Work Text:
Hey mom,
How is-
I was researching symbolism in differing flower and plant languages around the world to help Blake with a new unit lesson. She’s currently a lecturer of Linguistics at Georgetown. There are some creative ways to insult people with the usage of flowers. Did you know that sending someone Orange Lilies in certain cultures is the equivalent to telling that person
I hope you get mauled by a tiger
? Blake made a joke about Tansies. Seeing as those flowers are typically seen as declaring war, she joked that if a robot apocalypse were to happen, she hoped
the robots would use the gesture
.
It reminded me of a book I read as a kid, Empty Planet by David Hansberry. I actually got to meet the author in person. It was on a case in Seattle a few years ago. She wrote it in memory of a late friend of hers who was an early alarmist about how much we were letting technology control our lives .
Do you remember that book?
It was a sci-fi fiction book with a twelve-year-old protagonist, written from the mother’s perspective. It was- I loved the book so much, I kept it with me for weeks and reread it over 3,824 times. I hope I make you just as proud of me as she was of her son. I was six years old, and you bought a copy coming home from a lecture as a present for keeping my GPA at a 4.0. You bought the novel from an old Mom-and-Pop bookstore called Literary Novel Tea, that you used to take me to every Wednesday. I laughed when you told me the only reason we went there was to enjoy the pages, tea, and puns. I miss- Those are some of my favourite childhood memories.
Speaking of memories, Garcia invited me to a local stage play adaptation of a story called When The Villainess Loves . The story is about a young girl who wakes up in the body of her favorite character, Princess Libertia, who was the villainess and main antagonist of the story. In the novel she’s been magically transported into, all of her favorite characters are doomed to die, so the protagonist decides to use this as her situation as a chance to give all the characters she holds beloved a happy ending. Apparently it was originally a web novel that Garcia stumbled onto.
Garcia threatened me under threat of ‘gratuitous inconvenience’ to attend the stage play with her. She has gotten creative in her threats. I think it's because vague threats of gore are not effective for people who see violence and blood every day, such as all of the people she works with, including me . Garcia held the coffee machine hostage and promised to switch out all the sugar for iodized salt in the building if I didn’t come with. I ended up going, the story had some issues like seeming out of character scenes and odd pacing at places in the story, but it was fun. I think that is going to be another favourite memory of mine. I kept the playbill.
I was thinking of starting a scrapbook for all the memories I want to keep like you do-. It might be a bit of a moot point due to my eidetic memory, but I don’t want to risk forgetting having a place to physically organize my memories would be nice. I would add profiles of all the people I love and want to remember if the risk was not so dangerous to do. I could have a section where I put all of my medallions. I am still at a bronze chip, years later. There would have to be a whole separate scrapbook for anything other than all the receipts I want to keep. I would put the playbill in there, maybe with a little excerpt from the play or describe the experience itself.
Anyway - Garcia is thinking of dyeing her hair again. She wrote a program to test changing her hair to different colours, before committing to any one particular style. I liked the time she dyed her hair titanium white with light pink highlights. Garcia even has secret settings for the rest of the team. Derek Morgan with hair is a strange image. Derek Morgan with a spiky purple Mohawk is an even stranger image. I prefer Morgan bald. Garcia wanted to put Henry, my godson, in the program too. But decided against it after the Fisher King incident. I created an image of Henry having my hairstyle, it is an adorable mental image.
Henry is doing great. He is a very happy child. So is Jack, Hotch’s kid. They're both great kids. They had wonderful and creative minds. Did I ever tell you that one year Henry dressed up as me for Halloween? I finally understood what literature authors meant when describing a heart teeming with affection and love that day. I think I am going to print that picture out too, for my hypothetical scrapbook. Maybe the scrapbook will be decorated with quotes from varying people throughout history. I am sure that Garcia and JJ would make me add lyrics from various pop songs and TV shows too.
What book are you reading right now?
I will send some fairy tale stories soon. How would you like a copy of The Nibelungenlied? Translated as The Song of the Nibelung's was an epic poem from Germany thought to be written in the year 1200. I could get you a copy translated by Cyril Edwards, I know you prefer his translations when it comes to Arthurian legend.
I read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis
Carroll: the
title is actually Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, but
it's more commonly referred to as the former. Kate- a coworker of mine, actually gave me a second published edition of the book as a present. It has a beautifully red cloth binding that you would appreciate the preservation of. You would have-
We finished a case where the unsub- that involved fairytales. That is why they are at the front of my mind. I had a conversation with JJ that stuck with me. She had a disagreement with her mother regarding the purpose of fairytales. JJ believed that children should be shielded from the realities of the world and asked me, isn't that why we read them fairy tales in the first place?
I told her that most fairy tales in their original form were gruesome to the extreme and that one could argue the sanitized modern versions are actually counterproductive to the original purpose of fairy tales. So that children could safely confront their darkest fears. Maybe I could add passages of fairy tales I made up. If fairy tales warn children of the terrors the world holds, then would you like to collaborate with me on creating a modern fairy tale?
Here’s what the first quote would be in this hypothetical scrapbook:
“ The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking , ” Albert Einstein.
I love you,
Your son; Spencer.