The Myth & The Majesty

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I'd love to blame the holidays for my lack of posting -- after all, it was a bit before Thanksgiving when you last saw me here -- but the truth is simply that I don't wanna. Yep. Don't wanna. But as it's the end of the year -- the end of a very long, very strange year -- I figured it was time to reappear. How are you? ... Yeah, that sounds about right. Had you asked me a year ago, I would have said that by now I'd be in Denver, maybe even back to living alone and enjoying what my early thirties have to offer with a full complement of health benefits and a 401(k). I'd have gone on a couple of road trips and perhaps I'd be saving up for a big trip overseas. As I've mentioned previously, however, this year has not gone as expected. First, of course, was the job situation. When the initial change didn't take, I ended up with a temporary gig ... that just keeps reappearing. Then a few months back, my...

1. So I finally jumped on the "Stranger Things" bandwagon. After a week and now 1.22 seasons in, I'm trying to learn to pace myself so that, among other things, I'll stop being followed by dark tentacle creatures through dreams. 2. I appreciate Black Hills winters greatly. 3. Still wouldn't argue with a little snow, though. A little. 4. Looking at a weird week ahead. We'll see how it all goes.

A year ago, I gave a not-quite-a-review for a book. I read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore in a Denver hotel room while preparing for a life that ... as it turned out, never quite happened. It was a weird place and time in my universe and on some level, I wondered if my deep, abiding love for that book was inextricably linked to that almost-life. Six months later, I read it again. Turns out this was a book that had nothing to do with where I was. I still loved it. Then, something crossed my radar in September. Robin Sloan , the hilarious and brilliant author of Penumbra , had a newly released novel. ... About bread. Kind of. I finally acquired it last week, and then this week I opened it up. And the next day, I was done. Here's my review: Go read it . The thing that gets me about Sloan's books as a whole is that they are rather hard to describe. They're not directly mysteries or love stories or anything quite that easily classified (well, not yet...

I'm finally hitting that thing on my to-do list that I've been casually delaying for, oh, about six months now. Of course, it immediately went awry. Like most of you, I carry a smartphone that at any given point in time contains hundreds of photos I've barely perused since they first appeared on the screen. Sure, every once in awhile I'll thumb through them, trying to remember what day that hike was or when exactly that aunt visited, and occasionally I'll trip over something oddly memorable. Like this. Or the day I took this. Or ... Seriously, how many cat pictures do I have?    This one caught me a tad off guard. And of course, there are the food photos. I seem to be a digital hoarder. Well, no longer. In the midst of my data cleanse, after I'd pulled everything from the last two years off my memory card and while I was sorting through it, I got The Message. Card Corrupted. Formatting Required....

1. When you come across a bison in the woods, it is every bit as unnerving as you'd expect. 2. I moved many things that I should have thrown away. On the other hand, my donation pile is only getting bigger. 3. Like many, I've been thinking back on 9/11 and where I was that day (early morning band practice), which led to a strange trip through the things I do and do not specifically remember. I remember the Gulf War, although not when it started (I was in first grade). The explosion of Columbia  was a huge deal, as I was in class at an engineering university. (We watched the coverage all day in the dorm common room.) Bin Laden's death (while I was packing for my summer). But what I've realized this week is how many people -- kids, in my book -- I know that have no memories of any of these things. Kids who worked for me were born after 9/11 or Columbia. Kids who have memories of those don't remember Columbine -- and more to the point, no memory of what scho...

"This wasn't how this year was supposed to go." I don't know exactly how many times I've said that in recent history, but do me a favor. Keep going and read that sentence again with my intended tone. It's not a whine -- it's a slightly bewildered but hopeful phrase, as though what became reality might actually be an improvement on what was expected. "This wasn't how this year was supposed to go." I've had a lot of catch-up conversations in recent history that have started with, "So have you moved yet?" Each time I get to back up in the year and fill whoever it is in on exactly how the last few months have progressed, and each time I'm a little more baffled. Yes, I'm still on hold (as far as I know). Yes, I'm looking for other jobs in the meantime. No, my patience isn't infinite. No, I don't actually mind staying in Rapid City. In fact, the summer has been quite fun. This wasn't how this year wa...