I love going to magic (or magick, or Wiccan, or pagan, or whathaveyou) shops, but I'm always disappointed when I get in. It's never as good as I think it should be. It's always poorly presented, or lit with fluorescents, or a mishmash of the kitsch and the ridiculous, or filled with fliers for yoga and Reiki and a new vampyre band and hamster breeding.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. But in my head, I can see just how awesome I could make a magic shop. The layout (all twists and turns and overhangs), the lighting (indirect, amber, nooks and crannies). I'd hire a bookbinder to make nice leather versions of public domain John Dee, Agrippa, and Baring-Gould; I'd hire a printer to make smaller chapbooks of public domain individual essays/chapters. Herbs and seeds would be had from known farms and packaged inhouse with handwritten labels (no computer fonts), in glass jars, affixed with paste, and placed near the reprinted public domain herbals. Candles would be beeswax. Ink would be handmade. I'd lay out some cash for big ticket items that don't detract from the overall feel, maybe things like this, or this, or this. And I'd probably want to have this around just because.

My magic shop wouldn't be just a place to buy old texts and folk magic gear -- it'd be an art installation. I'd want my shop to be the shop-equivalent of Alex CF's crypto/historical work. Because in my mind, that's how to do it properly. Make it realer than real, by being actually real.

But I'll never have this shop, and for a variety of reasons. Aside from the foolishness of attempting to have my own brick-and-mortar (esoteric) business in this day and age... I'd feel guilty. Because I don't believe a word of it. I don't believe that this magical sign will grant protection, and this ancient spell will call up revenants, and this incantation will summon a fairy named Margarett Sarratice. But someone coming into my store... they might. And what I'd be doing is essentially conning them into my reality. With an exchange of money thrown in.

It'd be one thing, I suppose, if I only got customers interested in the art of the store itself, or the historical aspect of magic. But I wouldn't. I know I wouldn't, because in order to be successful I'd have to have the store in a nice tourist-like place, or maybe a college town, or somewhere else that would specifically draw in people to spend money. And the money-spenders, I am afraid, are the ones who I should most discourage from entering my store at all. It feels very wrong to profit from their beliefs when I don't share those beliefs. On top of going out of my way to mindfuck them into thinking I have The Real Thing.

Bah. Whether I will ever have it or not, I think about it.

At the very least, it makes for a diverting mental exercise.

I apply to a minimum of five jobs a day. The maximum I've ever managed to apply to in one go was twenty-five -- and that's with applying to jobs both the day before and the day after. Out of all these jobs I've applied to (I stopped counting once I hit three hundred, and that was back in August), I've gotten enough interest to maybe fuel a couple of interviews every month (starting, again, in August). That means that out of, minimum, some 150 jobs a month, on average two of them decide they want to check me out.

Out of the remaining 148, perhaps five of them will write me little "We decided to go with someone else" notes. These will be form letters, and usually, I only get those if I actually sent a letter through meat-space. This means that for every 143 jobs I send resumes and cover letters to, I will hear absolutely nothing.

Of the two interviews a month I get, I have usually managed to get a second interview. Out of those second interviews, I was a phenomenally close to being offered the position three times.

Out of the hundreds of jobs I've applied to, the number of offers I've actually received: zero.

--

In the months since my graduation from College of My Heart, I've come to a grim understanding of the basics of statistics.

--

In the plus column:

-I've garnered a parcel of names and contact information numbers and addresses
-Several interviewers liked me, and I liked them, and that generally feels sweet and fuzzy
-I visited the Brooklyn Museum of Art for the first time
-I finally learned New York's subway system
-I went to Washington D.C. for the first time since I was eight or so (and subsequently learned its subway system too)
-I've had the opportunity to stay with several friends and make new ones while I was there
-The best cup of hot chocolate in the world was made known to me
-Google Maps revealed its majesty
-I've learned to talk -- and make friends -- with complete strangers in twenty minutes or less
-I have seen every kind of copy editing test imaginable, and I have eaten their brains for breakfast
-I've learned tips, tricks, and sneaky methods of doing application-y things
-I got to pet an extraordinary number of cats, and make friends with a very large dog
-And finally, I was offered freelance work by one of the jobs that didn't hire me -- which, naturally, I accepted

So that's something.

--

Very few people actually really think about this, but: You perform CPR on dead people. Not live people. Just dead. They tell us, in EMT school, that you could do anything at all and that would be better than doing nothing. You could whack the patient's chest with a frickin' hammer and you'd improve the odds for recovery.

This is because it's remarkably tough to get worse than "dead."

--

If I screw up a cold call -- who cares? Odds are, they wouldn't have taken the time to reject me anyway. The only possible thing a cold call can do is, perhaps, lead to an interview. And that's a big 'perhaps.' It's certainly not going to make the odds of me getting a job any worse.

Cold calling isn't that hard. A bit scary, yes, but not too bad. The worse part is trying to actually reach anyone. But even the one time I did reach who I was looking for... well, it didn't kill me. It probably won't in the future either.

What this all comes down to is: I've really discovered that, at the end of the day, nothing I do can possibly affect my job prospects worse than doing nothing at all.

It's a remarkable feeling of freedom.

In my dark and dreary moments, I think evil thoughts about my highschool.

I did not have a happy highschool life, but it wasn't precisely miserable. I was just... alone. Looking back on it, that was probably largely a result of trusting no one, talking to no one, and never laughing. I barely smiled in those days. I did laugh once, over the phone to a friend, and he couldn't tell what was going on because he'd never heard me do that before.

But I have wandering fantasies about what to do if I see any highschool people again. I think, "I'll walk past, and look happy." I think, "I'll go over and smile and laugh and casually mention just how much I've done with my life so far and they'll wish..." They'll wish what? That they'd been nice to me? That they'd noticed me? Hell, for all I know, they were and they did, and I was just too wrapped up in my own damned misery to notice a thing that was going on around me.

This doesn't prevent me from doing such utterly insane things as look for my name on Google and think, when I find something, "And this is how they'll see me, if they're looking." It's bonkers, the way I worry at this bone. But somewhere there's the feeling that the people I knew in highschool, the ones I grew up with all through elementary and junior high, this motley band of as-close-as-family hicks, are the only people who can truly see how much I've changed these last five years. And I want to use their perceptions as mirrors.

Of course, the underlying belief there is that, should I meet any of these people again, they'll be the same ones they were back in highschool. Which (she says, dragging that kicking and screaming thought into the clear light of day) is patently ridiculous. If I've changed so much, who's to say they haven't? And meanwhile, who's to say that my initial perception of them was correct? I'd make a hell of a lousy mirror for any of them if I couldn't even compare-and-contrast accurately -- there's no reason to think they'd be any better for me.

