Woo-Hoo!

Say it along with me, brothers and sisters: "WOO-HOO!"

(Scornful look) Well, that was just pathetic. Not even sorry - just pathetic. You're telling me that's the best you can do? How do you expect anyone to hear you with that sort of limp, half-hearted "woohoo" - a statement of exuberance that should be made with exclamation points, rather than measly question marks??

For you see, brothers and sisters, the last chapter is done! Well - okay. It's not so much "finished" as it is "drafted" but from where I sit, that is certainly an event worthy of a "WOO-HOO!" So give it another try, please. From the diaphragm this time.

Much better.

Now, there's much work to do in the next two months. Everything has to be edited and stitched together and my MLA citation knowledge is, well - "lacking" would be a polite term. But I have help lined up with that and fortunately, everything (with the exceptions of this chapter and the conclusion) has gone through the editing mill twice, so hopefully, putting the final draft together won't be something out of Dante. This project has just been such a huge part of my life for the last eighteen months and now it's a big ol' step closer to completion. I think I'm entitled to a few moments of "gee willikers, I wrote a book that they want to publish" to offset the sheer bloody terror of how the whole thing will be received by fans and scholars alike.

But that's for later. If you'll pardon me, I have to dance around my living room. I may not even draw the blinds first, I'm that giddy.

Midsummer Revelry

It's the summer solstice today, meaning that it's the longest day of the entire year and the official beginning of summer. Having taught MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in the last few weeks, I've been on the lookout for fairies. It's also the last day of my summer school session. Taken together, the combination has put me in a somewhat frivolous mood and I'm going to borrow an idea a couple of my friends are working with for this entry in hopes that we get to know one another a little better. The idea is to list ten quirky things that may not be readily apparent from a first impression of me. Now, this is difficult as I am, at least according to some, the uncrowned Queen of Quirk. But let's see.

1. I'm a biological mutant. Honest and for true. Has to do with the thumbs - no gills or webbed toes. As a mutant, I suppose that qualifies me for at least a try out with the X-Men and yes, I have my code name already picked out.
2. Yes, I'm a comic geek. And no, I don't "collect for value" - toys are meant to be played with. In fact, one of my proudest moments came when I was watching one of the X-Men movies with a couple of nephews and my brother-in-law and I tried to settle a point of contention between my quarreling nephews. My b-i-l settled the matter by saying, "Boys, she's forgotten more about the X-Men than you know. Hush now."
3. I tried very hard to be a grown-up for several years, going so far as to become a member of the Bar. Don't tell me "not to make a Federal case out of it;" I know how. And I have a license to do it.
4. I was a miserably unhappy lawyer. I'm quite a joyous comic geek. I may be so broke I re-use tin foil, but by crickey! I wouldn't switch places with anyone in a bank-wall-grey suit.
5. I once rode an elephant. No, I didn't use spurs.
6. As a child, I was very confused about just how cardinals elected the Pope. I mean, they're just those little red birds and just how did they all get to Rome, anyway?
7. I am physically incapable of not making my bed in the morning. I think this stems from a very small apartment I lived in for a few years. At any rate, I usually even make the bed in a hotel. Twisted, I know.
8. I like museums and often seek them out, even on vacation. Modern art, especially. Yet the work of my favorite artist is hard to find.
9. I sing when I drive, but only when I drive alone. But then it's loud and horribly off-key. I know this and don't care a whit. If you catch me at a stop light, just smile and wave.
10. I'm convinced that (a) there is a God, (b) that She (or He, or It - whatever) is benevolent, (c) that God looks after fools and madmen (along with a couple of other groups), and lastly (d) that's no reason for me to act like a moron and expect Divine intervention.

Hmmm. Yeah, that'll do for a start.

Family Mottoes and Heritage

I enjoy collecting quotations - so much so, that I have a banner of sticky notes adorning a doorway in my house. That got me to thinking about family mottoes, coats of arms and so forth. You know, some visual representation of how wealthy, mighty, clever, bloodthirsty, etc. a family was.

