between the pen and the paperwork

My brain is being unserviceable. I cleared over a hundred patients at work today, which involved squatting in a corner of one secretary's office (all three chairs were already occupied, but they did kindly make me free of the trundle-stool that one uses to reach notes down from high shelves) and going through patient documentation. I am aware that some variation between consultants is not only likely but natural, but a consultant having three times as many patients uncoded as all the other Cardiology consultants does deserve a note. (About 60 as opposed to 20, for the record.) A rude note. Oh well. It got done.

Got sent copy of the British Nursing Journal, in which there is an article to which I contributed. Rather a nice feeling. Things balance. (Actually, the embarrassing bit there was when a coworker who was there when I opened the package emailed the news around all the other coders. I mean, yes, nice to be appreciated, but . . . Perhaps it was the way she presented it as Good News. Only really for me. Doesn't actually compensate for the stress of commissioning for the rest of them. :))

Eh. Trying to write Charms (and do the mechanics for them). So far I've got one that summons the wind into your sails, one that makes your ship look like your enemy's until a foe sets foot on it, one that calls all the sea-spirits for five miles around to speak to you, one that terrifies your enemies into pants-wetting terror through your sheer apparent nautical might, and one that summons lampreys to swarm on your enemy's hull and slow him down. (In short, his bottom is foul.) Now where did I leave the visuals of that lightning whip in Hoshin Engi . . .

---

Footsteps

On an ebony bed decorated
with coral eagles, sound asleep lies
Nero --- unconscious, quiet, and blissful;
thriving in the vigor of flesh,
and in the splendid power of youth.

But in the alabaster hall that encloses
the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi
how restive are his Lares.
The little household gods tremble,
and try to hide their insignificant bodies.
For they heard a horrible clamor,
a deathly clamor ascending the stairs,
iron footsteps rattling the stairs.
And now in a faint the miserable Lares,
burrow in the depth of the shrine,
one tumbles and stumbles upon the other,
one little god falls over the other
for they understand what sort of clamor this is,
they are already feeling the footsteps of the Furies.

-- Constantine Cavafy

consent and comprehension

Erotica. Heroism. Hm. (Why these associations, you ask? My mind's on a weird freewheel. Let me see if I can work it out.)

The hero has to go consenting. That's a common trope of most hero stories. He has to have at least some idea of what he's agreeing to, what danger he's risking. That's part of what makes him a hero, given the situation.

However, a trope that often comes up is the hero who consents to something while not realising the full implications of the situation, or not fully informed, or finding the situation changing and thus altering the consequences of what he's agreed to do. In this sort of case, quite often he displays his heroism (or ethics, or both) by keeping his word despite the altered circumstances, or paying the altered price because he did consent earlier, on some level, in some way.

And so to erotica, where the trope of someone who's agreed to more than they realised and then has to go through with it turns up not infrequently and carries a certain weight. Maybe it's the hint of sacrifice, of going outside one's usual limits. The element of self-domination, self-control, voluntary submission, while still retaining self-mastery, because the character forces himself to go through with it. The moment of comprehension and acceptance.

Maybe it's just kind of erotic to be heroic. ;)