I just got off the phone with mom, and we came to the realization that my family has lived in a series of unplottable houses for a couple generations now.
-The First Unplottable House is on my dad’s side of the family, in Delphi, Iowa. The directions to it are the stuff of Buried Treasure: Turn off the county road with a fraction in it’s name, to the Named Dirt Road, then turn at The Discount Eggs Sign on to the Unnamed dirt road that takes a meandering path THROUGH a corn field, DO NOT take any forks on that road or the farmer will shoot your ass, then take the paved road that dead-ends on ALL the way to the end- No, farther, the road keeps going it’s not a cliff-The only indication that You Have Arrived At The Correct Driveway is that a fat gray pony will charge the car, screaming, then escort you the rest of the way there.
It’s on the side of an enormous river, they’ve owned the property since 1911, and that’s the ONLY route there.
-The Second Unplottable house is in Bedford, Ohio and belonged to my mother’s parents. It’s at the corner of two side-streets, right across from the tiny Italian grocery store. Due to strange development decisions, the house is about 30 feet above street level and rendered invisible by a chestnut tree so majestic Hyao Myazaki would probably put it in a movie. The driveway, however, is VERY visible from any of the surrounding houses, the grocer, or the street.
At least in theory and old photos, becuase if you actually GO there, your eyes slide right past it to the neighbor’s lillac bush, or to the retro neons of the grocery store or up the Chestnut tree. it is literally HARD to look at that driveway, all the world around it wants to pull you away.
-The Third Unplottable house is in Salinas, CA, home of my paternal grandparents. It is the single most BORING house possible- like, if you were to ask a third-grader to draw a prototypical house, they would draw my grandparent’s house. Utterly Unremarkable.
Except for the part where my Grandfather, spurred by his success with the “non-fruiting” peach tree, decided to plant a California Redwood Tree, and it grew to approximately 150 feet over the course of a few short decades. It is the tallest damn thing for miles around, and SOMEHOW deliveries keep being missed, mail is delivered to the neighbors, and any non-blood family that tried to visit would end up on the other side of town.
-The Fourth Unplottable House was the one I grew up in CA. The Directions to it are as follows: It’s the Bright Orange house Right Across From The School. You know, the one with six flamingos and the Volunteer Avacado Tree.
SOMEHOW, we got everyone’s mail but OURS (we still wonder about the letter from Fort Knox for Mr. Thomas Saxophone), the other kids got lost trying to visit and ended up in Mr.Phan’s yard on the other end of the block. Officer Brown, Mom and Dad’s friend, who had GPS back in the early 90′s becuase silicon valley, regularly got lost looking for our place. The Flamingos did nothing.
-My parent’s current house is the second house on the right after two right turns off the state highway that runs through town. Sounds easy, right?
Except that due to a couple small trees and a bend in the road, the house is invisible from the road. I have to stand out in the road if i want my pizza delivered. The Mailman is the only person who could reliably find the box, but he drives a subaru that’s older than my sister from the passenger side by leaning over, and delivers mail based on the aztec lunar calendar, so he’s probably not actually human. I tried to host a party, tied rainbow balloons to the mailbox, and all nine friends had to be waved in from the street.
-My current apartment building Does Not Exist, according to my Bank, medicaid, Google, and City Hall which was a bit exciting when I first moved in and had to call everyone that yes, I was sitting in a building that really exists.
Unless it’s my classmates, becuase they can apparently come to parties I don’t host. This Friday I had a friend telling me she had a great time at my place last Teusday… when I was home alone. She assures me that I held a houseparty with “Those polish things you make” (I make great mini klatchky, but haven’t served them to her) and that “You were definitely there, we talked about Carvaggio and you drive me home”
The only thing that offers any explanation is that you were drunk at the anecdote about your recent house party 🎉 nothing else is explainable
I’m deathly allergic to alcohol, and was definitely at home alone, emailing a former professor about werewolves. Got the chatlog and everything.
Guliya’s roommate recalls me dropping her off at the dorms, which is really peculiar. Another classmate, Jeff, was at the party with Guliya, and they thought it was my place too. Jeff is a jackass and I’d never invite him to my place.
