THERE IS A NEW FERAL CAT OUTSIDE, presumably lured by the hey-sailor charms of Mama Hallie Ween. A handsome gentleman of the tabby persuasion, we have named him Tom Hagen, for he is not a wartime consigliere, but a lovetime, if Hallie has anything to say about it. We really hope no new kittens come of this–we’re not made of dry food and we don’t even get to pet them, come on–but frankly I’m MUCH more invested in the domestic drama that will play out if Tom Hagen is caught creepin’ round the back stair by Hallie’s other, already established suitor, a black and white old Jellicle who is simply called The Sheriff and has come a-courting of a warmer evening. Updates will be provided as events develop further, but cast your votes and lay your bets now.
January 15th:
What Fear Have You Conquered?
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I was, once upon a time, terrified of two related things:
- What my mind labeled Grown-Up Stuff (making doctor’s appointments, etc.).
This is pretty self-explanatory and, I think, pretty common. Part of that is the way that our parents’ generation stripped the public school system of home economics, autoshop, and similar cloisters in which we might’ve learned the holy rites of Domesticus, and then they dunk on us for needing a youtube video to tell us how to turn off the water main??? What’s that about? Weird. - Specifically, going to new places I hadn’t been before, and getting lost.
I hail from the before-times, the misty far-far of 2007, when you had to either know exactly where you were going OR, God help you, put yourself in the hands of MapQuest and hope for the best. Rachel and Griffin discussed this here and do a better job than I could of expressing what a completely different world this was, how you could try to go to a party somewhere you’d never been and just get lost, and that scared me deeply and instilled me with a sense of small-scale depression and despair.
I HAVE GROWN MOSTLY OUT OF THESE, thanks to a combination of general maturation, the ready availability of fairly reliable GPS technology, and an anxiety diagnosis and medication. LIST OF CONQUERED FEARS OVER. We will cover my UNCONQUERED fears, such as locked-in syndrome, Hell, and anything that hits my trypophobia, another time.
–THE BAGELER
The absolute GALL of you to use a picture of peeled pomegranates for this post, the sheer AUDACITY.