JnBvtWoI I:I

See my previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  Meanwhile, a wee bit of this bullshit…

Josefina and Blasfemia vs. the Wall of Ice by Bébé Mélange

Blasfemia withdrew one knife from the pontiff’s chest, but left the other in his heart, a hand still on the grip.  The spasms of dying muscle sent a jolt of dark pleasure through her hand, the scarlet ribbons coursing down his chest thrilled her eyes.  His head rolled dramatically, with an air of finality stealing the gaze from her handiwork.  “No no no,” she said, “Stay with me, papi.  You need to feel this.”  She dropped the loose knife and slapped his cheek with her free hand, little smacks.  “Come onnn.  Know why this is happening.  Don’t forget her!”  The pontiff died abruptly, and his dead weight dragged itself free of Blasfemia’s blade, collapsing on the floor.  “Josefina!,” she yelled, and stabbed him again – perpendicular to the fatal wound, marking his corpse with an X.  She crouched over his body like an ardent lover.

The witnesses – the band of assassins – all bore different burdens within their hearts.  Zochino had spent his entire young adulthood in study of political philosophy and its history, and became as obsessed as the dreamers of old with the idea that a more perfect system must someday be born.  Cristina had come to see all the sanctimony of her pious homeworld as bars in a cage, had grown to see all priests and police as icons of her oppression – just so many targets.  Jorge was a scholar of the spirit world, who saw how The Church’s angels press-ganged innocent entities into their host, twisting embodiments of nature into foot soldiers of celestial fascism.  He felt their pain and sought their liberation.

Xihuani had only wanted the people of her world to live their own culture free from the foreign influence of The Church, but it all seemed so remote, as she stood drenched in cold sweat on an alien world.  They all beheld a savage murder, the culmination of a hatred divorced from all sense and ideal.  Xihuani, at least, could not feel her ideals anymore, not in the slightest.  They would return to her later in some quiet moment, if she survived the consequences of their terrorism.

None of the assassins had been truly prepared to see Blasfemia’s passion consummated like this, and it broke the energy of their movement.  Zochino had already been feeling the absurdity of their quest as they stole into the Tiemplo Santo Pietri.  Who wanted to kill the pontiff?  Who wanted The Church gone?  Just a few isolated radicals.  The main run of the people truly loved and trusted the institution.  Without popular support, any revolution was doomed to fail.  They were bringing the wrath of several worlds down upon themselves for no lasting benefit, just for a single moment to satiate their bloodlust, to feel like they could do something important.

He was the first to speak, an attempt to dispel the haze of war, to restore sense to his comrades.  “Blasfemia!  Put those things away!  We need to get the fuck out of here.”  Nominally the leader, he might have ordered Cristina to restrain her, but Blasfemia’s knives were the claws of a bear enraged.  They would kill anyone in the hot moment.

Blasfemia paid no heed, rocking on the knives, barely resisting the drive the keep savaging the corpse.  Cristina rapped the ground with the butt of her rifle, just out of reach, and whistled sharply.  “Crazy bitch.  Move it!”

A strange murmuring sound rose in the world around them.  Had it begun when the first knife entered the old priest’s heart, and only then grown loud enough to overcome the blood pounding in their ears?

“what is that,” Xihuani muttered, terror stealing her breath.

“The angels.  They’re crying,” said Jorge.

“Bullshit,” said Cristina.  “They’re animals, like a bunch of flying fish.  They didn’t notice shit.”  She still readied her weapon.

Jorge shook his head.  “He was bound to the celestial hierarchy.  You know the Church wasn’t lying about that, right?  We took a linchpin out of a bridge.”

Zochino readied his rifle.  He hoped he would not have to kill them.  They had passed hundreds of them in the cathedral halls, clustered in slumber at the rafters, or lolling around the floors in mindless play.  They were alien things, but they did rather convincingly resemble winged human infants.  “Ximura,” he used Blasfemia’s birth name, “come with us.”  He hustled to the door, deftly skipping through the bodies of papal guards, and paused at the threshold.

