Category: Burningbird

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I studied Karate once, for almost four years. It was Okinawan karate, which means all hands, little foot action.

One of things I loved to do was spar. We had sparring Tuesday and Thursday nights, and on Saturdays, and I rarely missed a session. Sparring isn’t as dangerous as it sounds because we would wear teeth guards and shin pads (a must!) and boxing gloves, of course. I also had sports glasses since I wear glasses.

I particularly loved sparring with the Sensei because aside from being a great teacher, he was also drop dead gorgeous. Better looking even than Hugh Jackman and Johnny Depp, and that says a lot.

With Sensei, we could always try out dangerous moves because he was so good you couldn’t hurt him. Once I decided to practice a punch whereby I swung all the way around, arm extended, hand in a fist aimed at his head. He blocked. And then since he felt I needed to learn control, he arm locked me around the neck, picked me off the ground, and threw me against the wall.

Unfortunately, his wife saw this. Now you have to realize that the only person in the world Sensei was afraid of was his wife, this drop dead beautiful woman who came up to his chest if that. She lit into him something awful, getting all over his case for roughing me up. I tried to interrupt, tried to say, “Sensei didn’t hurt me, he knew what he was doing”, but nothing could stop this really breathtaking scold.

(Followed by hugs all around, of course.)

Sensei would never hurt me because he had a real thing about people getting hurt and did everything in his power to prevent this. Sometimes when we sparred, though, a tap in the right place on my glasses would cause a cut on the bridge of my nose and I would start bleeding.

(I was used to it, didn’t even really bother me as long as the blood didn’t start dripping down on my uniform. I always thought that the blood on my face gave me a sort of cachet with the guys.)

Anyway, when I would get one of these cuts, my Sensei would start to slow down, his face getting more and more puzzled until he would finally stop and say, “Your face is bleeding. I can’t believe you don’t know that your face is bleeding.” And off I would have to go to get the cut taken care of. Pain in the butt.

Now, I’m taller than the average woman. In fact, I’m taller than the average man. As so happens my best friend, who was two belts higher than me, was about five foot tall, 90 pounds if that. In spite of our height differences, though, we loved to spar together. We knew each other so well, we knew how far we could go and we looked very impressive when we fought — with much whirling of feet and arms and lots of cries of “Heya!” People would stop and look, we were that hot.

Unfortunately, Sensei didn’t know that we knew how far we could go with each other and was always getting on my case about me beating on my friend. What impressed others alarmed him. Even when my friend would say, “Sensei, she knows what she’s doing! She’s not hurting me”, he would scold me for using my height against my friend. What was I thinking of.

Well, gee, Sensei. Uh. We were having…fun?

It was frustrating sparring with my friend and the other women. I was always having to hold back because I didn’t want to look like I was beating on them, even though half the time I would be the one of the floor because they felt they didn’t have to hold back with me (me being so much bigger and all).

Finally, one day I said, no more sparring with the women, I was sparring with the men only from that point on.

What a difference this made. I could now spar to my fullest potential without having to worry about being seen as a bully. And what was better is that I earned my ‘stripes’ with the guys, and they enjoyed sparring with me just as much and we treated each other equally. I would sometimes land a punch too hard and put someone on the ground, but that was okay, because they would do the same.

One time I was sparring with Jim, who was about 250 pounds and had a bit of a control problem at times. When He’d landed one punch too many too hard, I hauled off and hit him in the side beneath the ribs in a punch sweet as it could be. It was about perfect. Put that man on the floor groaning in pain, but without any lasting damage. When Sensei came over, I just smiled at him sweetly. Sensei understood, and so did Jim.

I loved sparring with the guys. I ended up with a broken nose and cracked ribs, but I had a lot of fun.

Robert approached the area with caution, continuously checking to make sure he wasn’t followed. At one point he stopped, sure that he heard the soft sound of footsteps echoing faintly behind him. Listening, hardly daring to breath, he strained his hearing until his head ached with the effort. “Must be my imagination”, he thought to himself.

Entering the room, his eyes were drawn to the containers on the table. Two contained the Substances necessary for the work he was about to perform — inert and non-reactive, looking as harmless as he knew them to be in their separate, isolated state. Combined, however, and they transformed, becoming a Mixture unique in the world, most likely the Universe.

The Crew had chosen straws this year to see who would have the task of making the Mixture, and Robert had chosen the short straw. Looking at the rest of the Crew with suspicion — he always seemed to get the short straw for tasks such as these — he had demanded assistance from the other: they had to keep George away from the mixing area until he, Robert, was finished. George must not be allowed near the Mixture.

