Katy on Wellbeing

Why Diana Gabaldon Rocks

Tonight I went to hear Diana Gabaldon speak as part of her publicity tour for her newest book in the Outlander series, "An Echo In the Bone".  And while it's fresh in my mind, I must write about why she's so fabulous. 

But before I get to that ..... it's lucky she is/was so good, because the PR geniuses at McNally Robinson had staged the talk OUTSIDE.  TONIGHT.  Temperature in Toronto hovering around 2 degrees celsius.  Fifty minutes of sitting outside freezing our tails off when they have a huge store with a large restaurant area inside that could easily have been reorganized to accommodate the reading.  I mean, come on people.  It's more than an hour later, and my hands are still shaking.

But I digress.  And I've just poured a small dram of Lagavulin 16 to take the chill off.  So here's why she rocks:

3.  She's a terrific speaker.  A legacy, perhaps, of her years as a university professor.  Warm, funny, ribald, smart.  And she's a bloody good sport.  Standing there in the bitching cold, with a throat worn painfully hoarse from last week's flu and the speaking tour, cheerfully holding forth on everything from why women love men in kilts ("you can be up against the wall in three minutes"), to the current Lord Lovatt, head of the Fraser clan ("32, very handsome, and seven feet tall"), to her writing process ("no outline, no straight line, I write in pieces where I see things happening").

2. She's a great example of someone who had a perfectly good academic career in biology (dissertation topic: ‘Nest Site Selection in the Pinyon Jay, Gymnorhynus cyanocephalus’), but had always wanted to write a novel.  So at the age of 35, she decided to start one on her next birthday.  And she did.  And the result, eventually, was Outlander and a 3-book publishing contract.  I love it that she had the courage to imagine herself doing something completely different, and the tenacity to get on with it.  I also appreciate how she started with a basic "core competence" in research, and used it to bring extraordinary historical events, from the Jacobite rebellion to the American revolution, alive for her readers.

1.  She gave us Jamie Fraser.  Every woman who has read Outlander, never mind the entire series, has fallen completely in love with Jamie.  A man who, if among us today, would be sitting his kilted ass in jail with a book full of restraining orders.  But nevertheless the hero who has single-handedly done more for the romantic prospects of red haired guys, Scottish guys, and red haired Scottish guys than anyone else in history.  Plus, I am sure, he has contributed billions of dollars in revenue to the romance publishing and Scottish tourism industries.

If you want to hear more from Diana Gabaldon, here's a recent interview, and a link to her blog. 

If you are a woman who has not read this series (are there any?), run don't walk to your nearest bookstore and buy at least the first two books: Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber.  Then clear your calendar for the next two weeks and retire to your couch with a heap of chocolate and a box of Kleenex.

And if you are somebody who dreams of writing a novel, making a film, picking up a guitar .... give it a shot ....

Love, Sex and Money

(Imported from previous blogging platform, minus comments, 23 April 09)

Subtitle of this blog post: Things That Make Your Head Spin

Two days ago I got a note from a friend of my brother’s saying that “Love > under development, come back later” was not helping him any.  I had been working on that section of my website anyway, so ever obliging, got busy and put it up on the site that night.  It’s not about romantic love, particularly, but about that big, universal force that makes the world go round and life worth living.  (See: Love)

Cut to last night, when I followed a web link posted by a friend of mine, and found myself immersed in an article called Keeping Up With Being Kept, by Ruth Padawer, from April 10th’s New York Times Magazine.  It’s about a site called Seeking Arrangement (“The Elite Sugar Daddy Dating Site for Mutually Beneficial Relationships”), which links up prospective “Sugar Daddies” and “Sugar Babies”.  The deal is that the Sugar Daddy provides money, travel, and lavish gifts to the Sugar Baby in return for sex, attention and adoration.  No strings attached.  Although that’s feeling like rather a lot of strings already .....

Of course I had to check it out.  I was expecting a collection of married, crazy-rich, geriatrics, but was gobsmacked to find that the majority of the would-be Sugar Daddies (on the three pages I could look at before actually signing up, and even for the sake of research, I just couldn’t bring myself to do that) are: under the age of 45 .... some as young as in their 20s; single; quite handsome; moderately wealthy (i.e. net worth of $1-2 million and annual income of $250K - $500K ..... yes, it provides that info) as opposed to super-rich, although there were plenty of them too.

And a few seemed to have wandered in by mistake from other dating sites.  These optimistic romantics specified that they would NOT give cash, and indeed seemed to be actually searching for someone who would like them.  Like, you know ..... a girlfriend.  Good luck, guys.  Some of those fellows were offering “allowances” of $5K - $20K per month.

I was so skeezed out by this time that I couldn’t bring myself to check out the aspiring Sugar Babies.  Even now, I’m not even sure what to write about this.  I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that this most ancient of commercial transactions is alive and well and facilitated by the internet.

But the idea that so many young women (Babies out-number Daddies 10:1) are willing to offer something as sacred as their bodies up to strangers for payment just makes my heart drop like a stone.  And not just any strangers: men who are shelling out good money so that they don’t have to think about their partners’ emotional needs or make any longer-term commitment.  These Babies aren’t street kids.  They’re students and young professional women.  I mean, I get that paying for college in the US is expensive.  But whatever happened to the idea of having your body in your soul’s keeping??

The juxtaposition of my Love section posting against the Seeking Arrangements site literally makes my head spin.  I feel, at this moment, ridiculously idealistic and out of step.  Anne of Green Gables waking up in the Playboy Mansion.  But I’ll get over it.  And when I do, I’ll be coming back round to:

“WTF are we doing to our girls??!!!” 

What are we teaching them about their value?  What are we doing to help them meet their survival needs in appropriate ways?  What messages are we sending about sexuality, earning a living, consumption, love, and relationships with men?