Time has eclipsed me again, it seems. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounded cool so there it is.
This year it is the big Three-Oh. I'm not sure how I feel about having my twenties behind me. No different really. I still feel as healthy as I always have and I still tend to think back on years past based on what writing projects I had at the time. There was The Song of Ceber a few years ago and that one was tough, last year and this year there was something I'm calling "Flea" that I just finished. It's good enough to publish I think. On advice for Stephen King I usually let things sit before I throw them into second draft, but I have a sort of urgency with Flea. I'm not sure where it comes from, maybe my third decade, but I feel like I can't wait on it.
Flea is an adventure story that has nothing to do with fleas. It's probably the fastest I've ever written 90,000 words, the first 50,000 during November, the remaining 40,000 over five months. The second part is more introspective and was harder to produce. Additionally, I used a lot of Spanish in this work and it probably needs to be vetted by somebody who actually speaks Spanish, and preferably somebody who can also help me with Old Castilian such as is used in Cantar de Mio Cid.
The world has gotten scarier as I've gotten older. I'm a bit worried about the upcoming elections and how crazy-religious the GOP has gotten over the years. I wouldn't call myself liberal, but I can't stand religion and every year the party that I might be voting for becomes less and less a party I can vote for. One of the weird things I find about atheism is that it creates unintended allies in the LGBT community in that fundamentalist religion hates both of us equally and would probably kill us if it had its way. I worry about religious people running for government because I have observed over the years that hallowed traditions of our forefathers are seen as roadblocks by fundamentalists. I worry because they seem very short-sighted in their goals. Sure a theocracy would be great if they were in charge, but if history has taught us anything its that sects hate other sects. If the Mormons are the ones in charge then it will be the Baptists who are destroyed, if it is the Baptists then it will be the Jehovah's Witnesses, if it is the Jehovah's Witnesses, then it will be everyone else, if it anybody else it will be the Mormons who are destroyed. Theocracy isn't safe for anybody except a single authority, the authority who is lucky enough to be in charge during the collapse of The Republic. There are other reasons to dislike religion, but that it appears to want to kill me and a lot of other people is the most pressing one.
But it's not all worries. My dad has taken up beekeeping as a hobby. I've been calling the hive The Hive and the queen Amelia Flutterbuzz because the silly name amuse me. I also find it funny just how spooked the dogs are by the hive. Bud growls at it and Tori refuses to look at it. Tori is the smaller dog, and has a more nervous character than Budward. If he has to go by the hive he puts his head down and hurries past. I think the dogs are reacting to the sound the hive makes. It's a bit unnerving, but there is a very ominous buzzing coming from the box at all hours. 12,000+ bees make a lot of noise.
Standing in a cloud of bees is very calming because you can't be anything but calm. If you act panicked, or are stressed out, then the bees pick up on that and they become panicked or stressed out. To keep from getting stung, you have to be calm, you don't have another choice. Not that the bees are aggressive. They're a very docile Italian strain. But just because they don't sting doesn't mean they can't and standing by the hive is a great way to relax because all your motions have to become slow and purposeful.
Google knows my birthday and is wishing me a happy one. Terrifying.
Bee links: 1, 2, 3. They look fine on my iPad on which they were recorded. Somehow the color and quality drops on any other medium...
birthday past/birthday future