Tomorrow is Election Day, the most beautiful and frustrating day to be an American. Beautiful because we get to vote when so many in the world still can't; frustrating because there is, so often, so little to choose from.

This midterm election, we can take away Republican control of the House, and possibly even the Senate. Yes, Democrats are all-too-often Republicans Lite, but there is a better chance that they will get us the hell out of Iraq, and certainly more (unfortunately, not all) of them support gay marriage and abortion rights, two of my hot-button topics.

If you live in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia or Wisconsin: PLEASE get out there and vote against the state constitutional amendments that would ban same-sex marriage. Even if you think it's hopeless in your state, take a few friends with you to the polls and run the numbers up as high as you can. Discrimination is as ugly and dirty as love is beautiful and clean--it's your bounden duty to fight it.

Vote!

Holy crap! This election year is turning into a free-for-all attack on novelists. First Texas Democrat Fred Head lambastes (look it up, Fred) his opponent Susan Combs for writing a "pornographic" romance novel, now U.S. Senator George Allen of Virginia is going after Democrat Jim Webb, whose military novels Allen calls "demeaning to women." This, he hopes, will help him win the women's vote, which at the moment seems pretty much split between the candidates.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch article (linked above):

"How can women trust Jim Webb to represent their views in the Senate when chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitative references run throughout his fiction and nonfiction writings?" said Kay Coles James, human services secretary during Allen's governorship, from 1994-98.

"More importantly, what type of mind commits these thoughts to paper -- in such graphic detail?" added the conservative activist in a statement released by Allen.

Uh, Kay and George? That would be a writer's mind. They pay us to come up with all kinds of interesting situations which you may or may not like--may not be intended to like, even. There are a lot of reasons for "graphic detail," which depend on a little thing called "context."

Webb's response? (also from the Richmond Times-Dispatch article)

Webb ducked a question on whether Allen is desperate but referred to a memoir, "Fifth Quarter" by Allen's sister, Jennifer, in which Allen is described as a bully who beat up his siblings.

"You ought to read what George Allen's sister wrote about him in her book, if you want to talk about attitudes toward females," Webb said.

Allen, by the way, is the same guy who said that last week's New Jersey decision that marriage or marriagelike rights must be extended to same-sex couples "should be a wake-up call to Virginians to approve a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage."

And in my opinion, the mind that came up with that is a lot scarier than any fiction. Please, Virginians--get this guy out of office!

So, I'm sitting in a coffeeshop, waiting while the boys get their hair cut at the Aveda next door. Nibbling on biscotti, flipping through a fashion magazine. Oh, cool--there's a page about Barbie. I have a modest collection, and when I was in grad school I even co-wrote an article about...Hey! That's my name!

Yup, that's right: page 261 of the October 2006 issue of Allure, in a piece called "Welcome to the Dollhouse," which surveys some of the Barbie research out there in print. Our article, "Domesticating Barbie," is one of the six featured. Published back in 1999 by the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, it is still their second most-downloaded article.

Here's the Allure page:



Here's a close-up of our mention:



And for those of you who are really interested, here's the abstract of the article itself:

Barbie - domesticity - toys - gender

A quick Google search shows "Domesticating Barbie" has been taught in college and university classes in Australia, the U.K., and Argentina.

Oddly, even with my new career as an author of gay romance, I haven't quite escaped academia: a class on Romance Fiction taught at California State University-Sacramento used The Price of Temptation as a required text last spring.

The Ballad of Fred 'n' Sue

Come and listen to my story 'bout a man named Fred,
A good ol' Texan boy with the last name o' Head.
Seems one day he was fixin' to be elected
When he heard about a book that could get a man erected.
Porn, that is…evil…a one-hand read.

Well it turns out, you see, that this filthy book was writ
By gal named Sue who he called a hypocrite,
'Cause she was runnin' for that Texas post as well
But page one-oh-two sez she's goin' straight to hell.
Sex, that is…nekkidness…doin' it.

But if y'all take a look, you will find to yer surprise
What looks purty raw to our saintly Freddie's eyes
Turns out to be an ol' fashioned kind o' read
A sweet li'l tale that won't make yer eyes bleed.
Romance, that is…makin' love…commitment!

Why would he tell everyone she wrote a porn?
Are voters down there dumber than the newly born?
Or maybe lit'rate folks are poor Freddie's greatest fear
Bein' that he posted "Read an Extraxt here."
Spellcheck…proofread…idjit.

So you figure ol' Fred is a good Republican
A fine upstanding conservative gen'leman,
Turns out instead she's the GOP's lass
It's her opponent who's the real jackass.
C'mon Texas...don't fall for this...bull-hockey!