It's tough to realize that my hard-earned self-esteem was built on the idea that someday a select group of around forty young adults would look up and see me. "Congratulations," they'd say, or "Damn you and your happiness," and I'd finally think I'd accomplished something.

One day last spring a boy that I'd worked with in middle school, and largely drifted apart from in high school, found me on one of the social networking tools and emailed me a note. I was surprised to find him so happy to find me, but I shrugged it off and we friended one another. The other day, I discovered (rather belatedly) that I could search his friends list -- and I found a boy from school who I'd never been close with, who'd rarely, if ever, spoken to me, and I'd generally thought Was Too Cool to even remark upon my existence. I sent him an email, because that's the sort of person I like to think I am now.

And today he wrote the most gobsmacked deliriously excited email ever to me, talking about his life and eagerly asking about mine and being so damned happy to hear from me. To read this email was to read a small child's recollection of their very first Christmas -- and to them, you're Santa Claus.

I don't know what to write. I don't know what to think. Except clearly I'd been thinking a parcel of things before now, and I'm having to drag quite a bundle of them out into the harsh light of day and figure out what, if anything, I should do with myself now that my mind's gone and turned itself inside-out.

There are some things that require a narrative of odd events that remain utterly unrelated until the final, cornerstone anecdote is set in place -- at which point, with any luck, all the events are suddenly noteworthy and the entire point of the thing becomes clear.

I am not at all certain that this is one of those sorts of essays.

---

To begin: Beth has been trying to get me to read Dorothy Sayers for nigh on three-and-someodd years. I finally succumbed. She is feeling both pleased and somewhat gloat-ish.

---

The professor who gave the final speech at College of My Heart's convocation translated a portion of a 16th century chivalric romance, and read that to us. It was the shortest, and the best, speech of the entire graduation.

Throughout the ages, women have been endowed by nature with excellent judgment and great courage and they are born no less well suited than men to display wisdom and valor, if properly trained and nurtured. And indeed if men and women share the same bodily form and if they are composed of like substance, why should they be thought to differ in their courage and their intelligence?

Many women in history have attained success in military life, outstripping the achievements of many of their male colleagues, and the same still happens when a woman turns her energies to this kind of activity. The same may be said of the professions of letters and of the sciences and of all other activities in which men engage. And there the achievements of women have been and are now such that they have no cause to envy men.

And if when a daughter is born to him, a father were to have her engaged in the same pursuits as a son, she would not be in any way inferior to her brother in any lofty or glorious enterprise. But because so often girls are given a different kind of upbringing, their abilities often are not rated highly.

The gold that lies buried in the mines is still gold, even if it is buried from sight; and when it is mined and worked, it is as precious and exquisite as any gold; it is as precious and exquisite as any gold.

---

I think I have mentioned at least once that my best thinking time is in the shower. Any puzzle I've kept at bay to gnaw on in a quiet moment comes back to me when I'm in the shower, a time during which I'm completely at a loss for anything more intellectually stimulating than washing my hair.

I've noticed that this sort of thinking can be forced at other times, but it's not usually as easy.

---

Yesterday, Beth made a chocolate cake for a miniature block party we were having today. This morning was the creation of the frosting (peanut butter, to honor the Texan next door who loves peanut butter frosting), and the layering of the cake, and the decoration of the cake once all was covered by a judicious amount of sweet stuff.

My customary job in the kitchen is to be sous chef and cleanup crew. This is largely because I hate to cook, and Beth hates to wash up, but both of us find our individual tasks very much to our liking. This afternoon at, say, one, Beth had finished her side of things and my turn had come. The kitchen, which is peopled entirely with red appliances, red jugs, red notions, and red spatulas, was covered in a fine layer of invisible peanut oil, daubs of melted chocolate, a great many dirty dishes, and the pleasant sunlight that comes from the window above the sink.

(As a side note, Beth's mother and I have agreed that a blue and yellow kitchen is what Beth and I will have; Beth, however, plans to rout us completely and continue the red kitchen tradition.)

---

I had always felt myself a student at CMH. Like highschool continued, albeit in not so hideous an enclosure. I didn't realize there was another feeling I could have about my educational personhood, until I stood in line-- no, wait, no, not entirely true. I was dressed in my black robes and mortarboard, yes, and I was heading to convocation, Panama heels and knee-length black linen skirt, rushing about because I was late, and there were other seniors too, dressed in their antique robes and hurrying along as well, rushing down the halls, and that's when the glimmering of knowledge began. Then I stood in line, and waited damn near an hour for the blasted thing to start, and all the while I stood in my academicals and discussed deans and theses and the problems of the English department and--

And the feeling stole over me, and became the single greatest moment I ever had at CMH: there was the utter knowledge that I wasn't just a "student." I belonged to something greater. I was wearing the Victorian robe of a woman who had stood in this line, studied as I'd studied, and she and I stood a moment in the same spot and rather cruelly dissected the teachings of the methodology course.

I am a woman; I am a scholar; I am not alone.

---

Robert Burton said:

Virginity is a fine picture, as Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, and if you will believe a Papist, meritorius. And although there be some inconveniences, irksomeness, solitariness, etc., incident to such persons . . . yet they are but toys in respect, easily to be endured, if conferred to those frequent incumbrances of marriage. . . . And methinks sometime or other, amonst so many rich Bachelors, a benefactor should be found to build a monastical College for old, decayed, deformed, or discontented maids to live together in, that have lost their first loves, or otherwise miscarried, or else are willing howsoever to lead a single life. The rest, I say, are toys in respect, and sufficiently recompensed by those innumerable contents and incomparable privileges of Virginity.

---

On the other hand (and somewhat cheating on my part, as is either apparent already or will shortly be so), Harriet Vane, and consequently Dorothy Sayers, wrote:

Here then at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone in dizzying circles hurled
To that still center where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

I believe the character writes about her being slightly displeased with the way it turned out, but overall content with the general message given.

