Discipline

I am drawn again and again to this theme, the antithesis to my thesis.  I am electrified by the idea that someone might control me (in bed, in life) through sheer force of a composure that I rarely feel; through their own restraint that I could only hope to mirror; even, dare I suggest...by means of punishment, soberly applied.  I have no faith, however, in my own ability to regulate myself.

I have never yet been able to locate my own dispassion.

For truly I am not disciplined.  Whatever I've accomplished has been by haphazard inspiration or sudden whim.  My creative drive is scatterbrained, an emotional free-for-all, an anxious reckoning.   

My fantasies often conjure the man who would rein me in even if by force.  Who would govern, restrain, and control me where I was unable to do so myself.  Of course, in real life, what good and suitable, respectful and kind partner would ever impose his own super-ego on a woman he cared for?  

I know that, but still—

as I stare down an obstinate chapter of my book--

 

--Master, please help me find my discipline!

--only by my rules.

--yes, Master.

--there will be no 2 a.m. bowl of Rice Krispies.

--yes Master.

--the infernal crunching is distracting to us both.

--yes Master.

--you will sit here across from me, where I can watch you.

--yes.

--you will work until I am satisfied with the result.

--yes.

--or you shall taste the lash.

 

 

I Just Wanted to Bite the Buttons off His Frock Coat, One by One

All through the "Half-Blood Prince" matinee I attended today, I couldn't stop thinking about those buttons on the Potions Master's coat.

I've mentioned them before.  I thought I wanted to lick them.  But today I realized that they are cloth, not glass, and they would need to be bitten instead.

Bitten off one by one.  While he waited impatiently but with a stillness born of well-practiced discipline.  While the frock coat opened just a little bit more.  And then a bit more.

Back In

I've been due for a crush on someone other than Severus for a long time now. Robert Pattinson didn't really take. Thankfully, into the breach steps Jack White. Crushes on imaginary people, I have found, are the glue that holds my marriage together. I would say that I am as true to Sarge as anyone has ever been since the dawn of marriage, with nary a flagging faith, never an episode of indiscretion of any sort, and I would also say that he is my best and only love on this earth. However, I seem to be genetically programmed to have crushes. They're not on anyone real, but goodness are they potent.

In life, I have cast my lot in with a consummate man, a strong sort who is never ever dull, but who is always there right next to me.

In fantasy, I seem to prefer these louche sorts, pale and ironic, Byronic, perhaps in possession of a slightly weakened moral center.

Golly, will you just look at that pasty dodgy balladeer with the unfortunate white socks? I'll bet he's a biter.

How much is too much?

I repeat myself ad nauseaum: I'm a daydreamer. I guess I repeat it so often because I've come to believe it's my defining characteristic. It always was, but now as an adult I'm self-aware so I can see it clearly.

I ask myself, how much daydreaming is too much daydreaming? When has a girl's fantasy life become just a wee little bit too vivid?

I'm not sure it really matters, in a way, because I can't seem to stop myself. But I'm wondering just academically whether I spend too much time engaged in it. I guess I already know the answer to the question. But in a sort of masochistic truth exercise, a healing confessional, let me admit to the following misdeeds committed during episodes of Living while Daydreaming (which should probably be, in the High Home Court, a prosecutable offense akin to Driving while Intoxicated)

1. (I've mentioned this before, but as it's grievous, I'll repeat it) While engaged in a romantic moment with Sarge, he asks "Am I interrupting something?"

2. I hear Hedgie's voice, coming in as if from a very great distance, "Mama....mama....mama....mama....MAMA....MAMA!!!!!....why do you have that funny smile on your face?"

3. I drop Hedgie off at school, and on the way home pay Snape a visit in his dungeons...I arrive home at my real life door to my house, cart full of groceries, with no memory of how I got there. No memory of the market, the walk, not even a memory of fishing around in my purse for the keys. (See, it's almost like Dissociative Identity Disorder, but much more fun).

4. Just as Sarge and I have "our song" ("Misty Morning, Albert Bridge" by the Pogues) so too do Severus and I have a song (okay, I'll admit it, because it's just you and me here--it's "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure. But even more tellingly revealing of my delusion, I just know that he would find that completely distasteful, because he thinks our song is "Some Kinda Love" by the Velvet Underground. Because he would never be so maudlin. And because he's S&M like that. Plus, of course, dark-ish wizards love the Velvets, don'tcha know).

5. I've worked out a kink in the space-time-fiction-reality continuum that allows for these fantasies.

6. Just as I have to budget time for my workout at the Y, so too must I budget time for daydreaming. And which do you think gets short shrift? Although to be frank, I can multi-task at my workout.

7. I'm crocheting myself a pair of black lace above-the-elbow fingerless gloves...and let's just say that I don't plan on wearing them to any occasion in this world...

8. I've burnt the dinner more than twice and I'm really a good cook...yes, that was me standing at the stove gazing off into the distance long past the ringing of the kitchen timer...

9. And then there's THIS.

I won't even continue. It's just much too obvious that the jury's back on this one.


