. Which, as you might imagine, has not gone well for them. I've had to bite my tongue and let them take their licks, even when I agree with my boys that, yes, they are being treated unfairly because they didn't bother to make sure they were liked and therefore didn’t enjoy the benefit of any doubts.

I have very little experience with the sorts of issues my kids face regularly; I got my wish and my kids are completely different from me at their age. Be careful what you wish for, I've been told. Yep, shoulda been more careful...  

So, when Abalone decries the duty of a parent to stand back and watch our children make a mess of things, he touched my heart. You know, the one running around outside my body, making a mess of things I can't allow myself to clean up. Even though, I really, really, really want to get serious with the Brillo pads. My heart aches for my boys. But I know that the only thing I can do for them is to offer a shoulder to cry on when it all becomes too much, as they learn to navigate waters that are much less calm than I would have them be. Only no one asked me, unfortunately. Maybe it’ll be easier for Abalone — I have to get back to Blood Kiss and find out – I certainly hope so.