LJ idol
Week Three
Topic Three: A Moment of Bliss

Even across the room, I see them, vultures circling a carcass. First,  coke-bottle glasses lady, her wrinkled hands shoving books into a box, her tiny raisin eyes glaring at the crowd. Then the tall, grey-bearded man, his fingers running over spines, catching at the thickest, pulling a chosen few into his hempen bag. Between them is a sign, small, nondescript, black marker on white cardstock: Reference Section.

I pick my way through the bargain-hunters, (the people who won’t pay full price for even a favourite author, but will pay a dollar for a book it’s unlikely they’ll ever read), then hike past a troop of mothers (picture books in one hand, sticky fingers in the other). A posse of D&G knockoff toting teenagers struts toward me, their eyes on the romance table. I duck, I weave: the reference section is in my crosshairs now, my path clear.

Her raisin eyes narrowed, coke-bottle glasses lady swerves to block me; tall grey-bearded man shifts to the left, his feet edging away. “There’s an opening at the science-fiction table,” he mumbles, eyes already drifting over to the stacks of mouldering Asimov.  Her eyes follow his; she glances into her box, then glares at me. “I’ll be back.”

Something passes between us; she steps away.

The table is a tangle of broken spines and torn pages, but I sift through it all the same. Macquarie Dictionary—no, have it. Heinemann Dictionary—no, have it. Merriam-Webster Dictionary—no, don’t want it.  Poultry Equipment in India: A Strategic Reference— maybe want it. Roget’s Thesaurus—no, have it. I skim past the spines, faster, then faster still, ‘til my fingers catch on something tall, rough-edged.

A box. “One lot, four dollars,” it reads. I peer inside.

For some people, bliss is a piece of dark chocolate, a falling leaf, a child’s laugh. For me, bliss is this:

two volumes, leather spine, gold lettered The New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary. For me, bliss is Aac-Kan,  Kan-Zym.

Light-fingered, I slide Aac-Kan free. The leather is warm to my touch, but the leaves are cool. Mustiness pricks my nose; I breathe deep.

Written for therealljidol  week three, "A Moment of Bliss".</lj>

Edit: you can now vote here.

LJ Idol,
Week Two
Topic Two: Apathy - What I Should Care About, but Don't.

Once upon a time, I believed in happy ever afters. Princess gets prince, evil stepmother gets comeuppance. Treasure seeker finds treasure, slays dragon, rescues entire family from poverty. Enchanted frog wheedles kiss, spell breaks, pomp ensues.

But happy endings are easy endings. So Cinderella marries the prince. Then what? She’s spent an awful lot of time sweeping and cleaning, biding her time as her unconscious and subconscious minds tick away, growing, maturing, becoming more aware. Yet, in a post-slipper world, there’s no need for Cinderella to do anything: there are people to cook and to scrub, to tend gardens and pick through dried peas. Perhaps this is an ideal way to live, for some. But I find it hard to imagine that Cinderella, or Snow White, or Rose Red, or All Fur, girls, women, who have worked, earned, achieved, would be so willing to lie back, put their feet up, and do nothing all day.

Why do women work? Because they need the income; because they’re asked to; because they see a need, and they’re drawn to it; because they have a vocation, because they simply are an artist, a writer, an architect, a chef, a stay-at-home mother, a CEO, a doctor, an electrician, and they have to be true to that. And although many of these positions have only become available to women in the past hundred years or so, real women have always worked. Real women have had ups and downs, good days and bad days. Real women have secrets and problems, scars and anger, sunlight-filled days and cool autumn afternoons. Real women don’t do happily ever afters.

Once upon a time, I grew apathetic about happily ever afters.

Once upon a time, I cut away the dead weight of glass slipper endings and days passed in idleness.

Once upon a time, I picked through a bowl of dried peas, went to the doctor, caught up with yesterday’s work, made dinner, cleaned the ferret cage, did some of today’s work, then collapsed on the couch to read a book with a high probability of a happily ever after ending.

