What LEGO Taught Me About Life

“I had a lot of LEGO as a child, as did my friends, and we all knew there were two kinds of blocks: “regulars” and “specials.”

Regulars were the kind of blocks you used to build a wall, a floor, a hull, a wing, a fuselage, or a roof. Most were solid, symmetrical, and they tended to look like cinderblocks, bricks, beams, studs, cast metal, or sheetrock. In any unsorted box of LEGO, most are regulars. That is because you need a lot of them to build a plane, a castle, or a ship.

Specials were few in number, though, and tended to be small. They weren’t practical, but they were highly desirable. I remember hundreds of different kinds of specials: small transparent cones and rods (which tended to represent light or laser beams), dials, levers, switches, flags, feathers, rockets, treasure chests, shields, swords, and so forth. While you couldn’t build a fort with specials, you couldn’t build a cool fort without them.”

-from my latest for CiRCE

Book Signing In Concord, NC

I will be at Goldberry Books in Concord, NC on the evening of August 10 to do a little reading, a little Q&A, and to sign copies of Love What Lasts (or any other objects upon which you prefer my signature). If you’re in the area, or care to drive, fly, or sail to the area, I would love to see you there.

You can register for the event here.

Didn’t Think I Was The Type

When I think of the summer of 2022, I think of oysters, Seinfeld, Thomas Kosmala No. 4, and Eugene Vodolazkin’s The Aviator. When I think of the summer of 2023, I’m pretty sure I’m going to think of George Jones.

I never figured I was the sort of person to get into country music, but George Jones is the one who did it for me. At this point in my month long road trip out West, it’s George Jones’s late 70s/early 80s work that has soundtracked much of the barren places and national parks.

News When I Travel

I am presently on a month long road trip. I have thus far driven from Richmond to Pullman, Washington. Tomorrow, I will sleep in Salt Lake City. The night after that, Denver. Then Moab, San Francisco, and Palm Springs.

I brought three CD wallets on the trip, but when I’m alone in the car, I listen to the radio. When I am a long way from home, I find it more satisfying (more fitting) to let fate choose the music. If fate chooses for you to hear the same song twice while on vacation, you cannot help remembering it years later. Last time, it was “Say What You Want” by Texas.

“This Is The Day” is the song fate chose for this trip.