Coastline geometry is fractal.  Without additional cues, scale is unfathomable.  Any particular convolution might span a hand or a horizon.  I blame Slartibartfast.

Of all of the circumstances under which such a fact might make itself plain, one of the least desirable is when one is actually on the water, navigating said coast, recognizing with each touchscreen pinch-zoom in that any prior correspondence between map and world was largely coincidental.  Shoals become islands; streams become channels.  And, finally, it is painfully clear just how very small your vessel really is and how very far it still has to go...

This is the story of how I nearly drowned my family in Georgian Bay last weekend because I'm an idiot.

 

My imaginarium is still on the fritz.  All I've got is loops -- as if my brain has sampled the creativity of someone feeling more fluid at the moment, and has become hung up on playing certain recordings ad nauseam.  It's like I have the world's largest movie collection in my head, but I only have five seconds of each feature.  I feel like my mind is on DRM lock-down.

There are signs of hope, however.  I am painting tiny pictures of flowers, and they please me.  Samples beneath the fold.

My new religion is a secret.  It's a secret because a primary tenant of my religion is that the religion is never to be discussed with outsiders.  While this may represent a poor marketing strategy, it does serve effectively to inspire in those to whom the secret is already known a certain feeling of in-group solidarity; it is this kind of social cohesion that assures people don't bring bullshit contributions to the annual pot-luck, like take-out pizza or a box of doughnut holes.

 In Which We Consider Saying Good-bye

Fucking pig-fucking Chauvinsists, the disabled snobs, wagging their handicaps around like big penises with flaming haloes. Seriously, fuck those guys. Fuck them right in the eye.

A little backstory to lend context to the statements above:

There is no easy way for a mortal man to comport himself politely in a hatty world where no hat stand can be found.

That's just physics, people.

It is well known that writing is not a lucrative path. Just ask all those people you've never heard of. (Ten cents per what? I'm insulted. Thank you very much, sir. May I have another?) Heck, even ask most of those people you have heard of -- dollars to doughnuts the lion's share have the same trouble paying the hydroelectric bill as you or me.

Typographic mega ultra superstars aside (your Kings, your Rowlings, your Suesses), writing is basically something you give away. Even when there is money involved it's usually a loss when the dust settles. The work is a donation.

(The local magazine I write for wants all the contributors to get together for lunch, but it's hard to agree on which soup kitchen is most convenient for everyone so the actual date remains a perpetually uncollapsed waveform.)

So this is why I have a day job.

It is rumoured that my son can, or rather has, travelled in time.

(Certainly, the first thing that gets sticky is tense. English is notoriously Chauvinistic when it comes to accommodating temporally wobbly states of action like would be ifs, could dids, or any of the various clades of feasibly constricted co-probabilities you might encounter in a day to day chat occurring in a chronologically nonlinear context. Like a café, maybe.)

 I am now officially in the market for a Jolly Roger.

Somebody, somewhere ought to be punched in the dick for telling a generation of impressionable young man-children that there was a living to be made going all smashie-smashie with virtual facets. To compound this harmful lie, someone apparently suggested to all these poor kids that only a modicum of training would be required in order to become respected professional facet smashers. Such a scholarly skim could even be provided by the seemingly most academically and artistically paltry of institutions -- "schools" operated in the rental space over retail shops, for example, or in the basements of malls.