Author: Jonathon

I woke up in my grumpy-bear mood. What does that mean? It means I’ve been traveling for about a week, doing mostly business, working hard, getting little sleep, and basically expending more energy than I’m refueling. It also means that I have been surrounded by too many people, mostly new friends, or strangers, and in an environment that was loud or otherwise sensory overwhelming. Combine all the above and no matter how good the business is going, or how many pleasant people I’ve met, or new friends I’ve made, I have a real need to find a cave and curl up. I need some quiet, privacy, and much less interaction with people.

Grumpy-Bear is very unsocial, and will quickly get depressed, angry, snappish, and unpleasant. Now he won’t if I can just be left the fuck alone, but it usually happens at a time when that isn’t really possible. So today I tried to conjure up some more sociable image. I needed someone that would help me be happier, more social, and want to play. I pictured a happy feline of some sort, that wanted to go out and explore the city. We’re in Paris, for the love of God, this is our first day to be able to explore the city and do something that is unrelated to work. I listened to Godsmack while I was in the shower, and put the music up loud. That helped. I put on the only red shirt I bought with me to try and brighten my mood, ditto for the red lipstick, and my flame New Rocks. It usually puts me in a good mood to wear them. So I went out in a cheerful frame of mind, hopeful that I’d find a way to be a more social pussy-cat rather than unsociable bear. We went to Notre Dame, which was on the list of things all three of us wanted to see. Jon, Meerkat, and me, being the three.

I’ve been staring at a picture of a gargoyle from Notre Dame for years. It hangs on the wall in my office. I promised myself that I would see that view in person one day. Today was the day. I’ll give you some clues about the tower tour. First there is a separate line off to the side of the cathedral for the tower. Nothing tells you that on their website. We were lucky and got to be the last three people allowed in line. Then we waited, it’s a long wait, because only about twenty people are allowed up at any given time. We finally got to enter the entrance to the tower, and that’s where you pay for tickets. It’s 8 Euro a piece and they want exact change. There are signs that warn you that pregnant women, people with heart conditions, or otherwise unable to do the 400 steps up to the towers should not attempt it. I knew it’d be a workout, and I’d been warned by friends who had done it, that my claustrophobia would get a workout, too. I believed them, but nothing really prepares you for it.

The stairs are very steep, and curving sharply. If you suffer from vertigo I would not attempt it. If you’re afraid of heights, you have to be able to control the fear. If you’re a claustrophobic, you are fucking out of luck, and you must be prepared to simply see it through. You just screw your courage to the sticking point and do it, because the stairs become, very, very narrow and twisting. I am a small person. I do not have a large span from finger tip to finger tip, and there were a lot of places where I had a hand on the banister and the curve of the wall on the other side of the stairs. It’s that narrow. Yes, I did feel like the wall was beginning to curve in and swallow me. Yes, I did feel the weight of the stone like something heavy and trying to crush me. Yes, the walls did begin to narrow around me and only my hands on either side let me know it was an illusion made up of the phobia and exhaustion from the many, steep stairs. Plus, I had to use my inhaler part way up, because something in the ancient stairs began to make it hard for me to breath, which considering it was the medieval equivlent of the stair-master from hell was not good. There were a time or two when the fear threatened to overwhelm me, but I was more than half way up at that point, and it was as bad going down as up, so might as well go up. I began to look forward to the wall slit windows with their metal grates, at least it was more light and a little more air. When the man in front of us kept pausing to take pictures at the tiny windows I was happy for the moments of rest. My legs and feet were letting me know that this was more of a workout than I’d had in several days. The guides that do the stairs everyday must have the legs of mountain goats or Olympic athletes.

About the time I was ready to scream as the walls ate me, we came to a room. It contained a bell, a bell the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. No, honest, it was that big. All the bells at Notre Dame are Christened, and this bell’s name is Emmanuel. I liked that a lot. I also liked not having to go up anymore stairs for a few minutes and having more air to breath in the wooden area of the belfry. Jon was fighting his own demons since he doesn’t like heights, and he would later say the wooden steps moved underfoot and made his fear of it all tumbling down much worse, but I was happy for the relatively open area. Then it was time to finish the climb. There was a moment near the end where I fought the urge to simply start screaming and give into the growing terror, but the only way down was back through all that narrow staircase, and up ahead was supposed to be light and air and I needed that. So up, and up, and then sunlight, and finally around one more curve and we were at the top.

