The one you gotta watch out for
This one is about reaction times.
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I'd sent myself a text, in April actually, for this month's newsletter. It read:
I’m writing this ahead of time, for once. Who knows what the month this is queued for (June) will bring. I hope it doesn’t bring The Skunk.
First: I sure did send that and then didn't open this file to work on the newsletter actual until late May. If wishes were fishes I'd be the sea. You should still know about The Skunk, though. See, sometimes I'm outside at night and there's a skunk that has no schedule, horrible night vision and often thinks I'm a tree. Sometimes it sees me, though.
Image description: Screenshot of texts. From sender: Hahaha yes. lol omg. I keep watch for skunk from right. But it crossed the street on the left! AWAY FROM ME THANK GOD. Reply: Oh no. lol. End ID.
It has also passed right behind me, its horrible little tail of danger casually brushing my pant leg. So far, I've never flinched and startled it. My head is on a swivel when I'm out at night though, I really can't predict where and when and if I'll see this guy. I already was someone who purchased white vinegar by the gallon from restaurant food places (cooking AND cleaning!) and I know it's not as effective as hydrogen peroxide, but part of me sees that giant bottle in the kitchen and thinks "this will work as a stopgap when I eventually get sprayed at like 2am."
I feel like I've had more animal encounters and observations the more urban I've lived. I grew up basically nowheresville, animals are just kind of all over. Quail being followed by the bouncing dots of their babies in the morning fog, rabbits hiding in the tall grass, horses in the paddock next door, coyotes roaming the hills above the golf course a mile down the highway, eating the small dogs of rich people.
In the path of following employment, we kept moving to more city-ish places, culminating finally to one of the Actual Cities, which is where I saw a skunk going about its day for the first time, two horrible little babies trundling after. I literally climbed a wall to get up out of their way.
The thing about cities is that there are so many animals adapted to finding a niche living in the spaces between people it feels like you see them more than when your nearest neighbour's house is on the opposite end of their field from you and your acre and the animals have everywhere to roam. Opossum, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, etc etc. Lots of little specialised guys.
Then, we moved back into a more suburban? I don't know how you quantify the area within Los Angeles county that we live. It's a city, it's suburbs, it also spills up into the mountains and becomes that particular kind of desert nothingness rather quickly. Seeing bear in town is normal enough, right time of year. I've talked before about the range of animals here, actually I bring them up with some regularity.
Other than The Skunk, or the time that deer was standing in the road to eat from a bush in the median, most animal encounters are net positive. When I was at a journalism camp in high school, one of the other attendees had a bird poop on her head as our path across campus crossed theirs. "It's good luck in some places!" one of the group leads lied (she was right, actually, but was at the time pulling from a void of desperation) as she accompanied the girl back to the dorms to wash her hair.
I've had a bird land on me, thinking I was just An Object. I was sitting and my coat hood was pulled up, my shadow cast before me as I let the sun warm me on a break. A small noise then a slight pressure on the top of my head--I am someone who often freezes for a moment before reacting, to better process wtf. I think the bird made a little noise to itself and I glanced down, to my shadow, which was now altered by the addition of a little bird-shape. The silhouette of it was tidying its feathers and looking around in that way birds do when they take a breather before moving on. Then off it went and I patted the top of my head, in a kind of awe.
Here's an artist's rendition of the shape I stared at while a bird took a breather on my noggin.
Image description: A digital illustration of a person's silhouette, skewed by the ground, topped by a wee bird. End ID.
After it left, I pulled back my hood and checked that it had not taken the moment to use the bathroom (it had not).
Yesterday, standing outside, a rush of wings coming at me from my blind spot had me jerking away immediately. The value of taking a moment to assess is zero if you are being dive-bombed by a bird. I realised, as the bird veered up and off and landed on a nearby branch, turning its head back and forth to take me in, that was not what had happened. It'd thought I'd be a nice tree or something to take a rest on and when I'd ducked realised I was not actually a great spot to sit.
At work a lot I try to practise "take a moment." Yes! This tool is broken and it sucks and we're panicking. Let's take a moment: is it broken, or is something else going on? Is this a Big Problem, or can we wait a day and it will resolve itself? Can we get more information before acting? I loathe trying to solve a problem whilst actively freaking out. It's difficult to make the body not want to react immediately, but I've found it to be worth it to wait and see what the steps forward are before running off to a solution (that might not even be the best solution).
