Author: Jonathon

A lot of you wrote in and shared things you’ve gained from reading my books, and especially the Anita Blake series. Thank you.

To the young woman who said, Anita gave her the courage to go through high school still a virgin. And before the rest of you say, but there’s lot’s of sex in the series. There is now, but the first five books Anita doesn’t have a sex life, just a life. To the women who told me that Anita owning her sex life helped them own their own, and ask for what they wanted in the bedroom. Especially to the wives and those in monogamous relationships; very yay! There are few things as sad as a monogamous relationship where you aren’t getting your needs met, and probably never will. Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. So much happier now.

To the people, both male and female, that tell me that my books have helped get them through their own chemo for cancer. I watched my now ex-father-in-law go through chemo. He would survive and go on to see his grandchildren hit double digits and one now over twenty, but it was very hard on him at the time. To think that my imaginary friends and my stories can help get you guys through something like that is amazing to me. Enough of you have insisted that it’s true I have to believe you, but somehow I keep thinking no one’s writing can be that good. But I take it for the great compliment it is.

To the men and women who are serving our country in various distant places who tell me that my books help them escape the real fighting and violence that surrounds them. That my books are a refuge where they can disappear for awhile and regroup.

To the men, women, and families that tell me that my books, that Anita’s strength, has helped them get through horrendous things. The one most likely to make me cry is the number of people that tell me they read my books while their family members, but especially their children, are going through serious medical treatment. To the woman who wrote in to say that my books helped her and her husband get through their child’s cancer treatment. It looks good for their kiddo, and soon they can go home, but she tells me that other families are using my books as a refuge, too. Blessings on you and yours.

To the mother who told me that Anita’s rule about not flinching, helped her and her husband to watch their very young son go through all his testing. That anytime they were tempted to look away, they thought about Anita’s rule: If I can’t save them, the least I can do is watch them go through it. That rule helped them not turn away and be there for their son. That one made me cry.

When I first sat down to write Anita Blake, and play with all my imaginary friends, I had no idea that they would come to mean so much to so many other people. I had no idea that Anita’s strength, and the strength I learned as a child and adult would translate to helping so many others in ways I could never have imagined.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone, be well, be safe. Bullet comes out in two days, June 1st. This ones for all of you that have told me how much Anita and the gang means in your lives. See you all Tuesday, at least on paper.

 

What is the book about?

I hate that question. One, if I could give a sound bite answer then I would probably write poetry and not novels. Two, it isn’t really the question they want to ask.

What they really want to know is why should they read the book, or what will their listeners, viewers, readers, get out of reading Bullet? Now they can’t ask it like that, because it sounds rude. It’s a very aggressive question; why should we read your book, or what will we get out of it? What is the book about, is less aggressive, but more vague.

Why should people read my new book Bullet when it hits stores on June 1st? Maybe they shouldn’t. I don’t know each and every one of them. How can I possibly know if this is THE book they should read? But, what will people, you readers, get out of reading Bullet?

I can tell you what other readers have told me they’ve gotten out of other Anita Blake novels. I’ve now lost track of the number of women who’ve told me they’ve gotten out of abusive relationships because they knew Anita wouldn’t take it. I’ve had men and women tell me that Anita helped them understand what it’s like to be a strong person. The young woman who wanted to be more like Anita, so decided that she’d start with an easy one, she’d wear her seatbelt. (Anita, and I, are both paranoid about everyone buckling up because I gave her the fictional equivalent of my own mother’s death. If my mom had been wearing her seatbelt she wouldn’t have hit that windshield.) The young woman wore her seatbelt a day, and was in a car accident the same day. Police on scene told her if she hadn’t been wearing it she would probably have died.

The teenage girl that told her boyfriend that unless they used a condom no more sex, because Anita would stop the sex scenes and take time to get one. Apparently, I am one, or maybe the only, in the paranormal genre that takes time for that sort of thing. Yes, it breaks up the sex scene, and yes, I guess it’s unromantic, but not half as unromantic as being pregnant, or catching a venereal disesae. (Anita is now on the pill and has steady boyfriend’s that are sleeping only with her so with the regular lovers it’s not an issue. If everyone’s healthy and you’re on birth control it’s not a safety concern, but does mean you have to trust everyone you’re having unprotected sex with, with your life.)

