This came back around on my Facebook. I’m early X. I went to college. I’ve worked since I was 15. I’m 50, my kids are mostly grown and gone. And I’m better off than I was in my 20s and 30s, but not better than my 40s (we had some health setbacks). I work 2 jobs, and 3 side hustles. And I’m tired.
Let me have my damn…

I’m a schoolbus driver. Many of the kids give a little something at the holidays. Gift cards and cash are more welcome than more bath products or mugs or tchotkes.

I use that all the time. And secretary, one who keeps secrets, from Beezus and Ramona.

Try it alone at night in a house with a dripping tub. Brrr.

The Shoe Event Horizon is very like Vimes’ Boot Theory.

From Arthur Dent I learned, when you have nothing to lose, bluff. Lie down in front of the bulldozer. Appreciate Vogon poetry.

Clash of the Titans had nudity. Logan’s Run. Hanover Street (Harrison Ford gave good back nude in 1978) A lot of 70s movies had nudity, fairly casual nudity at that.

I had ear surgery not long after seeing it (I was 15 and had a modified radical mastoidectomy, lots of pain, lots of blood). I awoke from nightmares of the movie, with actual blood trickling from my ear. It took my father and two nurses to get me to stop screaming.

Every writing break I’ve gotten has been luck:

One of my personalities is a smoker, but he never has more than one or two and those very seldom. The rest of us hate the taste it leaves on the dentures.

I’ve been leery of the project since it was announced. But I don’t hate this.

It’s a big galaxy. Nobody cares if the characters slip out of humanoid-opposite attraction and into humanoid-general. Even on Earth, humans come in male, female, both, neither and several genetic permutations thereof.

I’m a professor. Of course. I’m a Ravenclaw, but not a dotty one. I’m more Sinistra, who will push you off the astronomy tower if you haven’t done your homework. Of course, I will stop the fall before they hit, because I don’t want the paperwork. Four seconds of terrifying freefall should fix the situation.

Only to an extent. They get rusty, but they are still there. I picked up Windows Movie Maker after a decade away, and had it back to usual skill levels within a couple evenings. I haven’t ridden a bike in 5 years, but I’m airing up the tires on one this weekend and going around the block. I find it all comes back to…

It isn’t. I did a serious Robin Hood binge as research and found Prince of Thieve to be...to put it kindly...uneven. Kevin Costner thought he was doing serious drama. Morgan Freeman was all tongue in cheek satire and Rickman chewed every bit of scenery he could find going for the over-the-top romp. And the supporting…

Should have let him stay Heater, Jabba’s second in command, instead of adding the slug. /ancient fangeek

To quote the 1978 radio script: “Greedo? Nah he was dumb enough to let me get my hands under the table. Hope they throw him a nice funeral.” Greedo never got a shot off.

The mental calculus on all of it is complicated. I’m a genius (literally) with a college degree, and the paperwork for food stamps and medicaid left me completely befuddled. Safety is a vital need. There’s no sense buying food if you’re just going to get shot while carrying it in the house.

Soldiers of the Wasteland by Dragonforce. 10 minutes of speed metal that evokes a near-Pavlovian response from me. I’ve also used Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and Marty Robbins’ “Big Iron.” But for sheer cleaning energy: Irish rebel music

I know it’s not true that we get all media, but it feels like it. I watched Gentleman Jim Corbett fight and Harry Houdini do the bridge jump and the crane strait-jacket escape. The REAL Corbett and Houdini, filmed by Thomas Edison. I’m watching things made in the last decade of the 19th century and the second decade…

When your surname is Sparrow (as mine is), Talk Like a Pirate Day is a Holy Day of Obligation. Also, Candlemas is Feb 1. It’s the holiday grafted on top of Imbolc.