So I’ve just been informed
that it’s not enough to just have a
blog; you also have to put stuff on it.
I write, primarily speculative
fiction. Most of it is comedy; well, some of it’s all comic, and some only part.
A lot of it would be termed “fantasy”, but I don’t like calling it that, for
two reasons. One is that “spec fic” is broader, and I’d rather not pigeonhole
myself in a genre. heresy alert Lord of the
Rings is pretty good, but problematic in so many ways that I wouldn’t try
to imitate it.
The second reason is that whereas
“fantasy” should connote giving one’s imagination free rein, to many people it
means “elf going on a journey”. I don’t write about elves going places. (And if
I did, the elf would be stuck in traffic in midafternoon heat with no AC
cursing the dwarf’s low hygienic standards and listening to the others whine
and argue, until finally he snaps and shouts at the hobbit, “I don’t care if
you’re a hundred and forty years old! If you’re only three feet tall, you have
to be in a booster seat!”)
What I do write I’ll get to in
another post.
For a living, I teach
philosophy, part-time at U. of Alberta and part-time doing distance ed for
Athabasca U. They’re both nice gigs, interesting work, though the lack of any
job security is frightening at times. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on metacognition –
how we regulate our own thinking. I do some research, mainly on intellectual
virtues, though it tends to end up on the back burner these days because it’s
not nearly as fun as writing.
I follow politics obsessively,
and will likely post often on that.
And then there are these two
scoundrels, whose escapades are sure to occupy much of this blog:
The one on the left with the
crazy hair and the dimples is Milo. The one on the right with the crazy hair
and the ski jacket is Gabi. Remember that now.
This picture was taken at Milo’s
sixth birthday party. The party was supposed to be held at the skating rink
across from the downtown library, but the rink was closed because it’d been above
zero for several days. Gabi and two of her aunts were at the library building
and programming that Lego robot, so we joined them. They have an amazing little
room set up there called the MakerSpace (I think), with a number of computers,
a printing press, and a 3D printer. After a few hours there, we went to
Churchill Square where the kids chased each other around and ate cupcakes – and
I do mean that they were doing those simultaneously. It was a completely improvised
and yet entirely successful party. (Improvised by the kids’ mother, by the way.
I was too fascinated with the 3D printer to help.)
