Behind the Curtain

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic, not just for me, but probably for everyone. There's been holiday shopping & prepping, there's been severely ill family members, there's a deadline for writing and for recording.

Of course, there's also the not-invisible background that critical things in my actual life are being decided by people I've never met but have somehow ended up with the power to declare whether or not I'm entitled to the same rights as every other human being...ho hum.

That's why I don't watch tv ;-)

All these balls are being juggled somehow -- and with the exception of the recording, most things are proceeding a bit more slowly than I'd like (in the case of the political arena, much more slowly, but that's another story).

Anyhow, this is an open letter so to speak, to everyone who has emailed, facebooked, myspace messaged, and otherwise gotten in touch with me only to receive a shorter answer than usual: I'm sorry. There's a LOT going on -- most of it good, and all of it that's productive, I'm certain you'll enjoy in the near future.

In the meanwhile, I'd also like to thank Queers On the Verge for this:

http://queersotv.com/FVWweek2.html and for those that asked what's coming up, here's the list :-D:

1) January: Reading/Signing/Q&A @ Bluestockings with several other authors in (date to be announced super soon)

2) February: is my Birthday (and yes, I celebrate all month long :-D)

3) March: Interview w/ Q&A on blog-talk radio, interview in Curve Magazine and...release of the first single from The Charm Alarm's newest recording

4) April: Deadlines need to be met (and boy, do they!)

5) May: Gigs with The Charm Alarm, and a couple o' few reading/signing things

6) June: Yet another deadline, and the rest is to be planned...

I'm laughing at myself - there's so much more than that going on, but these are the things I can discuss at the moment. Maybe in another day or so, I'll have some sketches done during "down time" while recording to share with y'all. For now, here's a shot taken while I was paying attention to something else in the studio: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4150832&id=148962983091

Hope everyone's having a wonderful December so far.

Rock on!

JD

It's funny, being a 'creative" person - generally speaking, people think you just "sit down and do it" - meaning, no effort, no sweat involved. Well, sometimes, there's sweat;, sometimes there's joy, and sometimes...there's a pencil sharpener.

Yes. A pencil sharpener. While working out (meaning layoing out the groundwork) for a new project, I pulled out my handy-dandy pencil, a sharpener, and an eraser (because there's a lot of foundation lines even in a sketch). I let my hands do what they needed to do, which is learn what I challnenged them to: some new poses, positions, styles. And...this is what they came up with: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30857987&id=1069085664

Tomorrow will see me in the studio, in fact, the rest of this week will be a little cyber-quiet because I'll literally be in the studio with The Charm Alarm recording our new album, but I may get a little downtime here and there, and if I do, maybe there'll be some more sketches, maybe even some completed ones - to share. Happy Turkey Day to all those celebrating!!

JD

Once Upon A Time...Part 2

He was large where she was small, she was quick where he was deliberate. He was of Earth and Water, she was of Air and Fire and between them, they were both carried by and bore steel.

And so in the first few days, they reconnected and rediscovered one another, delighted to find that what they had enjoyed in the last budding of childhood had blossomed into something fine and beautiful, a true friendship that would have no compare.

In the many hours of the many days and nights they worked together, these Knights (for such they had become) saved lives, really and truly and on more than several occasions, each other's as well.

In the quiet times in between, in the desperate times during, and in the sorrow and rage that would inevitably follow after witnessing and being unable to truly aid in one of those many situations that prove that Evil, though usually hidden, does on occasion bare its face to all (and no, you may not ask, dear reader, for they were sworn to protect you from it and I have promised to do so as well), they healed each other, too.

Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they listened to music, and other times, they let the silent comfort of an unconditional and unbreakable Love fill the space between them as they sat in the front of their tin can, attempting to grasp the "why" of the unmentionable.

But it was not only the job they shared and spoke of; together they shed tears and blood, laughter and hope, for in their closeness, they spoke of and told each other everything (EVERY thing) and in that baring of primal self to one another, they knew in an unspoken way, that they were connected, and nothing on Earth, above it, below it, or within it, could ever change that. They had not only truly become Best Friends, they realized that they shared a soul.

Now, dear reader, I'm sure you are wondering why they were Best Friends and not something other, and the reason behind that is simple: not all soul mates are lovers (nor are they meant to be) and these two had already pledged their hearts to others: he to a woman who became the mother of his children, and she to a woman whose fire matched her own.

