There have been heating issues in my apartment, so I was wearing my ugly Flyers hat indoors.  Then the heat came on, and I decided to take a shower and wash my hair before it stopped working again.  Alfredo is kindly wearing my hat for me, to keep it warm while my hair dries.  It's very cute, and makes me wish I had a camera.

Quixley Says: It Gets Better

As many of you may know, yesterday was National Coming Out Day, and in honour of the occasion, AJD reports, Quixley decided he wanted to have his picture taken with the gay pride zebra shirt.

It probably hasn't come up on this blog before, but the southern domicile has an iconic gay pride zebra shirt.  My parents sent it to me for my birthday a few years ago without comment - I hadn't realised before that they were actively supportive of the gay zebra community.  We hung it up in the living room in order to indicate to any gay zebras who happened to be wandering in the neighbourhood that they were quite welcome with us.  It has been worn exactly once, when AJD went to a masked ball dressed as a gay zebra.

So, anyway, Quixley decided he should have his picture taken in the gay zebra shirt.  First, however, he wanted AJD to take a picture of himself emerging from AJD's closet beneath the banner of the shirt, as a "coming out" metaphor.

Quixley "comes out" beneath the Iconic Gay Zebra Pride shirt as a Dramatic Metaphor.

 Then he wanted to have his picture taken in the shirt.  Since Quixley is an actual zebra, and the shirt is not designed for actual zebras, but rather for human allies, this did not really work all that well.

Quixley attempts to don the Iconic Gay Zebra Pride shirt.

So instead, he and AJD decided to just have Quixley photographed with the shirt.

Quixley and the Iconic Shirt

Prior to yesterday, AJD and I had not realised that Quixley is gay.  In retrospect, this is primarily because zebras are apparently very supportive of the LGTBZ community, and Quixley himself is a pretty laid-back, chill kind of guy.  He doesn't make a big deal out of his personal life (or most other things), and it's no secret, since he's been out for ages.  So he naturally assumed everyone already knew.  It was partly my fault too, because I saw a photograph he had of himself and a cute girl zebra and leapt to the wrong conclusion as to their relationship, having not got a close enough look at it.  If I'd got a better look, I'd have realised that the female zebra was Quixley's sister Quincilla.  They're really close - he's only a year older.

Anyway, AJD asked Quixley to say a few words in honour of the occasion, so Quixley paused for a second and delivered the following speech, which AJD carefully notated verbatim:

Um, everybody... it gets better.

That's a few words, all right.  It's hard to envision a speech of fewer words, come to think of it.  Very characteristic of a zebra of few words.

Quixley later said that being gay really isn't a big deal if you're a zebra, as long as you're with other zebras.  He encountered a lot more trouble when he started attending high school in a more mixed environment; not all species are as accepting as zebras.  But then he graduated, and started doing his IT training, and found that yeah, it really does get better, even when you're not living with other zebras.

Stowaway!

Beppe is in so much trouble now.  Oh boy.

I went down to visit the Southern Domicile on Friday, as well as to take care of a few things and go salsa-dancing with AJD and EHC (who was also visiting).  I opened my suitcase to take out my toothbrush, and guess who popped out?

Of course it was Beppe.  He was so glad to be there, too; the moment AJD came in to see what the deal was, Beppe launched himself at him in a flurry of excited yips.  I'm really not sure how he managed to stay quiet for the whole bus trip from NYC to Philly, although I guess he spent the bus journey proper in the baggage hold where no one would hear him.

 

 

Rochester and the Fox gave Beppe a very stern talking-to.  He was initially unrepentant, but after a few minutes he started feeling more contrite.

Beppe unrepentant

Beppe contrite

We could just see Alfredo freaking out and the temporary Northern Domicile crawling with questing fluffies.  This is every parent's nightmare, after all.  While Rochester and the Fox were lecturing Beppe, Quixley immediately hurried to the computer to email Alfredo that everything was all right.  Then we just had to hope that Alfredo got the email, as I had taken my laptop south and the new computer system won't materialise until we have a permanent NYC abode.  Alfredo has a BlackBerry, but he's not very good at using it yet.  We could only suppose that he'd have Magick and Murchison glued to their iPhones.

Here's a close up of the text of Quixley's email.  You should be able to read it if you zoom in.  Note that Quixley prefers Gmail's "Ninja" theme.

A Qmail

Barry seized advantage of the opportunity to grill Beppe about whether or not he's seen Duke Ellington.  This was a complete failure, as Beppe had no clue what he was talking about.

