thank you theo and joyanne, for your kind words about my writing. (the photography is not mine, alas!) chimerism is a fascinating biological phenomenon that i first became aware of when i was in my teens when i saw a bilateral gynandromorph eclectus parrot — scarlet (female) on one side and emerald green (male) on the other — it was an astonishing memory that i’ve never forgotten, although i sometimes was convinced that i’d hallucinated it.