Literature – a simple man

Favorite Things: 2025

At year’s end, I like to take a moment and reflect back on my favorite things that I’ve encountered throughout the year. Last year, my wife and I had just moved into our new home, and my favorite thing was all the people who helped us out along the way.

Hemlock Hall

This year, my top favorite thing is our new house. We have been living here almost a year (we moved in after Christmas, but we signed the papers on December 20) and I’ve just now begun to feel like this is where I live, and will live, for a while. I am starting to put down roots, I guess. It is weird to me: a home. Whenever I dream of home, it is always my childhood house from before we left Virginia (when I was sixteen). I’ve been on the move constantly since then, and the longest I lived in any one place was my wife and I’s previous home in Texas, where I lived about five years. But that never felt like a home to me. I tried, but I always felt uncomfortable there. Now, a year into living here, I have started to settle in. I feel comfortable here. At the close of 2025, I’ve been living in Texas over ten years, and while I don’t love this state, it is where I am now, and I’m not going anywhere for a while (I mean, as far as I know).

Middle-Earth

One of the first things that I bought for my new house I bought in 2024. I didn’t know where it would go in the new house, but I wanted it there: a map of Middle-Earth. Actually, I ended up with three maps. I have one of the Lonely Mountain from the Hobbit, one of the Shire from the Lord of the Rings, and one of the whole of Middle-Earth. They aren’t large, but they are prop replicas of maps as seen in the films by Peter Jackson. The map of the Lonely Mountain hangs over the fireplace in the living room, and the other two form a diptych in the craft room. I enjoy them immensely, and given my abiding affection for all things Tolkien, this is no surprise.

I Am Groot

I bought a life-size Baby Groot in 2024 from the second Guardians of the Galaxy film, and it stands about a foot tall. It is a lovely action figure/prop replica, and I have photographed it several times. It perfectly fills the spot in my heart for whimsy and wonder and fun. Groot didn’t make it to my list last year, but I include him this year because he is so cool.

Maker of Things

I follow the footsteps of Adam Savage, maker extraordinaire, and this spot I reserve for tools and tool-related items. I bought two terrific work benches, one for LEGO and one for everything else, and they have been absolutely worth the investment. The primary work bench is on casters, and that has been invaluable for the several times I have rearranged the craft room already. The other is on rubber feet, so it barely moves if bumped against, and this is perfect for my LEGO storage to not get jostled.

On Adam’s recommendation, I purchased two sets of WiHa hex keys, one in metric, the other standard. Both have been fantastic for assembling all the furniture that we have bought for our new house, which mostly always comes flat-packed and in need of assembling. Rather than use the small hex keys that come with the furniture, having a well-crafted and comfortable-to-use key has been great. I also bought, because Adam showcased one, a TOYO Y-350 tool box in red. I lined it with foamcore, and it houses my frequently used tools (such as the hex keys, a hammer, nails, screwdriver, and utility knife). This small tool box has been a life-saver around the house for when I need to get a small job done. I don’t have to pull out my large rolling toolbox from the closet, I only need to grab my small one and go!

Audiophile

My last object is my Apple AirPods Max, which is perhaps the most indulgent purchase I’ve made recently. I love over-the-ear headphones for flying, and for watching movies, and the noise isolation for the first scenario is amazing, and the comfort level for the second scenario is second-to-none. I’ve had other “cans”, and these are by far the most comfortable for long-term wearing. They also have the ability to connect instantly to any Apple device I happen to be using, be it iPhone, iPad, or AppleTV, and that convenience is well appreciated. My only complaint is not having an updated or more affordable option for this style of headphone from Apple since the Max was released.

Family

Wrapping up my favorite things, I end where I began last year, with people, and two groups in particular: my blood and my chosen families. My chosen family are my friends from high school that I have known for over twenty years now, and though we don’t get together often, the love we share is real. Some of us met for our 20th reunion in February in Americus, Georgia, and it was the most meaningful time I have had recently. All we really did is hang out and talk, but it enriched my soul and touched my heart. So many people I have genuine affection for that are scattered around the globe, and to see even some filled me with warmth.

My parents and older brother, my wife, and I flew to Boston this summer. We have been threatening to go for a while, and my Dad has always wanted to visit Boston, and in particular, Fenway Park home of the Red Sox. We were able to see two baseball games there, and visit many other places in Boston during our week there, including my grandfather’s NAVY submarine, the USS Nautilus which is moored not far away in New London, Connecticut. It was such a fun vacation, and relaxing time spent exploring a new location.

Wrap-Up

2025 has been a great year, from many perspectives for me personally, despite world-wide suffering and tragedy and rising fascism in the States. I have been hugely conflicted this year, because of personal highs and shared lows. At times I haven’t known how to feel. Over all, though, I try to remain thankful and put things in perspective, which is what my favorite things is all about. I highlight experiences, objects, and people because all have enriched my life in one way or another, and make life worth living despite the real heartbreak I see all around me. As I tread into 2026, I hope for better at home and abroad, and look forward to what the new year will bring.

