All about the anticipation

Reading a thousand romance novels is so much better than going out on a thousand dates. Not just from a time management standpoint, but also because you get to experience that delicious anticipation of a developing relationship without the actual fear of losing the guy.

I've heard that butterflies in the stomach is exactly that, and I suppose sometimes that's true. But it's fun anyway.

A great slow-build of tension as things heat up between our hero and heroine is my very favorite thing. To me, the first kiss is the best part of the novel. That's the most passionate and real part, the first time our protagonists throw caution to the wind and take a chance on each other.

Speaking of chances, there is a definite possibility that I watched too many Disney movies as a child.

You would not believe how many results there are
when you google "Disney true love kiss".

What do you think? Is the first kiss really the best part, or do you like watching the characters grow together and really learn each other?

In the end, it's all fun!

Poetry and Coffee

Sounds pretty good for a Monday morning. I'm not usually all that into slam poetry, but this guy proved me wrong. Here's a written version of the poem, which has become one of my favorites - particularly the end.

We Were Emergencies - Buddy Wakefield

A poet can stick anything into the fog and make it look like a ghost.
But tonight 
let us not become tragedies.
We are not funeral homes with propane tanks in our windows
lookin’ like cemeteries. Cemeteries are just the Earth’s way of not letting go.
Let go.
Tonight, poets, let’s turn our wrists so far backwards
that the razor blades in our pencil tips
can’t get a good angle on all that beauty inside.

Step into this
with your airplane parts
and repeat after me with all your heart:
I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hate myself.
Make love to me
like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.
Go slow.

I’m new to this
but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.
I have realized the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.
We are not tragedies stranded here beneath it.

If my heart really broke every time I fell from love
I’d be able to offer you confetti by now.
But hearts don’t break, y’all, they bruise and get better.
We were never tragedies.
We were emergencies.
You call 9 – 1 – 1.
Tell them I’m havin' a fantastic time.

Thanks a latte, have a grande!

I think I may have to officially give up my coffee snob status, because I really like Starbucks.

Yeah, I know the espresso is watery and the coffee tastes burned. It does, I'm not even going to lie to you. The new Blonde roast is a little better but I'm fairly sure they import Pike directly from Hell.

But... but the customization...

That's the reason I go to Starbucks. I can order my triple wet venti cappuccino with a minimum of both shame AND effort! That is cutting so much work out of my day!

What about you? Do you have the baristas greeting you by name, or do you go to a great little place that you'd love to recommend to me, only I won't have heard of it? Or do you save at least 15% of your income and make everything at home?

Ten Little Things

1. I've broken my nose, my tailbone, several toes, and most of my fingers. Riding horses is a lot like BMX - if you do it often enough, you get hurt.

2. My top five favorite movies are Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Hot Fuzz, Small Soldiers, The Eagle, and I, Robot. (I'm told I have eclectic taste.)

3. I'm a huge classics fan, partly because I read so many as a kid (danger of being a fast reader - you run out of material. There's only so many times your parents are willing to take you to the bookstore). Some of my favorites are The Iliad, The Tale of Genji, The Frogs, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Brothers Karamazov.

4. I think that Jane Eyre is the most romantic book ever written. Yes, Rochester is a little crazy, but he owns his crazy.

5. I wrote my first novel when I was 13. It was impressively terrible.

6. Drizzling rain is my favorite type of weather.

7. Gray is my favorite color. I like it in all its incarnations - charcoal, silver, slate, whatever.

8. I really love animals. Everything from cats to dogs to snakes and even spiders. I pretty much like everything - except pigs. They eat people and are evil. Pigs are the devil.

9. I love hyperbole more than anything in the entire world ever. I think hyperbole is hilarious.

10. My celebrity crushes are Will Smith (forever), Channing Tatum (he seems like the nicest person, also, abs), Martin Freeman (yes I know he looks like a middle school geography teacher and I DON'T CARE), and Jeremy Renner (be in more movies, plz). Robert Downey Jr. can come too.

Onna-Bugeisha

When we talk about Japanese women the image of the delicate, elaborately dressed geisha often springs to mind. But did you know that a group of female warriors in Japan dates all the way back to at least 100 AD?

Onna-bugeisha were female members of the bushi (samurai) class in Japan. Their origins and the members of their ranks are somewhat misty - some of the most famous examples of their class (Empress Jingu and Tomoe Gozen) may not even have existed.

Make no mistake though, onna-bugeisha were real: This is
Nakano Takeko, who died battling the
Imperial Japanese Army during the Boshin War.