Romance is not pornography, and Head's campaign is far dirtier than any of the "extraxts" posted from the book. Here's my letter to the Democratic National Committee. I encourage you to read the pages at the links above, and let them know how you feel as well.

http://www.votefredhead.com/susan.html

I'm a lifelong Democrat (as well as a romance novelist myself), and cannot see how associating with such ignorance and dirty-pool tactics reflects well on our party.

Can someone please tell Mr. Head that this kind of politicking is not welcome in the Democratic Party? Because if it is, I'll have second thoughts about my own affiliation.

Other folks blogging about this:

Jolie Mathis

Jennifer Archer

In archaeology, there's a tradition. Before you fill in an excavation pit, you place a penny from the current year in the bottom of the hole.

I hand the shiny coin to my husband, an archaeologist, and he drops it into Selina's grave. We gently fold the red fleece blanket away from her head, and say our last goodbyes. Her fur is still so soft, but the muscles below have stiffened. I wrap her back up, hold her close for a moment, then lower myself onto my belly and place her in the earth.

Little rituals to make us feel better: we sprinkle catnip onto the red blanket, and my son places a flower on top. Then we each drop a handful of dirt onto the bundle, and my husband fills in the grave.

The end was sudden, dramatic, and unmistakable. Yesterday morning, Selina could no longer stand. She did crouch briefly to have a bowel movement, right there on her blanket, her sides heaving in and out with effort. Instead, she fell over, and lay there on her side. Then she made a gesture I haven't seen in almost 14 years.

When we first got her, and she was still wary of people, if ever I picked her up Selina would bury her head in the crook of my arm, as if trying to burrow her way out. She never fought me or clawed me, just tensed and made this protest. Yesterday, she turned her head into a fold of her blanket, and it looked like exactly the same gesture. The interpretation is all my own, but I swear she was saying she wanted out.

I cleaned her up, and brought her some chicken. She ate two bites, rested, ate a tiny bit more. She would not drink, though, not even to lick her favorite brand of cat milk from my fingers.

Even so, I wasn't ready to give up. I went out and bought her salami, once her very favorite treat (and something we haven't had in our house for ages, since switching to a healthier diet years ago). She had no interest in it. I cooked her more chicken. No. There was no rally, no gain in strength. Selina lay there, eyes open, breathing but not responsive.

Girl cat, don't leave me.

But it was time.

My fears that she would have a traumatic last ride were groundless. She made no sign of protest when I put her, still on her fleecy blanket, into the cat carrier, showed no distress on the car trip to the vet. My vet examined her, told me what treatment options there were, but advised that he thought they would only drag out the inevitable and would probably just add to her discomfort.

I signed the release.

He put in the needle.

It was over, with no reaction from Selina at all, not so much as a gasp. If I had scripted the scene myself, it could not have gone better, been more peaceful.

Girl cat, my lap cat, my holder-down-of-blankets on cold winter nights, my stubborn, green-eyed Selina: I'll miss you. If there's a cat heaven, I hope it's stocked with warm laps and slow mice and all the Thanksgiving turkey you can eat.

Goodbye, Selina.


Selina (right) and Ufo share a patch of sunshine, April 2006.

If you're not a cat person, you have permission to leave the room--chances are, there's something on TV. Or, hey! read a book!

But if you have a cat, or have had one, chances are you've faced or will face what I'm going through.

When is it time to say goodbye?

Selina is 17, more or less, based on the vet's estimate that she was three years old when we got her. Her early life was hard: when rescued by Animal Control, she was in the company of 66 other cats and one Chow dog, all of them crammed into filthy cages in an old station wagon. The owner of the car, an elderly woman, had driven her menagerie from California to Massachusetts to visit her sister. Apparently, she hadn't fed them much along the way. Selina had three kittens nursing from her pathetically thin body--the vet told us that her offspring were so tiny she assumed they'd been born just a few days before, until one of them got up and began walking around.

"It just wasn't big enough to be walking," she told us, shaking her head. On further examination, the kittens proved to be about 6 weeks old, but badly malnourished.

We read about the cats in the paper, and made an appointment to go adopt two of them once they were deemed healthy enough. Kittens, we hoped, having read that there were quite a few among the group. When we got there, almost all of the kittens had been spoken for. We were offered a choice of adult cats, or...

"This one is the runt of the litter. Her brother and sister are big enough to be adopted on their own, but we really want this one to stay with her mother. Will you take them both?"

So we took them, the emaciated 3-year-old mother cat, whom we named Selina; and the tiny kitten, Ufo. Selina was wary of people and didn't like to be touched. I taught her, slowly, that we weren't so bad. She came to live with us in August of 1992. On October 14, 1993, she finally climbed into my lap for the first time.