Leaf-Mould

I just wrote a haiku moments ago, though to be honest I’ve been pondering it awhile and it just now coalesced:

autumn day driving
leaves littered on the long lane
whipped by my passage

And that is how much of my writing comes to be. My process is to absorb feelings, thoughts, and images. I then think about them, marinate them mentally, and wait for something to emerge from the blender of my mind.

Even while studying at university, I would wait until the last minute to write my papers, but along the way I’d have been listening in class, reading assigned material, and thinking while gazing out my dorm room window. Eventually I would just know what I was supposed to write and it would emerge on the laptop screen. Of course revising and editing would then happen, but most of the skeleton, bones, and sinew would already be laid on the table about to be animated.

It’s been the same with my poetry. I’ll have a bit of verse appear in my mind, or an entire poem (less usual), and I’ll tease it out, either on paper or in my head. Eventually I will write it down in more or less its final form. Poetry revision comes much later, usually after the poem has sat in a dusty corner and existed for a while. I will find it again, in digital file folder or physical compendium of hand-written scraps, and re-jigger and re-work, and eventually with a bit of pencil and polish, a more mature form will be set down in ink.

Maturity and time are great prisms through which to view old works. A few years ago, when I finalized a book of poetry, I found many works that were hastily returned to the cobwebbed drawers they had long lain in, but some that were worth the harsh light of cross-examination before the gentle rays of day.

I recently held a Write Night at the university where I now work. Context: I am the sole writing consultant and only card-carrying member of the Writing Center on campus. It is my job to be a resource for the student body when a piece of written material needs a second pair of eyes. It’s a great gig for 10 hours a week, and I get to interact with all sorts of interesting students and fascinating academic papers.

The Write Night I held was a first-ever Creative Write Night, during which we focused not on the academia that so largely occupies our lives, but on our innate creative selves. It was my aim to latch on to and tractor out dormant creativity in the students that showed up, and foster an atmosphere that would allow them to incorporate creativity into, shall we say, drier academic works. My success is largely unknown, but we had fun with a variety of prompts I gleaned from my undergraduate studies and re-worked for use during the Creative Write Night.

Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, who gained some measure of fame from his hobbit novels, leant a bit of assistance from the great beyond. Writing in his Tolkien: A Biography Humphrey Carpenter quotes Tolkien on the creative process:

one writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps (131)

This is what I have tried to express about my own process. Tolkien uses the metaphor of botanical processes, of loam and dirt and detritus becoming a fertile soil from which a seed germinates into a tree with many leaves. It isn’t the leaves that make the story come to life, rather it is that nutrient-rich mud that gestates the seed. And it is that nutritious silt that is best cultivated by constantly “seeing…thinking…or reading” as Tolkien would say.

Sadly, my process of reading is in shambles. I see much and think much but of late have read almost not at all. I fear my dirt is becoming dry and desiccated and doesn’t have much to offer a seed at this point. Still, I persist. This flowering post is evidence of that. Started in the weeks preceding the Creative Write Night, continuing a few weeks ago when I shared what Tolkien had to say, and culminating tonight on this blog.

I have so much from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth studies I want to excavate, and many other works that I wish to analyze and interact with, that I feel overwhelmed. But mostly I need to get reading again. My psyche assumes it cannot, my mind sometimes will not, but my soul is yearning for more material for my “leaf-mould”. I think I simply need to give myself permission to crack spines and use my pick-axe eyes to mine the riches in pages. I have many, many volumes of deep material and only need to blast my way in. I have a feeling that once I am within word repositories, I won’t come back out except to polish what treasures I find before planting them to see what will grow.

I think now of Bilbo Baggins, a timid, shy, and frightened hobbit, sitting in his hobbit-hole being confronted by the wizard Gandalf. In the film adaptation, he is overwhelmed by the enormity of the quest the dwarves wish to undertake, and he faints. When we come back to him, he is sitting with a cup of tea in his arm chair, speaking to Gandalf:

“I just need to sit quietly for a moment.”

Gandalf retorts:

“You’ve been sitting quietly for far too long…I remember a young hobbit who was always running off in search of elves in the woods, who would stay out late and come home after dark trailing mud and twigs and fireflies…”

Bilbo is eventually convinced to run after the dwarves and find out “what is beyond the borders of the Shire” and I feel I must do the same. I must go on an adventure, and I don’t mean to come back again. I’ve been sitting quietly for far too long myself. I may not come back, and if I do, I won’t be the same RedBeard that I am now. That frightens me, but I know, too, that is for my better; my soul needs the enrichment.

I cannot stay timid and shy and afraid. I must learn and grow and explore.

In the Queue

My summer goes by slowly.

Ever since the semester ended at the university, I haven’t had much work-for-pay. One job I hold there is writing consultant, meaning I assist students with their writing assignments (if they ask for help). The other job I hold is administrative assistant to one of the department heads, meaning I do anything he needs me to do in order to assist him with his duties.

The first job has mostly evaporated (temporarily) due to there being few students taking classes over the summer. The second job is hit or miss lately, with me working only when my boss has tasks for me to complete. I’m squeaking by in the pay aspect, with just enough work to keep bills paid until the fall semester will start. This is one aspect of scholastic work that I don’t particularly enjoy, at least at this university: the lack of a consistent paycheck all year ‘round.

