Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 231

Freedom!

 

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When you jump out of a (perfectly good) airplane, you free yourself from its trajectory, but on the other hand, you are under the pull of gravity.

Freedom is the right to determine what you will be and won’t be subjected to.

I pursued a comment someone made here about religion making a comeback in urban areas in France.  It is. Most churches are reported to be standing room only.  But it is returning because of something odd.

You see… indulge me.  This is a highly abbreviated history of th...

Feral

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Years ago — the record is here somewhere — I decided that to be able to write I needed to get out of the house.

That wasn’t exactly wrong. I had identified the fact that I needed to set regular hours and that the kids being late high school and college were in and out at all sorts of odd times, interrupting the flow of words.

The problem is the place I picked, which was downtown Colorado Springs (half an hour walk from then-home) on Bijou, between Tejon and Nevada (I think.)

You see, I hadn’...

An Appeal

I’m writing a post, which will be up soon.  It’s been a very weird day.  Until I get it written, though:

To all my fans and friends:
I’m very careful about which gofundmes I boost. Usually only those of very close friends where I know the need is real.

Oleg is a very good friend, one who has helped me unstintingly when I was in trouble.

Furthermore, Gremlin, his cat, is more like a child or a friend or a brother of his than a “pet.” I’m not sure Oleg will be okay without Gremlin.

The bad new...

Here’s To New Beginnings

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Two major religions — at least — are celebrating the raison d’etre of their existence and one of the branches of one of those will celebrate it next weekend.

I know that Easter/Passover doesn’t align with the equinox, but all the same, it is part of a very old tradition of celebrating a new beginning around this time of year.  (In fact new year used to be in Spring.)

Things are growing, my lawn shows signs of green, and we too want to be renewed and have a second start.  Unlike the “resoluti...

Movement

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You know, I think there are right now any number of people holding their breath and waiting for things to go back to “normal.”

Their ranks include everyone from traditional publishers, to journalists, to … well, to most people who are not actively involved in “how things change.”

Heck, even some of us who are have to fight trained-in assumptions and ideas from our previous life.  Because you know, I can sniff the air and read the atmosphere in my field. I know how things used to go, and some...

The things writers read- A Blast From The Past From December 2008

[image error] The things writers read- A Blast From The Past From December 2008

Apropos nothing I’ve been wondering if I’m typical of how writers’ read. I don’t mean in fiction.
In fiction – with the strange exception of people I’ve been hearing about lately, who do not read at all because they’re afraid it will taint their writing (most of these people aren’t published, I should add) – the short answer to a writer’s reading tastes is like the one about the eight hundred pound gorilla. The short answer i...

Ringing Through The Changes

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Yesterday, in the middle of nowhere, I just felt like sitting down and bawling my eyes out.  Now if this had been ten years ago, when I was more ah captive of the changing moon, I’d know where it came from and ignore it.

You see, I don’t talk too well to my body, which perforce includes my “thinking meat” as well as everything that influences it.  When I start feeling something that has no basis in my immediate reality, that’s when I look at what’s going on with the body, to see if there’s s...

A Wholly Separate Reality

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This morning I was reading a book first published in the 40s (I think) and reprinted (among other editions in 95 and I was very surprised to read the intro on that.  The I guess published and probably fairly well known author (well, I’m not aware of having ever read him) writing it talks about the author’s (of the book) great female character, and how she’s not like the women at the time who had three options “scream, be rescued, throw up.”

Now I’m acquainted with this version of reality fro...

What Remains

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The Portuguese, or at least some of them, or PARTICULARLY my mom have a tendency to burn most of the belongings/correspondence/papers of the deceased.

This is something that would shock Americans and in fact it is probably a measure of my acculturation that I was somewhere between shocked and upset when mom burned paternal grandma’s decades of correspondence.

You see, grandma was the family’s node point, keeping in touch with relatives and friends from 80 years before, and their outflung pro...

The Squid And Its Ink

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I’m no longer surprised when someone takes offense when I say something like “communism has been driving the culture for a hundred years.”

I have been called insane and worse for saying that, and incidentally for saying that the Earth is not overpopulated, we have no way of telling the real population count worldwide, because even in the US counting is a bureaucratic mess, and that it is my opinion — though hard to substantiate — that the population is in fact already falling. I’ve been sayi...