Better by half
It’s been almost seventeen years since I came out, not yet half my life, but edging closer to it year after year. Even way back then, I felt like I was coming into myself late, twenty-one years old and in my last year of college. Today, I read about out LGBT teenagers in high school … Continue reading
Sisters and brothers, wonder girls and boy wonders
It’s probably pretty clear by now that I’ve read more than my share of comic books. I have about fifteen thousand in my personal collection, curated carefully over the last thirty years, not to mention the thousands more I’ve read and subsequently donated to worthy causes. I still pick up an insane number of new … Continue reading
52/1: The varieties of horror
I’d like to clear up a bit of a myth — you can actually follow either Animal Man or Swamp Thing without reading the other. Writers Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder have clearly spent the first year of the two titles building a common world with a number of common elements and themes, but they … Continue reading
52/1: Myth and wonder, blood and brothers
One year into DC’s reboot of their primary continuity, known as the New 52, Idler comics writer Matt Santori-Griffith and co-editor Gavin Craig are taking stock of some of the high points. This week, they talk about Wonder Woman’s revitalized mythology, and how family seems to be a central concern of the best titles of … Continue reading
Hopelessly devoted
Anyone who knows me at all knows I am not particularly musical. It’s not just that I can’t play an instrument or carry much of a tune. I don’t even have much of an ear for music. My iPod, at any given time, has about a dozen songs on it — ones that would make … Continue reading
Growing pains
My parents were divorced and my mom was mentally ill throughout most of my childhood so I didn’t always learn a lot about how to be a “proper” girl or woman — I’m an adult who is still figuring out liquid liner. In a number of ways, I love that I wasn’t forced into a … Continue reading
Quit cooking, start reading
Even as a nonfiction writer, I’ve already managed to lie to you before I even start. Quit cooking, start reading is not quite true — I pretty much never stop reading. Not to eat, brush my teeth, not even when cleaning the kitchen or taking a walk. I read my way through the winter hibernation … Continue reading
Unpacking loss, unpacking Nox
You can’t know grief until you experience grief. Its pain is ineffable. It socks your body and mind and ruins all sense of reason, meaning. Anything you’ve believed or held true becomes subject to question when someone you care for passes away because something impossibly ridiculous has happened — a living breathing someone gives up … Continue reading
Homemade chicken and dumplings soup
It’s strange to string up Christmas lights around a window framing palm trees and sunshine, instead of cloudy skies and snow. Listening to Christmas music on Pandora just felt like a sham. I wonder how parents in San Francisco justify Santa’s sleigh. There’s nothing for his runners to skate over in California but fresh asphalt … Continue reading
Garlic bread
My grandfather wouldn’t eat garlic. While my family has produced a number of picky eaters, I don’t normally think of my grandfather as having been one of them. I don’t remember running into many things that he wouldn’t eat, although that may be been one of the privileges of eating mostly at one’s own house … Continue reading