First, the breath of fresh air on my face, the spill of sunlight, and the wide expanse of the open was a blessed relief. The view is as spectacular as promised, no, it’s more. It’s still a narrow walkway, but it’s covered in open wire and the view of Paris is worth the climb. I have no greater compliment to give it than that. The gargoyles are wonderful, and finally I saw the same gargoyle that sits on my wall at home, but now it watched over the city of Paris far below. Blue sky and white fluffy clouds were the backdrop for all of it. Wind picked up at one point, lifting my hair back, raising my short t-shirt up so that my stomach showed. My t-shirt went past my belt so it was a strong wind, cool and fresh. I opened my arms and let it blow past me, through me, cool and wonderful. The wind whined and moaned around us, the tower groaning a little under the force of it. It was wonderful, though Jon’s fear of heights wasn’t helped, but my claustrophobia was much happier. Some days it’s a choice of fears to conquer.

Then all too soon it was time to go back down the other narrow staircase. It was physically easier on the legs to go down than up which helped, but the claustrophobia was so not happy with leaving the sunlit rooftop and the view of Paris, and the gargoyles, gotta love the gargoyles, or I do. Meerkat took a picture as we finished the nearly 1000 step climb. We do not look happy, but we were. Yes, it was hard, but the view was worth the fear, and there is always something better in conquering a fear rather than letting it conquer you. We sat down for a few minutes and then went into the Cathedral itself. It, too, was as beautiful as advertised and there are damn few things in life that can say that. Jon bought a candle and lit one for St. Jean d’ Arc. The plaque said that she had been burned as a heretic and a witch and the decision to repair her reputation had been made at this cathedral. It seemed fitting that two witches should light a candle to the peasant saint that was burned as one of us, when she was not. Her only crime was seeing the light of God a little too brightly for the government of the day. Notre Dame also celebrates Mary in May, bringing her gifts of gold at one point in history. They still want their May Queen, their Goddess image, even if they have changed the name and what they are celebrating. We found that Goddess is still there beside God, because without both, I think they would be lonely.

 

The flight to Paris didn’t get to leave the ground before the weird began to happen. I have been on more planes over the years where flight crew will say things like, “I’ve flown for six years and never seen anything like it.” I’m beginning to think it’s me, somehow. Airplane was waiting on tarmac for fifteen minutes. Captain Davis comes on intercom system, and says that he’s not sure why the paper work is not coming through or why we’re delayed. Thirty minutes in and Capt. Davis says, “Our cargo was not distributed to the optimal center of gravity.” Further more, “I’ve done this for 10 years and never head of this before, but we’ve got to go back and be repacked.”

An hour in Capt. Davis says, “American only has 10 gates capable of doing a wide body plane and they’re full. There is a push crew at one gate and as soon as it’s clear we’ll go in.” The arrival time to Paris just kept ticking away later and later. I hate to be stuck on the ground in a plane, because my phobia gets one last chance to back out and stay on the ground. In reality, it doesn’t because once the plane door closes no one gets off for anything except serious medical emergency. A panic attack, which I did not have, is not grounds for escape. But the temptation was there as the minutes ticked away.

One hour and thirty minutes later we’re still waiting. Two hours we are at the gate getting water and in business class and up nuts or cheese, and beverages. I am sitting sipping hot tea and listening to Godsmack, because they’ve let us use our electronic devices again on the ground. That probably means we’re going be here awhile. I use the time to edit the first three chapters of the next book. I have to decide what from Bullet needs to be excised and what can be kept. These chapters actually came directly from the June book, but were so much side plot that the plot needed it’s own book. It’s both the easiest start to a book I’ve ever had and most frustrating. On one hand I just have to edit and smooth transitions though I do have to introduce characters and the world because these chapters were later in the book after all that had been established, but other than that I’m very happy with them. Frustrating because my muse and I like to throw ourselves on the blank page and see what happens. This kind of start steals that initial thrill from us.

Jon and I have plugged in our phones. I’d tweeted, emailed, and Facebooked until my iPhone was low enough to give an alarm. Thanks to having power converters we can char age phones. Yea! The family across the way is not so lucky with their daughter’s iPod touch, no power converter no juice, unhappy and very sullen girl. Sullen that early in European vacation is not a good sign.

Two hours and fifteen minutes and our plane is ready to back away from the gate, except now there’s a plane behind us blocking us in. *laughs* Finally able to back up. We are on our way to take off, at last.