Now, my family does not have an official coat of arms. You won't find us in Burke's Peerage or the Social Register or any of that ilk. However, if we WERE to have a battle cry to strike fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies on the battlefield, I'm pretty sure it would be "Never pay retail!" (C'mon, I'm pretty sure that if you translate that into Latin, it'd sound darned impressive. I'm willing to offer a shiny nickel to the first Gentle Reader to properly translate that for me. Graphic artists should also feel free to submit suggestions for a coat of arms to go along with the fierce battle cry. A raven holding something shiny in her sharp talons would be a good start.)

At any rate, today I cantered onto the field of battle to test my mettle by jousting against hapless retail clerks. My goal - to complete my Whedon collection of DVDs by obtaining the middle three seasons of ANGEL. Somehow, I had the first and fifth, but nothing in between - it was high time this injustice was addressed and rectified. Besides, Best Buy was running a sale.

Now, I have to buy on sale. It's in my blood; don't blame me. But yes, I'll agree that it's a little like hunting the wounded. Then again, if I buy it, I'm putting it out of its misery, and that's a kindness, right? Heaven knows, I display my best kills along the walls of the living room. "Yes, quite right, Quigley, old chap. Bagged that one on a journey down the Amazon. (Amazon dot com, that is.) Fierce fight he put up, too. They do that while protecting their young, don't you know. Thought I'd have to walk away at one point when he refused to give me the discount, but finally he was made to see reason. Field-dressed him before he could change his mind and he's been there on the second shelf ever since."

The rain was slashing down, just like in a good post-noir film. Perhaps I was to be the femme fatale of the piece, utilizing my feminine wiles to get my way with a wink and a wiggle. No - that image won't hold. I neither heard smoky saxophones playing as I slid my legs from the car to the Ridley Scott-wet pavement nor was I wearing a trench coat and calmly smoking a cigarette as I awaited the arrival of my feckless accomplice.

Best to stick with the jousting image. My trusty steed was sure-footed and got me to a prime parking spot. He's been loyal to me, but the final retail battle must be mano a mano. He knows this and even nickered softly, wishing me well, as I strode onto the field. I was able to swiftly spot two of my three targets, but the third was well concealed and it looked as if I would have to leave without full satisfaction. A few minutes of steely negotiation tempered with humor then ensued. My efforts were greatly aided by the magic shield of an Internet coupon, which they really shouldn't have honored, but this is where the other weapons of a true Knight can be brought into play. A Discount Knight worth her spurs has quite an arsenal at her disposal and her sense of what blade to use at what time has been carefully honed through many years of training at swap meets, yard sales, auctions and so forth before even considering tackling the Goliath of a national chain. (Let us not speak at this time of the Great Beast known only by the whispered name of "Day After Thanksgiving." To say his name is to grant him power.) My third target was located, hiding away back in the stockroom, no doubt hoping to avoid detection. Realizing the hopelessness of their situation, all three targets were subdued and bagged.

With a swipe of a credit card and a (hopefully dazzling) smile, the transaction was completed and my blood lust satisfied. As I swaggered towards the automated double doors, I think I heard this exchange in my wake.

"Just what exactly was she?"
"That - that was a Discount Knight, son. And be glad there was only one of her; if they'd been hungry enough to travel in a pack, you wouldn't have this story to tell your grandchildren. She was feeling generous - she only cut our prices."

I think I heard my spurs jingle-jangle.

Similar to the Truth, Good Things Are Out There

That's something I need to remember from time to time. The last ten days or so have been mostly defined by stress, worry and incredulity that humans treat each other the way they do (see previous post).

But, as I have so often tried to remind myself, woe is not me.

I thought it might be a good idea to concentrate on some of the "good stuff" that's going on. Most of it is tiny, but I've heard it said that the wise never confuse "small" with "insignificant." So think of this as a list of Ten Things That Make Mockingbird Smile, even if she's tired and aggravated.

