by Yashar Ali You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already! Sound familiar? If you’re a woman, it probably... more

by Yashar Ali

You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!
Sound familiar?

If you’re a woman, it probably does.

Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said?

When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling — that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation — pure and simple.

And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.

I think it’s time to separate inconsiderate behavior from emotional manipulation and we need to use a word not found in our normal vocabulary.

I want to introduce a helpful term to identify these reactions: gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a term, often used by mental health professionals (I am not one), to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.



The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman’s husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull of this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman’s character reacts to it, he tells her she’s just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim’s perception of him or herself.

Today, when the term is referenced, it’s usually because the perpetrator says things like, “You’re so stupid” or “No one will ever want you,” to the victim. This is an intentional, pre-meditated form of gaslighting, much like the actions of Charles Boyer’s character in Gaslight, where he strategically plots to confuse Ingrid Bergman’s character into believing herself unhinged.

The form of gaslighting I’m addressing is not always pre-mediated or intentional, which makes it worse, because it means all of us, especially women, have dealt with it at one time or another.

Those who engage in gaslighting create a reaction — whether it’s anger, frustration, sadness — in the person they are dealing with. Then, when that person reacts, the gaslighter makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure by behaving as if their feelings aren’t rational or normal.

My friend Anna (all names changed to protect privacy) is married to a man who feels it necessary to make random and unprompted comments about her weight. Whenever she gets upset or frustrated with his insensitive comments, he responds in the same, defeating way, “You’re so sensitive. I’m just joking.”

My friend Abbie works for a man who finds a way, almost daily, to unnecessarily shoot down her performance and her work product. Comments like, “Can’t you do something right?” or “Why did I hire you?” are regular occurrences for her. Her boss has no problem firing people (he does it regularly), so you wouldn’t know that based on these comments, Abbie has worked for him for six years. But every time she stands up for herself and says, “It doesn’t help me when you say these things,” she gets the same reaction: “Relax; you’re overreacting.”

Abbie thinks her boss is just being a jerk in these moments, but the truth is, he is making those comments to manipulate her into thinking her reactions are out of whack. And it’s exactly that kind manipulation that has left her feeling guilty about being sensitive, and as a result, she has not left her job.

But gaslighting can be as simple as someone smiling and saying something like, “You’re so sensitive,” to somebody else. Such a comment may seem innocuous enough, but in that moment, the speaker is making a judgment about how someone else should feel.

While dealing with gaslighting isn’t a universal truth for women, we all certainly know plenty of women who encounter it at work, home, or in personal relationships.

And the act of gaslighting does not simply affect women who are not quite sure of themselves. Even vocal, confident, assertive women are vulnerable to gaslighting.

Why?

Because women bare the brunt of our neurosis. It is much easier for us to place our emotional burdens on the shoulders of our wives, our female friends, our girlfriends, our female employees, our female colleagues, than for us to impose them on the shoulders of men.

It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don’t refuse our burdens as easily. It’s the ultimate cowardice.

Whether gaslighting is conscious or not, it produces the same result: it renders some women emotionally mute.

These women aren’t able to clearly express to their spouses that what is said or done to them is hurtful. They can’t tell their boss that his behavior is disrespectful and prevents them from doing their best work. They can’t tell their parents that, when they are being critical, they are doing more harm than good.

When these women receive any sort of push back to their reactions, they often brush it off by saying, “Forget it, it’s okay.”

That “forget it” isn’t just about dismissing a thought, it is about self-dismissal. It’s heartbreaking.

No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration. For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them.

They say, “I’m sorry,” before giving their opinion. In an email or text message, they place a smiley face next to a serious question or concern, thereby reducing the impact of having to express their true feelings.

You know how it looks: “You’re late ”

These are the same women who stay in relationships they don’t belong in, who don’t follow their dreams, who withdraw from the kind of life they want to live.

Since I have embarked on this feminist self-exploration in my life and in the lives of the women I know, this concept of women as “crazy” has really emerged as a major issue in society at large and an equally major frustration for the women in my life, in general.

From the way women are portrayed on reality shows, to how we condition boys and girls to see women, we have come to accept the idea that women are unbalanced, irrational individuals, especially in times of anger and frustration.

Just the other day, on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a flight attendant who had come to recognize me from my many trips asked me what I did for a living. When I told her that I write mainly about women, she immediately laughed and asked, “Oh, about how crazy we are?”

Her gut reaction to my work made me really depressed. While she made her response in jest, her question nonetheless makes visible a pattern of sexist commentary that travels through all facets of society on how men view women, which also greatly impacts how women may view themselves.

As far as I am concerned, the epidemic of gaslighting is part of the struggle against the obstacles of inequality that women constantly face. Acts of gaslighting steal their most powerful tool: their voice. This is something we do to women every day, in many different ways.

I don’t think this idea that women are “crazy,” is based in some sort of massive conspiracy. Rather, I believe it’s connected to the slow and steady drumbeat of women being undermined and dismissed, on a daily basis. And gaslighting is one of many reasons why we are dealing with this public construction of women as “crazy.”

I recognize that I’ve been guilty of gaslighting my women friends in the past (but never my male friends — surprise, surprise). It’s shameful, but I’m glad I realized that I did it on occasion and put a stop to it.

While I take total responsibility for my actions, I do believe that I, along with many men, am a byproduct of our conditioning. It’s about the general insight our conditioning gives us into admitting fault and exposing any emotion.

When we are discouraged in our youth and early adulthood from expressing emotion, it causes many of us to remain steadfast in our refusal to express regret when we see someone in pain from our actions.

When I was writing this piece, I was reminded of one of my favorite Gloria Steinem quotes, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

So for many of us, it’s first about unlearning how to flicker those gaslights and learning how to acknowledge and understand the feelings, opinions, and positions of the women in our lives.

