Muchness and Light

Getting bigger and brighter, wider and lighter.

The girls and I have agreed for ages that Growler's husband, BC, is an über-Alpha male.  In any given situation or room of people, he will quietly take control and direct almost everything that happens.  I'm sure he has moments when he can be an utter ass about it, but I've never really seen that aspect of him.  Granted, I don't live with the man.  However, I have spent a lot of time with him and in their home. 

"Alpha Male Traits" on AskMen.com outlines some basics, from the book Men 2.0 Engineering the Alpha: A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life by Adam Bornstein and John Romaniello:

"You see, to be an Alpha male in the traditional sense simply means the most dominant within a group, or the strongest in a group or the most confident in a group. Not a person who is necessarily strong or confident in the absolute sense; just someone who, in a given group of people, most outwardly projects strength or confidence. In other words, the problem with the definition of Alpha isn’t really the assumed aggression or implied cockiness; it’s the fact that the entire foundational principle for self-value is  comparative analysis."

They outline seven characteristics of the new Alpha:

1)      helpful but not condescending

2)      confident but not cocky

3)      vain but not conceited

4)      prideful but not arrogant

5)      humble but not self-loathing

6)      tolerant but not weak

7)      dedicated but not obsessed

After Bounder and I broke up, Growler finally confided that BC never quite thought Bounder was the right match for me.  I trust BC's instincts for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he's a Fragile Cat.  Like Bounder.  And like me. 

"I don't date by committee," I said to him, meaning the girls (a.k.a. The Castration Committee), "but I'm not dating anyone from now on until they get your stamp of approval."

He laughed and agreed.

And then it hit me: BC is the Lion King.  We are part of his pride.

Let me be very, very clear that there is absolutely nothing untoward or lascivious in my relationship with BC.  He and Growler and I all know this.  Where she is part of my girlie heart, he is an extension of that and has become a very good friend to me over the last few months.  I can only hope I am responsibly reciprocal in that friendship.

Growler laughed when I called him Mufasa, but we talked at length about this concept of his protecting the women (and even some of the men) in his life and how they all care for him in return. 

I need that in my ideal mate, I thought.  Those are the traits I'm seeking.

But then it hit me again: I have those traits. 

Even though I wasn't always cultivating or fully utilizing them, they're part of my make-up. 

And then I wrote on a piece of paper, which I showed to Growler:

I am an Alpha Female looking for an Alpha Male.

"Of course you're looking for an alpha male," she laughed.  "Did you not know this?"

I shook my head, eyes wide.  "I knew that.  I didn't know—"

"You didn't know you're an Alpha female??  Honey, do you hear this?"

BC and Growler laughed and laughed, watching me enveloped by this epiphany.  I called Hot Pocket that afternoon and told her; she laughed uproariously.

"Tank [her husband] and I have talked about that a hundred times.  Did you really not know?"

Nope.

It all suddenly made sense, the ways in which I am strangely not like other girls. 

1)      incredibly loyal but sometimes self-sacrificing

2)      well-aware of my abilities but sometimes disabled by my weaknesses

3)      knowing I had damn good hair but absolutely no concept that I was pretty

4)      proud of my accomplishments though I rarely see that they amount to anything

5)      jokingly self-deprecating, sometimes to the point of dire self-criticism

6)      intensely interested in people and how they work but incredibly impatient

7)      dogged and obsessive but only about the things that are important to me

I am loud and boisterous and full-on energy, most of the time.  I am relentless but with dimples instead of a grimace.  I am a glittery ball of blond batshit who can be so insecure that she ends up fetal and crying on her own floor because no one would talk to her when she went out.  I complain that men don't talk to me in public but know damn well that I can be aloof.  They tell me I'm intimidating, but I never really understood why. 

Now I get it. 

In that competition of love and sex, it's all about who's better than whom.  Who's stronger, prettier, sexier, smarter, blahblahblah.  Women compete against each other and themselves, just as men do.  The genders also compete against each other for placement in the immediate pack.  It's not always this way, certainly, but watch what happens in a crowded bar on any given weekend night. 

I am an Alpha.

I tend to attract strong personalities.  Even Bounder once said that any man who was going to even try to approach me had better bring the big stones.  When I am approached, I tend to shoot men down pretty quickly.  It doesn't take me long to size them up and know which ones could never be enough for me and my exacting standards. 