I’ll add a caveat to the above for the men. If you’re not used to wearing condoms they can be a little chilly and the sensation seems to bother some men’s, um, concentration. I’ve actually run into more men that had the problem than didn’t, so if you’re concerned about that practice masturbating with a condom on. It gets you used to the sensation of the condom so that it’s just a part of some potentially really good sex. The ribbed condoms can also add more sensation for the girl and that will only enhance your reputation, or your relationship. It’s a win-win. (Why did I add that last paragraph? Because it’s not fair to tell the women to demand a condom and not explain to the men that it may be normal to have an issue, and I know a solution to the issue, why wouldn’t I share it?)

I’ve now lost track of the number of husbands, fiances, and boyfriends that have thanked me that the women in their lives read my books. One wife told me her husband asked her, “When’s the next Laurell K. Hamilton book coming out?” “Six weeks,” she replied. He joined a gym the next day. “You damn near killed me last time, I’ve got to be in better shape.” Another husband started taking vitamins and eating better for the same reason.

I’ve had several couples where one half is overseas in the armed forces tell me that they read my books to each other over the phone. I was a little puzzled by that, but one wife told me, “We were just telling each other what the kids were doing, or the car broke down, and he didn’t want to tell me what was happening over there. He thought I’d worry. Then I started reading to him, and it was like weeks of foreplay.” I couldn’t argue with her happy smile.

I’ve had police officers tell me that my police work is the closest they’ve read to the real thing. I take that as very high praise, and give a hats off to the real police officers that have answered my questions and let me come and see how they work. In fact my research into real police and real military totally changed the Anita Blake series. At the beginning of the series she is convinced she’s doing right by killing vampires, and that she will make the world a better place, very much like a rookie police officer. Bright, shiny, convinced that if just enough good people are willing to do their duty they can get the bad guys and make everything better. Then the years begin to wear them down. I had the privilege of watching a very good friend go from rookie to ten year veteran. Somewhere between five and especially ten years in, you come to the realization that there will always be more bad guys. That no matter how many criminals you catch, how many murders you solve, there will be more tomorrow. Evil and stupidity seem to be in never ending supply. Eventually, you count the day a win if you come home alive to the people you love.

I had Anita reflect what I learned from real police officers. She’s technically only been in catching rogue vampires and wereanimals for about six years, but she’s got that ten year cynicism, maybe because I’ve been writing the series for over ten years. She and I have grown cynical and jaded together. I have not researched enough real crime that the things real people do to other real human beings astounds, horrifies, and just makes it so I can never again look at my fellow man, or woman, and not understand what they are capable of. Serial killer research will put a callous on your soul faster than anything else I know. I have no idea how the real men and women of law enforcement manage to work this kind of crime. The pictures and words about it are bad enough. I can’t imagine standing in the real room with the real crime scene all around me. You are better men and women than I, Gunga Din.

I’ve talked to enough soldiers to know that two flavors haunt you the most. What you did and how horrible it was, or what you did and the fact that you weren’t bothered by it. In essence, you torment yourself because you aren’t tormented about that horrible thing you did. If it’s horrible shouldn’t you feel bad about it? Maybe, or maybe not. Let yourself feel what you feel, don’t judge it, just experience it and let it go. But I have Anita bothered by the fact that she’s not bothered by some of what she does. I wouldn’t have known that was such a common problem for soldiers if the men hadn’t been so generous with their stories. I owe a constant thank you to all the people that have talked to me over the years and helped make Anita more real.

Readers tell me that Anita, Jean-Claude, Micah, Richard, Nathaniel, Jason, and all the rest have become their friends. That have helped them learn more about who they are, and who they want to be, and that as long as they don’t harm any one, it’s okay to be themselves. And that being themselves can come in a wider favorite of flavors and styles than they realized before they stepped into my books.

 

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We’ll get the books on the way to you tomorrow guys. Congrats!

 

We are only ten days out from the publication of Bullet! I did a podcast to celebrate that fact, and actually read snipets from the book, itself. Here’s the link to the podcast; enjoy.

https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/podcast/podcast_05-23-2010.mp3

Bullet the next Anita Blake novel hits the shelves June 1st! I thought I’d blog about what the book is, and what the book isn’t. This will be the first book that I’ve tweeted and blogged, and Facebooked, extensively. One of the interesting things about Twitter is that it’s very immediate. I could write my pages of Bullet and get on-line. I did that with the emotion still fresh, the scene still bleeding from my finger tips. A lot of people loved the feeling of being so involved with the process, but a funny thing happened on the way from the first draft of this book to the finished one. Somethings got cut, and a lot of things got added. The main plot went pretty much where I thought it would go, but the secondary plots surprised the hell out of me. Haven has a lot of on-screen time, and we explain the appearing and disappearing Regina from out of town. This was all planned, so trust me, it’ll make sense, well in that Haven had a bad plan kind of way. Not every man in Anita’s life is going to figure out how to be in her life without causing problems.

