It was lovely. More lovely than I expected. Jenny loved it, and managed to take one of the nicest pictures of me I've had in a long time, when I knew the camera was on me. She managed, once again, to give me tits. Which I don't have, and don't really want, but they have always been important to her. How does she manage it? This time it was the way she stuffed the phone in my bodice. And of course she made the dress.

The cast was amazing. There were a few people hired to be background characters, and they did indeed play with us. It really brought what is a set built in an empty former car dealership to life. Was that because I played back? Well, yeah, kind of, but that was what I came for. I wanted to spend a little time in a 21st century holodeck, and they delivered. There is a definite difference between the footmen (for lack of a better term, as they were people, obviously hired for service, but not to a gender or race standard) and the cast, but they were all playing along with the era and the show. Whitewolffe is in that job, and while I could clearly see Jeremy, who is cast-level skilled in this sort of thing, he was fading into the background, providing excellent service.

I did have a number of really great interactions. Of course they started with the dress, but compliments and questions on light subjects are of course the language of the ballroom. I was asked about my modiste, and connected to relations I never had, but it was spun sugar candy and lovely to play with people who know how to play "yes, and." There were only a few flamboyant background actors to be had, so I let Jenny be the fine lady, because there was a queen to notice and reverence as she passed, and the other actors to bounce briefly off of as we played make-believe in a playground for adults.

While I felt a little weird in the street, swanning about in a nineteenth century outfit, it was exactly the thing for the show. If you go, dressing up is the passport for the full experience. Current formal wear will work just as well. They will pull you into the center of things--or at least that was what happened to me, from beginning to end. The gorgeous male dancer, after his very showy entrance grabbed me to form a line. We had no idea what was going on, but it was Jenny's dream come true and I was glad to give her the body. It turned out to be a very simple country dance, and he had us all doing it and loving it in a couple of minutes. The rest was the same--and I'm not going to get into specifics because if you go, your experience will be better if I don't spoil it for you.

There are more selfie opportunities than you can shake a stick at, and plenty of footmen willing to take your picture with your camera. The easel station in the ballroom is totally fab. With your permission, they flash the pictures we all took there on the picture frames throughout the set. The cocktails are very tasty, and very expensive, and they will happily sell you all sorts of stuff to complete your outfit. Whitewolffe met me with a red tiara. She wanted it, and I was happy to wear it for her, though I came an inch from losing it on the dance floor. I got it home safe, and really enjoyed my evening as what amounts to a drag queen. I got in for free, but the experience is totally worth the price of the ticket, and if you want to feel as if you've spent an hour or two inside a Bridgerton episode, this is an E ticket ride.

I can see why Whitewolffe loves her new job--and I wish I could work there too. Retirement and choices cannot come fast enough. Two years and 5 and a half months to 62. Now I just have to make the wish possible, prosperous, and real.

I've always written stories about the people who inhabit my mind. They are scattered through notebooks that someday I will unpack and digitize. I never wrote about Susie, though. I thought she was gone, but I should have known better. The minute my job required her skills, as I unwillingly returned to pink collar work, she was back. Now she is Susie Silvertongue, and she has inhabited the polydimensional Balencian Library all along:

I came to life in a library. A series of them, visited in turn by my creator. I was initially a kind of false front, held between the person who labored and those she labored for. She returned the stacks of law books back to their proper places, opened the packages that arrived at each office, retrieved those books that the lawyers were finished with and--most of all--changed the outdated pages from the binders and spiral bound books that held treatises on law. Together we traced the numbered paths through numbers, decimals, and letters, each marching in hierarchy as pages in precise sections multiplied and volumes and sections were added.

We created order each week as we walked the Financial District in a wardrobe assembled with a good eye and a sense of style from thrift stores. The page filer saw no reason to spend more than necessary on clothing she loathed, but enjoyed the hunt for pieces that went together well and projected the professional aura that the job required. We were well dressed and spent a fraction of what the office staff did.

She created me as a savage joke on her employers. She was gaining experience as she got through a library technician certificate, and had no intention of staying in law libraries a moment longer than required. She gave her clients exactly what they wanted and laughed at their lack of awareness. They bought it hook, line, and sinker because in the end, we didn't matter as long as the pages and the volumes marched in order.

