Clare

If your friends lives in Tanzania 6 months of the year you gotta go to Tanzania. Right.

Me, simultaneously: I gotta get off my ass and get to Tanzania already. When would I do that? Maybe 2027??

Do I think it will be fun? I mean yes, but how many times do I leave the country each year a thousand? It must be CLOSE to a thousand

Me, constantly organizing more international travel: why am I doing this

They're beautiful and durable little things, all block colors like a Mondrian painting, and they live in these massive complex colonies with copious hierarchy and roles and tasks. And they spend lots of time lounging in the sun looking insane :)

I really want to come back to this and alert people to bee-eaters. I wasn't being flip. They are a broad ranging and diverse -- not TOO diverse, only 31 of them worldwide -- family of birds with some of the most interesting and complex social structures of any bird en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eat...

Sorry I gave you such a harrowing topic (??)

Well done these are all really lovely sounding gifts and now I know more about you as a person. Purpose achieved (and no one is sad because you said you think their gift was mid)

I mean. Legit. Cannot be argued with

I'M SORRY I CAN GIVE YOU A DIFFERENT PROMPT too late BUT I COULD

WHY

top 5 gifts you have been given in your life

(temptation to ask you top 5 something you have never once noticed: high. top 5 cars. no no no)

I did try to choose places that would be interesting to you -- although I think these really are in the top; I might have forgotten someplace -- and honestly I think while I like a city I do pay more attention to physical environment stuff.

You would think from this list I have never been in a city

What do you do with it if you can't tell time off it or I am missing something or a joke

It is! And the myths are some of them pretty fucked up but that's what they are about, so fair's fair

5. Niue. I guess the whole island -- endemic butterflies in [redacted], the coral rock formations, scuba diving in warm water crammed with life -- but especially a clear night. The density of stars was like a bag of salt poured on blue marble. I have never wanted to sail across an ocean until then.

4. Wieliczka Salt Mine near Kraków, Poland. Yes the story is true I did surreptitiously lick the wall (it tasted like salt) but in fact the cultural history of the place was overwhelmingly cool. Not only a legendary historical site but a layered record of modern industry and societal development.

3. The Amazon river and jungle, Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos was overall amazing and I would go back in a moment. Inviting, lush, great food -- they're the place with the dish named after John the Baptist's decapitated head -- and the river so unfathomably wide. The non-city side was like another world.

2. The Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina. We went as children and went canoeing and camping. The first time I saw a snake swimming -- a cottonmouth cruising along the surface past the canoe like the water was solid ground. A living place but blanketed in fog, humidity, and a sense of heaviness.

That's a good one! Hm.
1. The Yellow Sea via a semi-converted-container-ship nighttime ferry from Qingdao to Dalian: standing on the deck beside stacks of shipping containers watching the massive wake of glowing blue bioluminescent bacteria, which was a complete surprise to us. Absolutely surreal.

I feel like I should like... schedule a phone call with you about this

But for real I'll pull you some comics. I think there's a primer out there. He's been in some real garbage but some good stuff too

YouTube video by AJR AJR - WEAK (Official Lyric Video)

My mental theme song for him is AJR's "Weak". He's an addict. He's canonically part Native American. He's an amazing dad. His kid's mother is a professional assassin. Etc youtu.be/PcJ0r06ldYE?...

The ability to love without trust. Fool them once, fool them twice, never fool them in the first place, they're still on board. Roy Harper is the ultimate example of this but there are many. What they love is dangerous, but so what? They'll look after themselves and if they get bitten it's fine.

A clock-in clock-out approach to a morally questionable job. Whether they would walk away if they could (Sierra Six) or whether they'd stay in for life (Cougar/Carlos Alvarez) they save the vast majority of their giving a fucks for the 2-6 people they care about and not their unholy body counts.

Comfort with having more power than almost anyone they know. Whether for good (Clark Kent) or not so good (Kaz Brekker) they may have problems but they don't have a problem with the extent of the things they can do to other people if they want to.

A clear sense of the cheapness of their own life. Better if truly accurate -- clear-eyed and not depressed, they still know that It's A Wonderful Life is not about them. A couple people might care about them but if they died not a lot would change about the world, and they'd be replaced (Hawkeye).

Bookishness. A character who reads can still be any kind of a person. Either it will mesh perfectly with their manner (Damian Wayne) or it will be a revealing leaf in the book of them (Jason Todd).

So good! It stays with me how many years later? It would make an amazing indie movie