2018 Favourite Books

I am SO BAD at year-end lists. I don't think I've ever actually managed to scrape one together! So, here we go. Having tucked away over 100 books in the last year, you'd think I have some standouts, right? Right! But I'm bad at ranking things, so, in no particular order (besides #1):

1) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle

Whatever, friendos, I still blame every single one of you that didn't tell 5th-grade me to read this. This gap in my oeuvre is entirely other people's fault, clearly. (This is also very much my #1 read of the year.)

2) The Wayfarers Trilogy (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; A Closed and Common Orbit),  Becky Chambers

Probably my favourite "grownup" read of the year. Definitely the one I want to tell all of you to read, so I have other people to talk with about it. I liked it because it has bits of all my favourite things about speculative fiction: good flow and pacing to the writing, accessible diction that's space-y without being hard SF, excellent world building, excruciating detail in to those worlds, breaking down present-day social barriers by playing with the possibilities of social constructs. This book is home to one of the single stickiest things I read all year, in the Aandrisks and how they construct family units (and specifically, how they confer 'personhood' upon their younglings.) I devoured the sequel and am excited to see what else Chambers will put out.

3) Omnia, Laura Gallego García

What's this two-star rated book doing in my year-end list?? I may not have liked the writing in Omnia (though to be fair, it probably suffers more than a bit from lost-in-translation), but there was something captivating in this take on an intergalactic (maybe even inter-dimensional?) Amazon-like company, and it was easily one of my most talked about books of 2018. Appropriately, this is only available via Amazon Kindle.

4) Octavia's Brood, edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha

I checked this book out from the library roughly 10 times this year, and is the only library book that I had to turn in to a purchase. Octavia's Brood is a collection of POC speculative fiction, inspired by Octavia Butler, written by authors, community leaders, social justice activists, and more. Every story is speculative, but not every story is told by a SFF writer, and that's what makes it fascinating. It's more like a conversation with a bunch of people who have ideas of what the future could be. Not every story is a home run, but the entirety of this collection is deeply satisfying.

5) The Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising), Leigh Bardugo


6) The Forgetting, Sharon Cameron

Who loves a fully fleshed out world rooted in the absence of memory, even if the characters are silly and some of the prose is clunky? I do, I do! The Forgetting is here for all of your "I sure do wish The Giver had a female narrator instead" needs.

7) Trashed, Derf Backderf

Definitely the best comic about municipal waste I've ever read. Also features some cute trash pandas on p.237.

8) Dept. H, Matt & Sharlene Kindt

What's sort of a stock-standard Matt Kindt story (science, intrigue, weird shit, murder) is brought to life by the phenomenal colorwork of his wife, Sharlene Kindt. I don't know where Matt has been hiding her all these years, but I am super fucking excited to see more of her work.


9) Being Human, William Wegman


This retrospective of Wegman's work is a standout not only for the art, but for the interviews and essays included about his process and work with his doggo-collaborators. I never gave much thought to Wegman's photos over the years, but seeing them collected, learning about his process, and finally realizing the breadth and depth of what he's been doing for the last forty years was delightful.

10) Warcross, Marie Lu


I struggled with picking a 10th standout read for 2018. I hate-read a lot of books, so a lot of things that I spent a lot of time yelling about really don't belong on a list like this. I read a lot of interesting, but not particularly engaging, novels - stuff I'd recommend to people who were specifically interested, but that I didn't feel a particular connection to. And then there's Warcross, which, honestly, I didn't even really like, but it's the sort of novel that I want there to be more of. Y'see, Warcross is the book that, by every measure, Ready Player One should have been. At least, if we didn't live in a cis-het patriarchy that favored the needs and pleasures and even retro kitsch of boring white guys over literally anyone else at all. Warcross isn't for me. But it's absolutely for every teenage gamer that doesn't identify as a white guy, who is interested in video games for what they are and what they can be, and who appreciates source material as reference, not as substance. It's not an eye-opening, world-melting novel, by any means. It's just... it's fine. It's fine in a way that female written, female fronted books don't ever get to just be fine, because they're always carrying the entire weight of an entire genre-type in their rarity. And I want there to be more of that. I want more representation in SFF, in YA: better archetypes, better heroes, even better villains; and the only way we're going to get that is if we have more diversity, more voices, more ideas. So bring on more Marie Lus, more Warcrosses. Let's open this pit up.