I was meant to blend in. My creator loved the work, but the drab offices left her cold. She hated the artificial persona she was forced to adopt, until I was created.

No matter how many books filled our arms, we had to step aside when a lawyer passed. This rule had no official existence, but we knew better than to transgress it. We were expected to know the rules and requirements of each office, briefly trained by our agency's manager, and to be professional, competent, and quiet. As my creator put it, we were to be seen as little as possible, and not heard, like a Victorian servant.

I was Susie Librarian, a name never known by them, in itself a joke--but I eagerly coalesced around it, inhabited the shell she created for me. We talked silently as we worked and as I grew real, she made room for me. Neither of us had a word for what we were, but I joined the other characters in her head. Characters were what we were called. Only now do we know the term "headmates." Only now do we know that we are plural.

To be continued

Everything has been wide open till now. I’m going to start closing entries now, as there are things I’d like to talk about that random clickers on the net have no need to know. If you’re interested, add me. I hope to entertain, and make friends. I miss lj, far more than I miss FB, and hope to make a home here.

I deleted my facebook account. This was the last straw. I can't even make a doctor's appointment without the info being harvested?

No loss, really as far as the site was concerned. I can't remember the last time I was on it. I am under no illusions that the privacy hole is closed--and here I am, providing content to another faceless site.

I'm going back to Renaissance Faire. I came across a photo of me busking back in the 90s and realized that I hardly know that person any more. I seem to have become an "adult," and it has not been worth it. I'm not retiring a stranger to myself, and I'm going to get myself out of the belly of the beast as soon as possible.

I hope to have some adventures to share soon.

Original fic, based on our Dickens Fair characters--absolutely not owned in any way by Red Barn Productions. Imagination is a muscle, it grows stronger with use. #DickensOnStrike #GoodByeDickens

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31509914

Jeremy found himself standing in a garden that was far too grand for the likes of him. A perfectly clipped hedge framed an equally well kept lawn under a blue sky. Roses of many colors grew in neat curving beds. Beyond them was a white wall of marble blocks, the corner of a castle that rose high and wide before him. He spun, but there was no one. A large drive stretched away from the castle and the gardens continued down the hill beside it until they ended at an ornate gate, open and unguarded. The green land beyond was dotted with trees and in the distance he could see the ocean.

He began to walk down the drive, not too fast, not too slow, just a nice stroll out of wherever this was before somebody noticed his dirty presence on their very expensive grounds. Gravel crunched under his shoes and he could hear the birds singing.

"Excuse me," said a deep voice behind him.

Jeremy pasted a big smile on his face as he turned around. He might have no idea where he was, except that it was not where he was supposed to be, but that was no reason to start off on the wrong foot, now was it? "Good morning," he said cheerily.

The personage who had hailed him was seven feet tall if he was an inch, and dressed in a purple robe that fell to his booted feet. The getup covered one shoulder and arm, and the other, the color of chestnuts, was bared like one of those Greek statues that stood in gardens like these for blokes who had the money to spend on such things. This was no statue, though. The huge dark man wore a welcoming smile. He had black hair caught high with a purple headband and hair tie, the rest cascading over his shoulders. A large iridescent jewel seemed to be set in the hollow of his throat, at least there was no chain that Jeremy could see holding it in place.

"My name is Airamus, I'd like to welcome you to Balencia, Mr. Wolfe.

Jeremy's eyes widened. Called by name, by a bloke who might or might not own the place, but obviously knew his way around it. Running wouldn't do him any good, so he stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Airamus!"

The man bowed slightly and took it, dirty white glove and all. "Oh no, just Airamus will do. My last name is Pendragon, and I believe that you are better known as Jeremy?"

"To my friends," said Jeremy, "And I certainly hope that you will be one of them." In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, as he tried to remember just how he had gotten here, to have this very polite conversation in this very strange place.
Roses were the last thing he remembered. A dozen of them, in his arms as he went home to Jenny--it was Jenny's birthday, and he had been bringing them to her, walking down the wet London cobblestones after having a drink in the Three Cripples. There had been a bit of a barney, and he'd gotten out of it, and the pub. He'd been followed, and the bloke had friends.