However, with unexpected, though unpredictable, time on my hands, I have a few projects that I could work on when I don’t have much else to do.

Scanning

My mother is a shutterbug, and something of a photo collector. In the age before this one, when photography was analog, she amassed quite of lot of photographs. Now that we are living in a digital world, she would like these photos available to her on the iPad and in the cloud. That means scanning. She has procured a scanner (albeit a finicky one) that works well enough and quickly enough to scan in many photos in a session. I have already scanned a few albums worth, but have many more to scan. I think this will end up being more than a summer project, but it is in the queue.

Poetry

It is now two and a half years since I completed my first compendium of poetry, a book that has sold about four copies worldwide. And while I have barely written any poetry since, I am thinking about what my next poetic project could be, and I have an idea: a chapbook. My book of poems comprises several sections, and I thought it might be cool to create chapbooks of each section, and sell them individually as art projects containing both word and visual. I have saved in a wishlist online some appropriate paper, and a heavy-duty stapler that could aid me in creating these chapbooks, and all it takes is putting some together. My wife maintains an area on consignment in a local craft shop, and perhaps I could add a few of these chapbooks to that area and see if they sell. I don’t know that they would, but it is an idea in the queue.

Reading

I start to sound like a broken record in this regard, but I find it difficult to read these days. I wish I could read, but every time I think about opening a book, it seems an insurmountable task. But, I have a book that I bought a while back, Patrick Stewart’s Making It So. I would like to read that book this summer. It used to be I could read twelve books every couple of weeks, but maybe I can manage one book by September. I don’t know if that is achievable, but that book is in the queue.

Photography

Lately I acquired some scenery material: driftwood, sand, rocks, etc. and I aspire to use this to craft photo worthy scenes. While I’ve yet to use it as such, the ideas are percolating in my head of photos I could take. I have a few difficulties to iron out, such as a lack of room, not wanting to build permanent dioramas for the photos, and what to do with the scenery media when I am done with it, but I can’t shake the images I see when I close my eyes and dream of what could be. The pictures shimmer in the queue.

Organization

My wife and I moved into this house just after Christmas Day in 2024, which means we’ve been here almost six months now. The house is just now starting to feel like a home, and as such, it needs a few things internally, that thankfully aren’t plumbing or maintenance related. No, I am speaking of decorating and organizing. I have made great strides in the craft room (what was supposed to be the master bedroom) in terms of both decor and optimizing storage, layout, and usability. But the living room, the kitchen, and even perhaps the bedroom could use some help.

The kitchen in particular has very little decor, and still bears the marks of being moved into hastily, with little organization, optimization, and isn’t terribly user friendly. It does the job, but it needs TLC. The bedroom we are only in for sleep and whatnot, so that is low on the priority list, but the living room is the third most used common area (after kitchen and craft room). It, too, needs a little thought and love. Decorating and organizing thoughts drift through the queue.

Clearly, I have plenty to do. It has helped to streamline my priorities just in writing them down. Before I had vague ideas, but now I have action points and even some hazy plans. Yeesh, that sounded too much like a few of the committees I was on for work this past year. Shudder. If I could accomplish even half of these queued tasks, though, I would feel like I had a great summer, and my environment would benefit, as would my creative expression which needs, um, expressing.

And also in the queue? R&R. I can report that I have been already availing myself of some of that, and with a trip to Boston planned for the end of July, I can even take some time to see another part of the world. Won’t that be fun?

Reclamation Projects

Shiny and new has its place, but more than anything, a good project with recycled materials is something special. I love building things out of cardboard boxes, scraps of materials that I’ve scrounged, or spare parts. This is less about physical making, and more about psychological reclamation.

As a kid, I remember being obsessed with Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic. I loved Snoopy in particular, and his adventures with his little yellow fowl friend Woodstock. Of course the whole gang is charming: Charlie Brown’s hapless baseball team that can never seem to win; Schroeder avoiding Lucy; Linus with his blanket and philosophy; and all the rest. A while back, despite how much I loved Peanuts, my brother claimed them as his thing and I’ll admit that I let that rob my joy for the comic. Clearly a me problem, it nonetheless rubbed me the wrong way for too long.

Recently, I was in Half Price Books and found a volume of the Complete Peanuts from the 50’s, and was struck by how much I loved the strip. I bought it, and since then have been contemplating how to acquire the rest of the collection. I’ve been reading through a volume that includes ‘87-‘88 (my birth year) and have found many dailies that I have never read. More than individual comics, I have reclaimed my love of Snoopy and it is bringing me so much happiness.

In another vein, for my entire childhood, I built and played with LEGO. Pretty much every day, I was sorting, tweaking, or lost in imaginary worlds built out of the little plastic bricks. Twice in my adulthood I sold my entire collection on eBay. Once, it was at the memory of my ex-wife’s disdain for the hobby. The second time I felt like I needed the money. Both times I tried to make the best of it, but internally, I was very unhappy about the sales. I felt I was losing a part of myself.

In the past few years, I have started to rebuild my LEGO collection. I am doing it with a bit more intention this time, but the promise I made to myself when I started buying was to never sell my collection again. I am feeling the old joy I used to have, and getting back into the mental space of making my own creations. I am noticing some rust on my concentration and abilities, but it is coming back to me piece by piece.