Yes, I did have my Kermit the Frog moment where I wanted to run around the cabin screaming and waving my arms which is why I got out the chapters to work on. The airline personnel frown on hysterics and other passengers would have had no sense of humor about anyone delaying the flight at this point. I don’t blame them, so no running around and being all froggy, or would that be Kermitity?

Plane is taxing on the runway. Maybe we’ll actually get off the ground and head to Paris this time, and we did, and we arrived safely, and it’s all good.

 

Once upon a time I was terrified of flying. I earned my fear by being in a plane that had a rather abrupt descent, and left the flight crew shaken. The captain actually came on the speaker and said, “I don’t know what just happened, but we seem to be all right now. I think we’ll make the scheduled airport.” Think, we’ll make it? I loved to fly until that moment. Nothing like having a stranger gripping your hand and praying the Lord’s Prayer in German, along with everyone Else who wasn’t screaming in terror, or praying something of another flavor. When you think this is it, suddenly the irritating seatmate is just another human being and if you can you should die holding someone’s hand. We landed just fine, it was okay, never found out why we had our excitement. A flight attendant said, “I’ve never had anything like that happen.” I asked, “How long have you worked as a flight attendant?” “Six years.” Yeah, it was that kind of moment.

I’ve had full-blown panic attacks on airplanes. I once had such a tight grip on my husband Jon that I bled his thigh through a pair of jeans. That was a particularly bumpy flight. Our daughter, Trinity, loves to fly, because I did not share my phobia with her. How did I manage that? She sat on one side, and Jon sat on the other. I would keep a death grip on him, while I chatted happily with our daughter. When she was very small the plane we were in took a sudden turn and she paled. I explained, “It’s just like being in a car. The plane had to turn a corner.” I smiled. She smiled, and went back to enjoying herself. That was the flight that I bled Jon through his jeans, all the time chattering away with Trinity explaining Bernoulli’s Principle. She has always been a wonderful traveler. Out of her sight, or secretly right by her side, I have not been.

In the last few years I’ve gotten better at flying. It began with the idea that maybe part of the problem was that one of the reasons I’d started to truly hate flying, other than that whole near death thing, was that we only traveled for tour. Just after 9/11 we went out on tour together for the first time. Before that I’d always done the Weeks’s of travel on my own. We were touring for Narcissus in Chains, and it was memorable for several reasons. One, it was just after 9/11 and the airport security was a little scary. Miles of lines, no one quite clear on what the security protocols were, because they were changing too fast for even the airport personnel themselves to keep up with them. I tried to take pictures of Jon going through the wand search and got a fully automatic rifle pointed at me while the solider yelled, “No pictures at the security point. No pictures!” I raised my hands, camera still gripped and compiled with the wild-eyed fully armed man dressed like a tree. We did 26 cities in 28 days for that tour. Someone in New York with the publishing house bought all the tickets so they were one way tickets to all these major U. S. cities, which meant that we got searched a lot. Jon and I got quite good at assuming the position and letting them pat us down. I no longer remember which airport we got patted down four times before being allowed to board the plane. Worse yet, the regulations on what you could and could not take on a plane changed hourly, it seemed. We had to throw away nail clippers. (I still maintain that if someone could hi-jack a plane with a pair of small nail clippers the plane has other problems, but arguing was not helpful. Everyone was too scared for that.) San Fransisco was cleared for hours on a bomb scare while we stood outside looking at all the glass above and around us, wondering if we had enough luggage on our cart to act as a shield. All this to say, that flying like that, even without extra security measures where you’re getting almost no sleep, and a plane, and a different city, a day, made me dread planes for other reasons than just fear. It wasn’t fun anymore. We saw the airport, the hotel, the event, then the airport, the hotel, the event, and interviews in there somewhere. It was grueling. I began to associate flying with exhaustion and unpleasant events.

