Well, it's my birthday. 27, my scary age. When I was a kid, I saturated myself in fairy tales. I didn't want to grow up, as it seemed an ungraceful and thankless business, and looked for evidence in my stories that I would never have to do so. The first age of un-innocence I found was 16, then 18, then 19. Then I found a story where the magic lasted until the main character was 21. Then 25. I never found a story that permitted magic to continue past the age of 27. That was Beauty and the Beast, the Disney version, in 1991.
That was 18 FUCKING YEARS AGO. You think I would have found a loophole to push back the date of real and actual adulthood in that time, but I was too busy determinedly not thinking about it.
So I look around myself and see evidence everywhere that adulthood started some time ago. I also see evidence of magic aplenty. I'm in Louisiana, practicing camouflage. Used to be good at it, not anymore.
Here, have some pictures of Savannah, my birthday present from my mama:
