Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

What Michael Did. This is the true story of a severely mentally ill man who killed a family member and how the rest of his family coped with it in the years to come.

Cats. Sometimes people act a little like cats. I think I’m one of them. :O

At Least He Didn’t Hurt You via SwiftInkEditor. This is quite the story.

Someone Is Going to Say “I Have to Go to the Moon” in a Bored, Defeated Tone One Day. It’s really only a matter of time. It seems to be human nature to quickly acclimate to things that were extremely rare or impossible a generation or two ago.

On Creed Fatigue, Souls for Sale, and Defying Gravitas via danariely.  My favourite answer was the one about buying and selling souls. Too funny!

From The Private Lives of Public Bathrooms:

Even for the rest of us, who don’t suffer a clinical level of anxiety, the public bathroom is a place that has ingrained behaviors and social rituals—leaving space at the urinals, avoiding conversation even with people you know—that we’ve all experienced, if not daily at an office, than out in the world, at restaurants and ball parks and airports.

Not all protagonists are good, likeable, or safe people. What I enjoyed the most about Alphabet was how little care was taken to soften Simon’s horrendous past. There are good reasons why he turned out to be such a violent, callous adult, but in no way does the author use them to excuse his crimes.

The book starts out with him finally learning how to read and write in prison. What he does with this newfound knowledge kept me on my toes until the final scene.

What have you been reading?

Photo by Jens Buurgaard Nielsen.

While I was working on this blog post, I attempted to look up a story I remember hearing as a small child about a city mouse and a country mouse who take turns visiting one another. The country mouse is as unnerved by the fast pace of city life as his urban cousin is by what it’s really like to live in a old farmhouse surrounded by fields and hungry cats.

It was surprising when I realized that the traditional version of this tale is quite different from how I remember it. I thought it taught its audience to appreciate the differences between people and realize that what you or I see as an acceptable risk or drawback might cross the line for someone else. It turns out that this fable actually teaches that accepting a simple, modest existence is better than living in fear.

Too funny!

It makes me wonder what was really in the little book that made such a strong impression on me. None of my searches have turned up anything similar to it. This is one of those mysteries of early childhood that will probably never be solved.

I was originally planning to use today’s post to talk about finding the value in other ways of looking at the world. To be honest, though, I’m far more interested in how much memories can change over time.

What have you misremembered lately? How did you discover that your memory of what happened (probably) isn’t actually true?

The Gift from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

This is why I love science fiction. I can’t say anything else without giving away spoilers!

Photo by Greg Willis from Denver, CO.

“Can I hold your baby?”He was a skinny kid who was all legs and arms. His last growth spurt must have ended five minutes ago. The cracks between the fence were big enough for him to peer through into the backyard, although I assumed the smell of meat sizzling on the barbecue was what first snagged his attention.

The rest of the baby’s extended family ruffled their feathers. Of course we weren’t going to hand over our youngest relative to a stranger.  Harrumph. The very idea of it was absurd.

Sometimes rhetorical questions beg to be answered though.

In my mind he has a much younger sibling. He was about 10 when his little sister was born, and the excitement of  no longer being an only child has never fully worn off. It probably helps that they only live in the same household half of the time. No sooner does it grow a little vexing to live with a preschooler than the custody schedule dictates that it’s time to head back over to his quiet, orderly home.

School was frustrating before he was diagnosed with ADHD. He’s on the honour roll now! His new medication really helps, but he doesn’t take it on the weekends. Sometimes that leads to him saying the first thing to pop into his mind or bouncing from one activity to the next. Luckily he’s had the same core group of friends since Kindergarten. They’re used to his quirks, though, and ignore most of the dumb stuff.

Is any of this true? It probably isn’t, but these are the things I think about when strangers do or say something bizarre for two reasons:

1) It helps me feel more compassionate in situation where I’d otherwise be annoyed, frustrated, or confused.

2) As a writer, it’s interesting as hell to come up with plausible reasons to explain why people act the way they do.

Everyone has a backstory. You just have to discover it.

Whose backstory have you imagined recently?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

One Cup of Coffee Is Better Than Two. I start feeling the affects caffeine much sooner than this cartoonist seems to do so. I drink a fair amount of tea during the cold months, but due to how poorly I metabolize caffeine all of it is herbal.

We Regret to Inform You via jdubqca. J. Matthew Waters writes thought-provoking poetry. I know I’ve linked to his stuff in the past, but this is one of the best ones he’s released lately.

Why Everyone Should Write Poetry via thisisEJKoh. And this is why poetry is so important.

A Night of Inspiration via phillipsauthor. I really liked how kind the author of this post was to the teenage girl who peppered her with questions about what it’s like to be a writer.

What I Learned Co-Managing a Retirement Community. Many years ago I once heard someone theorize that we become more concentrated versions of ourselves as we age. (I wish I could remember who said it!) For example, someone who is kind and helpful at 20 will be even more wonderful when they’re 80. That memory came to mind due to what this blogger has noticed about the types of people who adjust best to life in a nursing home.

From Why it Makes Sense to Bike Without a Helmet:

But a broader look at the statistics show that cyclists’ fear of head trauma is irrational if we compare it to some other risks. Head injuries aren’t just dangerous when you’re biking—head injuries are dangerous when you’re doing pretty much anything else. There’s ample evidence showing that there’s nothing particularly special about cycling when it comes to serious head injuries.