God, I hope I don’t have another doppelganger.
… /another/ doppelganger???
The year is 2014, October. I have the beginnings of what will prove to be a rotten cold, and I decide to take the precaution of getting an enormous bowl of Pho from my local Vietnamese place in hopes of staving off another respiratory infection.
No sooner do I set foot in the door, and Mrs. Nguyen snaps up and shrieks YOU!! and I am much distressed and confused, because I adore Mrs. Nguyen. She kept My Intended alive last passover when the cafeteria covered literally everything in flour.
She insists that some time in august I had dined with a large group of friends and then skipped out on a $200 dollar tab. This is even more distressing and also impossible, as I had been in Oregon at the time, and only have like 3 IRL friends. She is livid, and absolutely insistent that it was me, and that I pay the tab or she’ll call the police. Being very distressed and not eager to have a panic attack in front of police, I pay up $216.87 and am banned forever. I go home in tears, without my Pho and am very sick for a fortnight.
Two months later, it’s Polish Butter Christmas, and I locate the source of my woes.
Polish Butter Christmas is the invention of my Intended’s friend/domesticated internet troll, where everyone deemed a friend or at least interesting party diversion is invited to their house and we all consume massive amounts of Traditional Polish Cooking, which is about 60% butter by weight. everyone eats way too much, most people also get shitfaced and i usually end up on the floor playing with 4-6 corgis, depending on who’s invited that year. in 2014, it was all six of them, rustling under the table like a pack of obese furry sausages.
Among the guests invited are myself, my Intended, The Troll’s girlfriend, and her friend. The latter is 5′2″, whiter than mayonnaise, with bright purple hair and green glasses. I also am 5′2″, glow under black lights, had bright purple hair and still have green glasses. We learn furthermore, that we have the same first name and live on the same side of town. This is laughed off as Most Amusing, at first.
The celebration goes on, and I become steadily less amused as I learn that Not-Me is a BITCH. Racist jokes, yelling at the dogs to make them cower becuase “They look so funny!”, and generally abrasive and cruel. Everyone is uncomfortable and Troll confides quietly to me in the kitchen that she is not invited next year, but needs an excuse to throw her out, or his dad will have a fit. Troll’s family is as much a gang of cryptids as mine, and cannot go around Un-Inviting people without Due Cause. So we agree to suffer quietly and laugh about it next year.
Eventually, the conversation turns to “Youthful Shenanigans”, and while most people have the sense to tell stories where they did something dumb but not actually illegal, Not-Me recounts with utter glee “That time me and my hoes dine-and-dashed that one chink place hahaha”
I suddenly put two and two together and realize that This Bitch Has Personally Wronged Me.
“You CUNT.” I tell her, furious at the realization ad the fact that she’s been steadily ruining Polish Butter Christmas for the last three hours. “Mrs. Nguyen thinks I did that! I HAD TO PAY THE TAB!”
“Oh, uh my bad, haha…” She laughed awkwardly.
“HA. YES. FUNNY. WE ARE GOING TO THE PLACE, YOU ARE APOLOGIZING TO MRS. NGUYEN AND PAYING ME BACK YOU INSUFFERABLE BITCH.” I yelled, grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the door, Corgis yapping excitedly at our ankles.
“Whaa? No! fuck you!” She said, winching her arm out of my grip and doing an amazing four-inch-heel-sprint for the bathroom, locking herself in.
She has made a rather serious error in the Troll is both 1. a 6′6″ Sasquatch of a man, and 2. TOTALLY WILLING to take a crowbar to the bathroom window he’d been planning on renovating anyway, esp if it mean he gets to haul a bitch out and toss her into the back of the minivan with the three least-obese corgis, so that we may drive her, sobbing about injustice the whole way.
Nothing in my life will ever be so satisfying as dragging Not-Me into Pho 67, and seeing the look of horror and recognition cross Mrs. Nguyen’s face as she realized what had happened, then having Not-Me withdraw the money from the ATM at the front.
We then returned to Polish Butter Christmas and had a splendid time feeding buttered pork to the corgis.
But you see why I am loathe to deal with another one.
