# The Sometimes Webjournal of Nathan Lee Green > Here be all manner and variety of imaginings, geekery, introspections, and behind-the-scenes wallowing—delivered monthly. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### HI, I’M NATE. URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/about/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T16:17:59.000Z I have been known to write, edit, and publish books of a fantastical-future nature, do a little graphical design here and there, and a try a bit of light demolition/renovation around the house. I was a full-time stay-at-home parent for 11 years. Other than writing about made-up people in made-up worlds, I'm into tea, semi-extreme sports, plants, the ocean, graphic design, travel, books about travel, enjoyable marketing, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Zelda, old houses, religion, podcasts, history, how to make the world better, Formula One racing (as of 2021), epic adventure movies and tv shows, and long, deep, wide-ranging conversations with friends around a table or a fire. I was born in Delaware, mostly grew up in Florida, and now live ~~in Massachusetts~~ ~~in Florida~~ in Maryland with my beautiful crazy wife, our two ~~little~~ boys and our latest addition, a ~~baby~~ little girl. Also two cats named Rocky and Gizmo. And a fish called Jevin. I have lived overseas at various times in Haiti, Thailand, and New Zealand, and I’ve been lucky enough to travel to thirty-ish countries. These days, I get to live the adventure of raising three kids and scratching out creative work whenever I can fit it in. ### Made In Mass Logo URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/made-in-mass/ Last updated: 2020-08-18T03:24:52.000Z Proudly display that your website or product is MADE IN MASSACHUSETTS with this slick, copyright-free, (need I say, made in Massachusetts?) MADE IN MASS badge. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/MiM-original.png) This logo is published under a CC0 license and is [completely free to use for any purpose whatsoever](http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0?ref=nathanleegreen.com). You can [download a zipped copy of the PSD file here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/anm6dhtsaa0exw6/MadeInMass.psd.zip?dl=1&ref=nathanleegreen.com). I used [a font called Metro Nova](http://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/metro-nova?ref=nathanleegreen.com), designed by Toshi Omagari and based on the original Metro typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins—in Massachusetts. I also did a version in Futura which is in the Photoshop file. Here’s the version I use—120 pixels by 75 pixels, #555: ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/MiM-small-grey.png) To the extent possible under law, Nate Green has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Made In Massachusetts Logo. This work is published from: United States. ![CC0](http://i.creativecommons.org/p/zero/1.0/88x31.png) ### OCSPLORA: The Creative Revolutionary's Handbook URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/ocsplora/ Last updated: 2020-08-18T02:41:43.000Z OCSPLORA has been a decade-plus long project now (begun in May, 2009) to which I have dedicated an unseemly amount of time and energy. The goal was and still is to share stories about creativity, adventure, and generosity, with the aim of encouraging and inspiring people who want those elements to be an essential part of their own lives. I’ve never gone back and counted the number of contributors OCSPLORA has had over the years, but I know it’s more than a dozen. I am extremely grateful for all of them and the work they have each done for the magazine. The site has never done that well in terms of pageviews and comments, but the stories on it are well-written, well-edited, and well-designed, and I am proud of that. [https://ocsplora.com](https://ocsplora.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Greysuits URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/greysuits/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T15:33:09.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2021/09/Greysuits-mockup.jpg) When a terrorist attack rocks a quiet outer ring mining colony, Aera decides to leave her career and her world behind to follow in her parents’ footsteps and try to become a Greysuit, one of the most powerful—and illegal—super soldiers in the Coz. Attempting to stop the terrorists before they develop their own Greysuit soldiers, Aera joins a handful of other candidates on a dead end world under the supervision of a crusty veteran, his quiet but strict colleague, and a slightly off kilter biotechnician. Can Aera come to terms with the family legacy that haunts her and survive training, Greysuit fusion, and enemies popping up on every side? Will she make the sacrifices required to change the universe and become the hero it needs? **Find out in this first book of the *Grey New World* collection, available from** [**all major ebook retailers**](https://books2read.com/greysuits?ref=nathanleegreen.com)**...** [**Amazon**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HFMXHGY?tag=nathanleegree-20&ref=nathanleegreen.com) **|** [**Apple Books**](https://books.apple.com/us/book/greysuits/id1588010413?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **|** [**Google Play**](https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7KCWDwAAQBAJ&ref=nathanleegreen.com) **|** [**Kobo**](https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/greysuits-1?