Jean-Claude: Yes, and lot’s of him in Bullet. For all those that have missed him on-stage you will be very happy campers.

Asher: Very much on stage, in fact this may be the heaviest Asher book yet. In fact, we get a lot of questions answered about him, him and Jean-Claude, him and a lot of people in Anita’s life. No more avoiding the subject. Pretty much any subject for Asher.

Micah: Yes, but not as much on stage as Jean-Claude, but when he’s on stage, he’s both pivotal and active. It is Micah, after all.

Nathaniel: Yes. We get to see him in a new roll in this book, and settling into his life with Anita and the gang. In fact, he seems to be pulling off that near impossibility of being sexy, loving, great domestically, and doing that magical thing that women are more likely to do than men. He helps organize the home for everyone. Bringing order out of chaos in the home is traditionally a female skill set, but a female that does not have this ability, at all, I believe there has to be men out there that have this talent. Now, whether they’re also gorgeous, hit the gym regularly, can dance, and are amazing in bed, that I don’t know. *grin*

We get to see more of the bodyguards doing their jobs behind the scenes. Fredo, Claudia, Lisandros, and lots of new wererats. We also get a new leopard that is ex-military so a leopard guard at last. We get some new werehyenas, too. Weretigers, lots and lots of weretigers. Crispin is on stage, yes, but Domino actually gets more on-screen time this book. We get some very yummy new weretigers in town, and some of them are actually girls. I know, about damn time, right?

Claudia: We get to see what a woman who is 6’ 6”, shapeshifter strong, and a trained fighter can do in a real knock-down-see-who-dies-fight.

Women: We actually have more female characters introduced in this book than ever before. We get a new female guard, werelion. In fact, we get a lot of new wereanimal females introduced in Bullet. Time that Anita found some girlfriends that aren’t jealous of all the men in her life, and can keep up or exceed her in the gym. As I begin the next book after Bullet it will be interesting to see how this new group of women fit in, in what has been a very male dominant ed life style.

Damian: Not as on stage as some would like, but on stage and finally standing up to Anita, or learning to manipulate her better, in that my girlfriend is difficult kind of way.

Speaking of girlfriends: We have a couple of the guys getting steady girlfriends in this book. In fact, Jason’s friend from Blood Noir, J. J. the dancer, is visiting in Bullet. Since she’s bi-sexual and Jason only has one set of parts neither he, nor she, want to be monogamous so he’s still free in St. Louis, and she’s still having her own social life in New York. It seems both these fun-loving, free-of commitment, people may have met their match. We’ll see. Though having your human girlfriend sleep over in the midst of a metaphysical crisis does get, um, interesting.

Jason: Very ow stage, literally, as are some of the other men. I guess he’s not on stage as much as in Flirt, but when he’s on stage he really steals the show.

Stephen and Gregory: On stage, and Stephen and his live-in love Vivian get some nice scenes.

Valentina: the child vampire has a scene on stage that was one of the creepiest of the entire book and that’s saying something. *shudder*

And, for all you who read the first chapter of Bullet which is up on my website, why yes, Monica Vespucci is back, and we finally get to see her son, Matthew, who’s father was Robert, the now dead vampire.

Bullet is a book where we get a lot of answers to questions you fans have been asking for awhile now. What happened to Monica and her baby? Are Asher and Jean-Claude ever going to work out their issues, or have they already? Is Richard ever going to get his act together? That last question is edited for content. You guys have not been kind in asking about our wolf king.

Richard: On stage in a major way. Here’s a dilemma. A lot of fans are letting me know that they are not quite caught up, in fact, we’re getting more brand new readers all the time. So, how much can I say here, or say above, that aren’t spoilers? Think about the people who are only up to say, Blue Moon. What must they think of some of your comments about our, Richard? So, I’ll say that if his therapist was real I’d recommend her to others. He is more at home in himself, and the reality of his life and desires than I’ve ever seen him. The rose colored glasses are off and he’s trying to see how much of his reality he can handle. I was very proud of him in Bullet. He and Asher were the two long-standing characters that opened up and grew the most as characters this book. Well, okay, Anita certainly grew as a character, too, and did some new things, in very new ways, but if I hint too much here I’ll spoil it, so . . .

I’m going to try for a blog that is nothing but Edward and Olaf for tomorrow. But for now those are just some of the highlights you’ll get to see on June 1, in Bullet.

