Category Archives: Uncategorized

Whatcha Gonna Do with the Briefcase?

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IMG_2342Family and friends are already sick of this story, but I’m told it was “legendary.” (All one word. Not Barney Stinson Legen-Wait-for-it-Dary.) And my brain is so drained that it’s pretty much all I got this week. By rights, I should be doing a Farpoint 2014 After-Action Report this week. For reasons of my own, I’m not going to do that. My reaction to Farpoint 2014 goes too deep inside my skull, and, as I’ve warned you, it’s dark and scary in there, and there are little mice…

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Lonely in a crowd?

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I find that I’m only lonely when I’m around other people, never when I’m by myself. Does that sound a little… I dunno… Emo? Like I’m some sad little high school boy hiding from the world in my room? Honest, Mom, the eyeliner was just for a part in a show…

But seriously, I’m usually perfectly happy with the world and my place in it when I’m by myself. I can work, read, listen to music, write… sometimes all at the same time… and feel productive and content. When I’m around other people, however, I tend to notice the flaws in my relations with them. I used to place all the blame for those flaws on myself. I wasn’t sensitive enough, I wasn’t tough enough, I wasn’t smart, or good-looking, or witty enough. Lately I realize that the blame isn’t mine, at least not all of it. A lot of why I feel disconnected when I’m around others, why I can’t connect with them and feel content in their presence, is that they are not sensitive, tough, smart, good-looking, or witty enough. Well, maybe not good-looking. I don’t care about good-looking. And toughness doesn’t impress me unless it’s real, which it rarely is.

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Double Doors are a Two-Way Street – a silly but important reflection

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doubledoors

Photo by Dennis Brown

Today I would like to explain the intended function and use of the double door. The double door, a system of two standard-width doors, placed side-by-side, is intended to allow two-way traffic to pass through an opening, avoiding bottlenecks. It dates back to ancient Egyptian times. There are paintings of double doors on the tombs of the Pharoahs. It works like this: no matter which side of the door you’re on, you use the door on your right. Double doors may swing in both directions, may slide out of the way for you automatically, or may only open in a single direction. Nevertheless you use the one on the right. Anyone passing through the same opening from the other side uses the door on their right. And guess what? That’s your left! Isn’t that amazing? You can both pass through the opening at the same time without having to stop for each other!!! Genius!

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Homecoming – Part 2

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ChocolateHouse2013SMAs I said last week, before Christmas, the opportunity to visit my hometown presented itself. Actually, it was a little less of an opportunity and a little more of a pressing need. In addition to being a cultural center of some repute, Yancey County is also (yay!) one of the meth capitals of these United States. I know, right? What a distinction. I guess lots of acres of remote, forested areas provide meth heads with ample opportunity to build meth shacks and run meth labs.

Said meth heads use some unique tricks to finance their rather idiotic illegal enterprises: they steal copper. In my particular case, they illegally entered my family’s house in the mountains and used tin snips to cut out all the copper hot water pipes. These they planned to sell to finance their idiotic lifestyle. These idiots, though, we apprehended by the County Sheriff on the road from our house, the copper pipes rattling around in their open truck bed. They claimed both that they were members of my family and that a family member who didn’t own the house had given them permission to vandalize it. Continue reading →

Homecoming – Part 1

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YCI

The Yancey County Public Library, formerly the Yancey Collegiate Institute.

Writing… or any kind of work that requires planning and forethought… is not coming easily to me lately. I started out 2013 very hopeful, ready to take on the challenges the year was going to throw at me, determined that I would maintain the sense of calm and control which I’d attained while spending Christmas with my family and away from the concerns of work. For the most part, I succeeded. From the perspective of my ability to manage the chaos around me, it’s been a pretty good year.

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Merry Christmas!

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No blog this week. No podcast either. Just a photo I traveled 1000 miles to get, of a Christmas Tree in a very special place. It’s not art, it’s just a snapshot. To me, it says that the Wilsons endure, no matter the odds.

Tree

 

Merry Christmas from Edwin & Evelyn, Susan, Charles, Steven & Renee, Jamison & Jen, Andrew, Dawson & Brittany, Patrick, Ethan, Christian and Leighton.

Dealing With Some Bad News

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Ever have that sinking feeling? “I was supposed to do that… two days ago… I did it, right?” I get that feeling a lot. Usually, the answer turns out to be yes, I did it. But in this case, I was sitting, happily, at my friends’ house, cradling a glass of a very nice Balvenie Caribbean Cask in the afterglow of the latest episode of Marvel’s Agents of Shield, when I realized… It’s Tuesday. My blog and my podcast were supposed to be up on Monday.

What the hell happened to Monday? (I actually asked that question out loud.) Continue reading →

I Am All These Things

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Okay, I’m doing something a little different this week. It’s not going to be a regular occurrence, but it may be something I play with when I’ve got something to say that’s important, either from a publicity perspective, or from a “this is important to me personally” perspective.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog at StevenHWilson.com, then this week you’re also reading the script for my weekly podcast. (And you can hear my reading, as well, here!) If you’re a regular listener to my podcast, that is the Prometheus Radio Theatre podcast, then this week you’re listening to my blog. Again, not a permanent change. Next week my listeners will hear the next chapter of Phil Giunta’s wonderfully scary novel By Your Side, and my readers will hear about Lara Parker’s wonderful expansion of the Dark Shadows mythos, Wolf Moon Rising. But this week, and now and then in the future, both groups will receive the same message. Continue reading →

My name is Steven Howell Wilson, and I do a lot of different things…

Featured

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I’m a husband and father of two. I’ve written fan fiction and published fanzines. I’ve assumed the role of custodian for my friends who created a fanzine called Contact. I founded a convention called Farpoint, which has run for almost three decades. I’ve been a comic book writer and a comic reviewer. I ran Prometheus Radio Theatre, and used to put out a (mostly) weekly podcast. I’m publisher for Firebringer Press. Finally, I’m a recovering librarian, a retired IT Director, a part-time politician and a full-time IT contractor. And yes, I do all this because I’m allergic to work. I figure as long as I look busy, I won’t have to perform actual labor. It’s worked for more than half a century so far…

Capclave 2013

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small_dodo_transparentI haven’t been to a con on Farpoint’s old weekend (Columbus Day, politically incorrect as it now is) since, well… Farpoint 2000. People still complain that Farpoint made the choice to move from October to February, but, well, if we moved back now we’d be against Capclave. And that would be a shame, because Capclave is not a con I’d want to miss, or hold a con up against. It’s not a huge con, just as Farpoint isn’t. It is, like Balticon, a literary SF con, sponsored by the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA). The program was chock-full, with six tracks running until midnight Friday and Saturday, and I was kept quite busy throughout, which is how I like it.

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