Seven things about me:
Thing the First: I am married to a languid madonna beloved by all who know her for her patience and kindness (and adored, by those who know her really well, for spicing things up with occasional flashes of an intense inner feistiness).
Thing the Second: I am the head keeper of a small zoo for mentally divergent animals. Remanded to my custody are a rare, endangered ice weasel and a prancing warble-cat, but my chief responsibility is watching over Clementine, a small Boston Terrier who is nevertheless astonishingly fast, improbably mighty, and diabolically clever.
Thing the Third: I spend nearly all of my days toiling away in the McCulloch Sulfur Mines here in Collins, where I am attached to Drudge Detachment 168 under the supervision of Grigalt Strahovsky. At present, my detachment includes fellow drudges Pavel, Pepe, and Yevgeny. I hate Yevgeny. Wages are one-and-three-quarters-pittance.
Thing the Fourth: I myself am a former minor underworld figure, having spent a couple years making a name for myself on the unsanctioned cage-fighting circuit as “The Belfast Spider”. Eventually I was forced into retirement by my brittle hands, and have since let myself go out of condition in spectacular fashion.
Thing the Fifth: Since retiring from my true calling, I have attended college and attained a degree in Esoterica which has been of no material assistance to me in finding gainful employment (see “Thing the Third” above).
Thing the Sixth: Despite my vicious and intemperate disposition and utter lack of charm, I have been blessed with a number of brilliant, virtuous acquaintances who no doubt hope to secure sainthood/balance their karma by allowing me to inflict myself upon them.
Thing the Seventh: I am an autumn-hearted sort, in love with all the beautiful, dying traces of an older world that flutter down around me like falling leaves. More and more I find that the things and ways I love best are being abandoned by all and sundry in favor of a cheaper, more convenient replacement. I fear it is my fate to see everything I cherish about the world perish in my own lifetime. The practical result of this is that I am prone to jeremiads, so watch out.
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