So, the deal with archaeologists and snakes? Yeah. Not totally fiction.
The most cheerfully weird dude I flinged with over a winter break used to pilfer uncut crystalline C8H10N4O2 from the chemistry department stockroom. Y'all might know this better as 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine or, you know, maybe even as caffeine.
I didn't drink coffee at the time and, really, he was just a fun something-to-do-until-school-starts again, so this didn't make much of an impression on me one way or another beyond being a good indicator not to stay involved once classes resumed.
I haven't thought of him in a long damned time, but today? I'd give anything for access to a hit of his pure caffeine. I'm that tired.
I'm also killing time until Lisa is ready to tromp off on a walk with me. She's just a wonderfully burbly, bouncy, cheerful chatterer. On days like this, she's sort of a streaming podcast of uncomplicated observations who doesn't need any more input from me than a smile and an occasional nod. We don't hang out much and, not surprisingly, we don't have a lot in common. From time to time, though, I just find myself refreshed to be around someone who's content with her life and whose biggest drama in a day is needing to borrow a scrunchie.
Uncomplicated. What a lovely word.
Fortunately for me, there are many lovely things in this world. For one, I see I've recently had a few new folks friend me. *waves happily* Hello! I'm running behind on browsing new journals and updating my flist. Feel free to chime in on any conversation that you'd like; otherwise, I hope you enjoy the fiction, the geekery, and the weirdo work stuff you'll find here.
For another, I've been reading plenty of archaeology stuff that's made me happy. I've not forgotten the other more involved discussions underway in recent weeks -- I just had to backburner some of those conversations so that I can finish HoS and SNAKES ON A WINCHESTER: A TALE OF SUPERNATURAL HORROR! before I bolt to Oregon at the end of May.
The latter story has left me with the most unexpected giggles because it jostled a long-repressed memory into my awareness again. (This won't be my most coherent essay, however, because I'm not kidding about how tired I am. You've been warned.)
Anyway, most of you didn't know me at the time that I was put up in the world's most terrifying motel during an excavation at the Applewhite Reservoir site outside of San Antonio some years back. Q might remember the calls I made to her during this dig, though.
This motel was awesome in its awfulness. I thought it came with a snakeskin/jungle design shower curtain in the bathroom. Nope. Mildew. There was a pervasive smell of rancid curry. Every pen, bar of soap, stationery, etc. had a different hotel or motel name on it. The sheets had not been changed since the last body in that bed, even.
AWESOME.
But the best part? Discovering -- thanks to the quarter-operated beds -- that the walls of the motel were infested with snakes. I learned this when the guy in the room next door decided to give his vibrating bed a test spin. Thank you, Ben, because otherwise I would never have known that the snakes...the ones heretofore unknown to me? Yeah. Weren't so much about the vibrations in the walls and picked my room as an elsewhere to be.
As it happened, however, I was not the only one suddenly sharing a room with snakes as others on the crew pumped quarters into their crappy beds. I still cherish certain images from that evening:
Myself, in silk pajamas and my hiking boots, with my machete belted at my waist, trying to ignore the stunned reactions to the fact that I had such girly nightclothes. A bunch of other archaeologists gathering in (read: bolting into) the parking lot in the dusky light of a late summer sunset. All similarly armed, all similarly in sleep attire (or states of undress), we all only had the presence of mind to bring the coolers full of booze out of the rooms rather than, say, pants.
We set up chairs, passed bottles, made bad Indiana Jones jokes, and waited until we heard the next set of screams start from a room. We took turns dispatching the snakes and tried to trace the exact steps in our lives that had brought us to this moment and what we would do so very, very differently if given the chance.
How much of this will translate into SoaW? Maybe none.
If Sam and Dean are lucky.
I didn't drink coffee at the time and, really, he was just a fun something-to-do-until-school-starts again, so this didn't make much of an impression on me one way or another beyond being a good indicator not to stay involved once classes resumed.
I haven't thought of him in a long damned time, but today? I'd give anything for access to a hit of his pure caffeine. I'm that tired.
I'm also killing time until Lisa is ready to tromp off on a walk with me. She's just a wonderfully burbly, bouncy, cheerful chatterer. On days like this, she's sort of a streaming podcast of uncomplicated observations who doesn't need any more input from me than a smile and an occasional nod. We don't hang out much and, not surprisingly, we don't have a lot in common. From time to time, though, I just find myself refreshed to be around someone who's content with her life and whose biggest drama in a day is needing to borrow a scrunchie.
Uncomplicated. What a lovely word.
Fortunately for me, there are many lovely things in this world. For one, I see I've recently had a few new folks friend me. *waves happily* Hello! I'm running behind on browsing new journals and updating my flist. Feel free to chime in on any conversation that you'd like; otherwise, I hope you enjoy the fiction, the geekery, and the weirdo work stuff you'll find here.
For another, I've been reading plenty of archaeology stuff that's made me happy. I've not forgotten the other more involved discussions underway in recent weeks -- I just had to backburner some of those conversations so that I can finish HoS and SNAKES ON A WINCHESTER: A TALE OF SUPERNATURAL HORROR! before I bolt to Oregon at the end of May.
The latter story has left me with the most unexpected giggles because it jostled a long-repressed memory into my awareness again. (This won't be my most coherent essay, however, because I'm not kidding about how tired I am. You've been warned.)
Anyway, most of you didn't know me at the time that I was put up in the world's most terrifying motel during an excavation at the Applewhite Reservoir site outside of San Antonio some years back. Q might remember the calls I made to her during this dig, though.
This motel was awesome in its awfulness. I thought it came with a snakeskin/jungle design shower curtain in the bathroom. Nope. Mildew. There was a pervasive smell of rancid curry. Every pen, bar of soap, stationery, etc. had a different hotel or motel name on it. The sheets had not been changed since the last body in that bed, even.
AWESOME.
But the best part? Discovering -- thanks to the quarter-operated beds -- that the walls of the motel were infested with snakes. I learned this when the guy in the room next door decided to give his vibrating bed a test spin. Thank you, Ben, because otherwise I would never have known that the snakes...the ones heretofore unknown to me? Yeah. Weren't so much about the vibrations in the walls and picked my room as an elsewhere to be.
As it happened, however, I was not the only one suddenly sharing a room with snakes as others on the crew pumped quarters into their crappy beds. I still cherish certain images from that evening:
Myself, in silk pajamas and my hiking boots, with my machete belted at my waist, trying to ignore the stunned reactions to the fact that I had such girly nightclothes. A bunch of other archaeologists gathering in (read: bolting into) the parking lot in the dusky light of a late summer sunset. All similarly armed, all similarly in sleep attire (or states of undress), we all only had the presence of mind to bring the coolers full of booze out of the rooms rather than, say, pants.
We set up chairs, passed bottles, made bad Indiana Jones jokes, and waited until we heard the next set of screams start from a room. We took turns dispatching the snakes and tried to trace the exact steps in our lives that had brought us to this moment and what we would do so very, very differently if given the chance.
How much of this will translate into SoaW? Maybe none.
If Sam and Dean are lucky.