Who wants a hug?

For many years, I've wanted to give Mats Sundin a hug. I'm not embarassed to admit this although I do know it is kind of silly. Despite the fact that the guy has been making millions of dollars his entire adult life for playing the game he loves, has legions of fans and hundreds if not thousands of women vying for his attention (apparently, some women mail him pictures of themselves in their underwear along with their phone numbers - he throws them out), I sometimes get the crazy notion that he deserves a hug. A hug from me - one of his diehard fans. I realize it's silly. Sure, he hasn't won a Cup yet and there are tons of people who criticize him as a player and captain for no good reason but I doubt he's all that broken up over it. If he really needs a hug, he's got friends and family for that. His teammates hug him on an almost nightly basis.

But still I want to hug him. For all that he's done for me personally. For all the times he's brought me to my feet, yelling and cheering. All because of how he plays a game. I've wanted to hug David Usher too, for the way his music has made me feel all these years (I'm pretty sure Ive hugged Jeff Pierce on at least one occassion).
Then it occurred to me I've never really thought about hugging a writer. I tried to puzzle this out. Surely, there must be a writer whose work was as much a comfort to me as Sundin's on-ice heroics or David's (I can't refer to him as "Usher" now can I?) voice, lyrics and music? And I suppose maybe there is. But it's not the same, for some reason. I grew up reading a lot of different books by a lot of different authors. Gordon Korman's books entertained me again and again with their wacky characters and funny plots. But do I feel the need to hug him? Shake his hand, yeah, sure. But not hug him. Nor do I think about hugging any other author whom I grew up reading.

I read Jurassic Park when I was ridiculously young. So young that some of the language was beyond me and the content a little too mature for me at the time. But it was a book about dinosaurs and so it had to be read - that's how I saw it back then. I probably had to read it a few more times as I got a little older to really absorb it properly and fully appreciate it. I've read Crichton's work with regularity ever since and can always have a soft spot for him in honour of his taking a subject that meant so much to me when I was young and weaving it into a smart, exciting, well-written story that almost single-handedly brought dinosaurs back into pop culture (what with the eventual release of the movie) But I've never thought of meeting Michael Crichton and giving him a big ol' hug.

Is it because I fancy myself a writer? I can't be delusional enough to think of someone like Michael Crichton, or any published author for that matter, as a colleague. In my wildest dreams, I couldn't do what Mats Sundin or David Usher do - but will I ever be half the writer that any on my list are? I doubt it. And even if I somehow equal one or more of them, would that make me feel the need to hug any of them? I don't think so. But I don't know why.
I've spent so many hours reading, completely wrapped up in the world these people created for me and I respect and admire them endlessly. But if I met any of them, I think I'd be more shy than meeting a sports or music hero. Maybe that's it. After blathering about how I'm such a fan of their work, I'd eventually look down at the floor and mumble "I'm somewhat of a writer myself; that is, I'm trying to be," and who knows what any of them would say. What are they supposed to say? Are they supposed to get excited by this, as if they've never heard it a thousand times before and take a fanatical interest? Ask me to send them some of my material so they can maybe help me get it published?

If I ever meet Mats Sundin and have enough time to have a proper conversation with him, I imagine I would hug him almost right away if he was ok with it, then bombard him with praise and memories of some of my favourite feats of his. I did meet David Usher, briefly. I stammered that his music had meant a lot to me over the years and that I hoped he would continue for a long time to come. He was very gracious. I wanted to hug him but people literally mob the guy and it didn't seem the right thing to request at that moment.
There are lots of writers I wish I could meet. Lots I'd like to personally thank for inspiring me and filling me with awe and wonder etc. But the only one I think I'd ever care to hug is Stan Lee and that's more because of his persona than his actual work, I think. The guy invented freaking Spider-Man but others since have done a better job on him.

