leslea

[leslea]

[leslea]

The Fabulousness

I haven’t updated The Fabulousness in awhile. It’s time to recount some fabulous things about life! 

I have:

Grown a radio show to 500+ subscribers

Recorded another audiobook

Grown a YouTube channel to 400+ subscribers

Worked on Miss Fitz and the Hard NO November

Attended arthritis exercise classes for six months

Held my husband and youngest child’s European Union passports in my hands

Visited Canada

Studied Italian for over 300 days in a row

It has been a terribly difficult past two years. DESPITE THAT, I have done all of the above. That is some truly FABULOUS STUFF! Another fabulous thing that isn’t my achievement at all is...my baby boy is finishing high school.

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I miss my Seannie horribly. I love him so much and think about him all of the time. It hasn’t faded or gotten much easier, and it’s hard to live in an extended state of grief. He graduates this weekend and I’m still not sure if I should go or not. I want to show him support, but he has been verbally abusive the past few times we have spoken or seen one another. I told him that if I go, he won’t know I’m there, anyway, because the gym will be so crowded...but I don’t know if I can resist approaching him, trying to hug him, trying to tell him I am proud of him and that he can do anything he sets his mind to doing.

I wish him peace. Peace, joy, confidence, success...I think I will write him a letter. I just want him to know that no matter what, he is loved.

There are days when I feel like he has broken my heart, and other days when I have hope that someday we will be able to find common ground. We are family. He is one of the great loves of my life. I know he doesn’t understand that right now, but I hope someday he will.

And I wish I had been a better mother to him. But I can’t keep counting all the things I did wrong. I have fought for him, for what is best for him, but soon he will be legally able to make those decisions for himself. I hope he takes care of himself, is surrounded by real friends--true friends--and knows love. 

I forgive him. I can forgive him anything, with ease. I forgive Tim for his role in all this. I even forgive Sean’s father. This year, I hope I can really and truly forgive myself.

[leslea]

[leslea]

The long-awaited blog update, lol

[leslea]

[leslea]

I want to tell him I miss him

I want to tell him I dreamed of his sweet smile, and how the love he gave lit up the entire house. We miss you. We all miss you. How do I let you go?

[leslea]

Saying goodbye

We’re saying goodbye to two of our good bois today: Parker and Samson. It hurts, letting go. It hurts, seeing them suffer. It sucks having to be the one to decide when it’s time. I can see why God walked away from the whole “creation” mess. You can’t stop yourself from wanting them, loving them, needing them, delighting in them...and you can’t dim how much it hurts when their lives are over. I wouldn’t blame God one bit if he went back to clock-making and drank himself to oblivion.

I’m not God, though, and I’ve used up all my access to miracles. My heart has been on my actual boys and my youngest child. My four children. My husband. 

I love my animals, but if I’ve had any miracles to spare, I’ve been directing them towards my babies, wishing them health and peace and happiness and just joy and hope for the future. It’s not a good time for two of them. Two *real* life boys. One is a man, the other is close. Our family has been exploded, and I have done what I can to do what’s right. I’ll keep trying to do what’s right. I’m exhausted, emotionally. I miss my sons. 

They blame me for a lot. I suppose I should have expected this. Maybe if there’d been no pandemic...if I hadn’t had pneumonia just before it...maybe this, maybe that. Again with the God thing, right? Things could have been different, but they aren’t. They are just how they are.

What if I just radically accept that children grow up, teens go through stuff, genes turn on and activate certain behaviors, parents learn how to set boundaries, and life goes on? Relationships change, and sometimes that change isn’t graceful or wise or loving or patient. Sometimes (often, I think, when it comes to young men and their moms), change comes in the form of angry rebellion and thoughtless acts.

I’m not a teenage boy, though, so I don’t get to choose the childish, thoughtless response. I have to think about things. I have to do my best. I have to honor my emotions and recognize my fears, and then still do the right thing by these independent people. For one kid, it might look like telling him “no.” For the other, it might look like “yes.” But it’s not simple. It’s definitely not “one size fits all,” which is, I believe, a common metric for siblings to use to compare what their parents do.

I know I definitely compared how my mother treated me to how she treated my brother and my sister. My own kids (two of them) are doing that now. I have a relatively easy relationship with the other two, who still live at home. One will be leaving the nest sooner than later. The other is still in middle school. 

