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Happy New Year! It's long past time for an update here, methinks! So, let's start with fun stuff:
Public appearances
On October 25, I gave a short reading with two awesome spec-fic writers, Don Allmon and Benjamin D. Cartwright, from our novels-in-progress. At The Raven Book Store in Lawrence.

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I've been sharing thoughts about my mother's death online (apologies to those not on Facebook - if you want to see my previous posts, here's the first, and here's the second; perhaps I should post them here, too, but I've been distracted). People have written some of the kindest things I've ever had said to me. Last night, all the students from one ( Read more... )

Not really up to writing a lot about it right now, but just got back from an impromptu trip to Omaha to see my mom. We're down to her last days ( Read more... )

Oh my gosh, I had no idea that I hadn't posted here for, what... three weeks now? MANY APOLOGIES!

My absence is largely due to ten million little tasks all piling down like a deluge of weasels, weasels driven like furry rain across the Great Plains, lashed on and on by all this stuff. Let's start with the fun and move into the rest:

• I've made many ( Read more... )

Yesterday, when I got home from an all-day English Department strategic-planning meeting, I saw a dead squirrel. Someone had driven over it. This was distressing, because I've gotten attached to several neighborhood squirrels. Also, if one of these poor bastards is going to die, it should be in the talons of a hawk or something, not a senseless ( Read more... )

Sad news from James Gunn about his wife, Jane:

Jane died last night at Brandon Woods. She had several hospitalizations in the last month or so, for dehydration, since she wasn't eating or drinking much, and went into hospice care a couple of weeks ago. She had been nonresponsive for the past few days, but they kept her comfortable, and we had a CD ( Read more... )

An LJ friend's post about forgetting to take his meds prompted this disclosure and discussion:

Over the last few days, I've forgotten to refill the pill-box on my desk so I can take my afternoon Adderal before class. I tell you what, I won't be doing that anymore. I've been feeling like Charlie Gordon from Flowers for Algernon.


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( For some reason, LJ posted this entry twice; I'm leaving it up because a couple of people responded here. )

Here's what I've been up to over the past week or two:

Visited Free State ComicCon
This is always a blast. Picked up a pile of graphic novels (and an awesome T-shirt of John Brown, Superhero).

On a related note: Later that week was the "Weird Edition" of Super Nerd Night at the Jackpot.

Chased off a Home Invader
At 4:10am on Saturday night (or ( Read more... )