 

What’s coming your way in the next few weeks:

Blog: What Bullet is, and what it isn’t? Or what are Edward and Olaf doing?

Podcast this week talking about Bullet, the upcoming tour, more sticky notes on the wall, and whatever else makes me go, ooh.

Blog: Why I’m doing two Anita books in a row, or where has Merry gone?

Things I’m thinking about either blogging, or podcasting, but not sure when, or if:

Should I try podcast reading of some of Bullet? If I do, then do I read the first chapter which you can read on my website, or second chapter only, or try more than one podcast so you can hear both early?

Blogging my music choices that I wrote Bullet to, blogging the music of current writing play list.

Should I try vlogging (video blog)?

Blog: Should I try to read just bits and pieces from various parts of Bullet, just paragraphs here and there? It would be a terrible tease.

Blog: The Princess Myth Revisited.

Blog: Writing Questions that I understand, and questions I’m totally confused by.

Just some of the topics I’ve been mulling over. I reserve the right to find something new and shiny that tickles my muse, and jumps the idea line. Just thought I’d share some of what I’m contemplating in the next couple of weeks leading up to June 1st and Bullet’s release.

 

Bullet, the next Anita Blake novel, comes out June 1st. We’re gearing up for tour, but I am also writing the next book after this one in the series. If you guys want a book a year there’s very little lag in the writing schedule. I am in the middle of a Jean-Claude and Anita scene, not a sex scene, you naughty people you, but just a good-bye scene. The good-bye kiss before you send your lover into danger, except in my books it’s the man kissing the girl before she goes off to battle.

I just finished writing the words, “Describe Kiss.” I realized that this was the same note I’d made in Guilty Pleasures the first book in this series, and the first kiss on stage between Jean-Claude and Anita. Bullet is the 19th book, so that means this book is number 20 in the series. I found it interesting that I had made the same note for the first kiss as I was making for whatever number of kiss this happens to be. At this point, as with real life committed relationships, I’ve lost count of the number of kisses exchanged between my characters. When you are dating, you keep count, but somewhere on the second long weekend of kisses and sex, or on the six month anniversary of dating, or the first anniversary of living together, you lose count of kisses. You lose count of everything. When you first start dating you can keep count of how many times you kissed, how many open mouth kisses, how many times they’ve gone down on you, how many times you’ve gone down on them, how many times he’s played with your breasts just the way you like it, and how many times you’ve had intercourse. You can even keep count of the different positions and how many times you’ve used them with each other; at first. But if you keep having sex with each other you can’t keep count of caresses. It all begins to blur so that you’re no longer certain which Saturday night it was that you did this session with him behind you, and . . . well, you get the idea. It begins to blend together not because it ceases to be important, but because you just have so many touches, so many thrills, and spills of body, to keep count. There is too much to keep a tally board, and check things off. You are simply lovers, and it’s good, no, it’s wonderful, because you know that you want this kiss, this touch, this person, to keep pouring their body along your skin. You know that in all those countless kisses, numberless hugs, hundreds of caresses, you want the list to keep growing. You want this person, these people, to pour their bodies over, under, and into yours, until the trembling, building, pleasure of it, makes you forget to keep track. You want that level of intimacy that makes you forget anything but the pleasure.

Oh, you’ll keep track of some things. If your lover doesn’t often have multiple orgasms then you will keep track of any time you make their eyes flutter back into their heads, their knees weak, and you both lose count of how many orgasms that was for them; that you remember. You hold nights like that as precious like jewels tucked into a velvet lined box that you get out, now and then, so you can admire the glint and shine of them. And, you work hard, have it as a goal, to add to that small box of jewels, so that the memory of your lover’s body trembling against yours, their voice thick, deep, crying out with passion after passion lives in your mind, your heart, your body. That you keep track of, because it’s rare.

But how do you lose track of the kisses, and still treat them as rare and special? How do you do it on paper, or in real life? In real life, you take your time. Anytime I find myself kissing my husband quickly, a hello, or a good-bye kiss, like a peck, I may let myself get away with it once, twice in a day, but then I stop. I stop and make myself kiss him the next time remembering that once I wasn’t allowed to kiss him. Once, he was not mine, and these lips that are so familiar to me now were strangers once, and I kiss him. I kiss him and let him know that I don’t take the touch, taste, and feel of him for granted. I kiss him and make myself record how it feels, I think about how his mouth feels against mine, how does he taste. It’s so familiar to me now, that it is a comfort, the taste of his lips, but I make myself catalog it anyway, doing a sort of sensory memory of this kiss. We kiss a lot, he and I, and we still kiss well as a couple even a decade away from that first kiss. We’ve actually gotten better at kissing each other, because now we know how each other likes to be kissed.

