Beyond Boxes Blog

Welcome to the new home of my on again, off again blog, Beyond Boxes. My plan is to post here regularly on a variety of topics my autistic mind finds interesting and pertinent. They may range from science (astronomy to zoology) to current events including climate change impacts and the state of US politics to art including architecture to literature and entertainment. I think in systems, so I see connections amongst them all. I’ll try to make those connections explicit as I blog, but if I don’t please do ask me to clarify.

Another danger of (over)confidence

19 February 2026

[Note: this was written prior to the news of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.]

The revelations from the Epstein files keep coming, keep proving the limits of horrificness haven’t been exceeded yet because of now routine hints of worse yet to come, and are already eliciting blanket condemnations of guilt for anyone who is named within. 

I have multiple issues with this last point starting with the one-size-fits-all expedience approach. Just being mentioned in the files is not sufficient on its own to provide evidence of guilt. Mentions of people that do not include descriptions of child rape and trafficking, nor even oblique references to them, are not the same as those that do. 

That black and white thinking ignores the simple fact that reality is nuanced.

In one post of names I saw Minnie Driver listed, sans context. I’d imagine it might have been in a statement like “I liked [her] in…” But such statements are not evidence of a crime, and no one should be condemned based on that, yet I keep seeing more and more people suggesting everyone named in the files should be imprisoned, or even executed. 

FFS, that is some serious Queen of Hearts illogic:

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

“No, no!” said the Queen. “

Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!” (https://wordhistories.net/2019/07/14/sentence-first-verdict-afterwards/)

Those mentioned in the files haven’t been charged, never mind had trials yet. 

So, let’s get real and stop with the performative BS, excesses of “expedience”, and other dysfunctional approaches to a very serious set of crimes and related issues. 

• Children were raped and trafficked. If the latest information revealed is true, some were murdered.
• Powerful people are responsible; based on the evidence we’ve seen to date, too many of them part of the current US administration directly, or pandering to it as indirect partners in crime – the crime of covering up their crimes. 
• Those powerful people expect immunity based on their power, wealth, and connections to other powerful, wealthy people. [that perception has changed dramatically with the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, though he has not been charged yet]
• Some of those powerful connections now control much of the US corporate media and are using it, providing a virtual monopoly of dismissal, evasion, and excuses for lack of coverage of one of the most substantive stories of corruption in my lifetime, one which makes Watergate look like a kiddies pool party. 

The trap we cannot fall into is to tar everyone named in the files with the same broad brush. That aids and abets the rather obvious “Deny. Deflect. Distract.” strategy of including in the file dumps essentially innocent communications that name people in order to discredit the majority of information about serious crimes. It also could lead to innocent people being punished for something others have done. That isn’t how a justice system should work. And yes, ours keeps failing along many different axes of justice from racism to sexism to immunity by connection. 

That’s not an excuse to make it worse!

Knee jerk universal condemnation and demand for immediate punishment prior to trial is not the path of justice. It mirrors the path of fascism and bigotry, in which people are condemned for things beyond their control like race or gender at birth or being mentioned by someone casually in a document included in the Epstein files. It is lazy. Ineffective. Counterproductive. Dangerous. It is the path of exacerbating evil.

It is a path we must not walk if we truly seek justice for the victims.

Like real democracy, real justice can be messy. Prevention is a better option, but that window of opportunity was slammed shut by a “justice” system that routinely fails to believe women and minorities when they accuse white men, especially when they are powerful. Some of the latest information suggests multiple occasions when victims made statements, evidence was found, but somehow the process ground to a quiet halt instead of leading to charges. More thoughts on those issues later, when there’s more clarity…

Of course, what should have happened was believing the victims. If we’d done that the files would be just supporting evidence.

The Danger of Confidence: Mistaking Inflection Points for Tipping Points 

2 February 2026

FYI: due to circumstances both personal and national/international recently, I opted to avoid pressuring myself to post on Beyond Boxes. Everything that was pertinent in current events was triggering. Autistic overwhelm sucks, so I needed to step back for a few days to recombobulate.

Decisions have consequences. Making decisions in uncertain times feels risky but it’s actually normal to make decisions without absolute certainty. However, lately the intensity of that uncertainty has amplified and metastasized. We are beset by confusion, chaos, and endless soundbites lacking meaning, but intended to elicit an emotional response that further complicates the chaos and confusion by confounding rational thought. 

