A Star Danced

My very good friend, Sue, was a dancer and a teacher. She was incredibly gifted. When people speak of her they very often speak in terms of light. "She was a bright light in my day," they say. "She lit up the room when she walked in." There was "a sparkle to her, a twinkle in her eye," a joyous quality that eludes us without these references to sunshine and starlight. And often, in these recent days as I've talked to friends, the phrase is repeated: a light has gone out in the world. A bright light, people say with sadness, is extinguished, gone, forever lost to darkness.

Sue did sparkle, didn't she? It is the measure of our love for her and the force of her personality that this word is so strongly identified with a woman who seemed, over the years, to change very little. Her hair was always a cap of gleaming curls. Her skin scrubbed fresh and kissed with freckles. Her blue eyes always full of winking, shining merriment.

Where was this darkness that claimed her? How could we have missed it? How could anyone so bright, so full of laughter and good wishes for her world, be surrounded by something so insidious and harmful without warning signs, bells, whistles, glaring flashes of ominous danger?

None of us know. Perhaps Sandy, her love and dearest companion, has a greater sense of the quiet places in Sue that none of us knew. We will certainly need to be there for Sandy as she faces life in a dimmer place. We certainly owe her our gratitude for being the person who acknowledged Sue's darkness, embraced it, and loved it as part of the person we did not know as well as we thought. This is true love, the difficult kind, that loves not just the brilliant facets of a soul where candlelight glances over them, but loves the deep and nuanced shades, too. What a great comfort it is to know Sue had such a rich and precious gift in her time with us.

In these past weeks, long days filled with reflection since I heard of Sue's death, I've thought almost constantly of those bright words, those oft invoked images and phrases. I've thought about stars. Great, distant balls of riotous fire. Stars twinkle because the Earth's atmosphere causes refractions when the light passes through varying densities. Terribly scientific, but it's interesting... the starlight bends and scatters, so the star twinkles. Those dazzling bits of winking beauty we see each night are only visible because of the darkness. They are growing ever distant, hurtling away from their birthplace at astonishing speed.

Perhaps the metaphor, though we may not realize it, is more apt than we imagined. The darkness was always there, throwing Sue's sparkling magic into brilliant flashes for us to see. We focused on the light. It's human nature to do so. And like those stars rushing off to places none of us can imagine, beyond our sight, past the place where our small position in the greater scheme of all that flows outward from the first moment of creation, Sue is rushing off to someplace else. She didn't have an easy journey, this shimmering sister of ours. She left her home and had to find her own place in a world resistant to who she was, the essence of her spirit. So people saw her through the filter of their own experience, bent the light, scattered it, made it something they could accept as it rushed away from narrow gazes.

Sue and I used to absolutely wallow in good Shakespearean theater. Well, we wallowed in the bad stuff, too. If nothing else it made us laugh, and laughter so often seemed to be her default position. In those wonderful lines, timeless turns of phrase that move generations beyond the life of an Elizabethan poet and playwright, there are astonishing glimpses of truth. One of Sue's favorite plays is my own favorite as well. I find these lines keep running through my head. In Much Ado About Nothing, Don Pedro teases Beatrice, that most laughing and merry of ladies:

Don Pedro: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you for out o' question you were born in a merry hour.

And she responds in a rare sober moment:

Beatrice: No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

There's our Sue. Born into a world that didn't completely understand her. Some could never accept her. Orphaned by intolerance, Sue still managed to shine against the darkness, sparkle in spite of a journey that was, though we did not know it then, speeding her away from us in a stunning, silent rush. She touched us with her light. We were fascinated by her twinkle and shine. Sue was born into a place that had to bend her, tip her, reshape her to see her beauty. She came from a place of sadness, darkness, and rejection. But a star danced, and she was born.

Her light has not gone out. Never say so, friends. She's rushing, racing, flying onward past the farthest reaches of our vision, but her star is still dancing. Sue shines on, and always will, in a place none of us can follow for now. But we can watch the skies, and catch glimpses of her brilliance still lighting small parts of the sky.

I look to the skies for your light, Sue. I look to your example of brightness and joy, and I take comfort in the gleam of the stars that have called you, much too soon, home.

My Autumn Reading List

Whatcha buying this fall at Barnes and Noble? It's going to be a big few months for me. Can't WAIT! Some of these are out already, but I haven't been to the bookstore this week. (This is rare... don't panic... just busy.) Here's what I have on my list:

ROMANCE













SFF







I should probably buy stock. At least that way my poor, melting credit cards would recycle some of the love.