---

I stood this morning, contemplating the mess, and then went about my business and, as the kitchen was quiet and the sunlight cleansing, I thought back on what I had been reading the past several days. I also thought about Beth, certain folk ballads sung by Pentangle, my rather indignant digestive system, the block party coming up and whether I really wanted to attend, how my black robes had not actually fit in the shoulder, about why Beth was so enamoured of Wimsey and Vane and Gaudy Night, my own preoccupation with Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain and Sharan Newman's historical French nun series, the effect Dorothy Sayers was having on my grammar and word choice, the particulars of gratitude and how I could fit that sort of pathology into a short story, the absolutely ghastly smell of peanut butter emanating from the frosting bowl I was rinsing out, longing thoughts about the stomach medicine awaiting me when I was done with my tasks, the final chapters of Gaudy Night, the existence of the French language, how the light coming through a window and hitting upon a clean and shining sink was one of my very great and very odd pleasures, Beth and love and Oxford, and the slow coming to the conclusion that I had a conclusion to my thoughts that I really ought to write up and keep and savor and think on some more and eventually show to Beth because I suspected it would prove of great interest and understanding to her.

Unfortunately, I have forgotten what this conclusion was.

---

She laughed suddenly, and for the first time felt confident.

"They can't take this away, at any rate. Whatever I may have done since, this remains. Scholar; Master of Arts; Domina; Senior Member of this University (statutum est quod Juniores Senioribus debitam et congruam reverentiam tum in privato tum in publico exhibeant); a place achieved, inalienable, worthy of reverence.

She walked firmly from the room and knocked upon the door next but one to her own.

---

I admit: I still feel odd calling myself a "woman" instead of a "girl." It feels as if I'm snatching at titles I haven't earned yet. I've been meaning to call myself a woman for some time now, but it just never feels right. Perhaps after I get a job. Or after I have children of my own, thereby necessitating certain relinquishings of Girlness in favor of Motherness.

I suspect I will still be a girl. I will just happen to be a mother at the same time.

I'm rather looking forward to being a mother.

---

CMH is a sore spot in my mind. At first there was the feeling: I'll be going back next fall-- except, no, wait, I won't. For the last week or so I've been brooding in the quiet knowledge that I can never go back, it won't ever be the same and it would only be a disappointment on one level or another to try and make it so again.

(The thought further reads: If I become an alumna who returns to CMH every year for all the major traditions, I will be extremely surprised. And perhaps more than a little disturbed to be rereading my navel-gazing here.)

I hadn't realized that reading Gaudy Night would be like stuffing a sore spot with infection, letting it simmer there for a while, and then applying the lance with extreme vigor.

---

Beth is beautiful. I think I've mentioned this. She's been getting extremely embarrassed by my obvious praise these days, so she may wish to skip the following part. In fact, so may you all. Here: ( I provide a means of escape. )

---

This will not have the sort of ending you're expecting, particularly if you're expecting anything at all.

---

The block party was a success. Despite many rumblings from the vague area of my spleen, and a definite desire to hide and not converse with strangers, I went out and did the pretty. Beth and I murmured and signed to one another slightly throughout. She stood and I moved, I spoke and she nodded, we danced about the social theatre of the thing and kept it all in until we could decipher what we'd found. It was utterly enjoyable.

Just now I have concocted a conversation that didn't happen, but might:

"What are you thinking?"

"About Gaudy Night, and my graduating, and how much I love you."

"Those don't seem terribly connected."

"They are. Somehow. I'm afraid I've forgotten the exact figuring, but it's definitely there."

"Does it have anything to do with cake?"

"Possibly with cake. And weasels."

"Of course with weasels."

"It might have something to do with Gaudy Night reminding me of graduating and my loving you, and-- yes, and why you love me."

a series of notes, pieced together. a cupped hand, with the fingers lightly spread, curled by the chest and then lightly gestured at me.

and then I say 'I love you' back, and we go on from there

*insert standard "don't listen to me, I probably don't know anything anyway" caveat here*


So the other day I was helping a friend down the hall with her workshop fantasy story. One of the things my friend was worrying about was making clear that there was an Evil Baddie in court who wished to usurp the throne. (This is vastly simplifying things, you understand.) I don't remember if I said it or she said it, but at some point one of us said that Evil Baddie was -- or should be -- part of a political faction specifically trying to get the throne.

"But I want to make that clear without having two of my characters say, 'Yeah, you know that guy we both know, well, we both know he wants the throne, and now the audience knows it too,'" my friend approximately said.

"Just mention that there's a faction," I said. "Give it a name like 'The True King Movement' if you really want to make it clear, but the moment you say "faction," the audience will be able to infer what's up until you decide to give them the gritty details. Political factions in kingdoms," said I, "are almost always about succession."

This is a simplification of the matter. If they're not about succession, they're about crises in the land... which end up being about succession eventually. If you mention even something as benign as someone other than the king being part of, say, the Necco Candy Party, almost guaranteed there'll be a part of the reader's brain that'll think: "Oh yeah. They've got someone in mind for the throne." Fiction would be very dull if there were just random factions picnicking around -- they've got to be hot and bothered about something, and the throne's a pretty good bet.

One of the very nice things about factions is that you can have more than one. Then it can all be about succession, but whose? If you get other countries (or provences or planets) involved, you can have people dipping their toes into factions they have no good reason to be a part of -- aside from wanting to affect the succession of another country, which in some way will solidfy their own position.

Succession politics are innately about family. If there's no family, then the new guy isn't there by right of succession -- he just took over (or was voted in, depending on what style of government you're going for). Family, though... there's no one who can trip you with as much innocence and kick you in the gut with as much malice as a family member. When you've got family members who are married into different countries, are illegitimate, or simply have a bone to pick (about, for instance, inheritance -- a small step away from succession), then that ups the likelihood of both factions in state and out of state, and the existence "helpful" people all the way around.

Writing political intrigue is fun as anything. First you figure out who's in charge; then you figure out how he or she got to be in charge. Inevitably, as you're figuring out their story, there should appear branches here and there in the family tree -- it's not only unlikely, but boring, for there to be a single line of succession, father-to-son-to-father-to-son, for the entire history of the area you're describing. There have to be brothers, sisters, and cousins, and they all might have married somebody with different claims to power -- and at the very least they all have a claim, and that's to your king's throne. Then consider if everyone's happy with their lot in life, or if they're happy with the king's lot in life, or if they're happy with everyone else's lot in life. Then: What are they going to do about it?

Granted, it turns into a bit of a squirrels nest. Who decided to do what first? Why? Does anyone here actually have a point? Does it matter? And eventually, all these people have to die -- does the fight die with them? Does anything ever actually get completely solved? (The answer to that one is 'no.' You can tidy things up for your characters, but kingdoms never sit easy. Unless you're Switzerland. Consider if there's a big reading audience for books about Switzerland.)

