Hey brother

Lances at the ready, gentlemen, I'mma climbing on a high horse. Cue groans oh gawd it was such a lovely day what now? International Women's Day! Yes, I know, but I was kinda busy on Saturday, and this year's theme stands every day of the week/month/year. Equality for women is progress for all.

You gotta wonder sometimes, and gents please don't charge before I've had my say and please please don't take offense because I do not mean every man on the planet, but are men stupid or something? You really want to shoulder the burden, financial, political, enter areas of overrepresentation here, on your own? Like really really? Because women sure feel that way sometimes, that you're making life unnecessarily hard for yourselves keeping your own counsel, upholding your old boys' clubs, anti-social networks closing the door on fully capable, willing and able women, people differentiated by the fact that their breasts tend to be bigger than yours.

Considering that our breasts have nothing to do with our brains, they sure play a big and baffling part in the oddest of times and places. The same goes for other discriminating factors. Irrelevant. At least they should be. So don't go there. With your eyes, or your hands. Your thoughts? Keep them to yourselves if you're with Camp Chauvinist. And go camp somewhere else. It's 2014 for crying out loud but you wouldn't believe it reading the Everyday Sexism Project stories and suchlike.

I have one, every woman does, starring that part of the female anatomy that makes many a man stir and stare and many a woman insecure for life. This was way back when I had hardly anything to make you stare or stir, a time when I didn't know if I liked what I saw or what I would be seeing in a year or two, but there they were. Now. Picture a bus with many school girls, young and a bit older, on board. Along comes a gang of three boys, 17 to 19-year-olds, about to play a game as they make their way to the back: breast spotting. Breast spotting with running commentary.

I had plenty of time to realize what they were doing. Plenty of time to watch their faces, see those smirks, listen to their lewd remarks and laughter, hear other girls hiss and curse. Time to wish I was someone else, somewhere else. I intended to look away, pretend I saw or heard nothing, brush it off with indifference. I ended up looking the boy who stopped in front of me straight in the eye.

Big mistake. I still remember what he looked like and I still remember what he said, but I was thirteen years old and I hated them, those boys I didn't know and never saw again with the fire of a thirteen-year-old, and that makes the whole episode that much harder to forget. To them it was just a stupid game. To the girls in that bus they were just stupid period. But when the games and comments start piling up some girls really do stop listening and some girls stop talking and some girls stop believing they'll ever meet a decent guy and if they do he's probably just pretending or a recovering asshole about to relapse and who wants that, you know.

I'm not kidding, gentlemen. I kid you not, I've held a girl's hand, tried to talk her out of giving up on you, told her there are plenty of good men out there because I knew there were, just you wait and see. So for the love of all that is holy please don't make your life unnecessarily hard, okay. Don't be an insensitive jerk. It's 2014 for crying out loud meaning you're very much at risk of being on the receiving end, the punch line of a sexist joke and who wants that, but what goes around comes around, you know. Or as a former card-carrying playboy now a father of three girls put it: "Poetic justice much?" I wonder what he'll teach his daughters about men, what he'll tell them about his wild days and ways.

Many women have turned feminists, and I mean hardcore, card-carrying feminists, after breaching the gates of power or breaking through the glass ceiling only to be confronted by some card-carrying chauvinist questioning her every move and word. Many men have turned feminists, and I mean hardcore, deeply concerned feminists, upon the birth of a daughter. They look at the world through the eyes of a woman and don't always like what they see. They know what kind of boys their girls will face along the way because they've met them all, maybe even been one of the worst kind once, and there's nothing they can do about it now but be responsible, empathetic role models not just for their daughters but their sons as well.

I know men who wish women ruled the world. I know women who wish we did. Most people I know just wish we could get on with the business of living and loving without having to hide or exploit or abuse or excuse or resist or explain our own sex, or the opposite one. Making a power struggle of it is a monumental waste of time and resources and we're kind of running out of both on this planet so...truce?

Empowering your sisters benefits all you misters. There's nothing in this world we wouldn't do for you. You've capitalized on that. There's nothing in this world we can't do. Why not capitalize on that too.

All yours,

D.

Mrs. Rochester goes to town

How are you, sweetie daaarlings? I'm, hmm, getting there. I've spent my days in bed lately, and not in a sexy way. But who said being sick was boring? I've been busy going places and meeting people. The strangest of places and the oddest of people.

I took the scientific approach and did a sensory deprivation experiment while lying in the throes of fever. OK, I didn't set out to to do an experiment but that's what I ended up doing. Hey, gotta take what you can get out of every experience, right? So. Silence, darkness, and an immobile, piping hot Dita, and not in a sexy way. Unless women down with influenza are your thing in which case I was It.

I soon lost track of time. An army of ants marched under my skin as if all my veins had been slashed open and my blood flowed freely, sloshing around. I sank into a state where I couldn't distinguish between sleep and wakefulness. Things I saw and heard while thinking I was awake were just a dream. And I did things I thought were just a dream but weren't. How do I know? I'd made notes.