So I looked at that note, Describe the kiss, and thought how? How do I make this kiss between Jean-Claude and Anita as special, as memorable as the first one? The secret is not just to kiss someone with your lips, mouth, even tongue and teeth, it’s kissing them with your mind. Let the kiss be your body, and don’t over think it, but that part of me that is a writer, that part of me that is always remembering how things feel, taste, look, is in my head when I kiss, or do much of anything else and that part of me says, “Remember this, pay attention, it’s important.” Now take real world skills and put it into people that do not exist, because though Anita may kiss like me, Jean-Claude is a very different man from my husband so they would kiss differently. I find that intimacy is a wonderful display of personality, nothing reveals a person’s character to me like sex. That still holds true for me on paper and off, so I have this kiss I need to write. I need to make sure that the thousandth kiss between this man and this woman is as special as the first, or better. I need to maker certain that it isn’t identical to the other kisses described in other books, so that it’s different enough that I haven’t copied myself. Now add, that I want you, the reader, to be able to feel Jean-Claude’s hands holding you. I want you to feel Anita going up on tiptoe to meet your lips. I want you to feel their hands on your face whatever side of the kiss you want to be on.

Describe the kiss, I write in the note to myself. Now all I’ve got to do is make words on paper help you, the reader, feel their lips, taste their mouths, feel the eager press of their bodies, and their love. Describe the kiss. It sounds so simple, but I sit and stare at it, and think, how?

 

What I did for Mother’s Day: Yesterday we, my husband Jon and I, went to the garden store with Meerkat and Chickie, aka Chica. We bought lots of flowers, herbs, and veggies. It was a hard winter here. We lost several roses alone, and strangely, a lot of the cone flowers and black-eyed Susan’s. Since they are wild flowers we were really surprised they didn’t make it even with all the snow and cold. We planted some yesterday and Chickie & I, mostly her, have planted more today. Especially from her and Meerkat I have a Don Juan climbing rose by our patio steps. We’ll be getting a trellis this week for it.

My ex dropped Trinity, our daughter, off early so she could spend Mother’s Day with me today. She got me a black, leather picture frame with a new picture of her and Jon in it. “To put in your office,” she said, so I will. Jon got me flowers, roses to be exact. Meerkat and Chickie came back over after visiting with Chickie’s family and they went to see the movie with us. Trinity wanted to take me to a movie for Mother’s Day. She asked days ago what I wanted to see. My answer, “Iron Man 2.”

“Isn’t that more a Father’s Day movie?” she asked.

“Not if I’m your mom,” I answered.

She thought that was fair, but did try and persuade me for a movie more “typically” mom-flavored, but there was only one thing I wanted to see this weekend, and that was Iron Man 2, so we did. It totally rocked! If you want physics to work, and the science to be more science and less fiction, then see something else, but if you want to have fun and watch some amazing pyrotechnics, then this movie is the ticket for the weekend.

One of the reasons there was only one movie I wanted to see was that Jon and I had gone to see “The Losers” earlier in the week on a surprise date night. Trin didn’t want to see it, and we did. It is also a very fun movie, but there is more “realistic” violence, but it’s still movie violence if you know what I mean. It’s a nittier and grittier movie then Iron Man, but it was also fun, and had great pyrotechnics. It is also a blow-shit-up-real-good-summer-action-movie. We are planning to see “The Losers” again on the big screen, and we probably won’t feel compelled to see Iron Man a second time in theaters. Does that mean we liked “The Losers” better? I’m not sure, but it does mean that we’re willing to pay to see it again, and we’ll wait for a second viewing of Iron Man on DVD, but make sure you see it on the big screen at least once because it is a hell of a show.

Jon is back with take-out so time to bring Chickie in before she’s planting in the dark, and have our family Mother’s Day meal. Before someone asks, Meerkat and Chica are family of choice, though we have two houses, them being with us help make ours a home.

 

I’m a writer. That means, for most of us, that we’re moody, or odd, or prone to emotional ups and downs. Most artists are a much milder form of manic depressive. Up when we’re up, and very down when we’re not. I accepted that this was part of the creative process and my life, and then a series of unfortunate events happened that led me to discover that this roller coaster way of life wasn’t necessary to the creative process.

