Queen takes Jack.

[earlofgrey]

I dreamed, the other night, of a boy who wasn't quite you. He was terribly pretty, of course. His hair was darker than yours, but he pulled it back the same way that you do, or did. He was a different sort of pale, and what he wore was dark. We walked in a wood like one near my mother's house, although it was greener, and the light was clearer and stronger through the leaves. The houses and the fences were gone, but the feel of people was near. He was a crow when I met him. We talked. And he killed a girl, a little pretty and blonde thing. I was horrified. But you're a crow. He admonished me for admiring too much to see what he was beyond the name. I woke believing that if he'd done it, there must have been a reason. He must have been right. When I woke enough I knew that to be wrong. He was a bad one to have visited me while I dreamed. But I like him. Things are waking up in me. And in the waking world, I won't be killing some of the things that I'd been paid to kill any more. The company has deemed it inhumane. I'm ambivalent. It was not a good death. But we felt pride in the way we tried to keep them comfortable, in the way we tried to do it fast, and do it right. And perhaps we took too much pride in it. There is a part of me that half enjoyed it, a part I don't like to admit. But people only worry about the cruelty because they can see it. How does the rest of it die, before it gets to us? Do they dry and choke? Are they bludgeoned? Who watches, and who cares? If there are any left at all, I'll buy one today, and kill it one last time, and I'll eat it myself. Eating a thing, if done properly, is like thanking it. It is taking it in and dealing with it. It is a sign of respect. And then I'll be done with it. That was the dream.

I waited on the most charming and pretty deaf girl yesterday. She signed at me as if I'd understand, and I talked at her as if she'd understand, and we mostly made sense of one another. She smiled so much under her flapper hat when we did. I helped her all over the store rather than mopping the floor. I don't remember much sign at all, but I think she may have said something quite nice. If she returns, I'll slip her my email, a thing I've never actually done before.

I have crushes on everyone again! This has not been true for some time, and I am enjoying it so very much. (A great many of you are so completely charming.)