centre of the universe

Caymanaymans

I had just returned from some kind of an RPG convention where we’d been camping and doing LARP outdoors when it was nice and playing tabletop games indoors when it wasn’t. The Convention was way down Stateside somewhere but not Indianapolis. Like, we’re talking Louisiana or Georgia or something. I had managed to leave one […]

November 10, 2021
The Freehouse Caper

I dreamed a dream of games, of gatherings and a labyrinth. I dreamed of sport and game and speeches from the Summer King. He was old, handsome, tired, his power waning. The Winter King was still just a boy but the hunger in him, the desire shining in his eyes, tinged with a hint of […]

August 31, 2021
Just Keep Stabbin’

I used to be the sort of person who could walk into a clinic, slap myself down in a chair, and have the ghoulish blood collectors therein remove as much of the red as they needed. I donated blood on a regular basis; I never had a problem with blood tests. In addition to being […]

August 10, 2021
The Last Thing

Grief is an oscillation between want and have, between need and want, between here and gone. It does strange things to a person. When my mother died I kept saying to my aunt, over and over, “this must be so hard for you”. A Freudian might call it transference. My aunt finally broke and asked […]

July 14, 2021
Dreamlet

A friend had invited me to the ‘viewing’ of their first grandchild in a community centre, or maybe in the common room of a condo complex. The new baby was teensy, with a shock of bright red hair. We’re talking Beaker hair, here, and it was perfect. When I got there, the Aunties had placed […]

July 12, 2021
Olfactory Sense

I was cleaning the bed linens this morning, which always is accompanied by a spraying down of the mattress with hydrogen peroxide & essential oils (no, not lavender; I don’t especially like lavender). Into the “warsh”, as my great-step-grandmother would say, with the sheets and mattress cover. I love doing the bed linens in summer […]

June 25, 2021
Chimney Ducks and David’s Irises

I was feeling pretty cruddy today; a kind of nonspecific languishing that makes no sense to me given it’s a perfect day in the perfect month of the perfect week. Everyone is relatively healthy, Child the Eldar is getting ready to strike out on his own, and generally I am extremely blessed. *EXTREMELY* blessed. So […]

June 7, 2021
Pride

June is Pride month, a time when we recognise some of the glorious human diversity in the world. We celebrate being able to be openly who we are, and specifically, Pride is about remembering the riots in Stonewall in 1969, when LGBTQ+ folks fought police brutality against our community. There are great resources out there […]

June 1, 2021
Labour

There comes a point when a woman is labouring in childbirth when she says “I can’t do this”. Usually that’s a hallmark of what’s called transitional labour, and it usually means she absolutely can do it, and is likely about to do it with aplomb. Well-seasoned labour and delivery midwives have said when you hear […]

April 28, 2021
40 years

‪Some anniversaries we don’t need to remember. ‬ ‪My father just called to remind me that it was 40 years ago today that his father, my Gramps, was killed in a farm accident. ‬ ‪Do you have a singular day that changed the trajectory of your life?‬ ‪I remember that day with crystal clarity. It […]

September 17, 2020