And I look at myself versus my mother in terms of parenting style. We are almost two separate species. It’s interesting, though, how many of my issues with my teens are similar to those I had with my mom. At least in the case of one child. I don’t have all this parenting stuff figured out, but I think there is something to genetics. I was rebellious and independent. I’d have done the same thing he is doing, if I could have. As much as he thinks he loathes me, he *is* me, in a different form. It’s hard. I cherish him and I’m angry at him, but I also understand him. And I don’t know if it will be possible for us to have peace for some time. I have the law on my side. I could shut down his experiment in being a teen grown-up, but it’s not that simple. I’m not sure that’s even right for him.

My two adult sons are functioning on different levels. One is asking me for more help than I can give. The other asks for very little. He’s probably ready to leave the nest at any time, but hasn’t felt any rush. He’s happy. The other is...well, I can’t say for sure what he is. Miserable? Angry? Happy? He’s delicate, and he’s removed himself from my sphere of influence, and he wants me to give him free reign to bring whatever energy of the day may reign into our home, whenever. I love you, adult son. I want what’s best for you. I can’t let you destroy the peace in this home. We’ve ALL been through a lot. Not just you. You want me to rescue you, and I’m not able to. ONLY YOU CAN RESCUE YOU.

And then, there’s the little one. They’re seeing the chaos I never wanted for any of my kids. Watching me deal with it. Taking notes. How do I prepare this little one for life? I’ve got to model the right thing, without ever fully knowing deep down if I’m doing the right thing. Just trusting. Thinking, praying, reading, hoping, and ultimately trusting my gut.

So that’s where I direct my miracle allowance lately. Towards those kids.

Today we are having two of the family dogs put down, and all week, Tim and I have gone back and forth. Should we? Should we not? It’s really no question today. We can see the suffering and the pain, and the refusal to take pain meds. The dogs are 12, which is the upper expected limit for their breeds. They’re not having fun. They’re not enjoying life. They’re existing through each day, having more and more pain, and accidents.

Our pets have been angels in our lives. My dogs have given me the affection and the love that I needed to cope with loss. They’ve protected me and given me security when I battled agoraphobia. They have calmed me through C-PTSD and played peacemaker when kids lost their tempers. Parker’s effect on Tim is something like Xanax. That dog has been his best friend for a long time. Samson has been my Chewbacca, watching my back and scaring away Darth Vader, UPS, and anyone else who came to the door to alter the deal.

I’m going to miss these dogs. These good bois. These furry angels. I hate today, for what it is. But I would hate myself even more if I let them suffer any longer. We were blind to how much they were suffering, before. Now that we see it, it can’t be unseen.

Just do the right thing, Leslea. That’s all you can do. That’s all I can do.

Even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts.

[leslea]

The Alpinist

I watched The Alpinist a few days ago, and I am still struck by how beautiful the frozen mountains were in that movie. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll avoid the spoilers, but I'm sitting here now with a full belly, a roaring fire going, a nice simmer pot of orange/cinnamon/clove/star anise, etc., and my heart feels like a great big frozen boulder with a chunk missing. Hanging on. I miss having my complete family together for Christmas, but I remember--this beautiful life we walk through is so much like the stark beauty of nature. It's glorious, and so many impossibly beautiful things come to pass, you're left wordless and awestruck. Then it can be brutal, as well. There are "good mountains," like anything you see on The Alpinist, and "bad mountains," like the kind your sweetheart is climbing up because he didn't want to tell you he twisted his ankle on mile one, and "sad mountains," like the kind you wish you could share with someone who doesn’t want to see things from your vantage point. There are "good tireds" from a long day's work, and "sad tireds" from the things you've fought for and failed to win, and "bad tireds" from the accidents of fate that put you in the path of someone else's rage and pain. I'm not sure which tired I am feeling right now, but I'm grateful to be safe and warm, to have completed some work today, and to be able to love those who love me with all my heart. Life wouldn't be as beautiful if it were simply flat, I know that. It is the contrast that makes you stop and gasp--OH! So different! So beautiful and strange and unreal! A close friend recently described me as the Captain America of parenting, ready to throw myself on the grenade of my children’s needs without hesitation, but it’s not necessarily a compliment. Cap got the chance to go back and relive his life, but most people don’t.  What if, as a parent, you can take Marc-Andre’s approach, and live your life for the fun of it? Because it’s all you want to do--just pure living, loving, reaching, laughing, teaching. Pure revelation in the moment? Not everyone will understand--not even your kids, for whom you climb. But who else can you be, other than the most authentic version of yourself?

