“You say you’re ‘depressed’ — all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn’t mean you’re defective — it just means you’re human.”
Yo, fellow defenders of our beautiful planet, happy Monday and happy Earth Day! What a crazy week, right? I’m guessing you’ve heard about my adventures in New Mexico; they were all over the freakin’ news. So first let me send a shout out to you, my loyal listeners, for your amazing support of this graying environmental correspondent. Without you, I’d probably still be in jail.
What’s this, what’s this? I have just discovered that the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has a video interview series with interesting authors like Ann Leckie, Ken Liu, Karen Lord and more. It’s called Narrative Worlds and is hosted by author Kate Elliott.
I now know this because I follow Martha Wells (Murderbot and much more), and she is heading for the interview chair this Sunday the 24th.
Busy on Sunday? Me too, probably, but good news, SFWA archives the series.
Have I listened to these yet? I just discovered they existed five minutes ago so no, I have not. The list of authors is impressive, however, and I expect good things.
One day a little country girl bunny with a brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail said, “Some day I shall grow up to be the Easter Bunny: you wait and see!” Then all of the big white bunnies who lived in fine houses, and the Jack Rabbits with long legs who can run fast, laughed at the little Cottontail and told her to go back to the country and eat a carrot. But she said, “Wait and see!”
A brief excerpt from a work in progress (and no, this isn’t about the Whippersnapper):
“As I’ve stated, Miss Winter, your grandmother’s will is quite specific.” He cleared his throat and straightened his back with an ostentatious thrust of the shoulders. “She made you her primary heir. Except for cash distributions to your relatives and a few minor items like your father’s bronzed baby shoes and so on, you are to receive all of her possessions. This includes the house on Willow Lane and all of its contents, the car, as well as a bank account that will allow you to maintain the house in good order.” He smiled smugly, as bearers of news they expect to be well-received tend to do. Little did he know.
My grandmother lived through the Great Depression, seven children, her husband’s early death, a (rumored, but still) alien abduction, and a long line of vicious Siamese guard cats named Fido. She was as hard-nosed as they come. And she didn’t give anything away, ever.
I could feel the walls of her trap closing in on me, but couldn’t see them yet. I just hoped that it wasn’t too late to escape.
“Ok,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “And I get all of this for the low, low price of…?”
“The stipulations are quite clear, Miss Winter. If you follow the letter of the will all rights and responsibilities to her things will become yours, but for that to happen you must officially take possession.”
Ah. Here it was, the sticking point.
He shuffled the papers around a bit, looking for the relevant section of text. “If you do not move into the house and reside there on a permanent basis for a period of at least one full year from today, the day after her death, all goods and monies will revert to my protectorship and be liquidated, funds to go to the largest right-wing fascist group in the state.” He looked up at me with a wry expression. “The final amount would be… considerable.”
Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report? Hobbes: (Reading Calvin’s paper) “The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes.” Calvin: Academia, here I come!
“We’ve now created dragons for you twice, you’ve had the opportunity to inspect our work at every step of the way, and both times you’ve refused to take delivery. Timothy is a very good dragon, and you don’t deserve him anyway. You’re fired.”
On this day, eons ago, the brave Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee fulfilled their quest to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. And so it was decreed that March 25th would ever after be known as Tolkien Reading Day!
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
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