Was it right for you to stay? Was it wrong to walk away?

[sovay]

It is amazing the things that haunt a person who is just trying to get to sleep. There I am in the wolf-hours of the morning, having put in some dedicated effort to cool down from a thing that upset me right before bed, and like a picture postcard from a personal enemy my brain zaps in an interaction I hadn't thought of in years. I must have been about thirteen, because I was still doing archery in North Andover instead of Dedham; the person I knew best at the range beside the instructor was a woman with short silver hair who had started about the same time I did. We were talking about equipment—I can't remember what I wanted, although the chances are good it was new arrows, but she declared that she was going to reward herself with a new sight "when [she] hit thirty." She meant, of course, when she achieved the highest possible score of all three arrows of an end clustered within the concentric gold ten-rings at the center of the target. I said curiously, "How old are you now?" Considerably after the fact, I recognized I had reproduced a pattern of joke that is so much older than dirt that it's a recurring bit of vaudeville in The Great Muppet Caper (1981), but in the moment it took me one of those slow-dawning stomach-drops to understand the reactions around me and why my older friend was roaring, "Hold your tongue, young Sonya!" which was so archaically reproachful, I felt like Peregrin Took on the spot. I can't remember how I managed the apology, which I hope she believed; it didn't sear into my memory in the same detail. I still couldn't tell you her age. Now with any luck I have sufficiently desensitized the story that it won't pop scaldingly back into my head while I'm lying in the dawn-dark tonight. I've sort of gone back to not sleeping. Have some links.

1. Almost seventy years after the publication of Alan Turing's "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" (1952), our understanding of what are now called Turing patterns has progressed to the point where they can be introduced into colonies of E. coli and look really cool. I remember earlier research manipulating the reaction-diffusion process within individual cells to create bacterial letters. I wonder what our patterns are.

2. I enjoyed this interview by Tananarive Due with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins about The Silence of the Lambs (1991). rushthatspeaks showed me that film.

3. Courtesy of selkie: a votive amulet from Athens and a petrified tree on Lesbos.

4. Courtesy of spatch: the guiña, melanistic edition.

5. Actually, just admire this tweet of his.

There is a full moon; it is Purim; I will be making hamantashn with my mother tomorrow. It was the last holiday we celebrated normally in 2020. And now here we are again. I have nothing more profound than that. There are people whose names should be blotted out.

Comments

[selkie]

I got the dough made and the clear heat-resistant lemon filling the child requested; you sent us Minority Monsters; it improved the traumaversary for our household.

And tomorrow we get to borrow Shabbes?

Edit: I forgot to say, it is possible your older friend was just reprimanding you in the vernacular of the century you were standing in at the time; I hope the story has indeed lost some of its wince factor now.

[sovay]

I got the dough made and the clear heat-resistant lemon filling the child requested; you sent us Minority Monsters; it improved the traumaversary for our household.

I am very glad. Do they want a print copy or are they happy with pixels?

(I think we're just going to be doing prune, poppy, and apricot, because we are traditionalists and also who wants to shop.)

And tomorrow we get to borrow Shabbes?

And run with it.

[selkie]

(We have apricot and chocolate fillings ready to go. No one but me would eat mohn or lekvar... It's good to be traditionalists!)

I think they are good with pixels for now, specifically because their podfriends are not ready -- or their podfriends' parents aren't and I want to skip that convo -- and the pixels reside with Mama on a password-locked machine. (I have literally stopped work to let them read it, but controlling the flow of information to other little precocious mongeese = excellent self-preservation.)

(The Silence of the Lambs is one of my top five films. Of which there are only, like, 20 to start and 5 are Mel Brooks. And those photos from 1991 are legit.)

[sovay]

No one but me would eat mohn or lekvar...

Your household are weirdos.

(I have literally stopped work to let them read it, but controlling the flow of information to other little precocious mongeese = excellent self-preservation.)

Your child's podfriends' parents are different weirdos, but I do not debate the wisdom of this equation.

(I really don't think of any of that book as NSFW. It's educational and full of cartoons! Plus now you got the earthbender harpy thing going on.)

(The Silence of the Lambs is one of my top five films. Of which there are only, like, 20 to start and 5 are Mel Brooks. And those photos from 1991 are legit.)

It's on the list of films I immediately thought were brilliant and have never written about. I would like to see it in a theater sometime, unless audiences are going to be weird about it.

[selkie]

I really don't think of any of that book as NSFW.
...Okay, Your Grace. (It's all really tiny usages and jokes, nothing about the informational content or even the imagery for the most part! But like, slut does not need to enter my kid's vernacular because it's a short word they want to try out. They already curse too much. Except in front of you? That is super fucking weird, what the fuck.)