But isn’t the issue of gaslighting ultimately about whether we are conditioned to believe that women’s opinions don’t hold as much weight as ours? That what women have to say, what they feel, isn’t quite as legitimate?

***

Yashar Ali is a Los Angeles-based columnist, commentator, and political veteran whose writings about women, gender inequality, political heroism, and society are showcased on his website, The Current Conscience. Please follow him on Twitter and join him on Facebook.

He will be soon releasing our first short e-book, entitled, A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not Crazy — How We Teach Men That Women Are Crazy and How We Convince Women To Ignore Their Instincts.

If you are interested and want to be notified when the book is released, please click here to sign-up.

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by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman) Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane... more

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World...

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)



[THE KILLSWITCH REVIEW – CHAPTER FOUR, PART TWO]

[COBAIN SYNDROME]

[Previous Chapter]

“That proves she’s involved,” Corbin said triumphantly as they fired out of the tunnel slot and back onto the BBI offramp.

For reasons he would not share, Haggerty knew that this was not necessarily true. Regina had her own motives for taking his unit, motives that had nothing to do with this case.

Corbin flipped on the comlink for an incoming call.

“This is Corbin.”

“Haggerty with you?” Tanner asked.

“I’m here,” Haggerty said.

“Protesters are all over the place,” Tanner warned. “Better come in through the back entrance. You’ve also got the parents of one of the kids waiting in reception. The Dragon herself wants to be present when you interview them.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Haggerty said.

If he’d pressed that morning, all this would be someone else’s problem. Procuring a new unit could prove embarrassing and would take time. But he wasn’t going to let this last assignment hinder his plan to press. At least now they’d have a positive ident on one, if not all, of the children.

“Taking us around back,” Elsa said.

The usual crowd of protesters that milled about the front steps had more than doubled. They made it from the garage to the viewing room without incident. Elsa took her seat at a console while Corbin went to file her report on Pamela DeLongpre. Haggerty was prevented from handing the keycard to Elsa to pull up its data by the arrival of the Dragon.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she ordered. “We have to speak with some parents.”

Consuela had traded her usual dress suit for her division director uniform, a savvy choice conveying both her authority and respect for the gravity of the situation without a word having to be said.

“Who are the parents and why are they here instead of down at the precinct with Woyzeck?” Haggerty asked, falling into step beside her. “Those kids weren’t clients. Their units were black market.”

“But they were our units, at some point,” Consuela said, “and the parents want to know how one of them got into the hands of their son. Frankly, so do I.”

“Which boy was their son?” Haggerty said.

“The darker one. His name was Tyler Stelwyn. The only son of Antonio Stelwyn, who owns half this city.”

Now Haggerty knew why the image of the beautiful boy with shaved hair and golden bronze skin who liked to experiment with his unit had seemed familiar when he reviewed the press recordings. Stelwyn, the African-American industrialist, known to everyone in the country was a bit taller, more heavily muscled, his skin tone a few shades darker, but the shape of the face, the line of the jaw, and the cast of the mouth were identical to his son’s. If a triple press with illegal boxes viewcast around the world hadn’t been bad enough, the fact that Antonio Stelwyn’s only son was one of the victims increased the gravity of the situation. The Indran’s voice sounded mockingly in Haggerty’s head: You have a difficult night coming.

“Do we have ident on the other two kids?” he asked Consuela.

“Nothing yet from the police. I was hoping you’d have something.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t.” Haggerty scratched the back of his neck.

“Quite unfortunate,” the Dragon agreed, reaching for the reception room door.

“Finally,” Antonio Stelwyn spat when they stepped inside. A powerfully built man used to giving orders and having them obeyed, faced with the one situation he could not control he lashed out with a vengeance. “Are public triple presses so goddamned common you can take your goddamned time investigating them?”

A woman seated at a small table sobbed softly: Sylvia Marchand, the legendary supermodel who had dominated the annual Most Beautiful lists of all the major e-zines and viewcasts for over fifty years. Even before her marriage, she’d been a celebrity in her own right. But at the moment, she was merely a grieving mother with her head buried in her hands as she wept, and Haggerty knew her only by the heartbreaking sobs she couldn’t control. He could not help but reflect on the different treatment the Stelwyns would receive, compared to the DeLongpres.

Haggerty was surprised to see Primrose, making ineffectual efforts to comfort the bereaved couple. Of all the adjusters in NewVada, what were the chances of the same one being involved in two back-to-back, unrelated multiple-press cases the same day? One more thing about this case that didn’t feel right. Primrose looked up as they entered, whispered a final soothing platitude to Mrs. Stelwyn, and approached Haggerty and Consuela, extending his hand.

“Oliver Primrose, adjusting agent for the insurance firm of Cromwell and Sons,” he said as he shook Consuela’s hand. “Sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances.”

“Mr. Primrose,” Consuela acknowledged.

Primrose nodded a greeting to Haggerty, then turned to the Stelwyns and surprised Haggerty again by performing the introductions.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stelwyn, this is Consuela Pitcairn, the director of BBI NewVada, and Jason Haggerty, the agent in charge of the BBI portion of the investigation.”

Antonio Stelwyn had no interest in social niceties. “I’m about to sue your company out of existence,” he snarled.

“Mr. Stelwyn, I understand both your anger and your grief,” the Dragon responded calmly. “You have my deepest sympathies for your loss. However, before we begin, I must remind you that your son’s possession of one of our unregistered KV units was not authorized, and as such is not our responsibility.”

Mrs. Stelwyn raised her head, her tear-streamed face contorted with anguish. When her career began to take off, her agent had insured her eyes for a billion dollars, stating that they were the main reason for her appeal. Other celebrities had been insuring their body parts for centuries, and Haggerty had never given the matter much thought. It was just the usual celebrity hype. But Sylvia Stelwyn’s eyes were indeed the most striking feature in a collection of extraordinarily striking features. And her son Tyler had inherited those eyes.

