Can't be a science nerd post 'cause this ain't science!

I'm foaming at the mouth over a recent story on the AP wire. The header reads "Sex and financial risk linked in brain"; doctors' orders or not (mouth-foaming not being an approved activity), I had to read on.

Why do I do these things?

My first reaction, discounting the rabid-animal imitation, is simple disbelief: Let me get this straight: my non-hermit friends work their buns off trying to get press coverage for their latest fantastic opus, and this makes it onto AP?

This isn't science. This isn't even fuzzy science. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, nonsense.

When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler

Okay, I'll buy that. Of course, young men aren't exactly known for either their disinterest in sex or their sense of financial responsibility. Hmm. How young were these guys? Old enough the reasoning pathways were fully formed? (Teenagers really are different, though maybe not quite a separate species...) Article says hetero men, but what if you were to study men with stapler fetishes? Or those guys who are, you know, really fond of snakes...

Giggling, I read on. And choked. Their sample size was 15 college-aged men

Fifteen? That's not a study, that's barely a start. Deep breath. No women? Do women not take financial risks? Of course. Was this an all-male school? No. So
why no women? Because

they didn't know what pictures aroused women

Where should I begin? Granted, the actual study isn't nearly as silly as the AP article makes it sound, and, yes, there is a link provided to some actual almost unbiased news coverage, but it's still irresponsibly sensational reporting.

Or maybe I'm just upset because chocolate didn't get a better mention. Or, for that matter, sex. –g–

As always,

pxj

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Flash Fiction Friday: Pixie

Hi, folks.

Yep, it's the hermit, posting. Asking for help, actually. (Hail from a clear sky; two blue moons in a single month; kind words from a mother-in-law...) The worst part about being sick for so long, for me, is that it gives me permission to do nothing. But I'm not all that sick anymore, really, and now--

I NEED SOMEONE TO KICK MY A*S!

More specifically, I need someone to remind me that I don't get to call myself a writer unless I write. That unfinished drafts are useless as unfletched arrows. That...

Blecch. Surely you get the point. It's a Flash Fiction Friday, so here's a tidbit. From (you guessed it!) a story I haven't finished. Nearly, almost, it's only missing a few little things...

Rev up those feet, won'tcha?

pxj




Anna blinked, absurdly conscious of the small breeze the motion stirred. The weight of her eyelids, their passage, tiny muscles in concert. The brief cessation of sight. Normally, of course, all of that would have gone unnoticed—but there was nothing normal about this.


Impossible not to tremble, but her hands were steady, holding onto her camera with just enough pressure, not tight enough to stress the plastic, but with no risk she’d drop the thing. It was her favorite digital, the one she called Pixie, the one she carried with her everywhere. A camera that ate batteries with voracious appetite, but that never failed her in the clutch, that never fogged or blurred, that fit all her old lenses and scopes and held thousands of images in its capacious expanded memory. The camera that never faltered nor falsified, never lied.


Pixie hadn’t lied to her this time, either; she’d only thought it had. Thought the image it had shown her too preposterous to be real.


But it was. He was. Not the least bit credible, but real just the same. Sitting at a café table just like any normal man, in a small Louisiana town no one beyond the county line had ever heard of, a mystery in human shape. With eyes that held her easily.


“Please,” his voice was cultured, soft and deep with only a hint of a drawl, “sit down.”


She sat. She didn’t think she could have stood much longer anyway, her legs shaking as badly as the rest of her. Except her hands.


“Will you have tea?”


Tea. She’d never understood how people could drink hot beverages once the temperature got above ninety, but just then, she felt chilled. Tea might help. Only, she’d have to let go of Pixie for that. And she might drop the cup, shaky as she was.


He hadn’t waited for a reply, pouring with an almost laughably serious expression, completely focused on the small task, setting the saucer properly before her. “Please.” Oh, that voice! It had a texture, that voice, like wet sand, soft and sharp all at once.


Fit match for the man.


Anna drew in a quivering breath, the scent of him—earth and oak, something sharply green, moisture and a hint of chalk—overwhelming in the close, still air. Louisiana humidity. Which writer was it that had likened it to an animal humping your leg? But he’d forgotten to mention the decadent perversion that rich air carried on its fetid breath, that made a woman want to turn and draw it up her body, see what fun she could have rolling around with it.


Darlin’, that feeling’s not from the air. Take another look at the man-rock sitting there.


The Primal Stone. That’s what she’d seen through her camera, a free-standing bone of the earth, dark as obsidian, strong as granite, rooted deep in the land and unwilling to be quarried free. Small sparks like sun on mica danced over an unremitting darkness shaped vaguely like a man. To her eyes, he wasn’t quite so daunting.


But so much sexier.


It wasn’t his looks, though she supposed he was handsome enough—black hair worn a little long, the way she liked it; dark eyes; strong features, bone structure clear beneath just enough flesh to keep him from looking raw; broad shoulders. She couldn’t see much else, with him sitting at a café table, but he had wonderful square hands, and his nails were clean.


It wasn’t his looks that stole her breath, but the sheer solid strength of him. She could feel it, sitting across the table, knew others could feel it as well. The way the waitress kept one eye on him, no matter where she was; the way no one came near enough to jostle him, though there was a crowd.


“What—who are you?”


“One of your picturesque natives.” Flash of white teeth: a smile. “Drink your tea.”


Heat washed across her cheeks as she obeyed.


No secrets in a small town. That was the maxim, long-ago learned and yet still a surprise. Anna hadn’t been back to this particular small town since a summer visit when she’d been twelve or so. Even then, it had felt stifling, her mother fluttering, a pair of spinsterly great-aunts forever telling her to mind her manners, a flock of cousins teasing, locals whose dialects and motives she hadn’t understood, and no real consciousness of time in the whole place. So unlike city life. She’d told her mother after that visit that she was never coming back, and she hadn’t, either, until now. This trip was an obligation, for the family; they’d just buried one of the great aunts, and she’d come for the funeral.


Though that wasn’t her only reason. Being a freelance photojournalist wasn’t the glamorous, financially secure life the movie-makers portrayed; she’d hustled a few assignments to pay her way, including one for the Chamber of Commerce. Small wonder people knew what she was doing, wandering with her cameras. And, usually, Anna wouldn’t have cared if it bothered them, if they thought she was playing safari in their home. Anyplace else, yes, but not here; this place had never been kind to her, so what matter if they thought she was cruel? It wasn’t like a few pictures would hurt anything; hell, some would even help! And she’d take them and be gone. She wasn’t interested in leaving good memories behind; all she wanted was to leave.


Or, all she had wanted. Now, there was a big solid chunk of mystery calmly sipping tea, watching her as she watched him.


She opened her mouth, and words fell out. “Picturesque. You are, you know. Uniquely picturesque.” Before she was through speaking, she worried she might have said too much. Flickering monster-movie images rose before her mind’s eye, vampires and werewolves coldly disposing of the mortals who had stumbled upon them. The sun shone down, almost too bright, but her skin bore a renewed chill. What was he, this man who looked like a monolith to her camera’s sight?


Whatever he was, he knew, she was sure of it. Coal-black eyes stilled as he looked at the camera, and sound faded from her world as she watched him look. He knew she’d seen. She thought again of his impossible image in her camera sight, wondered if he’d destroy the camera before or after he took her life. Horrible thought, that what might have been the best photos she’d ever taken wouldn’t be shared with the world.


“I-if you’re going to kill me, I’d really like to know why you look...like you look. First.”


He threw back his head and laughed, the sound like a friendly landslide.

...

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