Authentic Beauty

I recently stopped by to see a friend of mine, the New York Times best selling author, Laura Kaye. It was an unexpected visit, and when her husband ushered me in, Laura was sitting on the floor of her living room, in shorts and a t-shirt, wrapping gifts for her daughter's birthday. Her hair was scraped back from her face in a clip and she didn't have a speck of makeup on. And she looked amazing—a natural beauty. And I thought to myself, wow, I wish I looked like that with no enhancements or embellishments. But I don't. I need help to look merely acceptable.  And I wondered—to myself—at what point during the process of using artifice to appear more aesthetically pleasing do we cross the line from making the most of what we've got to projecting a completely false face (and body) to the world, undermining our efforts to be authentic and to live authentically?

As I contemplated these questions, I thought of one of my all-time favorite characters, Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse. Over the course of the series, Sookie is repeatedly given the opportunity to ingest vampire blood, which acts, among other things, to enhance physical beauty, including adding luster and body to hair, brightening skin, teeth and eyes, and generally serving to make humans look better. In the end, Sookie rejects these enhancements, feeling that they made her into someone she wasn't.

I remember being struck by Sookie's choices and thinking—gee, if I could look like I'd been to the most exclusive hairdresser in town, and then to the best spa and the most exclusive cosmetic dentist and plastic surgeon in the world just by drinking a little vampire blood—straight from the vein of a gorgeous vampire who has the hots for me--I'd be all over that action like Bobby Flay on a grill. 

Without giving away all my secrets, I will admit to partaking of many of the services the beauty industry offers in this country. I certainly wear makeup more often than not if I'm going out of the house.  And I wouldn't want anyone to see me at the beauty salon with foil all over my head, doing an excellent imitation of someone trying to channel radio signals from outer space.

I haven't done it yet, but neither have I ruled out plastic surgery down the road if my neck becomes saggy and my jowls start to head south. I'm honestly not sure how far I would go to preserve my looks—not that I want to look 25 again, but I'm also not sure, when I get there, that I want to look like I'm a typical 50-year old, either. I don't think I want to walk gently into that good night of looking old when I certainly don’t feel old.

So what about Sookie's decision to accept the inevitable ravages of the years to live life as an authentic human? If we choose to fight the tide of time, are we choosing to live less than authentically?  As you know, living authentically is my purpose in life and exploring ways to do that and sharing my insights is my current life's work. If I want to inspire others to live authentically, how far can I go with respect to physical improvements that aren't "natural" and still make a claim to authenticity?

How much artificial enhancement is too much?  When do we become like fem-bots—plastic, perfect people without a hair out of place or a wrinkle on our foreheads? If you look at most celebrities these days, they all seem to look the same—identically symmetrical faces with absolutely no affect because all of their emotive expressions have been Botoxed out of existence. How much of a slippery slope is it from hair dye and facial moisturizers to lasers and scalpels and vacuum cleaners sucking the fat from our thighs and our abdomens?

Maybe we should all make like Sookie and just say no. Maybe we should allow ourselves to grow old gracefully, even if grace isn't always as pretty as holding back the onslaught of time across our faces and our bodies. That seems like such a leap of faith, though, to accept ourselves as we really are, and to eschew smoothing out the rough edges of our physical imperfections.

I wish I could take that leap. But I don't look as pretty as Laura Kaye without my makeup on and my hair done. So, I may have to allow this bit of inauthenticity to slip by the barricades that normally serve to weed out dishonesty and prevarication in my life—the boundaries that help me live a life of integrity.  At least for a while—just until I can accept myself as being beautiful with no adornments at all. I’m working on it. Really.  But I won't hold my breath just yet. I might turn blue.

Waiting for Life To Start

So, I’m reading book two of Katie MacAlister’s Dark Ones series.  This book follows the tormented vampire (Dark One), Christian, as he waits to find his Beloved, who is the only woman who can save him from the Hell on Earth he is living.  As we’ve discussed before click here, the idea of one specific woman for that special vampire or werewolf is a common theme in paranormal fiction.  It’s good, it works.  But, you need to ask yourself, does this whole idea of waiting for THE ONE reinforce the message that life doesn’t start until—fill  in the blank—occurs?  Does this specific example and so many like it set us up to hang out in that most depressing of destinations, Dr. Seuss’ The Waiting Place?

When I was young, I distinctly remember waiting (with great impatience) for my life to start.  When I graduated from high and got the hell out of my parents’ house, my life would start.  When I was able to leave my first university and transfer back to a New York school, my life would start. When I met the man of my dreams, when we got married, when we succeeded in having children, when I figured out my career, etc., etc., my life would start.

I finally figured out, very belatedly it’s true, that I was spending my life in the dreaded Waiting Place.   The one Dr. Seuss warned me about.

I knew better, I did.  I remember having this exact conversation with a therapist when I was 19-years-old (I lived in Manhattan in the 1980s--everyone was in therapy!) and my awesome therapist, Lynn, told me very clearly- “Anne, this is your life, so you need to live it.”  OK, good advice.  It caused me to pinch myself periodically and think, “This is my life, I’m living it”, which kind of worked a little bit, but not really.

Turns out that time passes in exactly the same manner in my fake life as it did in my real life, so whether I was living in one or the other, time continued slip-sliding away, in the immortal words of Paul Simon.  That was definitely not good at all.

Turns out, there were a lot of issues involved in actually embracing the whole “this is my life” proposition.  The biggest problem, of course, was that by waiting for my “real” life to start, which sometimes meant the end of a work day, or a work week, or the completion of a major project, or the end of my kids’ school year or soccer season, the holidays, etc.,  I was actually spending my time,  by definition, in an inauthentic way—as in not real.

So if I was spending the majority of my time living an inauthentic life, my very authentic fear was that one day my time would be up and I would look back and realize that my fake life eclipsed any hope of having a real life, and now it was game over.

At this point, a pit stop and lane change were definitely in order.

First, the pit stop- this is the part where we duck and cover, stop and smell the roses, just breathe, make like a Talking Head and then you may ask yourselves “How did I get here?”

That’s a good question, but it’s a bit of the tail wagging the dog.  A better first question is, where the hell am I anyway? Seems like the answer to that would be obvious, but not so much.

Sometimes, we seem to be in one place, and really we’re clear across town, or across the country, or, in some extreme cases, not even inhabiting the same astral plane that we thought we were.  For example, I was married to the guy of my dreams, I had a blossoming career that was going gangbusters, we lived in a spectacular house and I had good friends and the time and money to have a lot of fun.  Seems like Nirvana, no?  Apparently not.  For some, it takes losing everything to bring what really matters into sharp focus.  For me, it took having it all to realize that something was decidedly –and devastatingly- missing.  What, you may ask, could possibly be missing?  And the answer, I’m sorry to say, was me.

The actress who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogy, Carrie Fisher, once wrote, 'Having a Great Time, Wish I Were Here.” And that was me.  Because it turns out that while I was busy creating the life I thought I wanted, I forgot to create myself in the process.  For me, there was no there there, and it made for a gaping empty hole where my joy and fulfillment should be.

So what I finally learned, slowly and painfully, was that life really isn’t like my fantasy novels in this particular instance.  There’s nothing outside ourselves that can save us.  There’s no one—at least in my humble opinion—who can complete us, as Christian was waiting for.  There’s no accomplishment that will fulfill us if we’re hollow inside, having failed to do the work to uncover who we truly are and what we are truly here to do.  And if we’re waiting for that special someone to be our missing puzzle piece, or the accolade or award that’s going to convince us that we are worthy, we’re going to spend a long time in the Waiting Place. And who wants to disappoint Dr. Seuss?

Better to blow that particular popsicle stand and get on with the business of finding or making ourselves and then sharing that person with the world.  At which point the wonderful spouse and beautiful house can be fully enjoyed and appreciated, cause nothing attracts joy as much as truth.  And truth is something we live, not something we wait for.

What Women Want

I have often wondered-- to anyone who will listen-- why more men don't read women's romance novels to get some pointers. I mean, really, men are always complaining about how incomprehensible women are and how they never know what women are thinking or what women want. To that I say, "Poppycock!"  There is mountain of information out there for anyone who cares to look for it. And I'm not just talking about studies and scholarly works, although many of those exist as well. I'm talking about the myriad books written by women, for women about women. Women know what women want. And we are exceptionally willing to share that information with anyone willing to make the effort to pay attention.

An excellent, though fictional, example of a man who takes his research seriously and then applies it with heart-stopping efficacy is Judd Lauren in Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series. His story is called Caressed by Ice (and yes, I totally realize that these ridiculous titles are a massive deterrent to men ever picking up these books!). But I loved the fact that although he was a virgin (most Psy are, as they have eschewed emotion and passion, so sex is definitely out of the equation) but he has taken the time to learn about how to pleasure a woman. I like that in a man. Diana Gabaldon once wrote in her Outlander series that virginity in men was underrated as what they lacked in experience or technique they more than made up for in enthusiasm. I've always remembered that reference and smiled. And I smiled even more when I read Judd's story. There is a lot of material in that book for men who are looking for useful tips.

