The Myth & The Majesty

It was a week to break out the winter sneakers, brave the grocery store due to poor planning, and do our best to enjoy each other's company. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

My eyesight had gone wacky. This didn't alert me the way it should have. I've worn glasses for thirty years; that prescription has changed a lot since 1995 and I'd grown used to getting it updated, so when things got extra blurry I realized it had been awhile since my last optometrist visit and I started looking for a new doctor. It did not register just how quickly this had happened. Or how bad it had gotten. In fact, it took entirely too long. Instead, my body threw out other hints -- hey look, this really boring walk is exhausting you. Hey look, you start coughing when you lay down. Hey look. Your feet are swollen. I had a smattering of sick days. I had a hard time reading. I couldn't concentrate at work. Then I finally googled my symptoms late one night. So at 1AM on a Tuesday in July, I woke up the Tall Guy. "Hey. I think I'm having a heart attack. I need you to take me to the ER." He didn't believe me at first, but inside a minute he was much mor...

Rapid City is now home to a Barnes & Noble. I've posted here over the years (yeah, okay, it's been awhile) about my bookstore love. And I spread that love as widely as I can -- cute independent stores like Mitzi's, used stores like Everybody's Bookstore, themed ones like the castle-y places I've visited in Wisconsin and (another B&N in) Rochester. Tiny neighborhood places or the big box franchises like B&N or Borders (may it rest in peace). Mall bookstores, airport newsstands, even simply the book section in a gift shop. I enjoy tripping over a small mom and pop store in towns I'm just passing through, or going on a road trip just to see Powell's City of Books. I love the hushed stores ad the big noisy ones. I love the wild stacks in used stores and the nearly cookie-cutter layouts in franchises. Despite my inner That Guy insisting that I shop local whenever I can (yes, I have one of those in my head), Barnes & Noble holds a special place in ...

"I will show you a technique for exploring your nerves – the underside of them." There, in the calm shadowed chamber, she taught him how to meditate. Moonbound by Robin Sloan What do you do with a midweek holiday? I don't know what I would have done previously. Nothing, maybe. Stayed home and lollygagged if I were at the camp, or back in the Wausau days I may have made grand plans and not followed through. (That was certainly my pattern.) Now -- I escape. Staying home and lazing requires me to navigate downtown parking and that holds no appeal; that simple fact makes it much easier to find and pursue plans. So this last week, with my midweek holiday and my birthday gift to myself, I aimed for one of my favorite spots in my geographic neighborhood. The Badlands. For all my exploring there by car and on foot, I'd never really considered riding a bike on those roads. By and large this is because I've struggled to be comfortable on a bike with cars zooming by or confi...

[Come, join me for a meandering monologue already in progress.] I have not yet figured out what exactly it means to "age gracefully." Seriously. What does that mean? Is it about acceptance? Is it about "living your best life," whatever that actually means? Is it continuing to think about the future even though said future is by necessity getting shorter as you work your way into it? Hm, that last one is jarring. Let's not go there right now. Still, I find myself wondering -- and it has a lot to do with my inner monologue. I don't think I'm alone in this: my inner monologue sounds perpetually 24. Her voice hasn't changed. Her opinions certainly have and she knows a lot more than she did sixteen [eek] years ago, but there haven't been major shifts in her vocabulary or basic approach to many things. And if that's true for me, how many of us are carrying around the same thing? Maybe we don't necessarily act our ages because, deep down, we al...

A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time. - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Let's talk about the Penumbraverse for a moment. Back in 2016, while wandering the stacks of (the now beleaguered) Tattered Cover in Denver, I came across a book I'd somehow not heard of, even though it had been around for four years by then. White background, bright yellow books (which I later found glowed in the dark – jarring) and an intriguing title. I finished reading it before my trip had ended . Since then Robin Sloan has built a world. Not Middle Earth style – it's not total invention from the ground up – but a world built on our existing one, a world that is just a touch more ideal than the one we inhabit. Every time I re-read one of the books (or re-listen – they're fantastic fun in audio form) I find myself happier. They're fun, they're interesting, and they feel so ... possible. In-world, here they are chron...