All of my talk this year of what I wanted in a relationship points to this über-Alpha male.  All of my work for the last three years has brought me the realization that I am looking for the biggest of the Cats.  My insecurities have source in my not seeing the plain truth of myself, yet again. 

All of the monument-worthy men in my past have been Fragile Cats, certainly.  They were possibly higher ranked than I was at some point.  The moment when that shifted is the tension point that ultimately led to the demise of those relationships.  When there was no other option but subjugating my own power to please them, the relationships fell the fuck apart. 

And the ones who said they didn't deserve me, that I was too good for them, they were right.  I lowered myself to their standards in order to compete with them, hence the turmoil.  (It really was you and not me.)

Being who I am, I could see their potential.  Even if they weren't living up to what I saw, I would remind them that they could be better and more special and that I would support that in any way I could, sometimes to my own detriment.  What I realize now is that I don't just need huge potential in a partner; I need a partner who is achieving his potential.

This also means that I have to work toward my own potential.  It may not be what anyone else sees in me, but I have to be very honest with myself about both what I want to do and what I really can do.  The last year of life on my own has shown me an enormous amount of untapped possibility, and now it's time to work that. 

But I won't do it to make anyone else happy or comfortable.  I won't spend my time fighting with someone else about why and how it could be better.  I will be who I am, who I can be in my own, huge heart, and that will be exactly right for me.  If it also happens to be right for them, so be it. 

Either way, it's not my problem.

 

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I don't want good, and I don't want good enough. I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love."

Are you An Alpha Female...

A case for the "Alpha Female"

So anytime somebody needs you, don't let them down, although it grieves you.

"Let's be friends."

Those are the most ludicrous words after a break-up. 

It's not that I think men and women can't be friends.  I have lots of male friends, running the gamut from casual to intimate.  (Poor Hammer knows waaaay more than he'd probably like to know.)  While I do tend to gravitate toward women for those very close friendships, there are and have been a few exceptions over the years. 

Even within the bounds of Stephanie-Dude friendships, sometimes the lines have become blurred by deep emotional or spiritual connection.  Sometimes by both.  If there's also a sexual attraction, the relationship can become complicated rather quickly.  Sometimes I've been able to pull back from that and maintain the platonic relationship.  Sometimes not.)

Usually what happens, though, is that I go through this experience with whatever man, and the relationship is damaged by sex and love and what has most often felt like compromise that was unevenly anchored to my side.  Hot Pocket would toss in the words "unevenly yoked" right here.  Moonshine might suggest something about unbalanced equations.  My therapist would kindly and gently advise me to determine what I'm willing to accept to maintain a healthy relationship and where I can confidently draw my lines—with the mindful acceptance that I must defend those boundaries if push comes to shove. 

Bounder and I went back and forth for days that turned into weeks about how and where our relationship was going.  He says he's not an alcoholic; I still question it openly and to his face.  Almost regardless of that, there's still the issue of my caring about him.  He is special to me.  Tierney says it best, to Alex, during one of their last conversations in Persona Non Grata:

"Look, I don't love a lot of people.  I don't like a lot of people, and all these people in my life have really hurt me over the years.  I have reasons to be wary of letting people in.  When I do, and especially when I choose to let them in far enough to love them, they're special.  You are a very rare breed of human being that I both like and love, and not just because I have to.  That's why I get so mad about it all.  That's why it feels so unfair.  I don't want that to have been a waste of my energy."

Part of the issue for me is this idea of being compartmentalized, of feeling like I'm being shoved and cajoled into a box that keeps me away from the other person.  Yes, it is something men tend to do more than women; it seems to be an innate coping mechanism for them.  Again, Alex and Tierney discuss this early on in their relationship:

[Alex Wheeler]  "That's how I am; if someone makes me mad or bothers me too much, I'll just ignore them—won't answer their calls or texts or emails.  I'll just stop."

"Are you that way with everything?  Do you just ignore what you don't like?"

He thought about it for a moment.  "Yeah.  I compartmentalize everything.  I have to, in some ways, being on the road all the time.  It helps keep me sane.  I'm really good at keeping everything in its own neat, little box, where I can deal with it or not, as I choose.  I'm probably too good at it."

"I think that's a guy thing," I commented.  He nodded in agreement.  "I think it's much harder for women to take their feelings out of the equation.  Men are much better at tucking their feelings out of the way."