Anyhoo, back to the subject at hand, what women want and why men are so generally reluctant or incapable of giving it to them. In my travels, I've spoken to hundreds of women, most of whom sing the same refrain-- their men are fairly clueless about how to make them happy-- romantically, sexually, domestically and even professionally. As far as I can tell, most men have no idea how to make love or seduce a woman.  Have men never wondered why so many women have learned to emulate Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally?  Why is this a necessary skill for savvy women?  For a couple of reasons, all of which have to do with protecting the male ego and/or ending the tedium of sex as soon as possible.

From my perspective, it is never OK to fake an orgasm, for a variety of sound reasons. Firstly, if you fake it, he'll never learn. Secondly, it rewards poor performance and who wants to do that?  And lastly, it is a big fat lie that corrodes intimacy between two people. So just say no, not, "Yes, yes, oh, God, yes," unless you really mean it. 

So what might men learn if they picked up the same books I love to read?  First, they will learn that Ms. Gabaldon was onto something when she extolled the virtues of enthusiasm. Every woman loves a man who is totally into her body with genuine enthusiasm-- defined as intense and eager enjoyment, interest and approval. Women want you to notice all of them--not just the high points. But those as well. And we'd like a little more specificity in your comments other than, "great rack."

Every woman I've ever met, even the least vain or self-absorbed ones, are proud or pleased with some part or parts of their bodies. We have studied ourselves in mirrors and inspected the parts we can see without one.  We want men to appreciate the parts of ourselves we think are pretty--or at least adequate. It could be our hair, our skin, our eyes, or our cheekbones, our shoulders or the way our hipbones meet our thighs. But there is something. Or more than one thing. And that's what we want you to notice and celebrate.

My beloved fantasy books also tell me that women want to be appreciated for more than their physical attributes. They want men to notice, comment on and engage them about their interests, accomplishments, aspirations and ambitions. Women want men to appreciate them for who they are in terms of the positive aspects of their personalities, and to feel confident that our men can tolerate and cope with the more challenging aspects that make up the complete, real woman—not some video game avatar or mail-order bride who submits to a man’s every whim.  Real women have imperfections, just like Gerry Bartlett’s vampires.  To communicate a willingness and ability to do this, however, men need to notice these things first. Which involves observation, analysis and research. We want you to ask questions. And actually listen to and process the answers.

Women want you to learn about their particular erogenous zones. In every single paranormal romance I read, the men lavish endless attention on necks, calves, hip bones, jaw lines and the small of a woman's back, among other places. I've not heard about a lot of real men who do the same, have you? Real men tend to go straight for the good stuff, so to speak. We want our bodies to be wonderlands for our men. Not amusement parks or the local drive through. 

Women want to feel like our men are barely hanging onto any semblance of control with us. Women want to live in Rihanna’s song that tells men we want you to make us feel like we're “the only girl in the world for you, like we're the only ones who you'll ever love, the only ones who know your heart, the only ones who make you feel like a man.” Getting the picture here?

We want men to act as if the passion they feel for us is threatening to overwhelm them at any moment. We women want to be responsible for driving our men absolutely wild. And when we don't, when sex becomes an exercise similar to watching the Karate Kid (wax on, wax off), or worse, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, most of us start going over the grocery list while they finish up.

But men don't read these books, and therefore remain clueless about what women want. Silly boys, these tricks are most definitely not for kids.

Oh, the Humanity!

I’ve been encouraged recently—on a number of different fronts—to contemplate what it means to be human.  And what better way to engage in such contemplation than through the prism of those creatures that inhabit my beloved fantasy novels and who are most definitely not human. What does it mean to be human? Many have answered this question, and it’s not my intention to provide a survey of philosophical or spiritual or biological theories in this space.  I would like to follow a thread offered in the most recent Dark Ones book I’ve read by Katie MacAlister.

In these books, she explores the consequences of some of the Dark Ones (vampires) being born without a soul, and the quest of those so cursed to find their beloved, the one woman in the world who can redeem their souls for them. MacAllister describes the state of being soulless as an unrelenting torment of pain, loneliness and need.  It is this endless need to which the Beloved responds, because of her ability to assuage the pain and fill the emptiness.

In her book, Even Vampires Get the Blues, MacAlister adds a bit of a twist, and this time, it is the Beloved, who, after redeeming the soul of her Dark One, loses her own.   Because she had been human (or mostly, in this case) and because she had had a soul before she lost it, Sam knows exactly what she is missing and the pain is that much greater.  MacAllister explains, “A soul means different things to different cultures.  To most, it’s the thing that makes us more than just sentient, the part of us that lives on when our bodies fail and turn to dust… I came to realize another function of the soul—it connected us to humanity, made us a part of a common experience… [and without it] I felt detached.”  Sam wonders how her Dark One lived so long without a soul with his sanity intact.  He explains to her that that it was all he’d ever known, so it didn’t seem as bad as having had it and lost it.

I really love the idea of the soul as that which connects us to each other, and that it is the connection that makes us human.  It’s a particularly interesting thought in this age of digital detachment, with everyone tied to electronic experiences—living life through the lenses of our cell phone cameras.  Can we really be connected to our own lives—much less each other—if we are so dependent on our electronics that we cannot, by definition, be present in the moment?

I was recently at a school chorus concert in which my son was performing.  I was struck by how many parents we watching their children through their phones and tablets as they recorded the event.  I watch my own kids recording their lives through selfies and pictures of everything they do—including the food they eat, which then gets posted to Instagram for others to validate the experience with likes—or perhaps the reality will be that my kids’ experiences will be discounted or negated if no one “likes” their Instagram pictures.

Have we created a world where authenticity is equated with the stamp of external approval and life doesn’t count if no one watches us—from the rear view mirror that a photo or video necessarily depicts (even if it’s nominally “real time”).  Have we willingly relinquished our souls—that which connects us—to a series of machines that we allow to control our experiences? Are we losing the ability to connect as one human to another?

Are we voluntarily forfeiting our souls for the illusion of immortality that a digital record presents for posterity? Do we get to live forever—young and vibrant—in pictures and sound waves with the only cost being never really having lived it in the first place?

I don’t have the answers to these questions.  In fact, I’m just scratching the surface of these questions and thoughts.  But, as I sit with my pen and notebook and practice connecting my hand with the paper, I am thinking about connection, and having a soul, and what we’re giving up in exchange for the convenience and experiences we can only get with mechanical assistance.

I’m not ready to denounce this age of digital dominance.  But, like a Dark One born without a soul, I’m wondering if our children, who will grow up never having known any other way to be, will even know what they are missing by adding an electronic filter to all of their experiences.  Perhaps they will never seek to redeem themselves and claim their souls because digital detachment is the new normal and they’ll see no need to fix that which they don’t consider broken  I hope that’s not the case.  I still believe it’s the connection that keeps me human. 

Old Familiar Places

As you all know, I get so sad when I come to the end of a series.  Truly, I dread the time when I know I have nothing left to read in a particular set of books because I’ve spent so much time with the characters and become so invested in their stories that I just don’t want the party to end.  But end it does, as my wishes rarely have a terribly significant impact on reality, which is a shame.  Anyway—the end of a series leaves me with two choices—spend some time researching a new author and a new cast of characters in a fantasy world I’d want to inhabit for a time, or go back to an old favorite and console myself with the comfort of familiarity and proven enjoyment as I recover from the end of a beautiful relationship.

I’ve been known to do both, in fact, and it occurs to me that my habits are not so far off from what happens in real life when a love relationship ends.  How many of us have scrolled through our contacts (back in my day it was an address book, but same concept) looking for someone we can call for some uncomplicated love?  I know I’ve been guilty of that more than once (before my marriage, of course).  When a relationship ends, it sometimes seems like too much trouble to get to know someone new.  It’s a daunting task to endure the inevitable awkwardness and uncertainty of “will it work or not” that occurs when we audition a new prospect for the role of dream lover or even potential life partner –or both- if we’re very, very lucky.  Sometimes the thought of starting all over again seems like losing those last ten pounds, climbing Mt. Everest and getting a 1600 on the SATs all at the same time.  No can do.  At least not when I’m still raw from the end of a particularly wonderful series.

And that’s when a retread is just the thing.  It’s familiar.  It’s predictable.  It’s comfortable and comforting.  At least in terms of revisiting books.  Because if we take my analogy a bit further, it doesn’t hold up so well in the real world. In the real world, moving backwards and rekindling old flames can sometimes mean opening a can of exceptionally unpleasant worms. For example, we might know that a toddle down memory lane with an old lover is an extremely bad idea, but how many of us actually listen to that insistent little voice in our heads saying “Danger, Will Robinson”? Not me, I’ll tell you.  Nah, I used to barrel forward heedless of the danger, knowing that the old familiar road seemed a lot less scary than forging a new path.  Sometimes, the road less traveled just looks isolated and foreboding and definitely best avoided.  After all, I’m from New York where I learned that if a neighborhood park or street is deserted, then what the hell are you thinking by being there? Asking for big trouble, that’s what.