In these ways, and others, I am my own reclamation project. I am taking bits of myself I have lost, and putting them back into my life in intentional ways. It wasn’t my brother or my ex-wife to really blame for my brokenness, it was me. I let myself crumble to other’s opinions, proclivities, or my own circumstances. But now it is time to reclaim things long gone, and add them to new hobbies, new loves, and assemble a new amalgamation of me.

I used to think, and say, that I didn’t have regrets, but now I realize that life isn’t about avoiding regret, that is inevitable, but life is about learning to let regret motivate me to something better. I regret losing my childhood LEGO, but I am motivated to curate a great collection that I can enjoy for years. I regret letting my brother’s love for Peanuts steal mine, but I, too, can enjoy Snoopy and the gang into the future. I am done living by others’ rules or opinions, and letting it steer my ship into shoals I never wanted to sail. Going forward, I want to set my own course towards sunrises I want to see.

The Assassination of Padme Amidala

Trigger warning: misogyny.

I’ve been trying to read more, and I’ve found a strategy that works more than it doesn’t: reading before I retire to bed for the evening. This gives me a solid half hour or longer where I don’t feel I should be doing anything else, and can relax into a book. In this way I finished a re-read-through of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I then cast about for another novel, and happened upon an old favorite, the novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. I’ve probably not picked up that book in over a decade, and was excited to dive into Star Wars and rediscover another old friend.

I was disappointed by what I found.

For the most part, the story was as I remembered, a commendable re-framing of the film from something that is vaguely a mess into something a bit more epic and coherent and a story worth telling. As I began to read, however, cracks appeared in the prose almost immediately, to my eye, making the narrative melodramatic and grandiose. That by itself wouldn’t have caused me to stop reading, after all, that is part of the grand space opera that is Star Wars. What did stop me in my tracks was the following passage about Padme, in relation to Anakin:

This is Padme Amidala: She is an astonishingly accomplished young woman, who in her short life has been already the youngest-elected Queen of her planet, a daring partisan guerrilla, and a measured, articulate, and persuasive voice of reason in the Republic Senate. But she is, at this moment, non of these things. She can still play at them – she pretends to be a Senator, she still wields the moral authority of a former Queen, and she is not shy about using her reputation for fierce physical courage to her advantage in political debate – but her inmost reality, the most fundamental, unbreakable core of her being, is something entirely different. She is Anakin Skywalker’s wife…for Padme Amidala, saying “I am Anakin Skywalker’s wife” is saying neither more or less than “I am alive”. Her life before Anakin belonged to someone else, some lesser being to be pitied, some poor impoverished spirit who could never suspect how profoundly life should be lived. Her real life began the first time she looked into Anakin Skywalker’s eyes…
Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover

The rest of the passage passes into an adulation of who and what Anakin Skywalker is, this being that Padme is “privileged” to love. I am trying to find another word to describe this than disgusting, but I must call it what it is: misogyny.

The first part of what I quote is all true, and really is a recap of Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. But where this description of a powerful and magnificent woman truly goes off the rails is when it describes all of Padme’s accomplishments as belonging to “some lesser being to be pitied” and that she “pretends to be” what she is. As if this woman doesn’t matter, and all her accomplishments are/were worthless until/because she met Anakin and married him and became his property. That is how this really reads: as a description of something that belongs to Anakin, like Padme is no more than R2-D2 or his lightsaber. A magnificent thing that only has meaning because of who it is connected to: a man. And really, the rest of what I don’t quote is a lavish description of Anakin’s man-ness, but it is even more sickening than the defimination of Padme because it is so adulatory. It’s gross.

I’ve never met Matthew Stover and I don’t want to engage in character assassination, but what he writes here is horrible. Maybe he is trying to do some subtle thing where he is describing the truly dark nature of Anakin through this violation of everything that Padme is, but nothing about the preceding parts of the book are subtle at all. In fact, Stover hits the reader over the head with his flowery, verbose, and at times outrageous descriptions of Anakin, Obi-Wan, Dooku, and what happens between them. This bit that I quote and describe is set just after the “rescue” of Palpatine and Anakin murdering Count Dooku. It is hard to miss that Anakin decides to kill the Count in cold blood, Stover even makes that clear, and then the reader almost immediately arrives at this statement that Padme was nothing before Anakin, and that she only matters as his wife.

I couldn’t read any more. I have already read this book a few times, but this go round I had to stop. Look, I am not virtue signaling here. I have a long way to go in my treatment of women and how I regard others outside myself. But I think it personal progress that before I would read this part and keep reading to finish the book. That before I didn’t pause, that I accepted this description of Padme as consistent and approvable, but now I couldn’t not and would not move past it.

I think Dave Filoni’s animated Clone Wars, created after Revenge of the Sith (movie and book), bears out that Padme never stopped being every inch Padme. If I recall properly, Padme and Anakin do not see eye to eye about the politics and waging of the Clone Wars, and that she is not cowed by him or subservient to him, as described in this book. Maybe Filoni was trying to counter this passage, or maybe he simply has a better grasp of the characters of Star Wars than does Matthew Stover. Either way, what Stover does here is unforgivable.

