-out-

Where I've been for days...

Practice, practice, practice makes perfect.  Also, it puts Mun in wrist braces.  I feel so girly and pretty right now.  Kinda like the RoboCop of the piano.  ;-D  Yeah, that's it; Robo-Pianist! 

-out-

Let me just take a moment here to lay down some praise where it is very much due.  I have (and have had over the years) a number of co-writers for whom English, my first language, is not a native tongue.  I have to say that it has been my experience that most of these have been amazing writers with often superior command of the language.  Superior. 

While certain of my colloquial words and phrases have required explanation (which I'm always happy to give) upon occasion, these writers have typically possessed impressive intellect (very handy when plotting/writing,) balance/flow and commitment to the overall development of the stories we've collaborated on.  I have been overwhelmingly impressed. 

Regent Street at midday teamed with a mass of well dressed Londoners, pedestrian men and women, buggies and horses all hustling about the cobblestone on their way to anything and everything or nothing at all important.  The door to Jupp & Son Hatters swung open depositing a young bodied and vibrant Ilona into the heavy stream of foot traffic flowing rapidly in either direction against the storefronts.  If she looked a tad bemused it was with good reason for though these busy streets were long familiar to her feet, the scene was rather overwhelming her spirit. 

She stood a moment in the doorway cinching her small handbag an unnecessary second time, pulling her gloves a little tighter up her wrist and finally resorting to toying with the bag’s drawstring somewhat nervously only to have something to do.  Somehow the idea of scissoring the sea of bustles, skirts, top hats and canes seemed daunting, but Ilona Szilágyi Dracula had never been a very good flunkey, certainly not to anything so base as fear of society.  She jutted out her chin, wrapped the drawstring around her wrist and clenched the handle of her hatbox in a tight fist then jumped out into the body stream with much the same care as a girl jumping rope.

A knock, an unintended shove; traffic moved along, London’s finest adjusting automatically to incorporate one more organ in its already swollen body.  It took her a few steps but she soon matched their pace sticking close to the buildings and learning quickly to avoid the temptation of becoming a part of the bulge, which naturally ballooned into the mouths of each alley then struggled to taper back down at the next building.  Some seemed to have a harder time than others shifting in and out of the herd. People moved for Ilona though, some innate sense within telling them that she was different, that she was worth exception.

They were right of course. She was a woman apart from all others if for no other reason than that she believed it. Everything about her demeanor confirmed as much. It was in her posture, a ramrod straight back and regally squared shoulders. Her head she held high and she almost never shied away from the eyes of passers by whether they be stout dowagers or pink-cheeked young men. A woman of another age, Ilona had not learned to be cool like her fellow city dwellers avoiding direct eye contact or acknowledgment of strangers. There was a sweetness about her countenance that radiated out from her heart. It was as inviting as her smile, as warm as the deep scarlet that trimmed a teal gown Mina alone would never have had the spirit to choose for a day outing.

She took clean steps where other, more demure women shuffled jockeying for place and her brilliantly colored silken skirt rustled noticeably. She wasn’t used to it, so much ornate cloth where a simple robe would have done nicely. The boning beneath restricting her breath and creating nausea in the pit of her stomach particularly irritated her and so the corset shop three doors down was her aim. Vlad had referred to it as ‘corset reform,’ deeming the movement unpopular and as ridiculous as the undergarments themselves. The form of a woman is the very definition of perfection. Why should anyone pervert what was born beautiful? But perversion or not, she had to fit in; into Mina’s closet if not modern London quite as readily, so a reformed corset it was.