I.

Yesterday, I started a blog post about Earth’s biodiversity: its scale, its richness, and the extent of the threats it faces from humans, extending a plea for help to defend the precious uniqueness of life on our shared planet.

Before finishing that post, I dropped into a virtual call with some former colleagues discussing their current research projects. I was happy to see them (they’ve all been good friends to me) and to hear about the work they’ve been doing and planning. Afterwards, though, I had to fight back tears. They’ve got irons in the fire, exciting prospects for studying jaguars and gibbons, whales and wolves. Meanwhile, I’ve been sitting at home with pinched nerve pain and no job.

Nobody wants me. I’m washed-up. No… I can’t even say that, because I never went high enough to slide down. I’ve never made anything beautiful or useful or admirable of my life.

I didn’t feel like writing that blog post anymore. Instead, I got back in bed, watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend music videos, and ate way too many cookies.

You’re so fat, and your teeth are getting worse. Why are you eating cookies and lying in bed, you loser? Why don’t you apply for jobs or work on writing your game? Oh wait, everyone will reject you, and you don’t know how to write anymore. Your inspiration is dead. Your mind is shutting down. You’re nothing.

I thought of a game I like about a writer suffering from writer’s block, who goes on vacation to clear his mind and ends up fighting hordes of zombies instead. I played it again for the first time in ages, shooting zombies in someone else’s game, finding the pages of a fictional author’s manuscript instead of mine, fighting that character’s demons instead of my own. It didn’t solve my problems, but it distracted me for a while. Battling an overwhelming cloud of darkness in a game is a lot easier than facing yours in real life.

Why can’t you do something, you worthless waste of space? What’s wrong with you?

In the late afternoon, I considered making lunch, though guilt about the cookies still weighed heavy on my mind. I opened a box of macaroni and cheese and started boiling water. But it was taking too long, so I stopped.

You don’t deserve to eat. You don’t belong in this world.

I sank deeper and deeper into despair. I was hungry, but the darkness consuming my mind was hungrier still.

II.

This morning, those tendrils of darkness have wrapped around my throat, trying to squeeze the life out of my lungs. By the time I arrive home after dropping my boyfriend off at work, the whispers in my mind have risen to a roar.

I pull away from the curb. I drive, blasting sad Taylor Swift songs. I turn left on Greenbelt Road. Not right towards the Target and Baskin-Robbins and Mattress Firm, but left.

I enter a national park I’ve never visited before. I turn the music off. I am in church. I am a witch, so the woods are my church.

I park and follow a trail. These maples and elms are not my redwoods, but they are older and taller and wiser than me. The sunlight slipping through their leaves almost soothes my soul.

I come to this sign.

I take the longer route.

I wish I had pointed ears that swiveled to catch every sound. A tail to balance myself and say what needs to be said. Four long legs built to run. I wish the remnants of the rain could kiss the pads of my paws. I would never write stories, because I could smell them all around me, with no language separating me from the world.

I arrive at a bridge.

I feel sad that I don’t have a dog or horse with me.

I step onto the bridge and look down at the water.

I keep going.

I don’t reach the end of the trail. I long to wander deeper and deeper, but the tether of human society pulls me back. I know I will never belong in this forest, no matter how much my heart aches to shed my furless skin, to trade my life for a wilder one.

It hurts on a visceral level, but I head back the way I came.

Along the way, I meet a turtle. We blink at each other. Their orange and black eyes burn like something cosmic.

I offer them a blessing, though I don’t know how to pray.

As I walk, I flex my hands like paws. I wonder how it would feel to roam in a digitigrade manner, to sink my teeth into something warm and real. I wish I never “grew up,” so I could still pretend with all my heart.

I think about how there are no wolves here anymore. How Trump wants to let more wolves die.

By the time I arrive back in my room and sit at my desk, there’s still a cloud of darkness looming over me. But there’s also a white wolf howling in my heart, singing to remind me of who I truly am.

III.

