So since my last post we had a bit of flooding here (four people went missing from their waterlogged vehicles and haven’t been found) and, after the fires in June I can’t wait to see what’s next. Luckily, the premier assures us it’s not the time to talk about climate change, so I guess it has nothing to do with that. What a relief!
Pictured: Tim Houston, Probably (Original art by KC Green)
In the meantime things are getting spicy on the Demeter again.
July 22nd has its own log where our captain on the Demeter says there were three rough days of weather, but they made it through and spirits are high. They pass Gibraltar and through the straits (of Gibraltar, I suspect).
Okay let me take this chance while I’m at a computer to go back through this path, because I think it’s fun.
Looking over the map so far I think we can guess that the Demeter left from the port city of Constanța, which is in Romania and pretty close to Istanbul on the shore of the Black Sea. This is basically most of the country away from Transylvania.
July 24th, Whitby says he’s lost another sailor and they’re headed into the Bay of Biscay with “wild weather” ahead. Everyone’s in a panic and the mate is pissed off and the captain thinks someone might get beat.
By the way, I just whipped up a map of our journey in case you’re curious. The boat is close to the UK now so I imagine they’ll arrive next time.
Meanwhile, Mina and Lucy are reunited at last. Mina notes in her journal that Lucy looks “sweeter and lovelier than ever,” because they’re in love. She writes a while about the scenery. She’s in a town called Whitby (where our captain is going?) which is on the shore, but quite far from London; closer to Leeds. Mina is particularly taken with a parish graveyard for some reason. I guess it has a nice view. In fact she’s writing from there RIGHT NOW!
She writes some more about a lighthouse and wonders about some ghost stories about a lady in white who can be seen at the Whitby Abbey ruins, and that bells ring out at sea when ships are lost when she hears a buoy with a bell. She flags down an old man and asks him about the folklore and he tells her it’s bullshit and she shouldn’t worry about it. He says they’re lies to spook the folks from out of town. The phonetic spelling of this guy’s dialect is a riot.
“I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn’t like to be kept waitin’ when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of ’em; an’, miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock.”
???
Lucy was apparently off visiting people so now that it’s 6 p.m., Mina heads back too. I understand that it might be awkward to hang around your girlfriend and her mom while they have to go tell everyone she’s getting married to some dude.
This entry is pretty boring today so let me tell you an extra little story.
We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the death of the man I call my “surrogate dad,” Tony Murray, who pretty much raised me until I was eight years old. He wasn’t my biological father but he gave me my love of video games and fiction and books, probably. He had a particular love of horror and his only true love I think was Halloween. Though he was important to me when I was young he and my mother had different goals in life, so it didn’t work out, but I didn’t see him again until I was in my twenties.
Tony was the type of guy who would say “I’m not racist, but…” and then say something racist. Teasing was his love language so every way that he felt someone was different, he would make jokes about it. If I lived with him throughout my childhood maybe I would have been more insecure than I even was, but oh well. He was supportive of me in every way, including my sexuality, but I was hesitant to introduce him to my gay and trans friends. I guess I’ll never know if he could be on his best behavior. (I’m sure he would not have been malicious, but no one likes a microaggression.)
In one of our visits together we were talking about books and he told me that Anne Rice’s vampire books were so scary. Like wow. The only book I think I’ve ever read that scared me was House of Leaves, so I was skeptical. I think when we had that conversation I hadn’t fully appreciated how gay Anne Rice’s Lestat books even were. I have a few of them now, but it feels like I shouldn’t read them until after Dracula.
To complicate the timeline of this story even more, Tony’s remark caused me to think back to once taking home Interview With a Vampire from the library when I was like, thirteen. I had not seen the movie, and I don’t know what compelled me to pick it up. My mother, seeing this in my little paws, wouldn’t let me read it. This is the only book she ever wouldn’t let me read. Instead, she took that library book and read it herself. I wonder if Tony told her about it back in the day and she was compelled to check it out.
Later she told me it was much too spicy for someone my age and I argued that I’ve read sexy stuff in books before and she said “NOT LIKE THIS.” So I guess I have that to look forward to.
I hope she’s not reading this. Rest in peace, Tony. You would have read this blog and I would have been mortified. I wish I could have talked to you about how gay vampires are and ruined them for you. xoxo
kind of co-incidence but Interview with The Vampire, the film, is the only film I remember my mother not allowing me to watch when I was a pre-teen/teen. I asked her recently why this movie in particular and she said she did not like Anne Rice’s writing. lol
oooh now I have a whole new motivation to read it.