Balls and Walnuts
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Pulpy Goodness
Check out the first chapter of Smart Bitch Candy’s serialized novel, The Book of Angels.
Candy is only a few thousand words into this, but she has already given us a ball-busting heroine, an eldritch book used for summoning the elder gods, one dwarf-snuffing, and one ninja demon-killer, with the promise of some serious demon foo soon to come.
Who needs literature?!
How to Avoid Spiders
Hi, Tarantula Lady here.
In defense of spiders, I’ve got to say, they’re not as bad as you might think. No spider is interested in attacking a human; they just want to get away. If you learn a little bit about them, you can avoid most problems.
1) Black widows and brown recluse spiders can be dangerous but they are very reluctant to bite you; they’d rather escape. In order to be bitten, you have to corner them somehow and then press your skin against them. NEVER kill them by crushing them against your skin. You’ll drive their fangs in and envenomate yourself. It’s like jabbing yourself with a poisonous needle. If they get on you, brush them off and then nail them with something like a flyswatter if you want to kill them.
2) If you see a spider wandering around your house, it’s a male looking for a mate. I don’t have a big problem with someone killing it, since the critter doesn’t have much longer to live, probably a few months at best. However, he isn’t interested in attacking you; he just wants to meet up with a female.
3) Spiders don’t live in your toilet. There are no documented cases of someone being bitten on the ass while sitting on the toilet.
4) Spiders don’t bite you in the exact center of your forehead while you’re sleeping at night. There have been reports of people developing ulcers in the middle of their foreheads which are blamed on house spiders. It’s way too suspicious that the “bite” is so precisely located in the exact center. I think these people have shingles since that disease has a symmetric pattern of rashes and sores.
5) Spiders are not well studied animals because pesticide companies won’t fund any research on them. They’re beneficial predators and farmers _don’t_ want to kill them. Only harmful pests get lots of research. However, a heart medication has been developed from the venom of a Mexican Red Knee tarantula.
6) Tarantulas are big and hairy but a lot of them are bizarrely good natured. No one has ever died or developed ANY permanent health problems from a tarantula bite; it might be rather painful, though. Most New World species are docile and can be handled with very little danger but there are some exceptions; they also have VERY irritating hairs so leave them alone unless you read up on them. If you see tarantulas wandering around at night in the Southwest, they’re, you guessed it, short-lived males looking for a mate. The females stay safe in their underground burrows. Old World species can be pretty foul-tempered, but, hey, they’re not in the U.S. or much in Europe. They’re predominantly in the warmer parts in Africa and southern Asia. They can’t survive in colder regions like northern Europe. There are no native U.S. tarantula species east of the Mississippi; there is one small colony of escapees in an orange grove in Florida.
7) Full-grown tarantulas don’t suddenly erupt from cacti. In the U.S., most tarantulas live in arid regions in the southwest. The females generally stay in their burrows. After mating, she’ll build an eggsac, and after a few months, 1/4″ spiderlings emerge. They usually disperse but a few may hang around Mom who will feed and take care of them.
That’s everything I can come up with right now. If people want to avoid a particular type of animal, they should learn a little about them. It’ll be easier to figure out ways to stay away from them.
Arachnophobia!
Not two years ago, if I found a spider in the bathroom I’d scream like a banshee. Just ask my wife.
“Karen! A spider!”
“So?”
“Do something, anything!”
Yes, those were the days. A time of peace and tranquility, when I didn’t share my bedroom with forty tarantulas. Yeah, you heard me.
It wasn’t always this way. As a kid, I used to catch flies and throw them into spider webs. And before you ask, no, I didn’t wet the bed, set fires, or torture small animals (except by feeding flies to spiders, of course).
I’m not sure when spiders began creeping me out, or why. I do know that I got over it fairly quickly. Nothing like constant exposure to take you past your fears.
Once Karen started collecting, oh boy did she start collecting. She says it’s a chick thing.
Think about it. Tarantulas could be feminist mascots. The females are bigger, faster, smarter, and longer-lived than males. They control the sexual encounter, not the boys. For every time a male eats a female, it goes the other way 1000 times. Nor does the female always eat the male after sex. If she has a good time, she’s free to keep him around for future flings.
But back to the main focus of this blog: me. I mean, arachnophobia. I still won’t let the tarantulas crawl on me, but I help Karen out from time to time. Lifting cages, for example — I’m good at that. And pointing things out. “Oooh, Karen, look at the fat ass on that one.”
For the arachnophobes in my audience, I’m going to give you a gradual introduction to spiders. Desensitization therapy: that’s the name of the game. We’ll begin with the new image for Karen’s blog (over there on the right somewhere). Isn’t she cute? And so yummy, too. Is there anything better than candy corn fangs?
D.
