A speculative mind

  My first experience with pizza was not something to celebrate.   I was maybe five years old. I think our family had been out bowling. Not something we did very often. I was terrible at it, but then, I was five. I suspect the rest of my family wasn’t a whole lot better.   Like I said, we didn’t do it very often. But after bowling (I think it was bowling, but I may be confusing it with some other outing. It was a long time ago) we went out for pizza. This was the early 1960’s and the world was a very different place. Pizza was somewhat rare. I think we had only one pizza parlor in town. We were at that time, the 4 th largest city in Oregon, and only one pizza parlor (that’s what we called them back then. Pizza parlors. No, I have no idea why, when the only other thing I remember being called a parlor, was a funeral parlor. That’s not creepy at all). I recall I had some trouble with the word “pizza” as it was not a word I had ever heard before. But I must have been excited at trying

  I would rather be a bit naïve to trust and be disappointed than to be suspicious of everyone. I would rather expect the best even if I get burned now and then. The benefit of the doubt. Let your heart lead you Not your fears. How can you live up to your potential If I don’t give you a chance. How can I live up to my potential If I fear to give you a chance. There are good people. Let them be. Star Liner

  In my mind, one of the requirements for fantasy to work is that magic has to come with a consistent and heavy price. In the Tangled Lands, the magic does just that. Every time you perform magic, it causes “bramble” to grow. The bramble can take over and choke out everything else. It is poisonous. If you are pricked with any of the fine thorns you will get sleepy. Get pricked with a few of them and you may never wake up. I saw the parallels to Sleeping Beauty, and thought it was going to be a variation of that story. But it is not. The similarity ends there. The book is made up of four stories that all take place in the same world in and around Khaim, the last surviving city of a once great empire. This city has survived by the dictatorial enforcement of a death sentence on anyone who practices magic. Two of the stories were written by Paolo Bacigalupi and two of the stories were written by Tobias S. Buckell. They are seamlessly interwoven together and into their world. Being the

  (Look how happy these kids are.)  Whatever generation you are: Baby Boomer, Gen-X, Millennial etc., the family road trip is a rite of passage that every child has to go through. But I would argue that the Boomers had it the worst. For one thing we tended to be in bigger families, had no air conditioning, and the cars had vinyl seats. Road trips invariably took place in the summer when school was out. Driving across the country in the heat of summer meant inevitably everyone was wearing shorts. Pealing your skin off the vinyl seats was bad enough, but then returning to the car after a burger stop meant finding a way to sit on the near molten vinyl without letting it touch your skin. Then there was the smell. That unmistakable odor of six people in a car for seven hours a day in the heat. I am not quite sure how my parents stood it. Nor how they stood the constant refrain of “are we there yet?” The reply they gave was always, “about fifteen minutes.” I swear every destination whether