When a relationship is ending for whatever reason, what do you do after you've been through an intense period of time with this person whom you both like and love (on whatever level), with whom you've shared deep intimacies, and without whom you feel a little lost? 

While I still occasionally have very platonic contact with Absolem, he was always an exception to the rule—though that was no real surprise given the nature of our relationship.  I know damn well that I will always have that tie to him, that weird connection that brought him in and out of my life as a catalyst to upend me and bring about my own transformation.  I owe him so much, and I owe him nothing.  But I know that even if I weren't to hear from him for twenty years, he would know within moments of making contact exactly how and where I was in my head and my heart and my soul.  We are, in so many ways, two sides of the same coin. 

I made the break, privately and publicly, from Bounder, but he didn't disappear.  It was confusing.  It started with the careful arguing and the constant discussing of what this relationship had meant and was supposed to mean and how impactful it was for each of us and why, along with where and when what went wrong—like an emotional debriefing with the only other person who could truly understand it because they'd lived it with me.  The inner circle was great about listening and advising and letting me cry when I needed to do so, but ultimately the answers and solutions would only come from me and from Bounder. 

Our relationship could stop or move forward in myriad ways.  We could take the leap of faith and delve into this and see what happened.  We could agree to part ways for some period of time and plan to meet back up, if the time was right.  We could date slowly for a while and move along at a more reasonable pace, ignoring everything that had pushed us together in the first place.  Or we could just say our goodbyes and be done. 

Eventually it was plain that we were tired, dancing wide, serpentining lines around this place and time that wasn't yet right for us.  No matter how drawn we were and are to each other, here and now wasn't going be ours.  Not like this.  And the seeming pressure of divine intervention felt yet again like Fate had played a cruel trick, taunting me with, "Oh?  You want this?  Too damn bad!  You can't have it!"

So, again, I told him no, that I can't do this, that I can't watch him from some nebulous place of distant care and be flirty witness to his life.  I am worth more than that; at least on this we agree.  I told him to find me if and when he was ready to accept the whole of my affections and to reciprocate healthily in kind.  I wished him well. 

"You haven't given me a chance to tell you what I want out of this right now," he patiently stated when he called. 

Well, I've given you plenty of opportunity.  It's not my fault you've refused to take it when it was offered.

"So what is that you want?" I asked, feeling a little defiant underneath it all. 

"I want you to be you, and I want to be your friend.  I want to still see you and talk to you and blahblahblah."

"So you still want me in your life and want to maintain that connection with me?  But you can't commit emotionally, no matter how badly you say you want to be able to?  And maybe you want to have sex with me, if it feels like the right thing to do?"

"Yes."

What the fuck?

The truth is I don't want him gone from my life.  He is sweet and funny and smart.  He knows me incredibly well and has seen through my facade of bravado from the moment we met.  Even though he is often willing to grant me the freedom to maintain that glittery face, he also doesn't hesitate to call bullshit on it and on me.  He's one of very few people (especially men) who call tell me no.  I want a healthy relationship with him.  I care deeply for him, and he has impacted me in ways very few men, or people in general, have been able to do.  But I also don't want to spiral back into the dark place of striving for attention, of flustering for a fleeting moment of care and affection. 

I don't want to be told no just because he has the power to do so; sometimes I get to be right. 

And as Tierney sums up later:

Alex had kept me in a box, but within those confines I could expose myself totally, free to explore the ever-expanding boundaries of my soul without fear of judgment.  If he couldn't handle what he saw, all he had to do was close the box.  It was how he handled his own soul. 

To ask this of me, to negotiate platonic friendship with the possibility of an eventual more, is unquestionably an effort to compartmentalize me and our relationship.   I understand that the fragility of this cat is undercut by recent and deep trauma, that he could very well crack at any time.  It's a defense mechanism, undoubtedly, and he has every right and reason to seek that comfort in his world in the hopes that he can heal from what came before me. 

I have every right and reason to say no. 

I'm not going back in the box.

Having lived the life that brought me to this version of Stephanie, I am very wary and sensitive to that kind of one-sided consideration.  I was left on my own for years, emotionally, and tend to gravitate toward people (again, especially men) who are selective in their attentions.  Whether their reasons are emotional or logistical in nature serves only to explain the behavior; there are reasons but no excuses.

