This blog is a series of fantasy novels in serial form. If you’d like to start at the beginning and work your way through, this post provides a handy list of all the chapters in sequence. The first volume, Man Raised by Spiders, tells the story of Inglorion’s younger cousin Valentine, who was taken captive during […]
So, I got the surgery. It’s a long recovery. The nipple grafts, in particular, require a lot of upkeep. I reliably kill houseplants, so I’m concerned about my ability to keep my trimmed and repositioned pair appropriately moist. It’s like someone gave me a random draw of exotic pets — say, a ferret and two […]
After a couple of false starts and cancellations and a lot of scrambling around, I finally have a firm date for top surgery. That’s the exciting part. The scary part is, it’s two days from now. So, yeah. I want it very badly. It seems crazy. I feel unprepared. I felt that about starting testosterone, […]
Writing about Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers got me to thinking about morality in fiction again. On the whole, I’m in favor of it. Trollope is a great example: Barchester Towers brings life to the Tractarian Movement. To me, it’s a miracle that he’s located the beating heart of a theological debate, and created characters who struggle […]
For me, the last several days have been some of the worst of the pandemic. Events have left me so angry and afraid that I’m rocking in one place and swearing for an hour or so a day. This evening I took a walk around my neighborhood, and spent the time trying to figure out […]
I go to bed angry. I wake up angry. I don’t sleep much. Instead, I fume through the night. It’s hard to work, or read, or even eat. Like a lot of people, I’ve been tormented by rage ever since the President of the United States incited a mob to attack the Capitol. The more facts […]
I try not to talk politics at work. This started out as a form of self-preservation, since I’m a progressive in an extremely conservative industry. Most engineers are tolerant and accepting, but there’s definitely a fringe of rigid, crazy autodidacts. Over time, it’s become a matter of principle. I believe that when you work long days […]
I spent all day yesterday working in the lab, integrating engineering software and hardware, slogging towards a modest goal that seemed to recede as the day wore on. By late afternoon, we hit an error that we couldn’t clear and couldn’t explain, and agreed to adjourn for the day. I got my phone out of […]
So, still recovering from last night’s Lamp Rewiring Incident. I can’t help but notice the lingering, physical sense of shame and disgust associated with forcing myself to stick with the task. My body, mind and spirit would all strongly prefer not to rewire anymore lamps. It’s some combination of a lifetime of humiliations and failing […]
Until this week, I’ve managed to avoid the pandemic trend towards DIY home repair. This is not for lack of projects. If I simply look up from my laptop screen, I’m confronted with absent window screens, a security door that can only be locked and unlocked with extraordinary patience and dedication; questionable grout; cracked, damp […]
In March I started writing journal entries about the Covid-19 pandemic because it seemed clear that we were living through unprecedented times. A lot of people didn’t notice what was happening in Italy and New York City, or felt it didn’t affect them. I started noting the case numbers and deaths in Arizona because I […]