Blasfemia cocked her head at the words.  Who was Ximura?  Two people ever used that name, two voices in her memory.  One whose memory made her spit.  One whose name had just been in her mouth, spoken in hatred.  Why would she ever say Josie’s name like that?  Sweat beaded around her dark eyes, and she finally freed herself from the corpse’s embrace, staggering.  “Josie?”

She looked at the blood-soaked knives in her hands, and they responded to her will, the blades shifting shapes, twirling to shake off the red, and dulling to soft curves.  They were never meant to be weapons – just adjustable farming tools.  She hadn’t engaged in agriculture for a hectic little eon.

Seeing the blades go dull, Xihuani picked up the courage to get close.  She even put a hand on the brute’s shoulder.  “Ximura, Josie isn’t here.  You just killed the pope.  We all need to hide, just hide away forever.  Right now, honey.”

Blasfemia flicked away sweat with long curling eyelashes, and her coal-black eyes burned again.  “Hey.  Hey I did what we wanted to do.  Where are you going?”  She called over Xihuani’s shoulder to Zochino, not shy about shouting.

Zochino grimaced in frustration.  “We need to go!”

“Where’s Josefina?,” she asked.

Xihuani said, “You know this.  She went to her abuela at the north pole.  Why are you asking?  Please… Snap out of it.”

Blasfemia sheathed her tools and went to Zochino.  “We’re going home, to Corazon.  How?”

“We’ll be lucky to get out of this building alive.  Are you ready to try?”

“We can do whatever we want, man.”

He shook off his annoyance, but was glad the squad was ready to move again.  “Maybe the mewling putti will distract the guards.  Pull up that habit.  We’ll cross the plaza to the stabling, steal a ride to the astropuerto–”

“It’s no good,” Jorge said.  “The Church’s astronaves are part of the Hierarchy too.  They won’t fly for us.”

Cristina scoffed.  “They’re less than animals.  They don’t know shit.  We could ride them up God’s asshole and blow the Universe to Hell.”

“Could that be true?,” Xihuani asked, obviously ignoring Cristina’s take.

Zochino’s sweat felt like ice water.  “Did you know that was possible before we came here, comrade?”

“I didn’t imagine.  I knew it would have an effect.  Maybe I hoped they’d all just lose their wings.”

Cristina grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.  “We kinda need wings to fly the fuck out of here, Jorge.”

Zochino waved a hand to hush them, and in that moment the squalling of unnatural babies sounded like an industrial farm full of goats.  “Animals fly around with fleas all the time.  Cristina’s right enough.  Everybody on me.”

Blasfemia felt the coagulating blood glue the sleeves to her arms, and rubbed them idly, disgusted, annoyed.  But she followed the squad, not knowing what else to do with herself in the moment.  They’d go home, she’d go north, and she’d find out where Josefina had gone to hide.  It was the only thing that made sense, with her rage finally spent.

They were a little flock of priests and nuns again, walking briskly in the temple halls, heads bowed, rifle-shaped parcels under their sleeves.  But one nun’s habit lay askew at her shoulders, curly hair hung heavy, sweat making serpents of it – a frame for a bestial face.  They marched past clots of putti, the winged babes thrashing on the tiles with eyes squeezed shut and mouths agape in tantrum.

A golden door opened at the end of the hall ahead, and priests rushed out, to make sense of the chaos.  On seeing their fellows of the cloth, they waved for their company.  Zochino let Jorge out in front – his seminary studies gave him the vocabulary to talk with these clerics.  He met their approach with palms down, eyes trying to meet theirs – draw attention away from the squad’s numerous suspicious details.

“Brothers, what has come to pass?”

The most senior of their number pushed up his glasses.  He was also taller than anyone present, with an eagle’s nose.  “This happened when Pope Sincerus VI died.  Be still.”

His head jerked back, charred brain sputtering into the air, and as his friends came to grasp the situation, they were already being gunned down with laser bolts.  It was Cristina who had pulled the first trigger.