That's what I found in my notebook, the one I keep next to the bed. My mind roaming freely albeit feverishly, I'd made notes. I found snippets of dialogue and descriptions. For what story? Hell if I know. But. My subconscious was not above hitting way below the belt. I'd also written down lines for stories I've already written and published. Lines that would have been awesome had they come to me months, years ago. Pieces that would have fit perfectly but were hopelessly late for the party.

The price of being a pantser? That vague feeling that maybe the story isn't done, that something, something you can't put your finger on is missing, you know it is, but you have to stop writing at some point and call it done The End. And it is done. The story is accepted and edited and published and congratulations you did it again moving on what else?

Obviously that vague, nagging feeling never leaves you. Or me. I haven't gone in search of those missing bits no one else seems to long for, but my subconscious has obviously been hard at work. Hard at work, my hot buns, and not in a sexy way. Unless women with hot-to-the-touch cheeks are your thing in which case I was It. More like slow at work because it sure took For-Frickin'-Ever and some serious sick days to finish certain stories. Too little too late too bad moving on what else?

What else? I got to meet someone I lost long ago, someone whose visit I've been looking forward to but they never had the time. They still had none. "I can't stay." I knew that. We met at some airport, late afternoon, sun hanging low, the light dusty yellow. They only said a few things, left me with something and then just left, but in that moment...happiness, pure and clean. I was light as a leaf, floating, swirling.

And then the bus went off the bridge. Always the same bus, always the same bridge. Bye-bye purse. Shoes off, coat off, anything that could pull me under, off with it. How do I manage it in seconds in a bus that's taken flight and is about to collide with water? It's a dream, hell if I know, but our dreams seem to know us.

The madwoman in the attic finds the door unlocked and goes on a cleaning spree to purge whatever 'filthy burden' weighs you down. Best not to stand in her way or dissect it too much. She knows what she's doing so let her work her magic and be done with it. How kind of your mind to heal and guide you when you need it the most so just let it, even if the method feels like a punishment, not a prize.

[If you know your Jung you know that he believed dreams were doors to the unconscious. Not a mask for but a mirror of your true self and your honest feelings and being open to whatever your dreams were telegraphing could help solve and resolve real life, waking life issues. Yeah, I know. I used to write off dreams as maudlin mumbo jumbo. I paid them no mind.

Then I went through a patch fraught with physical and emotional stress fringing on overload. Voluntarily but still. Sleep brought no relief. Sleep tossed me unarmed into knife fights. I got stabbed, without exception. I hid. Got stabbed. Fought back. Got stabbed. Attacked. Got stabbed. The pain was real and searing and you don't register it the second you get hurt but the second after when the wound opens and the blood flows.

The violence culminated one night as I lay face down on the ground while a man approached me, hand raised, holding a gun. This is usually the point where your mind yells cut and you wake up. Those stabbings hadn't killed me but as surely as I knew they were coming, that this would be one of those dreams, I knew the man with the gun wasn't stopping. And he didn't. He shot me in the head. He shot me dead. The one and only time I've died in my dreams.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Cliché? More like touché because after that final face-off the dreams changed. I became indestructible. A maudlin mess on the inside, perhaps, but a maudlin mess with superpowers. I'd pulled through. For all the violence, in some warped way, those recurrent dreams helped me survive something I thought would kill me. Congratulations you made it moving on what else?]

What else? Recurrent themes. My feverish self and I had debated whether you ever really get to choose your stories or do they choose you, make a mess upstairs, scream and stomp around, that madwoman in the attic, until you're forced to let her out and be done with it. Do you own up to any in your writing or favorite reads? Are they conscious choices on your part? We say we read for pleasure. And nothing else? Would we write or read a story if it wasn't up our alley? How often do we pick up a book/theme/genre off our alley? Honestly. What's behind our choices? Better not dissect it too much lest it stop working its magic?

Because it is pure magic, isn't it, the power of stories. As with dreams, the best are vivid but very few are lucid. We may not know the mechanism behind it all, the triggers and buttons, the hows and whys, but those stories, those fantasies, they know us or else the effect they have on us wouldn't be real, and it is, isn't it, whether that effect is physical, intellectual or emotional. Fear, lust, love, loathing, anger, pain, pride, envy. As with dreams they are real reactions. Real life reactions to fabricated worlds.

I find the power of stories and myths simply astounding. I find our fascination with them super interesting. I find people fascinating period. If there's no arguing about taste, why call anything a 'guilty pleasure' (an ontological oddity that makes my brain sprain)? What are we ashamed or afraid of? What our tastes reveal about us? Too much? Everything? What we love, hate, fear, despise, hope and lust for? Or are we just trying to understand what it all means to others? Better not dissect it too much lest you lose your ability to enjoy your filthy fix?