Because of my sensitivity to feeling dismissed or ignored, I will never not respond to the boxers.  I cannot ignore their calls to attention.  I know precisely how that hurts and loathe the feeling so much that I would never wish it on anyone I care about. 

I will always be his friend, but right now I don't know that I can be just his friend.  I want and am ready to be special to someone else (though I am not actively seeking anyone to fill that role), and we both thought at first that he was ready for that, as well—that we were both ready to be special to each other.  But intention and fruition don't always fall in line with each other; no matter how much it looked like this was supposed to be here and now, that's simply not how it's working, even though I question his direct role in that creating and maintaining that obstacle.

The thought that I could go through this with him, that yet again I could meet someone who could alter my own path so dramatically, and that he won't be at the end of this leg of the journey with me is simply terrifying.  Right now, while I care about him so deeply and want him to be healthy and content in himself, the risk of seeing him fall for someone else when he's finally ready to crack his own facade for another person... it's just too much.  Maybe it's not me, and it is him, as he's said so roundabout, but it's still me that faces the greatest possibility of being hurt again.  To keep me in his web of care means that I will feel the vibrations of secondary movement.  It could be him shifting slowly toward me, or it could be him scurrying in another direction.  Either way, it leaves me stuck and slowed by his gossamer threads, grappling at my feet.

But to turn away from him leaves my friend in need. 

I don't know where this is going any more now than I did when it started.  The good part is that it has given me an opportunity to understand and accept that, no matter how much influence I may or may not be able to exert on a force, sometimes the situation simply isn't mine to control. 

So for a little while longer, he and I are in this weird, nebulous state of... what?  Friends?  Not friends?  Not lovers?  I don't know, and I'm honestly tired of not thinking and thinking and overthinking.  I will do what I do, be who I am, and whatever comes from that is what will be.  While I won't attempt to unduly influence the outcome of this situation, I'm also not sitting passively by, waiting for Bounder to take me out of the shiny box and play with me. 

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Brother, let your heart be wounded and give no mercy to your fear.

I can't stand myself. I'm being held up by invisible men.

I'll make it to the moon if i have to crawl.

I've talked before about the idea of the Truthiness of Me and of my drive to honor my truths—good and bad—regardless of what the vast majority of people think.  Muchness and Light is, in some ways, a public exploration of that.  I talk very openly about a lot of things—from my fears and failures to my triumphs, my body image and weight loss issues and the subsequent surgeries.  Early in my process of reawakening, I determined that is was viscerally important to me to be as honest with my readers as I could stand.  I am very often this way in my offline, day-to-day life, as well.

Turns out, apparently I'm not so much like other people. 

"You're willing to embrace your scars and show them," Mandypants said.  "You're willing to embrace the scars of other people, of the people you love.  And that is brave and beautiful, but it is not like 98% of people."

My therapist nodded emphatically in agreement when I told her. 

When I saw Tiff for Pretty, Pretty Princess Night a couple of weeks ago, she saw the edges of the brachioplasty scars peeking from the backs of my arms.  "Those scars are kind-of cool," she remarked.  "They're really pretty badass."

Most of my female friends feel the same way.  Interestingly, most men ask if and when the scars will fade, or if they can be hidden.

Tiff and I went on to talk about this idea of baring my scars proudly, like a badge of honor. 

"I get why that's important to you," she said, "but I am a very private person.  I would be mortified to bare everything so openly."

Wharrrrrgarrrbbbble?!?

I don't understand.  Really.  I mean, I get it in my head that not everyone is so tolerant of such self-examination, even when the forum isn't so public.  That is, ultimately, the own to each.  But in my heart, I have some ingrained block against comprehending why it would be bad to point out your own journey via the roadmap of your scars.  It seems ludicrous not to be embracing of the good and the bad, to see and accept the awful as equally powerful and enlightening as the splendid. 

Scars, whether literal or figurative, are simply reference points, like landmarks of a person's journey.  They're invariably the product of wounding.  Usually that wounding is unintentional and painful.  More often than not, it is from injury that was inflicted, whether by someone else or by ourselves. 

I have a small scar in my eyebrow from running into a television stand twice when I was very young.  I have faded silvery lines that came from exploded fireworks and bicycle accidents and stretch marks from growth.  There's a small indentation of missing bone in my right ankle, where it was chipped away by the angry, pointed toe of an abusive ex-boyfriend's cowboy boot.