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **|** [**B&N**](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/greysuits-nathan-lee-green/1130306828?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **|** [**Scribd**](https://www.scribd.com/book/397599181/Greysuits?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Greysuits: Umberrica URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/download-umberrica/ Last updated: 2025-07-10T17:44:35.000Z **After *Greysuits…*** *With his world crumbling, his heart torn, and his status in question, will a main character from* GREYSUITS *seek redemption or fall further into corruption?* **Get this short inbetweenologue** **—free for new subscribers!** ## Sign up for nlg: The sometimes webjournal of Nathan Lee Green Here be all manner and variety of imaginings, geekery, introspections, and behind-the-scenes wallowing—delivered monthly. I'm Ready! Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Colophon URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/colophon/ Last updated: 2025-03-19T16:29:50.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/that-s-no-moon-1.gif) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/this-station-is-now-1.gif) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/we-call-it-the-deathstar.gif) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/from-my-death-star.gif) Here are the tools I use. I'm constantly changing them out, blowing up the old ones, and rebuilding from scratch for another storyline. ## Web Presence Email subscriptions and newsletters are handled by [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), previously [MailerLite](https://www.mailerlite.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), before that [Mailchimp](https://mailchimp.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). This website runs on [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and is hosted on [PikaPods](https://www.pikapods.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), previously [Digital Ocean](https://www.digitalocean.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). I use [Namecheap](https://www.namecheap.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for the domain name. The theme is [Edition](https://ghost.org/themes/edition/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). (Previously, this site ran on [Wordpress.com](https://wordpress.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Before that on [Squarespace](https://www.squarespace.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Before that on [Wordpress.org](https://wordpress.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), hosted originally on [1and1.com](https://www.ionos.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and then on [HostGator](https://www.hostgator.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com).) Images are usually generated with [Midjourney](https://www.midjourney.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) or [Firefly](https://www.adobe.com/products/firefly.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com), taken by me, or found on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), unless otherwise noted, and optimized for size with [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/mac?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and/or whatever magic the blog and theme do. The fantastic Deathstar icon is by [Jory Raphael](https://dribbble.com/shots/1400124-More-Free-Star-Wars-Icons?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (not currently relevant to the site). ## Writing I use [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for writing and keeping track of writing-related notes. Previously, I used (and still really like) [Ulysses](https://ulysses.app/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for writing, [Bear](https://bear.app/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for note-taking, and [Evernote](https://evernote.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for keeping track of research. Very occasionally, I use [Sublime Text](https://www.sublimetext.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for website code touch-ups. I also use a real world notebook sometimes. I like the ones from [Baron Fig](https://www.baronfig.com/products/shopvanguard?subset=classic%20editions&variant=20646812486&ref=nathanleegreen.com), but I'll use my kid's leftover school notebooks or whatever scraps of paper I can find. ## Publishing The indie author part of my life runs on [BookFunnel](https://bookfunnel.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for free book giveaways, [Vellum](https://vellum.pub/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for ebook and paperback formatting, and [Draft2Digital](https://draft2digital.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for publishing to all the platforms, except Amazon and Google Play, whom I publish to directly. ## Cloud Storage I have switched from [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to [pCloud](https://www.pcloud.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to [iDrive](https://www.idrive.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and, finally, to paid [iCloud](https://www.icloud.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to keep all my stuff backed up online. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2020/08/deathstar-2.gif) *Last updated: 2025/03/19* ### Books URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/books/ Last updated: 2025-06-28T17:24:41.000Z ![Greysuits paperback, ebook, and audiobook mockup.](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/06/new-Greysuits.jpg) ## *GREYSUITS* When a terrorist attack rocks a quiet outer-ring mining colony, Aera decides to leave her career and her world behind to follow in her parents’ footsteps and try to become a Greysuit, one of the most powerful—and illegal—super soldiers in the Coz. Attempting to stop the terrorists before they develop their own Greysuit soldiers, Aera joins a handful of other candidates on a dead-end world under the supervision of a crusty veteran, his quiet but strict colleague, and a slightly off kilter bio-technician. Can Aera come to terms with the family legacy that haunts her and survive training, Greysuit fusion, and enemies popping up on every side? Will she make the sacrifices required to change the cosmos and become the hero it needs? **Find out in *Greysuits*, available on...** [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HFMXHGY?tag=nathanleegree-20&ref=nathanleegreen.com) ![Ghost_Layer paperback, ebook, and audiobook mockup.](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/06/new-BC1-Ghost.jpg) ## *Ghost\_Layer* ### BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE: Episode One **In the near future, the internet exists mostly as an interactive online world called the Ghost\_Layer.** Caedmon is an up and coming data deliverer, finally catching some breaks in his quest to build a new reputation and career. He finds himself working for an exclusive group of digital elites responsible for building parts of the Layer he loves, who are hounded by online law enforcement agencies because of their shady methods. Those same law enforcement agencies also have dirt on Caedmon. Tangled up in both sides' schemes, and trying to keep his parents from getting too suspicious or worried, Caedmon confronts hard choices that could earn him a place in digital history—or in a very real prison cell—as he attempts to complete his first big job: make a delivery during the Layer's most infamous event, the Formula Hit-And-Run. **Can he juggle his shady new employers, the ever-watchful digital authorities, his overprotective family, and a slightly crazy travel agent who might be his next digital crush—all while learning the ins and outs of real world adventuring?** **Find out in *Ghost\_Layer*, available on...** [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BV6X5W3K?tag=nathanleegree-20&ref=nathanleegreen.com) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/06/new-Sky1-SOTB.jpg) ## *Spirits Of The Brinaatii* ### Book One In The SKYTRAILS Novella Trilogy **The future of all Brinaatii hangs in the balance as a handful of individuals struggle to stake out a place for themselves and their people in a world invaded by colonists from other lands and mysterious and powerful spirit beings.** Like all women of her tribe, Tenka is a hunter and warrior for her people who cares only about feeding her village and keeping the vile Easterlings away, but as the foreigners grow bolder and her village weakens, she will have no choice but to seek outside help. Sharn is the only ambassador between his own people and the never-ending multitudes of Easterners, but he is losing hope for a peaceful future between the two and fears all-out war, which his people seem to want but which they may not survive. Into this tense standoff enters the Sky Spirit, Twe'gotch, who changes everything and promises lasting power to whomever he favors. But is he really who and what he claims to be, and can anyone bring true peace to a land bathed in conflict and turmoil? **Begin the journey in *Spirits Of The Brinaatii*, available on...** [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4N7RjUjqGzO6nkiodYSW49?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/06/new-Sky2-QOKS.jpg) ## *Quest Of Kindred Spirits* ### Book Two In The SKYTRAILS Novella Trilogy **Rejoin Tenka, Sharn, and Krii as they struggle to stake out a place for themselves and their people in a world invaded by colonists from other lands and mysterious and powerful spirit beings... and underneath it all, a shocking truth.** Krii left both his native people in the underground city of legend and his adopted people of the forest long ago to enjoy a solitary and carefree life, but his concern for a friend in trouble and a momentary lapse in judgement lead him on a journey through his past to find answers, belonging, and maybe even redemption. Sharn and Tenka continue their quests, leading them each closer to answers and, inevitably, to each other. But every step toward peace seems to bring them two steps closer to war and chaos. Can they find a way through, for themselves and for their people? **Continue the journey in *Quest Of Kindred Spirits*, available on...** [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCZNKZCF?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Welcome To The Newsletter URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/tid2zzos54ec778hr/ Last updated: 2025-08-20T19:44:09.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/07/Umberrica-cover-mockup-wide.jpg) ### Freebie #1 ***Greysuits: Umberrica*** is a short epilogue to *Greysuits*, which is also a prologue to *Skytrails.* I call it an *inbetweenologue*. The story will make more sense if you've read *Greysuits*, but it's also a good way to dip your toes into the *Greysuits* cosmos (*Coz*, for short) if you've read *Skytrails* and are not sure about *Greysuits*. Or, if you haven't read any of those books, dive in and see what you think. **Download your free ebook from the link below.