Zochino glanced down a hall in alarm.  “That way.  We gotta kill ’em all fast!  Go!”  They could leave no witnesses, if they wanted to reach the astropuerto in peace.  A general alarm would be the end of that.  The vision was taking shape in the young man’s mind.  Chase down one group of witnesses to slaughter them, behind them two groups, behind them a hundred, behind them the world bearing witness.  They had only gotten as far as they had because nobody in a thousand years imagined anyone would be foolish enough to strike at the pontiff.  The scheme had been foolish, and it was unraveling.

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Flex? Dennis K? Writing Freaks?

TURBO Writing Weekend is upon us!  I said I’d write 50k in four days (17th-20th), starting at midnight PST in a few hours (UTC -0800), with my husband doing the same.  Flex said he’d write 25k in two days (18th-19th, time zone unknown), and Dennis K said he might show for an undefined lesser goal.  Anybody else want into this monstrous event?  My dude has cultivated a fancy google sheet you can use to track your progress!  As a shared sheet there may be some oddities to it, like, it’s gonna have four days on it whether you wanted to write in four days or not.  But you can set your word count goal, and it’ll show you how far you are through that – plus how we are all collectively doing on the Group Stats page.

Anybody who wants in, say so below, and I will invite you to the doc by sending you an email.  Don’t post your email publicly; I can see that as admin of my blog.  This should keep out vandals.  Holler at your dogg.  Creating your own tracking page is done by duplicating the TEMPLATE – Word Tracker and renaming it with your handle; adding you to the group stats may take some work by my husband, but he’s willing.

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Hope: How?

As I mentioned previously, I’m going to be doing a speed writing event on the weekend that ends with MLK Jr Day, and I invite ye all to come along.  I’m going to write about 12,500 words a day from tomorrow, Friday Jan 17th, through Monday Jan 20th.  You can set more modest goals and only participate a few of those days if you please.  Fiction or non-fiction is fine.  Post in the comments or elsewhere with links in the comments, or be shy / inviso and just mention your word count when you get to resting points.  I’ll read yours if you read mine; critique can be as baby-gloved as you please.  Holler in the comments if you want to join.

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In the wake of the miserable election, I tried to do one post a day for more than a week, encouraging people to carry on, even tho we all know this is about to be horrible.  I stand by that.  I believe we can survive and I want to see all of you do your best – to not let the sorrow of what’s happened, the pain of what’s happening, and the fear of what’s going to happen cause you to give up.

This coming Monday is the inauguration of the Nazi Clown Administration – one of those symbolic moments that throw all the bad shit into focus, lure the mind to catastrophize.  Be careful with yourself.  For my part, I intend to be living in a dreamworld of magic, and you can see my self-indulgent nonsense if it works out.

I doubt it’ll be a quality distraction for most of you, though.  You gotta go with something that engages you personally.  With self-indulgent writing, I’m mostly engaging myself, and the number of people who can be suitably diverted by my jackanapery is likely few.  You like video games?  A lot of gamers buy or otherwise acquire far more video games than they could ever play.  If there’s one you’ve been meaning to get to, the novelty of coming in fresh on January 20th might help engage your mind in something good.

Likewise, if there’s a TV show you’ve been meaning to binge, good time for it.  Or a book series.  Of if you have the kind of lifestyle where an all-day orgy is a thing to do, might be a good time for that.  Drugs, in moderation?  Try to avoid ads in any media you expose yourself to; they will likely include a face you don’t want to see.

If you have any other suggestions, leave comments.  Could be useful.  Like, some odd reader can’t imagine anything working for him until the last commenter suggests model trains.  Give it a whirl.

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HAHA!  I forgot the premise of my post.  Hope.  How?  Why did I think that would be a good idea for a post?  It just seemed like a necessary thing in that moment.

Well.  For starters, I made a special tag for posts relevant to this shituation, at this point mostly the initial ones following the election.  There may be some strand of hope for you in one of those posts somewhere.  And as I mentioned above, whatever it is, it’s got to be something that works for you.  We’re all so individual.  I can hardly tell you what will work best.

