Pagan Spirits
Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at www.aeess.com.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Three June 16ths
June 16, 1893: According to the Awe-Manac by Jill Badonsky, “On this day in 1893, Cracker Jacks were invented by R.W. Rueckheim."
Friday, June 16, 1995, Sevilla: We took a bus tour of Sevilla, then visited the Spanish pavilion of the American-Iberian Exposition. A Spanish dog attached Courtney’s shoe. Next we visited the Alcazar, a park surrounded by Moorish and Gothic palaces. We saw the Giralda, the bell tower (formerly a minaret) of a cathedral (formerly a mosque) with a giant, revolving sculpture on top, called the Giraldillo.
After that bit of sightseeing we went into a department store. I bought some castanets and a copy of Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas. We had strawberry ice cream. Outside, some street musicians played guitar and sang, and I saw lemons growing on trees that lined the streets.
In the evening, we took a boat cruise down the Guadalquivir River. While the boat was docked along the riverbank, we were entertained by flamenco dancers. Once the boat was in motion, the auditorium became a dance floor and there was a floating disco.
Saturday, June 16, 2007, South Bend: After lunch, a nap, and some writing, Tit and I went to the Chicory Cafè for open mic night. I read a poem, one I wrote for Friends Writing Group. It wasn’t a great poem, but I also got to talk about my books.
Before, I had ordered a decaf with coconut syrup. Afterward, we both got gelato. I picked the tiramasu flavor with crumbled-up ladyfingers in it; very delicious. Tit used the purchase of gelato to flirt with Alison, the joke-telling barista.
The most entertaining performer tonight was a poet who had been in prison and who wrote poems about Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Eve, and the all the great female singers and rappers who inspire him.
Oh, and I saw a streaker in downtown South Bend, running down Michigan Street with his bare ass hanging out.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Throwback: It's 1995, I'm 18, and I'm in Spain
I've been working on a time-themed project, so have a little peek backward in time:
Thursday, June 15, 1995: The tour group and I left Madrid and went to Córdoba. This was a long drive, but along the way I began to see palm trees, which I had never seen in nature before. Then we were in Andalusia, the region that Federico García Lorca loved so much.
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I made a niche, Spanish valentine for Valentine's Day 2022. |
We visited the Mezquita-Catedral, a gorgeous example of Moorish architecture that was once the Great Mosque (Mesquita) of the city but was then claimed by the Catholic Church and is now technically known as the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. It was amazing, absolutely amazing.
The tour group stopped for lunch. I had calamari and a Coke, which I ate while watching Nirvana on European MTV. We then got back on our tour bus and went to another Andalusian city, Sevilla. Our hotel in Sevilla seemed really nice. Some other American girls were hanging out of the windows, passing American candy to our Spanish peers.
At 10:30 we went out to a disco. Spain has no minimum drinking age, so we bought beers and danced. A good time was had by all. Then when we got back to the hotel, we had a bit of excitement because our chaperone Mrs. Sullivan and her friend Sonja had a lizard in their room. A boy named Alex came and caught it in a cup.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
I Saw Neil Gaiman Last Night
Mr. Gaiman began the evening by reading a short poem about reading to children, aimed at some friends in the audience whom, he knew, had their young child with them. Secondly he read us "Chivalry," a delightful short story which you may remember from LeVar Burton Reads.
Friday, March 18, 2022
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Very Specific Associations with Very Specific Songs
I'm back, and I'm very curious to hear other people's thoughts on this one, especially other writers and people in creative fields: When you listen to certain songs, do you have very specific stories you associate with them? Do you associate a song with a book, a fic, a movie, or fictional characters of some kind?
There are some of my Very Specific Associations for songs I listened to often in 2021.*
"Already Gone" by Kelly Clarkson. Remember when "The Broken Man and the Dawn" was my favorite RPF? Well, whether one does or not, that particular story has a plotline that involves a couple who's lost a child having a painful but overall rather amicable breakup. Although Clarkson famously wrote this gentle breakup song for her ex Justin "Little Sweet from the Dr. Pepper commercials" Guarini, in my mind it's about that breakup from "The Broken Man and the Dawn."
"Girl Crush" by Little Big Town. I made a whole post about this one by itself; it's one of my songs for the fictional couple Destiel.
"Runaway Crush" by Stella Soleil. This one is both super-specific and a mishearing. The actual line in the song is, "I'm feeling the soft of your skin," but before I looked up the lyrics I always heard it as "I'm feeling the SALT of your skin." Granted, salt doesn't have a particularly nice feel (it's just grainy), but I liked to imagine ocean-dipped Mediterranean skin which, when kissed, might taste quite nice.
I rediscovered this gem of a song at roughly the same time I developed my Baron Helmut Zemo fixation. My association with Zemo and salt is this Tumblr post by a native Russian speaker. Daniel Brühl is famously multilingual; he acts in German-, Spanish-, and English-language films and also speaks Catalan and its cousin French. Apparently, though, his Russian accent is less than ideal and when Zemo has to utter the command phrase "soldat," he sounds like he's either saying "soldier" in a baby voice or asking, "Want some salt?"
Thus my runaway crush is a Sokovian war criminal. (It's ok, he's fictional.)
If you want to fall even deeper into the salty rabbit hole in my brain, you can listen to this episode of Cult or Just Weird in which a self-described alien contactee says the aliens always give him salt as a parting gift.
"Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" by Adele (Adkins). Like many people who spend too much time on Tumblr, I had a BBC Sherlock phase. I imagine this song is what Sherlock says to John when John marries Mary.
*I'm trying to learn some new music for 2022. Here are a few current favorites:
- "Boyfriend" by Dove Cameron
- "Celebrity Skin" by Doja Cat, a cover of a Hole classic
- "Chocolate Cake" by Melissa Etheridge
- "DFMU" by Ella Mai
- "Flamin' Hottie" by Megan Thee Stallion, which samples "Push It" by Salt N Pepa
- "LOUD" by Sofia Carson
Anyone, at any time, please feel free to tell me your Very Specific Song Associations. Even if you stumbled upon this post in 2032.