Which is, btw, obviously different from "putting it off and never doing anything about it." And also different from saying someone is overreacting.
I am a big fan of saying "oh yuck, wtf, let's look into this." And from there you can go, "lol oh shit, this IS on fire," or "let's see if it keeps being broken this way for a little bit before we act" or "huh, not broken, just unexpected."
There's another path too, where you go "oh well, this is broke-broke and we can't fix it, but we can absolutely make fun of it." (tbh, my immediate thought was of Microsoft Teams and the brilliantly mean description of it in the Dropsite News article about boycotting Microsoft)
A bird flying directly at my head at speed and loudly: duck.
A possibly weird shadow from my left that resolves into a skunk calmly passing behind me and emerging on my right: worth taking a pause to get more information before acting.
Something landing gently on my head and turning out to be some little songbird: not a problem, actually.
A bird dropping a deuce as it flies by: lol okay.
It is difficult when so much is So Much going on So Often about So Many Things that affect us so heavily. I appreciate whenever I see folks taking a moment to assess if it's worth giving a shit about and then, when it is, having something more interesting/actionable/useful to move forward with about it. Or at least, being very funny about it.
These are some recent reads that are still kicking around in my head. Links go to the Storygraph entries for each title, a great place to check out content warnings and find ways to read them.
- It's rare I buy a new release in physical form but Demon Engine by Marten Norr was one I knew I wanted the moment tRaum Books began talking about it. I love a deep sea horror and I love an ingenious magic system (though this isn't quite magic) and I love queer main characters and boy-o. Beasts from the deep! Overcoming fears! Body horror! Learning to trust others! Learning to trust yourself! I've got I think Some Words about it after I've chewed it over some more but in short it hits similar spots in the brain to Robert Jackson Bennett and deftly does what Gene Wolfe couldn't.
- Hellions by Julia Elliott is one of those rare short story collections where every one is a banger. I feel like I've had better luck seeing stories of places and people that feel familiar from Southern authors than I do those from where I'm from. The range of kinds of stories spans, as the blurb says "from medieval Europe to the heart of the contemporary South and on into strange, tech-mediated futures." A spicy buffet of stories here.
Apologies if I've shared any of these before, but I don't think I have. Part of the seasonal cycle I love is how the streetlight looks through the leaves of the pecan (??) tree. From dense green to the thinning gold of autumn to fresh yellowy sprouts, it's something fresh each day.
Image description: A photograph taken looking up. It is almost black with the silhouette of leaves, some catching the light or glowing from behind thanks to the yellow circle of streetlight shining through a gap in the centre. End ID.
Image description: A photograph taken looking up, through thinning leaves in overlapping golds and rusted greens. A winter-thin blue-grey sky is visible between and around, as is the warm gold spot of a streetlight through a gap in the leaves. End ID.
Image description: A photograph taken looking up, through the feathery yellow-green clusters of baby leaves sprouting from branches a little blacker than the dark of the night sky behind them. The leaves are glowing from the bright yellow-white circle of a streetlight shining in the centre. End ID.
Cool links!
- My best friend knows I like a treasure hunt and gave me the info to find a magazine she'd encountered when he was a kid. Neither of us expected to find it but here it is: CQ: Canine Quarterly for the Modern Dog, if you've an Archive account you can check it out, what a fun and silly mag. It was the "men's mag" sibling of Dogue: a parody of the world's most famous fashion magazine what a delight. The dog-themed ads are what really make it.
- I love a story from an animal's perspective and For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll is exactly the energy I want from a cat POV.
- This article on Polari was super interesting. I had some bits of knowledge about the language, but it was rad to get more context. And also very neat to see what words are still floating around from it.
This article at The Transfeminine Review about resisting censorship has a lot of good stuff to chew on and do in the context of preserving information, creating microlibraries, and being safe.
If you've thought of donating eSims, this guide was very helpful, and Crips for eSims for Gaza is a good option if you can't easily manage topping them up. There are also more traditional donation targets like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, UNRWA, and Doctors Without Borders. If you prefer giving directly to families, Gaza Funds is a nice resource that facilitates finding campaigns.