And who wants big trouble, right? But that’s the fear talking, not the part of us that embraces new experiences, trusting that expanding our horizons is (almost) always for the good and an endeavor to be pursued.  So, the good news is that after a few repeat performances with someone we’ve danced with before, and the realization that it doesn’t work any better now than it did then, we feel ready to move onto new adventures.

Luckily for me –and for you, too, there is significantly less angst involved in transitioning between fantasy novels than there is in romantic relationships.  The really good news in that there’s always a lot less baggage and fewer bad memories associated with revisiting a particular fantasy series that we’ve loved and lost.  We we reread books, there’s no resentment or anger or heartache (unless you are one of the folks who’s still mad at Charlaine Harris for how she ended the Sookie Stackhouse series—come on, guys, she foreshadowed that particular plot twist beginning in the very first book and then kept dropping hints like bread crumbs for Hansel and Gretel to follow! Get over it, already!).  Oops, did I digress again?

Back to the issue at hand, revisiting well-loved books or even whole series.  Personally, I reread Sookie’s story at least once a year, and also the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. I pick up Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison when nothing and no one else can elevate my mood from the pits of despair, just cause I love it so much. I frolic with G.A. Aiken’s Dragon Kin when I want to smile, and laugh out loud with MaryJanice Davidson’s Queen Betsy when I really need a belly-full.

And the best part is that there’s absolutely no downside to indulging in my desire to make everything old new again with my reading and plumb the depths of these beautiful books to get a new insight or remind myself of a profound truth. Rereading books is nothing, in fact, like revisiting an old lover who might have picked up something nasty since the last interlude.  So, stick with books for your retreads rather than last year’s boyfriend or girlfriend. Because we can’t find truth in fantasy everywhere, just between the pages of our beloved books. And after we've finished revisiting books we've read before, we can move on to something new and marvelous.

Cold as Ice

I've returned to reading Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series. I'm reading the third installment, Caressed by Ice (really?!  Can we not come up with less cheesy titles, please?). I love these books, almost as much as the author's Guild Hunter series, which are among my all-time favorites. The premise of the Psy-Changeling books, like the premise of the Guild Hunters series, is extremely original and the plots are interesting and unpredictable (not how things end, of course, as these books follow a formula that results in an inevitable HEA. But that is not only OK, it's one of the reasons I and so many like me love this genre--we want happy endings. We enjoy the illusion of control that these novels represent. If you've been reading my Facebook page--and please, please do and tell your friends--then you know I scour the web for articles that explain that reading reduces stress and relaxes us.) OK, I've digressed quite a bit from the subject at hand. More so than usual. Forgive me and please keep reading about the very fascinating Psy-Changeling world. To summarize, the Psy are masters of their own minds, having developed their mental and intellectual capacities to the fullest extent possible. These folks are masters of their domain and totally in control.  Unfortunately, what they figured out was that all of this mental might came with a hefty price tag for a significant portion of the population: insanity. And when super-smart people start losing their marbles, the result is dangerous for everyone. The solution was to turn everyone into a Vulcan and condition all the emotions out of existence--and therefor the potential for madness (or at least most of the potential, except for those pesky sociopaths).  So what you are left with are cold, calm, calculating people whose judgment is never clouded by emotion and whose women are never bothered by PMS, apparently. 

On the other hand, we have the Changelings, who have gone in the opposite direction and embraced their animal natures to the point that they become animals-- they are, in fact, shapeshifters. These folks are physicality personified, and they are filled with emotion and passion, which they express through their bodies--changelings crave touch while Psy avoid it like the plague.

So, pretty interesting stuff. And when they get together, unwillingly of course, it kind of reminds me of Amok Time run amok (stop rolling your eyes-- that was a pretty clever Star Trek reference). And the books explore the mutual impact both species have on each other as they come together in love and self-interest.

I really love  these books, and I think a part of my fascination is that I am acutely uncomfortable with--and therefore attracted to--people who don't show their emotions. This is because I'm most definitely a wear your heart on your sleeve kind of gal. You know the type--I almost never hold back. As my mother would say, if it's on my lung, it's on my tongue. I have a hard time practicing verbal restraint. I have no poker face. My eyebrows are constantly encroaching on my hairline and I do a mean imitation of Edvard Munch's The Scream--as in OMG, NFW, LMFAO. 

So, when I am confronted by people who keep their thoughts and emotions much closer to the chest, it kind of makes me crazy. Perhaps not Jack Nicholson in The Shining crazy, but not too far off.  I hate not knowing what people are thinking and feeling. It makes me nuts when these ice queens and kings adopt a supercilious attitude of "aren't you the cute little out of control psycho?"  Their lack of affect seems to scream at me, "I'm so much better than you because you can't even get a grip on yourself much less anyone or anything else."

I find myself fantasizing about stabbing Mr. and Ms. Spock with a fork to see if they bleed green blood. Figuratively, of course. Have you ever felt that way?  Don't you sometimes wonder what it would take to make someone like this get excited?  Or even slightly agitated?  I'm sure this is the allure behind the prim and proper librarian whipping off her glasses and letting down her hair to become a sexually voracious hellion.   We who are more emotional want to entice these Stepford wives to lose control  Utterly and completely. 

And sometimes I'm really not a very nice person and I become deliberately provocative to see if I can't shatter the wall of ice that seems to be rising in front of me like I should expect to see Jon Snow at any moment.  Just to see if I can. Usually, I can.  Not something I am terribly proud of, but there you have it. 

Because restrained emotions can be interpreted as a lack of feeling, which is hurtful and feels like rejection. And who wants to feel rejected?  Not me, that's who.  And while I can tell myself intellectually that the other feels as strongly as I do, it just doesn't seem that way.  And it is so unfair that as I am busy expressing and emoting all over the place so that others are never in doubt about my feelings, but I’m not getting any of that in return.

Unfortunately, I've found that it is the most Pyrrhic of victories to succeed in provoking such self-contained people to overflow their carefully constructed barriers. No good ever comes of it, unless you are living in a Nalini Singh novel, in which case breaking through the ice cold obstacles to reveal the passionate and possessive nature below always works out well for her protagonists. 

For the rest of us, I think the thing to do is remember that we are all different but that we all share the same humanity.  Just because we don't all express ourselves in the same way doesn't mean that we don't all feel the same things. I think we probably do. Still waters run deep and all of that.

And, as I continue to read the Psy-Changeling series, I think I will continue to enjoy the virtual victory of watching these arctic individuals thaw. I can live vicariously through the Changelings as they do something in the pages of my beloved books that doesn't necessarily work as well in real life. Because I've learned to dig and pick and poke and prod only at my peril. I've also learned to take people as they are and to let them share with me in a way that works for them. Most of the time. When that doesn't work, I read Nalini’s Singh’s books and learn to live with disappointment.  Or, I play Foreigner loudly on my wireless speaker and hope someone takes the hint.  

Winning the Lottery

In the book, Jade, a very promising first novel by Rose Montague, the main character has the ability to pick and choose the best of the best in terms of attributes and accessories. When this aspect of the plot was finally revealed, it was a question I couldn't stop pondering:  if I could pick anything to be and to have, what would I choose?  Why?  And what might these choices say about me?

Do I get to choose with the wisdom of all my decades on the planet? Or do I need to make my choices ahead of time with no real context for decisions or a clear understanding of consequences, intended or otherwise, as Jade does?  While it was very entertaining to read about Jade and her escapades, let's assume for argument's sake that I get to choose with the knowledge and understanding of my current self, and then I get to go back in time and rewind my life to my early 20s, just because (because this is my blog and my fantasy and because I'm hoping you will be able to find your own truths in my fantasy this time).

So, what would I choose first?  I have one voice in my head arguing for looks (and that voice sounds a lot like my mother's) and another urging me toward intelligence and wisdom. I'll choose door number two, in this instance.  After all, looks fade and learning is forever. On the other hand (and, unfortunately, there always seems to be another hand, until I feel like an octopus, sometimes), I don't know of a lot of normal, happy geniuses. With great intelligence seems to come great weirdness. So maybe being super smart is not all it's cracked up to be. I heard it said once about a self-help program that there was no one too stupid to go through it, but plenty who proved too smart for their own good. So, onto door number one, now, because, I've got to say, beauty would be a very close second on my list.

Like many of us, I've always wished my--fill in the blank--were: bigger/smaller/flatter/rounder/firmer/thicker/thinner, you name it. Sound familiar?  And while we are obsessing over the imperfections, sometimes with OCD intensity, no one else really notices. I read recently that Shakira said that she doesn't dwell on her figure flaws (does she have any?) because men find confidence so much more attractive than any particular physical attribute or lack thereof.

So, instead of beauty, which is fleeting, maybe I should go for confidence, which can last a lifetime. Hmmm.