We don’t all get to be wolves in this lifetime, but the ones who do deserve to live in peace. My boyfriend shared this page with me last night, which offers a chance to help Mollie’s wolf pack: https://act.biologicaldiversity.org/piHqX1a_UEeLExYo7tKYsw2. Although hunting season has already commenced, I encourage you to read it and consider submitting an updated message.

Peace be with you, fellow travelers. 🐺

I’ve been getting a lot of AI spam on this website lately. I’m not talking old-school bots posting irrelevant garbage about real estate. I’m talking emails and comments from “people” (with first and last names) who pretend to engage with my content— “writing” detailed reviews of Beyond Acacia Ridge (in order to offer “marketing insights” for an out-of-print book), commenting on an obscure but recent blog post in a quasi-organic way that seems to have read and engaged with it while “casually” referring to an AI interactive fiction app, impersonating a scout from some up-and-coming IF hosting platform who has encountered my interactive stories and would love to video chat with me about their company (even if you start out thinking you’re the scout, mark my words…if you lend the robots your words, before long, they will be impersonating you).

And I’m sick of it.

Technology has its uses, sure, but faking human connection to try to con authors struggling to forge a career pathway for themselves in this difficult landscape should not be one of them. We want genuine feedback from real readers, want to hear your impressions of our work in your own words. If you treasure the feeling of burying your nose and your cares in a classic work of literature or studying a painting in a gallery for a glimpse into the mind and heart of another person from across time and space…then please, please, for the love of all your fellow living, breathing, creating animals…strive to keep art and your engagement with it human.

If you are a human and read this blog, I would love to hear from you below. Please reach across the void and let me know I’m not alone here. Thank you.

P.S. – I’ve been disturbed to see AI features subtly infiltrating WordPress lately and would love suggestions for other web hosts (and how to switch). I already moved from Microsoft to LibreOffice recently in an attempt to keep the robots from listening to me, but I don’t think it’s working. Do I need to turn the lights out, take my shingle down, grow fur and fangs, tear free of the web, and run off howling into the woods to escape? Please help.

We have a bookshelf now. It holds my stuff, [currently a lot less of] his stuff, precious memories, touches of whimsy, and some awkward reminders of life yet unlived.

I brought a lot of writing (and drawing) craft books from California to my erstwhile home in Illinois, and I’ve since toted them to my (our!) new home in Maryland. However, I’m embarrassed to admit that I have not really delved into most of them at all. They sit, looking pretty, making me feel like maybe I’ll become the writer and artist I’m supposed to be someday, because at least I’ve made a start with these tepid gestures of intent.

But that’s not enough.

Earlier this month, we took a trip to the American Museum of Natural History when it was open after dark. There, in a humble corner case, rests a glimmer of the origins of the universe.

Our universe is marvelous, vast, a gift beyond our comprehension or capacity to repay it. We are made of stardust—born to shine—but only here for a short while.

Today, I found a thought-provoking, helpful blog post about self-sabotage (i.e., getting in our own way) that discusses the problem and possible solutions from a positive psychology perspective. I encourage you to read it (and explore the included videos and other resources) and consider how internal resistance may have kept you from doing what you love (e.g., writing or drawing) up until now—and how to fight back.

Please remember, though, my dears, that you are worth so much more than your productivity at any given time. You don’t have to wring forward motion out of every moment of your life. You are stardust, and you matter just by being here. Don’t ever lose sight of your sparkle.

I am getting ready to say goodbye again.

Goodbye to Decatur, Illinois. Goodbye to Lake Decatur and its beauty in every season.

Goodbye to my first studio apartment.

Goodbye to Scovill Zoo and friends like Niko, Seamus, and the Humboldt penguins. Goodbye to my thirty-third birthday with my family, which will never happen again.

As always, this goodbye gives me the chance to say hello. Hello to the unmet future being worked in God’s hands like clay. Hello to a new place, new faces, new adventures. Hello to starting and finishing more stories. Hello to my beloved, to whom I am finally coming home.

