If I’ve been more than usually quiet this last month and a half it’s because I’ve been preoccupied moving to Oregon. Turns out there’s even more to it than renting a large truck, packing up your life’s belongings and driving for twelve hours. There’s insurance and licensing and you find out how much stuff you truly need. …
One of the things I was taught when I attended a first aid class was to make sure, before I attempted to help anyone, that it was safe for me to do so. To make sure that I was not putting myself in danger by helping a person in distress—whether from an environmental factor like …
I haven’t had a really bad dream—a real nightmare—since I was seven or eight years old. Before that I had terrible nightmares. Not frequently, but regularly enough that I remembered them. They terrified me; I’d wake up sweating, shivering, and sometimes crying. These stopped abruptly after I had a dream that started out as a …
One of the questions I get asked most frequently (and sometimes rather impertinently) when people learn of my profession is something along the lines of “how on earth do you make a living at that?” They don’t always phrase it exactly this way, but this is essentially what they are asking. How do you earn …
Or: Thoughts on the problem of works left unfinished. Recently my mother bought me a copy of Diana Wynne Jones’s final novel, The Islands of Chaldea. I haven’t read it yet, because every time I pick it up I start crying. Partly out of sadness because she is gone, and there will never be any …
My mom (the Wonderful Mother so often alluded to on this blog) always gets the latest gadgets on her phone. Recently she upgraded the camera and got the ability to take “burst photos.” That is, you press down the shutter button and the camera takes dozens of pictures per second until you take your finger …
NOTE: I wrote this journal some time ago and have been sitting on it. However, this piece in the New Yorker made me realize now is the time to let it out. In her article, Joan Acocella talks about famous novels with bad endings, and postulates about why this is. I’m surprised she never touched …
Those of you who follow me on twitter (@GrimbyTweets) may have noticed my habit of posting links to a webcomic called Angeldevil every Friday. Perhaps you’ve followed them. Perhaps you’ve read what you’ve found there. Perhaps not. This Friday I’m posting the first chapter of the last volume of Angeldevil, and the last page of Angeldevil …
Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S., and I am hiding in my room. Soon I will go and place the massive Death and the Cat print order, but first I want to tell you about something silly that happened. Last weekend when I was tidying up my bathroom I came across a bauble I had purchased …
Intelligence doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. Human intelligence is one thing… but what of inhuman intelligence? Is it so alien as to be unrecognizable? Or are there universal constants through which we can communicate? Perhaps there are higher truths not subject to the whims of our perception, and through these we may find …