In Praise of the Boob Tube

Am I the lamest person alive over the age of 20 or what? I seriously love television. It may be a throw back to the years I spent as a film critic. I do a lot of DVD viewing, and I try to catch an occasional flick. But weather, life, all that keeps me from seeing more than a movie or two a month, and I do miss it. So let's blame the loss of that much beloved career for my new favorite thing: TELEVISION!

Ooooh the fall season is coming. There have been so many new shows hyped. I'd love to hear what my pals in blogland are all tweaked up over. Here's my list.

Most Anticipated Old Favorites:

House
Project Runway
Boston Legal (still, but they're pushing it)
Survivor
The Tudors (next spring?)
Dexter (gawd, so addicted!)
Heroes
Extreme Home Makeover (shut up, it makes me cry)

Most Curious About:

New Amsterdam
Cane (very interesting... and Jimmy is so pretty!)
Reaper
Bionic Woman (oh shut up, you know you're at least curious)
Dirty, Sexy Money (the men alone...)
Journeyman (hey, maybe they'll send him so far back in time he goes back to Rome???)
K-Ville

Stuff I Still Miss OR
It's MY Blog and I'll Sulk If I Want To:

West Wing
Book of Daniel (don't get me started)
Gilmore Girls (shut up)
The Sapranos (I think I was the last person to cave and the only person in the world to like the ending)
Rome (waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!)

So what has you salivating? What do you miss? Got any hot tips? SHARE!

Strange Things Afoot at the CVS

Lemme tell you something, peeps. Y'all done wanna mess wid ME, aight? I'm da shizzle!

Or, well... something of that nature, anyway.

So I'm at the local all night CVS. (Where else am I, if not there, Starbucks, or Barnes and Noble? Nowhere, that's where. Stop laughing.) And as some of you know, I am only barely speaking to CVS. (See post below RE: Hershey bars.) But it's open 24 hours, it's only 5 minutes away, and they have cool stuff. Plus they have my drugs, my mom's drugs, my dad's drugs... it's a pharmacy and we're the walking wounded. Give us a break, k? We have to learn to play nice, so I'm making an effort.

It's that time of year when kids and parents are crowding into pharmacies, dollar stores, department stores... they're getting school supplies and clothes and whatnot for the return to academia in a few weeks. Hurrah. I love the sales they have, too... writer's paradise. Anyway, I'm trying to walk into my local CVS, but there's a large man dressed like a Shaggy video threw up blocking me. Coming out, on the other side of him, are two little tweeners (I'm guessing they were 12-ish) with bags loaded down with book covers, markers, cute erasers with fur on them, and other vital educational supplies. One of them is speaking into a furry pink phone with sparkles, telling her mum they are "coming right now."

Only they aren't coming right now, because the 20-something gangsta in front of me thinks it's adorable to block them every time they try to go around. They step to the side; he steps to the side. They step to the other side; he steps to the other side. They giggle; he snickers. He's a grown man; they're children.

This. Pisses. Me. Off.

I don't mind people being cute. I mind a 20-something Tupac-knockoff flirting with prepubescent tweeners in MY candyass little town. I mind his ridiculous pants dragging like a pair of cheap-assed swag curtains under his saggy damned butt cheeks in front of me, and the crappy-assed P-Diddy Eau de Hood wafting backward and assaulting my nose. I even mind that his gangsta fashions are four years out of date, and that he's flaunting his look like a badge of badness. This is freaking MARSHFIELD. We steal street signs; we shaving-cream cars. We are not, absolutely NOT the "hood." I don't care if the Fair is in town. Take that crap somewhere else.

I have absolute respect for the genuine culture. Wannabes of all stripes Piss. Me. Off.

So I threw down. Cuz I got mad skillz, yo. Plus there was a guy with a black belt and 6 feet, 3 inches of protective insanity sitting pretty close by, waiting in his Escalade truck. So... you know... I'm good. Got ma peeps.

"Listen, Grand Master Rupert, or whatever the hell your name is," said I, "if you don't stop flirting with those children and move your ass you're going to need that dew rag for a tourniquet."

And the gansta sort of turned around and did that peacock approach where he's gonna bump my chest... then he stopped. Backed off. Spread his arms in a gull-winged sign of surrender and backed away, allowing the girls and myself to pass.