For me, the most compelling thing is that I have control over my own actions, and can choose how to conduct myself in life.  If everybody in the world was a crappy nazi and having compassion made one into a reviled outsider, I know I could be that bitch.  Feels good, knowing you can do good, in whatever small ways are in front of you.

So like before, where I shoveled that responsibility onto you, of coming up with Jan 20 distraction ideas, this is where I ask:  Is there anything that gives you some hope for yourself, or the people in your life?  Or are you one of those philosopher weirdos who feels more secure living with an alternate consolation, without relying on hope itself?  I sometimes lean that direction myself.

Anything may be useful.  Let’s remind ourselves what we’re living for, where relevant, and care for ourselves and others in whatever ways will make that life possible.

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Life List: Raven

Black-feathered harbingers of doom all look the same.  If you can tell crows from ravens at a distance, you’re sharper than I’ll ever be.  The only ways I can tell are by habits and vocalizations, and mostly the latter.

The first place I strongly suspect that I saw a raven, not a crow, was in Seattle, at a flophouse some penny-ante drug lord had briefly tricked my family into renting, surrounded by seven foot tall, no doubt tick infested grass.  Me and my siblings were feral monkeys entertained by nonsense, pushing our feet at each other’s faces and saying “stinkyfoot, stinkyfoot,” out on the porch.  Suddenly a sing-song voice from the top of a very tall utility pole sang it back to us.  Quoth the raven, “stinkyfoot stinkyfoot heeheeheehee.”  It must have said it at least twice, because I recall looking straight at the bird – it must have gotten our attention.

It’s possible that was a crow.  They can mimic; they’re much more common in the city.  But they are usually not that good at mimicry.

Not that ravens are spot on either.  I might have saved ravenposting for another day, but for the first time I’ve been able to definitively ID one in Federal Way, in the parking lot of the WinCo, just last Friday.  It was the voice.  Ravens have a big, echoing, throaty voice.  What was the call?  I don’t know if it was part of the usual raven repertoire, but to me it sounded very much like the world’s worst impression of a crow.

I still wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t the world’s most raveny sounding crow, until I saw it flying away – mobbed by crows!  There were even more chasing this raven than I’d usually see chasing birds of prey, and it was only a little bit larger than they were.  I may not be able to tell ravens from crows, but the birds themselves have no trouble with that at all.

(off topic, the same day I may have glimpsed a slightly leucistic crow, grey instead of black, but it was hard to be 100% sure in driveby.)

I only saw definitely ID’d ravens as an adult for the first time this last October, on my honeymoon to the Olympic Peninsula, which is why their voices were still fresh in my mind.  They have a pretty crowish lifestyle to go with their crowish looks.  They have smaller groups, are more likely to fly solo, are larger (barely), and have a much wider variety of vocalizations.

Crows elsewhere in the world might be much smaller than ravens in those places, more easy to tell apart.  I speak from Pacific Northwest USA experience.  Both species have a lot of individual variation, and I have no doubt that here the very largest crow may be larger than the very smallest raven.  But when you see the mobbing, it’s clear enough who’s who.  It’s also an opportunity to see how ravens are just that little bit better at soaring flight, with fewer wing strokes.

They avoid cities and suburbs where crows dominate, because crows treat them very badly.  I wonder that ravens might prefer higher altitudes, because I saw them the most as I was close to mountains, but probably not.  I know they can be found in a lot of different biomes, from US Southwestern desert to the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan.  Ravens get around.  Like ospreys, barn owls, barn swallows, and peregrine falcons, this is a “cosmopolitan” bird, found across much of the world.

Back when Karl of Linne was still giving pretentious Latin names to everybody, they’d be considered the same species over the whole range.  But these days, genetic work is helping tease out subspecies and “cryptic” species, nested within larger populations, and I don’t know where ravens stand in that regard at the moment.  Humans only spread around the world about 1200 generations ago?  Something like that.  In a similar space of time, ravens have had 10,000 generations, so likely to have speciated more than we have, one would imagine.