** The link will take you to a BookFunnel.com download page with instructions and links for getting the ebook onto your preferred reading device—no ads, trackers, or fees—just beautiful simplicity. [Get your FREE copy of Umberrica: A Greysuits InterludeAfter Greysuits… With their world crumbling, their heart torn, and their status in question, will a main character from Greysuits seek redemption or fall further into corruption?Find out in Umberrica: A Greysuits Interlude![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)Nathan Lee Green![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/thumbnail/cover_md.jpg)](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/g81bak3nzq?ref=nathanleegreen.com) --- ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/07/ghost_layer_112-wide.jpg) ### Freebie #2 Below is a Dropbox link to a folder with a handful of *Ghost\_Layer* wallpapers for your phone or desktop. The images are all generated with Midjourney, the AI-image-generation website. The higher resolution widescreen image is the actual book cover, good for a laptop or monitor screen. The other images, which are mostly tall (except the one pictured above) are good for phone backgrounds. They were all generated during the process of trying to get to the final cover and I loved all of them. Hopefully you will too! **Download your free wallpaper art from the link below.** [Dropbox![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/favicon-1.ico)](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/sw6bizaw8w1f8nmjxy5oh/AIflRPr3B%5FahZhMXdFQRJ8g?rlkey=ioowc7f703cueb1sh3xhpm79z&st=71tl3ri5&dl=0&ref=nathanleegreen.com) ## Posts ### The End Of An Era For Books? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/70/ Last updated: 2026-08-23T14:27:11.000Z Welcome to the August 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#70*** ### What I'm up to... I'm sitting on my friend's back patio in Orlando, Florida. It's a balmy 88℉, somewhat overcast skies, and the air is very still and—*surprise, surprise—*humid. My weather app says there is a heat advisory today, as there has been every day we've been here. Apparently there is a heat dome involving sand from the Sahara blowing across the sea. But despite being in Florida in that window of time between about May through maybe late September or early October when it's generally best to stay in air conditioning from sunup to sundown, we have had an incredibly relaxing trip so far—swimming pools, catching up on movies and shows (more on those later) with one of our closest friends, good food, and a little fishing (not so much my thing, but my kids love to go fishing with my in-laws, for whom fishing is the gold standard of relaxation). I finished the rough draft of my new story just before we left and I decided to work on absolutely nothing while we're here, other than this email. ### What I'm thinking about... Hugh Howey was one of the first breakout stars and poster children of the indie author revolution that began with the advent of Amazon's self-publishing tools: KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), CreateSpace, and ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange). Recently [Hugh wrote a blog post on his site called 'The End of an Era,'](https://hughhowey.com/the-end-of-an-era/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) which postulates that around 2014 to around 2024 was the golden era of self-publishing, when it was easy enough most people could self-publish a book if they really wanted to, but still hard enough that most people did not. Good for readers, good for authors. Now we are entering an era of AI-assisted and, eventually, AI-generated books which will make human-crafted books less and less relevant and more and more of a marginal interest for people who are really into that kind of stuff. Like the artisanal broom shop we visited in Vancouver earlier this year—super cool, but expensive and impractical to most regular people. I like Hugh Howey and I've gotten a lot out of his blog posts on writing and publishing over the years. I don't know if Hugh is right or wrong about the golden age of indie books coming to an end, and I don't have a rebuttal or anything like that. But I do have my own experience of cowriting a book with an LLM which I've just gone through this year. I wrote about the process a couple months ago, so I won't elaborate too much, but here are a few points I can make that are true for me as of August, 2026 (who knows whether these points will stay true or for how long)... 1. I've had a lot of fun collaborating on this book with an LLM. It still feels like work but it also feels a little bit like magic. 2. For better or worse, this forthcoming book would in no way be the same story if I had written it fully on my own or if the LLM had written it fully on its own. It is a unique hybridized creation coming from me and what I like to call *the sum of all human art and knowledge* which no one else could duplicate even if they tried. 3. Other than writing and editing and rewriting and re-editing, there will still be work to do to get the book published and in front of actual readers. This will change, for sure, but for now there is still a barrier between a finished, ready-to-publish book and its potential readers. 4. Reading is, and always has been, a solo endeavor. As has writing, for most authors. But when you are reading what someone else has written, and which you know other people have read, there is a sense of connection in that. I think most readers will still want connection, so I don't see custom, one-off books gaining a lot of traction. But I could totally be wrong. 