And then, onto door number three, where to go next?  I'm thinking wealth. Fabulous wealth. Sounds good, yes?  But wait, there's more (said in my best QVC voice). There are some issues with wealth, at least as far as I've observed, which also has some scientific support. Being wealthy does not seem to translate into being happy or content (which I think is the point of this particular fantasy sport). There are lots of wealthy people I know and read about who seem fairly miserable, in fact. And what's more, these folks' wealth provides an endless supply of diversion and distraction that only serves to delay any positive action they might otherwise take to ameliorate their personal circumstances to make them more supportive of happiness. It is hard to buckle down and do the difficult work to walk through fear, insecurity and anxieties when you can just buy another outfit or go on another fabulous vacation.  It sounds good, sure, but putting off the need to confront reality only goes so far. Look at the mess most famous people make of their lives, despite the wealth, or, in some cases, maybe because of it. And there are studies that show that people who win the lottery are actually less happy afterwards than they were before.

So, ix-nay on the ealth-way, I think. And that brings me to a screeching halt on this exercise in mental masturbation. Because I don't think I'm going to get any satisfaction at all here. Every time I think about rearranging the hand I was actually dealt, I can come up with reasons why I shouldn't.  I read in one of my beloved fantasy novels (but I can't remember which one!  An occupational hazard, I guess), that if each of is threw all our problems in a big heap in the middle of the floor, none of us would choose to pick up the problems of another.

And because every attribute comes with its own set of issues, some more numerous than National Geographic, as Molly Harper would say, I think I'll stick with my own set of perks and flaws, at least for today.  And while I’m at it, I’ll go back to reading and contemplating the wisdom and entertainment of Jade.

But if someone offers me the winning lottery ticket tomorrow, I might have to rethink this whole thing again.

Enter the Dragon

I feel like I'm cheating. I'm completely taken with a man who is not my husband.  It's happened before, I'm embarrassed to say. First, it was Vampire Bill. Then it was Jean-Claude. And I might have dallied a bit with Jericho Barrons and Raphael. But this is different. This is lasting. This is obsession. The object of my obsession, you may wonder?  None other than Dragos Cuelebre, the Great Beast of Thea Harrison's Elder Races series. Why Dragos?  Why does he stand out in the pantheon of hot alpha males that populate my beloved fantasy novels? Why do I replay the scenes of the novels and stories in my mind long after I've put my Kindle away? Why do I analyze and dissect his thought processes and his evolution and search for clues about my own life and proclivities and potential growth through the prism of this particular character?  Why is this fictional fantasy so compelling that I'm genuinely sad that such a magnificent creature doesn't actually exist?

Well, we must give credit where credit is due, and celebrate the genius of Thea Harrison in creating such an amazing avatar.  Jay Gatsby has nothing on Dragos (yeah, you heard me, I'm comparing Thea Harrison to F. Scott Fitzgerald and I don't want to hear any lip about it!).  Dragos is incredibly complex but straightforward at the same time. As the author notes on several occasions, Dragos is Powerful as shit and older than dirt. He was born with the cosmos and his evolution is beyond the imagining of mere humans. He can shift forms from the ultimate alpha male--bigger, stronger and faster than even Steve Austin (and worth well over six million dollars to boot) to become the one and only dragon in the universe. He is singular and without peer. He has been considered a god. Perhaps he is a god. In other words, he is utterly one of a kind.

But here's the thing: given all that he has been and all that he is and all that he can become, he remains teachable, with some level of authentic humility underneath that seemingly impenetrable autocratic and invulnerable exterior. He can learn and grow and change. And he can feel with some level of emotional depth. He wants to evolve. He wants to grow and to become a better man for his mate. Is your heart palpitating yet?  Do you have the vapors?  Cause I sure do. Who wouldn't fall for that?  If you are immune, my hat is off to you. But then I've got to ask why?  Why would you even want to resist such magnificence?  Well, I can think of a couple of reasons, actually. First, it's hard to admit to wanting something you don't believe exists in reality. Second, even if you concede the possible existence of such a creature, few of us willingly bang our heads against a wall of certain deprivation. If we know for a fact we could never be with someone like that, either because we believe we could never attract him or because we believe we could never maintain a relationship with him, then there is little point in pining. Unrequited love is only noble and marginally interesting in fiction (and not even there, for me; Madame Bovary bored me to tears—get over him already!). Those kinds of issues are a different kettle of fish entirely, and the subject for another post.

But now I want to talk about looking underneath that amazing exterior--beyond the power and the wealth and the smoking hot looks. What is there that transcends the dragon shapeshifter aspect, or even the billionaire elite-athlete-cum-rocket scientist-supermodel aspect of Dragos?  What are some of the more authentic (not to mention realistic and obtainable) elements of who Dragos is that command our deep respect and draw us in like moths to smoking hot flames?  Qualities like strength of character, comfort in one's own skin, fundamental competence and confidence?  And then, like the cherry on the top of the sundae, is a burning ambition to continually strive to be a better man, to want to become more patient, and tolerant, giving and generous.  Not to mention so hot for his mate that spontaneous combustion occurs when they come together.

Could you get behind that action?  There was a time where I probably could not but those days are in the past, thankfully. Now I wake up to that every day. Which is awesome for me, definitely. But, in truth, it took me a very long time to be able to look beyond the superficial of good looks, good prospects, and the casual arrogance of a man who knows he's got it going on (as my husband does). Because that is definitely not enough, as Dragos so ably demonstrates.

The pull that Dragos exerts on my psyche is below the surface. He's more than the ultimate alpha male. Because in reality, alpha males come with some fairly insurmountable obstacles, at least to my way of thinking. Alpha males want control of everything. But Dragos is willing to consider that control precludes partnership and friendship. Control puts the controller in the one up position.  And for a guy used to being one up for eons, not just multiple millennia, Dragos is irresistibly willing to consider that being one up means your “partner” is one down. And the one down position makes partnership impossible. He is seductively prepared to ponder the proposition that he doesn't know it all or how to do it all. He's eager to pursue additional evolution to the next level of existence. For his woman. To be a better man for her. And that makes him just about perfect for me. 

The Yardstick

Lately I've been called to evaluate the metrics by which we measure success in our lives. What yardstick do we use? It seems that different people use different measures and that perhaps we're all in need of a big dose of standardization in the life-o-meter department. I attended the funeral for the mother of a childhood friend recently. She was also a second mother to me but even so, the death hit me harder than I had expected. Part of it, too, was because this death came almost one year to the day after the death of my own mother. And of course I wouldn't be human if I hadn't engaged in a bit of comparison shopping while going through the activities attendant to death--the funerals and the aftermath of two women who could not have been more different in life and who we celebrated in such divergent ways in death.

My friend's mother had significantly less to work with in many ways than did my own and yet by any measure my friend's mother crafted a much more successful life. The two women knew each other through their daughters but did not have any sort of real relationship. Too bad, too, as my mother could have benefited from the example. Assuming she was interested in improving her life, which she clearly was not.

As I am wont to do, I've been thinking about all of this through the prism of my beloved fantasy books. And as is likely to happen these days, what I'm reading just happens to be weirdly relevant to the events of my life. I've basically stopped questioning this phenomenon as it keeps occurring but I will note in passing that it is mighty strange. Unless you believe that there are no coincidences. But that is a subject for another post. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

So I've been revisiting Dragos and Pia and the rest of Thea Harrison's Elder Races world. As you have heard, I'm half in love with Dragos and I pretty much want to be Pia, so I'm enjoying myself immensely and feeling grateful that Ms. Harrison has gifted us with two novellas just one month apart. It's Christmas in July!

A recurring theme in these stories is Dragos' insistence that Pia is his best teacher. Which is ironic because he was born of the Big Bang and evolved through the eons adopting a human form and persona for only the last microsecond of his extremely long existence. In contrast, Pia is a twenty-something half human girl who tended bar before hooking up with the oldest and most Powerful being in the universe. So it seems unlikely that she would have a whole lot to teach him. But she does, in fact.

Because longevity is no guarantee of meaningful impact, as the tale of two mothers in my own life aptly demonstrates. What Pia is teaching Dragos is how to live a life of meaning and purpose. She is showing him how to leave the world a better place than he found it, and how to affect change through love and not might (to be fair, I'm painting a pretty black and white picture here and there is some amount of gray for both Dragos and my mother, but I'll keep to the deep contrasts to make my points).

From the beginning of their story when Pia tries to make reparations for the crime she commits that starts the initial ball rolling, to her use of Dragos' credit card to feed the hungry, to her insistence that Dragos offer assistance to his former enemies, Pia shows Dragos how to be more human and how to live more compassionately, which is the true measure of a successful life, at least in my book--the correct yardstick, if you will.

Based on all of this, I have to ask, what makes for a successful life?  I'm guessing that Dragos, if he contemplated such things, would have felt pretty successful with his vast hoard and large corporate holdings and his legacy of imposing the rule of law on his fellow shapeshifters. But I'm wondering if he would feel the same way after meeting Pia and learning about her definition of a successful life, which involves connection and service and selflessness and a commitment to being human in the very best sense of that word. I think not. I think that Dragos' definition of success has probably evolved in the blink of time since Pia came into his life. And their example is helping me to refine my own definition.

