Today, I am happy to continue in the vein of celebrating some of the wonderful women that I am lucky and blessed to know.
Today is the birthday of one of my most magical, mystical girlies - sometimes I almost feel as if she is an imaginary friend. Those of you who know me well know that sometimes I can be closer to this kind of friend than any other. I seem to see her often in shifting shadows - not the scary kind, but the kind that turn the forest floor into a chiaroscuro of dancing light and shade, the kind of shadow that hides the rabbit from the hawk. And sometimes she's the shadow of the hawk... She is the inscrutable Crowgirl*.
I work with her everyday, but I see her rarely, and though I've known her now for years, there is still so much that I don't know, and I am looking forward to patiently** learning. It is definitely worth the wait. Her mystique is sweet and sad.
She is piercingly intelligent, uniquely beautiful, genuinely mysterious (without trying***. bless her heart, I think sometimes that she wishes she wuzzn't.), she is clever, talented, loving, optimistic, generous, passionate, broken-hearted, fierce, and above all, one of a kind. Her soul has wings, big enough to fill the sky, and dark, but with an irridescent shimmer like the northern lights. My wish for her birthday is that more of my friends could know her better, that I could coax her out of her shell, into the light, just a little more often. Selfish me, baaaad kitty that I am, I want to enjoy her more, and I want to share her. I think she has no idea how wonderful she really is, and I wish she would let us celebrate her more.
So here, at least I can sing her praises, and reveal her to you all just a little.
Happy birthday, Crowgirl. Thank you for making me a special part of celebrating your young heart and your old soul!
veryvery BIG fat love,
-sambolina, queena the geeks
(here is a very good poem for this very good day!)
CACOPHONY OF CROWS

We turned, and leaned against the world.
I rested there, with my eyes closed,
even the eyes of my eyes closed,
while the fray of my nerves
lay fallow and healing.
The earth itself turned; the red dirt
leached and emptied,
long after the fertile fire had gone out
and my face was painted with its ash
and broken seeds.

My little love, it was such a long winter.
Even after the Equinox, the earth refused
to be dried out. The rains kept coming,
and that hanging chill, even in early June,
refused to leave the air or the fields,
still left dormant.

At market, the farmers say
no seed will take in the running rains,
the floodplains created by the thaw,
or within the chill itself.
When they say,
"the growing season will come in her own time,"
the tone is less of statement and
more of simple prayer.

Above their voices, I could hear the crows.
When I opened my eyes and left the leaning
against to stand along the axis of the earth,
I could see them in the trees.
Beneath their wings was the sky, a blue
too enormous to be owned by a name.
I could feel the sun, finally,
in my hair, unbound.
The wind was there in it, too…
talking to her,
almost whispering.

-Dora E. McQuaid

and here are some more special crow poems, sites and art, just for you!


*in this comic, she's the one next to me in the board meeting, thinking about the knife. :)
**ha! me! patient!
***we all know how yukky the opposite is. ugh. i had a professional poseur aquaintance in college who said (yes, out loud) "i want to be cloaked in an air of mystery." in my opinion, that's kinda' hard when you're cloaked in an air of stale cigarette smoke, old ramen dishes and ass.

I am very grateful to be able to say that I am loved by a lot of people. A lot of wonderful, amazing, kind, intelligent, beautiful, talented, brave, funny and funky people. When I think of how many special people give so much of themselves to me, look after me, look up to me and, thank god, overlook me when need be, it stupifies me. As hard as I try to deserve this, I think I will never feel that I really do, but I am grateful, nonetheless, and mightily inspired to keep trying to be worthy.
There is one little particular circle of friends who inspired today's rant. They are three (and 1/16*) ladies whom I met completely by chance. They were the best of friends before me, but they assimilated me and my **Ego with the greatest of ease, and now I don't know how I ever lived without them. We definitely do not get together often enough, but when we do, we make up for lost time. When last we met, one of us suggested that we needed to make a point to do this once a month. I agree whole-heartedly, and to that cause, I've written this poem, partially as a little "making" (words have a lot of power), but mostly to honor these women that bless my life.
I love you very much, my Ladies. Can you guess which element is you?
xoxox
-s

DreamCatcher

Start with a willow circlet,
woven ‘round, limber strength,
symbol of eternity, openness, air,
the beginning and end
of all things;

Wrap with fire-hued spider silk and
the darkest forest-green wool,
bits of blue, black and white,
warmth and color, threads the symbol of
unity, passion, labor, love and light;

Stretch with sinew, knotted in the pattern of
the structure of earth, of life itself,
pulling tight, drawing together,
holding the good, and letting the bad things
breeze on through;

Hang with feathers, fishbone, sparkling stones,
shells and bits of sea glass like shining drops of water,
symbols of the flow of life’s salt-sweet blood,
of power and mercy, rain and storm, beauty, desire,
and change.

Bless and suspend this thing of beauty,
spinning, shining, protecting, and reminding
us to carefully sift the dark from the light,
respect them both, and be grateful for Her
myriad gifts of Elements and Dreams.

