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Book Review: The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
When I talked to C about reading The Slow Regard of Silent Things, he mentioned that as much as he has enjoyed the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicle, he had very little interest in this book. Of all the secondary characters he wanted to know more about, Auri was not high on the list. Besides, did we really need her origin story? Well, turns out, The Slow Regard of Silent Things is NOT an Auri origin story. It is an Auri story. Set concurrent with the other books. It is a story of the things underneath the Academy and how Auri feels herself to fit in amongst them.…
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Six Years and $85,000 in Debt
Today I posted on FB about finally paying off the last of my undergraduate student loans. I called it an adult achievement. And it is. And I am really proud of finally getting those student loans gone, especially when I graduated from undergrad 15 years and 5 months ago. It is, in fact, a big deal. But the truth is, for me, this is about more than student loans. It is not actually about the last 15 years, but about the last 6 years. In 2009, C lost his job. At the time, we had over $70,000 in non-house debt, everything from credit cards and car loans to student loans.…
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I am a Pragmatist
This past Tuesday, my favorite hockey player, and arguably the best goalie to ever play the game, Martin Brodeur, had his number retired by the New Jersey Devils. He is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NHL Hall of Fame. But even though he is my favorite hockey player, I doubt very much I would actually like Brodeur if I ever met him. The man had an affair with his wife’s sister, while she was living with them because she had come to help his wife with their two young sons. This is not exactly an endearing quality. And yet, if I were picking an all time fantasy hockey…
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#OriginalFiction – Memories
Katja stood in the Freehold cafe, seeing it not so much with her eyes as with her memory. She had spent almost all of her free time during undergrad, over fifteen years earlier, here at the Hold. She had always sat in a comfy chair near the piano. She would bring her guitar, and with Cindy at the piano, they would play whatever they felt like, and sometimes requests, too. The piano was nowhere to be seen now. And tables outnumbered comfy chairs. She remembered evenings on the couches by the fireplace, sipping jasmine tea, joking with Gabe about his latest adventures in fencing class. So often they featured Lynn,…
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A Third Dog
Things have gotten settled enough in the new house that we are now actively looking for a third dog. By this I mean that this weekend we visited three different shelters and met four different dogs. None of them were the right dog for us, which is in some ways hard. But I have learned that we have the right to be picky. So what are we looking for? C wants a Lab or Lab mix of some sort. This works for me. Larry & June are 25lbs and 35lbs respectively, and I would like a larger dog- 60-70lbs. We do not want a puppy. Two-three years old is probably…
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Book Review: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
First, this book is almost exactly the length of a flight from Seattle to Minneapolis. Second, if you are looking for a book that tells you how Felicia Day met Wil Wheaton and Joss Whedon, this is not it. Joss wrote the intro, and he is mentioned once in the book. Wil is also referenced once, in the chapter on Gamergate, and only in that he called Felicia to tell her to disable comments on a post. That post is also only the second time her recurring role on Supernatural is mentioned. To be clear, this is not a book about any relationships. Her relationship with her brother, is barely…
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We Censor What Our Daughter Reads
When talking about children and reading, I often come across people who make a specific point of mentioning the either their parents did not censor their books when reading, or that they do not censor what their children read. This often comes in a statement like “I was allowed to check out any book in the library, in the kid or adult section”. Personally, I think this is great, but often it is said in such a way as to imply that any parent who censors their child’s reading is one of those people who thinks the Harry Potter books are Satanic. I do not think the Harry Potter books…
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The Most Important Thing I Can Teach My Daughter
Last Thursday night, in the midst of the struggle to get Pop Tart to actually do her homework, we had to stop and ask her what was wrong. Her response was that since we got home from dinner, all we had done was yell at her, and she did not like it. The intent of this statement is obviously to get us to apologize for what is going on. This is not a conscious intent on her part. But in her mind, she is unhappy because she is getting “yelled” at, and since we are the ones doing the yelling, it is obviously our fault. She did not get the…
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Book Review: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Back when I wrote my review of The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie, I said this: Books don’t necessarily have to have happy endings for me to like them. If a book can make me think, if it can leave me in tears, those are good things. But I’ll be honest, I do like my stories with a little bit of hope at the end. I read for enjoyment. I don’t read horror for a reason- I don’t enjoy it. If you are not going to give me a happy ending, or at least a moment of hope (Children of Men is one of my favorite movies ever, though…
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Math is Hard (and that’s ok)
Sixth grade math is hard. I say this as a person who took calculus in high school and started college with plans to be a math teacher. I say this as a person whose husband has a BS in Math. Sixth grade math is hard. But before you tell me I should not say such a thing, that I am perpetuating stereotypes that girls cannot do math, that I need to think of my daughter, let me say that my daughter is exactly who I am thinking about when I say this. The math she is learning is hard. It is algebra without calling it algebra. Tonight, it was basic…