That was that: Selina was now certain of my purpose in life. My lap, and only my lap, was her spot. When my kid arrived a few years later, she was damned if she would give up her rightful place to some smelly, hairless interloper. Even when (perhaps especially when) I was nursing, she would burrow her way onto my lap, curl up, and claim her privilege.

Right to the end, that never changed: in Selina's hierarchy, the adult members of the household are to be respected, the juvenile kept in his place. When we ate dinner, for instance, she would crouch on the floor and hope for treats. But if for some reason my husband and I both got up and left the kid alone at the table, Selina would instantly jump up and eat from his plate. She outranked him. She'd been there first. She knew it.

It's hard to know what she knows now. As she aged, she began seeking anyone's lap for warmth and comfort--even the kid, if he would only sit quiet long enough (his food was still fair game, however, until she could no longer jump on the table). Confusion set in: she would mistake a closed closet door for our bedroom, and meow at it until we picked her up and carried her down the hall to the place she was actually looking for. First she lost most of her hearing, and then her sight.

In and around these other changes, she was diagnosed with CRF: chronic renal failure. Since last November, I've been giving her subcutaneous injections of fluid, first every other day, then every day. She hasn't been unhappy. She's been eating, enjoying her lap time, dozing comfortably in the sun patches that creep across the carpet in the afternoon. Okay, continence isn't exactly a priority for her anymore, but we've learned to adapt (frequent steam cleaning of the carpets, plastic on certain pieces of furniture, warm fuzzy absorbent blankets we picked up cheap at the Salvation Army for her to lie on).

But in the last few weeks, Selina has visibly deteriorated. She's thinner, weaker, won't eat as much. Today, she hardly ate at all, and retreated to the spot beneath the sink where she hid out before we got her diagnosed and began treatment. Worse, she's not even drinking much.

Is it time? The vet told me months ago that treatment had gone as far as it reasonably could in Selina's case, that when she begain failing again, there'd be no magic bullet to bring her back.

But is it time yet? CRF cats can have bad days, then bounce back for a while. Happened about 3 weeks ago. Could happen again.

My sister told me that she agonized over the same question when her cat reached the final stages of CRF. "But when the end came, I knew," she said. "I could tell."

If I can't tell, maybe it isn't time.

Or maybe I'm just weak. I read the choices other pet owners made on a feline CRF website. Some cats fight being euthanized, and imagining that floors me. Some die peacefully at home, of natural causes. Others not euthanized die hard, with hours of convulsions. Making the right choice is hard enough--I know the wrong one will stay with me forever, lodged in the You're a Bad Person part of the mind.

Selina, baby, let me know: is it time?

I quit my day job last winter to write full time. Yay!

That means I sit on my butt all day long in front of the computer. Boo hiss, as far as my general fitness level goes.

So, about a month ago, I joined a gym. Yoga classes twice a week, cardio workouts on a stationary bike three times, swimming now and again for overall toning.

A good writing day used to be: sit down at the computer, write for about 5 hours, then break for lunch. After lunch was for business-type stuff: answering email, making up promo flyers, updating web page, researching bits for the book.

Now, I go to the gym in the morning, come home, shower, decide I'm too tired to work yet. So I check my email, drop in on my favorite message boards, browse profiles on MySpace--hey, it's lunch time! After lunch...well, I don't have my big block of writing time, just a few more hours of the computer's undivided attention before someone else comes home to claim it. So it's hardly worth getting started, is it?

I've barely written a word in a month. On the other hand, my pants fit great.

Back in their August issue, the Romance Writers Report (the monthly magazine for members of the Romance Writers of America) printed a Letter to the Editor in which a member objected to the RWA's current definition of romance, which is inclusive of same-sex relationships. This woman, Janet W. Butler, called for a quick redefinition of romance, limiting it to one man and one woman (see my July 28 blog for the full letter, and my comments on it).  She also seemed to think she was representing "an overwhelming majority of our membership."

Oh, yeah?

The October issue of the RWR should set her straight. First, the RWA Board of Directors reminded everyone that they'd already issued this statement last year, and have no intention of changing it: The Board feels that the organization doesn't define the genre; the genre defines the organization. With that in mind, the Board agrees that any definition of romance should be broad and inclusive.

Then, the RWR printed a slew of new Letters to the Editor objecting to Butler's views, and not a single note of support. Eleven members, including some of the greats of the genre, weighed in. Here are some of their comments:

Ruth Ryan Langan: I trust that the many members of this fine organization will have the wisdom, and perhaps the needed courage, to join the "shrill minority" and accept diversity in all its many faces.

