Tales of the Trickster

Happy New Year 2007!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve/New Year's Day!  Hope all of you have a great time, and achieve those positive resolutions this year.

 

Hectic Holiday -- The Return!

Hey gang!  Just checking in to say that I'm back.  Whew!  What a trip!  I'll probably be posting the pics to my MySpace, so if you haven't friended me yet, too bad so sad for you.  You don't get to see my vacation pics.  (I know you're broken up about it. Don't lie.)  I had a great time in Titusville, catching up with the fam and such.  I'm Dominican, so you know that meant socializing with a LOT of family. 

In any case, I'm now officially taking a taking a break from all the post-vacation errands that always seem to follow a long trip.  You know how you always feel like you need a vacation from your vacation?  The one good thing about working at a university is that I'm allowed that one luxury once a year.  I'm done with the groceries, I'm halfway through the laundry, and I'm done with the cooking.  (One of my specialties, a killer gazpacho, for all you foodies out there.  I'm looking at you, HeyStacy.)  I've outsourced the kitty litter duty to my sweetie pie, so now is all about "me time."  I swear, I love my guy.  He doesn't even mind that I have a date with BT right now (on my iTunes.)  A tall, cold glass of Red Bull & vodka, a little candle light (hey, I'm a romantic), and thee.  I'm going to catch up on Cyberworld and get a few pages of writing done.

  In any case, I'm back, so feel free to drop me a line if you want.

TTFN, and Happy Holidays Too!

Okay you guys, this will probably be my last chance to wish you guys a merry  Christmas, and a happy Eid too.  (That's for my Muslim peeps out there.)  I'll be off for about a week or so, celebrating the holidays with the folks and my family in Titusville, FL.  I hope you guys have a safe, wonderful holiday season.  If you don't hear from me before hand, have a happy New Year's too! MUAH!

Last Day Before Break!

Finally!  It felt like today would never get here.  Today's the last day of work before we go on break.  That means my posts will be sporadic at best for the next two weeks.  The 'rents and I will be visiting my grandma for the holidays too, and I'm pretty sure Abuelita doesn't have a working computer for me to blog on.  Maybe one of my cousins do, but don't hold your breath.

In any case, it's a nice quiet day here in the library.  The only bad news is the cold.  I work in one of those buildings that has the temperature controlled by The Great and Powerful Oz somewhere on campus (it's a mystery to me as to where), and the little bastard likes to fuck with us.  When we have a warm spell, the heat gets turned on.  When it's freezingly frigid, like today (it's warmed up to 32 degrees, according to WeatherChannel.com), the heat gets turned down.  Or, I suspect, the air gets turned on.  I'm literally wearing a sweater, a jacket, and a scarf in my office as I type this.  If I had a coat and gloves to throw on over all of this, I'd wear that too. 

If I've been a very good girl this year, Santa will let us all out early like they did for Thanksgiving.  Cross your fingers for me, because Trickster girl needs to do some last minute shopping.  In the meantime, we'll be celebrating the time-honored tradition of stuffing our faces with holiday treats for lunch, courtesy of the ladies who run the show here at the library.  So that's nice.  I just hope we have something warm to eat.  Brrrrrr.

More of my favorite things...

I love Becky Cloonan.  Love love love love love her.  I loooooovvvvveeee Becky Cloonan.  Crazy-scientologist-jumping-on-a-couch kind of love here.   Why do I love her?

This is why:

      

(^She just posted these on her MySpace today.^)

And this:

                

And for her work on American Virgin. You can download issue #1 with this link, courtesy of Vertigo.  Love love love love loooooooooooovvvve. 

Some of my favorite things...

It's twelve days until Christmas (more or less), so allow me to play Julie Andrews for a bit and talk about some of my favorite things.  (By the way, why is that considered a Christmas song?  Huh.)  Here's a very brief list:

1. BT
2. Listening to BT while drinking rum & coke.
3. Listening to BT while drinking rum & coke and writing about faeries.

