Mike Morrow

  • 2024

    Like most years, a mix of joys and accomplishments, some disappointment and some genuine heartbreak but even more unexpected graces - 2024 challenged us in ways we expected, and in ways we never saw coming. But we did live it. It wore us down, but we just kept on loving each other through it — and honestly, what else really is there?

    We used to dance the new year in. Not this year, even as our lives reconfigure themselves yet again as we welcome Jenn’s mom back to Illinois to help care for her here in Lake County. Not this year, as we spent the morning at yet another chemo session and face another year of Jennifer’s illness with as much bravery as we can. But: Another year! Thanks be to God!

    Just living every day and trying told space for all of it, feeling it all, trying not be numb, trying to remember that this isn’t really practice but the real deal, the one deal.

    So there’s gratitude in abundance: Jennifer finishing her complete folfirinox regimen, which not everyone does. Finally bringing her home after her surgery and watching her overcome adversity (and a necrotic ulcer) over and over and over again.

    Another remarkable and successful Butterfly Ball in Savannah.

    Mom turning 94, mostly content and most of all loved, in the new universe that Alzheimer’s has imposed on her mind.

    Jenn crushing her radiation and starting yet another set of treatments. Every part of how she does what she does.

    Grace getting her license. Taking a much appreciated leave of absence from work, and having work to return to.

    An eclipse! Seeing and photographing the northern lights and a comet from my backyard.

    Spending lovely, (almost) quiet time in Wisconsin.

    Oh, and celebrating turning 50 at the Sphere in Vegas was pretty great too.

    Art! Books! Increasingly painful joints!

    Music, thank God there is music! And live shows that save me again and again, this year: Living Colour, Billy Strings, They Might Be Giants (x2), Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Phish (x2), Dead and Company (x2), Built to Spill, Geese, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Bob Weir and Wolf Bros with the Chicago Symphony

    All of it. Every day.

    But also please Lord give us a break. :)

  • 2024 reading

    The Q1 Anatomy of Fantasy syllabus at UChicago, followed by a long drought after Jennifer’s surgery, skews the data from this year’s reading stats somewhat, but any year with great books, old and new, to read and enjoy is one to be grateful for.

    I don’t love picking favorites but at this moment I’d choose Robin Sloan’s very fun Moonbound, Teri Windling’s The Wood Wife, Monica Byrne’s The Actual Star, finally reading the full LOTR trilogy as an adult, and discovering Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga as my fiction faves, and for nonfiction, probably Adam Higginbotham’s Challenger. You already know I’m a huge M John Harrison fan, so not sure rereading Light counts, but I do love that book. I know it’s divisive but I really liked the new James SA Corey as well.

  • My favorite reads of 2022, in no particular order:

    • A Half-Built Garden by @r_emrys@wandering.shop
    • Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
    • Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
    • Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
    • Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

    Late to the game, I also enjoyed digging into @aptshadow’s catalog. Especially enjoyed Elder Race, and greatly looking forward to the release of Children of Memory in the US next month!

  • For now, I’m sinking into Mastodon at @mikemorrow@mastodon.social

RSS