So yesterday I was in London for a day at the end of a business trip, and I went to the Tower of London. The tickets are timed, and I got some fish & chips to eat while I waited for my time to start. A small piece of fish fell on the ground as I was eating, and I left it there. A pigeon came, ate it, seemed to realize it came from me, and stopped & stared at me. Then it flew straight at my food while I jumped and gave a firm, "NO!" like it was a misbehaving dog.
In conclusion, do you offer lessons in punching pigeons? I could've used that skill yesterday. 😂
The gentle art of pigeon violence, Kung Flew if you will, cannot be taught. One either experiences it in the moment or one does not. In the words of the pigeon philosopy of Coo-ddhism, "When you meet a pigeon outside the CSO, punch it."
I subscribe to the newsletter of an author I like who wrote a book about 9/11 and the War on Terror and the security state in the US and how it led to the election of Trump, and it's all very serious but apparently the author is writing an Iron Man comics series. I don't read the comics, and a lot of what I know about them comes from your fic, so I'm honestly not sure how much fanon vs canon knowledge I have. 😂 But the series sounds like it might be interesting I think? The author talked about it in his newsletter today. (This link should work. Probably.)
I am actually really excited about this run!
I try not to get excited about new Iron Man runs because chances are high that my hopes and dreams will be crushed, and I know that just because someone writes, say, stunningly excellent non-fiction, it is not a guarantee that they will be great at writing fiction at all or superhero comics specifically (cf. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Cap), but judging by everything Spencer Ackerman's been saying in interviews, his run sounds like it's going to explore a lot of interesting themes.
The post you linked links to an AIPT podcast that he was on a few days ago to talk about his new Iron Man run. For those of you who don't listen to podcasts (this is also me), the Iron Man subreddit has what seems like a fairly comprehensive summary of the interview, and I am really looking forward to the run. Issue #1 apparently hits stores on October 23.
But I will tell you why I am actually now really excited about this run. It's not relevant to anything about the comic itself. I am nonetheless very excited.
Last month, after he was announced as the new Iron Man writer, in order to hype up his run, he posted an offer on his blog: if you add the run to your pull list, and you email him proof that you're pulling his run and include a snail-mail address, he will mail you some cool Iron Man stickers.
I eventually got around to doing this last week. I was assuming he didn't actually pay attention to any of these emails so I dashed off a couple sentences about how I was looking forward to his take on Tony because he'd posted a photo of the Iron Man comics he was reading for research and several of them were among my favorites. And then I went off to get bagels.
By the time I had come back with bagels, twenty minutes later, he'd written me a very nice reply substantively engaging with the content of my extremely off-the-cuff message -- geez, if I'd known he was going to be actually reading them I would have put a lot more thought into it, you know? It was very kind and I was not expecting it.
He spelled my first name wrong in the reply, despite it being in the email header and also the name I had signed the email with.
This happens to me a lot. I have a first name that is very common in a lot of languages, but none of those languages are English. I'd say there's a 50-50 chance that a native English speaker will spell or pronounce my name wrong. This is unfortunate, because I live in the US and mostly interact with native English speakers. (My wife @lysimache immediately knew how to pronounce my name. I mean, it wasn't why I married her or anything, but I feel like it was a big plus on a personal level.)
If I have to give my name for something, I will reflexively spell it. The second-to-last time I voted, they'd switched voter lookup to you giving them your name rather than you giving your street address, which was a surprise that filled me with dread. My wife was in line ahead of me and she was completely finished voting by the time the poll workers had finished correctly spelling my name. (The last time I voted, I just handed them my ID, which is not required in my state, but I really wanted this to go faster.) I went to the doctor last week, and when they called my name in the waiting room, they said it wrong. I corrected them. They said it differently wrong a couple minutes later. I corrected them again. They said it wrong again. At that point I gave up.
(If I could think of a name I liked better that I was absolutely sure that most people could spell and pronounce, I would change my name. I still have not found one.)
So, you know, I'm used to it. It happens. Frequently. I was not at all surprised that he spelled it wrong.
He then emailed me again to apologize for spelling my name wrong. Like, immediately. One minute later. He said he was sorry and he knew a lot of people with a similar name.
Dude. Nobody does that. Nobody actually apologizes. Especially not in an email to a rando like me. He did not need to do that. At all. I was not expecting him to do that. He did that. I was honestly touched. No one bothers to do that. But he did.
I got my stickers in the mail yesterday.
I have redacted the portion of the note that has my name in it, but he absolutely spelled my name correctly.
Mr. Ackerman, sir, I hope your comic sells a million copies.
I need you to know, even though I recognize people by icons and my head goes, "Alona!" when it sees yours, it also skims usernames to double-check and it's started turning "forceuseralona" into "fursona". I keep going, "Oh, that's nice, she's got another fandom, hope she's enjoying it—Wait." 🤣
NO OH NO 🤣🤣🤣 NOOOOOOOO!!!
