Warning: Despite this blog post’s length, it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the rampant increase of police brutality and blatant racism that is spreading not only all over the United States of America, but also the rest of our precious world. So, make yourself a cup of tea. Pop some popcorn. It’s going to be a long read.

I had considered posting this long blog post in one hefty steak-and-potatoes meal, but I’ve chosen to have my readers read it in bite-size, healthy chunks so that they can digest it, reflect on it, mediate on it, and then act. This is a serious post and even though I may dash a few humorous rainbow sprinkles in it to ease discomfort, it is of dire importance to our ever-changing world. Change is uncomfortable. And yes, change can be good. But the changes that are taking place in the…

Dream House – Amanda (AM) Justice

July 15, 2015

Dear A,

The husband is making plans for the future, looking ten years ahead to the daughter’s high school graduation and his retirement. He’s fixing to make a liar out of you, because you’ve been telling people he wants to live in your current apartment for the rest of his life. Turns out that’s not the case: he wants a house in the countryside, far enough from city light pollution to have his backyard observatory, but close enough to cultural comforts like movie theaters and museums. Living near like-minded folk is important too—he doesn’t want his blood pressure to skyrocket every time he drops by the post office or buys a cup of coffee.

You agree with these criteria for contentment, but everywhere the husband listed as a potential new community is hours inland. Meanwhile your dream house sits on a…

Fear and Loathing in the USA-

June 24, 2015

Dear Reader-

On Father’s Day, my family and I saw the movie Inside Out, and it served as antidote for a rough week preceding. Nothing bad happened to me personally, but once again Americans had to face an ugly scene of more lives lost, this time of middle aged and elderly black people to a young white supremacist. Once again, friends gathered round the Internet water cooler to shake their heads and talk about what could have caused this horror: racism, lack of gun control, poverty, lack of mental health care, psychotropic drugs, food additives…the list ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous, with wildly divergent opinions on which was which.

I’m going to propose a root cause: fear. Fear is a vital emotion that keeps us safe when we’re in real danger. Ages ago, fear would prompt some ancestors…

Luck Be the Lady in the Locker Room

June 10, 2015

Dear A,

You’re lucky, and you’re grateful to whatever accident of fate made it so. A sign of your luck, or perhaps an outcome of it, is that you have never felt the need to pretend to be someone else to satisfy an expectation of society.

The movement to extend human rights to the LGBT community has gotten you thinking, though. You have friends and neighbors who have married someone of the same sex, and your daughter attends a school where many kids have “two mommies” or “two daddies.” Again, you’re lucky to live in a community where these families are unremarkable. But there are also people in your circle who face daily struggles between their inner and outer lives. Even in this era of acceptance, you know gay people who pretend to be straight. And then there’s the…

The Good Place

May 27, 2015

Today is my first annual 49th birthday, coming ten years after my first annual 39th. I repeat these age-vanity jokes with a smile and a wink, certain a year from now I’ll be celebrating the full half-century mark with good grace. The fact is, life so far has been pretty good. While I have my share of regrets—mistakes and missed opportunities and failures—on balance my life has gone pretty well and I still spend more time wondering what’s around the next bend than worrying about what I’ve left behind.

Still, our memories make us. They inform our present actions and drive our future reactions. Good or bad, our memories are created out of perception and emotion, which are inextricably linked. As Eric Kandel wrote in the fourth edition of his Principles of Neural Science (in the nineties, I spent a year working with Kandel…

Sock Man

4/29/2015

The sock man shuffles down the sidewalk, black plastic garbage bag in one hand, packages of new socks in the other. “Socks, socks,” he mumbles. He doesn’t cry his wares loudly like the hat peddler in the story, who matches wits with mischievous monkeys. Rather you can barely hear him. You can tell by his sagging posture and painful gait he’s in poor health. His eyes are rheumy, his tongue coated with white film. If you buy socks from him, he nearly weeps with gratitude, and it breaks your heart.

The sock man has haunted my neighborhood for a decade or more. I’ve bought socks a few times, over the years. The other day I bought a package, paying four times what I’d have paid in a store. A deli owner, outside his shop for a cigarette break, witnessed the exchange and smiled at me as I…

by A.M. Justice

We’re two weeks in to the new season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, and I’m still feeling the love for this television adaptation of G.R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss continue to take the best from the books and put it on screen, with enough new characters and plot streams to keep the avid readers on the edge of our seats. I wonder, will we get to see where Sansa is going? In my recollection, she disappears from the novel’s narrative after Petyr takes her from the Eyrie. And Jamie Lannister most certainly does not hook up with Bronn and ride off to rescue Myrcella from Dorne.

GOT works because the writing is so solid and the cast is packed with great actors playing great characters. The casting choices are spot on. Peter Dinklage is too handsome for Tyrion…

Love and Marriage

April 4th, 2015

Dear Reader-

A few days ago, the writers here at OYOL and a few other friends had a spirited discussion about love and marriage. Our youngest member asked a benign question about marriage and as per our usual mode of operation, the conversation spiraled into a deep philosophical discussion. Our beliefs about love and marriage differed and the romantics and the pragmatists soon found their separate corners. I am a pragmatist, and as such, drew the pity of the romantic in the crowd. He felt sorry for me because of my beliefs. I could have made the “choice” to be upset by the comment, but instead I “chose” to sit back and solidify my ideas.

I believe one of the best philosophies a person can bring into a marriage is the knowledge that leaving is an option and loving is a choice. While on…

by A.M. Justice

About eight years ago, my husband came home from work and announced that his coworker Peter had given notice so he could become a full-time fantasy author. Curious and skeptical, I bought the coworker’s book, thinking, “Let’s see what this guy’s got.” I quickly learned he had the right stuff. From the opening lines about a community gathering together in the wake of a strange fire, New York Times Bestseller The Warded Man hooked me, and I’ve been a loyal follower of Arlen, Lessa, Roger, Renna, Ahmann, and Inevera since. My copy of The Skull Throne, Book Four of The Demon Cycle, published by Del Rey, will be delivered to my Kindle today, and I look forward to reading it on an upcoming family vacation.

I admire Peter’s tight prose, inventive storytelling, and nuanced characterizations. Arlen is one of my all-time favorite fantasy heroes, and…