The Serpent Man, A Cryptid Nobody Asked For

Did you know that in the Pacific Northwest, dockworkers and boat owners use those inflatable air dancer things (you know, the ones you usually see at used car dealerships) to scare seals and sea lions away from the docks?

The poor pinnipeds stay away from these giant wiggling creatures, but the catch is that they need to be kept turned on, because if they leave them turned off for long, the intelligent sea lions might figure out they're not actually alive. That they're fakes.

But what if they were real? What if the seals and sea lions know something we don't?

How To Care For Your Selkie Significant Other

Fun fact about me: my favourite mythical creature is the selkie - the Irish humanoid who can shed off the skin of a seal or sea lion to transform into a beautiful human - but if you startle them, they'll turn back into a pinniped and retreat to the sea!

Irish folktales are full of tragic selkie tales where they lose their sealskin and are trapped on land by a cruel fisherman, or where they fall in love with a human but the human cannot accept that for a selkie the sea comes first. But I don't think a selkie tale always has to be tragic. I think that if we really were to find and care for a selkie, it may take work and understanding (as does ANY relationship) but it can be romantic and beautiful.

These "tips" were adapted from a journal entry I made in my private journal about a fictional selkie character Sarah and I were talking about on Monday.

A pile of pinnipeds? Or selkies in disguise?

Tips for taking care of your Selkie S.O.:

• Run frequent baths for your selkie with bath bombs and cruelty-free bath products (with plastic-free packaging if possible) to keep both sets of skin hydrated and soft and clean.
• Make a commitment to cut down on your plastic waste as much as possibly can, as human-produced plastic waste kills the fish selkies need to eat and destroys their homes.
• Never ever ever hide your selkie's seal skin - not even as a joke!
• If your selkie hears a seal, sea lion, or even a dog barking, sometimes they'll bark back. As cute as this may be, resist the urge to tease them for it. They can be sensitive.
• The selkie-mermaid rivalry is real. Always take the selkies' side of it.
• Collect pretty shells you find to decorate the bedroom you share. Your selkie will appreciate your effort to make them feel less homesick
• Selkies' natural diet is mostly fish. One of their favourite human foods is sushi - the fish is raw, like they're used to, but they don't get strange looks for eating it in public. (Selkies are naturally cautious and tend to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.)
• Some selkies really like ice cream, but most of them are lactose intolerant. Be sure to have lots of Lactaid on hand to avoid tummyaches and smelly seal farts.
• Selkie society is very big on music and song. Even if you're not a strong singer, they appreciate the effort when you try. Alternately, make them a playlist. You can include sea shanties, Irish folk music, and whalesongs if you like, but they'll try listening to any type of music at least once.
• It's well documented that seals love to cuddle, and this goes for selkies as well. Cuddle your selkie often and they will consider themselves yours.
• Lastly, but definitely most importantly, accept that every now and then your selkie needs to return to the ocean for awhile. It doesn't mean they don't love you; it's just something they have to do. Wait patiently and soon enough they will return to you.

Hopefully with these tips you can make the most of your relationship with such a beautiful creature.

-Nym

Meeting the Norse Gods in New York City

You came to New York City for college. You expected it to be different from home. But who could have expected this?

Odin is your college professor who speaks in a western drawl, who always wears black cowboy shirts and cowboy boots, who seems to relish looking out-of-place even in a city as diverse as New York. While your classmates whisper possible ways He lost his eye, no one dare asks Him how it really happened. After finals, He invites some of you to a dive bar near campus and buys drinks for everyone. He challenges you, a dangerous glint in His eye, to go shot for shot with Him. You know better to accept this challenge.

You meet Thor at a BLM march. He's the massive guy screaming down a fascist dickhead who dared show his face, but when you see Him again later, He's all smiles as He passes out snacks. He goes to a lot of these marches, He says - for black lives, yes, but also for immigrants, for women's rights, for gay rights. If the cops show up, He says He makes "a good human shield!" You're unsure if He's joking. His laughter is infectious either way.

Freyr shows up next, at the farmer's market in Union Square. His squash are the longest, His peaches the plumpest, His berries the most fragrant. "Try an apple," He urges you. It's the reddest apple you've ever seen, and when you bite into it the flavour explodes in your mouth and the juices dribble down your chin. "How much?" You ask Him. He asks you to pay Him in song.

You take a train to New England one day for a change of pace, and strike up a conversation with an old gruff fisherman in yellow coveralls. You help Him pull up a net of crabs and He teaches you a sea shanty, and offers to buy you a drink. It's only on the train ride back to the city, when you open up your wallet and find a $50 bill that definitely wasn't there before, that you realise this was Njörd.

Thor invites you to Pride, but you lose Him in the massive crowd, and in the chaos, your rainbow tutu gets torn. The most beautiful woman you've ever seen comes to the rescue with a sewing kit and some glitter, which She helps you apply to your body and face. She's looking at you as if you're the only person in the crowd, and when She smiles, you know it is Freyja. She dances with you, then lets a cute butch cut in. When you turn your head, She is gone, but you get a date with that cute butch for the coming Tuesday.

You meet Loki a week later. He's busking on the subway, doing magic tricks better suited to a Vegas stage than the 6-train. The kids on the subway love Jim. Somehow He swindles you out of $5, but you later find Him using all the money He got to buy a homeless man a hot meal. After this, Loki keeps showing up in the same places you go, a different face every time, but you always know it's Him. You resist His attempts at friendship for a long time, but within a year you'll count Him among your best friends.

