Errata

[feldman]

Apparently I am indeed considered 6 weeks and 3 days along as of today--despite the fact the kid sparked about four weeks ago, give or take. Which means I start seeing the midwife in a couple weeks, likely right before x-mas.

Due dates are slippery things, so I'm thinking in terms of the zodiac. The zodiac has good personality archetypes, but the birth date correlation is bogus--as a means of giving a general idea of due date I find the imprecision very pleasing. Something like 3% of folks give birth on the given due date, but I'll bet if you consider zodiacal periods you'd get the majority of the bell curve right on target.

So the kid's due sometime in the middle of Cancer (July 21st to August 11th), though if it goes longer, early Leo is a definite possibility.

Which confirms what I told FeldMom the other day when she showed me a pattern for a knitted baby hat and suggested the kid could wear it home from the birth center. "We're talking dog days of summer, mom. That would be cruel." I assured her it was darling, and the kid would wear it that coming winter.

*pauses to seize with squeeing over the idea of LITTLE! NOGGIN!*

Okay, I'm back. And to show you that at least I'm not alone in my occasional lapses into Ren Hoek-like fits of affection for something that, currently, looks more like a sea monkey than anything you'd let even sit on good couch, Mr. F dreamt about the kid the other night.

ME: Boy or girl? Just curious.
MR. F: I don't know, babies all look the same to me, I can never tell. But this one was *ours*, and hence far more interesting than the average.

We're finally even, him and I. When we were first dating I woke up in a cold sweat having dreamt of a little girl holding my hand who looked kind of like him. That's when I realized I was in trouble, that he wasn't just something fun to do for a while. Bwahahahaha! Take that! Your subconscious bows to my meme!

I need sleep. I need more than my own sleep, I need your sleep. Not all of it, just a small portion. If half of my flist tithed just one hit of the snooze, that'd be almost seven more hours of sleep. That could tide me over until Thursday, easily.

In other news, thassalia and I are not writing "Bones" fic. More specifically, we're not writing cracktastic "Bones" fic with blatant sexual themes and anthropological in-jokes. At least, that's what Thea says. I'm considering sweetening the offer with beads, yams and an 8x11 beefcake shot of Milford Wolpoff.

Comments

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

"It's just creepy," he says finally, as she continues to hold the head out. "It's like those skulls in your office, just sitting there, bug-eyed and staring."

"Those skulls represent hominid evolution," she says, as if that's the most natural thing in the world, as if everyone's got the monkey to man diaspora riding the back of their couch.

"Yeah, well what happened to Mr. Gudrati doesn't seem particularly evolved."

She shrugs and the head jiggles. "Murder isn't unheard of in the fossil record."

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Booth tracks the other conversation without even thinking about it, another track playing in the murmur near the floor and in the corner of his eye as he slips his hands into his pockets and eyes the ceiling tiles, pondering how many hours woul have to pass before he wrote off the suit and tried climbing.

"You're no Neaderthal, hon, you're far too gracile."

Junior snorts.

"I prefer the term 'wiley'."

"Now him, he's robust. He could harbor a few stray gene sequences."

"Don't tell me you still believe that Wolpoff stuff."

"Have you seen some of those suits downtown? Tell me there aren't certain Caucasian features that just scream Neanderthal."

Junior speaks around a snackyfish, "You're always going on about how white guys have flat butts; Neanderthals were muscular."

He will not look over his shoulder. He will not respond to Squint's curious head tilt or the feel of three sets of eyes on his backside. He walks to the button panel to investigate that instead.

"I rest my case."

Squints finally sets Mr. Gudrati down and kneels in the middle of the elevator, completing the storytime circle. "Booth shows no trace of the classic midface projection or cranial vault shape of Homo neanderthalensis."

Bug-guy clarifies, "Well obviously in our hypothesis most of his traits would be Cro Magnon."

"Obviously." Booth murmurs to himself, prying open the panel.

"I think we're all in agreement that those beneficial traits that led to Homo sapiens reproductive success," Junior chimes in, louder as he always gets when he's keyed up on a theory, "would perforce be represented in whatever diluted descendents the Neanderthals may or may not have."

"Intelligence, a certain gracility and economy of physical development, those traits that would foster survival and producing progeny that could compete with full Cro Magnon populations."

Angela adds to Squint's list, "Good looks."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"They'd have to be able to get Cro Magnon tail; the heavier the brow ridge, the more they'd have to compensate for that."