Anything but that lmfao! Nothing against furries, they're not hurting anybody, but that is NOT something that interests me in the slightest and never will 😱
I wanted to change my url into something with -alona, and not have it in any way fandom related. I have useralona saved, but honestly that just seemed boring 🤣 but then I have been binging Star Wars films and TV shows throughout the holidays so forceuseralona seemed to be not too fandom-y if that makes any sense 🤣
also, just so you know, I've been feeling sort of out of place on tumblr since I came back after my not-that-long hiatus... but seeing an ask in my inbox from you just made it feel like the good old days and made my day a whole lot better 💖😄
Not sure how familiar you are with the Morning Brew newsletter, but every Saturday they give details about a random real estate listing and have the reader guess the asking price. While I was looking at the pictures this week, I was like, "Someone took the mental images in my head of Dockside when I read the Sandbridge series and built a house." The interior is obviously nicer and not a restaurant but with that fake aging that modern beach houses have. I looked at the exterior pictures and went, "Oh. The builder read the Sandbridge series. How lovely."
That's amazing!! Thanks so much for sharing that; I love knowing that Sandbridge continues to live with other people as much as it still lives with me. 🥰
I saw the World Series ask, and I love baseball history, so I had to chime in. The World Series was best of 9 in 1903, 1919, 1920, and 1921. There were also some series before 1900 that are called "World Series" on Baseball Reference, but I don't think they were officially considered a World Series until 1903.
Oh no way! I didn’t know that. Thanks for the additional information!
celticjade13replied to your post: We’re hit that point of self-isolating where I...
I was planning on a tattoo before all this happened, just waiting until after my brother’s wedding so my mom didn’t flip out at the tattooed sister in the wedding photos. Now I’m ready to go as soon as quarantine lifts and my mom can just deal with the pictures.
I feel like all the salons and tattoo parlours will have a rush as soon as this is over :) I’ve had mine decided for a while I just kept putting it off because scheduling the appointments was a pain, and then the second I set my mind to do it, this happens.
Walked through the Lincoln Square shopping area on the way home from Oktoberfest today and found some socks for you at the Urban General Store.
It's. It's just so beautiful. *wipes away a tear*
[ID: A photograph of a pair of socks in the traditional Excel spreadsheet colors of grey, white, and green; knitted into the ankle is the phrase, "Horny for Spreadsheets."]
It's post office bounty time! Been a while, eh? I'm not sure how many of my readers know this but I have a PO Box for a number of purposes, one of which is that if you want to send me postcards or cards or whatnot, you can!
The layout on these was not my finest, I try to group relevant cards together, but sometimes spacing is an issue. In any case, top image is a lovely pair of socks, a gorgeous Discworldy-style sword and lilacs, a worry stone, and a Maryland Crab lucky coin from @shirokou, along with a super fun Hanukkah card (thanks also for the stamps!); also a fun holiday card from -- I'm so bad at handwriting but I believe @traykor, and I loved the car stickers on the inside!
Next up, starting in the upper left, a lovely photo card that I turned over to the text side of so that I'm not showing anyone's faces :) I do have to apologize too, I thought "tumbalina" was the username and it wasn't; the person who sent it is @algaegirl17 and it took me a month to come back and edit this in. SORRY OH GOD.
Moving on....
Clockwise from left, we have a pretty bird card and fun stickers (I also loved the photo card, and thanks for the giftcard!) from @jadesymb, a new year's card with a lovely "kick ass" sentiment from Inny and Deeks (also I love how you always greet the mail carrier on the envelope!) and a delightfully ghoulish holiday card with more stickers from E in PA (happy to add your username if you drop it).
And finally some more gorgeous holiday cards! Starting with the Hannukatz, top left, from Kris & Josh, and I'm wishing I hadn't covered up the spinning dreidel they're staring at. We got a cute polar bear from @kimmiesue13 -- thank you for including the cryptids in my mailing address, that made me laugh -- and a lovely wreath with some fun Avengers decor inside from W. in CA. Beautiful horses in the snow from @celticjade13 -- thank you for the Hanukkah wishes, Hanukkah cards are hard to find, I should know -- a gorgeous maritime scene from @elopingllama and I promise there will be more Teens On Boats eventually. Lastly, a funny card from Daniel the Tarot Guy, featuring birds looking at a sign that reads "Keep off the Grass" -- I'm sorry for your loss, bud -- and in the center a beautiful folk-art style card from C overseas -- on the flip side of the front of the card, they have outlines so you can cut out the little critters and use them as ornaments, and I just might :)
Thank you all as always for sending me mail to brighten my day even when I am profoundly late in both picking up the mail and sharing it with everyone :)
And for those who wish, the address for my PO Box is:
Copperbadge
PO Box A3309
Chicago, IL 60609
USA
(it's important that it says Copperbadge, not Sam Starbuck, since Copperbadge is what the box is registered under.)