That's just the big stuff, the history and understanding that come from history books centuries later. While a great deal of the reasons for your characters' current problems may sound like an easy overview of events (at least, it might when Stronghild Tightthighs sits young Pupotheloins down with a flagon of nut-brown ale and gives him the 411 on why they're making him king), it's no fun if your characters have all the information. I mean, can Tightthighs possibly know that Princess Anemia has been spying on Pupotheloins with her evil hench-bats, and as such has been passing information on to Tightthigh's Tory cousin Gerald? I should certainly hope not. Stick with the actions of individuals, working to their own ends, occasionally working with others to achieve those same ends, and let the reader figure out the ensuing snarl of political wowsa.

Finally, while the adventures of Pupotheloins is no doubt fascinating, it never does any harm to look up real history and shamelessly steal it all (or at the very least, learn from it). My current favorite example of politics in action is ( behind the cut: the Sicilian Vespers. )

Daylight savings is truly a wonderous thing. Also mysterious, also inconvenient. But I can deal.

--

It's fairly difficult to come out and say "I've communicated with God. Twice," without sounding like a complete fruitcake. Generally, such people are. But in honor of the Pope (I'm a recovering Catholic*, so I'm kind of torn up about John Paul II), I'm going to tell a story.

When I was a just a bit of a thing, sixteen or so, the meaning of life was revealed to me. I was crossing a street to get back home after school; there was a great deal of sunshine laying an orange glaze on the road; I was thinking of nothing in particular when suddenly, a great pouring of information came into my mind, an intricate and purposeful plan that had one great outcome for all of mankind. It was all there. For a fleeting moment, I had it, and I laughed like anything.

It was the funniest damn joke I'd ever heard.

And then it was gone again. I have some of it left -- there was a bit about the lowering sperm count, I do remember that -- but the whole shebang... nada.

A few years later, when I was maybe eighteen, I had a dream. Many things happened in this dream, but the big one was that I was told how to travel to Hell. It being a dream, and a good idea at the time, I of course went there, and discovered that it looked just like Earth with some glaring exceptions; for instance, things looked like darker versions of themselves unless I shined my flashlight on them -- at which point, they became normal. Everyone in Hell looked old, and most of them didn't know where they were. There was a bazaar there, among other things, and a very fine tailor of comfortable looking drape-y clothes.

I still remember how to get to Hell, and while fascinating, I don't count this as one of the God-communication things. (And if I did, what does that say about what I should be doing with my life? Nuh-uh, G-man. I flat refuse to be Keanu Reeves, no matter how good he looks in a suit.)

A few weeks ago, I had a dream, and in this dream I fell asleep and dreamed another dream. I walked to a place the earlier dream had featured, all pollution and industry and mutated child slaves (you know, like you have in most industries) and I showed God the mess it was. And God asked me why we had done it.

I gave him the usual spiel -- to become greater than we were, and for His name and glory -- and there was a pause, and God said, "You're all idiots."

And I woke up from the one dream, and then I woke up from the second.


I don't really see these experiences as having much meaning beyond being sort of cool, and certainly being useful for future fiction -- but it's experiences like these (and others -- have I ever written up the time I saw Death's car? A grill on front you wouldn't believe) that give me my faith in... well, in something. I like having faith. I certainly don't believe in the Catholic church as it currently stands -- I consider it corrupt and no longer an accurate vision of God's will on Earth -- but I still believe in the religion. Which is why I'm now a happy little Unitarian who really likes the BVM and can still rattle off saints' histories.

Anyway. The Pope... He was trying. I appreciate that. And I imagine he must have had more than a few of the same sorts of experiences I've had, because I can't imagine getting very far in the church without having some sort of call at least once in his life. So I feel... sort of like the one person I was certain hadn't lost the vision of the perfect church** has died, and while another will take his place, dammit, this Pope was my Pope, and I think I may very well miss him.

It's an odd world. I hope he gets to hear that joke I heard, and laugh as hard as I did.



* Being a recovering Catholic is like being a recovering alcoholic -- you never really stop being that; you just work real hard at not falling off the wagon.

** This is not to say that I consider the church's goals at all yay and happy -- I mean, they're not down with teh gay, and I, uh, really embrace that. On the other hand, the Catholic church is supposed to change, allowing for imperfect humans to try and get closer and closer to what God really wants (and what with us not being too clear on that, thanks to the whole ineffable God thing, I'm willing to give a lot of leeway provided their hearts are in the right place), so I can see there being some momentary errors in the process, provided the basic ideas are still on the up and up. It is a different matter, however, when the straight up core of the religion is compromised -- through its actions, I find that the church shows a belief that the justice of man is more important than the justice of God, and allows that belief to be, well, believed*** -- and when that happens, we're talking corruption, heresy, and a crumbling of the church. Frankly, I don't plan on going down on a rotted ship.

*** I worked this out a couple of years ago, and I can always go over the logic again, but mostly this footnote is to show just how much I love footnotes. Footnotefootnotefootnote. Best part of a thesis, too. Yay, footnotes.

I love the -- removed -- feeling in fiction. Feeling separate from the characters, taken away, seeing them from outside a glass wall... I like that.

On the other hand, it frustrates me in longer fiction, when I just want to wallow in what I've been given and pretend I'm someone else (or following someone else, at any rate) for a little while.

The difficulty I'm having now is reconciling what I like in shorter fiction, what I like in longer fiction, and what I end up doing all by little self when I'm faced with a blank screen and a plot outline written in shaky black ink and a lot of smudging.

Children's author Donna Jo Napoli said that the author's first duty is to finish, which is something I'm finding sufficiently difficult enough to do that I suspect she might be right. So I'm traisping along, writing what I can and filling in a great many places with [blah blah blah] and [blah description rumination blah] just to get words to paper. What I'm facing now (or rather, will face later, as right this moment I should just keep up with this plan) is how in the world I'll fill in all those [blah] bits. I seem to know when certain types of prose should appear (descriptions, ruminations, research, that sort of thing) -- my Spidey-sense does fairly well in that area. It's damned convenient at this stage of the game, but there still exists the nagging feeling that if I don't get all that stuff down right off the bat, I'll lose the sense of it and go back to my notes and say, "It's all well and good that I knew something was necessary, but do I still know that now?" Maybe I'm worried about losing that sense, which I use unabashedly when I'm considering other people's works.

This, I suspect, is what I get for trying to write my first novel. Writing a second novel would at least give me some (no doubt illusory) data to work with.

The voice of editors past tells me that I should pretend it is my second novel, and then go on with what I'm doing. And that I shouldn't borrow trouble. And that I owe first snatch rights to those editors when I do finally finish it.