“Then whose responsibility is it?” she demanded. “It was your unit. How did our son get the damned thing, if not from you?”

“We’re working on that,” Consuela said.

Antonio raged. “My assistant wakes us up to tell us she thinks she just saw Tyler kill himself on television, prompting me to call that imbecile Woyzeck, who tells me to come to the morgue to identify our son’s body, and then you keep me waiting here all this time to tell me what? You’re working on it?”

“My client has every reason to be outraged,” Primrose interjected. “As a government agency, BBI is fully accountable for its hardware. If the box was originally in the possession of BBI, some sort of security breach led to its being in the hands of an unauthorized user. And that breach of security, Director Pitcairn, is your responsibility.”

“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Primrose,” the Dragon said.

Haggerty finally stepped in.

“Please allow me to explain,” he said. “We are doing our best to find out how the boxes came into the possession of these three young people, but there are impediments to our investigation. The serial number on the unit your son used was filed off, then scrubbed with acid. Whoever effaced it was very thorough. If our techs can’t raise an image of the original number, it will be difficult to ascertain exactly where the unit came from.”

“You mean you might not be able to find out how Tyler got that box?” Sylvia Stelwyn asked.

“I mean it’s going to take time,” Haggerty said gently, then addressed both parents. “I know you want answers as quickly as we can get them. Believe me, we’ll do our best to provide them to you. But we have to explore several avenues to figure out which codes we’re looking for. BBI is only responsible for the units in our possession. The box your son used could have belonged to any one of several million duly registered BBI clients, for whose units we are not legally responsible. The investigation might take only a few hours or it could take as much as weeks.”

“Are you telling me that no one’s responsible for a registered box that gets lost or sold on the black market?” Stelwyn seethed.

“No, sir, I’m not,” Haggerty assured him. “Registered clients sign an agreement to notify us if a box is stolen or misplaced. The boxes themselves can be globally tracked on our systems. Possession of an unauthorized box is a felony. Incidents in which a box is either lost or stolen and goes missing for more than a few hours are rare, but they do occur. For that very reason, there are safeguards to prevent anyone but the registered owner from discharging a KV unit. Even if an unauthorized user manages to figure out a way around those safeguards, the toxin in the unit is matched to the body chemistry of the registered user. Rarely is it fatal to anyone else.”

“It proved fatal enough to my son!”

“Actually, the situation is more complex,” Haggerty began, keeping his voice soothing and deferential. No matter the power Stelwyn wielded outside this room, he was still a father grieving a terrible loss. Haggerty was keenly aware of the pain the man must be in, and that what he was going to say next would only make it worse. “Whoever tampered with that unit found a way around the toxin specificity issue. With the serial number obliterated, it’s going to take time to track it down, but we will identify where it came from. And once we’ve done that, I give you my word that we will do everything in our power to find out who tampered with it and gave it to your son.”

“And we wish you every success in that investigation,” Primrose said. “But what you said doesn’t change the fact that BBI can’t deny its responsibility in this.”

“That remains to be seen,” Haggerty said. “It’s one thing if the unit was taken directly from BBI, and another if it was taken from a registered client. In either event, a preliminary analysis indicates that the toxin in the unit was not our serum—”

“Your gun, but not your bullets?” Primrose sneered.

“Mr. Primrose,” the Dragon cut in. “I assume your presence here means there’s an insurance policy involved, but I doubt that it was against an illegal form of suicide.”

Pressing a KV unit was a legal option entitling the survivors to whatever insurance benefits had been arranged, provided that the press wasn’t performed until at least six months after the policy was issued. It was probable that Tyler Stelwyn had been insured from birth and the statutory limitation was not a problem. But killing yourself in any way other than with a properly registered KV unit voided most insurance claims. Unless Tyler had registered for a unit and it could be proved that someone had switched it for another without his knowledge, his actions had voided whatever policy his parents had purchased. Haggerty chose not to think about the pressing-as-public-entertainment aspect. Not until he had to.

Stelwyn probably didn’t care if the policy ever paid out. No amount of money could make up for the loss of his son. He’d likely considered it an investment for his future grandchildren and never imagined he’d find himself in a position to collect. Cromwell and Sons, however, would be pleased if the boy’s suicide was illegal, thus saving them from having to pay out a huge number of credits.

“Tyler wouldn’t do that to himself,” Stelwyn insisted. “If anything, he was coerced by that band and those other kids.”

In which case, the courts might find the policy valid. It was easy to understand why Primrose was here. Haggerty braced himself for what he had to say next, knowing the devastating blow he was about to deliver.

“I’ve reviewed the recording, Mr. Stelwyn. I’m very sorry, but your son appears to have been a willing participant.”

“Impossible!” Stelwyn bellowed.

“There’s a recording?” his wife asked, her voice breaking.

“I want to see it now,” Stelwyn demanded.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible at this point without a legal warrant,” Consuela said. “It’s part of a state criminal investigation that, I might add, could become federal at any moment.”

“You viewed that recording without an adjuster present,” Primrose snapped.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Consuela said tiredly. “An adjuster for an unregistered unit in what appears, for the present, to be an illegal suicide? You know you have no standing in such a case. In any event, I assure you we used proper procedure and had the required warrants.”

She eyed Haggerty for confirmation. He nodded. Except for the keycard, he’d followed protocol every step of the way after Woyzeck gave him permission to remove the boxes before certification.

“Since no identity had been confirmed,” Consuela continued, “and the device was judged to be stolen property, viewing the recording was a necessary measure to assist the police in identifying the victim.”

“Forgive me if I challenge that all the way to the Supreme Court,” Primrose said.

“Be my guest,” Consuela retorted. “Now I must ask the Stelwyns: Do either of you have any information on the other two children? Were they friends of Tyler’s? Had you seen either of them before?”

Stelwyn and his wife indicated they had no such knowledge.