TAKE THAT! Yeah, baby, I'm KRAZY, beeyotch! That's right, Mary! Keep walkin'! Don't be MESSIN' and show some PROPS! Green Harbor is REPREZENTIN!

Then I heard a flurry of chuckles behind me.

Oh. Yeah, well, my mad skillz not withstanding, the two very large State Troopers may have had something to do with it. It's possible. I mean, I was pretty scary. But you never know. They had the impressive uniforms and guns and stuff. If you're intimidated by that sort of thing. Plus the badges. The badges were a nice touch.

Could have been me, though. I mean, I was throwin' some heat. I was bringin' it, yo! So step off... sort of thingy.

Wurd to yer mum. Erm.

CVS is WATCHING YOU!

CVS needs to bloody well back it up. It's not that I don't like CVS. I do. But I noticed something tonight that put my panties in a twist, to use the slightly cheeky colloquialism.

I love me some coupons, oh yes I do! And the coolest thing about CVS (second coolest, really... open 24 hours is the coolest) is that I get massive printouts of coupons every time I visit. Usually these are a mixed bag of "we noticed you buy Olay blah blah, how 'bout $2 off Aveeno whosiwhats?" I trash those. I know what I want. I buy what I want. Sometimes I get a few $4 off a purchase of $20 or over. These are great, since it's rare I escape CVS for under that. Coolios! I also get some great $5 and $10 dollar no-holds-barred coupons, which I horde like leprechaun gold.

But those of us who are CVS haunters occasionally glance at some of the small print on the receipt. Tonight, after picking up mum's meds, a few magazines, and the Sunday Globe, I scanned the receipt before tearing off my goodies. Listed were:

Spent this quarter-- yep, wow, I do spend a lot.

Savings to date-- yep, cool beans!

Hershey Bars Purchased this year--

WTF???

Listen, CVS... ummm... thing is, you listen, k? My Hershey Bar purchases are nobody's damned beeswax, aight? You-you-you sit there JUDGING ME like some sort of... of... of Hershey Bar Big Brother. Well, well-- umm-- well, I won't have it, see? And by the way, big snotty candy bar spy people with your perfect cholesterol levels and your little white lab coats and your suck up to them with savings then tell the world about their Hershey stats, 14 isn't even that many!

IT IS NOT!!!

Plus, I don't always buy them for me, and sometimes I use them for things you don't even know about. Like I use them for my special cookies and brownies that I don't even eat... mostly. So... so...

Well, so THERE!

I can't imagine why CVS feels the need to track my purchases quietly, without impunity, with this one exception. Is there a "hair spray" total? No. Nail polish? No. Sticky notes? No. Astroglide? Thank you, sweet god of protection from humiliation, NO.

Why mock me with the Hershey thing? Why? I mean, what did I ever do to you but praise your name, make use of your coupons, and increase your stock values?

Et tu, CVS? Et tu?

Get Up

There are a few things I do that keep me going, even on the bad days. The funny thing is, I've come to understand that these small acts of self-empowerment make bad days good, and nearly-intolerable days tolerable. Sometimes they even lead to revelations.

On the days when I wake up feeling that incredible urge to go fetal, cover my head with a blanket, and cry, three things sustain me. Even if I'm in incredible pain or incredible discomfort, even if I've had emotional blows and feel overcome, three things will move me out of the cocoon of my bed:

1. Ahmed loves me and he's depending on me to suck it up. And if I don't suck it up I can't be with him and enjoy him.

2. Max has his face pressed against my shoulder, side, or leg. His donut-tail is wiggling, and he's looking up at me with those chocolate kiss eyes to say "we're going, yes?" It's his version of a morning hug and kiss. I swear he learned it by watching his dad, who also presses his face against my neck and gives a very damp sigh. It should be gross but it's magic.

3. I. CAN. GET. UP.

Getting up has proved to be my final act of defiance, my greatest solace, and my finest achievement. I get up. It sounds trivial, and will absolutely be lost on some. So what. Yet when you have been, on many occasions, completely unable to move, it's a huge deal. When you're like me-- somewhat hyper and easily bored-- being bed-bound or house-bound is torture. So no matter what my doctors tell me, I always give them one ultimatum. I may take it easy, but my daily routine is NON-NEGOTIABLE. I get up EVERY day unless I am in a coma. I take Max to the post office, Starbucks, and if there is a vital errand to run I feel capable of completing, we fit that in. I do it every day. When I stop doing it we can talk funeral arrangements.

