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About me:
Egotistical ravings
Regarding dragons
Writings:
Essays
Fiction
Miscellany:
Ministry of Health Warning
Open hailing frequencies
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About me
K. Chin, Title unknown
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In reality, and in cyberspace, I am a dragon. Not the
dumpy lizard with bat wings sort of creature that you see in
Medieval European tapestries losing battles against Saint George.
Nor the saccharinized, domesticated, fire-breathing aerial beasts
of burden you read about in those Pern books. No, I am a
completely undomesticated, genuine, sinuously graceful,
total-eclipse causing Eastern dragon, of the sort you see depicted
here. In the fall, my old scales turn all the colors of fire and fall
off me to blanket the ground. Underneath, my new scales begin
hoarfrost white, then turn glowing green in the spring. I
relight the sun with my breath each dawn, and snuff it out in
the evening with my claws.
When I am at peace, my purring is the sound of Victoria falls.
My breath is a warm summer breeze, and my laughter echoes in the
trees on spring mornings. My iridescent scales glisten in every
rainbow and dewdrop, and my aura is the warmth of a morning
sunbeam. In war, my growls are the thunderstorm and my
unsheathed claws split the earth with lightning. My snorts are
California wildfires, the full force of my breath a thousand
erupting volcanoes. The earth quakes under my beating tail, my
wings raise typhoons, and my roar is the sound of Krakatoa
exploding.
You can see why all the ancient authorities agree that it is
quite unwise to become a dragon's enemy.
More prosaically
I should point out that all dragons are polymorphous, which is
how we have carefully maintained the fiction that we are extinct
and/or mythical. For instance, because I really don't want to be
constantly mobbed by Anne McCaffrey and Tolkien groupies, I
usually "pass" day-to-day as a human. I am also able by this
method to avoid the attention of those annoying humans wearing
metal suits riding horses and armed with lances.
Now don't come out to my home looking for piles of gold. I am an
academic dragon, and as such it was probably inevitable that I
broke with an ancient cultural tradition and began to hoard books
instead, by such priceless authors as Pat Califia, Samuel
Delaney, Tanith Lee, Ursula LeGuin, Donna Minkowitz, Minnie Bruce
Pratt, Carol Queen, Joanna Russ, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Sarah
Schulman, Melissa Scott, James Tiptree, and John Varley, to name
a baker's dozen. And you will be quite baked yourself if you try
to steal any of them from me.
Baked, but not eaten. In stories, dragons are always rampaging
around, devouring flocks of forest herbivores, domesticated
ruminants, and the occasional peasant, burning entire villages
to the ground, and menacing the innocent knights in shining
armor who the villagers stake out on the mountainside as
propitiatory sacrifices. The stories usually end with a fair
maiden coming along in the nick of time to slay the dragon and
rescue the knight, who usually rewards her in the only way he
knows how, and, if he is also a good cook, the story ends
with both humans living happily ever after. But those are just
stories. I do occasionally dine on charred animal flesh, but I
buy it at the grocery store. I don't consume
people, although whenever I encounter a truly annoying jerk I am
tempted to have myself a little smoked jerkey.
Mundane life stuff
My maiden at her most beautiful
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Like most dragons I have a strong preference for maidens, and a few
years ago I finally met the lady of my dreams, the wonderful and
precious Morgan, whose beautiful picture appears here.
In addition to being beautiful, loving, and precious, Morgan
is a writer, artist, and statistical proofreader. More
information about her is available on her very modest
home page.
We have been living in sin together since 1998 and blissfully
handfasted since 2001.
The nicest sister a dragon could wish for
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I think you'll agree that one can hardly be a proper dragon
without a little melodrama. The modern world, regrettably,
has little time for tales of vile knights, captive wyrms, and
valiant maidens in shining armor. So I was very, very happy
indeed to discover that I had a long lost relative living in
a far away land.
Angela is her name, and while she is not a dragon, she
is a marvelous human being and the nicest sister any dragon
could possibly want. What's more, her two daughters, Shannon
and Casey, are simply too
cute for words (Shannon is the cat, Casey the mouse).
What else? I write,
or do things to avoid writing (I am better at the latter
than the former). I understand computers fairly
well but don't put on airs about it like
some people.
Aside from hoarding books, I also collect old superheroine
comics.
Hobbies
Communing with Saint Francis
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Here you see the author in butterfly form communing with Saint Francis.
I do enjoy the out of doors, but as an urban dweller rarely have the
chance to indulge. One thing I can do in the city, however, is feed
hapless delegged crickets and grasshoppers to spiders in the summer.
And when I see one, I always try to catch a praying mantis and fatten
it up with lots of nice juicy flies for a few weeks before letting it go.
There's just something about predators that fascinates me.
Geography
My lady Morgan and I live in Toronto. My sister Angela lives in
Austin.
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