I'm not particularly talented when it comes to writing (or at least, the sorts of stories I dream about writing), but on the other hand, I suspect I could do one really spectacular thing and a lot of food-on-the-table work. I look forward to that one spectacular thing. I look forward to getting through this first step to the spectacular.

In the meantime...

[description. rumination.] "I'm going to find a bar, a cab, and a cheap hotel, in that order." He'd taken her this far. [blah blah more stuff] "You can come with me if you want."

She [did something]. "Are you still trying to get out of town?"

[Something.] "Yeah."

[Something.] "Then I'll come with you."

All right. For those who don't know me personally, let us say for the time being that I am going to be on a series of panels next weekend. Let us also say that I have just received the updated program list, which includes a brand new panel for me to attend.

The title of this panel is "Beyond Sex." It's about writing good sex scenes. I am not, thankfully, the moderator.

Now, generally speaking, there are few people in my vaguely professional life who are aware I have a livejournal, let alone that I post lots and lots of gay sex amorous Harry Potter fiction on it. This means that someone, she says with cool glance about the room, has outed me.

Don't get me wrong -- this is rather pleasing in an absurd way. I mean, it suggests that I have something to offer here. On the other hand, this conference has people who have known me since before they could reasonably assume I knew what sex was. There will be people present who have known me since I was an infant. They've caught me making time with young lads in the hotel lobby -- they remember when I suddenly gained cleavage. All but one of my immediate family members will be there -- this includes the sixteen-year-olds and my parents. There will be people who babysat me, who listened to me sing any number of lewd Barney the Dinosaur parodies, and who generally saw me gallivanting about with little to no care for the public's opinion on the subject of pressing all the buttons in the elevator.

All these people will then come to see me, and they will listen to me talk about sex.

Sex I've had, and sex I've made up, and how terribly important sex can be -- or not -- and what sorts of things make good sex, and, just for a change of pace, how to order one's mind to the extent of simultaneously seeing from an inside and an outside perspective in order to Write Sex.

And what if I'm wrong? Huh? I mean, I started writing smut less than a year ago. I don't know what the hell I'm doing; I just noticed yesterday that the majority of my characters have sex of one kind or another while vertical. I don't know why I seem averse to the idea of beds. Perhaps I'm just neurotically focused on anti-horizontality. Why should a mere chit of a girl be allowed to speak about sex in any authoritative manner whatsoever when none of her characters has yet to make the acquaintance of a bolster?

I'm filled with the sudden urge to buy a large number of Hustlers and write a comparative essay. I'm certain burying myself in academic tunnel-vision is the correct response to any sort of complicated surprise. Oh yes. Foucault, thy name is sedative.

I posted yesterday without checking my email. I posted without knowing that at 2:32, my grandmother died.

It wasn't a surprise, really. She'd been admitted to the hospital because her cancer had come back and invaded her bones, her spine. She was living on morphine every two hours. They told me she had a month to six months to live.

This was the grandmother who only a month ago, a little more, I decided on a whim to visit for the first time in years. To talk to for the first time in years. I found out I wasn't angry anymore. And she thought Beth was wonderful. I was so happy about that. The most cantankerous, anti-relationship person in the family, and she thought I was lucky to have my Beth.

After we saw her, after Beth met her, Beth said we might think of staying with my grandmother after college, taking care of her. Beth would stay with her during the day while I went to school or work in the city, or vice versa, and it would be nice, nice, Beth's grandmother had been like a third parent to her, families are important, and I remembered when I was little telling Gran that when I grew up I'm come live with her and take care of her when she was old, and for years I've remembered what I said, and being angry at myself for saying things that couldn't be true, and then I was so happy that Beth made it possible again. Plans, plans, plans.

I heard about her going to the hospital, and it was, what, the first week of school? I thought I should go and see her immediately. What if she only had hours to live? I was told a month to six months, and I made a choice, and decided that I had time to arrange a better time to visit. I had time to wait for more money in my bank account. I had time. I told myself that. So in the end, I didn't see her because it wasn't convenient. It didn't fit nicely into my schedule.

This weekend it did. This whole week, stronger and stronger, I knew that I should go see her this weekend. I had it planned. Last night I was going to post about heading to the city. Maybe see some people while I was there. Selfish.

I heard last night that my grandmother died, and it wasn't real last night. I couldn't wrap my head around it, couldn't understand the realness of it. My grandmother is dead. Before my eyes closed last night I thought I saw the beginnings of it, and this morning when I woke I had a moment of empty feeling because I knew something was wrong, but couldn't remember what.

My grandmother is dead. I'm in my dorm room, and I'm going to stay here today. I'm going to clean. I'm going to arrange things, because control is ever so nice. I'm going to call Beth every few hours or so, because she needs to know. I'm going to clean, and get my mind together, and by this evening I'll leave my room again. I should be better then. I should be.

I should.

For reasons that made sense to us at the time, Beth and I went on a trip this last weekend. Six hours in the car, travelling through three states, and alternately listening to Beth read Catherine LeVendeur mysteries to me and Trini Alvarado read YA fantasy through the stereo system.

The point, though, is that before we turned back around for home we went and saw my grandmother.

She's been referred to, here and there, as Evil Nana. She's a larger-than-life sort of person, and the issues she's given to her children have bounced on down to the rest of us in interesting ways. Oddly, I'm about the only person in the family who could deal with her without wanting to go off and huddle in a corner, there to desperately scrub her ideas off my skin. That was never a problem of mine. The "evil" nomenclature has less to do with how she affected me, and more how she affected everyone else in the entire family.

The big problem came the year I went crazy. That summer, despite my realization that I couldn't handle the EMT-related drive to Make Sure No One Dies, I ended up being volunteered for the job of caring for my grandmother as she underwent breast surgery and chemotherapy. She was in her early nineties. I was convinced (and I'm fairly certain everyone else was thinking it too) that I wasn't there so much to care for her, but to make sure she didn't die alone.

I was nineteen, and that's a fucking awful thing to figure out instead of being told.

I spent the summer taking care of her, making her take meds, making her exercise, putting up with my aunt (who showed up briefly, didn't want to do any of the yucky stuff, and then in a later phone call told me my underage evaluation of Nana was worth shit compared to hers [and I wish I'd stood up to her and told her that if that was the case, she could haul her own ass down there to play caretaker]), and generally getting more and more insane myself. That fall I headed off the deep end; that winter I left my home to move in with Beth; the following spring, I was healing enough to realize I was angry with all of the adults in my family.

