Aborigen

This has been a distinguished winter, among the last dozen winters. I’ve been starved for the cold, I’ve enjoyed challenging myself to march around and protest in subzero wind chill. I lost the Giantess’s Glade, due to paranoid homeowners in the region calling the cops on me, but as I lean into heathen worship, having a place like that may not be necessary. It’s more about my relation to nature, rather than altars and props and prayers. I’m still learning about this.

I gave a presentation on the giantesses of Old Norse mythology to a group of outsiders, 110 people logged in to listen to me rant for 90 minutes on everything I’ve been studying for almost two years. I gave another presentation for the Size Fantasy community, and after two attempts, four people signed up to witness my talk. I hope I made accessible large bodies of information not heard elsewhere.

This presentation is a large stone I place on the bank of the Glade, marking that I was here and giving me something to look back on as I move on. It’s the culmination of my studies and the last piece of my legacy. As this winter slows down the molecules in my body and imposes patience and contemplation upon me, I’m leaving the Size community. I have no desire to produce anything new, stories or illustration, though obviously it could happen if I feel something new needs to be said. I’m not getting enough back, it’s not a reciprocal relationship, and watching how the scene changes and what it pursues causes more pain than pleasure.

This blog will stay in place. Size Fantasy Music Videos will remain because that’s a document for other people to find, later. One or two people still contribute to it, but I don’t do any of my own searches anymore. Size Riot will remain up, as will my podcast, zHeightgeist. I hope these entertain and inform future searchers who find them by accident, though fewer and fewer people seem to carry the spark of curiosity. Regardless, they remain.

I’ll keep my Mastodon account, though I couldn’t get any traction in Size Fantasy in that channel and I can’t get any for Old Norse/Scandi myth either. I’m keeping the account, though, because I don’t want to release the Size Riot custom domain to squatters. I’ll just rant there to myself. My Smashwords library will also stay available, and who knows, maybe some year I’ll add something to it. I feel no pressure to do so any time soon.

I’ve written the final issue of That’s About the Size of It, but the archive will stay up. One reader said he felt it was possible I’d write again if something really important came up, and sure, that could be true. I just don’t have any interest in continuing it under the current conditions: updates on SAEKO and Giantess Playground, incidental blurbs about tall models, and once in a while an art installation.

What’s gone are my Bluesky account, my Pixiv gallery, and the directory of my daylight-account fiction writing. No reason for that to take up space. I’m looking hard at DeviantArt, too, debating how crucial it is for me to post intermittent images for lurkers to file away into folders, wordlessly.

Now I find myself with a lot of free and empty time. Without Size Fantasy in my engine, I hardly know what to do with myself. I’m slowly taking up Old Norse language learning, slowly picking my way through Dr. Jackson Crawford’s translation of the Prose Edda. Last night I ordered pizza, drank wine, and watched The Foreigner, an action film with Jackie Chan that I thought would be way more intriguing than it actually was. Still, it was on my list and I’ve knocked it out.

Today I’m going to go for a long walk—not to clear my head to get ready for writing, but just to be outside and look at the shapes the snow’s taking in people’s lawns, playing “Spot the ICE Vehicle” in my neighborhood. On the way to the Day of Truth and Freedom, the bus driver would not accept any fare, and a man with a thick accent walked up and down the aisle, offering free 3D-printed whistles to everyone. No one was on the bus that wasn’t going to the protest, and the bus was so full we had to drive past several stops of another dozen people waiting to get on. And at -24°F/-31°C, that was a hard day to stand around for another 20 minutes until the next bus, but everyone was determined to attend this event.

The next day, I practiced writing runes, though technically Elder Futhark would have been written in proto-Norse, not Old Norse as I’ve done. That’s one anachronism I permit myself.

Anyway.

It’s strange to have this much time to myself. Instead of sitting at the computer hours, aggrieving about not being able to write anything, I just drift in the quiet of my apartment and my own head. I’ll wash a load of dishes, scrub out the bathroom, take out the trash/recycling/compost, or just watch Jackson Crawford and Freyia Norling videos. That’s what I’m into lately: practical Old Norse study and spirituality, a foot in both worlds.

Gýgratrú will remain, though I’m constantly revising what it means. I’m giving Belowground a facelift too, though I’m still not sure what it’s good for. It’s a map of all my other landmarks, but so is Bitly. I’m still locked up in the push-pull between wanting to share myself online and wanting to protect myself against data-mining and bad actors. Not that I have anything interesting to say or safeguard.

I’ve been invited to be frontman for a new band. We’ll see how that goes. My wife and I are shopping for land with renewed interest, and with the complication of knowing we’re going to have to bring my mother with us, because we can’t live even farther away and she’s doing fuck-all to take care of herself.

Kenaz is the torch that lights the path one step at a time. There is no possible way for me to know what’s next.