“In that case, I extend my condolences, Mr. and Mrs. Stelwyn. As Mr. Haggerty promised, BBI will do everything in our power to find out how that unit got into your son’s hands and bring those responsible to justice. But he and I are now required by law to attend another meeting.”

“Of course,” Stelwyn said bitterly. “We wouldn’t want to let a probable murder interfere with the bureaucracy, would we?”

“There’s no evidence of murder,” the Dragon said, her ire finally roused. “Criminal conspiracy, perhaps. But while you prepare to sue us out of existence, as I believe you put it, let me offer a final thought. Because your son, a minor, was in the willing, illegal possession of one of our units, the courts may find you to be at fault here, not us.”

“I’ll have you dismissed, Director. That’s a promise. And I’ll have that recording.”

“I’m just doing my job, Mr. Stelwyn,” Consuela said, attempting to be conciliatory. “I’m a representative of a subsidiary of the United States government. Believe me, we’ll get to the bottom of this. Again, please accept my condolences.”

She turned to Haggerty. “Let’s go.”

Outside in the hall, Consuela was less sure of herself. “That man has tremendous power and influence,” she told Haggerty. “We may very well be held responsible, whether we are or not.”

“Scapegoated, you mean,” Haggerty said. He’d been aware of the possibility as soon as Tyler Stelwyn’s identity had been revealed. Pressure would certainly be brought to blame someone for what had happened, and the BBI agents responsible for the investigation would get it if they couldn’t place it elsewhere. “I admired the way you handled that,” he told Consuela.

“Duly noted, Mr. Haggerty,” she replied. “Now tell me what was on that recording.”

“Tyler was with the band for some time, probably taking narcotics,” he said. “He recorded himself in some embarrassing acts. We’ll want to clean that up, edit it into something for the mother to view down the road. But there’s no doubt. He was a willing participant.”

“There’s something you probably don’t know,” Consuela said. “While you were out, O’Connell fielded three more copycats, all minors with black market boxes.”

Haggerty thought he should be shocked; instead he felt numb.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” Consuela continued, her confidence restored. “Speak with your friend Woyzeck and get him to allow you access to the band members and their manager.”

“They’re out of our jurisdiction now,” Haggerty responded. “Their testimony is part of the police investigation. You just told the parents—”

“Jason,” she said, stopping him. “How long have we worked together?”

“Nearly sixty years,” he said, bewildered at her first use of his given name since she welcomed him into the agency.

“In all that time, have you ever known me to break with procedure?”

Haggerty shook his head no.

“Well, then,” she said, “you can judge that this matter is of singular importance. The motives behind the presses in this case are secondary to me. We need to know where those kids got their hands on those black boxes before this thing spins out of control. Or this agency’s days may be numbered. Are you on board?”

How simple it would be to say no and walk away, but a lifetime of loyalty to the agency, an agency that not long ago had bent over backward on his own behalf, coupled with his deep-seated desire to know the truth, wouldn’t let him.

“Count me in,” he told her.

“Thank you, Jason,” Consuela said. “Your efforts will be well rewarded.”

The promise was moot. “We’d better get ready to meet the media,” he reminded her.

“I’ll handle that,” she said, to Haggerty’s relief. “You have more important tasks to tend to.”

* * *

Excerpt from The Killswitch Review, published by Yard Dog Press. Copyright 2011 Steven-Elliot Altman.

Steven-Elliot Altman is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and videogame developer. He won multiple awards for his online role playing game, 9Dragons. His novels include Captain America is Dead, Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires, Batman: Fear Itself, Batman: Infinite Mirror, The Killswitch Review, The Irregulars, and Deprivers. His writing has been compared to that of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick, and he has collaborated with world class writers such as Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Harry Turtledove and Dr. Janet Asimov. He’s also the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Touch, and a contributor to Shadows Over Baker Street, a Hugo Award winning anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories.

Steven also bares ink on his body, and is bi, as in bi-coastal, between NYC and LA. He’s currently hard at work writing and directing his latest videogame Cursed Love, an online free to play gothic horror RPG from Dark Hermit Studios, set in Victorian London. Think Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper and Dorian Gray mercilessly exploit the cast of Twilight. Friend Cursed Love (Official Closed Beta) on facebook and you can have fun playing out this tawdry, tragic romance with Steven while the game is being beta tested!

Diane DeKelb-Rittehouse spent several years in Manhattan as an actress before marrying her college sweetheart and returning to the Philadelphia area where she had been born. Diane first worked with Steven-Elliot Altman when they created the acclaimed, Publisher’s Weekly Starred-Review anthology The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium, in which her story “Gifted” appeared. Diane has published a number of critically acclaimed short stories, most notably in the science fiction, murder, and horror genres. Her young adult fantasy novel, Fareie Rings: The Book of Forests, is now available in stores or online.

Interested in buying a printed copy of The Killswitch Review? Well, Steve’s publisher Yard Dog Press was kind enough to put up a special page where SuicideGirls can get a special discount and watch a sexy trailer. Just follow this link to KillswitchReview.com and click on the SG logo.

* * *

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by Annarose A column which highlights some of SG’s fave watering holes and the house specialities served up in them. This week we pull up a stool at the Idle Hands Bar in NYC. (image) Bourbon, beer, and rock...oh my! Celebrating a one year anniversary in the East Village of New York City, Idle Hands... more

by Annarose

A column which highlights some of SG’s fave watering holes and the house specialities served up in them. This week we pull up a stool at the Idle Hands Bar in NYC.



Bourbon, beer, and rock...oh my! Celebrating a one year anniversary in the East Village of New York City, Idle Hands Bar is a classy place to toss back a few brews and rock out. The libation station carries over 85 different bottles of bourbon and over 50 craft beers from across the globe. In addition, they recently partnered with That Burger and now serve some of the best burgers in Manhattan at a reasonable price (ranging from $5.50 to $11.00).