So, the new idea was for us to fly more often to fun places for fun reasons. First we found someplace warm by the ocean. My mother-in-law said it was the first time she’d ever seen me relax. On our third trip we bought a vacation home, because it was the only place I relaxed. I began to look forward to flying to the warmth and the water. Proof of concept had worked, so I decided to try and expand the experiment. We had friends out of state that invited us to their home for a party. We flew. I still remember being quite afraid, but the trips to the vacation spot had gotten me to looking out the window without panic. (I used to try to pretend I was on a crowded bus and not look out the window, though I had to have the window open because I am also claustrophobic thanks to a diving accident.) I watched the snake-back curves of a silver river shine in the sun, and felt remarkably calm for me on a plane going somewhere not the vacation spot. It was great visit, and would be the first of many. I would watch that silver river wind like a glittering ribbon in spring, summer, autumn, and winter, so that the landscape itself began to be part of the welcoming. I would look down see the river and know we were going somewhere that was good, fun, and not stressful, not work. This wonderful new calmness about flying expand to business trips to the West Coast, East Coast, and various other places in the Continental U. S. I had the temerity to think I’d kicked my phobia. I have discovered that I was wrong.

The thought of an eight hour plane ride to France has me pretty panicked. It’s my first long trip since I supposedly conquered my fear, and it’s for business. Yes, it’s Paris, and that’s wonderful. It’s the Paris Book Fair and that’s great, too, but it’s still business, and some past bad experiences make it hard for me to be entirely positive about business. Would I be as panicked if we were flying there on pleasure alone? I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to plane a trip to Europe just for fun to find out. But I suspect it’s the length of the flight and my own doubts that I can do it with calmness. Does my nerve fail me? No, I will get on the plane. I will sit and read, and work, and listen to music. My nerve does not fail. Are my nerves frayed? Oui.

We have wonderful things planned for our days off in Paris. I’m looking forward to them. I’ve been practicing French phrases. It will be great. It will. But the flight stands between me and enjoying France like some towering wall to a castle that I must scale to get to the treasure inside. I will do it. The question is only how hard will it be? I take a deep breath, let it out, and wonder. If I had to fly eight hours one way to get to my good friends would I be as scared? Have they become some kind of teddy bear to lure me onto a plane? If so, I need to either see how they feel about flying to France, or make some very quick new friends to greet me when we land. Surely, I am grown-up enough to do this without the lure of comfort objects no matter how good a friends they maybe.

 

In my books Anita wakes up nude beside a beautiful man, or men. She rolls over and sex ensues. Not just sex, but really good sex. When she can walk safely, she slips on something silky and begins to get ready for the day. In real life today, I woke up nude beside a beautiful man. We cuddled, we talked, and then sex ensued, and yes, it was really good sex. When we could both walk safely, Jon threw on a robe and is now in the shower. I cleaned up and put on silk pajamas and a robe, and headed downstairs to start my day. Here’s where fact and fiction begin to diverge a lot.

Our pug, Sasquatch is going nuts in his crate. Open crate and he makes donut circles around me like a whirling dervish. Yes, it’s very cute, and also a tripping hazard as we’ve learned. I open the back door for him to go outside, but it’s raining, pugs hate rain. They are indoor dogs and very aware of that. He sat on the top step, the only dry spot, and scratched frantically at the door. He wasn’t going anywhere to do anything in the wet, but if I let him back in without it I’d have a mess to clean up. So . . . I find the closest boots, Doc Martin black leather heels. I tuck the scarlet silk pajama bottoms into the tops of them, and begin to curse my dog under my breath. I put a raincoat on over the robe, but there is still red silk out, bare, to the rain. Silk doesn’t like rain. I pull my hood up, never a good look for very curly hair, and out into the rain I go. (Why didn’t I get an umbrella? It never occurred to me, and if I wait too long Sasquatch will do whatever he’s going to do on the top step. Leaving it like a land mine.) I chase him out into the yard, and stand there to make sure he does something in the rain. The rain begins to leave little spots all over the silk. Finally, we’re back inside. I’m balancing on one foot taking off boots, and muttering at the dog who is staring at me adoringly in a perfect sit waiting for his treat. Morning’s like this are why Anita doesn’t have a dog.

And if our daughter wasn’t off with Grandma, and Grandpa in sunny climes for Spring break the whole coming downstairs in silk, and the raucous sex before, would not have happened. This is just one of the many reasons Anita doesn’t have a child.