I would like to see it in a theater sometime, unless audiences are going to be weird about it.
I worry, but we should go! We can throw popcorn at the weird people! I only flail and clutch at my fellow moviegoers for five minutes near the very end! It's not like when I cut off the bloodflow to your hand for all of Wiegala the other year.

(I was touched to learn that Hannibal had paid Hopkins' mother's hospital bills.)

[sovay]

But like, slut does not need to enter my kid's vernacular because it's a short word they want to try out.

Okay, fair. That could go very poorly, very fast.

They already curse too much. Except in front of you? That is super fucking weird, what the fuck.

I don't think I've ever heard them swear! Admittedly my standards for what constitutes profanity plunged sharply in 2020, but I still think I'd have noticed if it were a regular feature.

I worry, but we should go! We can throw popcorn at the weird people!

Sounds cathartic to me! It's a deal!

. . . I miss theaters so much.

(I was touched to learn that Hannibal had paid Hopkins' mother's hospital bills.)

(Same.)

[sovay]

Edit: I forgot to say, it is possible your older friend was just reprimanding you in the vernacular of the century you were standing in at the time; I hope the story has indeed lost some of its wince factor now.

Thank you. It is, though, one of the reasons that when people say, "What are you talking about your social skills, you are supernally charismatic and can converse with anyone about anything," some level of my brain is still responding, LOOK WE'RE BETTER THAN HENRY HIGGINS AND THAT'S WHERE IT STOPS.

[selkie]

There have been a very few times I have watched you hit a five-barred gate and re-set yourself, but all of them were on Zoom and therefore don't fall under social skills. Am afraid I am Team Supernally Charismatic when I've seen you with other people.

[moon_custafer]

That melanistic guiña looks like an exaggerated version of our younger cat, Beatrice.

[sovay]

That melanistic guiña looks like an exaggerated version of our younger cat, Beatrice.

I've seen pictures of her on your Tumblr. Legit.

[sara]

If a child said that to me I'd be entirely delighted.

[sovay]

If a child said that to me I'd be entirely delighted.

Thank you. She thought I was making fun of her. It's my memory, of course, so I never think of my own age except as measured by surroundings, but I was a lot closer to my godchild's age than mine now.

(I don't know if she knew that. For most of my adolescence and young adulthood I was taken for older than my age; then for most of my adulthood I was taken for younger. 2020 may finally have beaten up my body to the point where strangers and new acquaintances will no longer ask where I'm a student, but it hasn't been tested yet, what with the whole not seeing people in the wild for almost exactly a year now thing.)

[moon_custafer]

For most of my adolescence and young adulthood I was taken for older than my age; then for most of my adulthood I was taken for younger.

Same.

[sovay]

Same.

I started to feel very weird about it in the last couple of years, like Schmendrick the Magician, but I didn't want a pandemic to wreck my body, I just wanted people to stop assuming I was still in grad school! (Just to be clear, I don't think there was cause and effect here. I blame myself for stupid things, but not for COVID-19.)

[moon_custafer]

I just wanted people to stop assuming I was still in grad school!

If it’s any consolation, there’s an extensive Tumblr thread about how academia is the perfect hideout for vampires in part because anybody there can look any age and it indicates very little...

[sovay]

If it’s any consolation, there’s an extensive Tumblr thread about how academia is the perfect hideout for vampires in part because anybody there can look any age and it indicates very little...

Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (1991) posits similarly about fairies.

[sara]

Speaking as an adult who spends a lot of time around teenagers, both mine and others: absent some significant evidence of malice, it is incumbent upon adults not to take kids very seriously at these moments.

In other words, even if you had intended to make fun of her, she was the grown person. She should have let it go.

[sovay]

In other words, even if you had intended to make fun of her, she was the grown person. She should have let it go.

I believe you.

Thanks for the hindsight reality check.

[thisbluespirit]

Why is just before you go to sleep the perfect time for weird attacks like this? *hugs*

[sovay]

Why is just before you go to sleep the perfect time for weird attacks like this?

It should be outlawed.

*hugs*

[buttonsbeadslace]

in the wolf-hours of the morning

This phrase gave me a much more pleasant flashback- to being about twelve years old and watching Babylon 5- so, thank you.

[sovay]

This phrase gave me a much more pleasant flashback- to being about twelve years old and watching Babylon 5- so, thank you.

You're welcome! I almost certainly got it from that episode, too.