After talking with Marc Schapiro and Rob Morton, partner owners of Idle Hands, it became clear to me that their overall goal is to have a good time with delicious drinks and rockin’ music. They frequently host parties for bands and have a reputation for awesome post-concert afterparties. Prior to opening the bar, the guys worked in the music/entertainment industry with bands like Shadows Fall, Thursday, Dillinger Escape Plan, and various record companies. Marc also told me that As I Lay Dying and All Time Low have partied at Idle Hands, which just so happen to be two of my favorite bands.

Rob, the head bartender, sent me the recipe for his signature drink, the Battle of New Orleans, which is a twist on an old-fashioned whiskey cocktail called the Sazerac that Rob’s finessed with his own unique spin.

I’m planning on heading to New York City in December and will absolutely be stopping by to check out the scene. Marc told me that he is a “big fan of SuicideGirls” so I’m pretty positive that I’ll quickly become a big fan of Idle Hands. Unique bourbons, cold brews, and rock & roll?! Sounds like a party I am not going to want to miss!

Find Idle Hands on the interweb, Facebook and Twitter.

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by Gallows A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups. (image) [Gallows Suicide in Scrabble] This week, Gallows Suicide writes in about SG's Pen Pals Group. Members: 187 / Comments: 9,603 WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: It’s amazing getting mail that isn’t bills, but even better... more

by Gallows

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.


[Gallows Suicide in Scrabble]

This week, Gallows Suicide writes in about SG's Pen Pals Group.

Members: 187 / Comments: 9,603

• WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: It’s amazing getting mail that isn’t bills, but even better getting letters from all over the world. Then having the people you write to become really great friends. I’ve met so many amazing people and made such great friends because of pen pals. I’ve become addicted to stationary and wax seals. I have so many awesome postcards, pictures, cards and items from all over the globe. It’s simply amazing! And even if I don’t have the time to write back super fast, my pen pals wait patiently.




• DISCUSSION TIP: Just get in there, start writing letters to addresses, and wait for replies. Most people in the group will send you welcome letters and help get you started, there’s even a thread to help you out if you are nervous about writing new friends. My tip is to just jump in and enjoy it!


• BEST RANDOM QUOTE: 
"I wish there were stamps with tits on them. *sigh*"




• MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: We don’t have a heated discussion thread. All of our heated conversations happen on paper and through the mail. Another great thing about Pen Pals is everyone is SUPER friendly!!!


• WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: You must be a member for at least 3 months, have a profile picture and some blog and comment posts! If you have all that then come and join!

***
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During our previous conversation with Chuck Palahniuk, which occurred shortly before the publication of his Sunset Boulevard-inspired book, Tell All, he spoke about how the ultimate name to drop was God’s. For this interview, we reconvene to discuss the domain of the G-man’s nemesis –– Hell ––... more

During our previous conversation with Chuck Palahniuk, which occurred shortly before the publication of his Sunset Boulevard-inspired book, Tell All, he spoke about how the ultimate name to drop was God’s. For this interview, we reconvene to discuss the domain of the G-man’s nemesis –– Hell –– which serves as the setting for Palahniuk’s wickedly inspired new novel, Damned.

According to Damned’s canon, evolution is hokum and Charles Darwin is resigned to hellfire and damnation alongside Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, and the entire Kennedy clan. Turns out you can end up there by committing all manner of trivial shit, such as dropping the f-bomb or honking your horn one too many times. Worshipping the wrong god will also land you in the hot spot, as will suffering the inconvenience of being a deposed one (thus the likes of Thor can also be found hanging out downstairs).

The topography of Palahniuk’s netherworld features a greasy Dandruff Desert, Great Plains of Discarded Razor Blades, a Swamp of Partial-birth Abortions, a Lake of Tepid Bile, and the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm (where in Hell, “porn is creating an effect equivalent to that of global warming on earth”). Those that find themselves there have two main career options: pornography or telemarketing.

The narrative of Damned follows Madison Spencer, the somewhat chubby, eternally optimistic13-year old progeny of a self-obsessed Hollywood star and a billionaire businessman. As a reflection of her mother’s glamour, Madison is an abject failure, however, the upside of her troubled childhood is that after a lifetime (albeit a short one) of electrolysis and herbal high colonics, Hell holds little terror for her.

Having been resigned to Hell after inhaling marijuana, and eschewing an eternity being "ogled by millions of men with serious intimacy problems," Madison finds gainful employment in telemarketing, an occupation that she finds unexpectedly fulfilling. Ensconced in one of Hell’s endless call centers, which has banks of phones that are programmed to auto-dial the earthbound specifically at dinnertime, Madison finds redemption. The question is, ultimately, will she want it?

Being in the business of asking people questions for a living, I felt a certain affinity with Madison. For the start of my conversation with Palahniuk, it therefore seemed only appropriate to borrow a little something from her telemarketing script…

Chuck Palahniuk: Hello.

Nicole Powers: Are you there, Chuck?

CP: Yes, I am.

NP: It's me, Nicole Powers, calling from Suicide Girls. Do you have time for a few questions?

CP: I do. How thrilling!

NP: You're not eating dinner I hope.

CP: I never eat anything.

NP: Damn! So there's not some tasty hot meal that's going to be coagulating as we talk?

CP: [laughs] I didn't get that reference. Ask me about Q-Tips. Ask me about paint samples.

NP: Paint samples?

CP: I was trying to think of anything mundane.

NP: Well, according to your book, statistically speaking, I must be in Hell, because Hell's apparently responsible for 85% of the internet's total smut content, and right now SG's probably contributing heartily to raising the level of the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm.

CP: [laughs]

NP: So the only logical conclusion that I can draw is that I have to be calling from some call center in Hell specifically created for the 100% of journalists that you say end up there.

CP: [laughs] Oh, I thought for sure you were going to say that you were a redhead. I had such a backlash from redheads about that.

NP: Well you know redheads are the new blondes.

CP: They are?

