piranha | western painted turtle (Reply)

running from me at buttertubs marsh. i wonder about that bright red colouration -- what's that good for? mate attractor? it really draws the eye, and makes the turtle NOT blend in with the environment.

walklog:

6-17 long mailbox loop, 2.41 km, 0:27, new personal best. note to self: do NOT start doing this, checking the timer at the bottom of the hill and then pushing yourself up that last bit just to beat your previous time. you know what that leads to, and it's not good for you. take the seconds off that time above. there. better.

insomnia with smut reading apparently leads to me walking faster. *snrk*.

best smut read:

sean michael's catching a second wind. dakota lost his life partner of 16 years less than a year ago, and he thinks he's coping pretty well, considering. but there's something just not right with him at work. as a veterinarian he's got to occasionally euthanize an animal, and while that was never something he liked doing, now it leaves him shaking and hurling his guts out. his partners in the practice think he should see a psychologist. he's not keen on that, but what the heck. ben, the psychologist, turns out to be sympathetic, a good listener, and a fine looking man, even if he asks uncomfortable questions.

this wasn't actually a real smut read for me. not because the smut is bad, it's in fact quite good. but because stories in which people have lost their life partner bring up memories, and those memories don't go well with smut. the story itself is very good, and i'd recommend it to anyone -- except, you know, the m/m smut which is not everyone's taste. *wry grin*. all the mixed feelings dakota has about getting involved with somebody else so soon, the agony of the loss, the guilt of living, the quandary of having a new lover in the place built with the old. dakota is very well written. ben is maybe a little bit too good to be true -- even psychologists get the blues, and a tad more insecurity wouldn't have hurt for somebody just out of college; he felt like a much older, wiser man to me. but i didn't care that much because i could identify with dakota's feelings and because i was ruminating over my own memories. it was a very satisfying read because so much of it rang true for me even if the details were completely different.