1. Foam on cappuccino. Why, oh why, do the English get this right while we do not? Any (and I mean any) corner pub has better coffee/milk concoctions than I can get here, unless I go to a shop that specifically "does" coffee.
2. Friends who know me well enough to stay away at certain times and to drag me out into the sunshine at others. And who loan me books that make me snort because the laughs sneak up on me so fast.
3. Feeling that, while the world just may be going to hell without the benefit of a handbasket, I'm not helpless about that. Go to www.blackmarketbeagles.com and order a Dua Khalil T-shirt. When the curious ask you what it means, tell them about the atrocity of "honor killings" and then tell them that you remember her. Maybe it's only an itsy ripple in the pool, but it's a start. And everything needs a start.
4. Walking through my neighborhood with Spooky in the cool of morning.
5. Eating home-grown tomatoes - not from the straw bale garden yet, but from the porch containers. The experience of picking your own food, briefly rinsing it, then eating it when it's still warm from the sun shining outside - well, it borders on decadent.
6. Television that takes the slant that humans (at least some of us) often choose to do the right thing, instead of the easy thing. I owe Joss Whedon and Russell Davies fruit baskets.
7. Knowing that it's now instead of five (or worse, six) years back. Even typing that made me smile.
8. Getting postcards from exotic places. It's always nice when the mail contains something other than bills and coupons for carpet cleaning services or gutter coverings. And Hong Kong harbor at night looks like some sort of set in a futuristic movie.
9. Sunglasses and Southern rock on the radio. "Green Grass and High Tides" for the good times and whoa, boy! "Whipping Post" for the bad. So I guess I should add The Outlaws and the Allman Brothers to the list, although I never thought that would happen. Then again, I tend to be a musical mutt. Right now, Mozart's playing and last night, I was blasting Black 47 and imagining myself plotting revolution. But in the sparkling June sunshine - yeah, Southern rock. Now if I could just get my hands on a ragtop . . .
10. Knowing that I have people who care enough about me to get concerned when my cell phone dies when I'm in mid-sentence. Gotta keep that thing charged!


Well, I feel better now. How 'bout you?

She Is Always Seventeen

Now, I'm a sucker for storytelling, which is one of the reasons I adore Joss Whedon. But I find my life at a very strange intersection today. One storyteller I always enjoyed was the late Harry Chapin, who provided the title of this post. In one of my favorite songs about hope and optimism and doggone-it-the-world-can-get-better, he reminds us that:

Oh, she is always seventeen;
she has a dream that she will lend us and a love that we can borrow.
There is so much joy inside her she will even share her sorrow;
she's our past, our present, and our promise of tomorrow.
Oh, truly she's the only hope I've seen,
and she is always seventeen.

Joss Whedon is another of my favorite storytellers. His fiction has inspired me; made me laugh, and cry and think. His non-fiction demands that I act. Please contrast Chapin's 17 year old with this one:

Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.

It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red. . . .

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. . . . Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you’re all in it now.

Dua Khalil's voice was taken from her. I am certain that the jackals in the crowd who were filming her murder never thought anybody would care.

Well, I care. I'm part of Dua's voice. And I beg you to be part of it, too. This kind of terror isn't relegated to the Old Testament. It happens in our world, today, and in places with enough technological sophistication to have vidphones.

Please, it's harsh to think about, I know. But evil counts on good people to turn away, so please - stare it down. Follow the links and show the world that you're part of Dua's voice, too. It's not half a world away - thanks to vidphones, it's here; right here. On behalf of every 17 year old girl - whether that's you now, or you back when, or you to come - stare it down. If you have ever had a mother, or a sister, or dated a woman who ever has been 17 - stare it down.

