About Draconym

I love absolutely everything about this. I want to make trading cards for everyone in my neighborhood. I want to receive these instead of business cards. I want to build a deck around my local electrician and mail carrier and ice cream truck driver.

Being a ranger I spend a lot of time alone in the wilderness for hours in the company of one of four co workers.

One such worker for the purpose of this post we shall refer to as Dave.

Dave is a very quiet man. He confesses that if conversation happens too quickly and for too long he gets tired so we often work in silence. He's very polite and good natured but it's obvious that he would happily live and work alone for the rest of his life given the option.

He's very much in the previous generation of ranger, a practical man in his fourties or fifties happy to be kept physically busy for a day and then be sent home with some pay. I had to show him how to use a work issued smart phone.

Meanwhile the rest of the team is made up of the current generation of rangers; openly nurodivergent queer women in their twenties or thirties who work this job because it's the only setting where we can vaguely look sane.

So Dave sticks out a bit. It's really nice when he opens up though because he's an impulsive individual when left to his own devices and has plenty of stories to tell if the mood takes him. I really like working with Dave.

Anyway, one day we've got a job that takes a three hour hike to get to and early on the topic of deer comes up.

I hadn't realised this was the first time we had discussed deer, but blatantly it was. Dave's entire demeanour changes, there's a bit of passion in his voice, but it's also hushed as if he's talking about something sacred.

"Deer are my favourite animal." He says.

I'm also eager to hear Dave talk about himself, so I encourage him to say more.

"I'd love to be a deer myself."

And more

"If a genie offered me the opportunity to become a deer I'd take it. I wouldn't even stop to ask what the price was."

And more

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a deer having a dream about being a human.*

And there I am, a long time commuter to the therian/otherkin community keeping up the encouraging face of someone being politely interested, knowing that this man is straight up a therian with no frame of reference.

And I decided that I wouldn't push the subject outside of the bounds of what Dave is comfortable with, I wouldn't try to teach him the terms "Therian" or "Otherkin" but absolutely I would talk with this man as if he's a deer.

And it's a bit magical really. He's an impulsive individual so I have to talk him out of some risky choices every so often and "this is why deer like you keep getting stuck in fences" has become this magical phrase that allows him to step down from a mistake with a bit of a smile on his face.

I just had the weirdest experience:

I don't know how to process this.

You know, just the other day, the most Tumblr-ass looking person came to my museum and sat very politely through roughly 3/4 of my hour and a half long tour...

This is why I wear cowboy boots. It's to keep everyone from asking about my shoelaces.

Really fascinating to me how getting catastrophically sick can suddenly flip a bunch of random switches in the brain and change things about a person. I love whey protein now.

Thinking about this again and how it affected so many aspects of my life. Getting sick flipped internal switches that I didn't even know existed in me. Speaking of, does anyone want to come over and hot glue googly eyes to my skin.

I just had the weirdest experience:

I don't know how to process this.

oh and I got a nice lil blue basket for the stim toy pile because it was starting to get a little out of control

Love the idea of gathering them all in a pile and putting them out for guests.

Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.

congratulations to Stephanie (prev. Elijah) on her transition

Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.

I am among the first people to arrive which means I get to play a fun process of elimination game. It is not the family's youngest child so I think that leaves two more. Unless Stephanie is an aunt or a niece or something.

Have learned that Stephanie is the eldest child. Which is very convenient for me because she is the one family member whose name I could not remember anyway.

Shout out to Stephanie's friend who read this post and called me out on it during the seder.

Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.

I am among the first people to arrive which means I get to play a fun process of elimination game. It is not the family's youngest child so I think that leaves two more. Unless Stephanie is an aunt or a niece or something.

Have learned that Stephanie is the eldest child. Which is very convenient for me because she is the one family member whose name I could not remember anyway.

Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.

I am among the first people to arrive which means I get to play a fun process of elimination game. It is not the family's youngest child so I think that leaves two more. Unless Stephanie is an aunt or a niece or something.

Have learned that Stephanie is the eldest child. Which is very convenient for me because she is the one family member whose name I could not remember anyway.

Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.

I am among the first people to arrive which means I get to play a fun process of elimination game. It is not the family's youngest child so I think that leaves two more. Unless Stephanie is an aunt or a niece or something.

Yesterday my doctor asked "how many Trump signs are on your street" as a metric to measure how stressful an environment I live in (the answer is 0 Trump signs because most of my neighbors are Democrats or leftists, but there is one Gadsden flag).

Is Baltimore any good? My friends are yelling at me for wanting to move there from the deep south

I love Baltimore and I love living here. I love the people and the weird theater and arts scene and how it's relatively comfortable to be queer here (at least compared to other places I've been).

We do have problems with political corruption and racial inequality and poverty and shitty infrastructure and spotty public transit, among other things. But housing is on the affordable side (for the east coast) and it has kind of a small town feel for being a big city ("smalltimore"). We have a good amount of nature and parks and museums within and nearby the city. John Waters is our favorite local celebrity. We have a love/hate relationship with our giant rats. We have four Trash Wheels. We're the birthplace of the ouija board. I think we're doing okay.

Want to throw a quick note out there, as someone who also lives in Baltimore. It is great, don't get me wrong. One of my favorite places I've ever lived in. Has it's problems but so does everywhere...

If you're thinking of moving to the Baltimore area, or the Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia area, make sure you have a good solid plan before you move. A lot of businesses/organizations have had their budgets slashed bc they used to get federal funding, and they don't anymore. I know a lot of people nervous about their jobs, switched yo something more stable, or have just lost them.

Also if you have kids, double check the school district. A friend of mine moved up here from the south, and at the school her kids go to there's not a single certified teacher working there.