It’s hard to know where to turn for stability, and that’s part of the problem. We’ve experienced a prolonged time of relative stability in the US, misleading us into complacency. It’s lasted long enough that many (mostly white) people have come to expect their privileges to be permanent, living their lives to be entertained but not challenged. Effectively expecting the status quo they enjoy (at costs to others) to persist in perpetuity. Unchallengeable. 

But while they expect reality to respect their preferences, they ignore one simple fact: their “reality” is based on multiple fictions.

The status quo isn’t inclusive. It never has been, despite the “American Exceptionalism” ideal we’ve been pummeling the rest of the world with. When it suits our economic interests, anyway. Yes, social progress has been made, particularly in the 1950s through 1970s, but the backlash began almost immediately, and those involved in that project have been patient. They’ve been strategic. They’ve worked quietly to dismantle the progress step by step and restore a mythically resplendent status quo of white male neoliberal privilege, Project 2025. 

• They’ve reframed issues unchallenged, so civil rights became reverse racism, polluting industries became targets of unreasonable (red tape) regulation, and disagreement morphed into criminality.
• They’ve dumbed down education by discouraging teaching critical thinking skills and attacking science in general, and by transferring funding from public schools to charter schools, where different rules can be emplaced to allow discrimination and indoctrination. 
• They’ve consolidated control over the flow of information by removing limitations on ownership of media outlets. 
• They’ve conditioned us to expect politicians to lie in order to get elected but deliver little or nothing on those lying promises fomenting dissatisfaction that has nowhere to go. Except to fuel anger, which is then captured and channeled as those manipulating the system see fit. 

No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, just a smart, well-educated autistic Boomer who’s seen enough to recognize the patterns.

So we find ourselves at a change point in time. But is this an inflection point or a tipping point? In my conceptualization, an inflection point is where some change occurs to alter the trajectory of events in the short-term but reversion to the previous norm is possible, perhaps even likely while deep systemic change is unlikely. A tipping point is the opposite: long-term significant systemic change that cannot be reversed. 

Women in the workforce during wartime in the 20th Century is an example. After WWI, women mostly returned to traditional occupations (inflection point), though we did win the right to vote (tipping point). After WWII, there was more push for real change, eventually leading to the Women’s Movement, which was imagined as a tipping point. Except it hasn’t turned out to be as stable as expected. SCOTUS’ reversal of Roe shocked many who’d believed promises that the issue was “settled”. Except it wasn’t. Roe was an inflection point, not a tipping point because lasting systemic change failed to take root before opposing forces were able to uproot it.

What I’ve observed over the years is an increasing overconfidence amongst those seeking progress, inclusiveness, and justice. We “won” the battle over Civil Rights. We “won” the battle over women’s rights. We “won” the battle over environmental degradation. We can rest on the laurels of those victories and coast through the rest of our lives enjoying our privileges!

That overconfidence and those unconfronted legacies plague us today.

We’ve lost all the social policy wars because we mistook the inflection points achieved as tipping points. The changes we wrought were never that secure because in each instance, expedience and superficial alterations were allowed to displace deep examination and status quo-threatening change. 

The Civil Rights Act didn’t eliminate bigotry. It just drove it deep underground to fester because we never examined and addressed the root causes. It realigned political parties. We skip over the history of Reconstruction, failing to question why it became perfectly normal to replace slavery with something that was the same in all but name while declaring the institution and all of its consequences moot. 

Though progress had been made, until the reversal of Roe, the ERA has never passed. Once again, the normality of women having fewer, less robust rights than men is resurgent and being renormalized, diminished in consequences with terms like “Tradwife”.

Environmental laws have been under attack for some time, but increasingly harshly with the rise of those seeking to deligitimize science, whether by 

• perverting the concept of scientific theory to urge incorporating received wisdom as equally valid as the outputs from the scientific method, 
• by corporatizing academia and slowly altering it’s purpose from open discovery and education to providing knowledge and workers to reinforce neoliberal ideals, or 
• by direct attack on science, scholars, and inconvenient technologies such as wind turbines.

With a hostile administration that acts as if it is entitled to rule by fiat and threat, the intensity has surged.

The political party realignment, starting with the GOP’s Southern Strategy, was complicated, one might even suggest sidetracked, by the Democratic Party’s pursuit of corporate donors. That decision rendered its tenure as the party of the people very short-lived, as corporate interests began to overwhelm those of the people, bringing the two main parties in closer agreement on many issues, all to the benefit of those who were already enriched and empowered. 