-sll


*Baby makes five, and that's the Big Mama in the Sky's most magic number...
**Terrible Horrible

So, I suppose you’ll all be wanting a completely unbiased review of “The Chronicles of Riddick”, right? Ok. Here you go.
But, if you want to know what I thought, read on.
For starters, let me say that the whole movie felt very much as if a SERIOUSLY nerdy guy* simultaneously got a really fantastic body and a basically unlimited sum of money to produce a film version of his most dear RPG campaign. This is, of course, a GOOD thing. The plot/world seemed to be a hybrid of AD&D, Cyberpunk and Starfleet Battles. Spaceships, strange creatures, knife-fighting Galactic Barbarians, lots of big muscles and cool-@$$ clothes, and spiky armor and sweat-soaked leather…
ooooh, yeaaaahhhhh, mmmmm…. whu? who? huh? oh, where was I? oh right. Review…
In short, for me, there was only one thing wrong with this movie, and that was that it was over too soon. Yes, the plot was a bit bologna and there was a lot of cheese, but you know what? There were many times in my youth when all there was to eat was bologna and cheese, and that was some fine eatin’. Still is. People have often given me $#*! about being too easily pleased (???) or “the great American consumer”, because I can be pretty forgiving if something has enough merit to make me be able to live with it’s flaws. I think that my friends who have complained about this should really be counting their dadgummed blessings, personally, but you know people.
This movie was rich with geek fantasy elements. In my opinion, it had it all. There was beautiful art and architecture, lovely costumes, lovely people, cool ships, cool monsters, cool weapons, bizarre landscapes, good fights, bad villains, gorgeous women, the hint of a much bigger imagined universe, oh, and of course, Vin.
The biggest surprise, however, was the additional bohunk factor. As soon as Riddick’s nemesis appeared on screen, I thought “MMMMRrrooOWOWwwwwRrrrrrr!!!” (mm, gotta love those Mullets of Fury!). Then I thought “Why does this fantastic bohunk look so familiar?” It wasn’t until the credits that I realized that this young man was none other than Karl Urban – aka our EOMER! Wow! Who’da thunk he had the makings of such a fabulous orc-boy! And him vs. Vin*** was just, well, special. Let’s just say it gave me a really warm feeling all over.
All cool sci-fi geeks stuff aside, I think my very favorite thing about this movie is the reaction that the majority of men seem to be having toward it. I have now heard half’a dozen guys say that it sucked, and that the reason it sucked is because it was a CHICK FLICK! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, baby! Welcome! You’re in Sam’s World now! Buckle up! Wheeeeee!!!!!!!!
Stewart and Chris loved it, and I know for a fact that neither one of them would say that to mollycoddle me*****. One guy actually had the nerve to tell me today, after I laughed at him for calling it a chick flick, that it was “stupid, and who wanted to see all those guys running around half-naked, anyway?”
Ummm… ok, for one thing, there WAS no half-naked – believe me, I’d’ve noticed. Basically all you ever see of Vin is bare arms and head (even in XXX, his sexiest scene was thermal underwear and a shearling coat. A little bare chest … …*sigh* …was all you got), and Mr. Urban is literally covered from neck-to-toe throughout the entire film.
I don’t hear anyone complaining about all the LESS than half-naked action starlets we’ve all seen running around for the last 60 years or so. Hell, that’s one of the absolutely necessary elements of a good action film – and this movie has those too. Not to mention some hot starlets with more than just a little moxie, too. (I liked “Jack” a lot, both in Pitch Black and C.o.R.). I said something to this weenie about the essential naked-ish action movie babes and mentioned Bond girls. He said “Yeah, you don’t see James Bond running around naked, do you?” No you don’t, and mores the pity! It’s about time that ladies like me (and there are LOTS of us) were being lured to the cinema to watch this wonderful new breed of "Chick Flicks". Three cheers for the action heroes who pull us in, too. They know what’s up. The rest of you sad-sacks can sit at home and piss and moan ‘cause your woman is off, sitting three rows back from the screen with all her girlfriends, oohing and aahing over this great new strain of action hero, or you can get off your butt and BE ONE. Admittedly, my beau is not at all physically like Mr. Diesel – though he is as fine as blackberry wine, if you ask me and, well, basically all the other girls I know – but instead of being a big-ole-sissy about me loving this film for such, um, esoteric reasons, he enjoyed it with me, and afterwards told me how lucky he felt to have a girlfriend who thinks of movies like that as Chick Flicks. Now that's a hero, folks.

Sure there were one or two cute/sweet moments (just like in XXX), but that’s classic action film stylie, which you’d know if you love the Hong Kong Action Cinema like I do.
They made the movie human, and gave our heroes some depth. I am sure that there are some folks out there, men and women alike, who just take life WAY to dang seriously, and just didn’t like the movie because it was basically high-grade B sci-fi. And that’s ok. But those of you who I KNOW liked “Conan” or “Highlander” or “Aliens”, and yet claim that this flick is crap – ESPECIALLY because it was a “chick flick”, shame on you. Shame, shame, shame. Your Queen does NOT approve. May you be sentenced to Meg Ryan movies for the rest of your miserable lives!
Well, I’m going off to build a spaceship now, and maybe do some crunches.
BIG (flexing, sweaty, oily) love,
-S

*and trust me, I know from seriously nerdy guys.
**via some cosmic alien experiment, or some sort of cyber-surgery or similar – of course.
***and then him PLUS Vin****… but I don’t want to give TOO much away…
****Smelling salts? Anyone? My goodness, these spells of the vapors are troublesome!
*****They damn well KNOW better. They liked it because it was a fun, funny, bad@$$, exciting geek flick. No more, no less.