On the honeymoon we stayed at a cabin-esque thing by a lake in the woods.  In the evening, the ravens would make a call like the world’s biggest bullfrog.  Not super far off from the call of a great blue heron, as I think about it.  But at least one time we witnessed the bird making the noise, so I’m pretty sure on that one.  Their day time call is a little less booming but still froggy, and they do all sorts of weird variants and mimicry as well.  I’m glad they’re still able to make some kind of room for themselves in a crow’s world.  Nice to see somebody other than the usual corvids on occasion.

What kinda raven stories do you have?

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By This Time Next Week

By this time next week, I will have finished a novel I haven’t even started yet.  Yes, fifty thousand words is the lower end of what people consider a novel, with some still regarding it as a novella.  And yes, I may fail.  But what if I don’t?  Wouldn’t that be somethin’?

If I haven’t succeeded by midnight at the end of the 20th, but I did get pretty close, I might continue to work on it for a while, and you’ll have to keep ignoring those posts if it’s all clicks and whistles to ya.  But I really don’t want to.  I intend to put my entire ass into it, as they say.

The story is called Josefina and Blasfemia vs. The Wall of Ice, coming soon to a blog near you.  El Muro de Hielo is not a reference to melting ice sheets; it’s, like, metaphorical ‘n’ shit.  I’m a real arteeste.  This is the sequel to a book that has never been written.  I just felt like starting in media res, in the parlance of our times.  It picks up where the previous adventure leaves off – a pretty thrilling moment.  If you don’t find it thrilling, well, all sorts of chicanery follows, and maybe something in those various events will work better for you.

I have a dawning awareness that since I’ve advocated for generative AI, some people will doubt that my work is my own.  I’ve posted an example of using discussion with AI at the genesis of a story (not one I intend to finish with AI or to publish, if I ever finish it at all), which for some people would be grounds enough to dismiss the entire endeavor as cheating and stealing and burning the world to ashes for cheap thrillz.

Not that it matters, but this novel has had no involvement of AI, save the generation of the title placard and some mock-up book covers.  If anyone wants to doubt and hate, I’m not going to convince them.  But it would be pretty silly of me to try to pull a flex like this while just cheating.  The effort is the point.  Plus this is from the heart, yo.  As much as I have a half-assed american dream of some guy in a suit noticing me from across the room and sayin “How’d you like to make a bank full of money, kid?,” I am not aiming this at the big five publishers.

This book is not going to have commercial appeal, is what I’m saying.  Too radical and self-indulgent.  Enjoy the nonsense, for whatever is in it that may be enjoyable.  And join me, with nonsense of your own.  I’d love to see it.

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Monday Before TurboWriting

ARE YOU PREPARED, MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY, FOR THIIIIS?

For most of you the THIIIIS in question will be ignoring my blog for four days of bullshit.  But still.  Writing event, weekend that culminates with MLK Day, January twentieth.  As I have Fridays off, I’m going to try to write 12,500 words a day for 4 days straight, and finish a novel in a long weekend, basically.  Anybody who wants to try to keep up with that, or just invest a few days of that time in a more modest goal, you are welcome to join.

I’ve done this kind of thing before, but not publicly, and never hit my 50k goal in that short period of time.  My hope is that doing it in public (snicker snicker) will cause me more shame if I’m not sticking with it, doing my best, and motivate me to get it did.  So this is the countdown, the 5,370 minute warning.  Y’all been warned.

If you participate, what will your goals be and how will you achieve them?  Poetry?  Prose?  Essays?  Non-fiction?  Journaling?  Screenplay?  Five words or a hundred thousand?  Gonna live off microwave food?  Get a loved one to do all your chores for you?  Eat caffeine and dookie lightning?

For my part, gonna try to get more detail into my outline.  Been having a hard time focusing on it.  Life’s a little raw, but we abide.  Today is a work day for me; this post was written last Friday and queued.  So as you’re reading this, I’m probably working my ass off, beating up my brains and my heart, for the betterment of humanity and not enough money to pay the mortgage.  U kno, I keep doing crap like this, and maybe I get the gold star sticker from crapitalism, the book deal, and I’m on easy street 4eva.  Yeeaah.