NP: Yes. When we did a survey [on hair color preference], redheads actually came out on top above blondes.

CP: Ah! Well, I know a lot of redheads that I can make happy now after making them really pissed off.

NP: How are you dealing with the ginger backlash?

CP: Boy, don't shoot the messenger, OK. It's not my fault. I'm just reporting here...I think redheads already know what they've got going. Too many cards already.

NP: This book is very tongue-in-cheek. In it you satire the arbitrary-ness of much of religious doctrine. A lot of what you're saying, I assume, is facetious. You get a sense of what you don't mean from the text, but you have to read in between the lines to try and figure out what you do believe. Would you agree with that?

CP: Entirely...Do you remember the Left Behind books that were for the Christians? They bought them by the millions because it made them right...They're these books that reinforce what people already believe, and I wanted to write a religious Left Behind series, but for secular liberals.

Yeah, it is. Madison has this line about how she'll tell you everything about herself except for the truth, and that's kind of the whole theme of the book -- that all the most true things are never going to be said out loud.

NP: As I was reading the book I was trying to figure out what your personal belief structure is. Is that something that you're willing to expand on or is that something that you'd like to leave up in the air?

CP: I'm going to leave it up in the air because I've got two more books to write in the series and I just don't want to let that genie out of the bottle before book number three.

NP: Without giving too much away, there is a "To be continued..." at the end of this one. Does that mean that we're going to see Madison back for two more books?

CP: Exactly! It's The Lord of the Rings kind of. It's based on Dante's Inferno. In the next book she is in purgatory. In the third book she gets to heaven. Things don't really improve much, but she moves along.

NP: I like the idea that you explore that Hell is more of a detox or a rehab spot. There's a quote where you talk about all of the things that you have to give up before you can go to Heaven...The meaningless things that we hold close. I often think about the lies that we tell ourselves and the truths that we ignore to make our lives bearable...What are the lies that you tell yourself?

CP: Wow! The lies that I tell myself? That I'm going to get through this. That if I can just make enough money, or if I can just write a book that's funny enough, or that reaches enough people, that I won't die. I'm not going to die. That's always the big, big lie -- that somehow I can transcend death.

NP: I think that's the goal of every artist, to leave something behind that's eternal.

CP: Every artist or every religious person or every parent. That's how [Martin] Heidegger talked about it. Those were the three main ways in which we sought immortality: through art, procreation, or through spirituality.

NP: [To paraphrase,] you just said earlier that you wanted to write a book [that would make you immortal], but you've already done that. The body of work that you already have has earned you that status.

CP: You know, years ago, maybe when I was 17 or 18, my grandmother got breast cancer and she called each of us grandkids and she said, "What are your three favorite colors? I'm going to knit you an afghan. I'm going to make everyone an afghan in their three favorite colors before I die so that you have something to remember me by." Of course she didn't die. It was dealt with, she lived 20 or 30 more years. Shortly before she actually did die a few years ago, she visited and she saw that afghan that she made and she was just mortified that this thing was her quest for immortality. She tried to get it back from me and she insisted that she could make me a better one. "Please don't let that be your memory of me. I've got to make you a better afghan." And so with every book it's me saying to people, "Let's forget the last one. I've got to make you a better afghan."

NP: I would say that you've already made some pretty damn perfect afghans, but I know that's probably, as an artist, not what you want to hear because you always want to be able to improve.

CP: I can make you a better one. Let me try.

NP: I'll let you try.

I also love this idea that you raise about whether it's blind faith that gets you into heaven or whether it's good deeds...I like to think that if there is a God he wouldn't be an asshole, and if you're doing good deeds for the right reasons, which is because it's the right thing to do, then that should take precedence above someone that's just doing something nice to get a spot on the VIP list.

CP: Exactly. Those people who actually do things because they loved them in high school, versus those people who did things because they looked good on their college applications -- that's the difference.

NP: I've always thought that, in a way, believing or not, or picking a religion like picking a sports team is kind of redundant. As long as you're leading the best life you can, a higher power wouldn't be a dick. He [or she] would see that and let you in. It's like you can't lose as long as you're not a dick.

CP: Yeah, but religion does give you access to a community of people and it brings you together in a mutual and peer-supported way, like any kind of 12-step group, so that you can be accountable and you can state your goals to a group of people who will hold you accountable. I like that aspect of religion.


NP: A friend of Richard Dawkins, R. Elisabeth Cornwell, wrote me an essay on the evolutionary reasons for religion and it was very much about that. As a species we were more successful if we were part of a group. We were safer and we had better access to food, especially as we took up agriculture. So it became important for humans to "believe" and be part of a group, irrespective of whether we really believed.

CP: Also, it allows us to process our experience by converting it into language and make a kind of confession where we debase ourselves in front of our peers so we don't exalt ourselves on an ongoing [basis]. That periodically we invert the power structure and place ourselves on low, and then we're accepted despite the lowest aspects of ourselves, in the same way that people in 12-step groups make their confessions each week and they're accepted back into the community.

NP: I do believe in the function of a church -- when it's functioning well -- but I personally believe that the power of a church is below the roof and not above it.

CP: I do too. I think there's power there, but it's the power the people themselves generate too. So I think we agree on this.

NP: So much of what religion should be about has gotten hijacked by those that focus on the pettiness of it, which is something that you have great fun poking fun at in the book. I'm definitely going to Hell because I've honked my horn too many times, I've dropped the f-bomb way too many times. I don't think I've hit my farting in an elevator quota yet though. That's my one saving grace.

CP: That's kind of the core of the second book in purgatory. Madison has lied to her parents to encourage them to perform these behaviors, and in the second book, when she's stuck back on earth for a year, she realizes that her parents couldn't keep a secret and they founded this enormous major world religion that's based on doing these small inconsiderate rude behaviors, and she's actually made the world an infinitely worse place than it was before.