Every sentence that gets added just reinforces that this is a Neil Gaiman story in the Sandman universe near the Ocean at the end of the Lane.
And no one’s gonna question the werewolf email to Prof?
Congratulations on being the first person to ask about the werewolves! Prof Hoffman teaches a course called Freaks And Monsters, which was THE BEST literature course I’ve ever taken and she was the first person to get my idiot brain to understand symbolism.
I’m writing a book about Crypids In America and was emailing her to see if she had any recommended reading for me, and to introduce her to my Botany professor becuase I think they’d be friends. She was a little late replying to me becuase she’s in Rome documenting gargoyles, but she and Botany prof are planning an expedition to Moscow to retrieve a book for rare mushroom plates before the crazy cat lady who’s keeping it accidentally destroys them.
You sure the party doppelganger is not the same doppelganger as Bitch Doppelganger?
THANK YOU FOR ASKING BECAUSE I HAVE AN UPDATE.
So last night I’m out walking Charlie at 2AM becuase it was the first break in the lightning we’d had since 6PM, and I go around the corner and literally for half second I thought I was about to walk into a mirror becuase I found my local doppelganger and this time it’s WEIRD.
I’ve got weird curly brown hair that goes kind of Bride-Of-Frankenstein when it gets long, have a weird hound mix from AZ, and am art major with a science background. I grew up in the bay area and moved to CO in middle school. I’m a night owl with a bad habit of signing up for morning classes. I’ve got a super-common first and middle name, and a less-common irish surname. I’m in 105D
SHE has got the same hair and face, her dog is a weird hound mix that’s like a paletteswap of charlie also from AZ, possibly the same ranch, She’s a biology major with an art minor, grew up in CO and moved to the bay area in middle school, is a morning person with afternoon classes. We have the same first and middle names, in reverse order, and she has the other spelling of my last name. She’s in 105A.
Statistically, some of this is not surprising- both combinations of names are common, and there was a lot of cross-traffic between CO and CA in 2004, all Rez dogs are shaped the same, and Art/science isn’t that odd a major/minor combo.
She did throw that party back in novemeber, and I was much relived, and she was glad to find out I exist- We’ve somehow gotten into the same circle of art/science/queer friends without meeting up, and Guliya was bugging her telling stories of My Shenanigans, and attributing them to her.
We’ve arranged a coffee-date with Gulia and are gonna show up in the same outfit just to fuck with her.
I am now following you just because I don’t want to miss finding out what happened with the coffee date.
Oh my Zod. ::also follows::
How old is this post? Did the coffee date happen? Has Guliya’s head asploded? I must know!
Yes, I too must know.
Also I live near Bedford and really want to find this house that has a driveway with an SEP field generator.
IIIIIIITS MOTHAFUKKEN UPDATE TIME!!
So the date got put off for a bit because of school issues, but Doppelganger and I managed to coordinate outfits and met up at the local coffee place half an hour before Guliya arrives, and plan our strategy.
This coffeehouse has bathrooms located at the end of a U-shaped hallway, so I was going to wait in the hall and Doppelganger in the main part of the cafe. After a bit of chatting, D would get up to use the restroom and we’d swap places. The idea was to see how many times we could swap before Guliya noticed something was amiss. I hear Guliya arrive, and wait.
After about 15 minutes, D comes down the hall, gives me a quick update on the convo so far- the self-inflicted-illness of a professor and the astonishing number of bears about- and I go out.
Guliya notices NOTHING.
We talk more about bears and the terrifying lack of life skills some freshmen have and I go back, complaining of bladder issues. D and I swap places 3 more times like this, before Guliya notices that we seem to be ill and she can recommend a specialist, so we decide to end the game. We both walk out while Guliiya is texting someone and sit down across from her.
Knowledge is often described as “dawning’ on people, the soft illumination of understanding. This was like watching someone get caught by the totality of an unscheduled eclipse. She looked up from her phone, delighted to continue the conversation and watching her face collapse into wall-eyed horror is something that I will treasure for ages.
“There are two of you!”
“Yes!” We said, in unintentional creepy unison.