So this morning I left Philly on a much earlier bus than I'd intended to, in hopes of preventing Alfredo from having a heart attack.  I got to my 8.30 bus so early they put me on an 8.00 bus, and I was home a little before 11.  Quixley's email had been received, thanks to Murchison lending Alfredo his iPhone, but Alfredo was nonetheless visibly agitated until Beppe popped out of the bag.  Naturally Beppe got another series of major talking-tos, first from his father and then from Desmond, Jasper, and Lady Faraday.  Moreover, Alfredo has informed him that he's not to be allowed out of his father's sight until after we find a permanent Northern Domicile.  He seems to be finally understanding that stowing away was maybe not a brilliant idea... but he still enjoyed every minute of it.

The Southern Domicile Celebrates Flag Day

What, you say?  Flag Day was months ago?  Well, yes, Flag Day was indeed months ago.  But the Southern Domicile had been feeling a bit glum, with most of their friends off living it up in the Big Apple, and so Rochester decided that everyone's spirits would benefit from a good Flag Day celebration.

One of Leprosy's talents is a sense of ceremony.  Give him an occasion, and he can put together an incredibly elaborate ritual for it.  So Rochester gave Leprosy charge of the details of the ceremony.  After some grumbling about how there weren't nearly enough animals to do it proper justice, Leprosy came through.  So here they are: the Southern Domicile, beflagged.

Each of them tried to choose an appropriate flag.  Rochester has the state flag of New York, of course; the Fox has the state flag of Massachusetts, where he's from; Leprosy has a Yacht Commodore flag (AJD's not entirely sure why he chose that one, but apparently he was adamant and seemed pleased with it); Quixley naturally has a flag in his own colours; and Meph has the creepy pirate flag because it's all ironic and stuff.  Look how happy he is.

Barry somehow missed the memo that the ceremony was happening.  He's been mopey ever since he found out that the Northern Domicile is in Duke Ellington's old place, and so Leprosy wrote him out of the ceremony.  Naturally he responded to this by interrupting the whole thing and dashing out into the middle of it with the most attention-grabbing flag he could find.

It's not clear whether Barry's relationship with Leprosy can ever be repaired.  Rochester's rather miffed at him too, because he's concerned that Leprosy will refuse to share his ceremonial talents ever again.

Butterfinger and Alcindarias played the role of audience; here you can see them looking on, bemused.  Neither of them really got the point, although they were agreeable enough to pacify Leprosy's need for an audience.  Alcindarias didn't get the point because in the Wild Mythic Federation, no one bothers with rituals like this.  The WMF doesn't really have any concepts of nationhood or anything like that; they're a bunch of individuals who have a loose confederacy for purely practical reasons that do not include the emotional.  Butterfinger didn't get the point because there wasn't any hugging.

Despite the hiccough in the middle, Rochester pronounced the ceremony a success, as it served its desired purpose: now no one is thinking too much about missing the Northern Domicile because they're all too busy taking sides in the current kerfluffle.  Also, Rochester got to have a moment of patriotism, and that pleased him mightily.  He's very proud of being from New York.  AJD says he doesn't want to relinquish the flag now.

Sleepyhead Gets Frisky (ish)

So when I fell asleep on this air mattress last night, I had my laptop on the right side of the pillow, and a cluster of creatures to the left: Sir Theo, Seal, Sir Tristan, Lady Faraday, Magick, and Sleepyhead.

Partway through the night, I woke up to find Sleepyhead on my right.  He appeared to be peering under my sheet; his head was mostly under it.  Shockingly, he was very clearly not asleep.  In fact, I don't think I'd ever seen him so awake.  I, however, was mostly asleep, as well as vaguely certain that if Sleepyhead felt hyper, I should not deter him; so I patted his rump and went back to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, Sleepyhead was lying there fast asleep with his head pillowed on my laptop and his back to me.  I've fallen asleep on my laptop before and it's not very cuddly, let me tell you, but he didn't seem to mind.  I moved him over so that his head is on the pillow now; he didn't wake up in transfer.  All that activity must have done him in.

I conjecture that Sleepyhead got up in the middle of the night to play with my laptop and fell asleep before he could sneak away again.  So far I haven't figured out what he was doing; there weren't any incriminating websites up or anything.  Maybe he was playing Dominion.

A Boy and His Fox

AJD and the Fox have been together for more than a few years now - not as long as Seal and I have, but a pretty long time - longer than I've known AJD.  The Fox is a mysterious fellow.  He's involved in the Wild Republic, and of high rank; this we know.  But he's not actually a member of the local chapter.  He's around because of AJD.  The Fox doesn't belong to AJD, exactly, but he seems to have decided that he ought to be around him all the same.

This picture of the two of them together might be my favourite picture of AJD.

AJD and I aren't roommates anymore.  It's sad; he's one of the closest friends I've ever had, and I'm going to miss him like crazy.  I'll miss the Fox too, and the way he likes to be kissed between the ears.

Temporary Digs

So we made it to NYC.