That unspoken bipartisan tacit agreement contributed to the compromise of public education, consolidation of media and replacement of investigative journalism by infotainment, removal of checks and balances on Executive Power (remember the outcry over ANY challenge to the administrations power after 9/11 leading up to war in 2003?), rubber stamped judicial appointments, and disastrously misguided SCOTUS decisions including Citizens United. “Originalism” my *ss! That’s just another example of how selfish ideas can pervert ideals, like

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith

Collectively, we grew overconfident. Complacent. Our vigilance failed. We imagined all was well, but like evil things creeping back into Mordor after Sauron was expelled from Dol Guldur, we allowed the divisiveness, hatred, bigotry, and over all, the expectations of permanent victory to persuade us to deny the petty persistent attacks on social progress had any long-term meaning or impact. 

They weren’t part of any obvious organized plan, at least not one that was perceived in general. The why of that is complicated, but I think it comes down to one main thing: the majority of people wouldn’t do things like that, so they failed to credit warnings that others actually would do them. I say “they” because I was one of the ones trying to bring attention to those expediences, being met by annoyance, dismissal, denial, or even questioning of sanity. And so, here we are. 

We need to learn to make better choices! Individually and collectively. 

NOTE: If you’re someone who honks at protesters in support, what’s stopping you from joining us on the sidewalks, or in the streets (with proper permits)? We’re at an “all hands on deck!” crisis point. We need you to up your game however you can. And yes, I know, some have already incurred significant costs. But why would you sit back and let the numbers of those tragedies grow when you can do something to help stop it? It will cost you far less now than the costs of what will come if we allow this to continue and worsen. And it will worsen if we don’t stop it! Consider it an investment in our individual and collective futures with short-term costs but long-term dividends. 

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WWLD? WWPD? Why aren’t you?

17 January 2026

Sometimes delays work in one’s favor. I’d intended to post on this topic in the 14th, but my laptop stopped charging. One shorted out charging port and faulty charger later, I was ready to post on the 16th. But I was feeling overwhelmed, and I’ve learned to stop for self-care at such times.

Then overnight, the DOJ asserted it is not subject to the courts. Having emasculated congress, cowed corporations into obeying in advance or through coercion, this Executive is completely out of control. Yet people are still not flooding the streets in mass protest the way we must if we’re to stop the demise of democracy in the US. 

Some people are unaware of the peril because they still trust corporate-legacy news media. Some consume the swill of faux news. 

But many others ought to know, but apparently aren’t acting on that knowledge. 

One group in particular puzzles me. At the risk of offending people, some of whom are close family and friends, I have to ask: how can people be so enmeshed in the Star Wars or Star Trek universes where freedom and diversity are prized yet so checked out of the reality under threat of freedom’s demise? 

Maybe it’s because I’m autistic, but I’m forced to ask “What would Luke do?” “What would Picard do?” and “why aren’t you doing that?” Why do so many people cling to their comforts, in this example continuing to support corporations that have capitulated instead of canceling service, even temporarily?

One measure of this is how many social media posts I’m seeing focused on the next episode or film someone is planning to experience. Many of them are only available through Paramount or Disney, both corporations having capitulated to the growing fascism in the US. For me, that is an unbearable cognitive dissonance. I cannot reconcile being in favor of freedom, part of my Star Wars or Star Trek fandom, while patronizing companies that are key disciples of its demolition and cornerstones of the fascist foundation replacing it. I am actively boycotting both Paramount and Disney and coping well with the necessary delayed gratification. Once fascism is defeated, I can watch with a clear conscience.

My knee jerk response to my own questions? Those who can may be hiding in the fictional universes because the real one feels too dangerous. For anyone who feels the danger, there will be a temptation to escape. I feel it. So do many others. But letting it paralyze you, allowing it to distract you, not just taking a pause to help replenish your energy for the fight? That leads to nowhere but more pain, loss, and overt fascism. Quickly.

Reminder: in less than a year in power, this administration has emasculated congress, and now overnight we’ve descended into “L’etat, c’est moi” territory as the DOJ declared the courts have no jurisdiction over the administration’s power and cannot compel it to obey the law, even when that law was signed by the current WH occupant.

Another possible reason? Apathy. Either a sense the danger really isn’t so serious, aided and abetted by legacy media so eviscerated of meaning that it functions as nothing more than the propaganda arm of government – who needs a Ministry of Truth? – or a sense there’s nothing that can be done, which seems more like learned helplessness, a state of being familiar to many survivors of abuse and authoritarian systems. 