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

"There's speculation that the heaviness of the brow ridge is directly related to genitalia, extra testosterone, much like male baldness."

Now that he wished she would have said with a smile on her face.

Angela tilts her head. "Well, the whole Neandertals as super hominids theory might support that. Heavier bones, heavier skulls, thicker muscles, bigger penises. It's not impossible."

Bones places her fingertips on the edge of Mr. Grudati's plastic wrap. "It might explain why that line faded out. More testosterone could lead to more aggression, more competition for resources and reproduction. Too much competition would have eroded the gene pool."

"Explains why he only dates lawyers," Bug guy said, chewing on a fish.

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

He doesn't turn around but he can't help responding, voice neutral as he picks at the cover for the call button. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Combination of aggression and intelligence." Bug-guy continues after he's swallowed. "Joe Blow Neanderthal has a certain preference for intelligent mates, seeks out Cro Magnon females and hence adds his genetic contribution to the surviving branch of humanity. Hell, preference for clever mates could be one of the sexual selective pressure on humans to this day."

"And aggression?" Junior prods, ever the eager disciple.

"Carry-over from the cave."

Squints demurs, but he can't tell if she's trying to be her version of polite or simply properly scientific about it. "On the contrary, if any branch was more violent it was likely Homo sapiens. Highly intelligent people also kill, you know."

"It seems they prefer head shots."

Booth leans down to peer at the lever beneath the call button, calling softly to Angela, "I didn't leave my gun on her desk."

"Well," she's all sparkle and amused bravado, "He apparently got that brow ridge *somewhere*."

There's a shaving of plastic stuck under the lever mechanism, everything small and delicate and stuck.

"Booth."

With a sigh he turns. Squints is on her knees, holding court or maybe holding a cabinet meeting, silverback geek of some troop of weird-ass primates that weren't quite human, sapienissimos stuck in the freight elevator of their steel and glass ivory tower. Her hips and shoulders have pleasing complementary tilts but she's eyeing him with the hot microscopic glint she reserves for evidence.

She can lookat a skull and see a face, but suddenly he knows she can do the opposite as well, that everyone she meets can be meat in her eyes, no matter how reverently she treats pieces like the late Mr. Gudrati.

He reaches into her hair and plucks out a brass hairpin.

"Ow!"

"Stop staring at my browridge." He bends it open and flicks the tiny rubber tip off one end.

"Sorry."

He picks out the plastic shaving and pushes the call button. "No, you're not."

The intercom clicks to life. "This is Ruiz in Security, we've got an engineer on the job right now, everyone okay in there?"

Booth straightened. "Yes, what happened?"

"Glitch in the fire alarm, all the elevators stopped mid floor. You'll be moving in a couple minutes"

"Can you imagine Mili-doats in a glass cage full of rugrats?" Bug-guy crinkles his fish bag closed.

Bones retrieves Mr. Gudrati as Junior pronounces, "Unthinkable."

"No, what's unthinkable was that you were checking out his brow ridge of all things."

The question is whispered back as Squints hangs back. "What else would I be looking at?"

"Rhymes with brow ridge." After a few moments Angela adds with exasperation, "*Package*"

"I don't know what that means."

The answer is apparently non verbal.

"That? I could just ask him *that*."

Angela is deadpan. "You're serious."

Bug-guy sighs heavily. Junior is silent, perhaps socially paralyzed. Booth sends a half-hearted prayer to Ruiz to save him from bored anthropologists who seem to find disconcerting him a sport.

He ignores her but she sidles up to him, her tray at least propped on the hip away from him.

"Booth." She waits until he finally makes eye contact, then curiously defers the phrasing of the question. "Angela was curious. Are you hung?"

"So let me get this straight--you don't know what 'package' is, but you know the phrase 'hung'?"

She clutches the tray, indignant. "I don't own a TV."

"That, again."

"Well, are you?"

"I would be, but I left my tie on your desk."

Junior breaks out of his social paralysis as the elevator lurches. "That's hanged."

He opens his mouth to respond but the lights flick out for a few seconds, a few vital seconds of mutters and shuffling and something brushing the front of his hip. When they come back on full the elevator starts moving and no one's within three feet of him except Squints, who has both hands gripped on Mr. Gudrati's tray.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee - I honestly have nothing left to add:) I could bulk up some of my sections though:)

[rubberneck.livejournal.com]

Yay! I kind of want to make Mr. Gudrati's head skinned, just so we can call it "Degloved in an Elevator"

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I second that motion, your honor.