Before we begin

Being Brave...

It’s late on a Sunday evening and I feel like I’m rejoining the world after having been…elsewhere…for the weekend. You see, I’m fairly risk-averse on the whole, except when I’m not, and when I’m not, it’s usually because my metaphorical feet have wandered off somewhere and so I’m just following them. This time I followed them to an anime convention, where I spent the last three days volunteering. The application? Submitted in a fit of whimsy. The follow up? On the off chance. And there I was, plopped in the middle of this world that I have hovered on the edges of for many, many years. What an adventure.

Wondering leads to wandering and I am exceptionally curious. It gets me into trouble, actually. But what can you do? There was no trouble this time, though. Only kindness. And ebullience. And what felt like a weekend spent out of the normal stream of time, away from the caustic chaos of the world as it is right now. It felt like an easing into this little community that just accepts folks for who they are and where they’re at, and, after a little bit, folded around me, too. As nervous as I was (and as cringy as I feel mentally re-watching some of those moments), I felt like this was a place where no one would look at me funny for bubbling over with a bit of my own ebullience.

There was one person in particular with whom I worked the whole weekend—my teacher for the weekend, sharing his insight and experience in the department we were working in—and I recall encouraging pestering him to be brave about something he was thinking about doing. So this morning, on our last day of the Con, I made a promise to him that I would officially publish this site tonight. I’ve had it in the works since the middle of last year, but you should know that I’m mostly incapable of taking my armor off and being vulnerable, and sitting here thinking I’m going to throw my thoughts out into the wind in this small corner of the digital world I’ve reserved for myself makes my heart beat a little too quickly. But, if I was encouraging my teacher to be brave, that means I have to be brave myself, right?

So… Welcome! And thanks for wandering in.

What might you expect when you meander through here? Mostly stuff about popular culture (books, television, video games, D&D, music, podcasts…) and education research and policy (and how it’s connected to popular culture because everything is connected to popular culture). Maybe a little politics and social theory? Look, I’m like fifty shades of nerd with a fear of commitment over here. But maybe you’ll see something that feels right to you. And that, my friend, would be a lovely thing.

I’m glad you’re here.

So...umm... Why?

Well...

Either I've subconsciously trained my social media algorithm to show me what I want to believe is true or the Universe is trying to tell me something. Or both. Two (or more) things can be equally true at the same time. Either way, I choose to see magic in the pattern and here is what I saw.

Maybe you'll see something in my mental meanderings that speaks to you the way these things spoke to me...

BigB's video on acting on your good ideas:

Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Posted on the Queer Histories of Hawaii Instagram Account):

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country (seen most recently on Tom de Ville's Instagram account):

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

plantkween (Posted on Instagram):

You don't need a sign.
You need to decide.

We say we're waiting for clarity.
But sometimes, waiting is just fear dressed up in patience.
A soft stall. A quiet delay.
Hoping that something--anything--will come rescue us from the weight of choosing.

But the truth?
Most breakthroughs don't knock.
They're born in the moment you stop negotiating with your own power.

Every path forward begins the same way:
Not with certainty. Not with perfection.
But with a choice.
A trembling, gut-deep choice to move anyway.

You start listening to that quiet, persistent voice that says:
Now. Even if you're scared. Now.

Because waiting won't save you.
Only movement will.
Only trust will.
Only the decision to chose yourself, again and again, even when the path is blurry--especially then.

So start.
Not when it's easy.
But when it's time.
And dahling--it's time.