What we do know is that onna-bugeisha were upper-class women trained to defend their homes when the men of the house were away at war... and occasionally to defend their country beside samurai on the battlefield. 

It isn't precisely accurate to say that onna-bugeisha were female samuria. The truth is more complicated than that. The image of genteel docility was very important at that time, so the sight of women in battle wasn't exactly common, and the weapons that women used were different. 

Different - but no less deadly. The main weapon of the onna-bugeisha was a naginata, a long rod with a curved blade at the end, sort of like a spear. This gave women the ability to attack from a distance against men with swords. It was also useful for tackling warriors on horseback. Onna-bugeisha also often trained in the kaiken (dagger), knives, and archery. 

The end of the onna-bugeisha came with the rise of Neo-Confucianism, which dictated that men were inherently good and needed to be obeyed in order to lead their family correctly. While men were required to display filial piety towards their parents, a woman was required to obey not only her husband and father, but also her uncles, parents-in-law, brothers-in-law, and her own sons. It was a little like the White House - if one person kicks the bucket, there's always someone waiting in the wings to order you around.

"Clean the house your own damn self."

In this more restrictive atmosphere, the idea of warrior women was deemed unacceptable. But the onna-bugeisha live on in myth and legend and history, where they continue to inspire people today.

Surviving the (Romantic) Suspense #2: Why you never want to defend yourself

As a romantic suspense author, I spend a lot of time writing about ladies in peril. And by that token, I have to get them back out of it. So I'm going to use one day a week to talk about self defense and protecting yourself in various ways.

You never want to need to defend yourself.

If you're ever at the point where you actually need to fight an attacker, you are working at a severe disadvantage. Your opponent has a plan - you don't. Your opponent has the advantage of surprise - you're working several steps behind them. Your opponent has probably struck first and may have weapons, and even if for some reason you were carrying a weapon, it's unlikely you'll have the time to get it out.

There are a lot of self-defense classes out there that offer training in mostly martial arts. While I'm not saying these are a bad idea, they're a lot more useful in terms of cardiovascular fitness than they will be to you should you ever be attacked.

A class situation, operating under rules and limits, is completely different than an attack that takes you by surprise. And your own capabilities are different during this kind of fight - your adrenaline will kick up past the point where it's useful, you'll probably develop hyperfocus, and you won't be able to think with the same logic that you normally use. The chemical cocktail that affects you during a fight will make each person act slightly differently under its influence. Some common side affects include loss of peripheral vision, degradation of fine motor skills, and an obsession with irrelevant thoughts.

The only way to reliably overcome these disadvantages is through training (and even then, there's no magic bullet, so to speak). Presumably you aren't getting training for special ops, or you wouldn't be reading this blog right now, you'd be out there throwing boats around and ripping trees up from the ground. That means that your best bet is to avoid situations where you have to defend yourself.

If a situation looks strange to you, leave. Don't worry about hurting people's feelings or acting odd - have you ever heard stories about soldiers who come home and hit the deck when loud noises go off, like books dropping off a desk? They've learned the hard way that it's better to be safe than sorry. Follow that example, not often nonsensical social rules. Trust your instincts.

Gretchen, stop trying to make Scroogled happen! It's not going to happen!

Something you should know about me is that I don't watch a lot of TV. It's mostly a function of not having much time, a short attention span, and a low tolerance for boredom. Every so often something truly awesome (like Sherlock) will cross my path and I won't sleep until I finish, but for the most part I'm not too into TV.

On the other hand, I do like watching some stuff on the internet. Reviews of games, or nostalgic stuff, or books. And I like supporting people who make things I enjoy watching, so I don't install ad-blocking software.

But. This ad. Is driving. Me. CRAZY.

What even... Where do I start?

These are the most squeaky-clean people I have ever seen in the history of ever. What is he staring at when she's reading over his shoulder? Why is he lying across the ENTIRE DESK? Who does that? Why is his part GOUGED into the side of his skull so that he's got some kind of Justin Bieber hair bounce at the front? Why is she wearing a wig and why isn't it a better one? WHY DID HE FALL OFF HIS CHAIR? Are they trying to imply that he's fat? Because I didn't hear the chair break... I also didn't hear him hit the floor, so apparently he's levitating. Why does Wig Lady have Spiderman's ability to catch plates out of thin air?

Why does she take a four-centimeter-square piece of pie? Why is she eating with her teeth stretched out like this?

So many questions, but no answers. If I see this ad again I may be forced to commit bodily harm to my laptop screen.