About me
To me, there is no greater opening paragraph in all the books ever written than the one in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Even the critters dream to escape the insanity of the world as it really is.
In this space of absolute reality, I interrogate the reality of our world and what we dream up to understand reality, escape reality, and improve reality. Put plainly, this is a blog about politics and pop culture.
Lies, damned lies, and politicians talking about statistics
I really hate it when politicians and pundits support their poor arguments with unsourced, unlabeled, and misinterpreted data, so I do what I can here to correct the record. I have a degree in STEM, a resume littered with scientific research projects, and I work in data analytics, so it would be a waste if I did not apply all that learning to call out the sleights-of-hand employed by elected officials and so-called thought leaders to confuse the less data-knowledgeable.
Speculating on the speculative in pop culture
I enjoy a wide-range of entertainment, including books, video games, movies, and television shows, but the genre tends to stick to speculative fiction: horror, science fiction, fantasy, the weird and uncategorizable. I write reviews of the things I read, play, and watch, but I also delve into combined analysis of multiple works as well as personal essays about entertainment from decades past. I've included my favorite recent discoveries below so you can see if our tastes are alike.
What am I doing here?
My reasons for writing in this space land somewhere between 'building a media empire' and 'getting a guest spot on You Are Good.' I'd like to build up the confidence, discipline, and writing muscle to take on longer projects that have been ricocheting around in my head for a decade.
I hope you like my point of view and my writing style, and if so, I'd love it if you'd subscribe to support my future work. I have no plans to write exclusive content at multiple subscription tiers. That may change in the future, but for now, the paid subscription tiers are there if you like my work and want to offer monetary support to see a lot more of it in the future.
It's like this
I get a little personal here. Everything I say is colored by my experiences as a queer millennial woman who grew up in the American Southeast as the daughter of two loving, complicated, divorced parents with their own histories passed down to me through genetics and, above all, stories. I live in Philadelphia with two cats and my betrothed.