I'm a simple girl, really.  Something about listening to BT's music really helps move my story along.  I guess he's become a kind of muse.  Besides, come on, just listen to him.  The man is dripping with awesome.  And check out that sexy walk at the end of the video.  He may not pose a threat to Adam Levine, but he's definately the Prince of Awesometown.  (That one was for HelloKittyKat.  Love ya, girl. ;-)

And now, for your listening pleasure, Mr. BT...

The Trickster Thing

A friend asked me the other day why I chose the Trickster motif. Now seems as good a time as any to explain it. See, I learned mythology at a very young age. Maybe it was because my older brothers were D&D geeks, or maybe it was because my father was a history buff and thought learning about other cultures could only be a good thing. Maybe I just had some really great teachers growing up. Most likely, it was all of the above coupled with my love for reading. In any case, I loved learning about myths from everywhere, not just the required Greek myths (though, of course, those were the staple of my mythological diet.) What I discovered was that in every culture, in every tradition, there was always a wiseass character that ended up being my favorite. I learned later that he (or she, but it was usually a he) was called the Trickster. Every culture has one. Even in the fairy tales we learned as children, there is usually a clever character that makes us laugh at his cheekiness. Trickster is the one who breaks up the status quo, the prankster who reminds people not to take themselves so seriously. When I became an adult, I realized that he was more than that. He was the catalyst for change, the one who took things in a new direction. He thought around the corners, showed others how to think outside of problems instead of bashing through them. He never threw his hands up and gave in, crying about how the problem is impossible to solve. He went out and figured out how to fix it (or avoid it altogether, if he could get away with it.) He serves an important role in the stories. Even though no one takes him very seriously, he knows more than he lets on. He’s fearless in his own way. Trickster gets things done (or not) on his own terms, and fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke. I love that.

In my family, laughter was as important as food, water, and air. Laughter was necessary for survival. It’s one thing I’ll always love about growing up the way I did. Laughter keeps me sane. Maybe that’s why, if given the choice of characters to read about, the Trickster would probably be my first choice every time. Hermes, Loki, Coyote, Anansi—give me the smartass any day.

Which is probably why, animal lover that I am, I have a special place in my heart for Trickster animals. (Except for Spiders. Spiders creep me out, although I do try to avoid killing them if I can--despite my better judgment.) You all know of my Cute Overload addiction, right? Recently, it’s been flooded with Trickster animals. My favorite as of late is Charlie the coyote. I always liked coyotes before, but after reading Charlie’s story, I’m officially in love. Here’s the thing though. In learning about Charlie, I also learned about this appalling thing called “coyote calling” (or "shooting the fuck out of as many coyotes as possible.") Apparently, not everyone thinks coyotes are as cool as I do. Now, I’ll admit that I’m new to this coyote business, but my instinct to these mass coyote hunts is that they’re misguided. I could be wrong, but the idea of killing off large populations of anything just because you don't like them strikes me as, well, overkill.

Killing animal predators en masse seems a little silly to me. I’m going to do some more research, but I’ll bet you a quarter (I’m not much of a gambler) that I’m right about this. Remember, there’s a theory that suggests the Black Plague wouldn’t have killed off so many people if so many people hadn’t killed off so many cats. See, cats were seen as agents of the devil. Problem was, the cats would eat the rats that had the fleas that would carry the plague. Rats + fleas – cats = lots of dead Europeans. Now that was serious Trickster karma. Don’t mess with the Trickster’s people. They can get mean.

In any case, that’s the deal with the whole Trickster thing, in case you were wondering. Now, I must run along and do some reading about Charlie and his coyote brothers. If you’re interested too, you can read about the coyote thing here and here.

Recommended reading:  Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

Happy Hanukkah 2007

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends out there in Cyberland! 

Okay, I know I've been in stealth mode as of late, but I've been super busy at work.  By the time I get home, I'm too burned out from staring at the computer screen all day to update my blog.  I'm done with my major project here at the library, so hopefully I'll get back into the scribble habit tomorrow.  Until then, I hope y'all are having a happy December!

"So drink your gin and tonicah
And smoke your marijuanikah
If you really, really wannakah
Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Chanukah
Happy Chanukah"

--Adam Sandler, The Chanukah Song