She stared at us for a few moments, surprise giving way to puzzlement, then, relief.
“Thank Fuck.” She sighed. “I was beginning to wonder when the hell you slept.”
Apparently she had conflated out two identities into some sort of double-major two-jobs constantly-awake superbeing and had been worried about keeping up with Us.
“I mean I don’t anyway. I have terrible insomnia.” I said, unhelpfully.
“Which one of you has the rant about Carvaggio?” She asked.
“That’s both of us.”
“And the one who nearly got eaten by bears?”
“Still both of us.”
“Well how am I supposed to tell you apart?” She grumbled.
“I’m the one passed out on the chemistry building couch, they’re the one on the figure-drawing couch.” D offered.
“We can only sleep when surrounded by dangerous chemicals and poor judgement.” I explained.
“It reminds us of our home dimension of Madness.” D continued.
“Fuck both of you, and any other of you out there.” said Gulia, downing more macchiato for strength.
“Don’t be mean to 27.” I said.
“He had nothing to do with this.” D continued.
Guliya snorted macchiato out of her nose at that one. We apologized, she thought it was hilarious and now D is #9 and I’m #426.
i think we’ve found The Most Interesting Person In The World.
Hold on, is anyone going to question the BOTH NEARLY EATEN BY FRIGGIN BEARS???
Since I had someone send me an ask about this chain of events: Yes, I’m the blog (or at least one of them) with a chronic doppelganger problem. Some Updates/explanations:
D graduated with her degree in Zoology and is planning to take a year off to travel through the National Park System before going to Grad school in New York.
She finds her anonymous internet fame amusing and is amazed more people haven’t got similar stories, as I’m her second doppelganger so far.
D has also grown her hair out to her shoulders and I’ve kept mine at something approaching a buzzcut so at least Guliya can tell us apart now.
She’s Very Disappointed by this.
Guliya is pronounced “Julia” but her parents liked the unusual spelling.
The gargoyle prof/botany prof trip to Moscow has been postponed due to the state of International Politics right now, but they have managed to verify that the rare mushroom plates are, in fact, safe.
They’re going to Greece instead.
Domestic Troll and his girlfriend have invited us to Polish Butter Christmas again this year.
Girlfriend heard a rumor that Bitch!Doppelganger is now living in Nebraska, possibly after getting in trouble with the law in CO.
There are a frankly insane number of Black Bears in Durango, CO and many of them are far too human-acclimated. Neither of us were in danger of being eaten (Guliya is prone to dramatics) but I nearly walked right up to the local sow walking the dog last summer, and D had to stay late in the Bio building one night becuase one was climbing all over her car like it was a jungle gym.
Seems a new trend this year is various towns making it officially illegal, with possible fines or jail time, for kids over twelve years old to go Trick-or-Treating.
First of all you can’t tell by looking if a given kid is exactly twelve and under. They can be anywhere from ten to fifteen and look alike.
Second, why do I suspect that this just gives people a new excuse to call the cops on kids they “don’t like the look of”
seems like an excuse to demonize black children and other children of color who “look older” in comparison to their white counterparts lol
straight men repress their feelings so severely with their friends and family, and then they come across a girl (whos been socialized to be Empathetic and Nurturing) and they find that they can tell this girl about their Feelings ! everythings great she’s The One ! in reality they just have a normal human bond but actually connecting with anyone is so foreign to men and their emotionally barren male relationships that it seems like something great and wonderful. so now girl is put on a pedestal that she’ll eventually fall from bc she’s human and not just a Male Feelings Receptacle and everyone loses all bc fathers refuse to cry in front of their sons
People helping people. That’s all this world should be about cuz all we got is each other. Love seeing this kindness from big companies. Needs to happen more often in corporate America.
