Tuesdays with Abhorrent Fiends vol. 21

Happy Tuesday for true!

Something in motion, as that race of cat-people in that novel Black/on/Black might say. What it is, who knows?
Me and Dave had a great time last night. Just having our normal evening. The undercurrent of strain that sometimes mars it was not there, or rather got banished early on in the evening and didn't come back. All to the good. We watched Heroes (yay!) and a Twilight Zone called "Eye of the Beholder" whose twist I totally called like five minutes into the episode. Dave had already seen it, so I just looked over and saw him smile that sharp (but happy in this case!) little smile of his and knew I was right.

Aye, I wonder if we could play Mafia together these days. Years ago when we tried it it didn't work, because withholding information from each other hurt too much and made us distrustful and moody.

I am envious of Val Con and Miri and their wizardy lifemate bond, having just re-read Agent of Change and Carpe Diem. If we work at it, who knows, perhaps Dave and I can do some of the things they do. Things seem to be moving in a way that our magics are becoming more entwined. Nothing visible or especially explainable to others just yet. It doesn't frustrate me like it used to that I can't use my gift on Dave--y'know, the one where I reach for the right words and they just come. Better that way. Better that we both should have to work to learn the secret languages of the other; magic and love are both terribly, wonderfully important things and there should be no glibness in combining them!

I got in early and got to hang out with Clarissa for awhile this morning. (Time so far today has grooved most propitiously for me. Look, I'm getting a chance to make a blog post at work two days in a row! How often does that happen?) We talked mostly witchy stuff. I'm always surprised when I do get to use my gift with someone. Because I mostly hang out with Dave, who is exempt, Dad, who is immune (due to his misery system), and people at work, with whom that type of interaction would be inappropriate and weird. The idea keeps coming up between us how cool it would be to [interrupted here] get together a gaggle of our witchy friends and relatives so we could all share ideas and learn from each other and just have people to talk to who understood. The interruption was Mohammad walking into the room and working on something else, then leaving without asking me for anything. A good image of my hesitation on the issue. We all have other stuff going on, and even if it's very casual, bringing together a group of self-aware magic users (as distinct from those not aware of their magic use, which is almost everybody!) is a major big deal thing and best to let grow into its own time. If enough of us feel a need, things will come together so that it can happen. If we try to force it beforehand, the relationships that would need to develop between the people would be stunted and weirdified and it would cause unnecessary conflicts.

But! Among other things we ended up mentioning New Orleans and Chicago. How Chicago likes its people best when they've got their minds on their work, how we both think of the big statue of Ceres at the Board of Trade as looking down with approval at the endless stream of working people striding purposefully by with numbers and to-do lists clanking away in their heads. She says she doesn't think New Orleans likes anybody; people do strange things when they go there. She says she thinks New Orleans likes to bring out the worst in people just to see what's there, just to see what they'll do. Another swamp, like Chicago but unlike. I would, I think, enjoy visiting New Orleans at some point just to see what pops up (my guess would be its weirdness would manifest for me with invisible stuff mostly, but who knows? best to have health insurance before traveling there!)--but like Clarissa, I don't think I'd enjoy living in a city with a personality like that.

And I told her how I talked to Jimmy last week for the first time in ages. He's still there, still snickering at me and working behind the curtain. We exchanged like two sentences, but he cured my writers' block on Anatomy of Trust by giving me a new idea! The faculties, he said, are the defining characteristic of a sapient entity. By which he referred to the faculties of the imagination [interrupted by phone] .

Bah. I feel the end of the time of blog-typing, alas. Strange as it seems my workload so far today is rather light, since I rely on Boss and big Z to do things before I can get started on my real work. Be that as it may.