I never aspired to be a hockey player or a musician. Not seriously, anyway. They were more "wouldn't it be cool if" scenarios I'd sometimes play out it my head when I was likely supposed ot be paying attention in class or listening to my mother. Mats Sundin represents a team that I've loved passionately and irrationally for most of my life. David Usher represents music that was always there for me at various points in my life when I felt alone. Stephen King represents everything I aspire to be and maybe that's why I could never hug him. Writers aren't a touchy-feely group of people, anyway, it seems. So maybe it's all for the best.

Sebastion Cole - a different kind of master

I'd originally intended to write something else in here before posting the next excerpt but I've been kind of lagging in that area lately. I promise to pick it up in the near future. May has unfortunately become a month full of as much uncertainty as April was and I suppose I've been using that as an excuse to stem the creative flow as it were. But I'll soon set things right.
In the meantime, here's Cole in New York.

All this is what had attracted the Red Band Society to Sebastian. They came to know almost everything about him because that was the kind of thing they’d been doing since the formation of the club. The thirteen members had always made everything that went on in New York their business. Every vampire drone in the city was there because the Red Band Society wanted him or her to be there. They all served a purpose. The club’s vast wealth didn’t come directly from drones. Like the Masters, drones didn’t usually have jobs so the money mostly came from humans in their service. It was decided that Sebastian however, would not work out as human slave because of his arrogant and aggressive nature. The Red Bands deduced that if they tried to threaten him as they did many other wealthy people, he would try to resist them which would force them to kill him. And they did not want him dead. He controlled some very tempting assets in the city. But drones immediately inherited the programming that it was best to serve the Masters. So it was agreed (after being put to a vote, as they always did for important matters) that one of the members would bite him and turn him into a drone. Then, he would be brought before the rest of the club and told how things would work from then on. Bernard was chosen to perform the task of turning Cole.

But Bernard never came back. Instead, the evening following Bernard’s task, the Red Band Society found Sebastian Cole waiting for them in their board room, sitting in Bernard’s chair. He was a vampire, as they’d wanted, but he was no drone. He calmly explained to the shocked members that after being bitten by Bernard, but before being fully turned, he had killed the Master Vampire. He’d still been human when he managed to snuff Bernard out. Later, when the change was complete, Sebastian found that he now possessed all of Bernard’s knowledge. Naturally, included in this knowledge was the knowledge of the differences between Master vampires and drones. And Sebastian knew he was definitely a Master.

The Red Bands immediately put him to the test to prove his claims and he passed every one. Sebastian calmly and patiently (and with visible amusement) waited in the boardroom while several of the members rushed to the second floor to the archives, where all their vampire literature, material written by both vampires and humans over several centuries, was stored. Hours were spent trying to find any mention of the phenomenon that had occurred. None was found.

And so a new entry was made. It appeared that if a human bitten by a Master somehow managed to kill the Master before turning into a drone, said human would turn instead into a full Master vampire, apparently inheriting the abilities of the slain Master. None of the Red Bands were particularly pleased by this discovery but in the end they reasoned they simply had to accept Sebastian as a member. They’d respected him when he was a human and knew he would be an extremely dangerous foe as a Master vampire. Fortunately, Sebastian was completely satisfied with becoming a vampire as it gave him even more power than he’d enjoyed as a human and since he was a Master, none of the Red Bands would have any power over him as they’d originally planned.

But this did not mean the other members didn’t resent him. They all did. They often enjoyed reminding him that, while he possessed all of the abilities of a Master and all of Bernard’s prior knowledge, he was still not a true Master. They were all born vampires who had been around for centuries and he had been a man born in 1964.

Sebastian never let on that this bothered him. He accepted their glares and snide remarks with good humour and often ignored them altogether. He’d been ambitious as a man and he was doubly ambitious as a vampire and he didn’t want to waste time squabbling with the other members over things that couldn’t be changed. Plus he knew that they knew he was a valuable asset to the club. As a drone they would have simply controlled him but as their equal, he could offer his own ideas and insights and these were more often than not quite useful. As the only former human, he had an understanding of the human psyche that none of them had, despite all their centuries of life. Three of them had been around since the late fifteen hundreds but Sebastian was always teaching them things. Truth be told, the entire situation amused him to no end.