During the event I actually have two goals: to get at least 50k, and to finish the story.  I may succeed at neither, either, or both.  Finishing the story may mean going over 50k words, and apologies to anyone who intends to read it but doesn’t have that kind of time.  If it takes you a while to wade through and you comment a month from now, I’ll still appreciate it.  If you don’t read first drafts on principle, that’s probably wise, and I’m not offended.

Alright, my fellow auteurs, eat your granolas and push up your sleeves.  It’s coming…

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Gotta Go Fast

As mentioned before, I’m going to be doing a speed writing event on the weekend that ends with MLK Jr Day, and I invite you to come along.  I’m going to write about 12,500 words a day from Friday Jan 17th through Monday Jan 20th.  You can set more modest goals and only participate a few of those days if you please.  Fiction or non-fiction is fine.  Post in the comments or elsewhere with links in the comments, or be shy / inviso and just mention your word count when you get to resting points.  I’ll read yours if you read mine; critique can be as baby-gloved as you please.  Holler in the comments if you want to join…

And so,

I must go fast, like autistic icon Sonique the Hedged Hogge.  12,500 words per day sounds like a lot, but if you’re well prepared, and you make an effort to write during every opportunity throughout the day, it is actually very doable.  Most professional writers don’t bother going hogge berserque like that, but I have heard one say you should try to write your first draft in one uninterrupted go, to get it out as one cohesive idea.  Don’t recall his exact phrasing, but I have a strong feeling on the subject myself.

You gotta break it up.  If you don’t have the resilience of youth, this is likely to hurt your hands.  Write in big chunks with enough time between sessions for your hands to recover.  I don’t really know why, but writing before you go to sleep and right when you wake up for days in a row can lead to better word counts than just doing X amount of sessions in the latter half of the day, even when you stay up late.  Maybe it’s the hand thing.

But more important, you need to have all questions answered.  This is almost impossible to nail, I think, because how can you predict every piece of knowledge or decision you’ll have to make in the entire book without practically pre-writing it?  But consider it aspirational; the more you do, the less you’ll be slowed down.

By questions I am talking about things like research.  As a first draft, you can (placeholder) info you want to look up later, but compulsion can drive you to distraction and make you cave, make you lose your focus and end up in a wiki-binge.  I also mean stuff like a map, for stories where place names and spatial relations are important.  Character names, major and minor.  Affectations you want to use in dialogue (X guy has southern accent, everybody talks faux-medieval, etc.), stylistic intentions.  And, of course, what happens?

That’s the plot outline.  In a speed writing event where your aim is to actually complete the story (which I rarely achieve), you can’t go in without knowing how the story ends.  I know; it can feel like spoiling yourself, make the writing feel lifeless or inevitable.  Think of it this way: you can still change it.  If lightning strikes and you come up with a different idea as you get close, just jump the rails and do that shit.  If that doesn’t happen, at least you got enough direction to charge toward the conclusion without stopping to ponder.

Again, if anybody wants to join, holler.  And whether you do or not, suggestions for speed are appreciated.

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New Blog Name

For a few years now I’ve been thinking “Great American Satan” is a relic of a time when I was more islamophobic, perhaps best to retire it.  The shitty theofascist ayatollah of Iran had famously referred to the USA as “the great satan,” which was referenced in Hot Shots: Part Deux when some Iraqi soldiers said “freeze, american satans!” to the heroes.  Classic american style, mixing up the identities of two countries that hate each other.  Given how much blood we have on our hands with regards to Iran (et al), great satan was apt, and not something I’m up for joking on anymore.  Read Persepolis for a short primer on that history and nice personal story besides.

But I didn’t want to break my URL for anybody off site that has linked to me, so freethoughtblogs dot com slash gas remains.  Only now it’s a reference to “Life’s a Gas,” by T-Rex (the late lovely Marc Bolan).  While I was at it, I put my pen name on the byline, because I’m going to use it for self-publishing books sometime in the not-too-distant future.  May as well get people used to seeing it.