Life wouldn't be as beautiful if it were simply flat.

#alpinist #parenting #holidays #pain #grief #kids #teenagers

[leslea]

August and everything after

Sean has chosen to live with his father, and it’s difficult to live without him in my every day world. I’m overcome with tears frequently, and every time I see his photo, I feel a huge part of me is missing. But, perhaps he is happier there. I can’t be sure, because he doesn’t want to communicate. I hope that someday he will change his mind and want to talk to me about anything--everything--mother and son things, friendly things, anything, really. Nothing will ever stop me from loving him, and I believe he knows that. I will always hope for a reconciliation.

Seamus’ first job at McDonald’s is going well. He genuinely enjoys it, and seems to have learned how to do nearly everything there in the first few days of employment. I can’t express how gratifying it is to see him happy, after so many years of struggling with depression. Happy Seamus is a gift! Next stop: driver’s license and buying his first car.

Sam’s job is going well, too. His employer recently threw a company party, which was evidently extremely wild and incredibly fun. He’s at the perfect age for such things, yet he remains a responsible, kind, and respectful young man. Samuel fills my heart with joy every single day! If you meet Sam and you don’t like him, then you frankly just do not like people at all, because Sam is the best kind of person there is.

GiGi has begun middle school, and had her first “close contact” brush with Covid-19. She turned up negative, thankfully. Playing the harp, snuggling me in the middle of the night (even though three of us do not really fit in the bed!), and growing up way too fast, she is everything a fifth grader can be--in that ever-changing world of “the tweens.” She and her friends still like to talk to Tim and me. They call me “bestie” even though I’m a middle aged lady who knows nothing about TikTok dances.

Tim and I are planning an anniversary trip soon. 11 years of marriage coming up. We remain firmly in love.

All four dogs and four cats are doing well. We now have four birds, as well, so the symmetry between kids/dogs/cats/birds is interesting, isn’t it?

There’s a blue moon tonight. A good night for meditation on upcoming goals and heartfelt desires.

An Honest Woman, Montana Brides #2, is out on audiobook. I’m admittedly putting more energy into promoting the forthcoming Miss Fitz Discovers Midlife Magic by Red Tash, but I’m quite proud of my historical adventure romance books, as well. There’s a secret project also coming out soon. I suppose I’ve gotten quite a bit of work done this year. I miss having a paycheck, but I couldn’t have done it without the time, so I don’t have any regrets on focusing on writing. Here’s hoping it pays off. 

#books #professional writer #author #blue moon #kids #teens #sons #daughters #middle school #life update #i love my kids #midlife emotions

[leslea]

Surprise! Book sale :)

Two new releases and a lot more! 

[leslea]

My latest release is sitting well into the top 100 new releases for Western Romance and 20th Century Historical American fiction. Weeee!

#western #romance #native american #indigenous people #montana #prohibition era #gangsters #rodeo #depression #adventure

[leslea]

The Happy Isles

I'm really jonesing for my next puzzle, The Happy Isle by Magic Puzzles, but I promised myself I wouldn't start on it until I'm at least 50% through my second pass over my latest WIP. I'm at 45%, so palm trees and aggravating straight edge pieces are definitely on the horizon. 

Besides denying myself the joy of a jigsaw puzzle, another thing I do to try and get myself over the hump of procrastination is allow myself to play a round of PVP on Guild Wars 2 in between 10 minute sessions of editing. I'll probably draw out the sessions to 15 minutes. I feel like PVP is getting more screen time than Miss Fitz at this point, and that's really not fair.

It's not like I don't want to do the work. I actually really am enjoying the story, the characters, and the process. There is just something hard-wired in me that fights that actual process. Are all writers like this? I think at some point we all are. The fun part of having the idea is like the sex before the baby. Nine long months of labor and 18+ of raising the kid, and you're like, why did I do this? Oh, yeah.

I fear I have just outed myself as a horrible mother.

There are authors who barrel through the work like a blur. I am not one of them. I'm not going to try to be. I'm pretty happy with my work, but I totally appreciate my superfast friends. They are super cool and I look to their example when I ask myself if I am denying myself the pleasure of writing/editing, or what. Because sometimes I am, and that's just self-flagellation, isn't it? It's okay to not work on a lousy $9/hour project if I've got the energy to write, right? And then I do it. Because I can. Sometimes I have to remind myself that other authors are allowed to write, and so am I. We are all allowed to write. It’s not a crime. It’s not a sin.

