Musings on Swinging

Lately, I've had swinging on my mind.

I've been thinking about what it might be like to explore that somewhat taboo side of sexuality. The older I get, the more open I become about things that would have been out of the question several years ago. Of course, it helps to have a loving partner who is very open-minded and willing to try anything new, as long as such experimentation enhances our relationship. Easing into sexual adventures with "baby steps" makes things like swinging feel much less threatening, too.

There is so much about swinging that seems incredibly hot. There is the sweet exploration of learning about another person, having that "first time" again and again. There is the thrill of not knowing exactly what you're going to get -- a nice friendship that occasionally includes sex, or a sexual romp that doesn't even include real names, or something unique in-between? There is the pleasure of knowing that you are sharing your partner, not because they are stepping out on you, but because you want to share something new and exciting with them -- and with another person, of course.

On the other hand, I have a bit of a possessive streak, and that doesn't exactly bode well with the swinging lifestyle. Swinging is all about sharing, exploring different avenues of sexuality, turning others on while you let them get your juices flowing...but how does that translate for someone who has always been, and forever will be, a one-man kind of woman?

Some days, I get incredibly turned on by the idea of my partner being serviced by another woman. In my mind, she's a virtual stranger, someone we just met, or someone we have known for a while but only in a shadowy kind of way, someone who flits and flirts into our life for an evening here and there, and then she's gone. I sometimes picture her going down on him, and the thought of it is enough to make me breathless. Sometimes I imagine having my own turn with her when they're done, and that gets me ready and raring to go.

Then there is the thought of another couple, taking our turns however we please, a solid evening of "anything goes" that we can walk away from the next morning with sweet, delicious aches and secret smiles. Every possible scenario has wandered through my head, and all of them are fantastic.

But other days that possessive streak kicks in good and hard, and the thought of sharing my partner with anyone else -- or being with anyone else myself, for that matter -- is enough to put me in a surprisingly foul mood. Don't mess with the sweetness of the way things are, that little voice in the back of my head tells me. Don't mess with what's already beyond good.

And then my thoughts swing back to the naughty. Back and forth, back and forth...is it okay, even normal, to have thoughts that swing back and forth when it comes to swinging?

I read on a swinging message board that one should not feel morally compromised by the act of swinging. On the other hand, another poster pointed out that that feeling of "this is wrong" and "we shouldn't be doing this" added to the sheer pleasure of playing with others. Obviously, swinging should always fit into the context of a good relationship and enhance it. It should never be something that brings a dark, questionable or brooding atmosphere into the bedroom.

Perhaps it is a matter of finding a nice balance between the sharing and the possessiveness. There are many people out there who can find that balance and make it work.

Am I one of those people? I keep swinging back and forth about the idea. How about you?

Reality Versus Fantasy

This has been on my mind quite a bit lately. But I won't say anything more about it today, because the video speaks for itself:

My, My...How Things Change!

Today, the nominations for the 41st Annual CMA Awards were announced.

In years past, this was a true event for me. It was something I anticipated for weeks. Some years, I held CMA Nominations parties. There were a few years when I was there in the studio, hearing the nominations live. There was one year when I sat at home, on the edge of my seat, unable to go because I was pregnant with my daughter and on bedrest. (That didn't stop me from jumping up and down with excitement, mind you.)

This year? I probably won't even vote.

I'm not sure my husband voted. We talked about it briefly, but to be honest, I don't think he sent in an initial ballot. I do know that I hadn't given the CMA Awards much thought until he reminded me of the fact that they were happening. He told me on Monday morning. Today, I almost forgot, and tuned in just as the nominations were starting in New York.

As I watched, I thought back to how much it used to mean, and how much things had changed. It's not that I don't care -- I certainly do! -- and it's not that the country music industry is any less important to me now. In fact, we are both probably more entrenched in the industry than we have ever been.

So what's my problem?

My priorities have changed. My focus has shifted. As I watched the nominations this year from my quiet office with piles of work awaiting my attention, I remembered the Priority Questions.

Have you ever noticed that once you do something over and over and over, it becomes part of your routine, an automatic thing in your day-to-day life? You start to live by it and then you forget you are doing it. It becomes natural as breathing.

The Priority Questions were shared with me many years ago. They were so simple, and worked so well, that I began to apply them to everything. As I did, my life began to change. I got a handle on situations I thought were out of control. My life slowed down, became easier, less stressful. It wasn't that my life had changed -- the way I handled my life was what had changed.

