The Desert Mermaid

I still don't get why people care so much about this, but some of these tweets did make me laugh.


"Yeah! Next is EARTH! I'm gonna demote EARTH! YEAH, YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES ARE COMIN' TRUE!"

Even at the beginning I was completely baffled by the backlash. I myself was pleased that we had reclassified it, since it showed that we are discovering more things and fine-tuning our understanding of classifications. We were creating more order.

But we get these protests all the time at the Space Place. It's crazy. A lot of these kids weren't even born when they changed Pluto's status. But we've made such a big deal that kids identify with the underdog.

So I've started to combat that. I've been explaining that Pluto's like the Ugly Duckling.

That's right, the story by Hans Christian Anderson about a little duckling who was, frankly, really bad at being a duck. Duckhood was beyond him, and he was weird and left out. At least he was until he realized something--he wasn't a duck at all, dammit, he was a SWAN, and presumably he was a lot better at being a swan.*

Same thing with Pluto, I tell the kids. It was really weird and bad at being a planet--until we figured out that it wasn't a planet at all! It was a DWARF PLANET, and there were other dwarf planets it could be friends with, and it was a forerunner for the new category and probably was a lot happier now, god dammit.

Hey, it's another story kids identify with. Maybe this will be enough to make them happy.

Or maybe the New Horizons photos will. I dunno. Pluto's not my thing, but it's still gonna be fun to see what it looks like. Just a few more months!


Discussion Question: Do you guys know the difference between a solar system and a galaxy? I'm always surprised at how many people don't. NDT isn't the only one who is quite used to getting that confusion.


*Though having been raised by ducks, he probably wasn't really exemplary at swanning, but he did find himself in a unique position to be able to bridge the gap between ducks and swans in the neverending duck/swan conflicts and perhaps lead the way toward peace between all waterfowl. But that's getting a bit esoteric for a fable about scientific reclassification.

So I finally got to Chanur's Legacy. I never read it before because honestly Hilfy was insufferable. And I stand by that assessment, though she seems to finally be getting the glimmer of a clue through her thick skull. And I do love getting deep into alien minds.

Definitely going to go on to Cherryh's other stuff, too--the Alliance/Union universe to find out Tully's context, and also I've got Foreigner here. (Tried to get into it once and never got very far.) But I'm wanting other sci-fi, too. Definitely on a kick. You nerds got any recommendations?


PS: LOOK AT THIS FUCKING COVER I FOUND. Suddenly I want to learn French just to find out what the everloving hell the translator who described Pyanfar THAT way to the illustrator was on about.

gwalla linked to a great article by Dr. Nerdlove about this whole Gamergate idiocy. For a long time I've been unable to say much coherent about it, because I get paralyzed by bafflement. Like, "Is this really a productive way you want to spend your time? Is harassing random women so important?" and then I get all slack-jawed and just stare in incomprehension.

But that article helped clarify something for me--and I have to say, I can sort of understand some of it, in the context of the rise of Geek Chic.

I grew up in the last decade when geeking was still marginal. I had all sorts of interests that got ridiculed by classmates--sci-fi, fantasy, Star Wars, wizards, pirates, aliens, conlangs--hell, books in general. I didn't get bullied for it,* but I did get bothered for it. And--just as important--there was no Official Geek STUFF. If I wanted cool wizard or sprite costumes and props for my dolls, or Super Mario earrings, or the One Ruling Ring, I had to make them myself.**

And suddenly I hit college and started hearing people self-identifying as geeks and nerds. Geekery started to become cool. And it was, honestly, KIND OF WEIRD. Those people who had pointed and laughed at me for writing fantasy before now suddenly declared that they were ALWAYS fans of the Lord of the Rings, just as much as I had been. Naturally, I viewed that claim with some suspicion. And what made it more confusing was that suddenly I was being marketed to, with geek products and replicas of cool stuff I liked, which is sort of surreal if you're used to being ignored by marketing. You assume that the marketers are disingenuously catering to your interests without actually caring, which is often true, but that's often true of all marketing. But the disingenuousness in marketing means you find yourself cynically assuming that NONE of these "new geeks" REALLY shares your interests--that they, like marketers, are just full of shit--because a lot of them spent years either ignoring them or outright telling you they didn't.

And then it gets tangled. Being excluded became part of geek identity, because it's a good way to cope when you are being excluded. But at the same time we want to tell ourselves we are better than our excluders. So now, when "they" are all starting to realize that the stuff we're interested in IS PRETTY DAMN AWESOME and want to join in, we have a choice. We can let go of the part of geek identity that treasures our own marginalization, accept people who refused to accept us, and share our cool stuff--or we can laugh maniacally, yell something about how the tables have turned and now WE are the excluders, and turn into the same jerks that we were trying to get away from.