One day, during a silent moment in between calls, our two Knights had grabbed some pork fried rice (for they were very hungry after the last adventure!) and parked their tin can in an old parking lot that faced the bay. The island that held the Navel of the World sat before them, the bridge from their forgotten burg to the Holy Land of Brooklyn soared across their right.

They ignored their neighbor, another who sat in a similar tin can, for he was not a true Knight as ours measured them: he had just revealed that he took pictures of some of those difficult scenes - not to teach or to learn from - but to make ugly jokes of, and our heroes had just been made unhappily privy to both.

Both disturbed and uneasy that such a one as that was among their number, and so they sat in their ambulance and ate in grey silence, not even the radio on to disguise the occasional call of the gulls that wheeled before their windshield.

He was a Knight who served the Light and had knowledge of steel, for such had once been his trade. His thoughts turned in the quiet until finally he said aloud, "Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a sword that could never be handled by anyone that wasn't pure of heart?"

She was a Knight who served the Light and had knowledge of swords (for that was one of her past-times, despite the fact that both women and women with weapons are frowned upon). His words fired her imagination, stirred her knowledge of things esoteric as well as her memories of an amazing tale she had read (that had in part, set her on her path. It was titled Daggerspell and written by an amazing person named Katherine Kerr, should you be bold enough to begin that journey, brave reader) and she sat up from her slump and gazed at him.

"It would need something special, something magical, changed, charged, at its core," she told him and he agreed.

They stared at one another for a moment, excitement filling the air between them.

"I know what it should be!" he declared and a huge grin broke across his face. "I know how to make it!"

And he told her, and her delight grew and matched his. "I know who should wield it!" she answered.

She pulled out her pen and some scrap pieces of paper (napkins from the Chinese food). They talked hurriedly, she wrote frantically, for at any moment, the radio could and would go off, sending our Knights out into danger again.

But it was in that exact moment the seed for a new world was planted - and this is where the story really begins.

Once Upon A Time...Part 1

...in the forgotten borough of a city that many considered the navel of the world, there lived a boy and a girl and in the way of boys and girls that they knew, they met in a comic book store and shared occasional afternoons discussing the delights of the worlds they found therein, enjoyed flights of art and fancy, and shared theories and opinion on various books they enjoyed.

And though they were not the best of friends (for the boy was a few years older than the girl and their circles ran a bit differently at the time) they were still quite fond of one another. Still, in the natural "way of things," they lost touch for a little while.

This was important and necessary, because the girl still had growing to do (being very young still) and the boy was first discovering his footing through the world as a man.

Because of this, and because it was the trade of his father, the boy (now a young man) became a steel worker, and this he did for several years. The girl still had to finish high school and begin college.

But our now young-man was unhappy working with steel, preferring to swing it instead, and the girl, who was now a young woman, had more interest in saving damsels (and others) in distress rather than becoming one.


Both had been very affected by those books they had read at such tender age (and this, dear reader, should warn you that what you read you may very well become, so be very careful of what you let into your mind).


They each pondered the problem and despite the separation of time and space (for how did one become a hero-knight in a land where heroes were considered a fairy-tale found only in the books they had read, and steel in public frowned upon) they each hit upon the same solution.

And so it came to pass that one fine chilly spring morning, the young woman would walk into an ambulance base for her first day at this particular location and be assigned as a partner to the young man who had been her friend.

Such was the beginning of the order of the Tin Can Knights (and the Brotherhood of Blood, but that is another story).

Toys In the Attic

Spent the majority of today writing, and one of the things my character was focused on was a toy from childhood and that special toy, small and worthless as it is, is invaluable to her. It's a key to so much...

It made me think about that one thing, the one special thing, that I have from a time almost before I have memory.

It's a pair of boats, simple boats, made of wood. One's painted green, the other a mustard yellow.

Both were made by my Dad, one for me, one for my brother. The paint on the bottoms of both is mostly worn off, but not the our names written in indelible ink.

It was only about a year and a half ago that my brother and I looked at them very closely and discovered that if you look carefully under the paint on the smokestacks, you can see, stamped and stenciled in tiny letters, that my father named those boats after our Mom.

What's your special toy? What's that one thing that you have that's the key to that special place, days of endless summer or never-ending dreams?

Con Part XI

Well...it was a long time ago. I'm grateful for family and friends that helped me find my way when I realized it was time, and more than, to leave the dark hole I'd been living in.

It was an effort, a tremendous one, to make myself eat, to still my hands and not seek to make the outside bleed like the inside did until finally, one day, it just didn't happen anymore.