It's been almost three years now, and I realized last weekend that I wasn't sure if I still angry at Nana. I wanted Beth to meet Nana, and Nana to meet Beth. Nana'd had another health catastrophe in the last month or so -- if she was going to die, I didn't want her to die without being... remembered, I suppose. I didn't want her to think I'd forsaken her either, just because I didn't know if I hated her. No matter how angry I'd ever been with her, she'd done nothing to deserve that sort of lonely hell.

Beth and I had pretty much decided we weren't going to mention the whole "dating" thing -- for one, I was pretty sure she knew, and for another, that isn't the sort of thing you should mention to your ninety-six year old failing grandmother if she hasn't got a clue. So when we arrived, I introduced Beth as just "Beth", and prayed Nana wouldn't curse us out of the house.

In the most surprising change of events I've witnessed in a good long time, Nana and Beth got along fabulously. And the next day, first Nana told me privately that she thought Beth was very nice and well-spoken, and that I was lucky to have found someone that made me so happy; later she told us both that we were lucky to have found one another, and she was glad to have met Beth.

Looking back at family history, of all of Nana's direct descendants I think Beth's the only significant other Nana's ever approved of, let alone liked. And Beth thought Nana was wonderful.

I found out I still thought Nana was wonderful too.

---

This was originally going to be a post about my reaching out to people from Before the Crazy -- how I saw my grandmother last weekend, how I looked up a highschool popular fluff-head and found out she'd been volunteering in an orphanage in Nepal -- but it all went toward the first bit, because that was the important part anyway. I feel delighted, vindicated, smug as hell, proud, happy, and... and like it was more important than I realized that I do this thing.

Next stop, I suppose, is my aunt.

While I've done many an ego-scan in Google, until a recent post read elsewhere, I never thought of Googling for past crushes. Granted, it's not like my highschool days are so long past that I can look them up and discover one of them has rediscovered radium the hard way, but--

I just found the current email address of the girl I wanted to kiss my senior trip. It was because of that -- the realization that, by God, if she'd never been kissed, I could certainly fix that for her -- that I had my sterling moment of, y'know, maybe that whole liking girls thing wasn't just something I'd made up when I was eleven and gettin' on with the puberty. I started identifying myself as at least bi after that -- and then, of course, came Beth, and while I certainly find guys entertaining on multiple levels, there's nothing to compare.

So I found this girl's email. And what's really keeping me up at the moment is remembering the feeling I had about her -- that if I'd kissed her, she just might have kissed me back.

And I feel very, very creepy for having gone looking for her email address. I mean, what do I say to her?

Dear Sam, Hey, I'm a lesbian now, I'm in a committed relationship, but damn, I had the hugest crush on you in highschool. Thoughts? -Cass

The Elder Eric's recent suggestion ran along the lines of:

Hi, uh, if I'd kissed you, would you have kissed me back, or screamed about how gay I was? -Cass

I'm fairly certain I should tell her at some point that I had a crush on her and wanted to kiss her that night -- but I'm also fairly certain that that point should certainly not occur in my first communication to her in three years.

. . . No matter how tempted I am to find out what she might've done. Just because the script in my head tells me she'll confide that, in fact, she felt the same, and had we only that night to live again! . . . doesn't mean that that fantasy has any bearing on reality.

So. Deep breath. And wait until at least tomorrow to say hello, how are you.

And very little else.

I've been thinking about the snow, and that goddamn letter I still haven't finished writing to my aunt. I started it September 6th. And I stopped just before I had to write about the snow.

I'd gotten through telling her exactly why I was angry with her. Hell, I'd gotten through telling her I'm a lesbian. But for the last three months, I've been avoiding writing this:

Would you believe, I've forgotten the exact words? I don't remember if he said, "If you go out that door, don't come back," or "Fine, leave, and don't come back" -- I do remember that the very first thing I thought, before all others, was that that was a fucking horrible cliche and I couldn't believe he'd said it seriously. Then, of course, came me leaving.

Beth and I had a system going: if I couldn't talk to her when I needed to, then I should write down what I'm thinking and send it out the next day. I sent a good dozen of these out to her, filled with small paragraphs that had nothing to do with one another, and much of it illegible.

That night, around one, I'd started writing a letter to her -- and it felt like the last one. I wasn't going to kill myself -- it just felt like I was going to die.

That probably makes no sense, but -- a letter from the front. That's what it was. As if at any moment, I was going to be killed by a force completely beyond my control. So I was writing, and found myself crying as I wrote, and being so goddamn apologetic that I wouldn't get to be with her anymore, or see the life we would've made together, or for that matter, post the fucking letter.

And the phone rang.

It was her.

I read the letter to her, and she told me to go downstairs and tell my parents, and then to call her back immediately. She gave me stern instructions -- no matter what, I had to call her back.

I went and told my mother that she had to get up and talk to me in the kitchen. I left, went into the kitchen, and waited. She didn't come. I called Beth -- she told me to try again, because my mother might not have understood the urgency, and no matter what, to call her back. I hung up, went back to my parents' bedroom, and told Mom again.

(Did I? So much of this memory is just gone, now. I should've written it sooner if I wanted to keep it.)

She got up, went into the living room. I handed her my letter, then left and walked into the kitchen to wait. And I did wait. And I wondered if she was okay -- Christ, I was going to go and comfort her -- and I went back to the living room and found that she'd gone back to bed.

God. There are reasons, I think, that she went back -- I think to talk to Dad. But fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I demanded that she come and talk to me.

I went into the kitchen, got myself a tall glass, and poured myself some milk. I knew even then that that was a ridiculous gesture -- I wasn't thirsty. I wanted something to throw. I wanted something in case I needed to make a point. I was fairly certain I would have to. Which makes me doubt this entire experience, but fuck it anyway.

My mother came into the kitchen, and the first thing she asked me was what I wanted her to do. What the hell kind of question is that? I'd given answers to that one for years but now I needed her to not ask me this, to just fucking know, to hold me and take care of me and bake me cookies or something, for God's sake, something other than asking me what I wanted her to do, as if this was all impinging on her very important going to sleep, and I should just go take care of myself like I always fucking did.

I wanted to smash that glass. Right then. But then my dad came in.

(I started typing dialogue, but I can't.)

He wanted to know what was going on. I said I'd written a letter that had scared me -- where I'd talked about getting hurt. He wanted to know (is this what happened? I can't remember the words) why I got them up, what was so important.

I screamed then. Screamed and smashed that glass on the floor, feeling really fucking happy that they both had bare feet. I said I'd written a suicide letter, and I needed help. (Did I? I don't remember. Maybe it wasn't, really. But they had to listen.)

