THAT MORNING

Recently I got my first Covid shot, and reacted badly. Yesterday was awful; just achy and tired today.

My friend Mark calls. He's sick--probably Covid as his housemate tested positive. Recovering already--sounds no worse than my reaction to the shot.

THAT AFTERNOON

I read Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar; a fantasy based on Indian myth. Sheetal's dad is human, but mom's a star (no, not a celebrity; a star). As she matures her star side manifests abruptly, seriously burning her mortal dad. Half-star blood can't heal him, but pureblooded stars could. So she heads to the celestial court. Her mom's stellar family promises to heal him--IF she wins a contest. Man, Indian families really do blackmail their kids. But her extortionist grandma hardly stands out. In the star-court, fullblooded humans AND stars both sneer at halfie Sheetal. Nasty, petty...

Ugh. I recognize the clan pattern from Joseph Henrich's The Weirdest People In The World, a book arguing a lot of the world's political woes come from family structure not formal politics. Big strong families sound like a good thing, but they often subvert the interests of both individuals and nations. Sounds weird, but he's got hard evidence for it; and it has policy consequences.

THAT EVENING

See a nature show on Big Bend National Park. Desert--life in the cracks. Then off to Europe where lynxes & wolves are being reintroduced. I'd rather watch these hopeful things than hear about the Senate letting Trump off the hook again for his actions in the Capitol riot.

THAT NIGHT

I'm in a town in a round valley--Drain, Oregon, I think. Someone--some idiot with more magical power than sense--breaks a seal, freeing a deadly old spell. It attracts every spider for 100 km (over 60 mi), straight for downtown.

And here in the magic world, spiders grow big as cars.

I'm arachnophobic.

I run. Parks, streets. Spiders. Already! Huge, small, timid, aggressive... venomous. I'll be lucky to survive running the gauntlet. A lot of folks will die. Those who get out in time will be homeless; the town will be unlivable, maybe forever. Unclear if the curse can ever be broken. The ancients sealed away that curse exactly because they couldn't break it.

I get as far as the suburbs. Hide in an unlocked apartment in a side alley on a wooded slope. No spiders inside--yet. But when the owner comes home she's understandably upset to find me. She hasn't heard about spiders yet. Am I a burglar, a rapist?

I find a grimoire... but it doesn't have a counterspell. Instead... the book itself repels spiders! I can travel safely with it back to the civic center and... cause a second wave of spiders going out not in? To minimize casualties, I better plan my moves! Go in at night, maybe?

A second problem with using the grimoire to reverse the spider catastrophe: my professors. They're wizards, and I suspect one may have gone bad and set up the arachnocalypse. Even those who didn't may covet the book and misuse it. I must study it to figure out the effect, yet hide it as I travel; not easy.

As I scuttle across campus on back paths with the book, I hear two wizards arguing ahead.

I scramble onto a stone birdbath with a broad lip--an old fountain, now dry except after a rain--and sprawl on the sunny stone, a lizard warming up.

Literally. I'm now a lizard, a meter long. I'm the first in my lizard family to go to college. I don't stand out too much; our community college is proud of its diversity program.

Anyway, I sun like a good little lizard, and spread (and pretend to read) my OTHER textbooks, hiding the spider-repelling grimoire beneath. My official textbooks are all People magazines--since I'm here to get a BA in Celebrities. My guidance counselor advised me "be realistic, don't aim too high." Since I'm just a lizard.

Sigh! Community college...

The professors--Gandalf and Saruman--pass me by. Too busy arguing whether to back the Dark Lord or not.

Sigh! Community college...

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Spiders: Show on Big Bend full of close-ups of scorpions and tarantulas
• Fear, but never wake: this may be what I call a weakmare--I get tachycardia in my sleep some nights, and if I'm in REM I get a sustained, bizarre, but not too scary dream
• Lizard sunning: in that show on Big Bend, male lizards pick crags to sun on and do pushups to impress the girls
• Corrupt wizard working for the Dark Lord:
  1. Plots in the star-court in Star Daughter. Demigods as scumbags! Sheetal's own grandma blackmails her. For the good of the clan, of course.
  2. The US Senate, where Trump's jury includes senators complicit in his electoral subversion. For the good of the Klan, of course.

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