My mother had many years on this earth to make a difference but she became distracted by the false trappings of success, unfortunately. She thought, like Dragos before Pia, that whoever had the most toys at the end of the game wins. Not so. My friend's mother, who died before her time, sadly, understood that the amount of stuff we accrete over the course of our lives is meaningless at the end of the game.

In the end, Walt Whitman got it right in his definition of success; success involves leaving the world a better place than you found it. It involves touching other lives in a way that enhances our humanity. Success involves seeking to improve the lives of others thereby elevating our own existence. Seems like a lot of people never figure that out, my mom included. It makes me sad.

We need teachers to show us the way. And I love learning through the fun and pleasure I get while reading my beloved fantasy novels. There are many riches to be found as we mine these stories for their deeper truths. And we need teachers in reality as well, such as the mother of my friend. Because all yardsticks are not comprised of the same thirty-six inches and the accurate measure of a life requires using the right tools. 

Doing What Comes Unnaturally

I'm still totally enmeshed in Thea Harrison's Elder Races world these days. And the deep thoughts she inspires are coming fast and furious. Today, I'm reflecting on the fact that I have something in common with Dragos. No, I can't shapeshift into a dragon the size of a G5, nor have I suddenly become fabulously wealthy, more's the pity. But I do share with Dragos the fact that Pia is fast becoming one of my best teachers, particularly with respect to how to have a successful relationship. One of Pia's consistent tendencies throughout the evolution of her relationship with Dragos has been to fight her own instincts on how to behave for the benefit of their growing connection and so that she can share a life with him. That is extremely hard to do, and requires tremendous self-awareness as well as strength of will. Overcoming the impulses of our lizard brains toward self-protection and the avoidance of fear, pain and discomfort is a very tricky business and in my experience, few of us do it very well. 

But in Thea Harrison's world, Pia does it extremely well, and her actions have inspired me to think about my own. As I've talked about before, doing the hard thing is hard. That seems quite obvious, I know, but in truth I don't think it is. I think many or even most of us do things we think are hard in our relationships-- be they romantic, platonic or professional--such as taking on extra work, logistical, physical and emotional—so that we can then believe that we are paying our dues for being in relationship (this only applies to those of us who understand that all relationships are, or should be, reciprocal and balanced in some sort of equitable way, however that is specifically measured between two people, and the metrics can vary widely between and among different relationships, of course. And there are also those unfortunates who have no clue at all that relationships should be a two-way street and those folks fall into either the taker category or the giver category, and neither category, when someone hangs out exclusively in one or the other, is a good place to be. But that is an issue for another post).

And so, in pursuit of being good partners in our relationships, we who strive for balance and fairness, work to do the right thing and shoulder our share of the load. And for those of us who are at least fairly well adjusted, we are also (usually) willing to go with the flow associated with all long-term alliances that necessitates the assumption of more than our fair share of the burden at various times, with the expectation that the other will do the same for us as needed.

And all of that is well and good and probably contains enough material to explore in a number of future posts.  But what I really want to talk about is what Pia has pointed out to me. In order to make the relationship with Dragos viable, Pia must do things above and beyond what we think of as doing the work in relationships. This is not about negotiating who is going to cook versus who will clean up, or who will stay home with the kids and who will bring home the bacon. This is well past the conversation about whose turn it is to clean the toilets or take out the garbage. What Pia must do to become Dragos' mate is to overcome her natural instincts to run and hide and isolate. In her case, it is literally a life and death decision. For the rest of us, it just feels like that.

When we are called to overcome our most deep-seated fears in order to take an important relationship to the next level, it can be paralyzing. In fact, I believe our lizard brains work overtime to cloud our perception and judgment with denial so that we won't even recognize the need to move beyond our fears toward action that represents risk at the most primal level. Our lizard brains don't want us to take such risks. It is way too dangerous and is best avoided in pursuit of self-preservation. But our lizard brains are not considering all the factors. That's not its job, though, so that should be expected. It's the job of our frontal lobe to think through the implications of our actions and decisions and determine whether such risks are warranted in light of the reward that may be achieved (but also may not be--hence the risk factor involved in the choice).

When Pia decides to trust Dragos with her most intimate secret so that she can have the possibility of a life with him--but by no means a guarantee--she must go against the almost deafening clamor of every self-protective instinct she has, not to mention everything her beloved mother had ever taught her. Not easy, for sure, and Thea Harrison does an exceptional job in evoking the difficulty that Pia must face and over which she must triumph.

Pia's lessons are particularly relevant in my life right now, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn. Not because it's fun. It most certainly is not. But because it's necessary, and I'm not sure I would even be thinking about this stuff if I hadn't been reading these books. For me, I'm a fixer and a doer. I'm a woman of action and I am never more comfortable than in figuratively leaping on my war horse, drawing my sword and rushing headlong into the fray, confronting my opponents and resolving the issue one way or the other. I know lots of people, though, for whom this is not their way, and they are much more comfortable watching and waiting and seeing what develops, avoiding confrontation and any sort of frontal assault at all costs.

And neither of these ways of being is right or wrong. They just are, and it is all just fine. Except when it's not, and we are called to go against our instincts to save a relationship that means something to us. At those times, we are called to overcome our lizard brains and take scary risks for the possibility of getting something that we want very badly. Without any guarantee that we will be successful. This is the true work of relationships.

Yes, I feel like I'm working toward making my relationships work when I do things like make the coffee more than half the time for my husband, or travel more often than my friend does so that we can see each other. And I don't mean to invalidate or devalue such work, because it is important and necessary for the day-to-day continuation of any relationship. But there are times, and luckily they are few and far between, when we have to do something much, much harder to preserve a critical connection. 

In my case, I have to back off. I need to stop rushing in to fix or to instruct or to do for another what needs to be done, but not by me. The technical term, I think, is enabling, and I am coming to realize I do a lot more of it than I thought I did. I am a human doing rather than a human being. And I'm starting to wonder what would happen to some of my relationships if I did less so that the other can do more. And the thought scares the pants off of me, because what if I back off and things fall apart?  Can I live with that? But do I want to have relationships that are dependent on my holding them up, mostly by myself?  I'm not Atlas, and I'm getting awfully tired. This is not to say that effort in a relationship does not come in a variety of packages and apples need to be compared with their like and doing that often involves some convoluted translating. I get all of that. But sometimes, we all need to make like Pia and do the thing that is most uncomfortable in order to see where we stand in the aftermath of doing what does not come naturally. And for me, my lizard brain feels as big and overwhelming as the large lizard that is Dragos, so no pressure there!

And I can only hope it works out as well for me as it does for her and that in this case, when it really counts, there will, in reality, be truth in fantasy.

Me and Mick

Have you ever had the experience of grief over one specific person or event and it triggers a veritable parade of sad things to think about? You know what I mean--you can be upset about a recent death (or a break-up, even) and that leads to playing "Paint It Black" on endless repeat and then you start thinking about every single sad thing that's ever happened to you, including the ending of The Fault in Our Stars (or if you are older Brian's Song or Love Story). And you end up crying with your face all puffy and red (unless you are a pretty crier, in which case I don't like you). And if you are able to really work yourself into an epic cry, you can get to the “sobbing so hard it's difficult to catch your breath” phase, and then you have truly arrived at cathartic misery. Until the storm passes and the seas calm and you are left feeling empty and wrung out, but also fulfilled in some way that feels necessary and right. Or maybe I'm the only one who does this on occasion. Let me know before I start to feel like a freak.

And while I didn't quite reach the epic stage this weekend, I definitely hit a rough patch and had a hard time. Because I'm not as young as I used to be (who is, of course?), the sad parade is getting longer and longer. And because I'm hitting the time of life where parents start dropping like rain in the Amazon, it's been a tough year in terms of having abundant reminders of my mortality (in the form of four funerals and a wedding so far), continually ensuring that I remember to carpe diem. Time's a passing, and there's none to lose.

And these milestones make me think of those for whom mortality has no pull--especially vampires, the fae, and other supernatural beings who don't need to worry about death and dying unless their heads happen to become separated from their bodies. I think there are two sides to this particular thought process--the pain of an almost endless death watch as supes love and lose their human counterparts (can you imagine what their Paint It Black evenings look like?) and the flip side of that pillow where no one ever dies and what that does to the whole circle of life concept.

I'm reading the last (until August when the actual last book will be published) of Jessica Sims' Midnight Liaisons series right now. And I'm giving serious thought to adding the termination of this series to my death watch list, I'm so sad that it's ending. This one focuses on Marie, who has a terminal disease and is seeking a vampire to turn her and make her immortal.  But as she implements her plan for everlasting life, she becomes motivated to think about what endless nights look like without love and family, meaning or purpose. She's beginning to wonder if life is always the best choice. And it makes me wonder whether I would want to Paint It Black indefinitely and trade in my mortal coil for eternal existence.