NP: Madison takes a lie detector test to see if she really should be in Hell or if it's all a big clerical error, and there are lots of questions that are asked that she doesn't know how to answer. She knows what's right in her heart, and then she knows what is written in the Bible -- or what's interpreted as being written in the Bible -- and so she asks this question: "Is God a racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic ass? Or is God testing to see if I am?" I just love that line.

CP: I love that too. It's something I didn't plan. I just thought it was terrific the way that it worked out.

NP: That was just one of those lines that tripped into your head?

CP: Right, like a little Zen koan where you couldn't really resolve it for yourself. I think those things live out in the world like crazy and they stay in people's minds.

NP: It is one of the great paradoxes of religion. Homosexual pastors, for example, when preaching the Bible, must constantly have this conundrum in their heads that can never be answered.

CP: And the idea that they might be speaking to pools of people who are already damned and there is nothing that they can do about them because of predetermination. There's all of those big unanswered questions that are just so much fun to spool out narratives and scenarios with. In a way, I think that is the greatest purpose of storytelling and, as a writer, it's so much fun to tackle these enormous and impossible stories, and to make up answers to them and then to support those answers somehow.

NP: I love the idea that Hell might be of our own choosing. At one point in the book, you make Hell akin to a neighborhood that no one cares about, but that people are capable of sprucing up -- they just have to be aware of that choice.

CP: Right. I think just stating that allows people a sense of power, that they're not just trapped in certain circumstances. They can't change the circumstance, but at least they can change their reaction to it, and that's a really powerful thing to start from.

NP: I often see that when I'm driving around the poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles...some of the homes are beautiful craftsman style houses, and they're just in the worst, most Hellish neighborhoods. You just think about what would happen if, as a group, people saw the potential in their existing world. What might happen if they did a little bit of what Madison did -- putting paper lilies on the sea of shit, so to speak.

CP: In a way, she's doing it all for her parents, because she's recognizing that, as ineffectual as her parents were, their motive was to try to provide her with a better world. She doesn't necessarily have to succeed, but she can at least return the effort by trying to provide them with a better Hell, a better afterlife. What redeems us is maybe not so much succeeding in that effort as it is making the effort for another person. That's one of the things that takes her mind off the fact that she herself is stuck in this awful place. Boy, that sounds lofty. Sorry about that.

NP: Also, just with the way she touches and affects other people. Her friends in Hell start off being a not very pleasant group of people, but through her sheer force of personality, they actually become really good friends and better people. And that goes to the effect that you can have on those around you just by being a little bit more pleasant yourself.

CP: Pleasant and accessible. There's a sense that Madison is denying the drama of the situation and denying a kind of social hierarchy. Everything that occurs is kind of equal for her, and that allows comedy to occur. When you deny the drama or the existing power structure, then comedy occurs.

NP: Madison is a very sympathetic character because of her parents. They have very misguided good intentions. If they do something good it's only ever in front of cameras. You have this line, "The road to Hell is paved in publicity stunts." It reminds me of the uncomfortable feeling I get when I'm at most Hollywood charity events...

CP: It really undermines the idea that anything can be good, and you sort of go back out into your life with a corrupt sense of altruism. That seems like the most insidious part of it, that you quit even believing that goodness is even possible because you always see it harnessed to a project or to publicity, to some sort of capital endeavor. That's the horrible part; you forget that there even is a heaven because it's all about making money or something like that.

NP: When you get some celebrity announcing that they've donated to something, the very fact that they've announced that they've done it diminishes what they've done.

CP: Exactly!

NP: Instead of seeing the beauty in that, and maybe this is a fault of mine, maybe this is me being not very generous of spirit, but I see the cynical side rather than the beauty, which saddens me. Maybe I should be a better person, see the beauty and brush aside my cynicism.

CP: I think that part of becoming a fully actualized adult is recognizing both. Being able to hold that paradox of both in your mind at the same time. Not being completely subsumed by pessimism, but also not being so gullible that you accept all of those things at face value.

NP: This idea of the duality of ideas, that you can hold two opposing ideas in your head and acknowledge them and not necessarily struggle with them –– just recognize they're there and accept them –– that seems to be a very Buddhist stance to take.

CP: In a way, it's a nice skill to have for life itself. You know, you're constantly in the presence of death and you have to deny that or you have to somehow hold the concept of life and death simultaneously. Every time you get on a plane or get in your car or eat something, you could suddenly choke to death and die. How can you live with that possibility without being destroyed by it? Having that skill of holding that possibility in the presence of life is such an important part of not going nuts.

NP: I know the only way that I can live my life -- and this goes back to the lies that we tell ourselves and the truths we ignore -- I have to completely ignore the idea of death. I can't think about it. The way that I live my life is by not confronting death in any way, which is probably not a good thing or a healthy thing.

CP: I think that's probably how the majority of people deal with it. That's also why my books never sell really strong. I always want to throw that possibility out there and play with it and rub people's noses in it maybe a little.

NP: I think that comes from the fact that you have had to deal with death directly in your life through personal tragedy, and I understand that you worked transporting terminally ill people for a while, so you've lived with the line of life and death in a much closer way. You have a much closer relationship to it than most.

CP: I've been developing all these different strategies, or ways of looking at it, ways of perceiving it without either denying it, dismissing it, or being shut down by it; finding all of these different ways to re-perceive it and to use the awareness of it to live a better life.

NP: How do you perceive death for yourself? Is it something that you're at peace with or horrified about?

CP: In a way, I'm kind of completely looking forward to it because most of the people that I love most in the world are dead. It seems like a club or a place where everyone I love has gone and I can't wait to be with them. But at the same time, I'm not going to use that as an excuse not to live my life and enjoy everything right now. It makes right now feel a lot more like a game, like something that is really here to take advantage of.

NP: There is a theme that Madison revisits several times in the book where she talks about how the living feel superior to the dead. Is that something that you feel?