I’m later in the alphabet on the sidebar now.  The shame!  It’ll do.

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Dreamposting – Fish for Dinner

Didn’t get enough sleep and passed out pretty hard around noon, close to an hour.  Woke from an intense dream.  Lot of weird stuff going on, but I was trying to do a followup work call in the living room when these two freaks came barging in the front door with no permission – a vampire master and his wacky minion.  Very kramerish intro.  They presumed they’d be welcome because they brought a lot of pizza.  I actually did recognize them from somewhere and presume a prior acquaintance, but have lost that info since waking.

My husband asked me to guess what we had in the oven.  I didn’t know, and he made me look.  It was a living fish, with enough water to swim in.  My husband is vegetarian with a pescatarian allowance, based on the principle he could bring himself to kill a fish, but not any other animal people use for meat.  I wanted to ask him if this was, for him, a test of that principle, but could barely speak for some reason.

Still, he understood me, said yes, and asked me how you cut off their heads.  I said you cut through the gill area starting at the bottom, and as I explained, realized I was already doing that to a fish in the living room.  Oops, he meant to kill it himself!  He was in the kitchen and I tried to ask from around the corner, is the fish still in the oven?

But I could still barely speak.  I realized my eyes were closed and tried to ask if I was imagining the fish in front of me, but in doing so, I woke up for real, crazy winter sunlight streaming in my front window.  Woof.  Hey what about the pizza?

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Life List: Killdeer

Shorebirds, or charadriiformes, are birds that like shores.  The end.  Wait, no, they may have evolved in and prefer shores, but some get farther afield.  Seagulls are the most familiar, but little brown sandpipery things are also familiar to most of us.  Hard to identify and incredibly diverse at that.  Seagulls stray pretty far from shore, crisscrossing the continent to eat garbage.  Also found inland are killdeers.

Killdeers are more of those little brown sandpipery things.  They have bold black and white horizontal striping on their head and neck, but it doesn’t look at all bold from fifteen feet away.  Instead it serves to break up their shape, make them very hard to see.  Effective camouflage, which is why you see it on everything from badgers to nuthatches.  They have a big blood red eye, but still, nice looking little birds.

They sing “killdeer, killdeer, killdeer,” and I feel like I’ve only ever heard them do that song when in flight?  They live in scrubby fields, nesting in tall grass.  Unfortunately, fields get mowed, so they probably face a lot of tragedies.  Sometimes they’ll live in a parking lot, where grass grows in the cracks at the edges, and again, if a new tenant decides to make something proper of the location, bye-bye killdeers.

I used to see them in the abandoned lot across the street from the Federal Way Transit Center, but that field was converted into a well manicured park, and I haven’t seen them there since.  I saw one on a little trail by the WinCo in Federal Way, and I’ve seen them near a shore up by the Canadian border, on a bird watching trip.  I’ve heard them before dawn or after dusk near my old workplace in Auburn and even in my apartment complex in Federal Way.  Would not be surprised to hear them by my condo, tho I haven’t yet.

For all that, they’re still not a very common sighting for me – now.  I used to see huge flocks of them, a long time ago, when I had no idea what they were.  Auburn is a town cut in half by a big wide train yard.  Just a few over- and under- passes get you past those tracks.  They’re hopping these days, but when I was young, back in the 1990s, they were less busy, less well maintained.  The yard had little activity and little security.  When walking home from a friend’s house at three in the morning, or from watching a movie at the mall, I would sometimes walk along A Street by that train yard, or walk across it.  And there were so many killdeers there.

I can ID them years after the fact because I remembered their call.  They’d run around on the ground or take flight in fear of me, or stray breezes, or just for fun.  I didn’t understand what they were doing; still don’t.  Before I saw them running, I’d even thought are those bats?  Is the killdeer call echolocation?  I could only see them in the distance, drab and flappy.  I didn’t know much of anything back then.

Anyway, next time you’re in an abandoned parking lot or crappy gravel pit or funky field, anywhere USA, if you see a lil brown shorebird flap and killdeer away, pay your respects.

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