The counterargument I’d make to apathy and learned helplessness is that people ARE doing things, changes are happening, and the more who participate in communicating about the excesses and crimes, in protesting, and in demanding positive change, the faster it will happen. Which means that feeling of either danger or helplessness, or the combo, will end sooner.

Yes, current reality is frightening, but we have been in a similar place before, just barely in living memory. The lesson from history is clear: the more fascism is allowed to grow and embed itself, the harder it will be to dislodge. The instance I’m thinking of required a world war to stop fascism. But while we were antifa then, too many are anti-antifa now because we’ve allowed issues and ideas to be perversely reframed in such a way they promote the opposite of what the US was founded to be (however flawed that initial concept was).

This fascist takeover is heading toward global conflict, too, destroying the post-war order, as imperfect as it was, without anything to replace it except excessive elite-focused expenditures and oppression of opposition. The result is a potential global redivision into three competing “empires”: the US controlling the Americas, Russia controlling Europe, and China controlling much of Asia and the Pacific. Human rights as we’re accustomed to them, or rather, as white people, mostly men, are accustomed to them, will vanish for most people, and always be under threat for those who do retain them. One step out of line and you’ll lose them.

Is that frightening? I’d say “yes, absolutely.” 

In ancient Rome, the government provided distractions from unpleasant conditions, “bread and circuses”, a phrase attributed to Juvenal, who “used it to decry the ‘selfishness’ of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.”ⁱ For too many in the US it is corporate entertainment distraction in place of circuses without even the nourishment of bread because that now costs too much.

What I fear most is too many people refusing to give up their pleasures, even temporarily, because that’s too much to ask to preserve democracy and defeat fascism. Like wearing masks was too much to ask to minimize a pandemic. Too many demand the privileges but can’t be bothered to accept the responsibilities of society and citizenship. 

In the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, responsibility to community matters – the needs of the one versus the needs of the many. In reality, that’s been inverted. Too many behave as if their individual needs are more important that collective ones, even under current threats. Rugged individualism is running rampant to our collective detriment.

But I think what bothers me most, and that I don’t grok, is how people so enmeshed in those other universes seem incapable of applying the lessons learned in the fictional there to reality here. Fiction, and science fiction in particular, has a unique power to teach us about what isn’t or hasn’t been, but might be. A common SF theme is freedom and the dystopias that result from its absence. The more degraded we allow our freedoms to become, the higher the price to restore them will be. 

Stories are powerful because they can teach. Why are we letting the lessons get so lost?

ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Trapped in a Maelstrom

7 January 2026

I’m seeing more and more posts on social media about people feeling overwhelmed, needing to tune out or otherwise escape from the constant bombardment of “news”, much of which is actually lies, especially today after ICEstapo murdered a woman in cold blood in Minneapolis.

I’ll not dig into the legalities, Joyce White Vance, Jay Kuo and others have that covered. I’ll not psychoanalyze, Mary Trump has that one down far better than I could because of her personal knowledge and expertise. And I won’t second guess Heather Cox Richardson or Timothy Snyder on relevant historical events and processes. Each of them has specialist knowledge to which we should pay attention. 

I’m a generalist, once labeled a “Renaissance woman” in a headline about my taking on a new position. As an autistic woman, I see patterns, connections, linkages that transcend boundaries of all kinds. As an abuse survivor, I have far too much intimate knowledge of how abusers think and behave. Like many other survivors, I spotted the similarities between Trump and other abusers a long time ago. We raised our voices in warning. Too many shushed us. 

Like the corporate-funded politicians who kept insisting on “proof” of climate change, delaying taking meaningful action to ensure profits keep rolling in as long as the gaslighting works – and that’s what it is, gaslighting – too many demanded we wait for “proof” before acting. Those same people are likely to be the ones who will persist in insisting that the level of evidence readily available still doesn’t constitute what they’d consider “proof”.

It’s past time we ceased allowing them to veto necessary changes. Perhaps it’s time we stopped providing them with a forum, or at least an audience. Years ago, while in that job that got me labeled a Renaissance woman, I joked with a colleague from a northern tier state that some climate change deniers would persist in denial even while sipping margaritas under palm trees north of Minneapolis in January. Some people will never admit reality. They should not be entrusted to make important decisions!

