A Cup of Chaos // life updates + library stories + a cursed banana

A Cup of Chaos // life updates + library stories + a cursed banana

Hello, my friends! My presence hasn't cursed your Thursday in several weeks! The reason for this absence is fairly simple: I've been slowly crushed beneath the inexorable weight of the universe and the relentless pressure of deadlines busy. Apart from taking on some new projects and plowing through the old ones, my library job invaded [...]

Consorting With Wild Youth// how sarah became friends with the local delinquents

Consorting With Wild Youth// how sarah became friends with the local delinquents

As a general rule, homeschoolers are good kids. (I say this with trepidation, waiting for the comments telling me I'm wrong because their brother's best friend's cousin's homeschooled neighbor became a serial killer.) But as a general rule, homeschoolers don't leave a path of destruction in their wake. They're more prone to correcting your Silmarillion [...]

The Midlife Crisis of a Decrepit Chihuahua // robert the three-day dog

The Midlife Crisis of a Decrepit Chihuahua // robert the three-day dog

I owned a dog for three days. Completely by accident, I swear. I was driving home from work when mom broke the news. “Just so you know,” she told me, “we have a new addition at the house.” As she said this, I pulled into our driveway and was greeted by the shrill, vindictive yapping [...]

The Art of Book Bounty Hunting // rise of the evil librarian, pt. 2

The Art of Book Bounty Hunting // rise of the evil librarian, pt. 2

Welcome back to stories from work! If you missed part one – where I nerded about Dickens with a library director and was promptly hired – you can catch up here. You need to understand a few things about my library. I lived in Washington D.C./ Baltimore suburbia for most of my childhood, which meant [...]

Rise of the Evil Librarian

Rise of the Evil Librarian

Well, I finally did it. I unlocked the ability to yell at annoying children without getting in trouble. Guys, I became a librarian. My quest to become a shrewish guardian of the book domain started many years ago, and, as I was then still a teenager with crippling social anxiety and nonexistent people skills, had [...]

The Curse of Chaos // I tried (and failed) to be neat

The Curse of Chaos // I tried (and failed) to be neat

I’ve come to a disturbing self-discovery of late: Namely, disaster has no effect on me whatsoever. I’m not sure when this vice took root, or how I managed to cultivate it so effectively while remaining oblivious to the evil tentacles wrapping themselves around every aspect of my life. My sister claims I suffered from this [...]

Road Trips With Wild Women // proof you can’t take my family anywhere

Road Trips With Wild Women // proof you can’t take my family anywhere

Greetings one and all, friends, comrades, and very large moths! Back in May, a Christian conference was being held in North Carolina with some of my family’s favorite speakers, like Paul Washer and Scott Brown and all those other fellows no one’s heard of before. Due to an insidious evil known as “work,” my dad [...]

Pride, Prejudice, and Pandemic // Anna’s unconventional romance

Pride, Prejudice, and Pandemic // Anna’s unconventional romance

Last year was weird. You saw the weirdness take shape in the form of germs and unflattering headgear and that time everyone was really enthusiastic about toilet paper, and all those insulting signs that assumed none of us knew the most basic principles of hygiene. I, on the other hand, came face to face with [...]