This particular WIP was possibly my fastest first draft, taking about six or seven weeks from start to finish, and although I always feel like I put a lot of myself into my stories, this one feels like it's right out of my present life as a mom of four, unlike any other novel I've written. So, is that good? Sure. It's something I've struggled for years to try to understand how to do, and I have to thank Emma Jameson specifically for not only encouraging me to write about my life, but also to dabble with fictionalizing it. 

I don't want to jinx myself because I'm only working through a draft--it's not like it's out for sale and getting rave reviews just yet. But I do feel good about it.

So I suppose that is my long-winded way of saying, I have learned that even when I really love what I'm working on, I will still have days when I would rather clean the air filters and the dog's ears than sit down for 15 minutes and edit my own work.

And to be honest, I have always loved what I’m working on, even when it was really, REALLY awful (and I knew it was awful, and it was meant to be awful). I suppose I’m just accepting that this is me. I have to bribe and trick myself sometimes, but maybe I love that. Maybe I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

#writing #editing #procrastinating #know thyself #authors #mystery #cozy mystery #middleagedwoman #female sleuth #sleuths who take daily naps #jigsaw puzzles #guild wars 2 #pvp

[leslea]

Full Moon

I wrote a poem about the Full Wolf Moon today, and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but she bit me. I don’t want to go into too many specifics, but while I was howling about one loss, I was someone else’s prey. By the end of the day I had been taken for a small sum of money, and I’m not positive that I will get it back. Maybe I will. Maybe the Full Wolf Moon will turn full circle--I mean, how can it not? And perhaps I’ll be made whole, but...today I felt the sting. I was a good mother, a good wife, a good human being, I worked hard, and still...teeth marks on my buttocks. 

(Whenever you read the word “buttocks,” do you, too, hear it in Forrest Gump’s voice?)

#full moon #wolf moon #karma #venting

[leslea]

Inauguration eve

Do you enjoy soothing guided meditation? I do, too. So, so much.

I sat down tonight to try and make one. Thought I would do a little test run.

Here’s what happened:

Click to listen.

#meditation #biden #trump #inauguration #relaxation #pachelbel #canon in d #kevin macleod #anchor #podcast #listen

[leslea]

New year, new ewe

I always hesitate to hop on the annual New Years reset-olution bandwagon, just as I always (yes, ALWAYS) dare not wish away the end of the previous year, no matter how trying it has been. The fact is, life is tough sometimes. I wouldn’t wish it away, though. This is the only chance I have at living, as far as I know. I’m not going to waste my energy devaluing it. So, yeah. Life is a flat circle and all that, let’s just do our best.

It occurs me lately that although times have been depressing, dangerous, and downright scary, I’ve been on the good foot. I’ve been able to work more this past year than in several years past. I’ve been doing things that need to be done around the house instead of ignoring them. I’ve been actively thinking about the future, and how two old GenXers like Tim and me can turn ourselves toward a future of elegant, simplified living, tons of travel, and good food. How we’ll eventually balance our need to get the most of life with our desire to be present for our children as they grow into adulthood. These are some big, heavy, philosophical things to cogitate over, you know? But I feel like we’ll do it. We’ll have so much fun--and we’ll need to focus on that fun, because when all four of the kids have left the nest, I think non-stop fun is the only thing to keep your mind from wondering if they are okay...and if their kids are okay...is everyone okay? How can I help? What should I research? Does the library have books on this topic? Give me a fortnight and I will be right back with a PhD.

One of the more challenging goals I have set for the future is to desensitize my Pomeranian to sketchy television. When I say “sketchy,” I mean any show with an animal on it--or in some instances, a too-realistic cartoon.

I adopted Grantham when I was having leftover grief and trauma from a cycle of miscarriages and familial losses. All my kids were soon to be in school all day, and Grantham was to be my substitute baby. Long story short, my kids ended up needing me a lot more the past five years than I had expected, and maybe I am turning into a serial animal adopter. (As I type that, the kitten has appeared in my office window, mewing to be let into the house.)

So we are now up to three cats, four dogs, and six chickens (well, five + a guinea cock). I feel like this a reasonable amount of pets for a household of six ruralites, such as ourselves, and I make no apologies.