Leave of Absence is a must-read for anyone who has a loved one living with mental illness.

I was very impressed with how clearly it explains what it’s like to experience certain symptoms, and I think anyone with even a transient interest in this topic will really enjoy this book.

What have you been reading?

If you can’t see the embedded video, click here.

Mother’s Day is coming up this weekend, and I thought these interviews were a very funny way to acknowledge it.

I always loved hearing stories about what my parents did when they were my age when I was growing up. They must have told certain stories dozens of times.

It’s been even more rewarding, though, to get to know them as fellow adults. Once all of their kids were grown and out of the house, I started seeing glimpses of what their lives must have been like before we existed. They were fairly young when I was born, but it’s still interesting to think of the 20+ years of life they experienced before I was even blip on the radar.

My family doesn’t actually make a big fuss over Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, but I’m very tempted to ask my parents the same question Jimmy Kimmel asked all of the women in this video. I wonder how they will answer it?

Readers, what don’t your children (or nieces/nephews, or godchildren, or any other younger people in your lives) know about what you were up to before they showed up?

ONE MAN’S LOSS from Philip Sansom on Vimeo.

The less you know about this story in advance the more I suspect you’ll enjoy it.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, essays, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

put an egg on your table / / if it doesn’t shake you may be safe or –  via cmschoenfeld. I know I’ve been sharing a lot of poetry on Suggestion Saturday lately, but I keep running into such great ones. The imagery in this poem is fantastic.

This Little House of Mine. This a series of short essays about the difference between Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life and stories she included in the Little House books. I was such a big fan of her work as a child that my parents set aside an entire day out of one of our family vacations to visit her house/museum in Missouri. Reading about how much certain aspects of her life were tamed down, omitted, barely hinted at, and possibly even fabricated altogether makes me want to reread all of her books. It would be interesting to experience her adventures again as an adult whose knowledge of late 19th century history is much broader than it was my first time through them.

Who Were the First Teenagers? I really enjoy this kind of historical analysis.

What’s the Evidence on Using Rational Argument to Change People’s Minds? via lilithsaintcrow. There’s some really fascinating information about how all of us behave in this essay. It’s important to acknowledge that no one is immune from these things.

I Did a Bad, Bad Thing via dlboonstra. A touching post about the importance of having compassion for yourself.

From The Only Black Guy at the Indie Rock Show:

When you’re young, you emulate people you think are cool (particularly, people who look like you), and this game of pretend ultimately shapes your aesthetic and values, if you find a shape that fits.

Combat Doctor is the memoir of an ER doctor’s experiences working for the Canadian military in Kandahar. It’s a highly stressful job due to the large volume of patients and the horrific injuries both soldiers and civilians suffer.

One of the most memorable stories involves an extended family that suffers terrible injuries when they stopped to get a drink while travelling together in what they thought was a safe area. It’s hard to say much more about what happens to them without giving away spoilers, but I really enjoyed the detailed descriptions of what it takes to keep a badly wounded person alive. This is not for the faint-hearted, but it is something I’d recommend to anyone who likes reading about what goes on behind the scenes in medical settings.

What have you been reading?

My new short story, Tumble, is now free to download from Kobo. I plan to publish to Kindle and iBooks in the future as well, but they both require a bunch of tax information that will take some time to collect so I’m starting with Kobo, which is also a great ebook option (aside from some technical difficulties with the actual publishing process, apparently). If you haven’t used Kobo before, you can install it for free on nearly any device (iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, PC, etc.). You can also purchase a dedicated Kobo eReader if you prefer an actual physical eReader.

The formatting of the title page may look a little off if you’re reading it on a smaller screen (such as a smartphone). We fixed all of the other bugs but weren’t able to take care of this one (well, not if I wanted to get it published this week anyway). The entire story is there, though!

Tumble is DRM-free, so you should be able to upload it to most ebook devices (definitely to any Kobo-compatible devices). I’d like to thank Daphne Purpus and Drew Costen for reading early drafts of my story,  giving such helpful suggestions, and other editing contributions.

One of my favourite things about reading science fiction short stories is learning about the experiences that sparked such creativity in these authors.

When I was a teenager, my family moved into a beautiful old house that was about a hundred years old. My bedroom was on the second story. Like Elle’s room, it faced a small backyard that we quickly converted into a garden.

A loud boom startled me in the middle of the night. It took me a long time to get back to sleep after that happened, and in the morning I walked out into the garden to see if anything had been damaged. Everything looked strangely normal, although I did find a little, green marble nestled in the soil.  I brought it inside and washed it off (and still own it to this day).

It hadn’t been there the day before, and by this point my younger brothers were a little too old for toys.

The mysterious marble I found

Such an old house had probably watched dozens of children grow up in it. The most rational answer is that one of them lost his or her marbles in the backyard years earlier and surfaced as a result of my parents digging around to make a garden.

What if that wasn’t what actually happened though?

Download Tumble for free from Kobo

Photo by Chaojoker.

Cross your fingers! We think we have all of the bugs worked out with the publishing site.

I just resubmitted Tumble to it. I won’t make any promises about the turnaround time, but I’ll share a link to the story as soon as it’s ready.

All we need to do in the meantime is hunker down with a fluffy friend and hope everything comes out ok. 🙂