In the books food just sort of appears for Anita, or she skips food all together. In reality, I’m brewing tea, toasting bread, and trying to spread organic sunflower butter on it. Organic nut butter has this oil on top of it. I’m sure it’s perfectly fine and perfectly healthy, but it’s unappealing. So I’m stirring the butter to mix the oil with it, like I’m supposed to, then measure out a tablespoon of it for the toast. Anita never has to measure her food, or worry that much about healthy. She’s too busy staying alive to worry about calorie counts. Remember the red silk I was wearing? Remember how I said the nut butter is oily? Yes, the measuring spoon of oily nut butter fell onto the sleeve of the red silk. *sigh* There is a reason you never see anyone in the silk, velvet, or other lingerie in the kitchen in my books. Most of it is not user friendly for actually cooking in, only to be put on after the meal is done so you can look fetching beside the main course and let your significant other know that desert will be fun, too. I say significant other, rather than husband, because I like a man who can cook.

Other things that work more smoothly in fiction than in fact: Jean-Claude has an unlimited supply of silk sheets so if you ruin a pair it’s fine. In reality it’s hard to find good silk that fits a big bed, and it’s expensive to replace. Almost everyone in the books is in great shape with seemingly little visible effort to stay that way. We haven’t seen Anita work out in a long time in the books. In reality I have to see a lot of gym time to look as good as I do, and it’s not as good as Anita looks. She’s still doing my pre-child, pre-marriage, pre-real job workout. I’m trying and I’m about to get even more serious about getting fit and healthy, but where Anita just seems to exercise the way she eats, off stage, and magically, it’s a lot harder to fit into my life. I did show Anita and some of the guys working out in the gym in the June book, Bullet. I wanted to show some of the real effort that goes into staying in that kind of shape. One other difference, I just looked at the clock. I have to buy new exercise shoes because I’ve worn down the inside of the pair I have. Good shoes are very important if you’re doing serious walking, or running, for your cardio. So, I have to find a new pair before we leave for Paris since I’ll be hitting the treadmill there, too. I have to find shoes for my great new dresses that I bought, but the new shoes have to be okay for my ankle and still look good with the dresses. Anita is able to wear the spike heels that I could wear before I injured my ankle. The spike heels are the one thing my orthopedic doctor would not sign off on. I can wear them if on a flat surface, but she was dubious about me maybe rolling my ankle again, so I’m in search of high heels with wider heels, though oddly in pumps it needs to be over three inches high, in fact the pair that felt best were one of my four inch spikes. If the heel were wider I’d take them, but standing in spike heels is different from risking walking in them for an entire evening. Just not worth it when I’ve just gotten better. In the books Anita heals almost anything, magically, amazingly. That is pure wish fullfillment on my part, because I’ve always been injury prone going back to my late teens. These are just a few things that are different between my fiction and my fact.

 

Thou shalt not give up all caffeine and sugar on the same day cold turkey. I wondered why I was getting a headache when I felt sooooo good. I only figured out minutes ago that I’d gone from two to three large cups of strong black tea in the morning to none. But interestingly without the sugar or the caffeine I actually feel more energized, and almost frenetic. I know that caffeine is a downer rather than an upper for me, as it is for my husband, Jon, and our daughter Trinity. We all have some level of ADD, and Jon scored higher on the ADHD than either of us combined. Trust me you want the three of us on caffeine so we’re a little calmer. But apparently just because caffeine isn’t an upper for me doesn’t mean my body isn’t addicted to it, thus the headache. I’ve now taken something for it, and am sipping a cup of tea. I think a gradual withdraw from the chemical is the wiser choice. I put a lot of sugar in my tea, and as I’ve tried to cut down on the sweetener I’m beginning to realize maybe I don’t like black tea. I like sugar. But without any sugar this morning I felt more energized than I can remember on any morning. It was an amazing difference. I wonder if just as caffeine acts opposite for my body chemistry, if sugar does the same thing? What if instead of giving me a boost of energy it drains energy from me?