Because that wasn't just Dua. That was all of us.

http://www.blackmarketbeagles.com/dua.html
http://www.equalitynow.org/

A Little "Whelmed"

I've got too much to do. Now, that in and of itself can hardly be considered news. But something just had to give. I'm feeling stressed by pressures coming from work, from writing (the manuscript is due in a hundred days and that scares the bejeezus out of me right now), from trying to keep a house at a level above "slovenly," and a dozen more besides. It's at this point that I've learned to look for signs of being "whelmed." (That's a level just before "overwhelmed" which is scary territory indeed - Overwhelmedland is the home of the headless chicken. Having been in that country a time or two, I can assure you I have no desire to have my passport stamped again.) At any rate, I'm displaying most of the signs of heading nowhere good, mentally speaking.

I had just enough sense to take a deep breath, a hot shower and then meditate a little while. Now, not everyone's comfortable with the idea of meditation - call it whatever you want. Prayer, alone time, anything will do. The weird thing is that I've often heard it said that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. I happen to believe that God talks to us all the time - often through the mouths of friends and loved ones, occasionally through strangers, and very seldom through burning shrubbery. We just aren't usually listening - I know I'm usually not; my mind has a tendency to keep spinning madly about.

Believe what you will. I just know that I suddenly knew what to do. While I didn't hear an actual voice (I think the Divine knows I'm not quite ready for that level of interaction), there was a sense of deep calm and I knew that today, my job was set out before me. It was as if I had been told, "Don't just do something. Sit there."

Wise advice indeed. The speech evaluations on my coffee table can wait, the outlined chapter can wait to be turned into paragraphs, and the dust bunnies can have another day to evolve into a democratic society.

My life is not "Woe is me" and I'm going to play in the sunshine to remember that.

Feeling Hopeful

I like the title of this post, especially considering that lately I have been feeling rather the opposite regarding my fellow humans. Without going into too much icky detail, suffice it to say that the last few days have been grimy, full of events that make you think that the human race isn't exactly a credit to Planet Earth. For me, this has been doubly true for humans who haven't yet attained the age of majority. While I know intellectually that not all teenagers and tweens are self-centered, spoiled little brats - well . . . let's just say I've spent a lot of time lately grumbling and feeling old about doing it.

Kids - nasty little buggers.

Now, I've often heard that, when you feel sorry for yourself, one of the best things you can do is pick yourself up and go help somebody else. Try that, and Life'll surprise you. Always.

So, today I kept a promise I didn't especially want to keep (tons of work to do, don't you know) and I helped out a friend who was taking some kids to a horse show. Ever gone to a horse show? Especially an "open" show? It's - interesting. Glitzy Western tops that would make Dolly Parton blink are worn next to kids competing in saddle seat attire with long tailored jackets and prim hats and a whole lot in between. And horse shows are not an inexpensive hobby - many of these horses cost more than I paid for my car and quite a few cost more than I paid for my house! And it's hot and dusty and things run late and I don't really remember what to do, and, and, and.

Keep in mind that the kids we were helping were not your typical "horsey" kids. These children are all developmentally delayed due to things such as Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy and the like. They compete while mounted, but there is also a person leading the horse and someone like me, who's a "sidewalker" in case the horse spooks suddenly and the child needs an extra hand to balance.

In the ring, I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude, for it hit me all at once what a special thing I was able to be a part of. These kids have to face so much crap every single day for no reason that's their fault. And, to be brutally honest, there's a lot these kids aren't going to be able to do, including just walk around a horse show without people talking about them as if they aren't there.

But (and here's where the story gets beautiful, to my way of thinking), you put these kids on a horse and everything changes. They're the equal of any other human. (At least the equal - plenty of so-called "normal" people are scared to death of horses. Too big, too many teeth and too many stamping hooves.) These kids, who most people treat as invisible and oblivious, are suddenly tall. They're balanced on a half-ton-plus of horseflesh and, for once in the seemingly-crummy hand they've been dealt, they're in control and they know it. They're proud and they're beautiful in their own skins. And a third-place ribbon can mean as much as any Olympic medal.

And maybe I was just walking alongside a horse in a dusty ring, but you know what? I felt pretty damned proud and beautiful, too. Even without a ribbon.

Kids? Best thing on God's green earth.