Pied Beauty?

Jeepers... all that swimming and being out in the sun Sunday afternoon really made my freckles pop out like gangbusters. Funny, some people I've known for decades have never known that I had freckles as a child (I was called "Half-Pint" by family due to my vague resemblance to the then dappled-cheeked Melissa Gibert) but they faded slightly at time went by. But when I get a bit of a tan on me the little brown dots on my nose and across the bridge poke through, and it makes old friends do double-takes. I remember one night years ago at the Nsect Club I was standing in the dark directly under a black light near the DJ booth when Joe stepped out and, staring at my face for about 15 seconds, grinned and exclaimed, "Melpster! I didn't know you had freckles! They're adorable!" He then took my face in his hands and kissed each of my cheeks before scampering off into the smoky, pulsating din. So even people who have known me intimately, seen every inch of me up close, have never known that I had them. It's just funny how days like this I look in the mirror and see the little Half-Pint I once was peering back at me. Yeah, I ain't doing the braids thing, though. Well for starters, have you actually seen my hair?

Speaking of childhood, since I'm still sort of mulling over the subject of books that shaped and influenced us as children this week, I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you gentle readers, pertaining to the topic at hand. I would really appreciate it if someone alerted me to a copy of Marigold And The Dragon by, I believe, Fred H. Crump. It's been out of print for ages, and I haven't seen it on eBay or any other online auctions, and my area isn't known for its multitudes of vintage book shops and other such outlets. Big, BIG influence on me as a little girl. Although I never owned a copy I checked it out of my local library so many times it was falling apart in my clutches. The illustrations were in black and white but the detail was memorable, with clean lines that later when on to influencing my own drawing style. I would even be willing to discuss finders fees, like maybe 20% of the book price. Or we can work something out in trade, perhaps.

You know the old theory that little girls' adolescent obsession with horses is the first real awakening into adult sexuality? If that theory were true, I'd say for me it was never horses; it was dragons. Like horses, there's that combination of physical strength and muscular beauty that heterosexual girls will later seek out in romantic male companionship (it's no wonder we call sexually virile men "stallions"). But when I was 12, my bedroom walls were covered in dragons like Jenna Jamison in a boy's college dorm room . Back then, much to my mother's consternation, I was constantly picking up garden snakes in the backyard and poking at wild alligators in the creeks of Hilton Head Island during summer vacations, so naturally dragons were ideally the ultimate reptilian embodiment of the budding Herpetologist money-shot. Whether I was aware of all this Freudian nonsense back in the day, I can assure you that my sexual obliviousness never picked up the signal. Or maybe it did, but I was just so completely unaware of what I was feeling, as young and stupid as I was. But Marigold And The Dragon, er, brought that... certain... tingle to me that as a slightly more sexually experienced adult I am all too familiar with; the sensation I get when I read a particularly stimulating passage of erotic literature, or seeing Steve Holmes perform in Harcèlement au Féminin, or just being in proximity of a desirable man, smelling his distinctive scent, feeling his warm breath on my neck...

Ahem! You get the picture. If anyone has any leads to that book I would be gratefully indebted. I'm going to go now and, uh, re-read my prized first edition Advanced D&D Monster Manual. Under the covers. Heh heh.