Stubborn persistence pays off, as Heinlein teaches us. Can I have a Hallelujah to that? All the way back in 2009, when my marriage was only four years old, and I wasn’t even a father yet, we took a trip to the mid-Atlantic island of Sao Miguel. The volcanic beauty and verdant exuberance of the…
Tonight before bed, both our sons (eight and six) suddenly* decided they wanted to pray**. Since we choose to allow our kids the freedom to believe what they want, I didn’t object in the least. I exercized self-restraint, and refrained from forcing my own secular world-view on them. I merely explained what kind of things…
Blast from the past: my not-quite-eight-year-old son suddenly wanted to own a Rubik’s Cube. A couple of his classmates had one, and he was fascinated with the colorful 3D puzzle. I used to own a bunch myself, and had a method of solving the thing memorized from a convenient little booklet. Unfortunately, we had recently…
Last night, I unfriended and blocked a guy on Facebook over vaccination.* He wasn’t even too rabidly fundamentalist about the topic. Nevertheless, his way of arguing an anti-vaxx point of view had all the hallmarks of the widespread anti-vaxx disinformation strategy. Which is why I refuse to engage in this debate any longer. And why…
A long, rambling mission statement in which I admit I that need your help WARNING: This post contains writerly soul-baring and navel-staring. Never surrender When it comes to writing, I am my own worst enemy. I found a discussion thread on the forum page of my online writers group Codex yesterday, posing the question most writers…
This thrilling tale of miscommunication and conjecture is available in Dutch only.
Or… why writing is like using a muscle.* Our youngest, though approaching two years of age, still believes in at least one, preferable two bottles a night. (Bear with me for a moment. This really is a post about writing.**) Three, if he can get them. Add teething to the mix and our nights are…
We’re living in the future… Springsteen got it right on his Magic album. We are living in the future. Case in point: the proof is no longer in the pudding, but in the cloud, or rather, the Cloud. In preparation for the 10th Villa Diodati Writers Workshop, 21-24 April in Southern England, all participants are…
A friend got married today, in a moving civil ceremony of beautiful speeches and enchanting songs, the bride and groom radiant and utterly happy. I was reminded of our own wedding, and of countless other moments of deep and unwanting happiness. And then the Reverend Norman Viss got up to perform the spiritual part of…
Every once in a while, Good Stuff accumulates in such great quantities on a single day that it threatens to short out the brain’s happiness center. Yesterday was such a day. The day was already a success when I managed to solve a problem at work that had been gnawing at my brain for months….