5. I'm thinking books created by publishers using AI writers and committees and focus groups will be kind of like manufacturing boy bands. Lots of fun, super catchy lyrics, and a huge fanbase, but not many people want to listen to boy band music the rest of their lives. In that case it would be about the brand, like James Patterson novels which are not actually written by James Patterson. ### What I'm Into... - ***Slow Productivity* by Cal Newport** is a really interesting book about focusing on fewer, better things to spend your working hours on. Still reading, but it seems like an important message for these frantic times. - ***Ted Lasso* Season 4** is coming on strong. It was the show everyone needed during Covid but still fun now and still teaching lessons about mental health and interpersonal relationships and human growth while being super funny, at least for people of my particular generation and context. - ***Spider-Man: Brand New Day*** was great. Wendy wants to watch it again. It did a great job of tying in crossover characters without taking away from the movie, which seems like a hard trick to pull off. - **The Odyssey** was a little less great, but still good. I like these kinds of historical adventure movies but I've never loved the story of *The Odyssey* because of its episodic nature, if that makes sense. I would like to watch it again when it's out on streaming and see how it stands up to a second viewing. Also, crazy that this movie and *Spider-Man* shared three actors and two of them spent similar amounts of onscreen time hanging out and talking to each other in completely different roles. I also wrote a bunch of stuff about watching all four Matrix movies recently, but I'll post that separately because this update was getting out of hand. Thanks for reading! ### The Exponential Power Of Slow And Steady Progress URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/69/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T11:37:51.000Z Welcome to the July 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#69*** I'm writing to you from a train. And soon I will be on a different train, an Amtrak, with Asher and Ezra on our way to Pittsburgh for a few days of fun—just the boys. They can't get enough trains in their lives. By the way, if you live in Eastern Canada, I want to say we are not thrilled about the wildfire smoke you're sending our way. But also, I can only imagine how much worse it is up there, so my heart and lungs go out to you and I hope for all our sakes the fires get put out soon. We did this last summer too, a boy's only train trip, but to Philadelphia—a much shorter ride. We use travel reward points to make these trips as cheap as we can get away with, and even though we're not great at optimizing it (Wendy's much better than I am), just using the points at all makes me feel like I'm getting away with some epic scam where everyone else pays full price and we slip a guy a twenty and duck in through the side door. \[Warning—unsolicited advice coming in 3... 2...\] My best financial advice to people of all ages, but especially in their 20s: keep your credit score high and pay off your cards every month. It'll make your life easier and open up opportunities that feel way above your pay grade. And speaking of things that pay off slowly, over a long time... ### What I'm Into... As I mentioned in the *Special Update* a week ago, ***Greysuits*** turned 10 this month. Wow! How has it already been 10 years? On Amazon, it's got a 4.3 star rating from 218 people! That's kind of incredible. Goodreads is 4.2 from 116 people. That's so many more ratings than any of my other books and I think it's just because of how long it's been around. (Maybe also because it fits a little more clearly in a single genre.) I'm thinking now about what comes next for that world. There's been a sequel brewing since *Greysuits* finished now, but in my mind it always needed the *Skytrails* side of the story first, which took forever to complete. Now that that's done, I'm thinking a lot about how the story goes from here and how to turn a good book readers like into an epic series they will hopefully love. I told Claude-3PO (my own personal robot assistant) the things I was thinking about mentioning in this email dispatch, and it kindly informed me of an underlying theme of 'staying power.' And I realized, *oh yeah, I do see that now.* Wendy and I just started a documentary series on HBO Max about Burning Man. As soon as it popped up, I knew we had to watch it. It's right up our alley. I like docs about cultural events and surprising trends and Wendy loves stuff about cults or people acting crazy, so it checks all the boxes. We haven't even finished the first episode yet, but it's a little surprising how down to earth and, um, old, all the most deeply involved organizers and producers of Burning Man are. The craziest character so far is Elon Musk's brother, who wears a cowboy hat and thinks of Burning Man as his personal religion and insists, during the 2021 debate about whether it should happen or not due to the Covid risk, 'The man must burn!' Burning Man's been around a while now, and it's almost the consistency of the event (along with incredible dedication by very invested people) that has made it such a cultural phenomenon which people shape their whole lives around even though it only happens once a year. I also stumbled upon [an interview on Youtube with Andy Wilman](https://youtu.be/dr1p7%5F-QrsU?si=%5FosMDyh9juJz5W%5F3&ref=nathanleegreen.com), the fascinating producer behind some of my favorite shows—Top Gear (the British one, back when