The biggest of those unfortunate events was a badly twisted ankle. I twisted it several times in a two week period. Not even exciting stories to go with it, but in the end I damaged my Achilles tendon and it seems to be permanent. My orthopedist was talking surgery, but wait I’d heard this talk before from a different ortho specialist years ago. I injured my arm more than ten years ago by signing too many books, too fast. I’m a writer not an athlete so it never occurred to me that was possible. They wanted to operate, but couldn’t guarantee that it would help anything. I decided I’d try less invasive methods first. Good massage therapy, chiropractic, and acupuncture, combined with light weight lifting kept me out of the operating room and gave me back full range of motion in my arm. At one point I couldn’t lift my arm about mid-chest, or turn it more than a few degrees without intense pain. It still aches like any injury, but I have full use, and that was the goal.

Then, as I said, in just the last few years I injured my ankle. Some of you saw me on tour with a cane and obviously in pain. I thought we were headed for surgery, but I went back to chiropractic and acupuncture, and did my physical therapy religiously. Massage was too painful. That helped, but when I asked my ortho doc what I could do to stay out of the operating room she said, “Well, if you do your physical therapy and put some muscle around the injury site maybe you can avoid surgery.” In fact, I was informed that one of the reasons I’d injured myself so badly, from so little, was the lack of muscle around the joint to protect it. Well, damn. Her only caution was this, “If it hurts, especially a sharp pain stop, and no running or jogging. If you injure yourself again it’s going to be surgery.” She did add that I can run to save my life, you know careening cars, bulls, diabolical masterminds and his henchmen, that kind of thing. Good to know.

So I hit the weight room in a way that I hadn’t done since college. Back then it was just to get better in judo so I didn’t get my ass kicked, now, it was about protecting my body from injuries. It was about avoiding being cut open and having them shorten my tendon, which would permanently lose me flexibility. One of the best reasons I’d ever had to hit the gym.

My most recent visit to my doctor was a good one. She was happy with the exercise I’d done and is no longer talking surgery. In fact, she was very surprised, because she hadn’t believed I’d hit the gym hard enough to make a difference, most people don’t even with this much on the line. Maybe they’re just not as nervous about surgery as I am. Fear is a wonderful motivator.

I look better, feel better, and have gone from a size 14 jeans to a size 8, which is great. Less weight is very good for my joints. Oh, and I totally changed my eating habits. It took both exercise and better nutrition to get in shape. But, cutting all fat out made me sick, so fat is not the enemy, neither is carbs. No fad diets, no cutting everything out, just sensible eating, smaller portions, and very few carbs at dinner. We’re also trying for organic and unprocessed in most things. Our nutritionist is a vegetarian and tried for us to do the same, but again, my body needs protein. So we increased the protein, the fats, and we’re still losing weight and still staying healthy. Every body is different, that’s why most fad diets don’t work for everyone. You have to find out what works for your body.

But the most surprising change from all that exercise is that my mood is more even and less of that artistic roller coaster. When I’m feeling anxious, I get on the treadmill. When I’m stressed out of my mind and beginning to feel I’ll never make the deadline for the next book, I lift weights. Right now, my exercise partner and very good friend, Carri, and I have a new trainer that is helping us to do circuit training that combines weights, squats, even jumping, with cardio. (I never thought I’d be able to safely do jumping as exercise again.) We complete the circuit as many times as possible in an hour. We got through it three times yesterday. That was a good workout. Weirdly the only thing my ankle can’t do is exercises that do side to side motion with emphasis on the ankle joint for the movement. Even there, I can do most, but not all. Trainer modified the exercises or found other things for us to do. Carri has her own injuries that she’s recovering from and trying to stay out of the operating room on, as well. In fact, her ortho told her the same thing mine did. Put some muscle around it and maybe no surgery.

Yesterday the stress was very high. I felt crushed under the weight of it. We actually arrived early so we could do thirty minutes on the treadmills before the upper body workout. We would not have tried the treadmill extra on a leg day. That is too much. I actually told our trainer, “I need to work until I see exhaustion miasma in front of my eyes. Anything less isn’t going to do it.”

He took me at my word, and he worked us. Carri was okay with it, she thinks like I do about exercise. Never did get to the exhaustion miasma, but I did start feeling better. On the treadmill I got up to a speed of 3.9 and realized if I got much higher I was going to have to run, which I’ve been told not yet, maybe not ever. I needed something more, so I lowered the speed and upped the incline. I actually got up to an incline of 10 twice, I also did an incline of 4, 5, 6, 7, and then skipped to 10. No pattern by the way just feeling my body and deciding how it felt. I realized that my warm up speed of 3.3 was once the highest I could do on a treadmill. For the high incline I dropped the speed to 2.8 or 3.0 caution is better, and trust me at a high incline you still feel it at the lower speed. But the incline was my replacement for needing to run, and kept me from being stupid and doing it.