No woman is given meaning through the man she is married to, or engaged to, or chooses to hang around. A woman’s being and personhood are hers alone, and everything she accomplishes, and does, and achieves are hers forever and part of her forever. They are not swept away by marriage or association. I happen to believe women are stronger by far than men, in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons, one of which is the continued unconscionable way that men treat women worldwide. We have made them into the stronger gender. Like the Barbie movie showed a glimpse of, women are strong in ways that men cannot even comprehend. I don’t believe for one second that Padme only matters because she married Anakin, and that her roles of Queen, Senator, and Woman are meaningless because she wasn’t yet married to this man. That is, quite frankly, misogynistic excrement.

Believe me when I say that Padme neither receives nor is given anything better throughout the rest of the book. Some of that probably comes from George Lucas’ treatment of Padme in the script, an early version of which Matthew Stover no doubt worked from, and that Stover could only do so much to change. After all, Padme dies of broken heart at the end of the story, which is itself a dumb and weird thing to do. But Stover probably had the freedom to describe Padme how he wished in his own book, and he chose to do as I have quoted. It is bewildering to me that he did so, but not surprising beyond the fact that men are misogynistic and get away with it so boldly.

I could say more, but that might risk taking this critique down into diatribe. I will end by simply saying that I wish the novelization of Revenge of the Sith was better than it is, but I will no longer own a copy or read it. Life is too short to allow thoughts and ideas into my head that don’t advance an equal and uplifting view of all my fellow humans. I hope to always advance in my personal growth, and trust that will include how I view and treat others every day.

for Padme Amidala, Hero of the Old Republic

Best Of: 2023

As has become a tradition of mine here on the ol’ blog, it is time for my best of from the past year. The idea isn’t mine, I got it from Tested.com, the haunt of Mythbuster-turned-maker-extraordinaire Adam Savage. Each year he and the other contributors to Tested put up videos of their favorite things from the year. So here goes my “best of” for another year!

MacBook Air

I replaced my dearly departed Mac Mini with a MacBook Air in Starlight this year. Not only is it a gorgeous laptop, it has been plenty powerful for all my computer and school needs (I went back to school for the first time in thirteen years!). It has tripled as a personal computer, work computer, and school computer, and has handled all three jobs fantastically. By now it is no shock to anyone that I prefer Apple products, having featured at least one most years. I like my Air and it, along with all the software updates that Apple provides, are my jam.

LEGO Minifigure

Sometime this year, I don’t remember when, I bought a LEGO minifigure. Well, that is misleading. I bought a macrofigure. It is a large set that replicates the ubiquitous LEGO figure into an upscaled minifigure. It was a ton of fun to build, and even features a proper minifigure under the hat in a control center “driving” the larger figure beneath. I have it sitting on a surface where I see it every day, and it makes me smile every day.

Books

I have been reading this year! If you’ve been following along with the ups and downs of my mental health, you will know that reading is something that has not come easily for years. This year I have read several books, among them Stephen King’s On Writing and Tolkien’s the Hobbit and I am working my way through the Lord of the Rings again, currently in the middle of the Two Towers. I couldn’t be happier! I downloaded an app for my phone, Reading List ( <— link to the iOS app), which allows me to enter books by scanning their barcodes (older books can be added via ISBN or manually) and then I can carry about listing of my entire library with me, or track my progress reading through a book. I can even look back at all the books I have read this year, and add books to a “To-Read” list. It has really come in useful when I go to Half Price Books and can’t remember off-hand if I already own a book or not. I look it up, and that keeps me from duplicate purchases. In all, a very useful app that pairs with all the books I am reading, have, and will read.

Speaking of which, I have added several Tolkien books to my library, too many to list out here, but which tell the broader story of Tolkien’s writing and scholarship. One in particular, The Proverbs of Middle Earth by David Rowe, sparked a semester long study of the folklore of Tolkien’s fairy tales for one of my classes! I got to study and read Tolkien at the same time, which was a dream come true. I had much fun and even impressed my professor with some of the analysis I was able to do.

Infrastructure

I’ve added some furniture and other things to the Art Studio my wife and I have upstairs in our house, across from our bedroom. Among them a computer desk, an art table or two, and various storage solutions. Trying to fit two people and their art infrastructure into one largish room is always a work in progress, and over the holiday break I hope to optimize the space even further. It would help a lot to not have carpet, and to have more room, but there is only so much you can do when you are making art in a space in your house and not in a dedicated studio or other building.

Still, the changes we have and will make are making it easier for us both to do what we love to do: make stuff. She crochets, works with clay, and other fiber and physical arts; and I customize my action figures, create dioramas, sometimes build LEGO, and paint or other crafting. We even moved the TV upstairs from the living room so we can watch shows or movies while we work or relax. The next step is to somehow fit a couch for group viewing, but it remains to be seen if that will even be possible. It’s a goal, anyway!

Soylent

I have been working to maintain good health ever since contracting Covid-19 a few years ago, and part of that has been trying to eat healthier. For awhile I was drinking Glucerna shakes, a blood sugar friendly protein drink, for breakfast. Recently my wife decided to try Soylent for her breakfast, a similar product to Glucerna, but one that doesn’t have milk protein. She and I are both lactose intolerant, and while Glucerna is better for blood sugar, it has milk in it, and was causing unpleasantness for me. When my supply of Glucerna was used up, I switched to Soylent, and it is even more filling and less with the side effects!