In an odd way, George was not unlike the Substances used to make the Mixture. He was friendly and pleasant to be around, totally innocuous. However, let him once be exposed to the Mixture and something seemed to take him over, transforming him as much as the Substances were transformed. He would get an obsessive, mad glint in his eyes and determinedly move towards the Mixture, almost as if the stuff had a mind of its own and called to him in a voice no one but he heard. No matter how hard the Crew tried, nothing they did seemed to be able to stop him in his quest.

Though George’s headlong, mindless flight towards the Mixture was bad enough, the consequences of him actually reaching it was more than anyone wanted to contemplate, or consider. George and the Mixture meeting must be stopped, by any means and at any costs.

Robert shook off his considerations of George and began the process of carefully preparing the Substances. He heated Substance A, slowly, until it lost its solid shape. He also measured and poured Substance B into the Mixture container. Once Substance A reached the appropriate state of liquidity, Robert carefully poured it over Substance B, doing everything possible to make sure none of the Substance or the Mixture got onto him or his clothes. “Now”, he thought to himself. “If I can only get these mixed without George hearing me, we’re out of the woods for this year.”

Robert began to slowly stir the two Substances together, watching as the transformation began to occur. The stirring became more difficult as the effort progressed, but he would rest a moment and then keep on stirring. Stir and rest. Stir and rest.

He tried to keep all noise of his efforts to a minimum, but this was virtually impossible as the Mixture seemed to fight his efforts with each stir, and he began to hit the sides of the container with increasing frequency, wincing at each clang that resulted.

Finally, just as the Mixture looked to be at its final stages of transformation, and an exhausted Robert was beginning to hope that this year, there would be no problems, some sixth sense warned him that he was no longer alone in the room. Turning with a mixed sense of dread and resigned hopelessness, he saw him standing there, in the doorway. George.

George looked curiously at Robert and seemed about ready to speak — until he saw what Robert had in his hands. Then the strange obsessive gleam that Robert feared above all things appeared in George’s eyes. He began to move towards Robert, slowly at first, but more quickly as he got closer.

In sheer terror, Robert screamed out at the top of his lungs for help from the Crew and far off in the distance he could hear multiple footsteps, running towards him as fast as they could. However, he knew they would be too late.

Maintaining his fright-stiffened grasp on the Mixture container, Robert turned away from George, trying to keep his body between the stalker and the stalked. However, George was nimble and quick, and no matter how Robert turned and no matter where he ran in the room, George was there. George was always there. At times it seemed to Robert as if a hundred, then a thousand Georges surrounded him; no matter where he turned, George was always in front of him, always getting closer.

In desperation, Robert dropped a little of the Mixture on the floor, hoping to slow George down and keep him away from the bulk, but no such luck — George wasn’t going to be fooled by a pathetic attempt such as that. He glanced at it with a look of scorn and continued his remorseless progress closer towards Robert. Towards the Mixture.

As happens in times such as this, when Robert next ran over the floor in that area, he actually slipped on the spill and down he fell, him and the container of Mixture clasped so carefully in his arms.

George sensed his chance and sprang for the Container. Robert tried to keep him away, and was astonished when George actually bit him. As he yelled out from the pain, the other Crew members ran into the room, taking in the events at a glance. They also tried to grab at George, and were subjected to bites from George and elbows in the face from each other.

Finally, the inevitable, as inevitable events always go, happened: George and the Mixture met.

The Mixture oozed out of the container under its own volition, and coated George until nothing could be seen of him but his eyes — crazed, demented eyes, no longer recognizable as the eyes of their old friend.

Once coated, George then fled around the room in an insane fury of movement, transferring Mixture to walls, furniture, and floor, anything that George touched.

Robert and the Crew, previously doing everything to capture George, were now fleeing from him just as strenuously… and just as futilely. George would catch them.

George always caught them.

Eventually the Mixture — now tripled in volume, a normal occurrence when it connected with George — soon spread over them just as completely and devastatingly as it did George. In their hair, in their eyes, even up their noses and in their ears; the stuff was literally everywhere.

One of the Crew, in a desperate bid for safety, ran into a closet and George followed. The rest of the Crew shut the door and jammed a chair underneath to keep George and the hapless Crew member inside. Ignoring the screams he could hear on the other side of the door, Robert took a moment to survey the devastation surrounding him. Only one thing to do. Call Doc Bronson.

Robert dialed the doctor’s number and was relieved when the phone was answered on the second ring. “Doc, this is Robert.” he said. “George got into the Mixture again this year. We’re going to need a sedative to calm him until we can get things fixed up.”

“Dammit, Robert! You promised me you’d be more careful this year!”

“Next year you’re going to have to buy your Rice Krispie treats, or get rid of the cat!”

Each of us is capable of being a victim given the right circumstances. The only thing that saves us is learning to control a difficult time rather than let the time control us. This is something I learned when I was 15 years old, a wild child with little sense.

At school I met a girl my age who lived in a foster home. Unlike me, she was sexy and sophisticated, with more than a hint of the forbidden because of past indiscretions. Somehow, we became great, good friends.

