"Show Me Where It Hurts" or "Why I Make People Uncomfortable"

After decades of searching, I finally found and purchased a copy of Edmundo Vasconcelos' Modern Methods of Amputation. Everything I know about unintended irony(*), I learned from this book. I will be making T-shirts.

(*) cs10 is welcome to chime in on whether it is linguistically possible for irony to be unintentional. She may also chime in on whether, in her experience, this figure accurately depicts the best position to take when extracting all four limbs from a human, with the caveat that the author's intention is that the amputee survive the procedure.

Also, I suck at quitting blogging.

The Opposite of Terror

Nerkygrrl's gramma shared this video with me today.


It actually chokes me up every time I watch it. Nowadays when I think of a group of people carefully orchestrating a surprise at a train station... well... I think of this. The realization that there are people out there (at least in Belgium), committing senseless acts of joy makes my heart swell and my eyes water. Furthermore, it makes me want to be part of it. I know that it's a trick of choreography, but the magic of the event is that you can't tell which bystander is next going to seamlessly joining the other dancers, as if strangers have stepped out of their lives to become part of something spontaneous and wonderful.

That's the sort of universe that I want to live in. One where every person, if they open themselves to it, feels an internal pulse and connection to everyone else. Where, given the right music and the right moment, everybody dances.

Celebrations throughout Bryceland!

The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio broadcasts are available on CD in the US at a reasonable price. This includes the two original radio series (which inspired the first two books) and the later three radio series (which were inspired by the three later books. Confused?)

Oh happy day!

I can finally upgrade from my dubbed cassette tapes that I made from Bryceland's originals back in... egad... 1989.

Signing Off Soon

As is my wont, I will be shutting this blog down in a few days, now that it has served it's purpose— i.e. it got me writing every day. That's a good thing. A very good thing. Unfortunately, once I actually got in the writing habit, writing the blog started getting in the way of writing the fiction. Since starting this blog, I've written two short stories, joined a writing group, and finally found the ending to the novel that's been sitting on my desk for three years. I feel really good about all of that.

Thanks for everyone who read and supported this, and I'd like to extend a special thank-you to Brad Green and Donigan and CD, who I met through this site. I'll try to keep up on reading your stuff.