Sociobiology of Boobage 101
In 1983, Vincent Sarich taught a course at Berkeley called “The Evolution of Human Behavior.” He let us know on the first day that the class was experimental. He had some rough ideas about course content — some things he wanted to talk about, a handful of ideas he wanted to share.
Sounded like good clean fun, and we really did have a blast, too. Professor Sarich (that grizzly teddy bear on the left) was good to his word. He talked, we listened — and argued with him, of course.
For a final exam, he asked us to write three short essays on topics of our own choosing. They had to be somewhat relevant to the course, but beyond that, we were on our own. My three topics:
Genius, a maladaptive trait
Why are hiccups contagious?
The Road Warrior: a sociobiologic perspective
I got an A+.
Funny thing, though. I’ve only retained two things from that class. One is a concept: the Tragedy of the Commons (see the Wikipedia article here, or the original article here), which suggests that folks will always choose their own self interest over the common good, even to their ultimate detriment. If you’re curious about this, I recommend you start with the Wiki article, since it is shorter than the original article and has considerably more perspective.
The other thing I learned in Professor Sarich’s class is why men love cleavage. “I want to talk about breasts today,” he said, except that with his slight speech impediment it came out “breashts.” “Why are they so appealing?”
The traditional sociobiological interpretation is that large breasts are desirable because they translate to well fed babies. Sociobiology was big back then. Still is, for all I know. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s the basic idea. Our behavior is ruled by our genes, and in particular, our genes’ desire to pass on more of themselves to the next generation. “But,” you argue, “genes are not sentient.” Pshaw! Genes don’t have to be sentient to find ways of furthering their own interests.
Back to boobs. Professor Sarich contended that the sociobiologists were wrong. Men don’t love breasts because they want well fed babies. Men crave hooters because of a cross-wiring problem. You see, men get boobs confused with butts:
always gave me wood.
It’s gotta be true.
D.
Support Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan, the woman who has camped out in front of Bush’s ranch, demanding answers — that’s who. For my Canadian and European readers, learn more about Cindy’s story here, at Daily Kos. You’ll find a wealth of links in the right-hand side bar.
Through her heroism, Cindy has done more to expose the President’s cowardice than anyone in the main stream media to date.
You can support Cindy by donating to her cause. We did.
D.
Last Bird Fluffing
Last Girl Dancing by Holly Lisle
My pal Debi keeps telling me I should write romance, but I don’t know. She’s basing her opinion on the fact I can write hot bird-on-bird and fly-on-spider sex scenes. But, really — how tough is that?
The real challenge would be to create believable (human) male and female characters*, get ’em to fall in love, and have the reader care about them. I’ve never tried this, but I suspect it’s a lot tougher than it sounds. For one thing, I’d have to crawl into a female skin and imagine sexual attraction from a female POV. I don’t have any homophobic resistance to doing this; I’m just not sure I could. Men are . . . well, you know. Icky.
Holly Lisle takes on the challenge in her “police procedural romance” (one Amazon reviewer’s description of the genre) Last Girl Dancing. Lisle shifts back and forth between her female and male leads, and does a respectable job on both. I liked Jess Brubaker, the aggressive workaholic cop who finds herself with a dirty, dangerous, and soon to be very personal assignment. Jess is beautiful, sexy, self-sufficient, but also broken, emotionally wounded. Thirteen years ago, her twin sister went missing while working as a stripper. Jess went into the police force to find Ginny, but she hasn’t been successful. Now she’s being asked to pose as an exotic dancer to track down a serial killer specializing in strippers.
I also liked Hank Kamian, the male lead. Hank, a martial arts instructor, is a former Ranger who sustained some serious wartime injuries. He also carries more than a few emotional scars, but he doesn’t piss and moan about things. Hank is a man’s man. Think Clint Eastwood circa High Plains Drifter, or Mel Gibson circa Road Warrior, before he got all flaky. Think Jake Barnes with functional equipment.
Hank’s a wee bit psychic: enough that he gets strong (and usually reliable) impressions from crime scenes, not so much that the story is over by page 20. Part of the fun here is watching Hank use his power to try to figure out Jess in the early phases of their relationship. A creep would use this knack to bed every woman in sight, but not Hank. He’s a good man — no, wait. He’s a Good Man, and it’s clear women readers are supposed to dig him.
Lisle does a great job setting and sustaining a creepy atmosphere. I didn’t care much for the mystery, but I’m not a big fan of police procedurals. (Full disclosure: I think I’ve read two or three in my life.) I read it for the romance, and enjoyed it as such. Romantic tension mounts steadily as Hank and Jess circle each other, trying their best to avoid the plunge. But, as the Borg say, resistance is futile. After they’ve hooked up, we have the added anxiety of (1) hoping Jess doesn’t get herself killed, and (2) hoping the murder investigation doesn’t trash their fragile relationship.