I don't think so, in fact. Of course I reserve the right to continue with this train of thought and explore the implications much more fully down the line at some point. And to change my mind, of course, as is the prerogative of every woman. But at this juncture, I'm not at all certain I'd want to give up my sadness and the texture it adds to my life and my perspective. Nor do I want it to last forever, though, as immortality would require.

Death is a part of life, inevitably. It's frightening and often devastating for those left behind and those whose deaths come with a date certain stamped on the box, as when a cancer patient is given weeks or months to live. But it's something we all need to confront, both for ourselves and for those we love.

We can hope that the natural order of things is observed, as it is when our parents die before us, which has been my experience of the past year. But when the natural order becomes unbalanced, as when my teenaged children attended the funeral of a friend recently, it becomes much harder to accept and process.

But there is no way around the death watch except through it. We don't have Marie's option to seduce a vampire into making us one of its own, and there is no other supernatural get-out-of-jail-free card available to us. We all stop passing Go at some point, and none of us will collect our $200 when that time arrives.

So I'll crank up the Stones and I'll have a good cry, and I'll get on with my life.  I’ll play “She’s a Rainbow” instead of “Paint It Black.” And maybe I’ll throw in a little “Emotional Rescue,” just in case.

The Arithmetic of Love

As you may have guessed by now, I am a bulimic reader. I binge read individual authors and then I spew forth my thoughts about said writer onto the pages of these blogs. Probably a remnant of my disordered eating days, but a lot less messy, not to mention way healthier. But I digress before I've even gotten started. Oh, well. Back to the subject at hand, or rather to begin the subject at hand, I'm coming to the end of my Jessica Sims binge. And I'm lovin' it!  But that's not the subject, either. The subject, my friends, is the arithmetic of love. Does love expand as we add to it or is love a zero sum game?

This particular contemplation was inspired by Jessica Sims' novella, Vixen, about a were-fox whose animal nature inclines her toward polyamory. In other words (and, in fact, in another language all together) ménage a trois, oo la la! Now, I'm a huge fan of Laurell K. Hamilton, and, therefore, I know a thing or three about polyamory, the love of many, for those of you who enjoy Greek etymology.  I've been riveted to my Kindle reading sex scenes featuring more than four hands and feet and more than two mouths, etc.  I must say, however, that even in fantasy, that's not how I roll. Sounds fairly confusing and overwhelming to my limited imagination, I guess. Either that or I'm just not enough woman to handle more than one man.

Having said that, however, there are clearly many out there who enjoy this sort of thing and to them I say, more power to you--which you seem to have already, given that the power is being generated by multiple sources, if you get my meaning, so good on you--wait, you seem to have that covered as well. So, maybe, bon chance! Enjoy!

But what about the rest of us?  Does the arithmetic of love apply in any way to those of us who prefer to love in single file rather than using the buddy system?  I think it does, actually. Because the issue that polyamory brings up (albeit in a more broad-minded sort of way) is whether there is room for more than one in our hearts and our lives.

This is really more than a theoretical question. In my own life, for example, my mother was definitely a zero sum love kind of person. My brother and I used to joke (not that it was really funny) about who was the favored child at any given time, as my mother seemed incapable of loving both her children simultaneously. We took turns being the object of her love (a dubious distinction, at best), and suffered the consequences of a parent whose heart could not expand along with her family. Tragic, for sure.

But not uncommon. Don't we all know people whose marriages fall apart after the first baby arrives because the father grew to resent the necessary shift of attention of the mother to the child?  Or, less drastic but still hurtful, how many of us have experienced friendships that waste away, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly when a friend finds a new boyfriend/girlfriend and the non-prefixed friends fall by the wayside?  Or, more disturbing still, when we are replaced in the hearts of a loved one by a time consuming hobby (golf widow, anyone?) or a new, demanding job?

When one person's gain is another's loss, the arithmetic of love is seriously screwed up. Give that math test a big fat F, for fallacy. Love is never zero sum, except in the minds of the tragically misinformed. As the Grinch taught us (is anyone vaguely disturbed that I make frequent reference to Dr. Seuss in a blog about reading smut, by the way?  No?  Cool, me either), our hearts expand the more love we stuff inside.

Love is most assuredly not a zero sum game and I have a special place of sadness in my heart for those who feel otherwise. There is room for romantic love, love for our children (more than one at a time, even), our friends, our pets, our passions, and, underneath it all, love for ourselves and the infinite.

Love is generative, in reality, meaning it creates--in the most literal sense that making love creates life, but, also, more analogically, love creates space in our lives for joy and new experiences and new feelings and a fullness that never ends. Love is the magic Volkswagen that never runs out of clowns.

Sometimes it seems that love is about the finite nature of time, so that we incorrectly believe that we cannot love expansively because there are just not enough hours in the day. And while my time obeys the same laws of physics as everyone else's, love is not bound by time, in fact. We can love widely, but focus selectively over time. So, it is true that a new baby demands time that used to be available to a romantic partner. And a new lover usually does take time away from existing friendships. But what demands our time should not be confused with what commands our love. Love is infinite, while time is zero sum.

Does this mean that it isn't exceptionally difficult to juggle the multiple expressions of love in our lives? No, it does not. The cosmic balancing game we must all play is really, really hard, and the rules change all the time making it even harder to play effectively. But that is what we are called to do and that is the work of a lifetime to manage. Time ebbs and flows and how we spend it so that we can attend to the multiplicity of love is a dance. And sometimes, or even often, we have two left feet and our clumsiness may hurt those we care about. But it's not a lack of love that causes our missteps in this dance, at least in theory, and this is why it is important to continually evaluate whether we are spending our time in a manner consistent with our love. And the fallacy of love as a zero sum game is the result of confusing the finite with the infinite, something we humans do altogether too often, unfortunately.

But, in the end, let’s give Paul McCartney an A for accurate, and recognize that he was mostly right--the love we get is equal to the love we give. And then some.

The Giggles of Girlfriends

I'm reading my last Molly Harper book (at least until she writes another one, which will be soon, I hope). This one is called Better Homes and Hauntings and it focuses on ghosts rather than my beloved vampires, weres and fae. So while this one probably won't go down in the all time hall of fame, I'm particularly enjoying the author's portrayal of female friendships and the joys thereof.

For me, there is nothing quite like the happiness to be found in laughing hysterically with a close girlfriend and having that laughter feed off itself, becoming magnified by being passed back and forth till you've got tears running down your face and snot erupting out of your nose. Not pretty, I know, but that is the beauty of female friendships--it's OK to look hideous while crying with mirth. In fact, the mucous adds to the merriment. Disgusting but true.

I experienced this very phenomenon with a very close girlfriend just yesterday. I think we scared my son, in fact, who walked in on us howling, doubled over in laughter with the aforementioned facial moisture and who then ran panic-stricken from the room to tell his father that he thought we had lost our minds. Or possibly control of our bladders.

But my friend and I had lost nothing in fact (I'm not commenting on the bladder control issue!).  We had, instead, gained a priceless gift--the gift of giggles among girlfriends, or, in our case, serious guffaws. It was fun, and abandoned, cathartic and joyful. That is the best definition of a gift I've ever heard. And I was grateful in the moment and again now as I reflect on the blessings of friendship and the intimacy that allows for such uncensored glee.

In the book I'm reading, Molly Harper describes a scene among three women who are sharing a similar moment. The description of what sparked the giggling fit did not really evoke the same reaction in me, but I think that is a case of you really had to be there. But what did resonate was the portrayal of how this type of female bonding (no, not bondage, so get your mind out of the gutter here, people, not all smut is sexy - it also inspires, thus the point of this blog) can support and validate and enliven and even heal, as it does for the main female character, Nina.

Female friendships, when they work well, are the glue that can hold us together when then chips are down, and the mirror that can reflect our best selves back to us when our self perception is a little skewed, as it can sometimes get. Girlfriends can carry some of the water that is weighing us down and can share some of the burdens that might not be appropriate or desirable to share with a romantic partner.

It's important that we don't ask any one person to be both the alpha and omega for us  (unless that person is Patricia Briggs, in which case it might be acceptable).  When we rely just on our snuggle bunny to be all things, it puts what can become an unbearable strain on the relationship. This is where friends come in. Friends can share the wealth and the tears and ease the burden on our primary love relationships. This is why my wonderful husband is fully encouraging of my girls' nights out and the occasional weekend getaway with my buds. It preserves my sanity and takes him off the hook for having to listen (again) to my tales of woe or the latest gossip in which he has absolutely zero interest. It's a win-win all around.   And I usually come home feeling highly appreciative of my husband, which is an added bonus for him as I demonstrate said appreciation in a manner he enjoys  (okay people, you can send your minds back to the gutter here).

Girlfriends rock. And girlfriend giggles are in a class by themselves. Probably because they annoy the hell out of everyone else, so we girlfriends tend to be banished to the far-away classroom. And Molly Harper, who I really want to meet, clearly understands the joy of friendships and I, for one, am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on such an important aspect of my life. Thanks, Truth in Fantasy!

