Pawn to King 4

Today in the coffee shop, two middle-aged men at a corner table near us were playing a fierce game of speed chess. It was really exciting--the moves unfolding at lightning speed as they slammed pieces, took pieces, hit the clock. It looked like the battle that chess is meant to be. E was entranced. And it got me reminiscing about high school--how the boy I crushed on my senior year played chess and I would look on like some sort of strategy groupie. Now I ask myself--why didn't I play?

I think Hedgehog is so lucky to have Sgt. Pepper for a dad. He's like Man Archetype (going by his career choices alone) but also a deep feminist--he wouldn't call himself one--but he is in the truest sense of the word. He has every faith in and expectation of Hedgie that he would for a boy (including his fondest wish that she become a fighter pilot--not much chance of her having the prerequisite 20/20 vision, though, with my genes!). I'm really hoping that she'll be the girl playing chess with the guy she likes, not the one watching.

On another note, Sarge, who is seeing my fan fic unfold, and following, amused, my consequent descent into delusion of reference (i.e., I'm pretty sure now that Snape really really likes me, although he is both a fictional character and a dead one) and asked out of the blue: "have you ever been to a sci fi convention?" Now, we've been together almost two decades, and he knows I haven't. But I think he's thinking that there may be a side to me that he wasn't, er, entirely aware of. Not that there's anything wrong with a convention--au contraire, if there was one that suited my particular delusions, you'd better believe I'd be there in costume. I warned A that it's only a matter of time before I go "Mazes and Monsters" on him, and he laughed. Boy, that guy is tolerant.