My dad yelled, "That wasn't a suicide letter."

And right then, I knew that I wanted to fucking prove I meant it. There was a huge shard of glass right in front of me (was that why I chose the glass?), and I wanted, right then, I wanted to pick it up and just slide it up my arm. I can still picture it -- that second of visualization, when I saw the blood and thick gashes and I knew I would cut myself and then drop like a stone and not let anyone near me until we had a house full of cops and medical workers and they would all see the house and finally everyone would know I wanted some fucking help.

I didn't pick up the glass. I said, "I have to leave, I have to go now before I do anything, I have to go--" and I headed toward the kitchen door, and he said, "Fine, go, and don't come back."

I had my pajamas on -- muslin-like bottoms and an over-large t-shirt -- I had a coat I always wore when I was in the house, because it gets cold enough to see my breath -- I was wearing socks in order to keep my feet warm in bed, and I'd put on shoes before I left my room so I could walk through the house without worrying about stepping on anything. So I had those things.

And I had two a.m. in January on the Canadian border. I walked.

I started by walking into town. Any second I half expected my parents to come running up behind me. I thought I'd run from them if they did. They didn't. I came up to the short bridge that crosses the brook -- and I wondered if I should climb down there and wait. For something. I passed by it. And realized that the only place I could try and go was the hospital. It was a two mile walk up a rarely-plowed, unlit mountain.

I walked.

And halfway up, I just wanted to stop, and lie down somewhere off the road, and brush the snow up around me, and go to sleep. I wasn't tired. I just didn't want to freeze to death awake.

It was Beth who made me keep going. Because she'd made me promise I was going to call her. No matter what. I couldn't freeze until I'd called her. It still would have been easy. I wasn't feeling the cold. But I knew, and this is what kept me going, that she would be very, very angry with me if I didn't call. And I'd promised.

I made it up to the hospital. I knocked on the emergency room doors. They took me in -- and God, looking back, I must have looked horrible. I wasn't clean or brushed or anything -- I was red-eyed -- the coat I was wearing was my father's EMT jacket (I still have it here. I never touch it).

I called Beth. I told her where I was.

It was twenty minutes later before my father came looking into the emergency room. I saw him come in -- I could tell he was at least jittery -- but he didn't say, "Has Cassandra been brought here?" or anything like that. He wanted plausible deniability. He was jittery, but he had a smile and a greeting, and entered on some goddamn excuse until one of the nurses said I was there.

(Or did the hospital call the house to tell them where I was? Did they look for me? Were they just going to wait for me to come back?)

Around 4 a.m. the emergency therapist from down south arrived. I told her my point of view. Dad told her a pack of lies. All very believable lies, but she stopped being my defender. I went home.

And I kept repeating, over and over again, for the week after that until I finally saw my brilliant therapist who convinced my father to let me come here: "I have to leave."

I'm reading the second book of a trilogy for work. The first was an absolute wreck -- the storyline traipsed merrily about, pretending it was a "one damn thing after another" plot, but was instead a "I can't write mounting tension/chess-like catastrophe for beans" scenario. And I hated the characters. They didn't make sense, except for one small Mary Sue who ducked in briefly for a scene or two and then scurried off again.

I wasn't looking forward to the next book.

But now I'm here, and Mary Sue is playing a much more prominent role, and Main Character from the first book has lost his soul, and all in all, it's much more readable.

I was trying to figure out why (what with that being key to the reports I'll give on these silly things), when the thought came: there was a lot of POV time with Main Character in the previous book, and it didn't make sense. He was a conflicted fellow, but the author should have followed through and made him a straight-up unreliable narrator. He didn't know who he truly was or why he was even doing some of the things he was doing -- it would have been perfect. But the author was new, and while I think unreliable narrators are fun as hell, a lot of people find them really . . . not so much difficult, as intimidating. As if the author is thinking that they're having a hard enough time figuring out the story -- now they have to come up with a false story to hide the real one? And fool the audience with it, but not so much that they think the false story is the real story? Which is also made up?

Now, in this second book, Main Character isn't head of the bunch, and he isn't granted very much screen time . . . but either the author's on more familiar ground, or she's honestly improved with the experience of the first novel. He's unreliable now, but only to the other characters. And more than that: With his missing soul, now he's morally ambiguous too.

I like moral ambiguity. It fits right in with unreliable narrators, and science fiction, and whodunit mysteries, and chess. Because there are rules. In the case of moral ambiguity, the character may not have traditional right-and-wrong morals, but they still have a set of guidelines within themselves that, while they might not necessarily follow these guidelines in any consistent manner, always come into play with every action the character takes.

(If a character says to himself, "I won't kill anyone under the age of twenty," and then finds himself in a position wherein a twenty-year-old must either live or die, then in the long run, it may not matter whether he actually kills the kid or not. We the audience have no idea he has this rule. Even if we did, we don't know why. From just his actions alone, we must deduce this rule and how it will affect all his future actions.)

Unreliable narrators have a certain way of seeing reality. The audience has to deduce the object of truth from the edges only hinted at by the character.

Science fiction (and fantasy, for that matter), has to build an entire world by slipping in nuggests of information, stealthily, so that the audience may discover every odd turning and recognize what is on the last continent.

Mysteries, of the real or fictional variety, give a set of truths. Many aren't obvious, and many may turn out to be false in the end. But these have to be put together, and solution after solution is created by the audience, all led gently along by the author. And only at the end do you realize what the rules were.

Chess has only a finite number of pieces, a finite number of moves. And every single one must be held within the mind, almost before the game begins. Your opponent has a plan, an attack, and with only little hints and clues and shuffles around the board can you determine what it is -- and at the same time, hope to give away nothing of your own plan. But every move you each make should be one step closer to the goal of winning, and as such, you create and follow rules that can change within moments, but are always held onto until there's a need for change. And those rules can be divined if you only pay close enough attention.

It all comes down to the same sort of idea. The whole "But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider" thing. Everyone has their own game, and they sure as hell don't have to tell you what they're playing. To be able to find out anyway is a skill well-worth sharpening.

To be able to write it all is damn near equal.

This is for Kara, who wanted to read old posts of mine from freshman year about my career as a grill girl. However, in looking at the archives, I've discovered that I'm quite pleased with a bunch of what I wrote. So here's the first, but more to come.

--

A popular pastime behind the counter at the Cafe (my glorious place of
work) is to completely mock out all of our customers.

No one in particular, really -- just groups of them. And their orders.

