New Year's 2026: Stuff I Saw On My Walk That a Normal Person Probably Wouldn’t Take a Picture Of

I had to postpone my traditional New Year’s Day walk for the best possible reason: New Year’s D&D with friends! So I took my New Year's Day walk today, Jan. 2. 

On this walk I like to go down some streets I’ve never walked down before, thinking of this quote from Ursula Le Guin's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness:

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

While I was on the walk I hatched the idea for a photo essay called “Stuff I Saw On My Walk That a Normal Person Probably Wouldn’t Take a Picture Of.” Here it is without further elaboration!

Beautiful Bleakness: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

 

My trip to Worldcon in Glasgow and Eurocon in Rotterdam was great! I may write a little about that later, but I came home to immediately start teaching for the fall semester (literally the next day), and the last month has been a whirlwind.

I'm finally ready to get back to my regular blogging with one of my most regular types of posts: a book review!

I imagine Cormac McCarthy asked himself, "What if I wrote a book filled with beautiful sentences about horrific things, set in a bleak post-apocalyptic wasteland? And what if I only occasionally used apostrophes?" And that's pretty much what he succeeded in doing with The Road.

"Bullets Don't Have a Name on Them": Civil War (2024), Gaza, and Guns

 

"Bullets don't have a name on them."

- One of my neighbors

Alex Garland's Civil War (2024) is one of the more disturbing films I've seen recently, and that's saying something, because I also watched Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest several weeks ago. I've been meaning to write something about Civil War since I saw it last week. And here I am. 

Random Thoughts, Part 23: Cats, Conflict, Categories, Conservatism, Commercials, etc.

 

My Random Thoughts series continues. Randomly, we are now at Part 23, which is an extra large helping of random thoughts and even better: it comes with an extra large helping of random memes (although I should warn you, dear reader, that the Dune memes have been flowing more strongly with the release of Dune Part Two). Enjoy!

42nd Post of 2022 New Year's Eve Spectacular!

 

I was going to make one more post before the new year, and I noticed that my next post would be my 42nd of the year--an auspicious number for a science fiction and philosophy blog!

This is fewer posts than any other full year since I started this blog in December 2014. But that's okay. In fact, this has been one of my lessons of pandemic life: it's okay to do less. Sure, life is short and all of our days are numbered even if we don't know what that number is, but on the other hand sometimes you have to take the advice of that great sage of the 1980's, Ferris Bueller, and take a minute to look around at life once in awhile or you might miss it.

I've learned how to rest. How to take naps and walks more regularly.

Besides, I've been busy enough. I did a bit more travel in 2022 than in 2020 or 2021, but not too much. I wrote a bit more fiction after attending a workshop on fiction writing for philosophers. After that, I started my new part-time gig as a first reader ("slush reader") for Escape Pod, which has been an interesting experience so far and no doubt helped my own writing as well.

I published some non-fiction, including a chapter in Dune and Philosophy: Minds, Monads, and Muad'Dib (available now across the Imperium!). I read some books, meeting, but not exceeding, my Goodreads goal for the year. "Meeting but not exceeding" seems like a good motto for 2023.

I did keep up my pandemic journal that I started in 2020, but I've written in it less and haven't felt the need to post it here lately, which is fine. Maybe I'll do another public journal post when/if the pandemic actually ends. Actually, this post somehow became more of a journal entry than I intended when I started it. But that's okay! Another lesson of recent years: it's okay if things go otherwise than you intended.

And I spent a lot of time with my loved ones, including my cats, who enjoy that I've become a lot more of a homebody the last couple years. And we bought a house (thanks to the pandemic freeze on student loan payments), which makes being at home a lot cozier for everyone.

Looking forward to 2023, I will watch a bit of the Twilight Zone marathon on New Year's Day, and then I have a sabbatical in the spring term. I won't be teaching for the regular semester for the first time since the fall of 2011 when I had a dissertation fellowship. 

I'll probably read and write some stuff about classical Indian Buddhist philosophy (especially Vasubandhu and Ratnakīrti: the project I originally intended to start in 2020, which won't go the way I intended it then, but that's okay). I might start writing something about Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler and their Daoist and Buddhist influences. I'll probably write some more fiction, and who knows, maybe publish something. And take lots of naps and walks.

And I have some travel plans for conferences in Denver and San Francisco, maybe a road trip or two, at least one to a beach somewhere and another to visit my Midwestern folks, and maybe yet another to some US states I have yet to visit. Who knows where the road will take me?

And there will be some conventions, starting with Chattacon in a few weeks. And Hugo reading this summer.

So I think I'll be busy, but hopefully not too busy in 2023. I'll do enough, but not too much. And it will be okay if not everything goes according to my plans, because, after all, most of life, the universe, and everything happens outside of my intentions, and maybe sometimes those are the best parts of this wild, mixed up experience of being a bit of the universe that has temporarily coalesced into a human life.

Wherever you have coalesced, dear reader, I wish you and your beloved life forms a happy new year of doing enough, but not too much!

Women's Future Month 2022: Finishing Series by Butler and Le Guin

Reading the Patternist series with a beer on a nice afternoon

March is Women's History Month, so echoing my "Black Future Month" post, this seemed like a good chance to finish two series by two of my favorite authors: Octavia E. Butler's Patternist series and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. Okay, so the Earthsea books aren't about the future, at least not our future. 

But Le Guin's fantasy may be about my future: I hope to do some serious academic work on both Butler and Le Guin in the future (building on the article on Le Guin I've already published), so maybe this will be a seed of some future project. Echoing a phrase from Le Guin, I might even call it something like Realists of a Larger Reality.

 

Stairs to Nowhere: A Photo Essay of Things I See on my Daily Walks

Pandemic Journal, Part 17: Memes for the Holidays

2020 brought us many things: a pandemic, elections, upheavals, and... my pandemic journal, which continues here with my entries from December 2020 (and one from January 2021). I have also been collecting memes that amused me for the last month or so. Maybe some of them will amuse you, too. In any case, let's hope 2021 will be a better year!

Pandemic Journal, Part 14: Politics, Pandemic, and For the Love of All That You Hold Dear, Vote!

My pandemic journal continues with Part 14! It has been about six months since this all started, or in pandemic time, roughly 25 years. 

As usual, I have spent the last month scouring the internet for the finest memes. You can also read about what I've been doing and thinking. But it's also okay to just browse the memes. Do what you gotta do. It's a pandemic. 

And for the love of all that you hold dear, vote if you are eligible, my fellow Americans! Jesus fucking Christ, just vote. I don't even know what to say to convince you, but if this serves as a reminder, so be it. Just vote.

Pandemic Journal, Part 13: 13 is Still Luckier than 2020

 

My longtime pandemic journal continues with Part 13 (well, it feels like a long time, but it hasn't even been six months...). You can see some of my previous entries here and here.

What do I think about the new school year in these strange days, the 2020 US Presidential election, reading Frankenstein, the labor movement, and other things? Read on to find out!

And of course there's the real reason most of you are here: the memes! Enjoy!

Pandemic Journal, Part Seven (Now With More Memes!)

I've done it. I changed the name of this series to "Pandemic Journal" as threatened in the previous entry. We're on to Part Seven, which covers some of what I've been thinking about April 18-May 9, 2020. Also, this part is chock-full of even more memes that have amused me recently. Enjoy!