Taven Moore

I'm not gonna hide it. I'm super addicted to this Netflix show called Samurai Gourmet. It is gentle and funny and calming and beautiful. It is partly food appreciation, with gorgeous cooking cinematography. It is partly auditory pleasure, with a combination of perfect background musics and internal dialogue from the hero, whose deep Japanese patter paints gorgeous portraits even without the accompanying subtitles. It is partly guilty pleasure, as the hero (a recently-retired Japanese businessman aided by a Samurai spirit guide) revels in the knowledge that he can have beer in the middle of the day, or agonizes over whether or not he looks silly in the sunglasses he bought. Seriously. This guy worries about everything. I relate to him so much -- should I say something to the rude person, or keep quiet? What will people think if I eat spaghetti with the wrong utensils? Watching him grow stronger as a person (to the point of actually standing up to someone by the end...

Be the best You you can be. How do you WANT to define yourself? What activities, qualities, hobbies, or loves do you want to be associated with? "Oh, she's a writer." "Or him? He's the most generous guy you'll ever meet." "Them? They know everything there is to know about dogs." If you fall short of those lofty ideals, do not fret.  Most everyone believes themselves to be less than they are -- less than other people see them. I have a coworker who calls me a writer. Inside, I doubt. I list my failures as if the sheer weight of them buries that label like the rubble from a broken building. I am a writer. Not despite my failures, or even because of them. I am a writer because writing makes me more like Me. I can do better. I can become more Me than I am, but that doesn't mean I cannot claim the title. That doesn't make me unworthy of it. I love to learn. I love to organize things. I love cute things ...

I remember fondly the days when I not only did not have to PLAN for books, books just sort of happened to me. Alas, adulthood is fast upon me and time for reading must be carved out by my very fingernails. This month, I'm reading Ready Player One, by Ernest Kline . I'm not quite halfway through it (so this notification to YOU, dear friends, is a bit postmature. Is that a word? It should be a word). In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.   But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade...

I missed blogging. I didn't miss the endless battles against random attackers on my custom wordpress install, but I missed this. I missed YOU. So ... I pouted. And I shuffled my feet in the dirt. And I hemmed and I hawed and I blew my procrastination down. So here I am, back out there. A little older, not much wiser, and a little bit sassier. Whether you knew me as Tami, Taven, Whiskerwing, or even Egostistical Priest (hi there, old friends!) I'm still the same me. It feels SUPER weird not having control over my fonts and layouts but at the same time it's a little freeing. I mean, that's one less thing for me to spend my oh-so-precious free time on, right? What's that, compared to a few red links? (seriously, RED link text? What's that all about? This theme may not get to stay .... Since I've Been Gone I own a house now. Weird, right? Does it feel weird to hear it, because it totally feels weird to SAY it. A house. I own it. With a grown-up...