Honorable Mentions:
The Power, Naomi Alderman
Vox, Christina Dalcher
Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson

2018 Books in Review

I never do year-end wrap up lists, but I'm trying to be accountable, even just to myself. So here we are! (I use GoodReads to track this, otherwise I'd never remember anything. Even using a tracking tool like this, I'm absolutely positive that I've missed things. Sorry, year end data, you fall vicitim to my bad memory, just like everything else.)

Contented generated by GoodReads

105 books read

26,741 pages

My shortest and longest books don't really mean anything, as the aggregate data that gets me to 254pp per books is ultimately corrupted by my love of graphic novels (41% of my total books were graphic novels), which are sort of a fundamentally bogus page count. GoodReads also counts my DNF (Did Not Finish) books as fully read, which, on the other hand, may even things out. (I DNF'd 8 books this year, or wholly 7% of my total reads! Including, for the first time to the best of my recollection, a graphic novel!)

It also doesn't count any stray short stories I almost certainly consumed, whether online, via e-reader, or in pieces through collections that I couldn't in good faith mark as "read".

Based on this, you might think that I was reading (or quitting) two books a week. In reality, I read in enormous spurts. I'll grind through an entire series in a week, then maybe not touch any books for a month.  This is also why I tend to wait until a series is a completed until I read it, I have zero patience in waiting for "the next one." (I mistakenly picked up Neil Shusterman's Scythe this year, thinking it was a standalone novel. Now Thunderhead was one of my most enjoyed books of the year, and I am livid that he dare do anything at all besides finish up that threequel for me.)

78 of these books were library books, which means that I only read 25 books from my personal collection. On its face, that seems inaccurate, but I couldn't tell you which books in my library I should be adding to this total, so it stands.

Of course, I did make a resolution at the beginning of this year to use the library more, so good job, me! (And let's be honest, I bet even some of those 25 books personal collection books probably came from a library's discard pile or used book sale. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SOCIALIST BOOK REPOSITORY.) In doing so, I saved myself approximately $1479.77, if you're going to believe my own math on how much I would have paid retail (or nearly retail) on all of the books I got from the library.

What would I change for next year? I'd like to be better bout quitting books that I don't enjoy. I got a little better at it this year, but I still had a lot of things that I could have quit, or quit earlier, and saved myself some time. This includes shaking my tendencies towards being a completionist, even after it's apparent that I'm no longer enjoying the series. (I see you, DMZ.)

Next year, I think my challenge will really be to read down my own personal library. I think completing one bookshelf book for every library book is a reasonable ask of myself. (And, really, the only way to insure that I don't die as one of those creepy Ripley's Believe It or Not stories, buried by my own hobby.)

Other Factoids:
<1% of my books were art books. I would like to change that in 2019!
10% of my books would be considered "YA" fiction.
15% of my books were "children's" literature. This is actually surprisingly low, I feel like I usually consume much more YA/kid lit than that! (This also ignores overlap between graphic novels and YA/kid lit.)
38% were written by women (though many graphic novels had female illustrators/colorists/letterers, it's just too difficult to doublecheck all of that while I'm running these loose numbers. Go read Dept H and enjoy Sharlene Kindt's incredible colors!).

Did you crunch any numbers on your hobby this year? Miles flown, Pokemons caught, VHS tapes melted? Let me know!

Dessert Hot Dogs

I tried to publish this on Another Social Media Platform, but it was so long that it just got throttled. Which is a bummer. I miss writing longform, I miss journaling. Anyway, here's what I posted. I'm just writing this for me, really, but if you enjoyed it, let me know. Maybe I'll try to keep this up.
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Hi Facebook, I know you just banhammered me, but I'm gonna write in you like you're a LiveJournal post anyway. Today Kit and Avi came over to visit! This is a Big Deal, because not only does no one EVER come to my house, but people also NEVER come all the way from the CITY to the SUBURBS just to HANG OUT. It simply ISN'T DONE. But they did, and it made me feel really special!

We spent the afternoon goofing around and talking about nonsense, like how "good" Snowpiercer is (it isn't), and how terrible Mortal Engines will be (it will be) and how difficult it is to watch horror movies here in 2018 (and also Poultrygeist was not very good.) Then I drew some pictures of french fries. Can you name all the french fries? Would you like to rate them? The french fries, not the pictures of french fries. We did. Everyone agrees that curly fries are the best.

