when the baking's done

no more cookie dough. you wouldn't believe the shitload of cookies i have now. and i'm pounding it out here because there's nowhere else i can put it. no one else who will hear it.

i want to tell him this:

The Twisted Kingdom

"He stood at the edge of the resting place for a long time, studying the details, absorbing the message and the warning. Unlike the other resting places she'd provided for him, this one disturbed him.

It was an altar, a slab of black stone laid over two others. At its center was a crystal chalice that once had been shattered. Even from where he stood, his eyes could trace every fracture line, could see where the pieces had been carefully fitted back together. There were sharp-edged chips around the rim where small pieces had been lost, chips that could cut a man badly. Inside the chalice, lightening and black mist performed a slow, swirling dance. Fitted around the chalice's stem was a gold ring with a faceted ruby. A man's ring.

A Consort's ring.

He finally stepped closer.

If he read the message correctly, she had healed but was soul-scarred and not completely whole. By claiming the Consort's ring, he would have the privelege of savoring what the chalice held, but the sharp edges could wound any man who tried.

However, a careful man...

Yes, he decided as he studied the sharp-edged chips, a careful man who knew those edges existed and was willing to risk the wounds would be able to drink from that cup.

Satisfied, he returned to the trail and continued climbing. "

--Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadows, Book II of the Black Jewels Trilogy, pg. 752


i've been reading this monster of a book for the past few weeks. i'm finally on book iii, even though it's taken me forever to plow through it. sometimes i'll go days without wanting to pick the thing up and read. others, i'll have spent an hour reading the same page without absorbing a single line.

that's not to say the books aren't quite excellent. in fact, it's very different from anything else i've read in quite a long time...and very dark. and, somehow, that fits my mood.

however, the further into the book i get, the less i want to read it. this society is matriarchal, except there's a very delicate balance between male and female, and in the Shadow Realm, these things are understood...and even honored.

every time i open this book, i'm exposed to males who are attuned to and sensitive to the moods of their females. and not just in the mated sense, but in the sense of a pride, of a coven. of a society that understands and appreciates this balance as necessary for life.

for Life.

and between the protagonists, there is even that balance and bond in sex. true, this book was written by a woman and therefore all the males seem to know exactly what a woman needs, and is able to provide it.

...but i've met men like that before, and sometimes i just get so angry that i want to throw the book across the room. at work, all us girls share our lives and the dramas that make up being human. we've got one girl who's pregnant and getting married and is very happy about the whole situation. there's one girl who has found the strength and selflove to leave her controlling husband and find love for herself with someone who can recognize her needs. there's someone else who finally declared an end to a years-long relationship because she wasn't getting what she needed. there's another girl who recently ironed out a few things with her own significant other, because he was more the touchy-feely type and she still hadn't warmed up enough to recognize that's what she was looking for. another girl has been with her man for ten years and they have this understanding of each other, and an independence, that's simply beautiful. and then i watch my brother and sister *ds* and *ks*, and i see how they fit together.

i'm no longer accustomed to holding my tongue and dealing without. i haven't had to starve in so very long. i was cosmic stardust once upon a time, and i know my right to blissful Funk at all times. i recognize my revolutionary freedom fighter duty to bring Heaven down to Earth and rock myself into Oneness with the Funky Jive.

sometimes i think my Soultrain derailed the moment i declared myself in a relationship. i was doing so well...

i've gotten my tokens that tell me he at least heard me and is making an effort. and my tokens are enough to keep me going...kind of like putting in three bucks of gas into an otherwise empty car, just to keep it running for one more day. but it sputters on startup, and you're always looking at the gas gauge, hoping that you don't run out of fuel on the highway.

anger is bubbling up and has nowhere to go. confusion is making it really, really bad, too. am i doing the right thing? what else can i do? will more talking help? probably not. i just sound like a whining bitch. i should be happy with what i'm getting. this helpless impotence is driving me to the cutting edge.

mine is the voice of Goddess, except i don't know what She would say. i keep asking myself what some goddess of compassion would do or say in this situation, but all i can come up with is the knowledge that she would have already moved beyond these sorts of silly little human dramas and wouldn't even have this problem.

i want him to know me and balance me. i want him to want me, to burn for me. i want that visceral desire for connection on ALL levels to be mutual, mirrored, a duet. i wanted a passion to equal mine. what i have is someone who can't enjoy the full power of delena passion like he said he could when he was at a distance. the reality of it has left him angry and confused and threatened and hurt...when there was never any intent for anything other than full sharing and openness to let him see all that i am.

like i've never done with anyone.

now i keep my passion, all that everything, so tightly leashed i'm choking. he doesn't want it, and in retrospect, i can only think of two men who could face all of me. my dad, the father i love, and richard. and richard, bless him, in his love for me only wanted to harness that passion into something constructive becuase it was killing me in its corrupted state.

i can see that now.

every other male in my life hasn't liked it, and has asked or demanded i bottle it up, or punished me in some way if i unleashed it, or just showed his displeasure at it until, out of fear and hurt and some measure of courtesy, i squashed it.

he says there are things i have to "get over." why can't he see or know or hear or feel that sometimes scars are forever, and they shape part of the person? why can't he be like the man in the book, who can recognize that sometimes those edges are there to stay, but if a man is careful, those sharp edges make the wine in the chalice so much the sweeter?

heh. probably because it's fiction. but gods damn it all to hell, i want him to make love to me.