Running With Matches

The late Jerry Pournelle seemed to have a second sense for when I was going crazy. Or, you know, he read my blog.

I’d get up one fine morning, and there would be an email saying “Sarah, despair is a sin.” I hated those emails. Because — as anyone who has contemplated suicide knows — despair presents solutions that are simple, satisfying and… wrong. (Which is sort of what sin does, anyway, if you think about it.)

You sit there, and you think “I’m worthless. Nothing will ever go right f...