"I hope so too," said the large, strange man with the impeccable manners and the improbable name. "I am here to offer you a choice. Tell me, what is the last thing you remember?"

"A bit of a fight," said Jeremy. "I don't think I won."

"No," said Airamus. "You didn't."

"Where's Jenny?" The words were out of his mouth before he had time to think. He saw the pause, and the dark man's search for the right words. Ah. So the gloves were off, then.

"Well," said Airamus, "She's exactly where you left her, at home waiting for you."

The smile dropped from Jeremy's face. Home, waiting, for a bloke who wasn't coming home. "What's the choice?" Not that it mattered, unless it was a chance to go back to her.

"To stay here and live on Balencia, or to move on to your next destination."

"Wot about Jenny?" Jeremy asked flatly.

Airamus paused for a moment, and that was when Jeremy knew. No chance. He might as well be dead, left in that dirty court with the rest of the rubbish.

"I won't stay here without her."

Airamus smiled sadly. "I can't send you back to her. You'll move on on your own. She will live out her life as she chooses."

"What happens to her?" Jeremy fought panic as he tried to think, to find a way to talk his way back to where he'd come from. Can't send me back, he thought, or won't? That was the question.

"She has the money you saved, she has a way to build another life." said Airamus carefully.

Jeremy shook his head. "Not good enough. What happens to her?" Cold calculation replaced the awful fear as he looked for a way out. Jenny was alone, and depending on him.

"Her future hasn't been lived yet."

"Why am I here? How did I get here?" Jeremy asked, playing for time, for information. Just as the Lord of the Manor was, he thought. If he could only find out what the bloke wanted, just maybe he could strike a bargain.

"I took you from your timeline when it ended."

"Why?" So this Airamus knew when his life ended. If he knew that much, he probably knew more than he was saying. He surely could be more forthcoming about his own actions.

"I was asked to. You are granted another chance to live the life that was taken from you."

Jeremy shook his head. "I don't want it without Jenny." he looked intently at Airamus. "You know when her life ends too, don't you?" It was a guess, true, but he was tired of being the mouse to this large cat.

"I can't give you that information until you've made your choice," said Airamus. He looked out to sea, not able to meet those searching eyes.

"Fine. Send me back. I won't stay here without her. My life is over if she's not with me, so I might as well move on, whatever that means. Now please tell me what happens to her."

Airamus didn't answer, his attention somewhere else.

Jeremy couldn't help thinking of the most likely possibilities. Jenny had the money, true, but she also had friends. She was a soft touch, and not good at saying no. He knew to his bones she wouldn't buy that farm in the country he'd been saving for. She'd never make it out of London. Maybe she'd find someone else, but what then? She'd be skint inside a year and back to tarting, back on her own. She had no real future, even together they'd had nothing but a dream. He knew that he'd spend the rest of whatever life he had here thinking of her.

Then there was the way this Airamus bloke talked. At first he'd been straight, but when he'd started answering questions, he got shifty. He knew what happened to her all right, and it wasn't good. What did he really want? Who asked him to bring me here? How was it done? Too many questions and no good answers.  Where is Balencia anyway? What is Balencia, a city, a country?

The air rippled and Jenny stood before him. She stared at him, disbelieving, disheveled, but undeniably here. She collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

/|\   /|\   /|\

Much later, the two came back to themselves, on the ground, their clothing scattered around them. The garden was deserted, or so it seemed at first. Jenny was the first to hear the noise. She sat up quickly and felt something bounce off her nose, humming loudly. It tumbled backwards, then caught itself, iridescent wings fluttering madly as the creature rose out of reach. As it hovered, wings a blur behind it, Jenny saw bare legs, an equally naked female body, and a perfect little face crowned with dark hair.  The tiny creature zoomed away and disappeared behind the hedge.

Behind her, Jeremy's hand traced her back lovingly, then he rose and snagged his trousers from the grass.