Then we got hungry, and after introducing them to the idea of a "s'mores cone" that I remembered from someone's feed, Avi decided he was interested in Dessert Hotdogs. Then we spent a very long time googling dessert hotdogs and Avi spent some time spiral cutting hotdogs and putting them in s'mores cones. We judged him, very hard. (But we also supported his decision, as friends do.) It was almost like the old days, before Google had an answer to everything! We enjoyed a version of the internet that google often fails to let exist anymore - the weird internet. We learned how to puff rice (with a small cannon!) and that desk potatoes have websites. We also learned that we missed the death of StumbleUpon by a mere four days, and we were very said about that.

Friends! Real live human FRIENDS! In my HOUSE! Eating dessert hotdogs and reading #mattfraction comics and yelling about shitty movies with me!

A post shared by M'ris (@stiricide) on Jul 4, 2018 at 8:25pm PDT

At some point, Kit mentioned that she wished she had brought a comic book. Then she asked if I might maybe have a comic book for her to read. Readers, can you even believe what sort of monsters I had invited in to MY home? To think that they thought that I had a home! WITHOUT COMIC BOOKS! Luckily, Kit and I are still friends. She read Sex Criminals and The Beauty and enjoyed one more than the other, but you should guess which one.

Eventually we decided not to go to Narberth for fireworks, because being on a field in Narberth to find out whether or not it was going to thunderstorm on us seemed like a bad time. So we didn't watch anything blow up, except for those rice cannons, but that's ok. We also watched the fireworks on TV, and lip synched along with some Cher songs behind Avi's back (literally) and watched the fireflies in my yard. The fireflies always put on a very good show. We could also hear ALL the fireworks around my house, and it sounded like a goddamn war zone.

Which reminds me: I hope all your doggos are ok, dissent is patriotic and Black Lives Matter. Happy 4th

I Read Up On All Ten PA5 Democratic Primary Candidates So You Don't Have To

Oh hey, this blog! It's been a while, right? Sorry about the cobwebs.

So let's talk about the PA5 Democratic congressional primary race. The Supreme Court has said that our former district, PA7, was gerrymandered as helllll, and redrew us some new districts that don't look like Disney characters kicking each other in the bum. Brandywine Roller District is no more!

I'm now a part of the gloriously compact District 5, which includes much of Delaware County and some of South Philly. I'll take it.

ALSO, our current PA7 rep, Patrick Meehan, has finally stepped down! Because he is an old white dude who feels entitled to women and finally, finally, people are beginning to see that that is gross. Also he used public money to pay for the fact that he's gross. ANYWAY, fuck off, Meehan, at least this explains why you've done NO WORK all year, GTFO.

With this sucking void in the political landscape, no less than TEN democratic candidates have stepped up to run for the new PA5. This is: great, overwhelming, annoying, and an excellent reason why we should have ranked choice voting. That is A LOT of candidates and there is not A LOT of solid, coherent info out there about all of them.

Onwards! Standard disclaimer: I'm not a journalist, all opinions are my own, if you're not interested in how a progressive Jewish feminist feels about politics, you really don't need to engage with me. I often engage in leaps of logistical shorthand. (But if you've got links to actual interviews or news articles about any of these candidates, let me have 'em.)

Greg Vitali has been my local state rep since forever. Seriously, 25 years. I know him, he's great. He's really astounding at being secretly progressive - like, MY DAD votes for this guy every year. MY DAD. Greg has always done a lot with peanuts, and he's one of the few people running who I trust to actually know how to do the actual job of being a congressional rep. Greg also once said BOTH the words "Israel" AND "Palestine" when answering a question about the Middle East, which puts him light years ahead of everyone who just tries to dodge that question.

Mary Gay Scanlon is the Radnor Democrat endorsed candidate. She seems fine, but she's also totally comfortable calling the area up on North Third Street (where all the startups are) "N3RD St" so take that white feminism with a grain of weird gentrifying salt. If she wins, I'm totally comfortable voting for her in the general, she's just not my horse in this particular race. She's coming in to this as a pro-bono lawyer in a large firm, with a very good grasp on the criminal justice reforms that the system needs. She's personal friends with some Comcast bigwigs and has a lot of lawyer-friends contributing to her campaign, but none of it strikes me as a politick-ing sort of way. This is simply her life, and these are her people, and at the end of things, the conspiracy-theorying cries of corruption seem like just that. But if coming from money bothers you on principal, she might not be for you.