The Priority Questions:

Will this matter...
In a day?
In a week?
In a month?
In a year?
In five years?

I took any situation that was causing me stress -- everything from paying the mortgage to dealing with discipline for my kids to handling the nosy and annoying teller at the bank. I took a deep breath and asked myself those questions, in the order listed.

The teller at the bank pisses me off? Really? Fine. Will it matter in a day? No?

Just like that, I let it go. I smiled and put up with her bullshit, knowing that when I turned around and walked out, it wouldn't be a problem. I could seethe about it and whine and bitch and yell filthy names at her in the car on my way home, showing my passive-agressiveness to great advantage in my rearview mirror, but it wouldn't make one bit of difference. And it didn't matter anyway.

Bingo -- she was no longer a problem. I was happier and could spend my energy on things that did matter.

Seems simple? It is. That's the point. You have no idea how much energy you throw away on things that don't matter until you actually call yourself on it. Thus, the priority questions. They put into perspective what you never really think about.

Apply it to anything. Those vicious rumors your friend oh-so-casually mentioned she heard at lunch the other day. The fact that your car is on the fritz. The chronic lateness of your business associate for your lunch dates.

Will it matter in a day? Maybe. Will it matter in a week? Probably not.

Once you have a firm handle on how much it really matters, then you can live your life appropriately. For me it was always my children who came at the top of the list...of course. Will meeting that dealine matter in five years? It just might. Will taking ten minutes out of my rush to that deadline to color a page in a book with my son make a difference in five years? Oh, yes. Definitely.

The editor won't remember that I stayed up all night to finish the deadline. In fact, she might never know. But will my son remember the moment I walked away from the computer, focused on him, and colored that picture of Bugs Bunny? He might, and he might not -- but what if he does? Which matters more?

Today I watched the CMA nominations on television. I watched while writing this blog, in fact. There were moments when I was thrilled by hearing certain names. There was a point where I picked up the phone and called a friend to say congratulations.

Then the nominations were over, and I turned back to finish this blog. Soon I'm going to get back to work, juggling finishing a manuscript, a short story and a column between doing dishes, finishing that load of laundry, and making lunch in time for my husband to have something hot to eat when he walks in the door.

It's not that those nominations don't matter anymore. It's just that they fall in a different place in my life now. My priorities have shifted.

Apply the Priority Questions to your own life. Write down the situations and rank them on paper if you have to, so you can see what is going on in your head. Do it over and over, it becomes like clockwork, and you'll be a much happier person. Trust me.

Now that I'm done being philosophical, I have to go. I have to finish writing this story about a woman who chains a man to a wall, pulls out a riding crop and gives him what he doesn't even know he really wants.

-wicked grin-

You Are So F--ing Obscene

I've been cathing up on my reading these last few days, and I came across this
fantastic article from Mark Morford of SF Gate.

I wish I could rant as well as he does!

You Are So F--ing Obscene
The president says it, you say it, your kids say it all the time. So what's the f--ing problem?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

My grandmother' s face used to scrunch up like she just stepped in dog droppings whenever she heard it.

My own cherubic and supercute mother rarely used to say it but has become much more friendly with it over the years because, you know, what the hell, and now whenever she launches an f-bomb or even an s-bomb she almost can't help but smile a little sheepishly afterward, like her own mother is looking down from the heavens and making that face, or if my mother's really angry and the cuss is meant to be a serious exclamation, well, it's almost impossible not to smile yourself, like you just heard this really adorable squirrel pass gas.

Me, I remember my first time. Somewhere around 7 or 8 years old, just chillin' on my bike in my Spokane 'hood on a warm summer's eve, a gaggle of other boys scampering around (there might have been girls too, but at that point girls were still incredibly toxic and hence my brain would not have registered their existence) and everyone just doing boy stuff.

Suddenly, it happened. From outta nowhere, one kid launched a never-before- heard "screw you" at some other kid and all chattering stopped as we all sort of looked at each other as if to say "huh?" and "what was that?" while this weird electrical charge shot through the air like creamy peanut butter on fire.

Everyone felt it. Everyone present sort of knew, even then, even without the slightest clue as to what the words actually meant, that something interesting had just occurred, something powerful and strange and, well, just a little bit wonderful.

