Today I was driving to work on a little country road that leads to the freeway, and from a distance I saw a flock of sizable birds just chilling in the street. The car coming from the opposite direction honked, and they grudgingly shuffled out of the way. I think all of my knowledge ofContinue reading “The Birds is Coming, The Birds is Coming!”
Author Archives: GhoulieJoe
And That’s Why I Don’t Write Fiction
I had the stupidest dream last night. In it, I was the mother of a manipulative, evil kid with supernatural powers. It’s an overdone subgenre already, and my subconscious was also busily stealing plotlines such as a woman being coerced into eating glass, like in Choose or Die or Oculus. The resulting solution was thatContinue reading “And That’s Why I Don’t Write Fiction”
Book Quote of the Day
“But the only difference between her and a mother who leaves, if there’s much of a difference at all, is that Whitney already knows there’s no relief in having left. Not if her son is in the world, existing without her. He will never not be wrapped around her conscience, infiltrating her dreams, an endlessContinue reading “Book Quote of the Day”
Real Fear: Part One
This is a piece I’ve been working on since my teenager was a newborn. I’ve struggled with the format, the length, and especially the tone; generally I go for light and fun, but then my undergraduate training in analysis comes out and it gets way too serious and pretentious. I’ve got this pretty much theContinue reading “Real Fear: Part One”
Book Quote of the Day
“Mummer would tell us these tales over the dinner table without a flicker of doubt that God’s hand was at work in the world, as it had been in the time of the saints and martyrs, the violent deaths of whom were regularly inflicted upon us as exempla of not only the unconditional oath weContinue reading “Book Quote of the Day”
Book Quote of the Day
“Old shelters–television, magazines, movies–won’t protect you anymore. You might try scribbling in a journal, on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. That’s when you’ll discover you no longer trust the very walls you always took for granted. Even the hallways you’ve walked a hundred times will feel longer, much longer, andContinue reading “Book Quote of the Day”
Book Quote of the Day
“One step, she thought. One step and then the next gets you where you’re going.” –Robert McCammon, Swan Song
The Horrors of Adulting: A Car Story
Today, I was involved in my first two-car collision. I was at a four-way intersection, and I was thinking the corner on my right had a stop sign, but by the time I realized it did not, and that the other driver was not stopping, we had crashed. It’s been a few hours, and timeContinue reading “The Horrors of Adulting: A Car Story”
The Horrors of Adulting: Devil House
I’ve recently entered the early stages of middle age, but until recently I’ve never really felt like an adult. For the fourteen years we had been married, my husband Andrew and I were living in a house his grandparents bought and rented to us for peanuts. Until the pandemic, we lived paycheck to paycheck onContinue reading “The Horrors of Adulting: Devil House”
The Horrors of Adulting: Sometimes, Dead is NOT Better
This is my neighborhood. Pretty, innit? But you may observe there are no sidewalks. So when my two-year-old wants to go for a walk, we have to perambulate in the street. It’s very quiet, the official speed limit is 15 miles an hour, and there are loads of kids around, so drivers tend to beContinue reading “The Horrors of Adulting: Sometimes, Dead is NOT Better”