Why Me?

If I ever get a chance to talk to God, or Goddess, or whoever is in charge around here, I know what my first question will be:  why me?  Why you?  Why do individuals vary so much in the gifts and talents department?  Why were some of us apparently taking a bathroom break when they were passing out looks, or intelligence or common sense or athletic ability or stick-to-it-ness or curiosity or humor?

I think of this as the "play the hand you are dealt" issue-- everyone gets dealt a hand of cards, some good, some not-so-good. Some of us win the proverbial lottery in some areas, but perhaps not in others (think Tom Cruise, Hillary Clinton, Maria Shriver, to name just a few). Some of us don't seem to get any sort of decent hand, and these unfortunate souls seem to walk under a perpetual dark cloud doing an excellent imitation of Eeyore. And we think to ourselves (well, I do, in any case), “that poor, poor guy, so glad I’m not him.”

But therein lies the rub. Why did I warrant grace and not that ill-fated person over there?  And on the other side of this question, why didn't I get more of the beauty, genius and fabulous wealth cards while my hand was being dealt?  If you read my bio you'll know I spent a few years at a seminary (being their token non-Christian, mind you, which in the end did not work out so well for me, but that is a story for another time). In Christian theology, this question of why Jesus and not someone else is called the "scandal of particularity" and the answer can be grossly simplified as "why not?"  

Why not, indeed?  I have no blessed idea, in fact. And I have a lot of questions about this for God when I get to talk to her. And these questions, like so many others, are thrown into high relief when reading about supernatural beings, who got double helpings of beauty, brains, brawn, health, and competence when those were being handed out, it seems.

Reading about all of the extra attributes of vampires, weres, the fae, etc., makes me more acutely aware of all that I don't have and could certainly send me into a death spiral toward the ground from 50,000 feet if I spent too much time dwelling on it. 

But then I have to consider that my plummet to the earth at terminal velocity would be terminal in fact only because of the lofty position from which I started. If I weren't so high up to begin with--having gotten dealt some pretty good cards--then I wouldn't have so far to fall and splattering all over the pavement would not be as much of a potential problem.

When I bemoan the fact that I'm not a size four with an IQ of 160 and my own private jet, chef and personal shopper, I also need to remember that I also don't have cancer, special needs children, welfare checks or any other really horrible fates that cause me to think "there but for the grace of God go I". I need to remember to accept the less good with the good and internalize the classic Dr. Seuss book, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?  That is a great book to remind me that it can always—always—be worse, and to provide me with some perspective. Just like my beloved fantasy novels, where I find so many of my truths. Not to mention so much of my perspective.

So, while I still have a lot of questions for the universal Dealer, for today I'll content myself with appreciating the hand I was dealt, and playing the very best game I can with what I've been given.

Just This Once

I would like to meet Molly Harper and perhaps pay a visit to Half Moon Hollow, KY. Molly (I think she'd be OK if I called her that) clearly understands human nature. Of the female variety specifically. Molly understands and writes about difficult mothers who undermine the self esteem of their daughters (definitely a subject for another post--or ten). And she clearly gets the struggle many of us have with acting on our better judgment and resisting the temptations of things we are well aware are no good for us.

Today I'm reading The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires. This book is as funny and accurately observed as all of Harper's other books, including the Jane Jameson series and the Naked Werewolf series. This novel focuses on Iris, daytime concierge to the vampire inhabitants of sleepy Half Moon Hollow. I'm enjoying it immensely. But, as is the case with so many of my "lighthearted" paranormal fantasy novels, there are a number of deeper truths that are reflected in the foam at the top of this particular cappuccino.

In one fun scene, there is reference to the "bad decision" dress. When one wears it, one cannot be held responsible for the bad decisions that result. In fantasy novels, that is not necessarily a bad thing, as the consequences of said bad decisions never seem to carry much heft. In real life, however, bad decisions can haunt us forever, or at least long enough for us to experience real remorse (or mortification, if you’ve had a misspent youth, but that’s a subject for another post!).

In Molly Harper's books, many of the bad decisions of her protagonists involve succumbing to the temptations of seductive vampires and werewolves. Truthfully, I can see where this could reside firmly in the “against my better judgment but my hormones clearly have the upper hand” folder of my mental file cabinet. And, somehow, these decisions that blithely ignore the little voice in the back of our heads always seems to turn out well for our main characters in these fantasy novels, and are usually part of the path that leads to the inevitable (and satisfying) HEA.

In practice, sadly, this has not proved to be my experience. My dating history reflects this unfortunate reality, until, of course, I met my beloved husband, who has no resemblance at all to the emotionally unavailable bad boys I used to date. But going against our better judgment doesn't usually work out in other areas, either. Such as when I tell my children that they can go to an unchaperoned party because "don't you trust us, Mom?" and nothing good comes to pass. Or when I made an impulse purchase because the sales lady assured me that I didn't look like an aging slut in that non-refundable dress and my husband assumes I've decided to slap a mattress on my back to try to make a few extra bucks.

There's a reason we have judgment, better and otherwise. Our judgment is a gift we nurture over time. If we're lucky--and good-- our judgment is enhanced with the wisdom of experience and becomes tempered with age and perspective. If we are neither lucky nor good, we just get older, but not smarter. I'm sure we all know lots of people like that.  I’m sure some of us are people like that.

So if our judgment is an attribute that gains value over time, why would we choose to ignore it?  Why would we indulge ourselves in the three most dangerous words of the English language and stifle our better judgment "just this once?"  Because, like so many aspects of life, it is easier to indulge our bad judgment in many cases than it is to stand our ground and go with our higher natures from whence our better judgment is born.

Which bring us back to doing the hard thing, which is what life requires of us if we want to live well. And making bad decisions, whether we're wearing a particular dress or not, does not get us where we want to be. So, when that little voice tells you, "he's no good" or "your ass looks like cottage cheese in those white pants," we should listen.  Or that little voice may stop talking to us, in which case the roar of temptation will surely blow out an eardrum and who knows what kind of trouble we’ll get into.  Just ask Molly, and she'll tell you all about it.

The Similarity of Second Chances

Have you ever noticed that the Universe always gives us a second chance?  It took me a long time to figure this out, actually, but even I can take a hint when hit upside the head with a brick. Repeatedly. This reality was highlighted for me as I read a story by Katie MacAlister in her Dark Ones series, Shades of Gray, which has nothing to do with the number 50, a good thing because I couldn't get through the first 20 pages of that book; terribly written, IMHO, and lots of better options out there if you want to read about "alternative lifestyles." This story is about Noelle, who gets a second chance to fulfill her destiny as a vampire's Beloved, if only she can convince him to have her.

Unfortunately, the kinds of second chances we get in real life do not often include a one-for-one Mulligan or the opportunity to have a second chance to make a first impression. The kinds of second chances we get in life are of the more karmic variety.

We might get a second chance to be a better partner with our next relationship; or a better parent with a younger child, or perhaps with grandchildren. We might be presented with an opportunity to be a better friend or employee or sibling or host or child in subsequent situations as we progress in life.

Sometimes, these second chances are fairly obvious and we are able to recognize them. In those situations we have two choices:  do things differently this time, and hope for a better outcome, or keep trying the same approach, perhaps with more passion or force of will, and think that this time, it will be different.

Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, says if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. Wise counsel. I just don't always act on it. Because, as we all know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I do that all the time. It's called denial.

And then, there are those times when I can't even recognize that I'm being presented with an opportunity for a do-over. That is quite frustrating because it's one thing to lie to oneself about whether I’m doing a breaststroke in a river in Egypt. It's quite another only to recognize that the Cutco knife salesman in whose face you slammed the door was really opportunity knocking. I hate it when that happens.

But the Universe is generous with us and if we have made mistakes in the past or practiced habits that undermine our success, we are often given another chance to do it better. Sometimes, we can feel like we are living in our own personal Groundhog Day movie when we do the same thing over and over. Clearly, we can't help ourselves. My dating history before I met my beloved husband is proof enough of that.  As was the endless loop of fighting and bickering that characterized my entire relationship with my mother. Groundhog Day on steroids.

So, how can we break this vicious cycle of stupidity, misery and irritation, depending on the severity of any particular bad habit or endlessly repeating situation?  Interestingly enough, an answer to this burning question appeared in my inbox just this morning.  I read about a journalist named Charles Duhigg who wrote a book called The Power of Habit.

In the book, which I confess I haven't read but will nevertheless quote liberally at cocktail parties thereby displaying the breadth of my erudition, Duhigg explains the neuroscience behind the effective creation of a new habit. He tells us to look for a "cue," the event that will trigger us to rely on a new habit to replace one that no longer serves.

So, when you've had a bad day—the "cue" -- and you would normally reach for a glass of wine and a handful of cookies, it would signal your brain to implement plan B-- a green drink and a brisk walk outside to clear your head as a new means of transitioning away from your day.