My will is made out. I've got a living will, too. I have made clear what I want when the time comes. But as long as I am getting my ass out of bed and doing two things, minimum, with my little dog cheering me on, we're not there yet.

Lately, what with Venus being retrograde and Jupiter playing similar games, and with summer smothering me like a hot, wet blanket... well, lately the getting up thing hasn't been as easy. I do it, though, and here's how it always rewards me...

Yesterday I blew through the drive-through at Starbucks and one of the kids who works there said goodbye to me. She was going off to college. I was thrilled for her and blushingly pleased to get a kiss on the cheek (through the window, no less) and a genuine thank-you for extra tips, free college application advice, and a letter of recommendation for a scholarship over a year ago. I carried that like a lemon drop in my pocket for the rest of the day.

Today I was leaving the pharmacy, came out into the parking lot, and found a kid standing next to the car, holding his hand against the window, where Max was licking the glass. I had left him there with the engine running and AC on while I ran in to pick up meds. Too hot to leave the engine off and windows down. The kid turned around and I recognized him as a former student. He recognized me as I went inside and waited for me to tell me he'd been hired at the Providence Journal and was leaving the area. My eyes filled with tears as he told me "you're the reason I wanted to be a writer." He held out his keys, showed me the keychain I had given him many years earlier: it was the little Conjunction Junction conductor dude (I used to know his name, but forgot it) from Schoolhouse Rock. The thing was dingy from age, but there he was in his little overalls.

Warmest of all possible fuzzies!

These are my rewards. These are my blessings. These are the moments of pure, unadulterated joy that keep me going. If I stay down... if I let Pulmonary Fibrosis, life, depression, anger, or anything else keep me down, I lose. I give in, waste time, and miss out on whatever little surprise the universe has tucked away for me that day. There is always something. If you get up... if you force your negativity to back off and stalk past it with determination while it snickers, you will find rewards waiting. The sun comes up every day, and scurries through the sky with darkness behind it, closing in. Darkness will come. But so will the next dawn.

Get up. You never know what's waiting. Whatever it is will make getting up worth the effort.

Why I Don't Like Mondays

Sunday nights are always sleepless for me. Monday mornings loom over me like menacing specters, dark and threatening. I hate Mondays... mostly. They generally end well, but they always begin with misery.

Today we had the "puff test," which tells the folks at the lab how much air I'm moving around. It generally ends with a woman in scrubs glaring at me over the top rim of her half-lens glasses as if I have conspired to breath inappropriately. We all call her Nurse Wratchet behind her back.

Next comes blood samples. If my favorite phlebotomist, Kabje, is working, this is a piece of cake. Sometimes they call Ahmed in... he's not a phlebotomist, but he knows every inch of me well enough to find one good vein that will sit still. I am on drugs, currently, to improve the poor quality of my veins, which have become brittle and don't work very well. They are tiny, move, and piss people at the lab off. More glares or looks of patient annoyance usually ensue. Hey, if I could do something to stop you from making me look like a heroin addict in the last stages of life I would.

Today was extra fun. MRI... which I can now fit into since I lost so much weight but for some reason the people who do MRIs like to speculate loudly about whether or not anyone over a size 18 will fit into the machine. They know I will, but somehow it empowers them to say, in a bad imitation of a whisper, "well at least you don't have to curl in on yourself anymore, that was a nightmare before you lost weight." Just in case, you know, there are any people left who weren't in on my size.

Cool.

Then it's an IV of drugs that make me sick, tired, and achey. Drugs the NEJM are speculating to be of little use, but the newer treatments showing promise are not available to us yet, so we suck it up. We're given the option of a nap in a dark room afterward.

Me, I came here in stead. My refuge, my reward for good (okay, semi-good) behavior in the face of ickyness, my one Monday solace: the Barnes and Noble cafe. I have, before me, my laptop, my Venti iced Quad Latte and grilled Asiago Cheese Pretzel. I have Sherilynn Kenyon's new hardcover. I have two geek magazines with free DVDs containing "loads of extras," and I have quiet. I have my work, the trilogy of novels that is finally-- FINALLY-- looking like it will have the life I dreamed for it. I have Ahmed showing up in an hour or two with my new prescriptions. He always starts out aggravating me with bossiness on Mondays, but always finishes with kindness.

