From merrie@umich.eduMon Nov 7 10:18:38 1994 Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 01:24:33 -0500 (EST) From: Merrie Haskell To: thari@umich.edu Cc: samolnar@umich.edu Subject: Laughter's Diary 5 Friday Night, April 10, Shadow Moira Strange to get a trump call from Bart after all this time. I don't know how he could bear to live with the spell on for almost an entire year. It must have made the social pleasantries as awkward as hell. Anyways, he handled dinner admirably. I've come to realize that Rebmites are very different from Amberites after all. I'm not sure what to think of him and Lyss. I like Lyss a lot, and I think we're a lot alike, but apparently not *that* alike. Foster is here for the night. I am not sure what to think of it-- and him. I'm sure it's a hormonal thing, his attitude around me. I've been in this shadow long enough to know that the old notions of courtly romance don't stand fast in the face of biochemistry. Sex is a hormonal impulse for someone that young. (That young. I'm not that much older than him. In the course of an Amberite lifetime, six years is *nothing*.) But the thing is, this same six years is the six years that makes a person realize that she wants more than sex. Once Elizabeth said to me, but in not quite so blunt of terms: There are four kinds of relationships between men and women. There is the unsanctified, unblessed, unceremonial, wild, passionate, blissful release with no commitment that lasts usually no more than a night that happens on the spur of the moment and means nothing. (Elizabeth was the master of this.) There is the kind of sex that happens on the nights when the gods walk to close to the world and take possession of human senses-- Beltaine, Samhaine, Midsummer. (Calamus was wont to participate in the Bachannals from time to time.) There is the consecrated, blessed-by-the-Catholic-church, go-forth-and-multiply kind that involves marriage in a cathedral and a lifetime committment. (We were surprised when Rosemary and Senlin went for this.) And there is the handfasting, where you go to the Grove and pledge yourself to your lover, in a binding contract to be faithful for a year and a day, with the option to renew when that year is up. I suppose, if I ever find anyone I truly love, who truly loves me, I'll opt for real marriage-- not in the Catholic church, but perhaps through the state religion of Amber. But Amberites live far too long to do this thing lightly. And I was raised too strongly in my faith to consider Elizabeth's favorite sport. And the first and only time I tried the Beltaine madness, I ended up with a man I later killed. So that leaves me with the year and a day handfasting, unless I am incredibly lucky and find something more permanent. So, that's what I've learned about myself in the past few years... And though I hope it never comes up, I suppose I would explain this to Foster if he asked. That should, in theory, scare him enough that I won't have to deal with the whole separate issue of sleeping with my cousin's son. Right? Saturday, April 11, Shadow Moira Damn Ahab and his water gun. Sunday, April 12, Shadow Moira Foster left yesterday evening, to finish up his sophomore year in high school in his and Felix's shadow. Felix is done with his medical degree now; he wants to abandon the shadow and head back to Amber, but is waiting for Foster to finish out the school year. I'm wondering now what I'm going to do. I'm getting close to finishing up my masters in bio-engineering... I could stay on for a doctrate in it. I don't have anything else to do. I suppose I could walk the shadows, but that's not precisely fair to Beauty. I should wait until she grows up before I go off on my own. And since I do have the luxury of both world enough and time, waiting isn't so bad.