it was the original trio), Grand Tour (with the same trio), and Clarkson's Farm (with one of the trio). I could listen to him tell stories and talk about the behind-the-scenes of those shows for hours and hours and hours. I hope he writes a book and narrates it himself. Again, he and his colleagues have just consistently been putting in the work over many, many years, and because of their consistency and dedication, they have gotten lucky and made a huge impact on the world. I think Top Gear was one of the most watched shows in the world at one time. In our neighborhood we've gotten to know some people and I've been trying to create gatherings to bring neighbors together to hang out and get to know each other better. I mean, honestly, it's not just me or even mostly me. A bunch of us have done that at different times—throwing Easter egg hunts, Christmas parties, Thanksgiving dinners, cookouts, outdoor movie nights, S'mores parties. But it doesn't feel like the get-togethers we've thrown at our house have been very successful. It's probably mostly in my head, and also because I'm a perfectionist. I can't help feeling like I should be doing more and trying harder and doing a better job. But I think this is also a consistency thing. Just keep trying, not aggressively, but persistently. It's also a cultural barrier thing. No matter what Americans used to be like in the olden days, I think most people today, at least in my demographic, are intentionally isolated from one another. We have our routines, our personal space, our comfortable lay-on-the-couch-and-watch-tv evenings and weekends. Saying yes to invitations to hang out with near strangers and subject oneself to potential and likely uncomfortable awkwardness is intimidating and exhausting. It's not a one time fix. It takes consistent small efforts over time, and that's what I need to get into my thick skull. Also, it can't always be on my terms. Sometimes I'll have to stop in front of someone's house and make small talk. Ugh. But what I know I don't want, more than almost anything, is to spend the rest of my life (or our lives) sitting alone watching tv at home. And, honestly, once the kids grow up and leave home, that could be our lives if we're not careful. So better to put in the work now to grow some deep friendships where we live which will last (hopefully) the rest of our lives. Friendships are one of the most incredible features of our universe. Speaking of our neighborhood, one of our neighbors was recently let go in the giant wave of Microsoft layoffs. She worked for Elder Scrolls Online, one of the longest-running and biggest MMO games of all time, for almost two decades. She was shocked and heartbroken, as many people were, but has no regrets about the time she spent building the game and its community over such a long period of time. Which is really inspiring. Players she had never met before were leaving her messages about how much the game had impacted their lives for good. Which is also really inspiring. Consistency over time. It's a super power and everyone's got access to it. ### GREYSUITS is FREE (through this weekend) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/greysuits-10th-anniversary/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T22:55:59.000Z On July 7th, 2016—a date which will live in infamy—I clicked publish on my first novel. Which means, as of last Tuesday, *Greysuits* is officially 10 years old! To celebrate, [**the *Greysuits* ebook is FREE on Amazon and Kindle**](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **through Sunday.** I don't know exactly what time the giveaway ends on Sunday, so I'd recommend grabbing it sooner than later. [GreysuitsGreysuits - Kindle edition by Green, Nathan Lee. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Greysuits.![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/favicon-b6b5967b-6430-4694-b657-aa1f660c3782.ico)AmazonNathan Lee Green (Author) Format: Kindle Edition![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/thumbnail/81FhjE6ILaL._SL1500_-8b461c6b-2491-4b83-bd31-b660f64624f4.jpg)](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY?ref=nathanleegreen.com) And unlike other special events, this one is not exclusive to you amazing subscribers (who put up month after month with my way-too-long newsletters.) So feel free to shout it from the rooftops and let everyone you know who likes sci-fi or adventure stories or free ebooks know about this once-every-ten-years special event! *(FYI—after Sunday the ebook price will go up from $3.99 to $4.99 in the U.S. with similar increases on all other Amazon marketplaces.)* --- As a special bonus for those of you who like behind-the-scenes stuff (which I personally LOVE), here are some early covers and promo images I made in the halcyon days of writing, editing, and dreaming *Greysuits*... ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greyskin-cover-tall-1.png) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-cover-square-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-cover-wide-01-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-cover-wide-02-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-Cover-tall-01-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-Cover-tall-02-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/LOTG-Cover-1.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-Cover-6x9-5b-1.png) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/07/Greysuits-Cover-6x9-v9-1.png) --- ***End of Special Announcement. We now resume normal service...