But.

If we’re going to sell this house in a few years and move into something smaller, more streamlined, and dare-I-dream even remotely minimalist, then...I can’t adopt any new furballs. I need to stay on top of the fluff that piles up around here, already. (My allergies require that, as well.)

Acquiring new pets isn’t the only habit to put on hold this year. Acquiring new *things* is, as well. And this one stings quite a bit because I tend to already be a very eco-conscious consumer, visiting estate sales, auctions, thrift stores, garage sales (remember those? miss them) and the like before I buy anything new.

But I look around my house, and it’s full. It’s a HAPPY FULL and for that, I am grateful. It’s time to start back down the staircase. We’ve hit capacity, time to shed. I’m keeping the kids, husband, and pets. That means the stuff has to go. It means more than manually laboring through the house to collect, sort, and distribute, though. It means a change of mindset.

Does that make me a new person? Of course not. But I have to say, I’m pretty excited about the things I’ve accomplished lately, and about the happiness I feel when I think of these modest goals for my future. Not to say that a life-changing goal is a modest goal, because it’s really not--but I do feel like the actions that need to be taken on a daily basis to change my habits permanently are modest, in themselves. Modest steps, modest goals, huge results.

This time next year I hope things are only getting better.

PS Grantham successfully watched Babe with me yesterday. :)

#growth #babe #resolutions #tidying up #writing #working #pets #planning for the future #retirement #italy

[leslea]

Ready Player Two: The Mysognist’s Love Song

This is a review. Spoilers & typos to follow:

I enjoyed Ready Player One (RP1). It was quirky and fun. The dystopian setting was disturbing, especially as the kid who served as the story’s protagonist didn’t actually do much to make the world a better place, once he became its newest prince. We’re told from the git-go that the world is spiraling downhill, and what does Wade/Parzival do at the end? The bare minimum. He lets the debtors go. He shares his riches with his friends. Well, he was literally just a teenager, and most assuredly a feral one, at that, so you could excuse his lack of vision. Certainly there would be a Ready Player Two (RP2) that would redeem our child champion?

Haha, no.

RP2 is the story of what happens to a neglected impoverished child when he lucks into immense privilege, but lacks the heart, charm, or charisma to be anything other than a hermit and an incel. Where Harry Potter could arguably be said to have started from a similar circumstance, yet grew into an actual savior role in his fight against Voldemort & the Death Eaters, Wade Watts’ character in RP2 is unabashedly a less-loveable version of Donald Trump in a world where he is, in all practicality, king. 

As RP2 begins, Wade owns everything. Not just the Oasis, but a futuristic tech that allows one to record their own visceral experience of being alive. This tech, called ONI, goes even more viral than the Oasis, and makes Wade rich beyond the human mind’s ability to calculate. He has power--so much power, he can control anything. He is literally the richest man in the world, and most assuredly its most envied/hated. Nothing is out of reach for him--and though his friends from RP1′s ‘Gunting days are portrayed focusing on developing real relationships (marriages, babies, etc.), working on improving their environments, and delivering aid to their communities, our dear Wade simply pines for the one thing that eludes him: Samantha, aka Artemis, his fierce and determined love interest from RP1.

He brags about the one week he spent in seclusion with Samantha in a bedroom. He talks way too often of his other sexual exploits via ONI, allowing him to experience sex from the POV of other men, women, transpeople, and non-binary folks. He has done the deed every which way but loose, and author Ernest Cline is as eager to share those details with the reader as he is the spout off acronyms and descriptions of fictional technology. Whereas the latter will have you yawning in boredom, the former will simply turn your stomach. Raise your hands if you were hoping for more cybersex in RP2. Anyone? Anyone? Right. 

Before I delve too deeply in how important it is for even blockbuster authors like Cline to CONSENT TO QUALITY EDITORIAL INPUT, I need to outline some important problems with this story beyond “What’s wrong with Wade, items 1-999.”

Samantha is justly described to have turned her back on Wade over some important issues. She is a woman of integrity, and for years Wade stalks her virtually, even though in all reality he grows a smaller and smaller figure from her past. Think about any woman you know who moves on and gets things done in life: they do not sit around pining for a dickhead ex who they slept with once, years prior. They just don’t. Samantha, however, despite all her success, integrity, and morals...just can’t help but fall back in love with Wade.