In fact, it has been so good that I have replaced both breakfast and dinner with a Soylent shake. I have noticed in just the short time that I have made the switch that I am less sleepy, have more energy, my blood sugar is lower, and am not as hungry. Plus, I don’t have to decide what to eat twice a day! I eat lunch at the cafeteria at the university where I work, so that lets me exercise my jaw. It remains to be seen if the long-term results are as good as what I am experiencing here in the short going, but for now I am happy. A subscription on Amazon keeps me supplied and saving a bit of money on the Soylent, so that isn’t bad either.

I think that about wraps up my favorite things from 2023. It has been a great year, all things considered. I achieved my goal of returning to work after being laid off in February; I achieved my goal of returning to school after a long hiatus; I am healthier; I feel mentally strong in a way I haven’t in a long time; and while things are not perfect, I have a supportive wife, a couple of good dogs, my family, and I’m alive. After 2020, that is all I really need.

Learning My Letters

I am just past the halfway mark in my master’s classes for this semester! I can hardly believe it is so. It feels as if I have just begun, but ahead is a bit more work and then the end. Mid-October gives way to November, with its holiday break, and then December which ends early due to Christmas.

I find myself reflecting back on past fall semesters as an undergraduate student. At that time, my parents were not living in the States, and I was left to fend for myself over school breaks. A few times I stayed on campus, a little outside the rules it must be admitted, but more often than not I stayed with friends or whomever would have me. I spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas in other people’s homes for which I am ever so grateful. This year, I get to take break in my own home. What a strange thought!

An informal break gives me this time to pause now, as my university campus is hosting a large, ancillary conference which it is encouraging students to attend. The school has given us a few days off of classes. Most students are, perhaps predictably, going home during the break, or working on assignments (as I will do part of the time) but I am also taking advantage of a work opportunity to make a few dollars and sit in on some lectures by running tech support for the lectures.

Along the way, I am experiencing much fun in one of my courses, a class on folklore, oral culture, and literature. Specifically we are looking at orality as a whole by examining proverbs, riddles, songs, and stories. My professor is, I have come to know, one of the ten premier proverb scholars in the world. Far from being ivory tower and dry, he is a fount of delicious phrases and stories. I am particularly excited, because he is allowing me to study in this class in my own way. Most students at my university have an objective, or an area of the world they want to explore through their studies. I don’t. I am merely there to learn what I can.

To this end, my professor is letting me study the culture of Tolkien, as evidenced through the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and other stories from Middle-Earth as it pertains to proverbs, riddles, etc. I could not be more in my element! Even as an undergrad student, I would try to steer my studies towards things I was most interested in. I did a capstone project on the robot stories of Isaac Asimov; I wrote a paper on Dune by Frank Herbert; and I often referenced science fiction, pop culture, or Tolkien in my poetry.

As it turns out, there are many, many proverbs used, for various purposes, in the text of both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. There are two riddle contests in the former (though none in the latter that I am aware of), and, of course, a multitude of songs in both. I can’t wait to explore how songs are used in cultures around the world, and apply that to why on (Middle-)Earth Tolkien included so many in his works.

In all, despite my other class being more of a slog, I am having fun and finding that the answer to my hypotheses “can I still study effectively” and “will I enjoy school again” are “yes” and “yes”. I am glad and thankful. I didn’t want to have wasted my time and money this semester, and by golly, I don’t think I have.

And, not to totally bury the lede, but my folklore professor has asked me to submit a paper on Tolkien and proverbs for a conference in the spring that my university hosts! I could not be more excited to do so, and to participate in a higher academic quest. It may not be for Erebor or Orodruin, but it is a small hill to conquer on the way to higher mountains (I hope). I have long wanted to study Tolkien academically, and make it more than just a precocious hobby, and it seems I may be able to do just that.

I am “learning my letters” as they put it in the Fellowship of the Ring, and far from “no harm…com[ing] from it” I believe a lot of good will come after for me. After all, I love Tolkien so much I have some tattooed on my arms, and try to read the books as often as possible. It is high time I start a career out it. But I must be careful, as always, in “stepping out into the Road” as I “never know where I might be swept off to!” as Bilbo Baggins once said.

Back to School

This morning I had my third official graduate level class. I am taking two this semester, and both have their challenges and joys, as one might expect. I’m also working at the same university, so that is at times convenient and busy making. But there is a nice intersection between my work and my studies that hopefully will be fun and productive.

I am working as the Writing Consultant. What does that mean? I assist students with papers and assignments. Punch up language, brainstorm, outline, higher-order thinking about logic and flow – everything is fair game. I haven’t met with any students yet (did I mention the semester just started?) so I have been filling my time by hanging flyers and speaking in various undergraduate classes about my services.