All guilt no pleasure and labels like filthy make many a therapist a boatload of money and the pharmacy industry very happy. Not making light of anyone's real plight or calling either mental health care professionals or pill makers pushers, just saying that the madwoman in the attic may, in all her primal intensity, be wiser and smarter and saner than we give her credit for. She knows it's all about myths and symbols and fantasies and dreams. We're the ones who insist there is a real world, a real life, that reigns supreme over the invisible, and that we are in control. She knows it's all one and the same and that we are in denial.

That's what the notebook said, how the scrawlings read. Told you I dove off the deep end while I drenched the sheets, and not in a sexy way, unless a woman coming down from a severe fever is your thing in which case I was It. And what does that tell us about you, hmm? Now if I could only decipher what that bus dream means...

Oh well. Time for another primal scream if there ever was one, a time to let it all hang out: carnival season. Too bad I'm still recovering. Doesn't mean there won't be a party, a party where the madwoman in the attic is queen, a party where myths and symbols and fantasies and dreams live in perfect cacophonic harmony with the 'real world' and 'real life' and hell yes in a sexy way. Unless a good time including but not limited to music, dancing, tipple and nibbles isn't your thing in which case you're not invited. Nah. Of course you are. The price of admission? That for once you trust your dreams not your thoughts.

Anytime you need a friend

For erotic romance authors love and lust, sweet emotion and hot sex, are inseparable. Can't have one without the other. Relationships are not sealed with a mere kiss, unless it's one that touches everywhere, and desire is no good without devotion. That is our cocktail of choice, one we serve in flavors ranging from vanilla to spicy hot.

Of course love is more protean, more multifaceted than that. We know that, but our craft is crafting tales of hanky panky with a happy ending so love's other facets and faces tend to get less coverage, often none. Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in this case, when in Scandinavia, do as the Norsemen do.

These bastions of brotherhood, these champions of equality, dedicate the 14th of February as much to friendship as courtship, maybe more. Maybe they're just not that into romantic antics, you say? They're just not into imported festivities, especially those that come with costly commodities attached, I say.

I find friendship one of the dearest faces and loveliest flavors of love. To do as the Norse do, I now use Valentine's Day to celebrate the gift of good friends. My oldest friendships span over three decades. Yeah, that's how young/old I am. It's a case of till death do us part with these two women, women I've grown up with and women I plan to grow old with. I have friends. And then I have them.

They know who they are. You know who you are because I will never tire of telling you how much I love you and admire you for who you are and respect what you do for others. What you've done for me. Without you, where would I be now. That's a dedication I stamp wherever I can. That's a dedication waiting to see the light of your e-reader's screen. I have...I had...have...gah...two Romantica WIPs where friends play an important part. Friendship is a theme right up there with courtship.

They say authors should never use a friend as a plot device or a mouthpiece. They can stop right there. I mean, what did you just say? Use. A. Friend. Use a friend. What kind of girl, what kind of author, do you take me for? I would never use a friend. My characters would never use a friend, unless they're monsters who would use and abuse a friend in which case they are headed for a world of hurt. My characters can speak for themselves, thank you very much, and the plot advance just fine without puppets. That's not what friends are for, how can you say that, how can you even think that?!

I am shocked. Taking a moment to breathe in and out of a paper bag, that's how shocked I am. Use a friend. Tut-tut. Share with a friend. Trust. Be loyal. Be honest. Dependable. Offer an ear and a shoulder, a place to stay, sustenance. Have fun. Get serious. Get mad without fearing disapproval. Get sad without fearing rejection. Travel. Talk. Keep a secret. Keep in touch regardless of geography, or life situation, or lifestyle. Be there. Be here now.

That's what friends are for. That's what a friend is. Someone whose heart and door are always open.

Dance, dance otherwise we are lost*

The Big Chill is upon us and  I  a m  f r e e z i n g  so it's best to keep moving. Plus the deathly pallor of our barren scenery is making me a bit ... melancholy. Nature is a study in the beauty of simplicity, silence and serenity right now, but it's hard not to overdose on melatonin during the dark winter days so you gotta fight it, sweetie darlings, and dancing ... dancing makes everything better. Take it from someone for whom dancing once was, still is, always will be a system of survival. But that's just how I feel. That's just how I feel, that's just how I feel, trying to reach the things that I can't see.

Come on, you need a break. Oh yes you do. We both do. Come here. Don't look at your feet, don't look at the ceiling, or the walls, look at me.  That's it. Shall we dance?

ENVY - AM I WRONG from Kavar Singh on Vimeo.

*Pina Bausch

Jeanne d'Arctique

Temperature: a sunny -15/5 (we had some 20 sunny hrs in December. In Dec 2012? 24 minutes.)

Eating: as long as it's heated, anything goes

Drinking: as long as it's heated, anything goes

Watching: travel dreams, like every other night

Listening: to Hubby using power tools. It's the new season of our personal Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Oh, I'll do my share.

Reading: what needs to be read

Writing: what needs to be written

Feeling: Of winter's lifeless world each tree

Now seems a perfect part; 

Yet each one holds summer's secret

Deep down within its heart. 

~Charles G. Stater