Likewise, so many are clamoring for the release of the Trumpstein files (yes, I am conflating, but I see no reason not to at this point) while ignoring the statements of the victims. Let them speak. BELIEVE THEM. Yes, keep demanding the files, but cease ignoring the other clear evidence.

The gaslighting and lies persist because too many are still in denial. Too many are desperately clinging on to a fantasy-reality that never really existed for most people. It privileged white males over all others, capital over labor, profits over people. That bygone era was never as rosy as they insist on painting it. If you weren’t a white male, your rights were second class (at best). I’m old enough to remember.

To set things right requires us to collectively grasp how delusional we’ve allowed ourselves to be. How the myth of “American exceptionalism” has exceptionally destroyed America. [aside: I despise the use of the term “American” to refer to only the US. There are more than 20 countries in the Americas. That term shouldn’t be monopolized by only one.]

Congress is AWOL in time of domestic terrorism and war. Clearly, we cannot depend on the GOP to do the right thing. They’ve had many chances and couldn’t be bothered to use any of them. Neither could Dem leadership, though some rank and file members are proving themselves capable. Some courts are standing up, but too many on SCOTUS are too enamored of rewriting the Constitution to suit their “originalism” ideological goals. Clearly, they cannot be trusted to keep their oaths of office, never mind following the Constitution, which is their job. 

We have a lot of work to do, once the current crises are ended. I wish I could say I saw a clear path through, but I don’t. We must muddle through as best we can, individually and collectively. 

It falls to us to stand up where they’ve all failed. Daunting, I know. But every abuse survivor has had to learn lessons that apply here. Listen to us and the experts who’ve studied fascism and authoritarianism. Those intent on destroying democracy want you to believe they’ve already won, so you’ll give up. Don’t. Believe we can get through this. Then act on that belief. Do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are. No act of disobedience is too small. Each can plant seeds.

But be prepared to give up some things you’ve grown accustomed to, at least temporarily. Our fight for democracy will not be without costs. One set of examples quickly comes to my science fiction fan’s mind: on one side are those urging boycotts of corporations that capitulate (Paramount, Disney), on the other are those who want to consume what those corporations are selling (Star Trek, Star Wars). 

I wish everyone who’s looking forward to new seasons, new films, etc. would stop and think briefly about what they’re signaling if they retain subscriptions or go out to see films. They’re signaling the corporations should persist in capitulation, that there will be no consequences for it. 

But there must be consequences. 

So, for all of those looking forward to the next experience in either universe I have some questions:

1) What price are you willing to pay now to help stop the rise of fascism? I guarantee the cost of prevention will be much lower than the cost of the cure if we don’t succeed in stopping this now.

2) Will the world end if you don’t see the show or film right now? Will just a little bit of delayed gratification be life threatening? Is the cost of delaying that gratification so unreasonable you can’t consider it? If so, I hope you spend some time re-examining your values, quickly. Time is running out.

3) Never mind WWJD, what would characters you admire in either universe do when faced with fascism or authoritarianism? Or rather, what did they do? Imitate them!

Continuing to deny the link between personal gratification and corporate misbehavior may seem trivial when it’s just science fiction. But if we continue to fund rogue corporations, without demanding accountability for their misbehavior, the consequences could be world ending (climate change) and life threatening (PFAS, income inequality, etc.). 

That’s a wee taste of my perspective from inside the maelstrom that is today’s reality in the US, and is metastasizing to infect other nations as well. 

Farewell, 2025

31 December 2025

As 2025 wraps, I’m struck by contrasts: many positive firsts for me personally, but so many negative ones for so many others, too many of which are due to the current experiment in fascism. Their negative behaviors won’t disappear, I’m just choosing to focus on the positive, just for a few moments, to replenish energies and get ready for the next challenges.

And we know there will be more challenges coming our way in 2026, because the only way out of our current situation is to work through the negative firsts of 2025 like: the DOGE fiasco, ICEstapo, a Do Nothing congress and a complicit SCOTUS, chaotic tariffs, endless elite entitlements, repeated Epstein files dodges, the enshittification of the Oval Office, and the ultimate symbol of all that’s wrong, the unauthorized East Wing demolition achieved without any oversight, pushback, or other attempted restraint on the destructive impulses of the malignant narcissist who should never have been allowed to run for office again after Jan 6.

