I think my creative retreat is deeper than I first acknowledged. For professional reasons I want to leap into writing short pieces but I am far from leaping. A novel is a great mecha suit, immense powers but within strict rules. Wearing it so long …
Read MoreEscaping Real Life (cosmic Shawshank edition)
Fifteen years ago, a couple of pipes of marijuana and the first Hubble Deep Field printed in Scientific American inspired me to write a little fable, of civilizations trying to communicate between galaxies by making stars go supernova in patterns. Never mind the consequences for …
Read MoreSurly fearful white people in the Age of Global Browning, part 1
Twenty years ago my friend W___, a Westerner and a conservative, talked to me about the growing resentments of his fellow Western conservatives. He foresaw them going off the deep-end and putting their considerable armories to work to change the course of our nation’s politics …
Read Moreyour authored material stylish
As I post this, it’s still April 1 in a couple of highly populated time zones, and in that spirit I share some high praise that WordPress decided was insincere and spammy — but clearly is just verklempt. Thanks, my anonymous, heartfelt and questionably-IP-addressed fan! …
Read MoreA matriarchal Iliad
So I set myself a tricky task last post and it’s been stymieing me. How to talk about a more equal culture when one’s understanding of gender roles begins in their inequality? Too easy to make lists of masculine and feminine virtues and vices, but …
Read MoreThe (Beginning of the) End of Patriarchy (Happy New Age)
After the Newtown massacre last month — yes, remember Newtown? Twenty-six dead, twenty of them children? You’d be forgiven for forgetting. Our news media certainly have, now that the dead are buried and lawmakers moved on to arguing about money again — Sorry. After the …
Read MoreMy need to invent (shout out to Bottled Worder)
I had a very hard week last week in my family life — mid-40s fertility has highs and also lows, and let us leave it at that — and I was not taking it well. I tried to write about it but I couldn’t. Not …
Read MoreTrash sonnet (shout out to Bud Glory)
A couple weeks ago someone left a Pyrex liter measuring cup outside the apartments across the street. I was tempted to take it to keep it from becoming trash. But, whoever forgot it might soon remember it, so I left it. Of course the next morning …
Read MoreMy Dad Mocks My Solar Panels
Last week my dad came over for dinner and afterwards I excitedly told him that the solar panels had started working. I was not quite prepared for his reaction. He mocked me. Words like crazy, stupid, ridiculous, and that old standby, oh, sure. I’m still …
Read MoreAnonymous, but not ephemeral
I’m reading Parmy Olson’s book We Are Anonymous about the notorious yet not-well-understood online/hacker movement/lark. It’s a journalist’s book, clearly written in a rush, but fascinating. Also, to me, inspiring and heartwarming, which was probably not the author’s intent. When Olson describes the misfit kids falling …
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