I woke at 5 AM today in the pitch dark and since I knew I couldn’t sleep anymore I got up, put on my exercise clothes, and hit the treadmill. I’m about to start with a new trainer and a new nutrition plan. I’ve already started to try with the nutrition which explains the lack of chemical sweet goodness in my morning food. You never know when you start with a trainer if he’ll be good for you. He may be a great trainer for someone else, but it’s very personal what motivates someone to exercise. An evaluator took the tests for BMI, body mass index, and talked to me about what my goals were, and my time-line for them. He’s now chosen a trainer for me to start with when we get back from our business trip. But in talking to the evaluator and the nutritionist I gleaned this bit of knowledge that if I did major cardio before eating anything in the morning my body would burn more fat. Now I’m a wee-bit hypoglycemic or was in the past, so I make sure I put some fuel in my body pretty quickly. Otherwise I start feeling bad. A cup of sugary, creamy tea is a good jump start for me, or so I thought. The alternative to the morning exercise was to eat lunch, then wait long enough for the food to be mostly out of your system and do major cardio before dinner. It was, again, supposed to burn more fat. Well Carri, my exercise partner, and I did the after lunch cardio. The next day I was three pounds lighter and our high-tech scale took all three pounds off of the fat side of the scale. Now I don’t give a damn what I weigh. I care about how I fit in my clothes, how I look out of them, and how strong and healthy I am, but weight is a convenient starting point for judging an exercise method. Please, note that I say weight is a starting point, not the be all end all. Too many people obsess about their weight and ignore the fact that you can be skinny and terribly unhealthy and weak. I want to be strong and healthy. Muscle weighs more than fat and I want more muscle, so it’s not about weight, it’s about inches. I want to lean down and lose some fat so I can see all the muscles I’m building. I have twice had really good abdominal strength and each time that layer of flesh kept me from seeing all the work. I want to see the muscles not have them camouflaged with fat, so . . . I got up this morning, threw a small bag of almonds in my exercise bag, got my large bottle of water, and headed to our treadmill. We have one in the house, but I usually prefer to use one at the gym just so I get out of the house at least once every few days. As a writer sometimes you can feel a little housebound, or I do. But the trick for the nutrition is to eat breakfast no more than a half hour to an hour after waking, if I went to the gym that wouldn’t happen, so our treadmill was dandy. I wasn’t honestly sure how I’d feel with only a little water on my stomach and hard cardio, but I was willing to try.

I did an hour on the treadmill at a sustained speed of 3.4 walking. That speed is one that a few years before I’d have had to jog to keep up with, but now I can walk it. My orthopedist says jogging is not allowed as exercise with my ankle which I injured a couple of years back, but that hitting the gym with the weight lifting and the cardio has put enough muscle around the joint that there won’t be any need for surgery. That’s what originally made me hit the gym hard this last time. Surgery or exercise, let me think. Exercise was definitely the lesser evil to me, and now I just need to keep building up the muscle and getting healthier all the way around, and I’ll be fine. Very good news.

When the nutritionist made noises about me getting rid of sugar and caffeine in my diet I was really unhappy, but this morning let me know that if I do it gradually rather than cold turkey, maybe there really is benefit to giving up two of my favorite food groups. What if without both of them I’m more alert, more energetic, and healthier? Nutritionist is also talking a raw diet, and I was really dubious about that, but after this morning’s amazing surge of energy I’m going to try. What if everything they tell you is good for you really is good for you? Wouldn’t that be a bitch?

 

Here is the cover for Bullet, the Anita Blake novel for June 2010. It has only been approved for minutes. Once upon at ime I would have said, it was hot off the presses, but these days it’s cool off the computer screen.

 

One of my lessons for this year is to learn how to play as hard as I work, or at least play more. The point is to enjoy what I have, what I’ve accomplished, and sometimes I forget that. I make everything a burden instead of a gift. I was raised to think everything was potentially bad. If someone was nice to you, they wanted something. If you were in love, then you’d lose that person eventually. My grandmother was a profoundly unhappy person. I’m not sure she truly enjoyed much of anything. Even when she was happy she was worried about the happiness slipping away, so she made it less happy, as if by ruining it herself it would last longer. She never seemed to realize, and it took me years to see it, that the very act of taking the shine off the joy, made it less joy and more worry.

I have a list of things to do. Most of them are small, but I fell back into that years long habit of making it all burdens. But its not. I have to decide some things about the Anita Blake comic, but I have both the chance and the ability to make those decisions. That is a gift. I am about to fly to Paris with my husband, Jonathon, and our good friend and assistant, Carri. It will be our first trip there for Jonathon and myself; the second for Carri. But we are flying to Paris and doing signings there, and interviews, and having a few days to simply see France. What a wonderful gift. I have the resources to shop for nice clothes, and I’ve worked out at the gym so that a size 8 fits me just dandy. My ankle, which I injured a couple of years ago, is well enough that I can do 50 minutes on the treadmill. I can actually wear a few shoes that are not boots that tie over the ankle. This is a wonderful thing. I get to clean my office and organize it before I set down to seriously work on the next book. It is true that I’m not going to have as much down time between books as I thought I would, but still it’s not the breakneck pace that I did the last four books in; that schedule no one could keep and stay sane. Not even me. See there I go, negative. Damn it. Let’s try that again. I am going to have to go back to work sooner than my muse and I had planned, that is certainly true. Positive spin would be? I have two New York Times Best Selling series in a time when most writers are truly struggling, hell, most everyone is struggling. I was offered enough money to make agreeing to the schedule worth it to me, that’s a very good thing. Okay, this isn’t working. I am tired. I am well and truly tired, but then so is everyone. My mother worked every day of my childhood in a factory. She hated it, but it put food on the table and a roof over our heads. She died when I was six, but I remember thinking three things about her: she was beautiful, she didn’t smile much, and she seemed sad and tired. My daughter, Trinity, said this morning, “I think I’m here sometimes to make you smile.” Which made me smile, and then I remembered me as a child trying to make my own mother smile more. I don’t want my kid to feel that buoying my spirits is her job. I need to buoy my own spirits.

