Brian, where have you been?!
Mostly, I’ve been in Texas, visiting my dad’s side of the family. It’s been an eventful week:
- Severe flooding in our corner of the Lone Star State. Hardly a visible blade of grass in our entire front and back yards: just a deep, brown, giant, stagnant, stinking lake.
- A corollary of the above: mosquitoes are now multiplying so fast, you’d think they had calculators.
- On the plus side, I got to spend time with my grandma, dad, stepmom, aunt, uncles, cousins, and two adorable little kids whose relationship to me is – according to Google – first cousin once removed.
- I also got to examine a giant family Bible that dates all the way back to 1882. In addition to the text itself, it has an atlas, a mini biblical encyclopedia, a concordance, a summary of parables, and lots of illustrations by Gustave Doré, not to mention some century-old family photos.
- Lots of quality reading time. Among other books, I read Warriors Don’t Cry (written by one of the Little Rock Nine), ENIAC, and Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion. All three were fascinating, though I was disgusted to learn – only just now – that my copy of Warriors was an abridged version. Evidently, the fact that they’d cut out a large chunk of the text wasn’t deemed important enough to mention anywhere on the front or back cover.
- As a follow-up to last week’s post on legendary places that are real, it turns out that the Tower of Babel may also have been based on an identifiable historical structure: the ziggurat Etemenanki.
- And finally, if all goes well, I may have some very good news to announce soon. Fingers crossed!
Brian D. Buckley 
“…two adorable little kids whose relationship to me is – according to Google – first cousin once removed.”
My family generally doesn’t reproduce, but one cousin apparently didn’t get the memo, so when she had a kid I had to research the difference between a “second cousin” and a “first cousin once removed.”
Well, I learned it — but in my experience people are, for some reason, much less interested in this distinction than I expected, despite my willingless to explain it.
That last sentence describes almost every conversation I’ve ever had. 🙂
Well, I’m writing a story now where royal lines of succession are a major plot point. Maybe I can work the “first cousin once removed” thing in there somehow…