The universe never fails to surprise and delight us. Keep your mind and heart open, hold onto things only lightly, and keep moving. We’re all in this together.

Goodbye. Hello.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that peafowl in possession of imperious splendor, must be in want of chickens.

The flashy flock of peafowl roam freely throughout our zoo. They could spend their days gawking at the raw power of pumas, attempting to catch a ride on a camel or zebra, or even marveling at the amphibious whimsy of penguins.

But where I find the peafowl most often is here: gazing, transfixed, through the mesh of one of two chicken coops, like awestruck guests at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Are they hoping, perhaps, to catch a rakish rooster’s eye? Do they feel a flutter in their feathers whenever that brusque bantam hen turns her head? Do they envy the chickens their eggs, their homey clucks and head-down struts…or, against all odds, their captivity?

What are they seeking here, in this space between worlds? What do you think?

You never know where life is going to take you.

Maybe a phrase you overhear in the weird pizzeria you visit because your first pick was closed will lead you to an idea, which will lead you to a novel, which will lead you to a book tour, which will lead you to a little girl in a wheelchair, whose hope for the future brings yours back blazing like a bonfire.

Maybe a flight delay will lead you to a conversation, which will lead you to a pool party in Las Vegas, which will lead you to wedding photographs at a rose garden in the springtime, your face flushed pink as petals as he holds your hand on the edge of forever.

Maybe a car accident will lead you to prayer, which will lead you to church, which will lead you abroad, which will lead you to another hospital, which will lead you to more prayer, which will lead you, after a lifetime of searching, to the creator of godwits and ankles and canyons and cosmos, a love worth dying for.

You never know where life is going to take you. So don’t stop traveling now.

Happy New Year! How is 2026 treating you? If you’re like me, you started the year with lofty (but ill-defined) ambitions, then hit a brick wall and sank into despair after failing to reach those heights every day.

I have good news for you, though. My counselor gifted me a sentence yesterday that I feel called to share here with you:

“My worth does not rise or fall on anything I do or don’t do.”

I invite you to read that again. And again. To repeat it out loud to yourself. Maybe to write it out by hand and tape it somewhere you will often see it.

“My worth does not rise or fall on anything I do or don’t do.”

Your worth is not defined by your successes or failures. Your worth is not defined by how others perceive you. Your worth is not defined by your circumstances.

You are worthy and lovable, just as you are.

This year, I hope you treat yourself with patience and kindness, whether you achieve your initial resolutions or have to recalibrate…or whether you’ve made resolutions at all. Being yourself is more than enough. May you embrace this truth with your whole heart.

I am so glad we are sharing this planet. Thank you for being here, now…just as you are.

Today is the last day of 2025.

How was your year? What are your dreams for the next one?

In 2025, I accomplished a few simple goals I set for myself early on: to post on this blog at least once a month, to read at least one full-length book a month (I know, I know. I need to read lots more than that! I used to! Easing myself back into it…), and to get a new piece of writing published (the story in question won the story of the week award that week!).

I spent a few months as a camp counselor at SeaWorld San Diego, introducing kids to dolphins and other marine creatures and having a splash-tastic time. Afterwards, I started the zookeeping apprenticeship I’m currently doing in the Midwest, interacting with and learning about all kinds of special animals.

Next year, my second game from Choice of Games is coming out (Hero of Hoofbeat Hollow!). I’ll be on the hunt for a new wildlife-related job after my zoo apprenticeship ends. As usual, I have no idea where the road will take me. And that’s an exciting thought!

What are my goals for 2026? Here are some. I’m going to write more, because a new friend I met at the San Francisco International Airport and I pinkie promised each other that we both would (holding you to it, P.!). I’m also going to work on being kinder to myself.

My main aspiration, though, is to walk in the ways of this precious prayer:

As the motto of my birth state, Wisconsin, proclaims so proudly…FORWARD!

Have a happy New Year, everyone! 🎆