I am studying Oral Traditions and Literature alongside Abrahamic Shared Stories. Both are fascinating. In Oral Traditions I am examining four traditionally oral parts of literature that occur within a culture: proverbs (or idioms or sayings), riddles, poetry, and stories. It has been fun to think about proverbs, what proverbs are common in a language or cultural group, and what exactly makes a proverb (more on that later when I study it, I suppose!). Shared Stories will look at a few religious texts that are common between the Abrahamic faiths of the world, that is, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This class is way more technical and foreign to me.

I say foreign in that Shared Stories involves Ancient Near East, or even current Near East, thought patterns which to me (as a modern Westerner through-and-through) are not familiar. I know the Bible stories that we will be examining, but again, only through my fundamentalist Christian upbringing. I will look forward to examining these stories through different lenses to encounter their differences, similarities, peculiarities, and what it all means. My professor for Shared Stories is Jewish, so the class will come front loaded with his worldview. I must confess, his way of thinking was very off-putting during his first class, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue in his class. However, I had a meeting with his co-teacher and she allayed many of my fears and encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone. Step I shall!

Oral Traditions will be more up my alley, though it, too, will look at many different cultures and locales around the world. That’s fine. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve wanted to explore the world as best I can. Seeing as I haven’t budget to hop a plane and actually travel, I’ll take travel through literature. The university I am at, Dallas International University, began life as a linguistics-only school. It has since, and is still, growing beyond those beginnings. Getting back into education is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and I figured dipping my toes in where I live and work wouldn’t be a bad idea. Being that still most of the classes here are linguistic or anthropologic in nature, it was hard to find some that fit my literary bent. I think, in the end, I am taking the only two real literature courses that are offered.

Which brings me back to being the Writing Consultant. I will interact with my own classmates in Oral Traditions on at least one assignment, so I get to be paid for doing my own homework I guess. Ha! Works for me. At any rate, I am excited to be back in school. It is challenging, fun, has already been exasperating, and a little bit like riding the old metaphorical bicycle. I’m a little wobbly, but I think I’ll straighten out the wheels here in no time. I get to do reading, research, a little bit of creative writing, and help others at the same time. These are all things I love to do!

All that’s lacking to really feel scholastic again is leaves falling because it is cold (not hot as is the case here in Texas) and the changing of the season from summer to autumn (which, again, won’t happen here for some time in Texas, at least, not from a temperature standpoint). Still, being in school feels like the times-they-are-a-changing. Ahhh! But it’s good.

Grey Pilgrim

I am in the midst of a downturn in my mental health. I have been labeled as having a high likelihood of having a bipolar disorder, and this feels more true now than it has in a long time. For a while I was doing very well. I was creating, I felt good, and I spent time in the metaphorical sun. Today, and for a while now, I haven’t created, I’ve felt out of sorts, and I’ve been lurking in a metaphorical Mirkwood.

I often think of Gandalf, one of my favorite characters from JRR Tolkien’s imagination. He is called the Grey Pilgrim, because his wizard color is grey. Pilgrim is an interesting moniker. It means “a person who journeys to a sacred place” and the thesaurus adds the connotations of “traveler” or “wayfarer”. In Tolkien’s mythology there are a few sacred places in Middle-Earth, and out of it is the most sacred place of all: The Undying Lands, or Valinor, sort of a heaven realm.

Gandalf was certainly a wayfarer and traveler as he journeyed all over Middle-Earth during his long years, but he was also tasked with opposing the Dark Lord Sauron. Once that mission was complete, he was allowed to return to Valinor, and thus embarked on a final journey to the most sacred place of all.

I feel like a different kind of grey pilgrim. I am certainly no wizard, but since my early teenage years I’ve often felt a grey or murky blackness hang over me. Also, since even earlier than being a teen, I’ve been inculcated in religious things, and read John Bunyan’s famous story Pilgrim’s Progress. An allegory for spiritual things, the pilgrim Christian treks ever towards the Celestial City, certainly a “journey to a sacred place”. I was always taught to strive towards Heaven, an eventual home beyond earth and death. My depression, bipolar disorder, or whatever this is that I’ve had since 10 or 11, has made the doctrine of heaven problematic for me.

For one thing, I was suicidal for a long time, not that many knew or paid attention to the signs. As a young kid taught that a paradise awaited me on the other side, it was difficult to resist the temptation to shuffle off this depressing mortal coil and thus enter blissful realms. I know the Catholic Church used to preach that suicide victims couldn’t enter Heaven, probably for this macabre reason of keeping the downtrodden from seeking a better existence. But my fundamentalist church had no such teaching. Anyway, I obviously survived suicide and haven’t arrived on “God’s golden shores” but I often wished that I could have go through with various plans. The lure of a bright peaceful afterlife was a tantalizing vision.

For another thing, the idea that A Better Place (C) awaits would perhaps imply that suffering on Earth will yield rewards later on in that better place, either in the place itself, or through some sort of riches being doled out. In a city paved with supposed golden streets and boasting pearl gates, riches seemed sort of a cheap reward to me, but anyway I never liked the idea that I was being made to suffer so that I could reap later. That idea rings cruel, especially because there are many worse off than depressed, bipolar(?) me. That’s a lot of copping out on easing real, immediate pain in order to make belated reparations later. Why go through the charade if God could wave his spiritual hand and ease all suffering immediately?