You go, on a whim, to a BYOB knitting class. Frigga is the teacher. At this point you're not surprised by that. You've never been able to get the hang of knitting before, but with Her guidance, you have a scarf going in no time. The act of knitting a scarf makes you think of a beloved great aunt who used to knit and who died when you were in high school. You're so embarrassed when you start to cry, but Frigga holds you close and lets you cry against Her. She invites you and your girlfriend over for a home-cooked meal the next evening. You go and She's made your favourite comfort food. You are surprised to see your old college professor there.

You still refuse to go shot for shot with Him.

Happy Halloween!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! As I've said before, Halloween is my favourite day of the year, and I always dress up, sometimes as a historical figure (in past years I've been Marie Antoinette and the Byzantine Empress Theodora), sometimes as a historical figure (last year I was Grunkle Stan from "Gravity Falls", the year before that I was Velma Dinkley), and sometimes (but rarely) in something more generic.

This year, I've decided to go as a Puritan woman, inspired by my love of movies like "ParaNorman" and "The Witch", and the play "The Crucible", and my fascination with the historical Salem Witch Trials. (Also, if I'm being honest, inspired by the fact that I had a budget of like $10 for this.)

I think I did pretty well with the money I had.

And the more I wear this costume, the more it begins to feel... well, almost like an alter ego of sorts. She even has a backstory...

*******

Young Goody Nym sat outside the meeting house in the chilly morning air before that Sunday's sermon reading her Bible like a good, Puritan woman.

 There had been a devil's scourge sweeping through Salem as of late - tales of women signing their souls to the devil and sending out apparitions that tormented local children. A shiver went down Goody Nym's spine as she recalled those poor children - young Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam among them - writhing and sobbing in the meeting house. Why, just last Wednesday there had been pins discovered in the girl's scalp, placed by witches!

Truth be told, Goody Nym didn't know what to make of any of it. But these trials frightened her. If the Devil really was active in Salem, she feared becoming the next victim of His legion of evil witches.

That was when she heard it.

Aaron Burr's Ghost

Aaron Burr, the Vice President to Thomas Jefferson, the man who shot Alexander Hamilton. The man who got kicked out of Mexico, the man who married a woman who everyone said had murdered her first husband, even though he was decades older (she divorced him ten months later).

This guy

 It's Hamilton's fingerprints which are all over this city, but oddly not his ghost. You never hear about Alexander Hamilton's ghost. Aaron Burr's ghost, on the other hand...

Aaron Burr's ghost has been seen, they say, at his former carriage house, which is now an insanely expensive restaurant. His daughter Theodosia has also been seen, pushing patrons down the stairs or ripping earrings out of women's ears. If he disapproves of his daughter's dreadful behaviour, he doesn't let it show.

Aaron Burr's ghost, they say, has been spotted at Battery Park, staring forlornly out at the water, waiting for his daughter to return. She'll never return, they say. She was killed by pirates, they say. Never mind that this conflicts with her being seen at their carriage house. Never mind that Battery Park was all landfill added later, and did not exist when the Burrs were actually alive.

Aaron Burr's ghost, they say, has been seen in Weehawken where he shot Hamilton. He's pale, even for a ghost, as if he's about to be sick. Does he regret what he's done? Does he even realise?

Aaron Burr's ghost has even been spotted at Eliza Jumel's mansion. Even though she divorced him, even though he didn't even live there that long, even though it's so far uptown. Aaron Burr's ghost really gets around.

-Nym-

Bright Young Things

Art by me

(For the best possible experience, put on a playlist of old jazz music. Or Postmodern Jukebox.)

New York City, 1926.

The Little Witch in the Big City

A Short Story 

Art by me

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”~ Terry Pratchett

The little witch had grown up with that quote. She had lived by that quote, even graduating at the top of her class from Baba Yaga's Black Forest Academy for Young Witches. She had been so sure of how her life was going to go. Build a cottage deep in the forest, wait for young maidens and dashing heroes to come through looking for magical favours, commune with nature, paint with all the colours of the wind... it was just what was done.

So what, then, was she doing stepping off of a subway train in the middle of a large metropolis?

The Historical Dinner Party

I am unaware if this is a common conversation among history geeks or if this is just something me and my friends have spent far too much time wondering about, but one of the first entries I planned for this blog (it has taken me nearly 6 months to actually get around to writing it) was that of my ideal Historical Dinner Party. It is my answer to the question that at least the history geeks I know have pondered at length: Which historical figures, from any time or place, would you invite to a dinner party and why?

I decided, as I often do, to take this a few steps further; to pick my guest list based on their interactions with one another as much as their interactions with me; to go so far as to plan out a menu which is both slightly historical and completely vegetarian; even to plan my outfit. (It's a men's suit with a lacy blouse, combat boots, and flapper-red lipstick, if you are wondering.) So come along and join me at this (admittedly sort of ridiculous) dinner party.

A Quick Found-Word Poem

Tea Time With Sarah Winchester

DISCLAIMER: This entry is a work of fiction based on where I work; it is not an actual paranormal experience I had while working there!

Sometimes, when it's slow at work, the tour guides (like myself) will be sent in the mansion to do some minor cleaning. So it didn't strike me as unusual at all when, after my lunch break one Friday, I was asked "can you go clean some windows?"

When I'm sent to clean windows, I always go the same route I've created for myself that hits the windows I always see most smudged: From the cleaning closet, I pass the aviary, go through the laundry room and pre-1906 kitchen, into the Guest Reception Hall to tidy the parlour windows, up the main staircase, and then through the second and third floors and back down to the cleaning closet. Imagine my surprise when, on my way through with a spray bottle and a rag, I spotted a small and dark figure in the locked-off front parlour through the window...

(The window on the far right of this older photo)