Okay but what company is that? We should support businesses doing good things
alright don’t be mad but. i never read the great gatsby. i know i was supposed to. yes, it was assigned to us. i even know, more or less, what happens in the book. technically, i wrote an essay about it, i think, once or twice.
at the time, i hadn’t read any book assigned to me. ever. it wasn’t that i didn’t like to read. i loved reading. but homework took place in a function of my brain that i couldn’t access. i would sit in libraries or at my desk and just. not do my homework. i spent hours like this, days like this, years like this. just not doing what was assigned to me, no matter the consequences, no matter how badly i wanted to be doing it. i just wouldn’t. and i wouldn’t go to class because i didn’t want to deal with the fact i didn’t do the homework. and then i wouldn’t get the homework. so i didn’t do it.
i remember realizing while i was doing college applications that i had actually, real-life fucked up. that it was permanent, what i had done. that i had a C- of an average and no future to look rosy at. and i still couldn’t make myself do things. i tried to submit applications only to realize i’d shoved off the date to the very last moment. and i was fucked.
it takes me three years and two transfers and three new starts before i am actually real-life trained how to study, how to read, how to enjoy being assigned things.
and i watch parents of my students yell at students for being the same person i was six years ago: screaming at an A-, confused at skipped classes, punishing missed homework. and these students don’t have an answer. they just don’t do things. even if they want to. and they look at me, confused and defeated and without an answer for their parents. “i just can’t,” i hear a lot, and i understand.
parents don’t like “executive dysfunction” as a reason. “anxiety” and “depression” are often misdiagnosed as “procrastinating” and “lazy”. kids just learn they’re like this. that they’re always going to be. that it’s their fault, permanently. they are surrounded by books they didn’t read. and it doesn’t feel good. it feels like suffocating.
today i started “the great gatsby.” i promise. one day, it’ll feel easy.
I don’t usually reblog things that have nothing to do with RPGs, but I want as many people as possible to see this. This exactly applies to me, even to this day.
I agree with monstrous. I rarely post outside of ttrpg ideas and dragon stuff, but this is so god damn important.
Whenever someone says that johnlock couldn’t be canon, because it would ruin the source material, I always have to mention Granada Sherlock Holmes.
Produced in a time when suggesting that Holmes and Watson might have been in a romantic or sexual relationship could get you black listed from Sherlockian communities, this series thumbed its nose and pushed as many boundaries as it could.
One of the first screen adaptations to showcase the equality in the partnership between the two men, it gave us a Watson who was anything but the bumbling oaf he had been in previous works. This Watson was intelligent, strong, protective, and loving. When he wasn’t doctoring his Holmes after scrapes, he was comforting him in his failure, or helping to direct him toward success.
Rather than marry Watson off, Granada kept him a happy, if often put upon, bachelor. This deviation from the source Canon was handled smoothly, by occasionally sending Watson on much needed holidays or keeping him busy at his surgery, for stories that needed the men to be separated at the beginning.
Beyond the less than subtle hints into the nature of the relationship between Holmes and Watson, Granada is noted for including a story line in one of their most well known films that dealt with why that very relationship needed to be kept a secret. Working off of a few scant lines found in the original Charles Augustus Milverton, the film The Master Blackmailer featured a subplot of a soldier taking his life, when his love affair with a man is found out. This is a subject which leads to Lestrade making the remark that it isn’t the first time it has happened to a soldier, and it certainly won’t be the last, a remark that ends with Watson all but slamming the door to Baker Street behind the inspector.
There is hardly a scene throughout the show- which ran for a decade, and included five feature length films- that doesn’t show the gentle intimacy between Holmes and Watson. Whether he is threatening an armed man with a chair, insisting that his detective eat, or jumping between Holmes and a hired thug, Watson is every inch the devoted companion. As the series progresses, and the actors change, Watson subtly evolves from a man who loves the excitement of the world Holmes has shown him, into one that wants them to slow down and think of the future. There is a delightful scene in one of the later episodes, which shows Watson obviously relieved to learn that there is money in Holmes’ family.
And of course, nothing says canon otp, like giant floating rainbows splashed across the backgrounds of their scenes together.
A lot of these episodes are available on YouTube and I just spent a few very enjoyable hours watching them. They are excellent. It is, of course, an 80s British television show, so the pacing is very different from modern pacing, the ‘violence’ is rather ham-fisted, and the budget was somewhat lacking, but based on the episodes I’ve seen, I would absolutely put this in my top three favorite adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. Highly recommend.
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