And that’s okay. Because happily ever afters belong in books. Even if I know I should like them, love them like the fairy tale maven I am, kinda-sorta-sometimes happily ever afters are more me. And I’m kinda-sorta-sometimes happy with that.


Written for therealljidol week two, "Apathy - What I Should Care About, but Don't".

Edit: you can now vote here.

I’m supposed to be writing an introduction, something to tell people about myself. What can I say? What should I say? What should I not say? It’s all quite intimidating really, like a page out of the entirely French fairy tale book I own; so far, I can make out the words ‘princess’, ‘roses’, ‘red’, ‘pink’, ‘your’, and ‘flowers’.

French. That’s as good a place to start as any. I went to a posh all girls Anglican/Episcopalian high school, where we were forced to take French and Japanese in our first year of high school. I hated Japanese. The words never interested me—all I ever wanted was to practice drawing the characters, to practice getting every stroke perfect. But I digress. Back to French.

My teacher was a very chatty woman, Miss Ackerly. We all called her Deirdre. She was a Deirdre, from her not-quite-neat gardener’s hair to her alternately stern and fawning nanny voice. She learned French as an au pair. Her “I’m Miss Ackerly, let me tell you a bit about me” speech was the very first time I heard the word au pair. It sounded so, well, French, accented and mysterious. Like something you would find in a fairy tale. Like Cinderella. Up ‘til that point, I’d liked fairy tales. I’ve always liked them. But the way she said that word, au pair, made something just click: right there, in the middle of the first class of the first week, with my left leg jigging like I had St. Vitus’ dance (something I still do, by the way) and a room full of very bored students, I could see Miss Ackerly with her hair piled high atop her head, glass kitten heels (though I didn’t know that’s what they were called then) and a dress more poufy than Elton John’s hair (or Elton John, for that matter).

That night, I skipped my homework (I was a dedicated homework dodger back then), and read my Brothers’ Grimm instead. I lingered over every tale, pounding along with Aschenputtel as she fled, getting scratched and bruised alongside her as she shot up a tree.

For me, reading fairy tales is still like that. I know a lot of people think they’re infantile, or even a waste of tree. But I find fairy tales more fascinating, more thrilling, more real than most stories. The characters aren’t well-rounded, no—but that’s because they don’t have to be. We already know the characters. We see them everyday: the girl who punches my coffee order into her suped-up register is Cinderella; the boy down the beach is the Frog Prince; the overly-gossipy-doom-and-gloom woman at work is a blackbird, waiting to swoop in with sorrow's tidings; and the wind that teases your hair as you race for the bus is that very same wind that teased Conrad and whispered to the Goose Girl.

I suppose that’s why I became a writer, really—I could never give up my fairy tales. It’s also how I came to start Les Bonnes Fees, my online fairy tale magazine—I needed more fairy tales to read. I also needed an excuse for my book buying habit.

That’s it, really. All I can think of. Other things people may care to know (also known as The Important Stuff):

I’m 27. I’m married. I think the joke, "Why are black holes good for the US Economy? Because they help us stretch our dollars,” is snort-laugh funny.

I have ferrets, and a budgie (parakeet). I adore them, and I spoil them. I dare anyone, anywhere, to produce another parakeet that has her own special iTunes playlist (I’ve just geeked myself, haven’t I?). I’m a vegetarian. And an animal rights person (though, despite the shared name, I dislike PETA). Sometimes, I have secret fantasies that I have a superpower that allows me to eat muchethly of the chocolate yet never get fat.

I’m an Australian (and so is my other half), but I live in Massachusetts. I’m proud of the fact I can spell Massachusetts. I love snow. I hate it when people misuse apostrophes, and I love semi-colons. They’re my favourite piece of punctuation. I like to draw, but it’s not one of my skills. I love to pretend I’m a poet, but I never get farther than “roses are red, violets are blue”. I knit scarves. Only scarves, though I’m about to attempt a shrug. I'm revisiting my French. I’m a lackadaisical paper-folder. I’m a runner. I’m a babbler, too, in case you haven’t noticed.

Still, I have to add: I want to build an igloo. I say this every year, but it never gets done. Except for this year. This will be my year.