CP: I think that's something that people have to feel. It's a defensive posture where you have to ridicule and dismiss and exclude the dead because, like you were just saying, it's too daunting a thing to consider all the time. We have to exclude it from our daily lives because we have no skills for dealing with it anymore. Especially now that so much of religious narrative has been dismissed. People used to have a way of framing those issues and dealing with them. Now they don't so those issues are even more frightening.

NP: That's something that I'd not even thought about, but there was a formalized way with religion of dealing with and acknowledging death. Without religion, people get put in boxes and put in the ground or in an oven, and we just brush it off and move on. I think religion maybe served a function in that it forced us to confront death.

CP: It provided a comfort and structure for how to live that portion of our lives and how to deal with that when it occurs to people that we cared about. Without that structure, without that comfort, we become much more panicked and reactionary, and that part of our lives becomes much more chaotic and full of suffering when it didn't need to be.

NP: Expanding on that, given that religion and religious ceremony helps people confront death, and that a funeral is very much about not so much remembering the dead, but is about being a form of group therapy for the living -- have you planned your own funeral? Because it is the final gift that you leave to the living.

CP: I really haven't. I'm haunted, in a way, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who made such enormous plans for his funeral, mapped them all out, scripted them. They were going to cost a fortune, and by the time he died he was completely in obscurity and had no money, and so he ended up being buried in very modest circumstances. All of his plans were ridiculous in the face of how he was actually was buried. So that tempers me making those kinds of plans.

NP: It seems like you believe in an afterlife because you very much hope that you're going to be reunited with your loved ones. I guess everyone has a creative visualization of what it would be like. I know that in this book you're giving a very tongue-in-cheek, facetious view, what's more the glimmer of reality that you actually see?

CP: That's going to be in the third Madison [book]. Again, I don't want to go there until I have to go there. If you become too attached to that vision you're no longer in the present moment, and so I just try not to live that far in the future.

NP: There's a line in the book, "I can't believe there's no wifi in Hell." It's a joke, but no wifi, that's Hell on earth for me...What's your similar idea of Hell on earth?

CP: When people that I care about are suffering and I can't do anything, that is the most unbearable. When you have to be present to the upset of people you love, a health crisis or any kind of suffering, and you can't relieve it. That is Hell.

NP: I feel so bad because I know that you've had a lot of that in your life, and I'm so sorry.

CP: You know, it gives me books. It's another reason why I keep writing. Writing gives me a way to process each of these unbearable situations.

NP: Well, finally, a lot people in the SuicideGirls community were excited that we were going to be talking with you today, so some of our Facebook friends submitted questions. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions from the community?

CP: Sure.

NP: The first question is from Lindsay Mchugh. She asks: Is there a particular character you most identify with?

CP: From now on it will be Madison Spencer. Madison Desert Flower Rosa Parks Coyote Trickster Spencer, that fat little girl who reads books.

NP: The next question is from Johnny Reid: Do you find it more enjoyable to write female or male protagonists in your books, and which is easier or more comfortable?

CP: I kind of see them as equal because I almost write genderless characters. Madison is preadolescent and so she's genderless in that way. The narrator in my last book was a very old woman so she was kind of post gender, or post genitally sexual. Beyond that, my characters are pretty much based on action, so I see their names as either male or female, but I don't see them as one gender or the other.

NP: This question is from Raven Phoenix: Would you ever consider writing a sequel to Fight Club, given the popularity of the book and the movie?

CP: Of course I would consider it, but there's so many other great ideas out there that I would love to explore instead of that.

NP: This one's from Joby Cole: I'm a big fan of Snuff and would like to know which character you sympathize with the most and why?

CP: The Sheila character, the one who is kind of pulling all of the strings. I think it's the writer who is making things happen and setting things up. That's why I identify with Sheila.

NP: You are the puppet master.

CP: You kind of have to be.

NP: And a final question from Cara Stevens: "Are you still an insomniac?"

CP: No, I'm not. I discovered Ambien, so I more or less asleep all the time now, day and night.

NP: Do dreams help you write?

CP: No, but the best time to write is when I first wake up in the morning, before I've heard any language, any music, before anybody has talked to me. That is just a fantastic time to write.

NP: I always find that if I write and then sleep on something, I'll wake up in the morning absolutely knowing what I need to fix, what I haven't fact checked or what I've got wrong...In the morning things just bubble to the surface.

CP: I think, going back to religion, that idle time spent sitting in a church, not really doing anything with an overt purpose, functions in that same way. It relaxes the mind. The Hindus might say that it allows you access to elephant mind, a kind of deeper understanding, or a deeper thinking than the every day chattering monkey mind would provide. I think that stillness that you're talking about allows you access. It's similar to what happens in a really good church.

NP: I haven't thought of it that way, but I think you're probably right. I know that when I'm not ready to write I go do something else. I'll clean the toilet or walk the dog. The best stuff happens when you're not trying to think about it, because you're letting your subconscious function in the way that it's supposed to.

CP: And your hands are occupied. You're doing a mindless thing where your hands are running themselves doing this thing. Yeah, I totally agree.

NP: What's your favorite little trick like that?

CP: Washing dishes. I'm always washing the dishes. I love that.

NP: That's where the best ideas come from? Washing dishes?

CP: Ironing, of all things, ironing clothes.

NP: I can see that. Ironing is very Zen. Ironing the creases out of things and neatening life.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time out to chat. I really appreciate it. I have to say that I love this book. It set the electrons in my brain firing like you wouldn't believe, just thinking about the big questions.

CP: Thank you, and thanks for making me laugh early on, that's pretty rare.

NP: You are very welcome...It's been an absolute pleasure and I can't wait to read the continuing adventures of Madison. I'm rooting for her.

CP: The next one is better than the first one.

NP: Well, this one was perfection to me.

CP: I can make you a better afghan.

NP: I'll hold you to that. I know you can.