"Hi, can I have a BLT, with, um, no bacon or tomato... and can you put
cheese on that? Um, half provolone and a triangle of swiss, and one
slice of wheat, and one slice of pumpernickel. You don't have
pumpernickel? You used to... well, um, I guess I'd like the other
slice to be rye, then. Actually, could you grill all that? Thanks. And
can I have it with no lettuce? Just mayonnaise and sprouts, please.
Great. To drink? Um... can I just have a cup of ice? Hmm... how big
are the mediums? Oh, no, that's way too big. What about the smalls?
Well... that's not _too_ bad, I guess... can I see the medium one
again? Okay, now the small one... And medium, one more time? Uh
huh...You know, I think I'll just get a coffee from the back. And a
chocolate milkshake, if it's not too much trouble. Oh, yeah, and I'd
also like an order of fries, an order of chicken tenders, and, um,
three orders of mozzarella sticks. My name's 'Linda'-- no, no, that's
'L-Y-N-N-*Q*-D-A-E'. Great, thanks.

"Oh yeah, and this is all to go. I've got class in two minutes."


(...tune in next time when Cass reveals the things done by customers
when they think they are being very clever and original and discreet
about their unhappiness:
-the Discontented Sigh
-the Discontented Look
-the Discontented "Talk to the Obviously Idiotic Student Worker Behind
the Counter" Speech
-the Discontented Finger-Tapping on the Order Slip from a Table
Located Just Out of Sight While Casting Discontented Glares
-and, of course, the Discontented Ring of Menacing Bastards Located
Too Damn Close for Comfort Who Think That If They Stand There Looking
Pissy Enough For Long Enough We'll Magically Start Making Their Food
Faster)

What has always scared me about horror movies is not the blood, the gore, or the Fear of Death -- it's people doing stupid things. If something unbelievably stupid occurs in a horror movie ("There's a murderer running around, and we don't know where he is-- Quick, Tiffany, you take a shower while I go skinny-dipping!"), then I find myself repeating and repeating the scene or scenes in my dreams as I try to find the logical and correct thing to do.

So Scream -- not scary. Incredibly entertaining. The only thing that got me afterwards was when the girl in the garage had the murderer down and fuzzy for a minute. This was the time for her to stomp on his head, knees, groin, and possibly get rid of his knife while she was at it. But no. He was down, so the obvious solution was to run for the pet-door and start squeezing. Argle.

The Blair Witch Project, on the other hand, was incredibly terrifying. Because I knew exactly what the characters could do to get out of the situation, and not a one of them did it. And it wasn't because they were stupid (at least, not in the typical horror movie fashion) -- it was just that they didn't know enough.

A steady belief in anything might have helped them -- either, yes, this is happening, or no, this is just silly. As a mental exercise, I started placing various characters from other stories into the movie, just to see what would happen -- Mulder, for instance, would start looking for a house in the woods immediately, and possibly staying up so he could try and communicate with the voice beyond the tent. Scully, on the other hand, would be steadfast in her belief that this was the work of the townspeople, and would sneer at such juvenile intimidation tactics as strawmen and stone piles. The mariachi player from Desperado would pray to the Virgin Mary and blow shit up. Harry Potter would pull out his wand and take up the "I'm the hero, this is the kind of stuff that happens to me" attitude.

And then there's the cast of Buffy, and the mental escapade this brings on just reduces me to giggles and relief.

Last night, driving through the woods, I was caught by how powerful the forest is to me. I was well-raised to consider That Things Live There, and not all of them are furry and have cute noses. We, as a culture, have largely grown out of the habit of being respectful to those Things, and occasionally, They remind us.

A story:

Perhaps you've heard of Mt. Washington. It's not the highest mountain, and it's certainly not the most popularly known one -- but it's one of the most dangerous. People don't expect it to be, and they get caught unawares. Mt. Washington gets at least one death a year. It's not very forgiving of stupid people.

A couple were on their honeymoon, and hiking the mountain. They made it to the top (or as close as you get), and were on their way back down when they came to an opening in the trees that led to a magnificent view of the Presidential mountain range. Looking out over all this beauty, the woman said, "If I died now, I'd die happy."

It was then that the boulder came down the mountain, hitting her directly and nicking her husband. She died within seconds -- he had two broken legs and multiple other injuries.

I know the wilderness ambulance crew that brought the husband down and to the hospital. And we all know not to say things like that where the mountain can hear you.

That's the kind of thing that scares me.

My mother, in a fit of giving in, a while back gave my evil grandmother my address here. I was disappointed, upset, and vaguely grateful that she managed not to spill my phone number too. Ever since then, I've been getting regular letters from my grandmother, none of which I respond to, talking about all sorts of garbage going on in her life. There are times when she's very amusing, actually -- but then, bang, here comes the evil we all know and loathe.

And now, apparently, my grandmother has sent my address to my despised aunt as well. Aunt Nina was not always seen in such a light -- she used to be my favorite relative. During the events of last summer, though . . . she came, she saw, she went crazy and told my grandmother not to take any sanity drugs because they turn you into zombies and she told me that my opinion didn't matter because I was young and stupid and should just shut up already.

I know she was stressed. I know she was going crazy (because everyone in the damn family is crazy). But in a lot of ways, I think that triggered my first episode of really major depression. Just my complete rage at her, that I couldn't express except in the pettiest of ways.

For instance, I haven't spoken to her since.

And so I got this letter from her -- a card, actually -- and was ready to be angry at her all over again. I was expecting it.

I opened the envelope, and took out a really very attractive card. Upon opening it, I read:

courage uncovers strength,
grace reveals beauty,
time strips away the frivolous,
life layers on experience,
and you have become magnificent.

happiness today and always


I'm sending you this because it's what I'd like someone to send me. -- Nina

And suddenly, I feel like writing her a long, long letter, telling her everything. How angry she made me feel. How disappointed. How I wanted to hurt her as badly as she hurt me, and at the same time, I couldn't bear doing it and losing my claim to righteousness, and that's why I never talked to her again. I want to write about my taking Prozac, and being in therapy, and how much that's helped me become not just saner, but happier, and more like . . . like me than I've been in so long I don't remember. I want to write about Beth. Long, long pages, with excitement in every line of ink.

Would she tell my grandmother any of this? Oh, most assuredly. If my father is haunted by Gran, then my aunt is trapped by her. In many ways, I think Nina is very, very unhappy. And maybe by writing to her, I can help.

I think I forgave my aunt months ago, but I wasn't ready to talk yet, because I still wanted retribution. Forgiveness couldn't take that want away from me.

But evidently pity can.