And...I found my way, my path, a path that eventually took me so very far away from those days: I ate, I worked, I played, and on a day I didn't expect it, I fell in love. She was...is...the most amazing person I know, and as my mind swam forward through the years to the present, I understood, understood in ways I'd never had before, why.

"We were so good together," she said, almost a whisper into the breeze as it lightly blew the hair about her shoulders. "We could have had everything." We both watched as she twisted the ring that sat on her finger.

The soft chime in my pocket startled us both, and back to the present, I pulled my cell phone out. "Hey baby," I greeted softly. The tone that rang I'd programmed just for her. "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine, baby--I'm on my way. Where are you?"

I smiled. "That's not necessary, Tee--this thing ends in another hour or so, and I'll be home before you know it."

"Dork." She laughed, that light sound that I loved to hear and lifted my heart with it. "I'm already at the Center--I've met a dozen Jedi knights, several Stormtroopers and three Batmans, and I just passed the place you're supposed to be. Let me guess--you're outside smoking?"

"Not exactly," I chuckled, "just the one -- only half."

"Hey, I see you!" she said excitedly. "I'm right by the door."

"Don't come out, it's cold," I cautioned, "I'll come in to you." I could see her face through the glass not twenty feet away and I waved before I put my phone back in my pocket.

"No," I said finally to Beth, "we couldn't. But I do, now."

I walked away and left her there, not knowing or caring if she watched or followed and as I pulled the heavy glass door open, I felt it rush out and over me when Tee pulled me into her arms, a blanket that spoke of warmth and love. I was loved, I was loved...I was loved. And I loved just as much in return.

I breathed it in, the scent and feel of her, my life in my hands and held close against my body, my heart thudding against her chest as I nuzzled into her neck. "I'm so glad you're here," I murmured, then took her face gently within my hands and kissed her.

"Mmm...me, too," she agreed. "The lab called, just a little while ago," she added softly.

"Yeah?" I asked just as quietly and I felt my body go still. "What did they say?"

"They said," she began, then reached up the slightest bit to kiss my nose, "that we're both going to need to watch the stress levels, because we are." She leaned back to grin at me, the smile lighting her face even more.

"We 'are'?" I repeated dumbly, a smile breaking across my face to match the band of light that spanned my chest.

Tee nodded.

"We are!" I whispered, awed, and pulled her close to me again.

I felt rather than saw Beth walk by.

"Who is that?" Tee asked, staring at her back as she disappeared into the crowd.

"No one," I said, and kissed her fingers before I let them go to wrap my arm around her shoulders. "No one that matters."

Con Part X

It wasn't the cold, and it wasn't the ringing in my head. It wasn't even the heavy sound of wind that rushed through my ears or the strange heaviness that filled me from the diaphragm down.

It was something simple: my hand. I couldn't move my hand and it was the near panic at losing that sort of control over something so very basic that set my heart to racing and my breath catching in my chest as I tried to sit up.

"Baby, take it easy," Beth's voice soothed, her hands pressed against my chest and as I looked over her head, I saw my brother, my brother whom I hadn't seen since just before Beth, I, we...

"Get your hands away from her - you've done enough."

It was an easy enough story to put together - we'd almost been side swiped on the left side by another vehicle and in an attempt to avoid the car in front of us, the rapid deceleration caused the car behind to slam into us which threw our vehicle into the right lane where we then hit another car, then flipped.

Noah had protected me from the drum case that had tumbled our way, but no one could have prevented my arm from breaking between my body and the second side impact.

And no one could have prevented the internal damaged wreaked by the sharp blow against my lower back.

I myself wasn't permantly injured but...I felt a very quiet sorrow that settled somewhere in my chest when I realized what it meant.

We never made it to the show - and while Noah had shattered an ankle, he could still play. The show would go on without me, I went home, an uneasy truce drawn between my brother and Beth, a heavy cloud over my head that didn't lift, even when ensconced in our bed with the whispered reassurances that the loss wasn't my fault, that in time we'd try again.

It wasn't that I didn't want to do that with her, for her - it was the thought of doing it again, the same way that made me want to scream defiance.

But I knew how emotionally fragile Beth was and for the time being, forebore from telling her that I'd be willing to do anything but that, not again. It had hurt not my body so much, though there had been that, too, but my mind. I was starting to think I still wasn't over the sheer shock of the whole thing.

I tried, in my own way, to suggest we do something slightly different, something not so...well, it didn't matter. Beth was convinced that it was beautiful, that it would be fine, and

I started to cut myself again in places that wouldn't be seen when Beth wasn't home, and once the cast was fully off, I stopped eating.