So: could I do this? According to what I’ve read over at Smart Bitches, there are a few men who write romance (under female pseudonyms, apparently). I wonder how their work differs from that of their female counterparts. And are they all gay?
I thought of a more interesting question, but I’m going to preface it with an observation. Men crave love and affection every bit as much as women. Why, then, is there no male counterpart to the romance genre? In other words: male protag seeks and ultimately finds love, aimed at a male readership. Women would read it. But how would you get men to read it, too?
. . . Without putting lots of sex in it, cuz that would be cheating.
D.
*One each, naturally, to keep the grand old dames of the RWA well plastered with frigid rictuses.
God, the greatest, miracle worker
Yes, that is punctuated correctly.
Those of you who know me are probably thinking, “OMG, what’s he done now.” Nothing, nothing. Only my job. And yet that was enough to earn me those three complements today.
It wasn’t even, “He’s a god.” It was, “He’s God.”
The lightning bolt has not struck yet, but let me tempt Him further. If I’m Him, why haven’t I allowed Me to win the bloody Super Lotto? Why can’t I heal my wife and son of their ailments (not to mention my loathesome summer cold)? Oh, yeah — I work in mysterious ways. I should know better than to question Myself.
Profound question for the evening: why is that the only pronouns we capitalize are for Him — the Big Guy — with one exception: I, I, I, I, I?
Back to my happy patients. As much as I’d like to believe I’m doing that spectacular a job, I know better. Truth is, many patients (especially those who haven’t been burned yet by the medical community) really want to believe this. A German friend once told me that in his country, there’s a phrase for doctors: Demigotts im weiss* = demigods in white. Folks want to think we’re either channeling God or we have a direct line to Him, no call waiting. It’s comforting to think that.
Kevin Sorbo as Hercules: another demigod in white
Scarier is the fact that many doctors believe this, too. Even those of us who understand our limitations have to admit we didn’t have the cleanest reasons for joining the biz. Yes, sure, I wanted to help people. But didn’t my fear of sickness and death have more than a little to do with it, too? And don’t I have (at some level) the irrational idea that my MD gives me a Platinum Card with the Lord? That I can, in fact, put off my own death indefinitely, just by being a doctor?
In the face of all this psychological weirdness, it’s tough as hell being agnostic.
And for you newbies, please don’t ask me if I’ve been saved.
So I feel the need to come out and say this, say it in supersized font, even though the folks who read this blog are smart enough to know it already. But here goes.
Doctors are human.
Pretty scary, huh?
D.
*Gabriele — did I remember that right?
I am Bluestar.
Yea, though we duggest ourselves a mighty hole of debt, we compromised not for our killer range. Meet the 36″ RNB Bluestar, the primo bitchenest 36″ range on the planet. “Largest oven capacity available on a 36″ range; the most powerful burner available, 22,000 BTU; accomodates a full-size commercial 18″ x 26″ baking sheet; 24″ depth.”
This range is for a real kitchen where a real man is gonna cook, not one of those poofy, “Oh, look how rich I am!” show kitchens. Hot enough to transmute base metals into gold, durable enough to survive wormhole travel; and it gives sensual massages, too.
Today we checked the status of the Money Pit and saw, in the middle of our torn-up living room floor, Our Precious, still wrapped in her factory plastic, a smug vision of culinary voluptuousness. “I am Bluestar,” she whispered. “Thirty years from now, when you’re still working nights in the ER to pay off your quintuple mortgage, you’ll come home and see me, every bit as beautiful and functional as I am today, and you’ll know it has all been worthwhile.”
“I’ve been burned before,” I said. “Say you won’t hurt me like the others.”
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even see straight.
“I’ll burn you worse than any woman has ever burned you before,” she continued. “You know I will. But I can promise you one thing: I’ll always be here for you.”
“You will?”
“You gorgeous man: as long as I have gas in my pipes, I’ll be the hottest thing you’ve ever touched. My love for you will never cool.”
And, somehow, those words made it all worthwhile.
D.
The Political Bedfellows list grows longer
Newest additions to the family:
Yep, Another Goddamned Blog, wherein author Jurassicpork skewers the skewer-worthy in today’s Assclowns of the Week awards ceremony. Make sure you scroll down to his Thursday post on Unintelligent Design — that Planet of the Apes pic is priceless.
In The News Blog, Steve & Jen fight the good fight deconstructing the daily news.
The Actual Bedfellows list remains unchanged, but I suspect that’s how Karen would prefer to have it.
I was up late last night playing doctor, so this is what ya get, fiends. LINKS. This is also the first weekend in ages when I haven’t worked on my novel, but that may not be such a bad thing. Get a life, and all that. (Although I’m not sure seven hours at the fair is what you’d call living.)
D.