Then we had a consultation with their martial arts/boxing person. Since he teaches a technique that incorporates many different martial arts and boxing it is technically mixed martial arts, MMA, but that term now means only one thing to most people. I am not learning how to do MMA FIGHTING. I am learning mixed martial arts and boxing, with the caveat that my ankle may not allow me to do much of the lower body work. Since Carri’s knee is her issue we’re both okay with doing mostly upper body work and going slow on anything involving the legs.

I hadn’t hit a heavy bag in over twenty years. Judo wasn’t big on that since there is no legal punching in the sport, so even back then I didn’t do it much. We put on gloves and he told me to hit it. I was tentative. “Hit it harder.” Still tentative. “Hit it as hard as you can.” I finally stopped over thinking it and just hit it. He ended with, “Don’t hit it as hard as you can, maybe half of that.” He understands that me injuring my hands or wrist with only weeks until tour for Bullet would be bad, so we’re all being cautious. I did the back hand hits without gloves the first time through and I have bag rash to show for it. (That means I’ve scrapped/bruised my skin.) It doesn’t hurt, and it shows I was hitting hard enough. Cool.

He’s given us drills to do on the bag. I can do them every other day, or as needed for stress relief. We have the first officially class with him next week. So three days a week with the circuit trainer, one day a week with the MMA stuff, and treadmill on our own with a goal of at least three days a week for that. You can do treadmill on same day as an upper body workout, or separated by hours on any day. I’m doing an hour at a time at home for the treadmill, with a goal of trying for an hour and a half. Time constraints have kept me from hitting that extra time on the walking. But put it all together and it may just be enough to keep me healthy, happy, and productive.

 

I was visiting with a friend and her family. They made jokes that everyone got, but me. The jokes were movie lines from Rocky Horror. I had no idea what they were talking about.. Her daughter, Mer, said, “You’ve never been to Rocky Horror, ever?”

“No,” I said.

In a fit of generosity she said, “I’ll take you. My friends are going next Friday.”

“Are you sure your friends will be cool with me going?”

“Sure.”

So, we made plans, and then my friend’s daughter started doing the math. A couple of days later she called me, concern in her voice. I put her out of her misery, “It was generous of you to offer, Mer, but I understand I’m your mom’s friend, and you’re not sure how your friends will take me coming along.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Mer, your friends are in high school, I’m in my thirties. Thanks for offering to take me, but I don’t want to mess up your deal with your friends.”

She muscled through and finally said, “No, I want you to go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Then she hesitated.

I said, “I’ll do my best not to embarrass you.”

“I didn’t mean . . .”

“Mer, it’s okay, I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

“Thanks.”

We hung up, and our fates were sealed. My friend’s eighteen-year-old was taking me to see Rocky, and she was trusting me not to mess up with her friends and acquaintances. The social pressure was on. I researched the phenomena, as I research everything, and talked to my friends that had gone in their teens and twenties. There was one more phone call with Mer, where she was worried what I’d wear, I promised her I knew how to dress. The night of, I put an extra shirt in the backseat in case Mer wanted me to change.

I rang the bell and Mer opened the door as if she’d been standing right there, I think she was worried what I’d be wearing. She looked me head to foot and said, “You win.”

“So the outfit is all right?” I asked.

She nodded wordlessly and ushered me in the house. The outfit I was wearing; black short-shorts short enough to show the tops of my fishnet thigh highs, my shirt, a royal purple vest only, in velvet and edged with black satin and Doc Martin hiking boots. I’d let my hair do it’s out of control curly best, and done the heavy Goth make-up. Mer was very happy with my outfit. In fact, it made a spate of her trying on new clothes. I ended up offering her the extra shirt I’d brought. Let me add that all these clothes had been in my closet. I didn’t have to buy a thing. Just because I’d never been to Rocky Horror didn’t mean I’d never been somewhere with the same kind of dress requirements.

Mer was a little nervous now that I was about to meet her friends. We all met in the parking lot of a Denny’s and there were over twenty of us. I stayed vaguely near Mer, and kept my mouth shut. She introduced me only as, “Laurell.” One of the good things is this was years ago so no one knew who I was, though they didn’t know exactly what to do with me either. I’m short enough, but I just didn’t give off that I’m in high school vibe. I was neither friendly, nor unfriendly, I just worked at not embarrassing my friend with her friends. Keeping my mouth shut seemed a safe bet. I’d sucked at being a teenager when I was one, I doubted the years had improved my abilities. I’m a good grownup, but was never good at kid-flavor human being.

