Polychains

no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

Howdy!

I’d like, uh, two normal rolls.

Sure thing!

And one with the… With the pumpkin seeds.

Which do you mean?

The one with the… With the seeds.

What are they called?

Uhm… A, uh, “crunchy pumpky.”

Sure thing. Would you like anything else?

Uhh… I’ll also take a, uh… A… A Nutella donut…?

Unfortunately, I don’t know at all what you mean…

A… One of those right there!

You really must tell me, what’s it called??

I… I’m… I’m a dumb piece of shit.

Sure thing! Anything else?

That one there?

You know what you need to do. [Here she switches from the formal, customer service voice to addressing him casually and familiarly.]

I… I’m a little greedy pig, oink oink?

Do it!

[grunts like a pig]

That comes to €13.50, please! Have a beautiful day!

Have you guys seen that clip

And some years before that, King had gone to school with a couple of girls he pseudonymously calls Tina and Sandra, who were bullied and shunned by the other kids—Tina for wearing the same clothes every day, Sandra for her epilepsy and extremely religious mother, but both really for having some undefinable Other quality that kids pick up on like blood in the water. Both of them were dead by the time King began writing Carrie: Tina by suicide, Sandra from her epilepsy.

Carrie was what King imagined might have happened if that explanation of poltergeist activity were correct, and if Tina and Sandra had been able to tap into such an energy. He started writing the story a few years after getting married (his wife Tabitha is also a writer), but abandoned the idea a few pages in; the raw, merciless adolescent cruelty the story called for was too much to deal with, and what did he know about teenage girls, anyway? But Tabitha dug the pages out of the trash and read them, and convinced him it was a story that needed telling.

Carrie is a story which, perhaps like poltergeist activity, could only happen to a girl on the brink of womanhood, when every emotion and sensation is excruciatingly vivid and nothing makes sense anymore and every single occurrence in your life is the most important thing that will ever happen to you. It's about being horribly powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and alienated from your own body. It's about the visceral, starved animal fear and rage of being a teenage girl, and it goes to show what an arcane and powerful craft creative writing is that a man could manage to capture that without having experienced it firsthand.

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

So a few days ago I noticed a fox friend running through my yard. I was able to snap this photo.

I called him Milo.

I thought he was a lone wolf who chose my neighborhood as his domain.

But Milo is not alone.

Milo is a papa.

He and his lady fox have three little foxes!

I went from never having seen a fox to FIVE foxes playing in my backyard.

The three kiddos were wrestling. Their opening move is to do this cat-like superjump and then dive bomb into their sibling. Then they roll around. And then a high speed chase ensues.

One of the little foxes came near the house and I got a few closer photos.

I love the little black socks.

Papa Milo and Mama Mia.

And for the kits... Marian, McCloud, and Michael J.