Scars may also be the unintentional consequences of good things.  Nearly every mother I know has either an abdominal C-section scar, or a scar from where her natural vaginal tear (or perhaps her episiotomy) healed after birthing her precious baby.  I have the new, lengthy scars from my own series of surgeries, trading in the old emotional baggage for something more (and less) physical. 

And, as Mo roundaboutedly reminded me last night, tattoos are a great example of almost-always chosen scars.  "The truth is like a tattoo.  It accurately represents who you are at the exact moment it is revealed."

Maybe all scars are like that.  Maybe they pinpoint not only where you were when you got them, but also how and why you were—all of which make up the Who of You. 

So what should be so wrong in talking about that?  What is the problem in discussing and showing how and when and why you came into being Who?

The problem, as I understand it, is two-fold:

1)      Talking about your trauma and damage and all of your little anecdotes of agony can make other people uncomfortable.  Apparently men are especially likely to feel off-put by such honesty, based on anecdotal evidence.  According to my therapist, the greatest or most common fear of men, generally, is shame.  There's something there are about self-respect and identity, of reputation and persona.  (For women, the prevalent fear is being killed.  It has to do with safety and feeling unprotected and vulnerable.)

2)      Injury is so often inflicted by another person.  To tell your own story is fine.  To discuss the parts of your story that intersect with others may open their wounds, or cause them inadvertent discomfort. 

It doesn't seem that talking about the damage that's already been done should be inflicting.  There's not necessarily onus to your action; discussion isn't malicious, by default.  It's bleeding edge versus cutting edge.  At most, it's a matter of pointing out the wound and addressing it in an effort to help it heal.  Debriding might hurt like hell, but it's ultimately a much better alternative than leaving the wound to fester, never to have the opportunity to scar in healing—or worse.

So what to do, when your life is words, and you're all about this Verisimilitude of Self?

It's a fine line, really.  There's a right to publicity and right to privacy that overlap.  Am I talking about someone else's immoral or illegal behavior?  Is what I'm saying true?  Is it potentially embarrassing but cogently honest? 

And it's hard sometimes, to know when to share and when to hold back.  I have to tap into that place inside me, the Wellspring of Verity, where I find what is unequivocally right, regardless of whether or not is right for me or anyone else, specifically.  At the very least, it is what is right right now.  If I find that Point Me shifts to another place and time, what is right today might very well turn out to be wrong tomorrow.  But tomorrow isn't guaranteed, and all I can be sure of is this moment and the ones from which I came. 

Just because something hurts, that doesn't mean it's bad.  Growth can be painful.  Sadness and anger can hurt like fucking hell, but they usually bring us closer to some new understanding of ourselves.  That is what is so sublime about the raw power of self-cultivation and transcendence.

So here are my scars.  Here is the proof from whence I came.  Some of you came from there with me, though some of you can't admit that.  Somehow, in your own arrogance or sadness or anger, you have valued me as worth less than your own shame.  That is on you. 

I do have worth and value, for who I am and the things I have endured.  The web of scars, both apparent and unseeable, is the Substrate of Stephanie.  It is the topography of my life, at least to this point.

For all that I have done and seen and felt and lived, in ways that may have been profound only to me, I am defensible.  And I will defend my self and my worth at all costs, because it is always more precious than shame. 

Of all people, you know who I am… who the world needs me to be. I’m Wonder Woman.

I was talking to my mom yesterday about some stuff that's been going on.

"I will survive this," I said, "and I will thrive."

"Yep, because you're Wonder Woman."

"The problem is that I forgot I'm Wonder Woman.  For a very long time."

"Yep."

Physically, yes, I'm an Amazon.  It's never been more obvious than it is now, after abandoning all of this weight.  I'm strong and smart and resourceful and resilient.

I also like boots and bracelets. 

When William Moulton Marston (a psychologist who was instrumental in the development of the polygraph machine) created Wonder Woman in 1941, he intended to create a new comic book hero who forged victory through love, rather than fisticuffs. 

Marston's wife Elizabeth said, "Fine, but make her a woman."

Based on findings during his years of psychological research, Marston believed women to be more honest and reliable than men, as well being able to work more efficiently.  While Wonder Woman is iconically feminist, some have suggested that Marston's model of ideal femininity—a 6-foot-tall beauty with the ability to lasso men into obedience—is actually the representation of his belief that women weren't really equal to men: they were better.

"Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world," Marston said.

Interestingly, Wonder Woman was modeled after two women—Marston's unconventional, liberated wife, Elizabeth, and Olive Byrne, the Marstons' live-in polyamorous partner.

I'm a tad shorter than Wonder Woman, a little weaker, totally not brunette.  I do not look good in spandex—though honestly, who the hell does?!?  I wasn't formed from clay and blessed by a goddess (at least not that I know of, though I am pretty damn lucky, in general).  I can't fly, and I'm neither especially fast nor freakishly strong.  I wouldn't know what do with a lasso, and I'd probably just lose the Crown of Antiope if anyone let me borrow it for the day.

Like Diana of Themyscira, I will continue to fight for what I believe to be right, no matter what.  There are those who will attest to my telepathic powers, and I'm pretty damn flexible.  I've been known to give up all my power for the sake of a man I loved.  And I will open the proverbial can of Diet Whoopass on anyone who threatens those I hold close to my heart. 

So thanks, Mom, for noticing what I've only recently remembered to notice in myself.  I would tell you to poke me if it slips my mind again, but I'd probably just try to kick you.  But I would have damn good hair while I did it.

I returned a gilded man.

I talk a lot about my love of The Gracious Few.  I tell everyone, all the time, or so I'm sure it seems.  I won't go into all of the reasons I love them--you can check the archives for previous posts--but suffice it to say that I adore them.

I've been looping the debut CD again for the last several days, with the occasional non-TGF track thrown in for good measure.  Listening for what must be the thousandth time, seriously, I was struck by something about this album: it's very masculine.  That sounds kind of silly considering it's a band of five manly men.  (Well, four manly men and Kevin Martin....)  It's heavy on guitars (thank you, Chad Taylor and Sean Hennesy), and the drums and bass are ever-present (Chad Gracey and Patrick Dahlheimer, respectively).  Everything about it is in a guy's tone, though, even on the most melodic, ballady tracks, like "Crying Time" and "Sing".  Even on "Guilty Fever", when Kevin's voice approaches his full falsetto, there's never any doubt that this music comes from the deeply personal places of a man.

Amongst the many, many theories of psychology developed by Carl Jung, there are the archetypes of anima and animus, which are basically the female and male sides of men and women, respectively.  In other words, anima is the female psychic energy of the man, and animus is the male psychic energy of the female.  They represent the unconscious psychological qualities of the opposite gender that each person possesses. 

The idea (in a Stephanie-sized nutshell) is that we all originate from a zygotic state and therefore possess the traits of each gender in some capacity, the two parts equaling the whole.  For various reasons ranging from societal to genetic, we suppress one side more than the other, but the psyche has to find a way to let the other side speak.  Anything that taps into and expresses the subconscious can be an outlet for this psychic energy.  Dreams are commonly used by the psyche to work out its issues.  So are the arts, including music. 

And as I listen to The Gracious Few (2010) yet again, it hits me: there's no anima. 

Not once do I hear the music or the lyrics trying to tap into the female anything.  I remember Chad Taylor tweeting during the writing and recording process that they were writing a slow song so "your girl can cum too".  (Several female fans all said to Hell with that--the rock is what gets them off.  Very animus.)  I can only imagine that he was referring to "The Rest of You" or "What's Wrong", both of which are beautiful and powerful odes to the difficulties of love.  But those songs are decidedly male, and it's from the man's perspective that we hear the questioning of the viability of those song-specific relationships. 

 

"Appetite" and "Honest Man" are screaming rock tracks, definitely, but "Tredecim" (that's a free download link, btw) is the one that really oozes testosterone for me. According to an interview with Kevin Martin, the lyrics originated from a comment by Chad Taylor that he felt like he was in the Harvest Moon of his life, with the fullness and strength he was feeding on with the new material with the new band:

"It made me think of the calendars life that we follow each and every year in regards to how it would celebrate its life through story or song.  Beginning with the Harvest Moon and ending with the rebirth of life as in the birth of the Harvest, a year's cycle actually being thirteen in regards to the birth month not ending at twelve with death.  The lyrics represent that full heart, the tired Autumn, the sleep of Winter awakening with Spring and the birth of life. Ending with the statement 'my life has made me flatland" as in unending, no obstacles just plains running as far as the eyes can see, our 'calendar'."

