The Housewives’ Guide To Anatomy

“When the sun stands striding at high noon,
then up from the waves he comes—
the Old Man of the Sea who never lies—
under a West Wind’s gust that shrouds him round
in shuddering dark swells, and once he’s out on land
he heads for his bed of rest in deep hollow caves
and around him droves of seals—sleek pups bred
by his lovely ocean lady—bed down too
in a huddle, flopping up from the gray surf,
giving off the sour reek of the salty ocean depths…
Now I will tell you all the wizard’s tricks.
First he will make his rounds and count the seals
and once he’s checked their number, reviewed them all,
down in their midst he’ll lie, like a shepherd with his flock.
That’s your moment. Soon as you see him bedded down,
muster your heart and strength and hold him fast,
wildly as he writhes and fights you to escape.
He’ll try all kinds of escape—twist and turn
into every beast that moves across the earth,
transforming himself into water, superhuman fire,
but you hold on for dear life, hug him all the harder!
And when, at last, he begins to ask you questions—
back in the shape you saw him sleep at first—
relax your grip and set the old god free
and ask him outright, hero,
which of the gods is up in arms against you?”

I was a bit surprised to realize that almost exactly the same fight occurs in certain Russian fairy tales, except in those the protean figure is the hero’s lost beloved, and if he can just hold onto her through all her transformations he’ll win her back. He lets go. (Menelaus deals better, here.)

I’m sorry to have been so absent, dear housewives. For one thing I was reading the first two Twilight books, which are much better than expected but don’t inspire much in the way of commentary. (Buffy disempowered at last! Sub-dom manhandling as a substitute for sex! If vampires have no blood flow, then how can they get erections anyway?)

They did inspire a dream, however, in which a crew of vampires was painstakingly disassembling my body for parts—spooling up my intestines, carefully peeling my muscles from the bones and sorting them out, etc. I was conscious and in pain, but quite calm.