I have worked very hard in meditation, my path of faith, to learn to lighten up, and to play. I let myself slip back into old habits which consist of sorrow and guilt and beating myself up about nothing. It is a habit that steals my joy in everything. It is my grandmother’s legacy. My mother never escaped it, but I did. I am. I know why some of this is happening. My grandmother’s birthday is this month. Call it an anniversary depression, if you will, but damn it, nothing is wrong. My life is very good, very happy, and I’ve worked hard that it is so. I pulled a rune this morning, as in a Norse rune. It was Thurisaz. One of it’s meanings is doorway, or gateway. Part of the advice from meditating on the rune was this, “Think it all over and get free from your ghosts. And cross the border.” The idea is if I let go of the ghosts, then I can go through the door to a new, happier, healthier place. Good advice, and very needed today.

I will let go of this ghost that came up yesterday to steal my joy, and I will let go of those false lessons from my past. I will embrace my joy. I will play. I will probably put a sticky note above my computer with just that word on it, “Play” and maybe another with this on it, “It’s all a gift.” I often use visual cues on lessons that I’m trying to learn. Play, I need to play more, and I need to let myself see that it’s all a gift, and that even the hardest lessons can eventually lead some place wonderful.

 

No e-mail. No blog. No Forum. And, I can’t get on Facebook due to some issue with the e-mail. Twitter is up, but that is it. That has been it for three days. We need a tech fix. This blog is actually a test to see if the blog is working. We’ve managed to reach my official website and the last blog posted. If this posts then the blog is up, but e-mail, Facebook, will still be down for us until the techies half-way around the world actually do their jobs correctly. Did that sound bitter; angry? I’m trying not to be. I mean it’s not like I can yell at Bethany, whose real name is probably more like Padma, where she’s sitting in India. It’s probably not even her job to do the actual tech. She just answers phones and takes the message. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that will actually answer a phone and talk to us. So, yelling at them seems pointless and petty. Sometimes it’s hard not to be petty, but I am trying. It’s like yelling at the waiter in a restaurant because the food is terrible. The waiter did not cook the food. In fact, the only thing you can ever blame on the wait staff is if the food is stone cold, then they should have gotten it out to you sooner, but other than that yelling at them is not yelling at anyone that did the mistake. It’s just yelling to vent, and really venting should be saved for the gym, the heavy bag, meditation, or good friends. Anger isn’t to be sprayed out at random passersby, it should be honed, coddled, and aimed at just the right moment, just the right person, when it will actually do some good. I value the rare moments when I can release my anger and let it run free capering and slaughtering while it whistles a jaunty tune. Ah, happy day.

But most of the time, anger is simply an indulgence. It is something most of us scatter around us like unhappy surprises. Or, some people are afraid of their anger and they never get angry for fear other people won’t like them. Anger is just one of the many emotions we come with, it’s there for a reason, and should be exercised right along with joy, sorrow, and the entire range. To cut yourself off from any emotion is to limit the human being you are supposed to be. The trick is that you control your anger, and the other emotions, I mean love can do more damage to your life than hate. It’s all about discipline. Hmm, it seems like I’ve wandered away from the whole tech problem that I began with, but not really. I am angry. I am frustrated. I am impatient with the process. We were in the process of getting the page proofs on Bullet, the June Anita book, via e-mail when it went down. So page proofs came via Fed-ex, a few days later than e-mail would have done. The Anita Blake comic is more problematic since we work with artists that are scattered across the Western United States, our editor is in New York, our colonist is in Italy, well, you get the idea. The comic only works from such far flung distances because of e-mail. Without it we are pretty much screwed on the comic. The time schedule does not have time in it for Fed-ex to save the day for the comics, only electronic technology allows the process to work on such tight deadlines. We are days behind and every day we lose we get more behind. There is no saving it except to restore the e-mail. *sigh*