 

FYI, the word tredecim is Latin for thirteen.  So it's about the thirteen-month life cycle, a year in life from beginning to end and beginning again, though it starts with the adult male, not the newborn. 

Tredecim is also the name of a fictional beast described by Hugh Chandler in Indeterminate People (1985).  It's the physical form of a symbiotic cluster of thirteen different species.  Chandler's creature is more than the sum of its parts; it is capable of language and thought in ways far superior to any single species of its make-up, and its intellectual abilities exceed the expected composite of the thirteen entities.  When the tredecim is broken back down into its parts, each species seems to remember what it did, though none has any understanding of why it performed or how its own actions contributed to the whole. 

As I ponder these greater things, it strikes me that this is much like the months-in-a-year comparison.  To take one month out of a full year doesn't really show much about the year itself.  Its impact and import may not be fully known until the annal as a whole can be seen in reflection.  The Harvest Moon may be stunning, but it's still only a beautiful full moon until you see its impact on growth and harvest cycles, whether literal or figurative, and understand how it originally came to be so big and bright. 

All of this to say, what a manly way of looking at it. 

Women would never compartmentalize a piece of something as separate from its whole.  To separate a bit from the original makes an entirely different thing.  To take the snakes from Medusa would just make her a crazy, evil bitch, not a mythological villain, even if her gaze can still turn men to stone.  (What woman doesn't possess that Evil Eye?)  Her true, menacing beauty comes from the slithering hatred and the story that led her to that form.

I started to think of some very feminine records.  Sarah MacLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1994) was the first one that came to mind.  Even with driving guitars and bass, it's still a total chick album.  Which is why, of course, Lilith Fair was started in 1997.  Poe's Haunted (2000) is another girl record. 

So then I started to think about my long and varied love of music.  The first song I remember singing was Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets".  The first band I really loved was Duran Duran, and Seven and the Ragged Tiger was my favorite album.  Later would come the Babys, the Kinks, INXS, David Bowie, the Doors, and Live, among many, many others.  I'm also really partial to glam and glitter, androgeny and cross-dressing, hence my love of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Liquid Sky, Velvet Goldmine (but only the Ewan MacGregor parts and the soundtrack), Scissor Sisters, T. Rex, and Eddie Izzard. 

I've always had a fascination for the heteroflexible, I guess.  What I know of almost all of the singers of the bands I mentioned--whether rumored or confirmed-- just feeds my fetish for manscara.  Even the most masculine of those singers, arguably Jim Morrison, was deeply in touch with his girly side in his writing and music.  Personally, I don't care if he was bisexual or not, though I'm not inclined to think so.  But songs like "Love Street" and "The Spy" and even "My Eyes Have Seen You" have a certain anima about them.

Then here's The Gracious Few without a female bone in its body.  I have openly admitted that my long-time love of Live is what led me to listen to TGF originally, but the quality of the music is what made me listen again.  And again.  And again.  No glitz, no glam: just honest-to-badness Rock and fuckin' Roll. 

Would I pay good money to see Kevin Martin in manscara and red glitter lipstick?  Probably.  Will he like that I said that?  Probably not.  But I feel confident that he, and the rest of the Gracious Few, are secure enough in their individual and collective manhood to take the compliment at the heart of this: it's a guy record. 

For me, the biggest surprise wasn't the realization of the masculinity of the album.  It was that I found I liked it even more. 

And I think that's the truest hallmark of a great album, that you can listen to it over and over (and over and over and over) and still find something new in it every single time. 

On a side note, I want to wish the Gracious Few and their cast and crew a wonderful, fantastic European mini-tour.  They just spent a few days in Pennsylvania for rehearsals before heading to Europe for their first dates there as TGF.  (They'd all been there before, certainly, as Live or Candlebox, but this is the first time the Gracious men went together as a band.)  We're all breathlessly awaiting updates and footage.  And U.S. tour dates.  Don't forget the U.S. tour dates! 

Enjoy your man time while you're on the road, gentlemen! 

[DISCLAIMER: I, Stephanie Quinn Jackson, am fully and completely aware that Kevin Martin of the Gracious Few is, completely and totally, a manly man with a fantastic sense of humor.  Really.  No need to fill my comments with admonishments otherwise.  Unless you're Kevin and feel the need to defend your personal masculinity.  In which case, put your manscara on first, then we'll talk.]