As a quick test, I dashed home with those two words hot in my mouth and promptly unleashed them on the head of my older sister. To, if I recall, absolutely fantastic effect.

Clearly, Bush's Federal Communications Commission is terrified of boys like me. Oh yes they are.

Let us now recap: Since 2003, BushCo's own nipple-terrified regulatory agency has been working like a prudish little ferret to destroy perceived indecency, particularly those "fleeting expletives" that love to pop up in major media, threatening to fine any network roughly $5 bazillion for any appearance of the dreaded "f--" or "s--" or anything else that causes unusual tingling sensations anywhere in the pallid body of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Dismissed as eye-rollingly idiotic by every cunning linguist in existence, this absurdly strict rule nevertheless caused enormous panic and trepidation among generally spineless network honchos who immediately shifted programming and yanked uncut versions of "Saving Private Ryan" from broadcast and fired on-air talent for the slightest indiscretion and desperately called their lawyers in prayer. It was, to put it simply, f--ing ugly.

Fast-forward to now. A New York appeals court just told Bush's hard-line FCC that they are, in essence, a bunch of simpleminded out-of-touch dweebmonkeys and that the TV networks, while morally vacant in nearly every way imaginable, still cannot be held to such impossible standards when such juicy curse words are a common element of everyday speech, including that of President "Stop This S--" Bush and Dick "Go F-- Yourself" Cheney and just about every other being anywhere, with the possible exception of the ghost of my late grandmother.

"We are sympathetic to the networks' contention that the FCC's indecency test is undefined, indiscernible, inconsistent and consequently unconstitutionally vague," Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote in a delicious smackdown, a decision that also called the FCC's obscenity rules "divorced from reality," a perfect kicker that promptly induced Kevin Martin to whine uncontrollably.

"It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality," he puled. "Boogerbooger wabba, jerkface thhhbbbppptt! " he did not spittle, his face turning bright red as he hopped on his Big Wheel and pedaled away furiously.

Ahh, obscenity. Here is where you may want to jump in and play devil's advocate and argue that, while swearing may be delightful amounts of everyday fun, mature discourse doesn't actually require such language. And sure enough, you can go through your entire life and never utter a single curse word or, for that matter, never let alcohol pass your lips or enjoy a butt plug or inhale from a joint or be just like Frank Sinatra and never once wear a pair of jeans, and you can still make it to your grave a reasonably happy person. It's true.

But maybe that's beside the point. Because as far as Bush's God-spanked FCC is concerned, it is, always and forever, all about protecting the children. Or rather, it is all about protecting some imaginary Christian Everychild, some sort of perfect hypersheltered dovelike organism made of spun glass and delicate bunny hearts and little golden crucifixes, a fragile, blessed thing whose happy, unblemished life had been completely free of blood or spit or pain right up until he overheard Bono say "f--" at the Golden Globes and his precious virgin heart shattered forever.

No matter. It's all fast becoming rather moot anyway. Broadcast television as we know it is dying a clumsy, confused death, curse-happy cable/satellite TV is in 87 percent (combined) of American homes, satellite radio remains free to blaspheme up a storm, the Internet is a giant linguistic smut-for-all and even the more serious blogs and indie media outlets are happily loosening crusty journalistic binds and slanging their way into the hearts and minds of readers everywhere.

See, most people seem to get it: As is always the case in things prurient and dirty and fun, it all comes down to balance. Too many gratuitous f-bombs and you sound juvenile and uneducated and mean. Too few (or too awkwardly placed, or unearned) and you sound prudish and awkward and far too much like, say, Jerry Seinfeld.

This, then, is the real linguistic lesson kids need to learn. When it comes to a good curse, it's all about the placement, the timing, the precise usage. After all, "f--" is a delightful power word, one I wish I could actually employ in this very column every so often without those damnable dashes that protect, well, no one.

The truth is, there are always perfect cuss-ready moments. There are always those times when it's not only entirely appropriate to launch a well-placed swear word, but not to do so would feel, well, downright irresponsible. Let me see if I can think of a good example ...

Ah yes. How about this: "The FCC finally got some comeuppance from the courts? The Christian right's death grip on the culture is weakening even further, and the nation as a whole appears to be slowly but surely coming to its senses? Well. Thank goodness. Praise Jesus. Pass the wine."

"And oh yes, it's about f--ing time."