I don't have a real apartment yet; I'm just subletting a place for about two weeks.  It doesn't have furniture, which is kind of interesting.  Turns out that the building I'm in is an official historic landmark, because Duke Ellington used to live here.  There's a plaque on the front of the building and everything, although you can't really make out the words in this picture.

Barry's going to be really jealous.  He loves jazz, and he's a particular fan of Duke Ellington; but he stayed behind in the Southern Domicile.

Mimsy and Khamsin are NYC natives, so they're pretty happy to be back.  Khamsin really wants me to take the kittens to Central Park.  When he and Mimsy were still living in the museum, Khamsin used to peek out the window and the park and fantasise about sneaking out late at night and scampering around without anyone being the wiser, but he could never figure out how to handle the locks, so it didn't happen.

The very first thing we did once we had moved everything into my temporary room was open all the boxes.  Much as they all like each other, we figured they'd probably had enough of each other in close quarters for a while.  They were pretty eager to get out of there and explore the new place.  Here they are emerging from their boxes.

The box captains immediately held a meeting to confer about how the trip had gone.  

Consensus appears to be that everything went about as well as could be expected.  The kittens were rather fractious; Beppe yipped the whole time; Zebulon was apparently convinced that they were travelling through a wormhole and gave a long discourse about how the physics worked; Plouie kept forgetting that they were travelling in boxes and freaking out all over again; Magick and Murchison had a confusing conversation that no one else in their box could follow and which was presumably in code.  Pretty much business as usual.

Meanwhile, everyone else was exploring.  The kittens, Beppe, and a bunch of others immediately ran all over the living room.

You can just make out Hrithik preparing to climb up on the radiator back there; it was the highest point he could see.  He's currently settled on the shelf in my closet.  Cami and the polar bears were really interested in the Internet cables.  Rusty and Navarre took advantage of the newfound space and adult distraction to start whaling on each other again.

Not everyone went quite so far afield.  Gilly, of course, immediately laid claim to the air mattress that AM left in here for me.  That's an iPod he's got there; he was quite adamant that there was no room for it on the bed. 

At first, Gilly was convinced that I'd made his dream come true, and given him his own mattress; he was crushed when I explained that it was meant to be mine.  Then he was newly encouraged to see how empty the place is - surely, he said, now is the time to invest in dozens of mattresses - and disappointed when I told him that this place isn't really ours and that the actual tenants would probably be kind of freaked if they came and found we'd flooded it with mattresses.  He tried to convince me to agree to flood our eventual place with mattresses, but I fobbed him off with a story about how NYC has really tough mattress regulations.  Please do not tell him that I made this up.

Zebulon and Nicodemus checked out the view from my bedroom; it's a pretty nice one, although you can't see much of it in this picture.

Nicky is so excited to be here.  Like, he's beside himself.  He's always wanted to see NYC, and this is like his dream come true.  Apparently the whole way over he was pestering Seleucus about whether or not they make 'I <3 NYC' shirts in goat sizes.  Seleucus, who has never been to NYC and really doesn't care much about it (or any city that isn't in Bactria), told him rather shortly that they don't, but Nicky was apparently undeterred because he asked me the same question.  And he keeps announcing 'I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!' like out of the blue.

Not everyone took advantage of the chance to explore.  When the box captains were meeting, Jasper realised, upon saying that Sleepyhead had slept the whole time (such a surprise...), that he hadn't seen Sleepyhead leave the box, and sure enough, he was still asleep in there, curled up with the electronic equipment.  Jasper tried to get him to come out and eventually gave up.

You wouldn't think electronics would be so cuddly.  I fell asleep trying to cuddle my laptop once, and it left a dent in my forehead.

Plouie was pretty excited about the whole thing.  He was hopping around and making squee noises and stuff.  But what had him excited wasn't quite what you'd think.  Check it out:

He comes all the way to a new apartment in a new city, and what interests him is my vegetable steamer.  I'm like, 'Plouie, seriously, it's the same one we had in the old apartment,' but it didn't get through.  After this picture was taken, he started flippering through the rest of the box of equally familiar items.  I wonder whether he'll ever notice the rest of the place at all.

You'll notice that the Mini Republic is nowhere in evidence.  That's because they're having a slightly different adventure.  A bigger one, in fact.  They're all staying a luxury hotel for a month or so, and should have great stories to tell when we're reunited.  Gyork is really excited.  He's from NYC too, like Mimsy and Khamsin, and he's looking forward to showing everyone his favourite places: The Gempire State Building, the Statue of Gliberty, the Gbronx...  He wants me to take everyone to see the Gnicks play once basketball season starts, and the Gyankees of course.  The temporary place is actually quite near Yankee Stadium, as it happens, although I doubt I'll make it there.

Anyway, so we made it here, although we won't be in this specific "here" for very long.  Further updates will follow, although I no longer have access to a camera (the camera we use is AJD's), so there might not be many photos for a while.