I jerked the head back a bit. As often happens, the reflex brought with it the feeling that the body was truly mine.

e connect as people through myth and image—it's powerful and universal stuff. And it lends itself perfectly to fragrance. No other sense can invoke involuntary memories like the olfactory system, and I postulate that the right fragrance for the right person can, in fact, connect them to the Collective Unconscious—the universal image bank we all share as part of being human.

Guns and feminism have been a common element of my life for a long time. I owe my openness to feminism to Isaac Asimov, who wrote in one of his books (or in an editorial for Asimov's , maybe) that he was a proud supporter of the feminist cause and was even willing to call himself a feminist. When I was twelve years old, that was good enough for me, and it kept me from associating the word "feminism" with anything negative—I worshipped Isaac Asimov, and if he said the word was a good one, I believed him.

from the land of clocks and milk maids