"Where are we?" Jenny asked. She seemed perfectly content to lie nude on the lawn and Jeremy was likewise happy to admire her doing so as he put his trousers on.

"Balencia," he answered.

"Where's that?" Jenny watched him, drinking in the sight of the man she had lost a year ago.

"Dunno," said Jeremy as he tied his shoes. "A great big bloke in a purple bedsheet told me that's where I was. Told me I had a choice to make. Stay here without you or move on. I said no thanks." He shrugged into his shirt. "I got no idea where this place is, or what we're doing here, but at least now we're doing it together."

"You've been dead a year," Jenny said, still staring at him, as if taking her eyes off him would make him disappear. "I found you near the Cripples. I wanted to die too."

Jeremy pulled his braces over his shoulders and knelt down to kiss her, caressing her cheek. "No point  without you." He pushed her knickers into her hands. "Get dressed, love, and let's get out of here. I don't know if this Airamus Pendragon, as he called himself, brought you back, or what he might do next, and I don't want to stay about to find out."

When he had laced her dress, much faster than he'd wanted to, they headed for the gravel drive. As they rounded the hedge they saw a delicate table with a snow white tablecloth set for three. The fine bone china was glazed deep purple with gold accents, and the silverware matched the cake stand. Tiered serving trays were filled with sandwiches, scones, and biscuits and pots that matched the tea service were filled with clotted cream, jam, and butter. For once, Jeremy wasn't calculating how much it would fetch and how to get it to the fence. A pot of tea steamed in the center, the cozy, purple, of course, was off to the side. "May I offer you something to eat?" Airamus was pouring cream into a cup. "Cream and sugar?" The little winged creature was sitting on his shoulder, dressed now, in green that brought out her emerald eyes.

"I'd like to know some things first," said Jeremy pleasantly. "Where are we, how did we get here, and what do you want from us?"

Airamus put down the cream pot. "You're on the planet Balencia, where time stands still. I brought you here because a dear friend of mine couldn't stand to see you dead, and all I want is to make her, and you, happy." He sat down.

"Why," asked Jeremy. He did not sit. "I don't know you from Adam, Eve, or the serpent, and while it's kind of you to invite us here, I'd just as soon go home, thank you very much. Who's your friend?"

"Her name is Thea," said Airamus. "And of course, you may leave whenever you like, but you have both died. I can return you to your planet, but you will both be energy forms, in the process of beginning your next life.

"Time stands still," Jenny said.

"Yes," said Airamus.

"Is this heaven?" she asked.

Airamus shrugged. "Yes--and no. Heaven is a state of mind and a way of life. We are a keystone world that serves as a pattern for many planets. We have chosen to create peace. That is one of the reasons I will not keep you here, should you choose to leave.

"That doesn't make any sense," said Jeremy. "Who is Thea?"

"Thea is my wife," said Airamus softly.

"Can we meet her?"

Jenny touched Jeremy's arm. "Leave off," she said. "Can't you see she isn't here?" She sat down next to Airamus in one of the ornate chairs and took a scone. She spread it with jam and clotted cream. "I'll have cream and sugar, thank you--Where is she?"

"I don't know," said Airamus. He looked down and a tear splashed on the glass. "She's lost among the worlds."

The silver knife rattled against the plate as Jenny put it down. Her little hand crept out to rest on Airamus's large forearm. "I'm so sorry," she said, looking up at him. "But if she's lost, how do you speak to her? What does she want with us?"

Airamus met her eyes and smiled sadly at the diminutive girl. "She loves you both. She knows you and couldn't bear the thought of your deaths." He took a sip of tea from the beautiful cup next to his elbow, gathering his thoughts.

Jenny rose and made cups of tea for both of them, shooing Jeremy into a chair and setting his cup beside him. Things might be strange, but she'd never been offered a tea like this before, and she had no intention of missing out. This Airamus was like no one she'd ever seen, but her heart went out to him, and his missing wife.