And now I must leave you to return my full attention to the Potions Master--I've been neglecting him of late, and he's getting itchy from his long lonely hours in the dungeons--I leave you to ponder the question that's really on my mind, though: can a Jewish girl from Brooklyn and a testy dead fictional British wizard with a penchant for the Dark Arts ever really have a chance at happiness?

And if you read through this, knowing that I'm completely sober as I wrote it, and you still respect me in the morning, well, God bless.

Working on My Dissertation

Severus has told me in no uncertain terms that it's time to find my discipline again--and if I won't, he'll find it for me.

I need a hiatus to take care of business. Hopefully I'll have the willpower to stay away from my blog for a little while; you know, refresh, renew. Let's see how long I make it dudes!

See you on the flip side!

Do Dirty Things to Me While Maintaining an Impenetrable Impassivity...Please...

So let's round out this month of thanks with a nod to one of my favorite walking money shots, Alan Rickman.

If you're too squeamish to be sexually molested by this embarrassing video, please feel free to skip to my commentary.

(embedding was disabled, go HERE to see the video.)

Okay. I admit that I'm obsessed with this.

The song is beyond hideous. Who is this Texas creature anyway? But I will tolerate her saccharine warbling ad infinitum for the sake of repeated droolings over my savory, succulent Alan Rickman--his raw middle-aged sexuality is positively inconvenient.

Let me analyze what makes me lust after this man to such an unseemly degree:

1. His obvious indifference. Take the opening scene. While the girl whinges on, Alan examines his fingernails. Detachment is dead sexy. He'll get to you when he's good and ready; not a moment before. No matter how much you thrust your proverbial bosom at him.

2. His jowls. Some might say these are the hallmark of drooping age and even the aftereffects of a younger life of undisciplined excess. I say jowls equal sexual experience. The jowly man has had many lovers. He knows how to please them and how to be pleased. Don't ask me why jowls prove sexual prowess. I just know somehow that they do.

3. His frowny face. Who doesn't like to have to guess whether one's partner is enjoying things? The disequilibrium a frowny man creates in one is shiveringly attractive. And if he once smiles even sardonically, even half-way, well, it's the last stroke.

4. Willing to tango in a gas station without a trace of irony. Yum.

5. Willing to be pushed hard against a concrete wall by a woman--the only trace of vampiric smile in the whole episode emerges--not afraid of being thought weak, and in that way is actually the stronger one. Once again, we revisit the concept of "topping from the bottom." I admit that I like a man who tops from the bottom. It's always unexpected and puts a girl at her dis-ease. Gratifyingly so.

6. Leaves the girl without a goodbye or even a nod, just a smoldering squint, a toss of keys, and a jowly frown.

There you have it, a quick analysis of what makes this droopy-jawed delight an obvious sex machine.

So who is your weird fantasy fodder?

Is Theodor Herzl the New Severus Snape?*

Look at that spooky, surly, maladjusted man.  An enormously significant historical figure whose private life, as I am not at all surprised to learn, was completely ravaged: an apparent mother-fixation and a failed marriage which produced three children and one grandchild, all of whom went mad and/or killed themselves.  But those hooded eyes, that beard.  He's just dead sexy, is what he is.

J.K. Rowling said "girls, stop going for the bad guy.  Go for a nice man in the first place."   This in response to fans professing their love for Snape and Draco Malfoy...what's a "nice man," anyway? And if he did exist, who could stand him and his intolerably cheerful and optimistic ways? 

There are problems with the bad boy beyond the obvious, however.  I've been fond of a number of them (and I mean in real life, not just in my overactive Potions-addled imagination).  And I can tell you that, to my chagrin, once you get to know them, you find most often that they're quite childish, and in the end, what could be less appealing than a petulant bad boy? Now when you meet that rare delight, one who's also mature and serious, well, that could be a fatal attraction...

So now that I've made the acquaintance of Mr. Herzl, which will be the object of my false affections? Two bad boys: one, a dead fictional character, the other a dead historical figure.  Both intense, brooding, and apparently morally conflicted (my favorite attribute), serious, and single-minded (always a challenge). Hmmm...


*...or, When a Post a Day Becomes Untenable...

Here's Why Parents Shouldn't Have Weird Fantasies Involving Characters in Children's Books

Yesterday afternoon I took Hedgie to her friend's birthday party--Harry Potter themed. I was quite gung-ho, as you can imagine. I knew the party would be wonderful, because this boy's parents are wonderful, brilliant, and fun-loving people and if anyone could pull off a Harry Potter party properly, they could. But I also felt a little funny with anticipation as I stood at my dresser and sprayed Mandragore. See, it was almost like I knew.