Which is why, in the end (literally), I keep getting up and embracing my Mondays. I hate them in the terrified, tired, fed up moments before they begin. I suffer through the bad bits. But thanks to my man and my baristas, and my laptop... well it all turns out okay in the end.

And you just have to love a happy ending, even if there's no promise of "ever after." We take what we can and ride out the rest.

GO CAL RIPKEN ALL-STARS!!!

This year's Little League World Series will include the fighting Cal Ripken All Stars from right here in my home town!

After trouncing all comers in the New England trials in Winchester, the Cal Ripken team is on their way to Arkansas to take on South Lexington, KY' Fort Smith, AK; West Linn, OR; and Siloam Springs, AK in Arkansas this month. The team of 12 year olds is expected to knock the stuffing out of everyone.

GO GET EM' KIDS!!!

Severe Diva Detox

NoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooohhhhhhhh! No!
NO! Whimper, choke, sob, nooooooo!

Romance Divas is down!

Argh! Blurgh! Mrphlllh SQL error return syntax glrphlgggrdblmb.

*twitch* %spasm% ~shudder~

Self Definition and Semantic Cowardice

Why does everyone tell me everything? Seriously, some things are great secret material.

Recently, after picking a fight, a bunch of nice people started sending emails all over creation in defense of me. Well guys-- I actually DID pick the fight. I wanted the result I got, so s'all good.

What's interesting is how quickly people start hiding behind language when caught doing something naughty, or-- even more likely-- stupid. I, too, am often amazed at how quick things spread in the cybersphere. Sometimes I think there is an organic something out there driving it. There's no way people can get word around that fast... and yet they do. When I was a teacher I noticed a similar phenomenon. Something whispered in the staff room at 9:00 am would be repeated in a loud voice outside my classroom before the bell rang for last period. The clueless masses will dismiss this and claim kids always get gossip wrong. I can tell you from experience they are incredibly accurate. They only get it wrong when they are trying to be mean.

So imagine my chagrin at learning I am being called a "fluffy bunny" and a "proselytiser" in emails, on some forums, and in PMs to which I am not privy. The only problem is every time somebody says something like that I get 75 emails. I swear I am grateful to be the most clued-in person on earth, but sometimes the burden is heavy. (That was sarcasm. I point it out since comprehension seems to be in retrograde lately.)

I wrote an article two years ago about conversion, and how it is really an abomination of religious practice. Inspiring others to belief is the job of the Divine, whatever name you give the Divine. Telling others what name to call Divinity, how to adore that which is Creation, and what rules are the only legitimate rules-- to me, that is stepping on the toes of whatever wonderful force created us and everything we have. In other words, if you preach to another person you are pretty much telling your god you know better than him or her, and intend to usurp that right.

As for the term "fluffy bunny" it may be unfamiliar to some because it is a conventional construct invented by people to whom it most likely, in a stunningly cool bit of irony, refers. No hereditary/generational/linear I have ever known will use it unless they do so to make fun of those who employ it. It's a bit like a bigot using the words "politically correct" to excuse ignorance, cruelty, intolerance, and stupidity. While the first people to use the term were trying to battle ridiculous trends on college campuses, it was hijacked by dirtbags who loved being able to hide behind it. "I am about to say something inappropriate and ill informed. Don't be politically correct on me and point out my moronishness." Don't you just love it? People who use the term "fluffy bunny" are trying to be dismissive of others who don't believe the way they do.
They very often identify "fluffy bunnies" as people who convert to new-agey versions of paganism in order to seem cool, piss off their parents, or identify themselves as intriguingly different.

Trouble is, it's almost always a kid in a black goth getup with a face full of piercings who went to Our Lady of the Immaculate Assumptions of Cluelessness and Light saying it. But he or she is a rebel, and it's really about those OTHER people, donchaknow.

I don't defend my own beliefs since they need no defense. While many have heard me defend the practices of just-about-everyone my religious practices are personal, and you won't see me sharing them with strangers as a general rule. If I'm discussing religion or spirituality in public it is usually from a cultural standpoint. What I'm getting at is this: nobody currently making stupid statements about what I believe knows what I believe. They would never be included among the people I would share that with. And they will always get it wrong because I would defend anyone, no matter how stupid what they believed appeared to be. Everyone gets to decide for themselves.

But you will find plenty of people accusing me of rabid liberalism. I will say, right here in public, that I generally vote republican, though I prefer socially liberal policies on things like gay marriage and free expression. You will certainly hear me called a Christian fanatic when I defend Christians. I like Jesus and Mary and the New Testament Posse. Defending some of those ideals and people who practice them doesn't make me the next Jerry Falwell... and the notion is pretty hysterical to anyone who really does know me.