"Many years ago she walked through shadow to a planet much like yours. There are so many worlds, shaped by our actions and desires. These possibilities become realities when we make them so with our energy and imagination. In your London, you and Jeremy lived and died as physical beings. In her reality, you were part of a thought form created by the linked imaginations of a large group. They made their London as real as they could, each spinning a life story to inhabit to bring it temporarily into being.

Most of those creatures of imagination were like soap bubbles, all of them began as fictions, garments of imagination that were donned along with the costumes they wore and the place they moved through. These events sometimes attracted people who had always had other people within themselves, and Thea and Erin were two of them. Did they create you, or did you inhabit them? Tell me--did you ever hear voices in your mind not your own? Did you ever dream of people so real that they stayed with you when you woke?"

Jeremy was munching a scone slathered with butter and cream. He reached for his cup. "No, can't say that I have. Not that we often get a good night's sleep where we come from. So you can talk to her but not find her, but you can find us, and bring us here?"

Airamus added cream and sugar and refilled his teacup. "Not exactly. Our hearts have been entwined for so long that she dwells within me and I within her, but there are so many echoes to follow. She lives, dies, lives again and I will look for her until I find her. I followed her voice and found you, Jeremy.

"Oh, how romantic!" Jenny clapped her hands, her eyes shining. "Love finds a way!"

"I don't get it," said Jeremy. "You followed her and found me?"

"I followed your voice inside her as she spoke to me. She asked me to save you when she heard you die," said Airamus. "Together you were a light, illuminating a strand that stretched between you and her. She wore your clothes and lived a part of your life, and these connections are easier to find because they are so rare. When our people are lost in the web like this, and cannot find their way back before their deaths, they become trapped in the world they died in, and enter the wheel of birth and death. There is no way to tell them apart from the people of that world--they have become people of that world--unless they remember who they are and where they come from. Thea and Erin have remembered Balencia, but they cannot remember how to walk between worlds, at least not yet. This awakening does not necessarily follow them through death, it is something that needs to be remembered each lifetime.

"So Thea was me?" Jeremy asked uncertainly.

"Thea and Erin, and many others, were so intent on becoming people from your time and place that they created a resonance between you and them. The connection was so intense that it became detectable. I search these connections for our people to bring them home. I could feel her ask me to save you, and I followed the strand, not knowing which end was which." Airamus looked away. "I pulled you in, and before I could trace the other end the connection collapsed."

"That's a lot to take in," said Jeremy. "I don't understand half of it, but I am sorry you got the wrong end of things, so to speak."

"Yes, said Jenny." "Why am I here? Can we help?"

Airamus put a finger under Jenny's chin and gently tilted her face up to look into her deep brown eyes. "You, my dear, are an asset wherever you go. I brought you here because Jeremy loves you and obviously cannot live without you. He told me as much. He is a part of your time and place and it was easy enough to trace him back to his origins, and follow your timeline to its ending.  As I told Jeremy, you have a choice. You may stay here with Jeremy, or go back to your London as an energy pattern, to continue your journey through time in that place.

Airamus wrinkled his nose playfully. "If you do stay, though, the first thing I need you to do is take a bath."

"Oi! I'll have you know that she's spoken for!" said Jeremy.

The little winged creature flew from her perch on Airamus's shoulder and landed on Jeremy's shoulder. She, too, wrinkled her tiny nose. "You STINK!" she declared.

It's as simple as taking the bus. That carbon has already been budgeted for. It'll be burned whether your ass is in a seat or not. That car trip, however? That's one person's decision. It's about seven hours by greyhound from San Francisco to Arcata. Driving is about five hours. To me the math is pretty simple.

A passenger on the bus has a lot more choice than a driver. Some people do it dead drunk (be glad those people aren't driving...). You can read, watch a movie--Greyhound now has WiFi and streaming movies. Earplugs are good, sleeping is a championship choice. Greyhounds are a slice of life. Historians of the future would slaver for the experience you get on one of those trips.

No, I didn't just get off a bus. Thea did. But the buses I took in Scotland? I wouldn't have missed those trips for the world. I did go from Eureka to Oakland once. I'd gotten off a tallship and needed to get home. I had sealegs. The whole world was moving until I got on that bus.