Rich Lazer is a South Philly pro-union guy with a big Super PAC from the union guys and the endorsment of Jim Kenney (and, as of this afternoon on May 11, Bernie Sanders). You know if you're in to that.

Larry Arata has a bad website. Sorry, Larry. In a field 10 candidates deep, you can't leave the permalink for your Issues page as "/angenda"

Lindy Li doesn't have a website, only a Facebook page, which in 2018 is either brilliant or completely weird. She seems to have a bunch of campaign $$ (based on the number of signs I've seen around town, the mailings, and the offer of $125 per person stationed outside of polling places on election day - if you need $125 this Tuesday, maybe hop on that?), took a picture with Meek Mill and... that's all I can really find about her? I *want* to like her, but other than a generic progressive platform I just don't know anything about what she's about. She's very active on social media and seems like a genuinely nice, passionate person, but like Scanlon, she's just not the one for me in this particular election. *ETA* She's all in on AIPAC, and if you're in to that, rad, but as a Jew who isn't entirely comfortable with the decisions Israel is making these days, I'm gonna nope right out of this one.

Margo Davidson has been serving as the rep for the 164th since 2011. She was invovled in two hit and runs this past winter (perpetrator) which is... odd, at the very least? Her website doesn't provide platforms (it's not a campaign website, it's her PA Rep website), so I'm unclear where her priorities are besides gun violence and that's basically it. The few of her current constituents that I've spoken to aren't huge fans - some are actively disenclined, most just like lots of people in this better than her.

Molly Sheehan was originally set to run against Pat Meehan, and that hasn't changed. I like Molly a lot. She's progressive AF and a scientist. She quotes Isaac Asimov on her website, which is both great (I love Asimov) if not problematic (Asimov wasn't without his misogynistic gasbag qualities.)

Shelly Chauncey is fresh off her '17 JD. She seems to tick all the boxes, but after My Life in Student Government I just can't bring myself to vote for the mystery box.

Thaddeus Kirkland doesn't mention Women's Healthcare at all as a prominent platform issue so, y'know, thanks but no thanks.

Ashley Lunkenheimer: it is really weird to have your parents pay for your Super PAC. Even on the Main Line.

At the end of the 400 people running for PA5, I'm between Vitali and Sheehan. And I'm aware that if I didn't have a personal connection to Greg, I would be firmly in Sheehan's camp. Both are firmly progressive on the environment and women's health. They both support scaling back from the military-industrial complex, but Vitali seems to be more concrete in how he would like to see that done. Sheehan has a better grasp of the intersectionality of civil issues, include justice reform, though I think Vitali could get there.

This has been a hard decision for me, because my gut wants to get all the white men out of everything (and Vitali isn't perfect) but at the end of the day, I trust Vitali to do the things I want him to do and to actually be able to operate within the system that we have. His stealth ability to get people like my dad to vote for him in spite of all their political differences really can't be overstated. (Or even logically explained, but I'll take it.) I like Sheehan A LOT, but this is PA and I can only vote for one of them, so while I'll probably waffle up til primary day, right now I'm leaning Vitali.

I Wore My Favourite Dress, Dudes Made it Weird.

I don't wear dresses very often. I just don't feel comfortable in them, they make me hyperaware of my body, so I don't wear them. Easy enough. But I have this sweet MST3K dress that makes me feel like a princess nerd, and at eight years in to it, RPS feels like a pretty safe world for me, so I wore it out last night.

Whether it's correlation or causation, here's a list of all the inappropriate, unwarranted, unasked for behavior that happened to me last night, and literally has never happened at any other RPS event I've ever been out at:

- Non-RPS dude placed his hand in the small of my back to pass me. He did this to the female player in front of me as well. Did not do this to any other persons standing near us. He had plenty of room to pass people without touching any of them.

- Non-RPS dude "stumbled" past me while I was sitting on a stool, caught himself by placing his hand on my thigh (almost at my crotch) and on my ass.

- RPS player I'd never met draped himself over me from behind while having a conversation with the other players I was facing. Wrapped his arm around my chest/neck in a bear hug that I could not get out of without standing up and physically breaking away from him. (I did not do this. I sat there and froze and waited for it to be over.)

