anonypenguin

[anonypenguin]

Small childhood story

When I was a kid, I was the tallest and, therefore, somehow the most responsible. So, was trusted with trips to the playground, since we were in a pretty rough area and little siblings liked to tag along.

We were on the monkey bars, I was teaching my younger friend some stuff, when I heard her little sister scream. She had stepped on broken glass. She was barefoot, and I hadn't seen her kick off her sandals or the clear glass shards in the grass.

So here's me, age 10 with a crying bleeding three-year-old in my arms pleading for her mom (who was at work), her dad (who was asleep and trusted me with them). I sent her sister riding for home. Ten years old, I didn't know what else to do but call for a grownup. Their father did come, but those twenty minutes with a bleeding baby in my arms were terrifying.

[anonypenguin]

Yes, contractors like your dogs

As a contractor, I have lost count of how many times I have had to say this:

We love dogs. We're actually going to be really excited to meet your dogs. However, when we are working with wet paint, wet spackle, power tools, or chemicals like wood stain that might be harmful to pets, we ask that you keep pets out of the work area, for their safety. We will happily pet your dogs after we've washed the paint off of our hands.

[anonypenguin]

Had an enlightening conversation today. This is a place to put thoughts when I'm tired of them. I am so very tired of this one.

"Hey, so that school shooting ---"

"Which one?"

I'll edit this later. Or delete it. I don't know. It's incoherent. But my knee-jerk reaction to "school shooting" is "which one."

[anonypenguin]

The Dream of the Library Ghost

So I've had this dream since I was a kid. I'm in a massive library. The ceiling is twenty feet high, easily, and vaulted. The bookshelves are just as tall, and the corridors extend into darkness. I know there is a basement, but in the dream, I also know I mustn't go down there. In the dream, a faint light comes from a high window. Moonlight, I think, but maybe it's just city lights.

In the dream, I hear a footstep, and then I think I hear someone crying. I round the corner, and a girl is there. She has long, dark hair and a light t-shirt, and now the windows are huge stained-glass affairs and the bookshelves are twice the size. Now her t-shirt is a nightgown. Her voice is a rusty hinge. It's clear she doesn't want to talk, and equally clear that it's important, and I can't understand her.

I've had this dream for an oh-god number of years; what the expletive does this mean?

[anonypenguin]

Insults you can use in mixed company

You possess the moral backbone of overcooked ravioli.

You deserve to lose your keys every day for at least a year.

Your attempts at humour fall as flat as your singing voice.

You wouldn't know good literature if it married your mother, tucked you in, and did your taxes for you.

[anonypenguin]

Lou

Clocked out of work at my bar/restaurant and decided to have a pint there before going home. Sitting next to an older man, didn't know him. He gets out some money to pay for his drink, and I can't help but notice it's carefully and tightly wound up in rubber bands. Multiple. Like he's very worried about dropping or losing some. His hands shake while he's tweezing out just the right amount. Inevitably, I hear some change hit the floor; it's clear he doesn't hear it.

Excuse me sir, I think this is yours.

Turns out Lou is 91. He's a black man; I'm 34 and (very) white. Lou doesn't have any family left; Lou likes a drink called a Godfather because the godfather takes care of everyone around him, spreads the wealth.

Lou tells me about working in fancy restaurants in his youth, during segregation. How much he had to know, how little he was tipped, being a black servant to the rich white customers. How amazing it was to sit at a bar together as equals. How different it was, to be addressed as "sir" by a white person.

I don't think about this enough. Half an hour before, I would have been cooking for and serving him; off the clock, we're both just at the bar. Of course we're equal?

But it isn't "of course." Lou worked for decades when it was very much not "of course," knowing far more about restaurants and making far, far less than I do, and it took decades of work by thousands of people for us to sit together at a bar and he *still* felt like he should buy me a drink because he was happy that we got this far. He was so happy, maybe because of the Godfather cocktails, but also because a younger white person didnt think twice about sitting next to him and saying Hello, instead of...anything else you might imagine a black man hearing in his lifetime.