Two e-mail boxes just crossed my computer screen. Tests from Jonathon to see if e-mail is working. *Cross-fingers*

 

I was going to blog about watching “Up” last night, or trying to, but when I opened the drapes on the living room windows this morning I got a surprise. A large hawk was sitting on the ground underneath one of the bird feeders. At first I thought she was a young Red-Tail, because of the size, but it was a Cooper’s Hawk, all streaked with her I’m-a-teenager-feathers. But she is the second young Cooper’s hawk that is frequenting our yard this year that is that big and beefy. I’ve never seen them this big. I expected the hawk to fly, but not only was it totally not spooked by me suddenly opening the drapes and being in the window only about eight feet away, but the two squirrels that were feeding on seed underneath the feeder were totally ignoring the hawk. They were about two feet away from the hawk, and though their body language said they were a little more tense than usual they continued to feed, and one squirrel got within a foot of the hawk. What did the hawk do? Nothing. It stood there putting it’s head to one side and then the other, and even turned her neck so she was looking upside down at the world, but she made no move for the squirrels. I watched them for at least five minutes, wondering what the heck was going on. I began to look at the hawk and try to see if it was injured, then it rustled it’s wings and turned it’s back letting me see perfectly formed wings. There was no obvious problem other than it’s feathers were less well-groomed than an adult hawk’s would be. Then movement caught both her eye and mine. A squirrel nearly half the yard away ran, and the hawk did this beautiful gliding dive just inches from the ground. The question of whether it could fly was answered. Not only could she fly, but she was breathtaking. The squirrel darted to one side of the house and I lost them as she made a diving swoop.

I opened the front door, very carefully not wanting to spook her off a kill that she might need very badly, young hawks can actually starve to death learning to hunt. But I didn’t see the hawk, or a squirrel. I saw my neighbor getting back from his early morning jog in his yard looking up at something. He saw me, and pointed to the big Oak tree in our yard and there she was, big and beautiful and empty-taloned. Then the neighbor startled the squirrel that had taken refuge in one of his trees and it made a run for it. The hawk was off, in that inches glide above the ground going straight for the squirrel like the hand of fate, she was death on the wing, purposeful and inevitable. Sort of . . .

The squirrel tucked itself into a slight hole/depression in another neighbor’s yard. The hawk landed maybe a foot, or less, from the squirrel’s hiding place. We waited for her to do that last hop and take the squirrel, but she didn’t. She seemed completely at a loss as to what to do next. The two of us must have moved just a little too close because she suddenly took wing again in that ground-hugging glide and swept up and over another house and vanished from our sight.

We talked for a few minutes at the boundary between our two yards. I told him about watching her underneath my feeder and we speculated why she hadn’t tried for the other squirrels. Had the other squirrel running triggered the chase reflex like in a cat? Predators are attracted to movement. Was she as puzzled by the unafraid squirrels under the feeder as I was, and she just didn’t know what to do next? But how did the other squirrel know that she wouldn’t kill him when he went to ground? Why didn’t he go up the small tree that was right there and take refuge in the interlacing branches?

My neighbor and I parted company to pondered the early morning Wild Kingdom moment. I picked my way carefully over the soft ground in my high heels, while he made his way up his driveway in his jogging shoes. I realized I was dressed in my usual, skinny-leg jeans, heels of some kind, and a black t-shirt that read, “The only Hell my Momma, ever Raised.” (I was trying out a new pair of heels before I wore them out instead of my normal boots.) I thought about my college age self in her ill fitting jeans, sweat shirts, tennis shoes, hair in a mass of uncared for frizz. I was fond of sweatshirts back then with Mary Engelbreit & other gentle things on them. I don’t own a sweatshirt now. I look a lot different, better now that I know how to dress myself and do my hair, but more than that the girl I was didn’t know who she was, or who she wanted to be. She only knew she wanted to be a writer and that she loved wildlife. Now, I am a writer, and heels, or no heels, I’ll still track through the mud and the mire to watch a bird, or almost any wild animal do it’s thing. You can Goth up the girl, but the biology-geek remains. Happily, so.