I’m not sure why but one day she and I decided to run away from home. We ended up in the pad of a friend of hers who gave us a place to stay — a sleeping bag next to other sleeping bags in a one room apartment somewhere within the down side part of Seattle.

That first night a group of us were playing cards and drinking cheap pop wine when he walked in. His name was Dan and he was 27, tall, thin, with long dark brown hair and mustache. He had a velvet voice, and his moves were sinuous, like a cat. When I looked at him, I saw about the most exotic creature I had ever seen. One look into his deep brown eyes and I was lost.

When Dan looked at me, he saw a too-young woman with long red-brown hair, freckles, green eyes half hidden behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses, wearing a blue shirt and navy bell bottom jeans. As he was turning away from me, rejecting this too-young woman, he saw my hands and stopped. Instead of walking away, he grabbed the floor next to me, leaning close, talking to me in his soft voice.

Later he would tell me it was my hands that caught his eye more than anything else — long, slender, graceful hands.

Dan and I stayed together, moving from house to house, staying wherever there was an empty spot. The friend I had run away with decided to go home but swore she wouldn’t tell anyone who I was with. Well, of course she told everyone who I was with as soon as she stepped through her home door.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I watched the movie A Few Good Men tonight. If you haven’t seen it, it features Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore in a story about the Marine Corps, murder, and, ultimately, the question of honor. Honor and the Corps. Honor and service to one’s country. Honor and pride.

Honor. What is the true nature of honor? Honor is not based on blind service to God or country. Nor is it based on pride; if anything, pride is the antithesis of honor. Instead, honor is based on knowing, deep down inside oneself, what is fundamentally right and following that rightness, regardless of the consequences. That is honor.

I inherited much from my father besides my name. I inherited his Celtic coloring as well as his Celtic temper. We’re both tall, though age has reduced his frame so that we now see eye to eye. He has a sweet tooth and so do I, and we both consider it a rare treat to indulge our love for fine pastry with a really good cup of tea (loose good quality tea, pre-heated china pot, boiling, not hot water). He’ll be 92 years old next week, and I can only hope that I inherit his longevity, though I am not so sure I would want to pay the price he has paid to live as long as he has.

I inherited one other thing from my father: his sense of honor. Sometimes unbending, frequently unyielding and unforgiving, but always there, deep down inside. At times I’m not sure if its a blessing or a curse.

Yesterday as I watched discussions unfold about the issue of “girlism”, I was so impressed by the many different responses in my comments and elsewhere. Steve provided a wonderful discussion about ‘new’ feminism meeting old within his class. Dorothea continued the discussion, adding her own important points, which are reflected and refined at Baldur, and enriched by Tom. Ruzz also joins the discussion:real power has nothing to do with sex.

I was disappointed, though, with my own writing. It didn’t convey why I reacted so strongly. It left the impression that the discussion was about gender equality, when it wasn’t. At least, not for me. Or that the discussion was about feminism and stereotypes, and, on reflection, I realized that wasn’t why I was so unhappy. Tonight I finally realized why I was so deeply bothered about this “girlism” — it was a question of honor.

We’ve long known that sex sells, which is why ads always feature beautiful women and studly men. I don’t fight this because I see the world of marketing to be an artificial one; one that lives over there but not in my neighborhood. But when people matter of factly discuss women using sex — flirting, winking, tight clothes — as a way to get power, I cringe, not because I know this behavior doesn’t exist, but because I know that some people will see this behavior in one woman and generalize it to other women. Other women such as myself.

Regardless of how much I want to change the world, burn a trail, get power, I cannot do so at the cost of ‘honor’. Even something as trivial as a wink, standing too close to a man, or a little “harmless” dissembling is using my sexuality to deliberately manipulate a man at work in order to achieve a professional goal. This is so foreign to me that my reaction is a physical stiffening of my arms, pushing away that which I find to be anathema.

Using sexuality would be a declaration that I have no ability to get power from this man regardless of what I do, therefore I’m going to yield to his superior position; the she-wolf baring her belly, breasts, and neck to the alpha male. You say it’s just a harmless wink, a little cleavage — what’s the harm? I say the harm is that I achieved the power based on something other than my ability, and at the cost of always being the she-wolf with neck bared.

Am I too serious? Too rigid and foolish? Out of step with modern times? Most likely all of the above. And don’t forget inflexible and unyielding, too. Tempermental. And tall.

Honor. Honor and gender. Honor and vocation. Honor to one’s country. Honor to one’s friends. Honor and truth. I have a feeling that ‘honor’ is something that will be lost and found and then lost again in the next few years. Particularly when we consider that sometimes honor, and the lack thereof, is based as much on silence and inaction, as it is on voice and action.

I’ve been told I take all this too seriously. Sometimes I do. I really do.