Even better every fanfic is 100% true. Your wildest AUs, your fix-its, your self-inserts, your fusions with other canons… ALL OF THEM. Every one is just as valid as the ‘original’. When you take that on board, the whimsies and tortured routes of canon cannot hurt you, not badly. You just apply fanfic, and move on.
Since he passed away his wife owned everything, including the bookshop (once library) but somehow his children were left all the books. Locked in a fight over who should own it all, the shop was locked up and closed down. Years started to pass and still the doors remained locked. Until I learned to pick them. As a young teen I would sneak in with a large bag and carry what I could out at night. For two years I did this. I was never caught and no one went to the shop. (Part 2)
Okay, I’ma need you to write a book because this is beautiful! ❤
WAIT THERE WAS A 3RD PART
I donated all the books. Only keeping one for myself. I gave the books to homeless shelters and women’s shelters. I left them in donation boxes for children and random places in town or the coffee shop. One night the shop was burnt down by the owners son for insurance money – angry his dad left books and not money. Nothing survived the fire. I’m much older now and I know stealing is wrong but I’m glad I did because I know the books I stole got a chance to live on in other hands. (Part 3)
NOW I REALLY REAAAALLY NEED YOU TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT THIS. So sad that they burned it down, wow 😦 You’re a wonderful person, Nonnie, honestly. This is amazing!
MORE MORE
Sometimes when I see my kids reading their books I can’t help but smile and think back to the nights I would pick old locks to climb through old windows with a duffel bag much bigger than myself that weighed twice what I did. My kids think I’m lame and silly and only good at cooking spaghetti but they have no idea that the book I read to them at bedtime is my only souvenir of a much dangerous and exciting life I lived so long ago. (Part 4)
For clarification, I was 10 when the shopped closed, 13 when I first broke in and the two years that followed for twice a month every month I would carry out my weight in literature gold. Sometimes I miss being young. (Part 5)
PLEASE WRITE A BOOK
also, we should all carry our weight in literature at least once in our lives
YOU ARE GOALS, NONNIE
I WANT TO BE YOUR BEST FRIEND
What book did you keep though?
The Book Thief kept a leather bound collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen 🙂
Reminder that this is one of the best stories I ever got here and it needs a million more notes.
So my mom worked as an educational consultant for HP (AKA translating Engineer into Normal Human) and part of her job was working with the overseas translators to make sure everything said approximately the same thing and that all the languages fit on the documentation. And that said documentation looked pretty enough for marketing. marketing would always get real pissy if there was leftover margin space at the end of the instructions, which is to say, One Guy Named Carl would get real pissy over ‘wasted space’ and because they happened to work in the same building, he’d always come bitch to my mother.
For like, an hour.
Eventually, Mom realized that while English, French and nearly all the other languages took up the same amount of space, German always took up 20% more space and Japanese about 20% less. If she included both languages at the end of any documentation, they’d fill up the margin space *perfectly*. So she just started including both languages, regardless of whether or not that documentation would be distributed to Germany or Japan, just so she could fill up the margin space and also Mrs. Yamada at the Kyoto office needed the extra hours.
Carl, who only sort of paid attention to his work, told her he was very pleased that there was no more “wasted paper” despite the fact that most of the documentation was about 20% longer now.
Eventually, all the other documentation coordination people noticed mom’s practice and started including German and Japanese, and started doing it too. Then the inclusion of both languages became Official Documentation. Then it became Standard Practice for HP and any firms it worked with. Then it became the Industry Standard across Silicon Valley. If you open up the user manual on a new computer these days, you’ll often find German and Japanese, right at the end, because it’s a semi-official practice now.
…some 20 years after my mom started this, my fiance got a high school German assignment to translate a piece of formal writing, and he chose the documentation for his new HP laptop. He had fun with that assignment, and it encouraged him to stay in German, eventually travel overseas, and when he met me, we had a lovely conversation in German and I decided he was worth going out with.
Thank you Mom, for finding a way around Carl’s bullshit, and me my husband.
Hey since I haven’t been active in forever, who wants to hear a story about how I became a local cryptid in my town?
Alright lets do this.
So I live in a small neighborhood kinda thing. Its honestly shaped like someone connected two bongs with a straw that leads out to the street, so very tiny and not a lot of people drive through cause its a dead end, and surrounded by woods Anyways, so it’s Saturday morning, like 3 am and my sister has taken her behemoth of a dog outside.
Little background, this dog is a saint bernard, lab mix, so he big. Hes also amazingly stupid. He’s only three and we got him a year ago so he still does stupid shit all the time. Anyways hes got a long lead line on him, probably 30 ft, so hes off doing whatever and my sister is kinda dazed, still sleepy.
Homeboy fucking TAKES OFF and runs into the woods behind my house, taking that lead with him and a good chunk of my sisters palm skin. Whatever he’s chasing has speed, and hes keeping up with it. So I run outside cause shes screaming his name and start to take off after him. I thought that mother fucker would get caught on a tree due to the lead but nope was I wrong. Now the woods probably go a mile back before they hit road, and then stretch around 5 miles horizontally.