Or, if you meet a compelling new bad boy (the cue), you execute the new habit-- i.e. run screaming from the room--instead of the old one, which involved immediately jumping into bed with him.

Or, if you are me, and the days of obsessing over bad boys are firmly in the rear view mirror, thankfully, then it's time to look for other areas that the Universe is offering opportunities to get it right this time. In my case, I would very much like to develop new habits when the "cue" is empty, unstructured time on my hands.

As I've probably told you before, I am often a human doing rather than a human being. I rush to fill the void of time with busy work or meaningless puttering around and before I know it, I'm either totally overwhelmed or wondering where the day went having accomplished nothing and feeling like crap about it. This is behavior that causes me much distress and I do it over and over again. To the point where I work way too hard to fill my time with quasi-meaningful activities so that I can avoid the self-hatred that comes with wasting time--the most egregious sin of all, in my book. But all of this activity masquerading as accomplishment is really just another aspect of denial.

If I can't leave some or even a lot of unstructured space in my life, how will there be room for anything new to come in?  There won't. So I need to learn to tolerate the discomfort of unstructured time (my "cue") and insert new, more constructive habits in place of my old, less-than-productive habits.

So, I'm grateful for the similarity of second chances (or in my case, fourth, fifth or fifteenth chances) to do something differently and get a different result. I'm taking my cues and implementing a new plan. I'm getting off the insanity treadmill and taking a walk on another street. And, hopefully, it will work out as well for me as it did for Noelle and her not-50-Shades-of- Gray.

On the Road Again

I'm reading the third book in Molly Harper's Naked Werewolf series. The theme of this one is a bit darker than the others, and involves a woman on the run from her abusive husband. The idea of constantly running, moving from one place to the next, never knowing what time zone you're in is one that speaks loudly to me right now. I've found that it's one thing to travel and enjoy it, but quite another to move from place to place feeling like something is chasing you. As I'm noticing a lot these days, once a theme asserts itself on my radar, I start to see it everywhere-- just like when you buy a new car you start to notice that kind of car on every road you drive. So as I've been contemplating the life of the itinerant traveler, I'm seeing others living that life as well and thinking about what it means to be constantly on the road again.

They say home is where the heart is. It's also where your clothes are, and your photos, and your keepsakes and all the familiar things that make us feel safe and secure and comfortable. Even when we bring our clothes and our favorite shampoo along, the clothes are in an unfamiliar drawer and the shampoo sits in a strange bathroom with Dixie cup water (as in the pressure is such that it feels like someone is standing above you pouring a Dixie cup out over your head).

When we travel around for business or pleasure or whatever, we need to get used to a new bed, and a new configuration of furniture that might catch our foot when we get up in the night to go to the bathroom because we're not used to that table being there. We have to make due with the coffee that’s available, instead of our organic blend.  This is why people love Starbucks and other chains--one can feel right at home anywhere in the country, or even the world, if you roll into a Micky D's or suck down a Pepsi, etc. These franchises thrive on our making like the accidental tourist.

When we go to new places, by definition we must do new things because we are doing them in unknown surroundings. I'm not quite sure what we did before GPS and Yelp on our phones as we try to navigate new streets and find decent places to eat. It's stressful to need to be somewhere at a certain time and not know where you are going or what you are doing. I know that people who do a lot of this sort of thing get used to it, but it's still a strain to try to get it all right.

And what about those like the protagonist in this Naked Werewolf book who won't let herself get attached to any place or group of neighbors or any one person because she knows she will have to run again soon?  Or the couple I met last week, who are itinerant teachers who travel from place to place to promote an oral tradition of learning. They haven't had a permanent home for twenty years. How do you do that?!

Home is such a complex subject.  When I was young, I couldn't get away from home fast or far enough. But these days, my home is a wonderful place filled with people I love, wonderful dogs, a magnificent view and the collection of a lifetime of items both meaningful and just fun and enjoyable.

But even when home is a positive place, it's good to leave occasionally to be able to come back and sigh into the welcoming arms of our own bed and make like Dorothy chanting, "there's no place like home."  It's like make-up sex, which almost makes the fight worthwhile.

So it's good to leave and it's good to come back and like so many other things, it's good to have a balance with all of that. I'd hate to be on the run all the time. And I've seriously disliked the recent need to travel hither and yon to get done what needs to get done. Which tells me I need to make some changes, unpleasant as that prospect is.  Because I’m feeling like I'm running from something rather than to something and that just won't do.

So, for today, I'll appreciate home and the deep peace that comes with stepping back into my routines among familiar places and familiar faces. And I'll hope (with some optimism) that our heroine finds a home with her naked werewolf, because apparently she's cool with back hair, which is so not my thing!  But I'm happy for her, really.

Life in the Fun House

I'm reading the Naked Werewolf series by Molly Harper. Fun stuff. The books are light and cheerful and funny and they are soothing the tight and unhappy places in my psyche. I've enjoyed reading about Mo and her quest to find and express herself and to do things that reflect what she's found and what she needs to do. That is a subject for another post, however. Today I want to talk about Mo's struggle to offer a soft landing to one of her more persistent suitors, a nice man who is offering a nice, safe life. And even though I've been happily married for almost 20 years, I can relate to Mo's dilemma. In her case, the particulars include whether to get involved with a surly, psychologically damaged werewolf or the nice guy next door, so to speak, but I think that's a metaphor for a lot of my life these days, even if the specifics look a bit different.

As you may have noted from my bio, I've had a lot of different jobs. And I enjoy variety in my life, right up until it jumps up bite me in the ass.  Have you ever just felt like someone should put a fork in you and declare that you are "done!"  That's me right now.

So, what do sane people do when the world is too much with us and they start making poetry allusions because they're getting slap-happy?  They offload some of the activity, that's what they do. They let something or even more than one something slide right off their plates and onto someone else's dishes or into the trash.

And that's what I need to do. Stat, as Randolph Mantooth would say. But what, that is the question. And if I could answer that question in a satisfactory way, the next question to trip off the tongue is, how?

Breaking up is hard to do, and not just in saccharine Neil Sedaka songs. In order to execute the plate-sliding plan, I have to tell someone that I cannot meet their expectations. I will have to let someone down. And on top of that unhappy activity, I will need to close the door on one or more of my options (as in the opposite of keeping my options open, as I am wont to do and advise). That is scary as shit. We'll get back to the unpleasant task of having the actual break up conversation itself, which is enough to churn the coffee in my stomach, and contemplate instead the gut wrenching reality of ceasing to hedge one's bets and planting both feet on a path to the unknown. Oh, my, I'm having palpitations just thinking about it.

It's that whole commitment thing. We often think of commitment as tying ourselves to one person or one job or one place to live, or even a specific color for our dishes. The other part of that equation is that when we choose to commit ourselves to one thing, we are, by definition, deciding not to do something else.

So, for example, if I want to have more time to write and promote my blog, then something else has to give. The choices are: my family time, and that's a no; my sleep; again, negatory; my friends and social time, not so much, as there's precious little enough of that as it is; then there is the time I devote to volunteer work, exercise and healthy eating; nothing good will come of my forgoing those efforts. So, what's left?  Oh, yeah. Work. Of the money-making variety. That is definitely taking up a large proportion of my perpetually-overflowing plate these days.

I'm a consultant. Which is a fancy way of saying I do a variety of work for a variety of clients who pay me. When I work less, I get paid less. When I work more, I get paid more. Simple stuff. And I could work less. My income (together with my husband's) more than covers basic needs and an abundance of wants. We save. We have money to spend on travel and hobbies and funding our children's 529 plans. And then some. So we are among the lucky few who are doing well by doing good.

So why do I feel like I can't back off? Why do I continue to run on the hamster wheel of ever-more income and subsequent consumption?  Why does the thought of having less money so I can follow my passion scare the pants off me?

Oh dear, the billeted list of answers to those questions is way too long to cover here, but I will say this:  each bullet point begins with the words, "what if...?"  Followed by predictions of doom and gloom.

What if we commit to one person and a better one comes along?  What if we take one job and the next day find out we got the job of our dreams?  What if, as happened to my mother, you say yes to the nice but totally uncool guy who asked you to the prom and the next day the captain of the football team invited you to be his date (her mother made her go with the guy who asked first, by the way, which was the correct, but heartbreaking thing to do).

What if I get hit by a bus today?  The answer is, then it is what it is and we figure out what to do in that moment, and avoid clogging our brains with obsessive contingency planning. In the end, it all works out. If it isn't working out, it's not the end, as one of my favorite greeting cards says.

So, the plan is to give up some work. Check--I've written the emails explaining that I need to back off from taking on new projects. I haven't hit send yet, though.  I'm experiencing paroxysms of doubt and guilt. The old double whammy of distress. But I can do this.  Probably better even than Mo, in fact, whose idea of letting her suitor down easy wasn't so fabulous in my book.  But she meant well, so that counts.

Because, at the end of the day, a door, window or another exit needs to close before something else can open. Or you'll find yourself in a house of mirrors leading nowhere at all.