(no subject)

paganpilgrim is, as far as I know, the only marine biologist on my friends list, but just in case anybody else has a useful opinion, here are the questions I mainly mean to ask her:

Okay, so supposing a guy from Atlantis washed up, injured, on Sandy Hook. Injured, like, with abrasions and maybe some cuts. Presumably, little creatures would have taken up residence in his cuts, right? But what kinds of little creatures? In Patrick O'Brian's novels, the characters talk all the time about bodies being feasted on by crabs, so would it be crabs? Planktonic ones, like the ones you showed us? Or something else?

If you were going to add gills to the human body, where would you put them? Hollywood loves to put gills on the neck, but that seems kind of suspect to me, from a practical standpoint. As the body modification artist in the story says, "If a man wants gills, it's nobody's business to say him nay." Still, they ought to go in the right place.

Do you mind if I borrow the idea of your house to be the setting for the supernatural farce I'm writing? Well, actually, it's too late. My characters have already moved into the idea of your house, except the floor plan's different. Presumptuous imaginary people that they are, they're already making soup in the idea of your kitchen and ordering pizza on the idea of your phone. Well, now that I get a better look at it, maybe it's the idea of somebody else's phone, but it's still in the idea of your house, since the characters needed to live right on the shore. What the world needs now is more supernatural farces in the New Jerseyan mode.

They won't get underfoot, I promise. Jane slams doors a lot, and Sophie's a slob, but they mean well.

How long after getting a body piercing does it take before swimming in salt water doesn't sting?