Hope Lou comes back next Friday. He has good stories.

[anonypenguin]

Sci-fi biology

Here's something I've wondered about.

When one race encounters an ailing or injured member or an alien race, how are doctors or medics so confident in treating them?

Give her oxygen? How do you know she doesn't need nitrogen? Or CO2? Or helium?

Hypospray in the neck with a [whatever the writer just made up]? Their blood vessels might not even be in the same place.

Surgery? Yeah, I'm sure you studied the internal organs of every species your culture hasn't even met yet.

Atmosphere and pressure? Not like those ever vary from planet to planet, go ahead and board that alien vessel with no suit.

Don't get me wrong, I love the dramatic moments this can both create and lead to, but it doesn't do to overthink it.

[anonypenguin]

Discworld thoughts

I don't like the earliest books.

There. I said it.

I like the books that have deeper reflections on...not the human condition, because Pratchett was actually pretty clear on the point that you don't have to be human per se. You can be a vampire or a troll or DEATH. But rather, the universal condition. Reckoning with mortality, helping and healing, the true meaning of justice, delighting in dancing on the edge of chaos, grappling with your own inner demons.

That said. I also felt like I could see Terry Pratchett slip away in the last couple of books, when he became ill. Like the delight of chaos and creation and wordplay slid away from him, and the march of technology (the trains, the clacks, international affairs) were more of a drain than a joy. Vimes and Vetinari, and Granny Weatherwax, were always cynical, but in the last few books, the end was obviously near.

so anyway, get a Discworld audiobook from your local library and let the wisdom Sir Terry lull you to sleep, or at least a dreamy knowledge that everyone else is also making mistakes and you're not alone.

[anonypenguin]

The speaking glance

The speaking glance is a moment of intimacy. It can say, Hey, I need a few minutes of privacy, and it can also say, Hey, I remembered I need to go do a thing over there, or Yeah, I'll get you [thing you need]. Without a word.

It can also say to a supervillain, You're going down, which is a different type of intimacy.

[anonypenguin]

You like cats, right?

Our neighbor moved and left us a cat. Cat had attention-getting habits like getting into the kitchen (my chicken!), getting onto the porch (traffic!) and flopping on the drywall I was about to cut (so many power tools!).

But when I hadn't slept well, Cat found a way to curl up on my chest. Only when i was sleep-deprived. Couldn't very well move Cat, Cat was purring and sleepy.

My roommate's Cat made me take naps.

[anonypenguin]

Death is weird.

I think about making soup and, I should cut the potatoes small so he can...oh. Right.

I stay up all night until norepinephrine punches me in the base of my skull because I used to sit up until 5 AM keeping watch.

Next time I go over I'll bring him...right.

I'll get the eggs out so I can make him cookies...f***.

No. I'm angry at God. I don't believe in God, but...are these the actions of a loving god? Un deo pio? Un deo justo? I wish god was real, just so I had someone to whom to scream my frustration. I wish...I wish my loved ones didn't have to feel this.

There is no God. There is no Gandalf, though I think I wish for that even more. But so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

[anonypenguin]

Ways about stuff and junk

I've been tanking for about a month. It feels longer. Just soaking the damage and being the strong one.

There's no poetry in this. This doesn't belong as a diary entry in a pretty book. I don't know what else to do.

My chest cavity hurts, and it does feel like a cavity, every time I have to go over, visit, revisit the death, bring another casserole, hear another hymn. Again. Again.

Them as can, as must. I just hope it's enough and I'm afraid it's not.

[anonypenguin]

The point is

My brakes went out. Swerving all over the place, a mile from my apartment, had none of my paperwork because I just moved in and there was this family emergency.

The officer was kind. He drove me home, asked if my dad could help me get the car.

While I was swerving and trying to control my potentially dangerous car, a black guy five years younger than me was being put in handcuffs for speeding.

But they asked me if I was okay, and arrested the black man because he was doing 67 in a 65 zone.