There are plenty of other choices that at least keep each of us from digging that planetary hole we're in a little deeper. And that's how we're going to solve this. Making better choices. If we can have a good time doing that every day, we get to pass the planet on to the next generation better than we found it.

And if everyone rode them, the buses everywhere would be a whole lot more pleasant to take.

Just a thought.

Single Use Plastics

I've used two disposable masks in this pandemic. No gloves, no takeout containers, two filters that fit inside a mask--to keep my boss from worrying. I began washing my hands at the beginning of the pandemic and have seen no reason to stop. As a deckhand, I used to have to touch all manner of unsavory things. I learned long ago to keep my hands out of my mouth and my hair, and to wash after dirty jobs. The only rubber gloves I ever wore were when I was handling toxics that were absorbed through the skin, mostly oil based paints and solvents. That worked then, I saw no reason to make special exception for viruses.

I have quite a collection of cloth masks, many still in the packaging. They are given out quite regularly, mostly promotional " gimmes." I even have two replica 1918 gauze masks. I made them for work, as an accompaniment to a blog post to prove that I was working during shelter in place.

I made hundreds of cloth masks during lockdown. Most of them were given away during the early days of the pandemic. I needed to do something to feel useful besides staying inside and hospitals, grocery stores, businesses were desperate for them. There were whole Facebook groups coordinating distribution.

I wore my own products, and cooked my own food. As things got better, again, I saw no reason to stop. As a friend said, masks are like underwear. Change them often and throw the dirty ones in the wash.

Watching this segment, and the masks and gloves I see strewn all over our beach at work make me even more sure I'm making the right choice.

I had one last night. I didn't do what I'd done last time--jolt myself out of sleep by running around in delight. I remembered exactly what I wanted to do, to open a portal to my favorite world. Everything shimmered, but the portal didn't open. I don't remember what happened from there but I didn't wake up.

Now, to figure out how to do it again.

Dreaming is a muscle. Practice and development of skill are crucial.

I'm not comfortable posting online any more. I would delete my facebook account if I was sure I wouldn't regret it later. I miss what I used to have on Livejournal, but then remember the two stalkers that found me IRL and were not dangerous, but gave me the creeps.

I am trying to find a posting style I'm comfortable with, because I think we really need to be connected peer to peer as much as possible in these strange and pivotal times. It's going to take all of us, collectively, to clean up this mess we are in.

Did it start 10,000 years ago, when we began practicing agriculture/pastoralism and bending other beings to our will?

Or was it 5,000 years ago when we began clearcutting the Middle East and kept moving on to do the same to Europe?

500 years ago, when "civilization" made it to Turtle Island and began scraping North America bald?

250 years ago when we began mining the stored sunlight in the form of coal and oil?

A century ago, when we began our love affair with the automobile?

Or, as the kids say, when the Boomers didn't stop climate change in the 1970s?

Does it really matter?

Seriously, we are responsible for turning things around because it's our watch. We're the only ones who can act now. That doesn't mean that we're expected to clean up the whole mess. It didn't happen in a generation, and it is unlikely to be fixed in one--and it will be solved, one way or another.

It can be fun--and I think that that's the vibe we need to aim for. People join a party, they don't run to join you to shiver in the dark. There's a high to mastery, after all. The trick is all in the way we choose to do it. Mastering other people and filling our huge houses with stuff is a failure of imagination, sweeter than antifreeze and twice as deadly to the planet and humanity. Mastering ourselves, learning skills, dreaming a future that all beings can live well in, now that's the real high.

https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org/take-action/

Bonnie Prince Charlie got within 120 miles of London before his lords chose to turn around and go back to Scotland. We all know what happened next.

If Pence won't do his job, we need to make sure that our representatives do. Maybe they won't finish by January 20th. In any case, impeachment will bar him from office in the future. Just the process will let us all know where our elected officials stand, and will send the message--I can't believe there's even a need to send a message--that insurrection will not be tolerated.

Impeachment or removal is the national conversation we need to have right now. COVID will pass, and we can all help by doing the right thing. Ignoring the invasion of the Capitol, though? That's an infection that our nation might not survive.