See? Perfectly reasonable.

***
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Sex & Guitars

I'm working on another final edit of Sex & Guitars. It's been a few years since this book came out in hardcover, and now it's finally -- maybe -- hopefully -- coming out as an Ebook. As soon as I know for sure, you'll know for sure.

In the meantime, I'm going over the manuscript and cleaning up little things I might have missed before. A word used too many times, a turn of phrase that seems odd, things of that nature. But as I'm doing the editing, I'm also re-reading the story.

Sometimes, a walk down memory lane is a real bitch.

I poured my heart and soul into that book. It's a memoir, after all -- isn't it supposed to be all about the heart and soul? I wrote the novel with not only Ayza's consent, but his constant support during every stage of the process. As my journal became a novel, he encouraged me to include everything, even the parts that were almost too painful to write. If I took out a scene that I thought was too close to my heart, too sensual to be laid out in the open, he almost always talked me into putting it back in. The result is a broad, honest account of what we went through together.

That's to his credit, not mine. If it had been entirely up to me, I might say I would have been as open about things, but I'm not sure that's true. I think I might have tried to protect myself from the things I didn't want to remember, and focused more on the things that I wanted to hold onto the most. The good times versus the bad ones.

Looking back, I see myself for who I was back then -- a young woman, little more than a kid, in love with a man who was forbidden. It was that very fact that kept me coming back at first. What person doesn't want their moment of rebellion against all things sensible? But as time went on, he became a need, not just a want. He became the center of me.

In many ways, going back through the story of that time is ripping that center wide open all over again. It's dragging me through the long nights, the empty bottles of alcohol, the passion that was just as intense as the fury, the arguments that made no sense and the moments when everything was so crystal clear, it cut like a jagged blade of broken glass.

It is pulling out those things I left buried, too -- the lines on the mirror, the nightmares while he was in rehab, the haunted look in his eyes when he was coming down from it all.

It's a look I can still see in him. The scars are too deep to ever go away.

Writing about the sex during that time only made sense. Our relationship was based on a lot of things, but sex was the glue that held it together. We expressed so much in bed, things that couldn't be expressed through words. Sex broke down barriers and made us vulnerable, pulled us together in our exclusive little world, where we could discuss things that would never come to the surface in any other way. An orgasm was like striking oil...once the initial rush was over, the steady stream of words would come.

Most of that book was written while I was still tingling from his touch.

I approached this final editing of Sex & Guitars with the question in the back of my mind: Would it still matter? Would it still be relevant? Would it still have the same impact, tell the same tales, hold the same openness and honesty and outright pain that it held in the beginning? Would the sex still burn as hot as fire, would the passion still make sense, would the desire still linger?

The answers to all those questions is yes.

I'm glad for that. That means it might be draining, it might be emotionally exhausting, it might be difficult to look at in the light of day, all these years later -- but it's worth every minute.

You Know You Think About Sex Too Much When...

Today I was baking some cream-cheese Jalapeno Poppers for lunch. (They are my own personal snack-food addiction, thank you.) Anyway, I was reading the back of the box to make sure I had the right oven temperature. I wasn't thinking about sex at ALL. Promise. But then I came across this little gem:

"Watch closely as overheating may cause loss of filling."

*faints with laughter*

Author Discrimination: It Touches Everyone Who Picks Up a Book.

Discrimination against authors affects everyone. That discrimination can start a chain of events that moves along on the momentum of complacency, and eventually prevents that book from finding its way into your hands.

Laura Baumbach, a M/M romance author who attended the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Houston, Texas dealt with this very issue a few weeks ago. She has written about it on her Blog.

Once you're done reading her entry, go to the comments -- the RT defense is interesting, to say the least.

The more I thought about this situation over the past week, the more troublesome it seemed. Ms. Baumbach writes M/M romance, which RT claims is not their "target audience." As a result, RT had no problem removing her promotional materials from the convention tables -- at the convention she paid to attend.

The first question that pops to mind is this: If M/M romance is not their "target audience," why in the world would RT accept her money and then run ads on her behalf, promoting her M/M romance novels? And why would they accept her money to attend a convention, where, presumably, their "target audience" will not be interested in anything Ms. Baumbach has to offer?

Ca-ching, ca-ching, baby.