All powerful Wade. Involuntarily celibate (in the “Earl,” as Cline calls “in real life,” [IRL]), plugged into the internet from his spinal column or brain stem or whatever, 12 hours per day Wade. Childish destroyer of dissenting user accounts Wade. Stalker Wade.

Although Samantha refuses to make eye contact with him for years, the moment he needs her help...poof. She’s back on his jock like static cling, if I may borrow Cline’s penchant for quoting nostalgia in lieu of creating new content.

While Samantha’s inexplicable change of heart is problematic enough, it is only foreshadowing for a bigger problem with the story. Wade, as owner of the Oasis and all that digital shit, ends up on a quest to restore the Siren’s Soul. This is the “egg hunt” of RP2. Instead of eggs, this time he’s hunting shards, which is fitting, really, because Cline left me feeling sharted on by earlier than midway through the text. 

Where were we? The shards. Right.

The singular essence of Kira Underwood, constantly referred to as “Og’s wife,” has been divided into seven shards and hidden around the Oasis--that is, until the end of the story when Cline mercifully hid the last two together. I might have wept if the story had gone on one chapter longer than necessary. When the shards are collected and merged, they will...? What? Oh, they will coalesce into the actual soul of the departed woman. They will bring her back, digitally.

Now, not only is it creepy on many levels that Wade--let’s call him Parzincel--is repeatedly referred to as Kira’s owner, but his idol before him, James Halliday, is characterized has having created this ONI technology for the main purpose of bringing Kira back, so that a digital version of himself could finally possess her. While “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” is certainly a handy commandment, “thou shalt treat women as FUCKING PEOPLE WITH THEIR OWN INHERENT RIGHTS” would perhaps be a better placard to engrave and set on the desk of Halliday--to then be passed down to Wade. It never seems to dawn on Parzincel that he has no right to possess Kira, or any other ONI user. 

The in-game avatar of Halliday eventually explains that Kira’s “siren” avatar was able to explain to him that possessing her, manipulating her, etc. was wrong--but ONLY after Halliday hooks himself up the ONI and lives some of Kira’s experiences. Cline plays Halliday off in both books as an Aspergian genius, someone very high functioning on the Autism Spectrum, but as the mother of a young man with autism, I am beyond disgusted at the idea that you would have to hook one living being up to another human being’s synapses for them to have ANY understanding that the other person is a free, competent human being with agency of her own. Kira is repeatedly characterized as an artistic genius with a great heart. She, like Samantha, is demonstrated to be loving and kind. Generous. And yet both Kira and Samantha are primarily belongings for men to possess, control, pursue, and lose. Oh, if only they did lose them...because of course, they don’t. In Parzincel’s dream future, the best thing he can do is create a double of himself, so that he can experience the inexplicable love of Samantha in the “Earl” as well as in an ONI paradise. 

Kira, as the “first stable AI,” is never once shown having any sort of existential crisis. She simply loves being a pretty plaything for Wade and Jim and Og, digitally--and naturally she is “still in love with Og.” Okay, whatever. By this point in the story, Og and Kira are nothing more than paper dolls set up to somehow replace Wade’s missing mother/father figures. You can almost see the author sitting spraddle leg on the floor of his study, pushing dolls around. “You are the mommy now, and you are the daddy...and Wade is the baby! Now kiss!”

In a world as technologically advanced as that of RP2, there would be nuances to digital characters, right? If only there were nuances in the humans who created them, I suppose.

Cline’s Parzincel has a weird weird weird way of looking at women. So does Halliday. Even the benevolent Og only barely registers as showing any interest in Kira’s consent, and then, only when he is, himself, close to death. It’s like Cline knew the only decent human being in this story was Ogden Morrow--and possibly Kira. We don’t really get to spend enough time with the Kira character to know. 

But why would we? We are just readers, and she is, after all, Og’s wife.

I won’t get started on the Lo-Five or what he did to Aech. I’ll let Tim take over for that bit.

#review #ready player two #rp2 #ready player one #rp1 #spoilers #ernest cline

[leslea]

Oh, to be a writer

To be that tip top, free-thinking, will o’ the wisp of spirit, words set down to flame...

oh, for that sweet freedom, the self-indulgence of massaging one’s truths

into the shape of a man, a woman, a doer, a deed

Oh, to be a writer

to say the things no one else can say

to be truly unique

just like all the other writers

and yet, none

#writing #writers on writing #poetry #poems #art #talent #freedom #expression