M Thomas Apple Author Page

Science fiction, actual science, history, and personal ranting about life, the universe, and everything

Well, *that* was interesting!

February 1, 2024
MThomas

OK, so my post about a big ole spider got the most likes of any post in ten years of blogging about science.

I have so not got the zeitgeist of the 2024 blogosphere lol – anyway, thanks, all, for the “likes”! Although one person used AI to write a very meaningless comment about arachnophobia. What’s the point, man?

By the way, back to science and space stuff. I forgot to post about the Europa Clipper project back in October.

So here you go. (It’s too late to add a message, but the project obviously is going to take some time arriving there, and you can supposedly hear US Poet Laureate Ada Limón read her poem online, although I’ve had trouble with the audio lately:

“Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book 
of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, 
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us, 
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made 
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, 
of a need to call out through the dark.”

”Bringer of Light” entering final proofing stage…

January 26, 2024
MThomas

Now that I’ve got the manuscript completed, it’s time to search for typos!

Yup. Found some already. Oops.

I figure to rearrange and combine some of the later chapters as well. Look for a publication online in late March!

It’s taken nearly 9 years. Hm. Only 11 years fewer than Adam’s Stepsons.

Fortunately, I have outlined book two and started writing the opening chapters already. Hopefully it won’t take another 9 years to see the continuation of the Bringer of Light story!

OK, I just *had* to answer this prompt…

January 23, 2024
MThomas

Bloganuary writing prompt
List five things you do for fun.
  1. Write (duh). I mean, this is obvious, right? (why does WP have an AI function now? I blog. Why would I want NOT to blog? Or use AI to blog? I don’t get it)
  2. Read (duh). OK, read sci-fi and fantasy. And history. Especially ancient history.
  3. Cook (seriously — I started doing this when I had to be separated from my family in 2018 and I found that it helps me calm down, eat healthier, and actually enjoy experimenting a little bit)
  4. Play guitar (need more time for this — I find it more enjoyable to play bass but playing my faux-Gibson is more enjoyable bc I can actually play a whole tune lol)
  5. Go on long, long walks by myself around the hills and mountains near my house so that I don’t feel so guilty about the Irish coffee waiting for me when I get back…

Wondering now if I should write the “five things I absolutely hate to have to do but generally have no say in the matter” or if I should wait and see if there is such a prompt…

Dear Diary – February 12, 1998

January 20, 2024
MThomas

That’s what we are, really; a constant turmoil between past and future, the mixing point of who we once were and who we are afraid we may become. We are constantly becoming — yet we never lose sight of the past, or if we do, we do so deliberately…but our past lies in wait, crouches and hides unbidden, always ready to pounce out from the mind’s darkness to set itself against future hopes and desires. Our previous selves eternally war with our future selves; it is the center of this conflict where we exist, and it is because of this inner turmoil we stay alive.

Night Owl here 🦉

December 5, 2023
MThomas

Are you more of a night or morning person?

I’ve always been a night person. My brain just doesn’t shut off after dark.

If anything, it gets more active. That’s why much of my writing is done in the wee hours, when the rest of my family is fast asleep.

I began to develop this habit probably at least partly staying up to listen to Mets games on the west coast on late night AM radio.

Yeah. That dates me.

Dear Diary – May 20, 1998

December 4, 2023
MThomas

All the answers, like the questions, are in here. Life has no meaning, I give it meaning and by doing so, seek to define it. But Life cannot be trapped; it is not an animal or emotion so easily caged, sated, confused, or led. It has a Will all its own, and Its Will merely Is. No thinking, no deliberation or pontification. No grandeur, no sweeping generalizations.

Is.

Dear Diary – November 9, 2018

November 24, 2023
MThomas

[Context: my mother had just passed away, and I was remembering that both my parents’ choice in reading materials influenced my own fictional likes and dislikes.]

I guess both Mom and Dad liked Trek from its inception [in 1966]. I remembering watching the original series (in syndicated reruns of course) in the late ’70s/ We saw it in the “TV room” in my grandparents’ house….They had a color Zenith; we only had a tiny black and white on a bookcase. I remember being fascinated by the bright reds and blues (this was the point…color TV was new in the late ’60s and the sets and costumes deliberately used bright primary colors)…

Mom had all three “Star Trek Readers” I through III, by James Blish….Later I would borrow more complicated science fiction / fantasy stories from my Dad — Frank Herbert’s Dune and Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land stood out. And of course, Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, which were televised when we lived in Berne [a small village in New York west of Albany]. Once I discovered [The Chronicles of] Narnia and The Hobbit in 3rd grade, it was all over. I was a nerd for life.

And now look at the influence on pop culture. Movies, books, music, clothes, shoes, bags…the Internet and modern media. Smartphones. Tablets. Skype. Wireless devices. Bluetooth. GPS.

Nerd-dom has conquered the world. And my mom got there first. Way to go, Mom.

Dear Diary – March 16, 2004

November 20, 2023
MThomas

[Context: While chaperoning students on overseas study in Perth, Western Australia, I badly burned my feet and back on a beach.]

It is difficult to walk, but today was slightly better than yesterday. Maybe tomorrow will be slightly better than today, and so on. One can only hope; if only life were like that, there would be an end to suffering.

(Yet) another apology for a brief absence

November 19, 2023
MThomas

Dear readers,

Sorry to have been absent for a couple of weeks.

Things just got busy at work and at home. And influenza really is strong this year, as predicted (I found out long ago that teenagers – especially guys – completely ignore suggestions regarding ways of avoiding illness due to an unwavering belief in their invulnerability).

I’ll try to make it up to you over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, here’s an Apple IIe showing the matrix (“all I see is blond…brunette…”).

Dear Diary – August 19, 2004

September 23, 2023
MThomas

[Note to self – it’s probably not a coincidence that so many of my better diary entries were written in August. I obviously have more time to think and write at that time of year!]

What strange turns my life has taken. Never would I have in a million years expected to be here, now, in this apartment, typing on an extended keyboard into a Japanese computer, in a Japanese city, listening to the same Cure tape I was listening to back in 1996. Has it actually been 8 years?

Ten years ago I was playing role playing games and drinking in Robbins lounge, getting ready to pack everything I owned into a moving van to move to Ann Arbor. A city I didn’t know, with no money for deposit or rent, or a job. Without a clue. Totally hopeless. Instead of exploring the city, I stayed in my bedroom and played games or typed. What was I thinking? I can’t even get in touch with the few people I met there. Even the ones I knew at ND are either gone back where they came from or no longer answer my emails. 

I can still picture them all in my mind. I can still see the rooms I lived in, all the way back home. Even the freshman dorm room which no longer exists, since they tore the building down. How can that be?

It must be this which makes us human; the ability to take the visual and turn it into mental. The capacity to make emotional connections between the world outside and the world inside. The belief that there are two worlds. This makes us human, and at the same time it makes us separate. It is a false belief, that we are not of the outside. Yet there is no returning. Once we start, we can never stop. Even changing languages doesn’t help. We merely start over again from a new perspective, still outside the outside. 

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