You know what I don't need? Probably one of the same things you don't need! Another obligation. But not all obligations are equal, obviously. For the last year-and-a-half (with no sign of abating) I've been letting obligations smother and strangle my writing and art. It's not been pretty. Well, for a while, I've been a …
Oh, dear January!OrOh dear. January. Punctuate as you see fit. I suppose it makes sense that everything I like about January is everything I don't like about January. The month's name come from the the Roman god Janus, the god with two faces, protecting gates and doorways, looking into the future and into the past. …
Continue reading Oh Dear January (Weeknotes for the start of a year.)
'Tis the season for clearing out and organizing, is it not? Sure, there's spring cleaning, but end-of-the-year clear-outs and New Year's Resolutions are everywhere. One sign, in case you needed one, was the wall display at the grocery store. Gone were the Christmas dooddads and baubles! Instead were the very tempting storage containers. I don't …
Continue reading Weeknotes–Organizing Stories Edition and Our Sweet Sadie
I missed by self-imposed deadline by a few hours, but I did, at least, finished the Solstice edition of my newsletter! (Go read, like, and subscribe if you're so inclined.) What about this week? It was finals week at school. I still have a few essays to grade and grades to enter. The end-of-term seems …
How has your week been? This week involved a big argument. I can't write about it yet, but it consumed much of the week. But then today, in the midst of errands and required phone calls, we picked up our Sadie's ashes. I'm not the sort of person who wants to keep the ashes. That's …
Have you seen this book? I like it. Along with a similar book, The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker. (See his Substack. It's a favorite of mine.) If you know of other such books, please say so in the comments. Today, after taking three dogs to the vet, voting in a local run-off election, …
Pictured above is Sweet Sadie. We said goodbye to her yesterday. In September 2010, my son and I found her at the Humane Society. She was two. She was thin and sad, anxious about getting the car with strangers, worried about being in our apartment. But soon she settled in, befriended our other dog, Porter, …
I've been getting back into zines. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to talk about it again because now I have a zine shelf! So, I bought a few at conventions a few years before the pandemic, and then during the pandemic, I made a few as part of Story-a-Day May. Each …
When was the first ghost? If a ghost appears in a house and no one is there to see it, is it still a ghost? Do ghosts sleep? Why are there no ghost dinosaurs? . . . Or are there? Do ghosts ever hang out in a room and watch whatever movie the living turn …
Did you know that you don't need to be overwhelmed, you can just be whelmed? No, that's not, apparently, an improvement. They mean the same thing. But to say one is whelmed doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Over adds that oomph the feeling needs to truly express itself. Recently I watched …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 