Hitch

Christopher Hitchens passed away on Dec 15, 2011. He was 62.

He was also a brilliant writer, a learned speaker and an intellectual bad-ass.

The human race is lesser today, that he is no longer among us.

I have put it this way a few times now: If we are all meant to light a single candle rather than curse the darkness, Christopher Hitchens lit a bonfire of righteous indignation against the forces that would keep us ignorant, foolish and fearful of the great sky daddy watching over us, ready to smite.

His sheer cerebral firepower always left me breathless and humbled. Though I try not to say this arrogantly, Mr Hitchens was one of the few people I was aware of that I would instantly agree was much, much smarter than I am. Reading his writing was like slipping into a hot tub almost-but-not-quite-too-hot: daunting, bracing and deeply pleasurable. Even when I totally disagreed with his conclusions (women can be fucking funny, Mr Hitchens) I would always have what amounted to a literary orgasm reading his gorgeous, dense, nuanced and witty non-fiction works.

I always learned.

Thank you, Christopher Hitchens. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for making me a better writer. Thank you for inspiring me to read works I'd never cared to explore. Thank you for your example of fearless, humourous, unapologetic intellectualism.

Thank you for dying without recanting your fearless atheism.

We needed you.

Of Mantids and Dragonflies

There is a wonderful fantasy series called Shadows of the Apt (by Adrian Tchaikovsky), currently at book seven of twelve or something. I found out about it from Lou Anders of the genre powerhouse Pyr Books.

It's set in a world where insects (and arachnids and creepy crawlies in general) and humans share kin-bonds. So you're not just human, you're Spider-kinden and can climb walls or you're Fly-kinden and you can, well, fly.

Different people within a kinden have different powers: some Beetles can fly, ponderously. Some can see in the dark. Some Spiders can use their "Art", as these varied powers are known, to control people's minds. It makes for a rich and powerful fantasy landscape. It helps that Tchaikovsky is one of the few writers who can make me shriek with rage at his fight scenes because I DIDN'T WRITE THEM.

I'm not going to get into the series plot or anything--go buy the books, they're all great so far--but I was musing about my last post training and something trickled into my consciousness that pops up every once in a while. It happens I'm reading the latest Shadows book and that world illustrates it (cough) aptly.

The premier fighting race of the world is the Mantids--Praying Mantis-kinden. A close second would be the Dragonflies. They both fight with blade and claw and spines, with bows and hands and steel.

In the classical fantasy world, these are the "elven" warriors: fast, graceful and deadly. They eschew technology and hold much to codes of honor and personal glory. Mantids in particular desire only to kill their enemies and die a good death in battle.

On the other hand, there are the Beetles. Slow, plodding, common, they have risen from enslavement to the older races to run huge swathes of the world. They are industrious, technological, commercial. They have built up the world with steam-punk like tech to the point of making firearms and tanks. It is their way of war that is being used by another race to take over the world. They are the future, inexorable and pitiless.

But everyone--everyone--is still terrified of the Mantids. Of their grace, their skill, their diamond-hard will and discipline.

I would wish with all my heart to be a Mantis.

I'm a Beetle.

I can take up a rapier and train every day with it, become as skilled and pitiless as any Mantid. I can exhibit the same discipline, the same code of honor.

But I'm always going to be a Beetle. I'm always going to plod, when I want to soar.

I'm good at what I love. But I'm never ever going to be as good as I want to be.

And don't anyone try to tell me that's not hard on the soul.

NOT!

I'm not a feminist. Not even a little. Not by any definition of the word.

I generally resist "ist" definitions to begin with. I've tried to define myself using them in the past and the list goes on for miles. I am too specific a person to be comfortable cloaked in generalities.

Oddly, the only single word description I've ever been comfortable with is "warrior". I can't really claim I have a right to it. I've never been in a serious fight. But it's the only thing I've used to describe myself that's had any resonance at all.

For the last ten years I have been working my ass off (literally) to make it more legitimate.

I've actually been training in about four martial arts for over twenty years. But about ten years ago I walked into a little gym in Coquitlam, on the advice of a stunt man I respected, James Bamford.

The Martial Arts Training Centre was in a little strip mall off Lougheed highway. The head (the only) instructor was a lean, taciturn man named Gary. We talked for a while and he clearly had no idea what to make of me: a pudgy, geeky middle aged woman who wanted to learn to fight. I decided to train with him because of the answer to a single question: What's the best way to defend yourself? A: Run away.

One private lesson and I was hooked. When I lost my job a few months later, it was like a relief: now I had more time to train!

That became the pattern of my life ever after: I started to set my schedule, alter my career path and plan my day around Gary's class times. At the height, I was at the gym six days a week.

Oh, those were good days.

And bad too. I screwed up around Gary a very great deal. He's now thrown me out of the gym twice, for losing control of my temper. The upside of that is: I now can control my temper. All my emotions, actually.

Once I figured out that the universe didn't owe me emotional indulgence, things have skipped along. Though I have left that gym (and the new one we moved to up the hill a few years later) weeping with grief and rage more than once I now indulge myself in private, with a little dignity.

If I walked off the mats every night for the rest of eternity in emotional agony,it would be worth it. In the last ten years I have gained the following from my time with Gary:

* Health (I have lost over eighty pounds and gone from obese to the edge of "professional athlete" in my fitness)
* Expertise (I'm a pretty good technical fighter in JKD, Boxing, Kickboxing, Kali and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And by that I mean I have medals.)
* Motivation (I started writing again because I realized no one-NO ONE-in the fantasy world was writing fighting women realistically)
* Love (Not romantic love, but the kind that happens when you finally find someone who just GETS you. I would be alone indeed without my M, who I would not have met but for the gym.)

Is this enough for the obligatory biography post? If anyone ever reads this and wants to know more, drop me a line.

Where do we go from here?

I lamented the last time I tried to do this that the only thing I have any right to write about is martial arts.

But seriously, this is a pretty solipsistic enterprise in any form. So I shall let it grow organically.

Like mould.

Begin Again

I've tried this before, blogging.

That sentence pre-supposes past failure, of course. But I have faith, I have hope and I have good beer.

What more does a girl need?