one tarantula
four frogs, three skinks, three turtles,
and several snakes
Which is the count of reptiles and other creatures included in the reptile show at the library yesterday. Which was totally cool! And lots of fun. I only wish I’d been able to touch some of the critters, but sometimes being a grownup means having to stand at the side while the kids get to hold the frogs and turtles and snakes. Ah well. I did get to be the guy’s (Mike? I totally forget his name) “assistant” at the end and hold the hand sanitizer to squirt in the hands of the kids who held the boa constrictor. Whee!
I’d told Mom about it and left her a copy of the summer calendar, so she came to see the show, too. Didn’t get much chance to talk to her—she sat behind the main crowd, while I was standing in the stacks near the front, and it was chaos after the show, so I had to go right back to work—but she said she enjoyed it, and I introduced her to Janet #1, so she got the chance to meet another of my co-workers.
It was a good day. I finally had my energy back, and had a good day at work. It was also Kris’ birthday, so there was cake and fresh-squeezed lemonade. I had a good run in the morning, too, resuming my previous speed and finishing the 2 miles without any tiredness.
Now, if only my ear would unplug! I woke up this morning and tested my nose, and my left sinus/nostril was finally clear. (It’s stuffy now again, though.) But my ear is still plugged up. Grr.
I also got Day Three of “Looking Glass” up last night. That was a long one—it took me a good three hours to go through and get all the italics in. I felt sort of conflicted about that part. Some of it was good, but there was one scene I really didn’t think worked. As I recall, it was a scene I’d never liked from the beginning, and re-wrote as part of the final draft. Don’t like the re-write either, but oh well. I’m not going to change it now!
It’s also a bit strange to be posting this story after all these years, and stirring up all my old feelings about my first big fandom. I was so bitter about how badly the X-Files got screwed up in the end, I hadn’t really thought about it in years. Now I’m remembering just how much I loved it when it was good. I’ve never found a fandom since that just hits for me so perfectly—I could get into Mulder’s POV and just write forever, there was no problem (until the canon went splat) that made it hard work to write, as there has been in all my other fandoms since. And the canon itself was so weird and freaky and adult and perverted, you could explore whatever dark fantasies your mind could come up with and not worry too much about backlash from people who didn’t want to see it that way. Sigh. I’m half-tempted to try to write some post-series M/K, just to have the pleasure of visiting that universe again.
It’s also strange to be doing this right now, when LJ is going through such upheaval about the recent journal suspensions. The more the PTB try to clarify and explain away what happened, the more they seem to dig themselves in. People are becoming paranoid, pulling in and locking down content, while I… cheerfully carry on, posting one of my most intensely explicit and kinky works on a public web site. (Although my fic site isn’t that public—I’ve set it up not to be indexed by search engines, so no one will stumble across it accidentally, you have to be linked to it. Which means you have to come into it from fannish sources, and crazy watchdog groups like the ones behind the LJ fiasco aren’t likely to come across it. And in any case, it’s a personal archive, hosted on my own site. Nobody can mess with it, except possibly my web host, but I don’t think they’d pull it unless the copyright-holders went after them, and that’s not likely; at least, no more likely than it ever was.)
It makes me a bit sad, though, to see so many people get freaked and pull in their toes from fannish waters on LJ. I have one friend who, I suspect, has filtered me off her friends-only posts, which is of course her right, but it makes me sad to feel I’ve somehow lost her trust, or more likely never really had it to begin with. If that’s indeed what’s happening, but this is the kind of paranoid atmosphere we’re currently swimming in.
The irony is that I’ve written brother/brother, underage, rps, all kinds of taboo stuff, but most people don’t know that, because I’ve always kept those stories under wraps. I’ve never spoken out against these kinds of stories, but I suppose that my lack of visibility in this area can make people wary: publicly, there’s nothing that says I’m okay with stories that explore these taboos, so people may feel it safest to assume I might not be. Perhaps I should make a statement? Perhaps I should be posting this rumination on my LJ instead of here, where no one will read it. Oh well.
In other news, I continue to try to convince myself not to buy an iPhone the instant they come out. I am not having much luck.
I like the colors on this old wheelbarrow that lies in my yard down by the sheds.