Doing my best to avoid dwelling on all that negativity flooding the zone right now, setting a more positive tone for 2026, working to avoid another episode of autistic overwhelm. I used to live every day in a state of overwhelm, but the last one happened 30 April, so what I’m doing is working.

My personal 2025 firsts included publishing my first novel, Things I Wish I’d Said*, a first book royalties payment, the attendant first signing of my book with hands shaking just a bit. Slightly less shaking for the next two – close family – but back again for the final two to be delivered in NY. Not for friends or family, but for people my intuition said I needed to share the book with. Inconveniently, without any context for the “why” of that need. Perhaps the recipients will know.

Delivering them was complicated by the over-use of my sprained ankle the evening my cousin and I saw Waiting for Godot, my reward to myself for finishing the book. I chose my footwear poorly that Thursday night. Should have worn comfy clothes and ankle support boots; chose to wear dressy clothes and shoes instead to celebrate the book publishing. Nearly 4 miles later, the slight sprain was aggravated to moderate, and whiskey was required. Fortunately, though I usually prefer The Macallan’s single malt, my superbly organized and thoughtful cousin had a bottle of Jack Daniels on hand, which worked wonders.

The play and entire cast were (yes, I’m going to say it) “Excellent!” But the experience was upgraded to “Outstanding!” when the audience was reminded that Alex and Keanu would be back out shortly to do a brief Talk Back session, so another first – didn’t know Talk Backs were a thing. Never happened at any London’s West End performance I attended. Then, on the way back to my cousin’s, it started to snow. Just flurries, no accumulation. I love watching snow fall… A magical end to a most excellent day.

The final book deliveries had to happen that Saturday due to the expected snowstorm that night, and my return to California on Monday, so, with neoprene ankle support, proper walking boots, and a sturdy walking stick, I braved NYC streets again. And found myself in the midst of a Santa-con. Another instance of “I didn’t know that was a thing”, so another first for me: seeing so many holiday onesie-clothed people madly running around the streets of Manhattan. Once my deliveries were complete, more whiskey.

Sunday morning, we woke up to a snow-covered cityscape, something I haven’t seen in quite some time. Leeds (UK) 2016 – 2017 is the last one I remember.

Wisely Ubered to the airport Monday, looking forward to a meal at a restaurant I’d scented during the layover on my way to NYC. Sadly, the meal wasn’t another amazing first. It was a disappointing one. The food was bland and tepid, the service rather indifferent. I didn’t have high expectations, this was airport food after all, but the scent promised much more than what was delivered. I don’t think that was due to any professional cook/baker snobbery on my part, just odors that promised more than taste delivered.

Restoring a more positive tone to the trip, while waiting for my connecting flight, I started a conversation with a woman who also writes (poetry) and lives in the Bay Area, so another first – a fortuitous opportunity to talk to someone local about independent book stores, doing readings, connecting with other authors, etc.

I returned with souvenirs, both happy (the play) and bittersweet (the last items from my late cousin, Felix. Apparently, I’m the only other hockey fan in the family).

There’s a final first for me: actual New Year’s Goals drafted on 24 December:

1) write more regularly, particularly this Beyond Boxes blog.

2) record the audiobook for Things I Wish I’d Said. Caveat: I put a big hurdle in my own way when I was finalizing the characters, del and Sam. From del’s perspective, I wanted Sam’s to be a voice that ranged from deep and obdurate (or even dark and threatening) to sweet and sexy because she saw all of those qualities in him. I chose wisely for the descriptive comparison but poorly for the audiobook prospects. Unintended consequences. Now I’m in “OOPS!” mode because I’m sure I can’t afford Keanu Reeves’ rates for voice work, even if he had time and interest. So, if anyone knows of someone who does a good imitation, please let me know!

3) learn to play guitar; in preparation I bought myself one just before Christmas.

But those goals can wait until next week, except guitar. I started that on the 25th because I wanted to. Otherwise, I deserve a break. Time to recombobulate. Reset. Recharge. Ready for what 2026 has in store…

At least my ankle has healed enough to manage my usual 2 mile walk!

For today’s blog outro? Roxy Music’s More Than This, which has been rattling around in my mind, playing occasionally and unexpectedly, since October.

*shameless plug: Things I Wish I’d Said is currently available in three editions: ebook and artistic fonts paperback (both from Amazon) and a more dyslexia-friendly fonts ebook (Lulu bookstore). The ebooks will be for sale through this website soon.

Top of page image: Wallpaper by Linda on WallpaperSafari