Finally, everyone was here and we caravaned over to the theater. Mer’s younger brother was also going for his first Rocky visit. He was sixteen, so half my age, but we were both Rocky Horror virgins. I was about to learn that phrase had a very special meaning. Mer got us both into our seats and told us, “If someone asks if you’re a virgin just say, no.” I gave her a look. “I’ll explain later,” she said, “just trust me.” So, her brother and I trusted her. Then another friend came up, B, is one of the few women that is substantially shorter than me, it makes her look years younger than her early twenties. She left Mer’s brother alone, but insisted on outing me as a “virgin”. She was making so much noise that Mer told me I might as well let B drag me off to get “marked”.

Now, I had done some research on the fact that there are traditions about first timers at Rocky getting up on stage and having some sort of hazing ritual, that’s really what it is, so I wasn’t completely surprised. I was surprised at what the ritual in St. Louis was, at that time. But first, B took me to the man who was putting lipstick ‘v’s on the virgin’s foreheads. B pulled me up to him and excitedly said, “Virgin!”

He tried to mark her forehead. “No, not me, her.” He turned to look at me. He, like Mer, went from the hair, Goth makeup, fishnet, down to the Doc Martins and then back to my face. “You’ve never been to Rocky Horror before?” He sounded doubtful. I admitted it was my first time. He shrugged and marked my forehead. B then took me to a growing line of other people with lipstick ‘v’s on their foreheads. Most were men that night, but not all. I was near the end of the line except for one young girl, and I say girl on purpose. She seemed nervous, very nervous. She was also tiny, petite didn’t cover it. We stood there and realized what was expected.

Men dropped pants to show underwear usually boxers, and usually did something silly, and then there was a virgin auction where people would offer things like gum wrappers, or dryer lint, for the virgin. Much laughter was had, but the women raised their tops and flashed breasts. I soooo wasn’t doing it. The young girl beside me was beside herself with anxiety. As the line grew shorter and we approached the stage she began to tremble visibly. I finally asked, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t.”

“My friends say I have to.”

I had a bad idea. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” she said.

So not happening. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“They say I have to.”

“I’ll walk you back to your friends and explain that you don’t have to do this. I promise you don’t have to.” In my head, I was planning on telling them about child sexual exploitation since fourteen is below age of consent here, and barring that I would talk to the people in charge. I know that no one at the theater wanted a fourteen-year-old girl traumatized. This was supposed to be fun, she was not having fun.

“I don’t have to do this?” she asked.

“Go back and sit down. If your friends give you trouble I’ll explain it to them,” I told her. Maybe it was the order, but she fled to her seat. I’d done my Goth knight duty for the night, and suddenly it was my turn on stage. I’d had plenty of time to decide what I was going to do, and what I wasn’t going to do. I admit that maybe the fourteen-year-old’s mood had soured mine a little, but . . . You were suppose to play coy and let the audience talk you out of your clothes, or something like that. I strode onto stage, took up the center spot where the announcer had me stand and proceeded to unbutton my vest, flashing the very nice black and lacy bra. I unbuckled my shorts and proved that they matched the bra. Then I said, “That’s it, that’s as far as I’m going.” Then I glared at the audience. It didn’t help, or maybe it did, that I had a seven-inch folding knife tucked into the shorts and it fell out onto the stage with a resounding clang as I did what undressing I was doing. Everyone blinked at me. You could hear the proverbial crickets. No one bid. No one heckled. No one argued with me. No one did anything. Finally the announcer came and said something, and I was free get dressed, tuck the knife back into hiding, and go back to my seat. My only concern was had I done something that would make Mer’s life hard. It turns out, no. In fact Mer had enjoyed my stage time. I was declared cool, or too scary to mess with, either way, the night went well. Mer’s brother whispered the actual movie dialog to me as Mer told us both what to say when the audience yelled, threw things at the screen, and basically made the movie so much more fun by audience participation to a level I’d never seen.

I had a great time, and so did Mer, and her brother. He and I both enjoyed losing our Rocky Horror virginity. I was recognized by one person and he enjoyed my time on stage a great deal. Apparently, I’d met expectations. I did not ask what he meant by that. I just took it as a compliment and left it alone. Mer was happy she took me and I was happy I went. I still think it was both brave and generous of her to risk taking her mom’s friend to see Rocky Horror. But I’m a goth, we know how to dress for Rocky. Now, take me to the Young Republicans convention and I wouldn’t have a thing to wear.