Thrown words, whispers collected

The worst part is in my 50s realizing no one else knows either. We’re just… bigger kids? Together? All hoping no one notices none of us are ‘adults’.

How many spoons do I have today? None. But it’s ok. There’s a cat.

monoculture forests are deeply unsettling in a way that is hard to explain to people who do not spend a lot of time looking at forests

For all those wondering, my recent piece about the planted pine forest from when I was a kid... this but with more trees. This is an older forest that’s cleared out some trees, the ones I was talking about had about double the trees so the density is that much higher.  But yay! Someone else who gets it! Yes! lol

... yeah, that tracks. I know so many crafting professionals who would be like that.

'Professional expresses strong well-founded opinions on something he only just learned about,' gotta be one of my favorite genres

See also why friends send me pics of bad jewelry.

My peoples... 2am at Home Depot, that one night a month that one bar in town did leather nights for men: Everyone, aisle 12 has the O rings you’re looking for. No lies here. My favourite favourite moment was going to one of said leather nights as a nooby leatherman, not knowing anything. Language, terms, activities, nothing. And thinking oh my lord I’m going to stand out as such an idiot. I have anxiety about not being In The Know enough. Trust me it was a serious freak out level of fear. First night. FIRST night at the bar a guy I knew from different/generic gay bars walks up wearing a harness. And without thinking, having grown up not only on farms but also with horses, I say: Ooooh, Nice d-ring snaffle bit! He BURST out laughing and said most kindly: Oh, honey, you’ll be fine here. The cross over is real.

Rosethorn kicking Chioke out challenge (hell Crane kicking Chioke out challenge). Ozorne just gets to heal animals in peace.

Reading a thing about rabbits vs hares ( @gallusrostromegalus‘s conversation) and I kept coming back to the forest. Back in the day of the 80s and 90s my family moved a lot from farm to farm while my father worked a job in a nearby city. For eight years we lived in Lanark County, Ontario. There is a reason, I believe, so much of Charles DeLint’s early work is centred there. Let’s just say… mushroom rings? Don’t step inside. But across the road from where my family lived was a large lot that had been a farm with a house and everything, converted into a pine farm. Trees in rows. Rust coloured needles covering the ground, giving the interior a look of a floor with endless pillars. Already, you see, you know things feel weird.  The first tree in the forest was a massive maple sitting at the edge of one of lots of trees. Big twisting, writhing limbs with leaves and bark you could lose a hand in. Only. Every spring when I walked by it would be filled with green and… clicking. I was told later it’s not common or something but someone needs to go find that tree and tell all the porcupines in it that they’re unusual. Because like spikey rattling fruit of owies and musk, they filled that tree. Silence but the sound of their quills (which at sufficient numbers is just… eerie as all hell). They’d watch you. Fill a tree and watch you.  I once counted to twenty before I stopped. I don’t even know where they came from or where they went. But apparently porcupines grow on trees. And then there was The Tree. As I said in monocultures like a planted pine forest there’s a kind of weird sense that you know This Isn’t Natural. But this one block of trees older by a little bit and more established. It was darker with only random spears of light hitting the rust or blood (after a rain) needled ground.  Except. There was an apple tree. It had long limbs that grew in gnarled curves and clutching branches parallel to the ground, spreading out more than up. Enough so it created a break in the canopy and light would spotlight it. Only. For the few leaves and the command of a clearing of it’s own, with a few sickly saplings that would try to grow from under it.. the bark of this apple tree was black. Like jet black. So, again. A forest of lines stretching out of sight. Floor of rust and blood needles, level as if made. Bone-white needles still on branches except. Where a black apple tree snarled and gnarled and twisted limb to throttle a patch of light from the forest. And it was always a kind of dim light. Like it should’ve been brighter but it never was. While the forest around it was pitch. Every single time I approached it all I could think is. We aren’t the only things that have gods. And demons. And beings from Outside. I was always convinced in the forest with the porcupine moot, where a black apple tree grows untouched, trees have their gods and I’d met one. I’m not at all sure it was kind. But I bet it was fair.

@beans8leaf #oh#op youre so brilliant for this  Thank you! I woke up this morning and this had blown up (for me at least).... So thanks to everyone! But this in particular made my morning. 

Reading a thing about rabbits vs hares ( @gallusrostromegalus‘s conversation) and I kept coming back to the forest. Back in the day of the 80s and 90s my family moved a lot from farm to farm while my father worked a job in a nearby city. For eight years we lived in Lanark County, Ontario. There is a reason, I believe, so much of Charles DeLint’s early work is centred there. Let’s just say… mushroom rings? Don’t step inside. But across the road from where my family lived was a large lot that had been a farm with a house and everything, converted into a pine farm. Trees in rows. Rust coloured needles covering the ground, giving the interior a look of a floor with endless pillars. Already, you see, you know things feel weird.  The first tree in the forest was a massive maple sitting at the edge of one of lots of trees. Big twisting, writhing limbs with leaves and bark you could lose a hand in. Only. Every spring when I walked by it would be filled with green and… clicking. I was told later it’s not common or something but someone needs to go find that tree and tell all the porcupines in it that they’re unusual. Because like spikey rattling fruit of owies and musk, they filled that tree. Silence but the sound of their quills (which at sufficient numbers is just… eerie as all hell). They’d watch you. Fill a tree and watch you.  I once counted to twenty before I stopped. I don’t even know where they came from or where they went. But apparently porcupines grow on trees. And then there was The Tree. As I said in monocultures like a planted pine forest there’s a kind of weird sense that you know This Isn’t Natural. But this one block of trees older by a little bit and more established. It was darker with only random spears of light hitting the rust or blood (after a rain) needled ground.  Except. There was an apple tree. It had long limbs that grew in gnarled curves and clutching branches parallel to the ground, spreading out more than up. Enough so it created a break in the canopy and light would spotlight it. Only. For the few leaves and the command of a clearing of it’s own, with a few sickly saplings that would try to grow from under it.. the bark of this apple tree was black. Like jet black. So, again. A forest of lines stretching out of sight. Floor of rust and blood needles, level as if made. Bone-white needles still on branches except. Where a black apple tree snarled and gnarled and twisted limb to throttle a patch of light from the forest. And it was always a kind of dim light. Like it should’ve been brighter but it never was. While the forest around it was pitch. Every single time I approached it all I could think is. We aren’t the only things that have gods. And demons. And beings from Outside. I was always convinced in the forest with the porcupine moot, where a black apple tree grows untouched, trees have their gods and I’d met one. I’m not at all sure it was kind. But I bet it was fair.