I’m worried this dumb dog is gonna run into the street and get hit, so I run the mile to the street (with my very out of shape body. I honestly thought I was going to die). After like 15 minutes of tripping and trying to make my way through this damn jungle, I get to the street. At this point I still look a human so nothing happens, I dont see him anywhere, and I run back to the house cause I’ve realized I’m in a tank top and boxer shorts with no shoes and its tick season. So I change into a big ass sweatshirt and sweat pants and boots even though its almost 90 degrees out because I do not want to have to deal with ticks.
After chugging some water I take back off, this time going horizontally. I caught sight of something running so I took off, yelling my brains out, managing to sprain my ankle and rip half my hair outta my ponytail in the process. Around a mile down I lose sight of it so I turn and hike the mile back to the street just to make sure it didn’t go that way.
After that I go back to my house, and then return to the spot where i last saw him and continue walking till I’m like 2 ½ miles away.
So my trip so far has been
1 mile to street > 1 mile home > 1 mile horizontally > 1 mile to street > 2 miles home > 2 ½ miles horizontally
So I’m about ready to die. I’m covering in blood from smashing my arm, one of my eyes has turned red cause a stick poked it, I’ve got a limp, I’m breathing like a dragon with asthma, and I’m covering in leaves and sticks.
I start yelling his name again and hear a bark in the distance so I take off and after like 5 minutes I spot him. He is now howling like a banshee in distress. I book it towards his dumb ass and practically tackle him, which ended up with me covered in a random assortment of shit. Cool, whatever. His leash is tied around two trees so I unravel it and he pounces on me in relief. He’s salivating like crazy so I take him to a stream near by to let him drink.
Mother fucker pulls me in. I’m too tired to be pissed. At this point now that I’m calming down I realize my boots are now soaking wet with both blood and water. I’ve got several scars on my thigh and they all got ripped open. So I’m gushing blood like no tomorrow. I soak my jacket in water and put it on this stupid dog so he wont get burnt on the way back and itll be a bit cooler. So now he looks even bigger then usual. I take my shoes off and toss them over my neck and we’re about to start the trek back when he takes off AGAIN. This time I’m holding the leash and I do not let go. He ends up slipping on a mud bank and taking me with him. With are now covered head to toe in mud, shit, dirt, blood, and whatever the hell else is in those woods.
Some how he has ended up with no major wounds, but now I have a rock lodged in my forehead and blood in my eyes. And my shoes are gone. Whatever, I just want to get home. I pick a direction and walk until I end up in the back yard of someone who lives down the street.
Lucky for me, this person has barbed wire in their back yard on the ground for some reason, which I trip on. Now I have barbed wire practically wrapped around me like some crazy fashion statement. I wanted to get home so bad I didn’t even bother to rip it off. I’d do that later and return it to the guy or whatever.
So now its like 6am, so its dark, but you can still see, and its dead quiet. I pull my sisters dog along with me, holding his collar so he can’t take off again. So heres me, covered in blood, mud, and barbed wire, limping down the street, no shoes on, with a large dog wearing a jacket, which, from a distance, you cant tell. Now I smell like whatever was in those woods, and it is a strong smell, so as I walk by any house with a dog outside, that dog starts barking. Eventually the quiet is replaced with dogs howling, barking, snarling at me. I eventually make it back to my house, but not before passing a dude getting his newspaper or whatever. He’s a good distance away from me and he hesitantly calls out asking if I’m okay. I respond with “yeah” but I’ve been yelling for like 3 hours straight so it comes out as ungodly rasp. He goes right the fuck back in his house.
I get home, get cleaned up, get the dog cleaned up, and everythings fine. UNTIL a couple nights later my mom goes to a neighborhood meeting thing and hears an interesting story.
Turns out, there had been a black bear in the woods near my house, which people had been keeping an eye out for, but instead they saw (what they thought) was a “humanoid figure covered in spikes dragging a bear covered in blood around by its neck”
For the next few weeks people were talking about how they heard the “horrific screeching” and how there was blood all down the streets and on the trees. The dude who asked if I was okay was telling everybody that the “thing” growled at him and he could see it had blood red eyes.
So now theres a rumor about a demon with razor sharp tendrils who feeds on wild animals by slashing them open and drinking their blood. Rumor states that you’ll hear it before you see it, and the sound it makes sounds like a howl and a scream. People later found my boots covered in blood and said it was a “victim” of the demon. A week later a house that was being built caught fire and that was blamed on me, as well as an accident where someone swerved to avoid something and crashed through a house. The stream turned blood red after some heavy rainfall, which was due to the mud, but also blamed on me and some more screeching was heard for a couple nights (coyotes most likely). Due to people “spotting” the demon (which was either their imagination or the actual bear) the rumor grew and grew so now its famous in my neighborhood.
So yeah thats how I became a “bear killing demon” in my neighborhood. I never corrected anyone because I was too embarrassed.
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.
knitting in the dark 