- A conversation with other RPS player where I was describing another, similar dress that I don't wear very often, because it's too small and physically makes me uncomfortable when I wear it. The other RPS player grinned and told me that "too tight isn't a problem," even though I'd just stated that it made me uncomfortable.

In the grand scheme of things, no, these things aren't big deals. But as someone who is fiercely protective of their bodily autonomy, as someone who is both sensitive and adverse to touch, yes, they are. I doubt any of the dudes in these situation thought they were doing anything inappropriate, or making anyone uncomfortable. Because honestly, they probably go through their days without thinking about things like this.

I didn't call any of these people out on their behavior. Most of it happened too quickly for me to do anything about it. Usually, it's because I am bad at confrontation anyway and freeze rather than fight. And, certainly, part of it may have had to do with being in the dress in the first place. Whether I presented as it or not, as much as I love that dress, it made me feel more vulnerable all night, which does amount to a drain on my mental energy.

So. For crying out loud, try not to touch strangers in inappropriate, too-personal-relative-to-your-standing-relationship-with-them ways. Even in crowds. If women are talking to you about their clothing choices, odds are, they're not talking about them with you to titillate you. Don't make weird inappropriate sexualizing jokes about how they do or do not choose to present themselves in public. Unless you're involved in a sexual relationship with them, odds are, they are not presenting themselves for you. Don't make it weird, dudes. Don't make it weird.

My Last Lingering Shred of Human Decency

A story:

It's 7pm on a Sunday night in the Philadelphia suburbs. I'm walking across a dark, icy parking lot en route to a youth group event. I'm wearing a long winter coat, my 4th Doctor scarf, and a fuzzy hat.

From across the parking lot, a shout: "Hey! Hey!"

I look around. There's a car pulling out, and no one else around. Is he yelling at me?

I look around.

Goddammit, he's yelling at me.

"Hey! Wait up!"

I'm en route to a youth group event, where I know only a handful of the kids, and even fewer of the other advisors. It's dark, and any other support staff I've met, it was once, several months ago. Maybe he remembers me from there. I stop, I wait.

I regret this decision before I even make it. I make it anyway, because what if it is? I don't want to be rude.

Now he's here, next to me, and he doesn't look familiar. He doesn't look _un_familiar, his face is just a face. "Hi! How are you?"

He's congenial. Have I met him? I squint again. His face is just a face.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

"Where are we going tonite?"

"Excuse me? Do I know you?"

"I want to know what we're doing."

I keep walking. His face is just a face.

"Have we met?"

"We haven't not met."

"I'm sorry, where do you think you know me from?"

"From the place we met."

He grabs my hand, and that's when I know who he is. Or rather, at least, who he isn't.

I snatch my hand back, but we're twenty feet from the entrance, it's freezing out, we're in a parking lot. I am successfully unsettled. I keep walking, keeping dodging out of his grasp.

"You stopped! Why did you stop for me?" he pesters.

I keep walking.

"Why did you stop for me? We're talking!" he insists.

"My last lingering shred of human decency. Do I know you?"

"I just want to know what we're doing!"

I keep walking, the lobby's sliding doors part.

Inside, I immediately busy myself with finding a sign, a direction, a reason to step out of his shared space.

I bolt down the stairs, already swarming with teens.

He doesn't follow. I exhale.

A discussion:
And this, kittens, is why we can't have nice things.

To the other side of things: No. No, you cannot shout at another person in a dark icy parking lot. No, you are not entitled to their time, their answers, their space, their hand. You cannot dodge their questions as they try to figure out who the fuck you are, why you're talking to them in a dark icy parking lot. Your needs are not a priority in this dark icy parking lot, especially if there is no emergency. No, you cannot just make conversation. No, you are not "just making conversation."

What should I have done, people who are the sort of people who exist on the internet to defend this sort of dude? Should I have told him all about my job, my place of employ, and the two hundred teenagers I was about to go supervise? Should I have invited him to come with me? Should I have agreed to ditch my job and go get to know this clearly charming young stranger, and hold hands with him in a parking lot?

Just don't stop. That's easy enough. And I shouldn't have. I know that. There was that tickle in my brain, already knowing that on no planet would one of my barely acquaintance level coworkers have shouted me down in a parking lot. But undoing thirty three years of social conditioning isn't quite so easy (oh, hi, did I not mention, it's my birthday?) - and the social contract is that you stop. You act nice. You try to help. And by the time you realize that none of those things are going to do you any favors, in the nanoseconds that the situation pivots on you, it's already too late.