What then is my pilgrimage about, if I am a different sort of grey pilgrim than a wandering, world-weary wizard or a 17th century wayfarer? When I discover that, I will let you know. For today, as Gandalf did for a time, I am stepping through the oppressive, murky, and dismal Mirkwood. I don’t have a hobbit, or thirteen surly dwarves, in tow, neither do I have a stronghold of darkness in Dol Guldor to exorcise, but wander I still. I often wish my purpose was as clear cut as kicking dragon-butt or tossing jewelry in a volcano. Incredibly difficult, dangerous, and downright depressing as those journeys turned out to be at times, there at least was a drive behind them, and a world or mountain to be gained in the here and now.

Eventually, as did Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo were admitted into the Undying Lands as a respite for all the pain they endured in Middle-Earth, but they also had many years of rest in their homes as well (maybe not Gandalf, but Bilbo hung out in Rivendell for many years after defeating the dragon and that was pretty good by all accounts). Where is my Last Homely House? Where is my Bag End? Maybe I haven’t found it yet, but I wish I could.

Ultimately, I don’t know if heaven awaits me after death, or if it is a forever sleep I will definitely have earned whenever I do die, but I do know that I have life in me yet to live. It is sad and depressing right now, but I’ve also ridden these waves enough to know that as down as I am now, I will (should) surge upwards once more. It’s just the constant surfing is making me sick and tired. As I haven’t a choice but to be a pilgrim, I will keep moving. Maybe there is at least a cozy inn on the horizon that will serve a good meal and provide a bed better than a forest root.

I don’t know how to shake my depression. I don’t feel I’ve done a terribly good job of doing anything but enduring the troughs, and nothing really seems to work to bring me out except time. Gandalf himself had many long years of waiting before the Ring was found and he could formulate a plan to defeat Sauron, and in the end, such defeat (and Ring) was out of his hands anyway. So I guess I will wait for this greyness to lift. At least then I will feel more myself again, for a time. Damn, but this is frustrating.

But, to take a page from Tolkien’s book, Gandalf looked for and found happiness and pleasure where he could. Whether in lighting fireworks for young hobbits at Bilbo’s birthday, or in fighting for those less fortunate many a time, he always found a way to rise above his circumstances. That’s what I see I must do. Not necessarily go out and light off a firecracker, but enjoy what I can when I can. Gandalf, my old friend, I will do my best!

(A friend of mine would recommend pipe-weed to me, but as Old Toby doesn’t exist, I’ll have to do without smoke rings. And I’m not one for smoking anyway.)

A Book

“Hello” he typed, in what he hoped were friendly letters.

I am working on a writing project! A few years ago my wife started a book, and I agreed to help her punch up the language and refine the message. I started doing just that, and somewhere along the way put it aside for other things and never quite picked it up again. Now, in light of my recent lay-off from a job, I decided to revisit the manuscript and finally get it into good shape.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been doing just that. Starting from chapter zero, the introduction, I have been trying to work on a chapter a day. Life still intervenes and I cannot sit and write for an entire day, but today I finished up work on chapter four (of eight-ish)!

It feels really, really good to sit down, light a scented candle (a Middle-Earth inspired scent created by my friend Alisha), put on some music, and write. In this case, most of the words are there already, but they need shaping, like a child using the sand of the beach to form a castle. I add a little water, cast the damp sand in a shaped bucket, and overturn it upon the dry sand beneath. Or something.

Really I poke at it, delete a little here, add some there, rearrange this or that, and read read read. I read each chapter again and again so that I retain the flow and higher order ideas of the chapter, rather than get bogged down in a particular sentence or paragraph. It is ok to really hammer out the grammar of a particular phrase, but not at the expense of the whole. My tendency is to want to be elegant and precise and highfalutin’ but sometimes I just need the damn thing to say what it needs to say, beautiful phrasing be damned. (See, I just used “damn” twice in one sentence, a thing I usually avoid, but hell, it just needed to be like that. So, too, the book sometimes just needs to be what it is.)

I am cognizant as well that my wife wrote most of what I am editing and shaping. If I change too much of that text, it won’t be what she wrote any longer (insert Ship of Theseus metaphor here). I don’t want to lose her voice, or too many of her words in adding my own. She says things in different ways than I would, and as I am becoming co-author there will be plenty of me in there as well, but I don’t want her to disappear either. It becomes a balancing act.

I think that is what I am loving most about this work: the act of balance. It requires much of my extant skill to pull off this balance of retaining my wife’s phrasing, adding my own, while fixing errors, adding missing bits, and removing extraneous information. I truly hope the end result will be worth reading, and accomplish the goal we now share in writing. It has been exciting and invigorating to sit down each day and shape the castle one sandy block at a time.

I will announce more what the book is about when it is much closer to completion. For now, it is a project that is allowing me to stretch my muscles and really get into some word-smithing.

“Anyway” he wrote, changing topics slightly, “this book project is consuming a lot of my writing energy.” He paused. Continuing he typed: “that means that my blogging may not continue as frequently, however, I will try to maintain my ‘two blog posts a month’ schedule that I have for a long time now.” He typed a period and closed his quotation marks, and felt good about that particular sentence. He decided that he had said what he needed to, and that he could hit publish and be okay.