To Be and To Become

So...

I was doing laundry today and letting the random flotsam & jetsam that drifts through my mind do its thing, when something occurred to me as I was folding the clothes:

the idea of human beings being "unique" because we are tool users, and the question of biology versus being.

Well, there are plenty of other living creatures that use tools: birds build nests for shelter, certain apes use twigs to remove insects from holes, there's a species of octopus that carries discarded coconut shell halves around to use as a portable hide-a-hole.

Somehow, in my mind, I thought about gender, identity, its construction, reconstruction, and assignment.

And I thought and thought...

Human beings are not born with shells - so we "discovered" caves, then learned to build homes. We're not born with fur, so we learned how to make clothes. We don't have wings, but we build planes. We cannot breathe underwater, we created submersibles, SCUBA, and submarines. We can't see at night, we can't sting our enemies, at least, not as part of our biological gifts, but we can don night vision goggles, shoot arrows, bombs, and bullets.

There's a section in TH White's "Once and Future King" (and yeah, I know, some people hate it, but I don't) about when God speaks to all the embryos/creatures created and asks them what they want. They ask for hands like spades and special teeth, and bills and gills and all such manner of things. But the human embryo asks to remain an embryo since that is its original design and in doing so, answers a riddle that the creatures didn't realize had been posed.

And it hit me, these questions and answers about who and how and why we are, in the ways we can change, the ways we don't, the things we argue about as right and wrong.

Our bodies...are NOT our destiny. Sure, there are things that are limited by biology, and so, we use a knife to cut meat, a shovel to dig, a rocket to reach the moon, a surgeon to fix a tear, change a face, or even a persona.

We are not merely tool users, we are tool innovators, constant Manifestors and Evolvers of Potential, individually and collectively.

It seems the more esoteric philosophers are patently and materially (as in real-world) correct: we dream, and we become, through years of trial and error, via shifts in perspective and in our every day actions.

All of it, these palpable touchable things, from medicine to machines - are the literal material manifestation of dreams. And none of these things - from the "minor" every day of clothes and shelter, to the "major miracles" of our current modernity - absolutely none of them emerge with us from the womb.

We are squeezed out bloody, helpless, and naked. We are given a body that follows a basic template. Some of what happens after that is dependent on our surrounding environment, but the rest? It is absolutely, positively, 100% up to us.

To be human is to be a modifier - and to build upon the accomplishments that precede. What do you want to be? Someone invented SCUBA and the submarine, Orville and Wilbur Wright gave us wings. A team of human beings brought us to the moon, gave us ears and eyes that penetrate deep into the night skies, discovered how to sculpt flesh.

We once wore skins, now we have designers. We lived in caves, now we have architects. We listened to the radio, now we exchange - sometimes "real time" - information via the internet.

We change our environment, from paint to temperature, to suit our needs, moods, and moments. We use machines to accomplish things that are biologically impossible - for humans. We consider none of this "unnatural" and in fact, consider those unable to do so deprived.

And so I concluded: you don't like your hair? You cut it, tint it, shape it, hide it. You can correct and color your eyes. You want to fly? Take a plane. Swim in reefs? Get the appropriate tools. And if you're a boy who wants to be a girl, or a girl who wants to be a boy...you fix that, too, in whatever way works for you.

Now I've got to walk the dog. Wonder what I'll think about next!

In the Blue Moon of the New Year

...things have started off in an interesting way. I've been watching as one day at a time, things that seemed so remote a possibility as to be improbably have become actualities. It makes me think that yes, this is THAT year, the one where dreams and wishes so often and dearly longed for and perhaps even relegated "forgotten" can come true.

And so...I wonder. And I dream. And Hope, that tiny little niggle that drives us, that can take us to the edge of despair then drop us over, raises her head, proves she's hard to swallow and outlives even the worst of all possibilities.

On a professional level, there's a lot going on: I'm literally in the thick of three new novel titles:

Tin Can Knights

I Am the Gun

The Gabriel

Work is also progressing (slowly but surely) on two graphic novel/comic titles: Sakura Gun and Three Dragons. Interestingly enough, there are also companion novels for these, so not including other sequels (and yes, for those waiting, they will be coming - one of the is in progress, another two are in the very early outlining process).

I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but it's all stuff I'm looking forward to.

On a personal level, I've made some amazing new friends, learned, grown, and have taken some very definitive steps in new and better directions. I am extremely lucky to have the family I do, and I've finally figured the trick of balancing my time - so I can spend more of it with them, as well as with all of you :-)

Amazing what can happen during a Blue Moon, no?

Rock on!

JD

PS: For those in town, I'll be doing a reading/signing/q&a at Bluestockings bookstore in NYC, January 30th @ 7pm, along with Rachel Kramer Bussel and Cheri Crystal. I'm very much looking forward to seeing as many as can make it!

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?