Nora Roberts: I've never considered myself shrill or fringe...But if I understand Ms. Butler's definition of those terms correctly, I'm absolutely thrilled to be a shrill member of the fringe aspect of RWA....I don't think for a moment that Ms. Butler speaks for RWA and I know, without question, she doesn't speak for me.

Patricia Gaffney: I'm sure Ms. Butler believes she's defending us against depravity, but her patronizing, self-righteous tone makes it clear she's primarily on a political mission. If anyone is trying to "impose...standards upon the rest of us," it's she.

Jenny Crusie: I feel strongly that we should never put "between a man and a woman" into the definition because I think announcing to the world that we're an organization of close-minded homophobes is a bad idea.

Mary Kay McComas: "Love in all its many forms" has been around since the beginning of time, and will remain, I believe, until the end of it. So to "define romance according to the parameters it has held for centuries" seems already to have been done, and for a "vocal (translate: shrill) minority" to demand the RWA limit itself to their view is, in my opinion, very narrow minded.

Elaine Fox: ...I simply can't imagine why we, as an organization, should strive to tell people what is or is not romantic.

Mary Blayney: We are about writing, not judging others.

I was pleased that the RWR included my own Letter to the Editor, which ends: We readers and writers of same-sex love stories are merely claiming our place at the table. There is room for all of us.

How wonderful that the lovely, open-minded members of the Romance Writers of America agree with me.

"I love your cover! Who's the artist?"

I've been getting that a lot lately, and I'm happy to point you in the right direction if you want to see more of his work, or let him know you like the Discreet Young Gentleman or Price of Temptation cover (he did both).

His name is Sean Platter, and you can learn more about him here on his MySpace page, here on his web page, and--if you're over 18--click here for his erotic art gallery.

Enjoy!

Yeah, I know--I was going to finish this yesterday, after the yoga class. But I got the cover art for DYG, and got all excited about posting it here and going live with the Discreet Young Gentleman web page. So, here's Part II of the fun questions Teri sent yesterday.

If you enjoy reading, why not post your own? (And let me know if you do.)

26. Grossest injury you've ever seen?
A woman whose face had just been mauled by a pit bull.  

27. The worst injury you've ever had?
When Scott F. broke my heart in high school.  

28. Favorite thing about Thanksgiving?
Stuffing.  

29. Sport you hate the most? Hmm, I'm not really filled with hate against any sport...NASCAR, maybe. Not really fond of cars.

30. What city in the U.S. do you want to visit?
Assuming the question means one I haven't visited yet, I'll go with Orlando, because one of these days I've got to get to Disney World.

31. What's something you think would be sweet to know everything about?
Everything.

32. Favorite Actor/Actress?
Ewan McGregor

33. What's one phrase you absolutely detest?
"pushing the envelope"

34. What makes an awesome party?
Cool people.

35. What's your material obsession?
I have a halfway decent Barbie collection, but I haven't added to it much lately.

36. What's something most would consider an insult but you enjoy having said about you?
You're gonna go straight to Hell if you don't stop writing those books.

37. Favorite kind of dog?
The ones on leashes.

38. Favorite carnival food (everyone has one)?
Deep-fried sauerkraut, from this year's Indiana State Fair.

39. Morning or night person?
By nature, night. By training, morning.

40. Worst drunken/drugged up habit?
Don't know if you'd call it a habit, but strong drink and drugs make me throw up. Which is why I tend to avoid them.

41. Weirdest ebay purchase?
Shatner's old toupee. No, wait--I didn't do that, it was in a Weird Al song. But all of my purchases I can think of are pretty commonplace: books, cds, dvds, dolls & other collectibles, bike jerseys, etc.

42. Favorite food to eat when you're wasted?
If I recall correctly, brownies were nice.

43. It's Saturday at 3am, where are you?
Sound asleep.

44. Who's your favorite friend to go out with?
Paul.

45. Worst job you've ever had?
Clerking at 7-11 had its moments. But I think the worst was waitressing at a cockroach-infested restaurant in Annapolis. Funny, but when roaches skitter across their table, people get up and leave. Really bad for tips.

46. What's something your friends make fun of you for?
Whatever the conversation, I always end up looking something up. Because I have to know, now!

47. What's the oddest thing you've ever done in a car?
Drawing a blank here. Sorry.

48. Book you could read repeatedly?
If I like it, I read it over and over. When I was a kid and first picked up Lord of the Rings, I didn't put it down until I'd read it five times through.

49. What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?
Wacky Races (which I could have sworn was The Wacky Racers, until I just, uh, looked it up)

50. What was your best Halloween costume ever?
To one party when I was in grad school, I put on my cap and gown and made my face up like a skull, going as The Eternal Student. Some of my friends, who had been working on their PhDs for years, didn't think it was all that funny.