Sons of Adam and daughters of Eve...

Ooh, this was just recced on crack_van and is really good, so I thought I would share...

Knock On All Doors And Enter Nowhere by oxoniensis
http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/234909.html
How the Pevensie children deal with their lives on returning from Narnia. Tis brilliant.

"I do not think a hermit who takes a paper is a hermit in whom one can place one's reliance..."

OK, that's clearly paraphrased like crazy, but still...

But yes. Hermits. A life plan, je pense. I love having friends (obviously) and a social circle and all that jazz, for it is joyous and fills me with glee, but it strikes me that it is always filled with ethical traumas and woe and you never know whether you should tell person A what person B said or should remain silent and then person C rings you to have a rant about person D and you're not quite sure who you agree with and then person E and person F have el gigantic row and the entire alphabet takes sides and it's so COMPLICATED and you inevitably feel that maybe you were a bit harsh on person M and shouldn't have told person N this, that or the other, and person O is going to do something dreadful in regards person P if you don't tell them something that person Q said, but person Q said it in confidence and WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU DO ABOUT ANY OF IT?

And it's all very difficult, and you try and do the right thing because you don't want to upset people or tell tales out of turn, or anything like that. And I think *generally* I am quite ethical about these things, and I don't tend to talk out of turn (my inability to keep any kind of secret is limited to Things I Have Done And Don't Really Want People To Know But Tell Them Anyway), but there's always that worry that you've done something you shouldn't. Argh. Tricksy or wot.

*g* And before anyone starts getting paranoid, this really isn't about anything in particular with anyone, just a general reflection on the tricksiness of interpersonal relationships.

Particle P

Ah, how I giggle. All that talking of person A and person B made me think of the joys of Mechanics during A-Level Maths. You do a lot of stuff to do with motion and forces in Mechanics (OK, yes, it's almost all to do with motion and forces), and thus have pretty much always got a particle swinging in a pendulum or being pushed up an incline or falling out of an aeroplane (what? it was brilliant!), and the particle was invariably labelled "P" for ease's sake. And Catherine and I got bored with this, and thought this forced anonymity was a bit rough on the many particles we encountered, and thus renamed them. So we had particle Peter being dropped off a cliff and particle Pamela being thrown in an arc and particle Patricia sliding across a frictionless ice-skating rink. It was lovely. Happy days.