About the promotional materials, I wonder: If she wrote straight erotic romance, or even F/F romance, would her materials have been removed? If the photograph on her promotional materials was of a naked woman tastefully covered with a sheet, would it have been removed? I seriously doubt it. However, a naked man tastefully covered with a sheet? Apparently we cannot have such things available for viewing, especially at a Booklover's Convention filled with consenting adults.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The problem is much bigger than the double-standards in this situation.

If you think this doesn't affect you, think again. If you read books, discrimination toward an author at ANY level of the publishing game directly affects you. Tasteful promotional materials not allowed at a networking function like the RT convention? That means less people know about that author's work. That leads to less opportunity to get the word out to you. That equates to less sales, which means bookstores won't pick up the title as readily. That means an empty space on the bookshelf, filled with another book which has been deemed "more appropriate" by some powers-that-be. Those powers-that-be are made up of people who don't know you at all, who assume you like what they have deemed "mainstream." Your choices are suddenly limited.

The sad part is, you wouldn't even realize it unless the author kicked up a big fuss, long and loud and rowdy, to let you know someone ELSE chose for you -- long before you had a chance to choose for yourself.

It happens more often than you can imagine. The only way to fight against it is to make your voice heard, loud and crystal clear, and hopefully the voices of bigots will be drowned out by the voices of those who truly give a damn.

You don't like M/M romance? That's fine. It's your choice. But that's the key -- it's your CHOICE. How would you feel about having that choice taken away from you?

Ms. Baumbach has my full support, and I hope she has yours, too.

I Believe...

Is There a Santa Claus?

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of THE SUN:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

***

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except that they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

So Much Sarcasm, So Little Space...

There are soooo many things I could say about the ABC News report referenced below, but I will hold my tongue (barely) and point out just one little thing:

It's interesting to note that back in July of this year, Foley sponsored H.R. 5749: "To amend title 18, United States Code, to protect youth from exploitation by adults using the Internet, and for other purposes."

Let the snickering commence.

______________________

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: Congressman Mark Foley, Republican from Florida, resigned today just hours after ABC news questioned him about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving current and former underage male Congressional pages.

Foley used the login name Maf54.

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny ?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

Foley was the chairman of the house caucus on missing and exploited children and has long crusaded for tough laws against those who use the Internet for sexual exploitation of children.

Why I Write

Someone asked me, many years ago, why I chose to be a writer. Of all the things I could have done, why this? It is an unstable profession; any writer will tell you that. You have years when the books sell like hotcakes, the short stories rack up the accolades, and you are everyone's darling. Then there are the years when you look at your thinning bank account and curse your adventurousness in staying in the world of the self-employed. You're either on top of the world or you're not. There is rarely any in-between step there.

But there is the flip-side of the business, which is the fact that some people were just born to write. Some of us have no choice. We have stories in our heads that have to find their way out onto paper. There are things we have to say, or they will drive us crazy. For some writers, the need to write is in their blood.

I remember watching Mom as she typed out one story after another on her old Brother word processor. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the clicking, and when I wandered into the dining room there she would be, surrounded by stacks of books and papers. Sometimes she noticed my presence. More often than not, she didn't, and those were my favorite selfish times. I would stand at the entrance of the dining room and watch her. Her eyes were distant, her hands were flying over the keys, and she was so lost in the story that she had become a part of the story. It was all over her face, that look of awe or loss or happiness, depending.

And I would think, every time...I wish I could write like that.

A few years later, I was sitting at my own typewriter, pounding away at my first novel. It was about Jeff and Angela and the old horse farm and the horse named Skipper. I was so lost in it that I didn't hear anyone calling me for dinner. I didn't hear anyone coming around to look over my shoulder. I didn't hear anything until I was too tired to see the keys and I looked at the clock and it was past midnight.

I had been writing for ten hours.

That's when it hit me, hard as one of those old Royal manual typewriters dropped from above -- This is what Mom did. This is how it feels!

Sometimes I would hear someone say they had "found their calling" to do something. That they had been shown, somehow, someway, what they were meant to do. When I fell into that paper and lost myself in another world, when the clicking of those keys and the dinging of that carriage return became the music that paced my very breathing, I knew.

I think about that often lately. I haven't been writing here much, I know. And this entry is actually from a draft I started months ago and never got back to until now. That's because I've been writing one book after another and I've neglected this blog. My apologies for that -- I know there are those out there who read it quite often.