Okay, yeah, it's tempting to dole out some poetic justice. But I want to actually be better than that, like I tell myself I am. Especially since the only thing I have to give up is my outcast status. In the end, it doesn't even matter that people who laughed at the things I liked in the past are now saying they always were fans of those same things.*** It's not like it's a zero-sum--I am still allowed to enjoy Star Wars even if they also enjoy Star Wars. Even if they like all the WRONG Star Wars things, well, that's their problem.

So what I'm saying here is, I can understand that knee-jerk reaction. But I also know that we can override it. And if we do, we'll prove that geekiness not only has the coolest toys, but we also are cool people.

Who would ever have thought that geeks would be cool?


*As far as I know. I was a bit oblivious to things that, in retrospect, were attempted bullying. Obviously not bad, but still.

**Possibly this is why so many geeks are also pretty good at crafting.

***If they were, then I'm unimpressed at how they failed to admit it and made fun of me, but then I realized that if they were then they were too scared to admit it and I feel kind of sorry for them. And if they weren't always into it, then they've just figured out that my toys really ARE cool, which is a positive step. And if they're cynically bandwagoning, well, whatever.

Y'know, I always assume I know jack shit about anything big going on and try to withhold judgment until I have all the facts,* but HOLY FUCKBALLS I AM JUDGING THE ST. LOUIS POLICE THIS WEEK.


*I don't always succeed, but that's the ideal.

Fred Clark has made this point before, but it bears repeating: Witch Hunts are Dangerous; Witches are Not.

I have enough trouble with historical fiction when it tries to be true to what happened, because my rather literal brain can't get over the fact that no matter how much research you do, there's no getting around that it didn't really happen that way. I suspect that's why I like speculative fiction so much. You don't have to believe it. It's right there in the name, like, twice. Speculative. Fiction. "Historical fiction," regardless of what they're trying for, is an oxymoron to me.

But I admit, some examples are worse than others. Like, for example, if you try to tell me that a victim of a historical atrocity had it coming. I don't know if that's what the show Salem will do, but it's pretty much what the trailer for it does, and that's just ... yeah, not great for me. It doesn't take that much to file the serial numbers off!

Plus, the actual Salem Witch Trials are interesting enough without adding bullshit to them. I was bugged enough with Arthur Miller's artistic liberties in The Crucible. The bizarreness of it was enough without adding the scandalous sexy affair, dangit! That was just stupid.

Although the timing of reading The Crucible was interesting, though. I was in high school and it was 2002. We were discussing how Arthur Miller was using the witch trials to parallel his own era's McCarthyism and Red Scare. The teacher asked if we could think of any other instances of such hysteria, and I cheerfully piped up, "The War on Terror!"--And my classmates just about jumped on me. "That's different!" "There REALLY ARE terrorists!" "How would THAT be like a witch hunt?" It was ... telling. And it illustrates the same thing Fred Clark is saying: witch hunts aren't all in the past. People just don't always recognize them until they are past.


EDIT: I seem to have picked up a troll. There's a delicious irony in there somewhere, but I can't be bothered, so don't worry y'all, I'm taking care of it.

I didn't mean to. Twitter made me do it. Well, Twitter and my desire to see Idina Menzel perform "Let It Go" live.* And I purport not to care about the Oscars, but hey, hell YEAH Frozen! Female writer/director, Disney movie about sisterly love, two strong female protagonists, and goddamn that SONG.

Also, it was really cool that 12 Years A Slave won overall even though I'll probably never bring myself to watch it,** and like the entire rest of the world I now have a crush on Lupita Nyong'o.

But mostly it kind of made me sad, seeing so many people with their faces stapled and stuffed until they just look kind of ridiculous. There's a terror there, a terror of losing what you think makes you valuable, a desperation to continue being loved the only way you know how, that's kind of heartbreaking. And the whole show was pretty empty overall, save for a few genuine moments from first-time winners (and Harrison Ford, who was all about the pizza but needed a napkin). So yeah, don't think I'll be watching it next year even WITH the lure of Rifftrax livetweeting it.

Important Fashion Observation: What's with all the plunging necklines that make the dresses look like they're falling off people's shoulders? The fashions were actually rather pretty except for that.


*And while I mostly feel rather bad for John Travolta, props to the lightspeed response of the internet in creating multiple Twitter accounts for "Adele Dazeem" mere minutes after he garbled out that mysterious name.

**I can watch horror and sci-fi all day, but depictions of Real Life Historical Atrocities upset me too much. But I'm aware that I am extremely lucky that I can avoid upsetting things if I so choose, and want to make it so that the rest of humanity can do the same, so I guess the movies still do their job?

This weekend I managed to convince a buddy and her roommate to help me do some reconnaissance on a roller rink. I've been wanting to find a good place to practice skating for a while, and this place is one everyone half-remembers from childhood.