And so this is why we can't have nice things. Because not every man is the assbag who is going to interrupt your walk from the car to the lobby in a dark icy parking lot and grab your hand and try to force some sort of casual intimacy between the two of you, but some men are. And because I don't know every man, I can't know if you are some men.

So do me, do the world, a favor: don't be this guy. Don't be the guy who is friends with this guy. Don't be the guy who this guy tells this story to, and you laugh it off, and clap him on the back, and ridicule me for being such a prude, frigid bitch, and laugh about how funny it was that he took advantage of the latent social construct of strangers to get in to a woman's personal space, and make her uncomfortable, for shits and giggles.

Just let me get to work.

I'm Living On

You may as well tell me that robins no longer exist, or that water isn't wet, for all the sense that hearing of David Bowie's death makes.

I was up at 2am, because I always am, when I heard. And then I sat around on the internet for three hours, disbelieving and hoping it wasn't true. Too sad to go to sleep, aching in that strange sort of loneliness that only happens in those imaginary hours of the morning.

I considered calling my friends, my teammates, because it felt like they should hear it from a friend, not from the internet. On the other hand, I could also give them a night of uninterrupted sleep, a few more hours of not knowing that we suddenly existed on a planet that was a little dimmer. I let them sleep.

I've never called Bowie one of my favourite artists. He's always been more like a puppetmaster, like background noise. Knowing, in the back of my head, that almost everything I do love is here, in some way, because of Bowie. Now he isn't, and it's like the someone has removed the keystone and everything is just sagging over.

I got to see him, once. In 2002, I dragged Sam Hoffberger (or Sam dragged me? That seems more likely) to New Jersey for Moby's Area 2 tour. Moby set the whole thing up, and asked Bowie to headline. Bowie turned him down, and insisted on opening for Moby. I remember, though can't find the quote, Bowie saying that it was Moby's show, he deserved the headlining slot. That always stuck with me. I remember next to nothing of the set. It was a long, long day, and my brain had already been broken about a hundred times by every single person on that bill. I do remember that there were many, many empty seats. Way to drop the ball, New Jersey. (I went back to my LiveJournal to see if I wrote a review. I did. I was uniformly terrible. "I was tired, so I spent most of the set sitting down. Then I ran to go see Carl Cox." Thanks for nothing, past-me.)

And then, of course, there's my team. Were it not for a long beaten horse about David Bowie's dick, would I even be here, me, now? Sure, we'd probably all have ended up together as Loud Assholes Who Yell At You a Lot or something anyway, but there's a unique magic to David Bowie's Package that I don't think anyone but David Bowie could have ever inspired.

If not for David Bowie's Package, when I got to Colorado, what would Megan have thought was the coolest fucking thing ever, and what would have made it clear that she was going to be the best person I found out there? I'm sure we'd have bonded over something else, but if I start imagining a world without Bowie, in loose threads and lost jokes, it all starts to unwind itself.

He existed at all, and we're all the better for it, but right now that's not enough to fill the emptiness that he's left behind. I think a lot about mortality, and have mostly reconciled that I, and everyone I love, exists within it, but somehow, Bowie seemed beyond that. I think I always imagined him as our Tony Bennett, a billion years old and still cranking out new music with whoever tomorrow's Lady Gaga is. I assumed that Bowie would show us how to age not just gracefully, but stupendously, how to keep inventing ourselves as we keep on marching over the hill and in to the stars. Maybe a tiny part of me figured him for a Timelord.

I'm struggling to define chaos in this, to explain loss, to grieve as poetically as I feel like he deserves. Nothing I've said here is novel: over the last few days, there have been scores of other people saying other things, all of them better than I have, or will ever be able to. (Read them. They make my heart hurt a little bit less.)

So there's this: David Bowie had a profound effect on not just what I like to listen to, but to who I've chosen to make family, and how I interact with the world outside my brain. He very existence enabled some of my most treasured, longstanding friendships, and merely missing or thanking a person whose entire lifetime makes up such an intrinsic component of my own social DNA seems wholly inadequate.

I am glad he was here.

David Bowie's package rules.

Not even going to pretend I didn't steal this from PJ's Flickr album.
2008 World Rock Paper Scissors Championships,
Team David Bowie's Package