You'll even hear that I'm a fluffy bunny, which may be the ultimate irony. Nobody knows where my roots end. Nobody can squint far enough to see where the branches tickle the sky. But five will get you ten somebody who looked just like me shook Patrick's hand and told him "no thanks, but stop by for dinner" on a green hill a very long time ago.

If only they'd had email then. We'd all be able to read the transcript!

Banned at Absolute Write!

I went on a recent campaign to get banned at Absolute Write's forums. Why? Am I nuts? What on earth could I be thinking?One of the last acceptable forms of prejudice (along with size bigotry), is religious intolerance of wiccans, pagans, witches, and anyone (really) who isn't Christian. I really dislike bigotry. I mean, I hate bigotry the way... well ignorant people hate everyone else. So when a thread discussing the "dangers" of pagan/wiccan/witchy elements in Harry Potter became insulting, I clarified two positions held by me (and nobody was asked to conform to them):

1. It is inherently prejudiced to imply that references to "real" paganism/witchcraft make a book dangerous for children.

2. When someone identified spells in a specific way, saying they differed from prayer, I pointed out that MANY pagans, wiccans, and witches don't differentiate, and perform spellwork just as some would say a prayer. I certainly don't claim this is done everywhere, but it has become quite common.

This resulted in a forum member quoting the dictionary, and other telling me these definitions were fact, and that this was non-debatable.
For those who practice the faiths in question, this will be an obvious error. For idiots, not so much. Many religions and spiritual practices exist without rigid requirements, guidelines, and sets of rules. It is, in fact, the most appealing quality for many converts to paganism, wicca, or witchcraft. The large numbers of "solitaries" are most likely in part, at least, a result of this openness.

I never called any individual a bigot, but I did say I felt the thread was starting to stink of bigotry. I think insisting that a person's faith/religion/belief system is defined by others, can't be flexible, and is closed to discussion by any but those who see it as threatening to children... well, yeah, that would be bigotry.

So I deliberately picked a fight, said I was doing so, and hoped (probably in vain) somebody would suddenly realize how incredibly arrogant, ignorant, and insulting it was to tell another person what he or she believed... whether he or she liked it or not.

This message met me just a few minutes ago:

You have been banned for the following reason:

You need to step back, cool off, and research your own religion.

Date the ban will be lifted: 08-10-2007, 01:00 AM

I'm sort of hoping I can avoid the lift by blogging about it. I've never once had so much as a warning there until this topic came up... and weirdly, the same topic has taken place in a reading group I moderate for kids. Nobody has been so much as mildly rude. But they're young and haven't learned how to be asshats yet.

I KNOW I will get email and/or comments indicating I am an idiot for deliberately picking this fight. And that's a valid opinion. I simply believe that some things are worth fighting over, and people like me-- the pissy wenches of the world-- are good at doing it.

And if you don't find the wording funny you need to get out more. The irony is priceless.

Boycotting Avon Romance?

It may seem like an extreme response, but last weekend 6 of my close friends (who also happen to be avid readers, a few also writers) announced that they had sent letters to Avon, the romance publisher, informing them they'd decided to boycott all Avon romances in response to the horrible cover art depicting anorexic females. I've complained about this in the past, as well. Most recently a book specifically addressing body image, size acceptance, and celebrating a plump female protagonist was marketed with a disturbingly thin woman on the cover. This isn't just bad marketing... it's insulting.

And it IS a trend for Avon. But I must admit, my friends (who indicated that several others were joining them) have more dedication than I. A few of my absolute favorite authors write for Avon. Eloisa James, Suzanne Enoch, Julia Quinn... I don't know if I could survive without them in my library!

But I must admit... this thing has been bothering me for a long time. We're not talking about slender women who don't match the description of the lady inside the cover. That's annoying, and it happens a lot, but it's not so much offensive as stupid. Consistently slapping freakishly thin models done in emaciated pastels, with arms so twiggy they appear skeletal, is irresponsible, offensive, and unhealthy. Worse, it perpetuates a negative impression many have of romance readers and romance itself: that we are vapid, stupid women who live in a fantasy land.

Will I be putting Avon books back on the shelf? I wish I could be gutsy enough to say "yes." It will certainly require some careful thought and soul searching.