We arrived at the party, and who should be sitting in the corner, blowing up balloons, but my lover, Severus. I had a strange moment of vertigo--and I am TOTALLY serious--where fantasy and reality whirled together--wait, I thought in my delusion, did I arrange to meet him here?--and felt a deep blush creep up my cheeks--and Hedgehog turned to me with narrowed eyes, thinking I'm not sure what--

then the world stopped swinging, my psychosis abated, and I realized it was a friend of my friends wearing pale face paint and a glossy black wig. A man dressed up as Severus, in other words, to entertain the CHILDREN at the party. But the power of fantasy and of a costume, however ill-rendered, cannot be underestimated. Even after my psyche righted itself, I couldn't get over the feeling that somehow I was in the corporeal presence of the heretofore only imagined. Never mind that the wig slipped askew over his forehead in a display of disequilibrium uncharacteristic, I feel certain, of the "real" Severus; that ultimately, in the heat generated by six little people with excess energy, the face paint melted in sweat that Severus himself never would have sweated; that this faux Severus confided in me that he'd taken a bit too much cold medicine and was high as a kite; still the illusion never totally evaporated.

I wanted to impress Severus (a harsh and judgmental man, his favor would be gratifying) and wondered for two hours, did he notice how gamely I helped out with the party duties? How heady was my Mandragore? How I managed to be both wry and loving with Hedgehog? And perhaps the depths of experience in my brown eyes? Did he? I couldn't keep from glancing as he went about his own duties as Potions Master--fielding wand pokes from 7-year-olds, passing out bowls of cotton candy, rescuing a box cutter from the birthday boy, and leading class in an advanced potions lesson to see what would happen when vinegar, baking soda, and green food coloring were mixed...

At party's end, Severus lay back in a chair, indeed sweaty, wig askew, high, and bested by the children. Poor, poor Master, covered in a humiliation of sticky cotton candy, taunts and pokes, and one mother's finally fully realized delusion...

Book Snape/Movie Snape: a Clarification

I believe this is of interest only to me, but for the sake of honesty I must clarify my statements on the Potions Master.  For those who have seen any of the Harry Potter movies, having a huge crush on Alan Rickman's Snape might seem like the only sensible course of action: the repressed sexuality, the burning looks he shoots at Harry (hello slash fic), the way he turns on his heel and dismissively flips the hem of his cloak, the voice that sounds like he just swallowed a large tablespoonful of creamy peanut butter...it's a seminal piece of character acting.  Who wouldn't long for detention with the smoldering Alan Rickman/Snape? Okay, maybe some of you.  Sgt. Pepper claims he wouldn't enjoy it.

Please don't misunderstand.  I would definitely assist in the unbuttoning of the hundred little buttons on the Rickman Snape waistcoat (are they there, or did I imagine it?).  And I wouldn't kick him out of bed (although I believe I'd have to hear from Sarge on this).  However, my real love is reserved for the Book Snape.  Yes, my peculiar delusion of desire concerns the Severus Snape made of words, not the "flesh and blood" of the actor.

I have admittedly made a habit of these book-crushes over the years.  The last time I had such a "relationship" was in latency: my deep love for Sebastian Flyte in "Brideshead Revisited."  And once again, a crush on Anthony Andrews (remember him?), who played him in the BBC production, would have been the very definition of common sense, but no, it was the character in the book that I adored.

I'm going out on a limb to ask a strange question: has anyone ever had a crush on a character in a book? Any takers for Jack Aubrey? Charles Ryder? Cap Garland? Galadriel? Reggie? Polly from "Old-Fashioned Girl"?

What Do a 1915 A4 Gibson Mandolin, Severus Snape, and a Whirlpool Stackable Washer-Dryer Have in Common?

Yes, you guessed it, they are my favorite beaus. A doesn't mind, though. We have a swinging marriage. The washer-dryer is actually moving in with us soon, right into the kitchen. I have a great deal to say about this washer-dryer, and I will say it soon. Whoever's reading this, you may feel free to skip over that bit. When I get a new boyfriend, I become insufferable.

Too Much Severus

My sissy has informed me that it is now too much Snape. That I've got a potions master fixation better kept to myself. Well, I can't guarantee anything, but for now it's back to Ripple, my older obsession. I revisited the No End in Sight Ripple-Along and was once again charmed by its sweetness and industry. I was glad to find that I still love Ripple. It's always a pleasant companion.

A Scent of the Darkest Kind

For those of your who love most unusual perfume, check out Mandragore by Annick Goutal. I have always loved her ephemeral scents, since my friend introduced me to Eau d'Hadrien. Now said friend recently gifted me with a little silver phial of this potions-inspired decidedly non-floral, and having used it up, I've ordered more in its haunting purple and gold bottle. Check it out--you won't smell yourself coming and going on the streets of wherever you live! Unless you live among very sophisticated and well-subsidized goths, that is...

Now, I'm back to the more humdrum world of police policy and procedure. I'm taking notes on a book called "Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality?" if that gives you any indication. Well, a girl's gotta do her dissertation, doesn't she?

Dear Severus

If anyone out there is as slavishly devoted to Snape as I am, check out this bit of fan fic. I've only just emerged from the romantic vortex this moment...at a certain point, it's true, I began to skim for the Snape subplot, but it was well worth it.. We LOOOOOOVE him, right?