@ramshacklefey in tags #writing#OP YOU LIKE CHARLES DE LINT?#I NEVER SEE ANYONE TALKING ABOUT HIM AND ITS A TRAGEDY Yes, I adore his work. He’s one of my all time favourites that I almost missed reading when I lived in Lanark County, where a tonne of his early books are set. I lived for a bit of time in Perth proper as well. So for me as a teenager it was an experience to recognize descriptions of places I saw daily, in his work. But more than that he is a poet of a writer. One of my favourite kinds of storyteller that has moments when you feel like you’re listening to a myth or folktale that’s older than old. Seanan McGuire has pulled out into that lane as another masterclass writer. Laura Anne Gilman in her Devil’s West series for sure is another perfect example. I collect authors who have that resonant voice, he was one of the very first for me. Also...  Tamson House. Just.  Tamson House. I so so wanted it to be real when I was a teenager. (sigh)

Reading a thing about rabbits vs hares ( @gallusrostromegalus‘s conversation) and I kept coming back to the forest. Back in the day of the 80s and 90s my family moved a lot from farm to farm while my father worked a job in a nearby city. For eight years we lived in Lanark County, Ontario. There is a reason, I believe, so much of Charles DeLint’s early work is centred there. Let’s just say… mushroom rings? Don’t step inside. But across the road from where my family lived was a large lot that had been a farm with a house and everything, converted into a pine farm. Trees in rows. Rust coloured needles covering the ground, giving the interior a look of a floor with endless pillars. Already, you see, you know things feel weird.  The first tree in the forest was a massive maple sitting at the edge of one of lots of trees. Big twisting, writhing limbs with leaves and bark you could lose a hand in. Only. Every spring when I walked by it would be filled with green and… clicking. I was told later it’s not common or something but someone needs to go find that tree and tell all the porcupines in it that they’re unusual. Because like spikey rattling fruit of owies and musk, they filled that tree. Silence but the sound of their quills (which at sufficient numbers is just… eerie as all hell). They’d watch you. Fill a tree and watch you.  I once counted to twenty before I stopped. I don’t even know where they came from or where they went. But apparently porcupines grow on trees. And then there was The Tree. As I said in monocultures like a planted pine forest there’s a kind of weird sense that you know This Isn’t Natural. But this one block of trees older by a little bit and more established. It was darker with only random spears of light hitting the rust or blood (after a rain) needled ground.  Except. There was an apple tree. It had long limbs that grew in gnarled curves and clutching branches parallel to the ground, spreading out more than up. Enough so it created a break in the canopy and light would spotlight it. Only. For the few leaves and the command of a clearing of it’s own, with a few sickly saplings that would try to grow from under it.. the bark of this apple tree was black. Like jet black. So, again. A forest of lines stretching out of sight. Floor of rust and blood needles, level as if made. Bone-white needles still on branches except. Where a black apple tree snarled and gnarled and twisted limb to throttle a patch of light from the forest. And it was always a kind of dim light. Like it should’ve been brighter but it never was. While the forest around it was pitch. Every single time I approached it all I could think is. We aren’t the only things that have gods. And demons. And beings from Outside. I was always convinced in the forest with the porcupine moot, where a black apple tree grows untouched, trees have their gods and I’d met one. I’m not at all sure it was kind. But I bet it was fair.

@edhelwen1‘s tags #writing#i know that area#but not as well as this person#Charles de Lint is a sweetheart#and his books are awesome#he shared a signing with my husband once#when hubby was a brand new author#and he was so nice the whole time A friend of mine’s mother worked as a waitress in Perth, I forget which place exactly. Anyway he randomly used to come in and have food and drink, and struck up a conversation with her. Eventually he started to give her copies of his books. She, in the end, had all of his early works as they were being put out.  I lived, in country terms, next door to several of the places he described north of town. Finding his works was like finding stories I wanted to write. By all accounts he is a lovely man. He certainly had an effect on parts of my teenage years. 

maybe the real clitoris was the friends we made along the way

someone please lick this guy's poor girlfriend's much-neglected figure of speech

Annnnnnnd I’m done.  I mean that in a “I’m laughing and giving up, this is the best today is gonna have to offer, so I’m calling it.”  Legit laughing. Perfect.