My Sheltie’s favorite game was “we all have toys & we’re all running around.”
This makes sense to me.
My mop dog’s favorite game is “I’m trying to chew on your face without letting you chewing on mine.” Continue reading “Canine Games”
Category: Blog
Goodbye Trudy
Losing two dogs in two months is a lot. They were five years apart in age. Life has no guarantees.
Trudy’s last day was today… she was sixteen, and yes, she is the dog who inspired Trudith in the Otters In Space trilogy. I could never have written Trudith without her. She was a friend, part of my family, and also an inspiration — one of my muses. Continue reading “Goodbye Trudy”
Time-Period Accurate Historical Fiction
I saw some men complaining about a piece of historical fiction by a woman having too much sexism, even though it was time period accurate. This bugged me. I think I’ve finally figured out why.
History is full of sexism… Continue reading “Time-Period Accurate Historical Fiction”
How to Simulate a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster
When I first watched Farscape, I was checking out DVDs from the Seattle Public Library. You’d wait ages to make it to the top of the hold list, and then you’d get to check out a whole season… for one week. Continue reading “How to Simulate a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster”
Who Gets to Be Centered and Why
I’ve never seen The Goonies before & I guess the reveal of an abandoned pirate ship in a cave would be more impressive if I hadn’t played the Deadmines a ton in World of Warcraft… but I’m still mostly baffled by how this movie seems to be so fondly remembered.
We need more art centering women — LOTS MORE — for so many reasons, but one of them is men need more practice imagining the world through women’s eyes. Continue reading “Who Gets to Be Centered and Why”
Restarting Farscape
Time to watch Farscape from the beginning!
I’d forgotten how much my upcoming Entangled Universe trilogy was influenced by Farscape… one human surrounded by colorful aliens, living spaceship who bonds with a pilot… yeah. I loved this show. Continue reading “Restarting Farscape”
The End of BoJack
I started rewatching BoJack Horseman when my dog died. I’ve now finished rewatching BoJack Horseman… somehow this has not resurrected my dog.
On my first time watching the end of BoJack Horseman, I kind of wished BoJack had actually died, and the final episode had been only about the other characters, especially Diane and Princess Carolyn. Continue reading “The End of BoJack”
The Air in the Valley of the Wind
We’ve been rewatching Studio Ghibli movies this week, because the seven-year-old doesn’t remember them. Tonight’s movie is Nausicaa, and it’s upsettingly thematically appropriate…
We also cannot breathe the air without masks right now. Continue reading “The Air in the Valley of the Wind”
Less Valuable than the Concept of a Fetus
Climate action…
Racial justice…
Reproductive rights…
Healthcare for all…
They’re all connected. They’re all about not hurting people.
You can’t have one & skip the others. Because the callousness necessary to deny any of them will leak over into the one you care about.
All the good things you want in life, you’re more likely to get them if you live in a world with kind and compassionate leaders who care about your needs.
But a truly kind and compassionate leader who cares about YOUR needs will care about the needs of EVERYONE.
Kindness and compassion can’t deny science, because fundamentally, science is nothing more than a process for figuring out what’s real.
Denying reality is neither kind nor compassionate. It’s delusional, dangerous, and cruel.
I’m still mad that after literal years of me dragging my whole family down to the Bay Area (from Oregon) for holidays that my in-laws cared more about peace and politeness (meaning me keeping my mouth shut about the hatefulness of forced-birthers) than about seeing any of us.
It really messes with your sense of worth when people that you’ve cared about for years make it clear that you mean less to them than THE CONCEPT OF A FETUS. Not, like, even ones they really know or have investment in or EXIST. Just, like, the idea that some MIGHT exist.
Because there are literally people out there who will vote for stupidity and cruelty, figuring those are acceptable collateral damage, just to protect the IDEA of fetuses. And yes, it’s just the IDEA, because there are LITERALLY NO FETUSES out there fighting for their rights.
You know why fetuses don’t fight for their rights? BECAUSE THEY’RE LESS ALIVE THAN GRASS. A cat will scratch you to make its feelings clear. A dog will bite. ACTUAL BABIES CRY. Fetuses are fucking nothing. And the fetishization of them is goddamned sick. GODDAMNED SICK.
Apparently when I get angry, I use the word “literally” a lot. Correctly… but possibly unnecessarily.
The toxic smoke in the sky; the virus carried invisibly by other people; and the hate, cruelty, and incompetence from the republicans in charge…
It feels like being in Ghostbusters 2 when the pink slime, charged with bad feelings is ready to make the whole city boil over.
When you’re more gentle with the feelings of people causing harm than the feelings of people they’re harming, that’s not kindness. It’s complicity.
The beliefs of forced-birthers are fundamentally hateful and violent, because they dehumanize people with the mixed fortune of having uteruses.
Pretending otherwise is participating in that dehumanization.
The Cats Won
The cats have stolen my tiny DS9 figurine that lived on the back of a toy turtle on my desk.
I’d say, “This means war,” except… I think it was actually the final blow in an ongoing war.
The cats won. I give up.
The cats are in charge now.