The problem is, it's part of a Family Fun Complex, and the reason we all half-remember it is because somebody or other probably had a birthday party there once. So I figured it could go two ways. It could be like the swimming pool I frequented as a kid and be nicely regulated so that every style of enjoying oneself was represented, perhaps with all-skates or adult-skates or kid-skates or what not.

Or it could be a calamitous riot of chaos and anarchy, with little kids darting perpendicular to the flow of traffic on Razor scooters or Big Wheels and slightly larger kids obliviously cruising against the flow and perpetually desperate junior high kids trying to impress each other.

Guess which one it was?

So yeah, it was not a good way to practice skating, what with the loud music and the constant distractions of trying not to flatten small children.* It was fun, for what it was--I liked being able to try really cruising on skates, and some of those desperate junior high kids were clearly regulars and could do fabulous gymnastics while on roller skates, which was incredible to watch--but man, if I tried to make that a regular practice place my psyche would probably explode.

And it was rather a relief to be there when I WASN'T part of a birthday party, because MAN those were stressful back in the day. You'd be self-consciously assuming that everyone else knew more about how this mysterious Fun Complex worked than you did, and anyway you wanted to try the arcade games while everyone else was skating, and the music would be too damn loud and you couldn't hear your friends' conversation,** and any minute an overly-enthusiastic voice was going to come over the PA calling your party over to a picnic bench to have a slice of miserable sheet cake and Shasta soda. I am glad those days are over.

So my buddies and I skated around for an hour, I managed to fall heavily on one knee at one point, and then we left. And as long as we were in a Doing Fifties Stuff mood, we had burgers and root beer floats at an old-timey burger joint, and since I am always pretty one-track, I scored a bottle of their house-recipe cherry syrup because SODA-MAKING DOES NOT REST. And we all agreed it was a very fun evening and let's never do that again.

I think I'll have to stick with the park's skate-track in the summer time. Then all I have to worry about flattening is ducks.


*I realize a lot of this makes me sound like an old codger, but since I've had this opinion about The Kids With Their Little Scooters And Their Loud Musics And Their Hyperactively Hazardous Self-Absorption since I was about six years old, I have to conclude that I just AM an old codger and always have been.

**What you may notice I'm getting at here is that, even when it's music I like, I really hate it when it's constantly played so loudly that conversation has to be shouted. I dislike any loud background noise. Even before I had the personal epiphany that THIS was what bugged me, I spent my life subconsciously trying to avoid being in loud places.

We are seriously considering adding a "don't be falling-down drunk" line to our Welcome To The Doctor's Office letter. There seems to be some confusion on that point.

Yesterday's first patient did something spectacularly, monumentally gross.

And I'm not talking about the psychological sort of grossness where you come across a particularly horrific Tumblr account, or realize that the creepy old man over there is undressing someone (possibly you) with his eyes. For that, yes, you want brain bleach.

No, this was just straight-up GROSS. Physically, viscerally, unhygienically gross. The kind of thing for which you need ACTUAL bleach.

Well, and also brain bleach. Which is why I am not elaborating on the specific details of the incident.

Now, my first inclination is to feel sorry for everyone involved, including the patient. You know, these things happen to everyone, alas it must be so embarrassing, etc.. I felt bad for her right up until I found out the full details of the incident. Why's that? I'm glad you asked! You, however, probably are not!

I'm sure everyone has had a day like this. Picture it: you're cruising along, minding your own business, and suddenly, without consulting you, your body does something gross. It's not your fault. Bodies do that. But now here you are, in the aftermath of one of those unfortunate but non-threatening meatsack malfunctions.

Here are the two things I would expect you to think at that exact moment, depending on your scenario:

1. "Fuck. Well, thank god I'm not in public. Better clean this up."
2. "Fuck, I AM in public! I'd better slink off and get unpublic fast so I can clean this up!"

You'll notice that nowhere in this range of possible thoughts did I include "Fuck. Oh, well! I have an appointment with the lumbar surgeon! No time to clean this up! Now, to step into public!"

I didn't include it because HOLY SHIT, HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT IS AN OPTION?

So here is a PSA, for those of you who apparently didn't get the memo the first time around: if something nasty but non-life-threatening occurs, leaving you awash in your own filth, please do not hesitate to RESCHEDULE YOUR GODDAMN APPOINTMENT. Sometimes it is perfectly acceptable to break a commitment. Seriously, your doctor won't mind.

So! It's been an interesting week at the office already! Especially because Mom'n'Dad were also seriously considering that a completely DIFFERENT crazy patient was going to bust in and force a third crazy patient to help reenact a Grosse Point Blank-type shootout yesterday. I am still trying to decide which would be preferable, myself.

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that this Earl Grey tea I'm drinking is gluten-free.

I was worried there for a minute.