Over the last six months, I have written over 120,000 words. The stories and the novel have flowed out of me like water out of a spring, and I've been reminded almost every day of watching my mother at her typewriter, losing herself in the page.

I've been losing myself in the pages. And it feels absolutely wonderful -- it feels like home.

It's been a while...

It has definitely been a while since I posted to this blog. But I have an excuse: A new book!

I've been writing hot and heavy these last several weeks. As any writer will tell you, sometimes the stories take months to come into their own, and sometimes they just slip into this world like a baby taking its first breath and it is full-steam-ahead from there.

This one is a runaway train. It started with a bang, picked up some momentum, hit a bump or two, then smoothed out down a long, sloping hill. It's still gathering speed. I'm sure I will have time to sleep when it is done, but right now I'm just along for the ride!

I did take a day off from writing last week and spent all of it on the back of a four-wheeler, wandering through the woods, getting sunburned and loving every minute of it. That has become my favorite way to unwind, and I hope to do it a lot more often this summer.

The tornadoes that ripped through Tennessee managed to miss my house, but there are more coming tonight, so we get another spin in Mother Nature's Roulette. I love everything about storms -- the electricity in the air, the thrill of the wind picking up, the distant lightning coming closer and closer, the thunder that rattles the windows. Then comes the rain. There are few things more decadent than walking outside into my backyard in the middle of the night and greeting the deluge. I love the feeling of wet grass between my toes and water falling from every corner of the heavens to drench me from head to toe. It's sensual as hell and makes me feel like a part of nature itself.

It's funny that we've had so much rain here in Tennessee this week, and this is also the same week my new story is up on Clean Sheets. "In the Rain" is the title -- how appropriate! I hope you enjoy it. Click here to read it.

The story was inspired by Jackson Browne's "Sky Blue and Black". I love that song because the imagery is so sharp. I can taste the shore, hear the tires in the rain, feel the uncertainty and the longing. I prefer songs that really mean something, songs that make me think. When I was in high school and college, I listened to Don McLean's "The Day the Music Died" until I knew every last nuance. I loved it because it was a mystery that had something to say. Those are the best of the best songs, I think.

In addition to listening to music all the time, I'm reading quite a bit lately. I've picked up Three the Hard Way, edited by Susie Bright. William Harrison has a story in this volume. His words always draw me in. I'm also reading Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, and various newsletters and trade magazines that have been piling up in that basket underneath the endtable.

Thunder is rumbling again, so I think I will curl up with one of those books on the front porch and watch the storms roll in.

Pat Robertson: Dude Has Some Seriously BAD Karma...

I rarely delve into politics or religion, even with my closest friends, but tonight I simply cannot keep my mouth shut.

Pat Robertson, Oh-Supreme Leader of Religious Nutcases, has made it clear that Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon deserved the massive stroke that waylaid him this week. Why? Because that's what you get when you "divide God's land".

Just when I think Robertson has reached the height of idiotic "in-the-name-of-religion-so-long-as-it's-mine" bullshit, he somehow finds another way to one-up himself. It's impressive, really.

It will never cease to amaze me, how those who carry the mantle of Christianity like a righteous force-field are the first ones to make Christianity seem like something the teeming masses should run away from faster than the Bulls in Pamplona. Does Robertson not think? Does he really believe he's doing the best he can in the name of what he stands for? Who would want to be associated with a man who revels in such pain and suffering visited on another human being? Who claims those in the Twin Towers deserved to die? Who says Hurricane Katrina was sent as punishment against the city of New Orleans?

Even his supporters are distancing themselves from this lunatic. Robertson makes a mockery of the whole concept of Christian goodness.

And of course, this isn't the first time he's done it. Nor will it be the last.

Whether I agree or disagree with someone's stance on any issue, I respect their right to an informed opinion, and I respect a person who holds that stance with compassion and dignity. Robertson is neither compassionate nor dignified, and his opinion is not "informed", it's self-serving.

When Robertson is lying in a hospital bed near the end of his life, perhaps after suffering a massive stroke or a heart attack or something equally human, I hope he looks back and thinks about what he did to "deserve" such an end.

Karma is a bitch, and it would suck to be Robertson.

Now that I have that out of my system (for the time being), there is a more light-hearted look at the sad situation. Postcards from the Pug Bus damn near made me laugh 'til I cried. Click here for their take on Robertson. Hilarious!