*** ### A Robot's Writing My Solar-Dystopian Western URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/68/ Last updated: 2026-06-21T21:17:12.000Z Welcome to the June 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#68*** ### What I'm up to... I've been using Claude.ai a lot because [Joanna Penn of the *Creative Penn Podcast*](https://www.thecreativepenn.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) uses Claude a lot and I try to do everything she says to do (I've been listening to her podcast for a decade now and she's never steered me wrong). She also says it's worth paying for a premium subscription to Claude to get the most out of it, so I am—at least temporarily—doing that too. I've already talked about generative AI and LLMs quite a bit and I think I've made pretty clear my mixed feelings about all of it—I really like using the tools as engines of creative experimentation and to do the things I don't like and help me with the things I do like, BUT I'm slightly terrified of their short-term effects on the world and humanity. I'm a little suspicious of anyone who doesn't have mixed feelings about all of it, to be honest. If you are tired of hearing about AI, you might want to skip this section. *Although*, if you are tired of hearing about it without having given it an honest try, then I think you should stick around. Here's a screenshot of the projects I currently have going on in Claude right now. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-19-at-2.54.21---PM.png) Bunch of stuff going on here, but I will focus on the current fiction-writing project. In the bottom right corner of that image, you'll see the current story I'm working on—*Coydog Outlaws.* It's a working title, but I kind of like it. As the project description says, I am cowriting this story with Claude. I wrote the first couple chapters to get a feel for the story and main character, then I uploaded that to Claude with some info on what kind of story I wanted it to be and what kind of world I was writing in. I asked it to give me some ideas for the next chapter, then I told it what I liked from its ideas and asked it to generate the next chapter using my style and voice. It's pretty good at coming up with ideas and writing chapters, not so good at doing it in a style and voice that feels to me like something I would have written. It does a lot more explaining than I do, and I guess because it's trying to follow the style of a classic western, it adds a lot of phrases like, 'he did it the way a man who had just lost everything would do it'. Here's an example from the current chapter I'm working on of 'raw Claude' writing without any edits: > And Veritable, watching, saw Sarge feel the weight of all those faces turn toward him at once, and saw — for the first time all night — the warmth slip. > 'Enough,' Sarge said. > Just the one word, and it came out wrong. It came out hard. It came out like a man and not like a prophet, and Veritable saw two hundred and sixty people hear the difference. > 'Take the girl,' Sarge said, to his soldiers, and his hand was not open now, it was pointing. 'She's not well. The world got into her. Take her somewhere quiet and I'll tend to her myself.' His voice was rising and he could not seem to stop it rising. 'The rest of you, this is the test. This is the night I told you would come. Get to your blocks. **Now** *.*' > And that — the *now,* the bark of it, the prophet shouting like a foreman — was the thing that snapped Miranda's head up. > Veritable saw it happen. Saw the words Sarge had buried in her an hour ago, ***you never left me, you just rebuilt me smaller,*** saw them stop working, all at once, because the man who'd said them so gently was now standing in his own field yelling at frightened farmers to go to their rooms. The calm had been the whole spell. The calm had been the proof. Take the calm away and he was just a man who sold guns and called it love. To me, this feels like overindulgent narration—like, instead of showing the reader clues to what characters are thinking and feeling and trusting them to work it out, it's hitting the reader over the head with everything that's happening in a character's mind. Some people might like this kind of storytelling. I do not—unless its for humor. Anyway, I take the rough draft chapter it has generated and I comb through it, trimming the fat and adding my own flourishes, and then I upload it as a project file. I tell Claude I have uploaded it, ask it to read my version and all the other chapter files and the project instructions (which are notes about the story and characters and world which I asked it to generate once we had gotten a little ways into the story), then ask it what some creative and compelling options might be for the next chapter. Rinse and repeat. What's been interesting about this process is a few times along the way I've had really strong 'gut feeling' direction changes. Not like, 'hmmm, I wonder what it would be like if...' but 'oh, I suddenly realize I definitely want this character to be more like this.' In that case, I tell Claude about the change of direction and I tell it that, going forward, we're going to use this new direction so it should update the project instructions and assume the story has been going that way the whole time. But I don't go back and make those changes in the moment because— a.) I don't want to lose momentum by going back and reworking old stuff before the story's finished, and b.) there will probably be other things that need to change in those earlier chapters so why not just take care of it all when I go back to do the final edits and rewrite. I told my friend Chris, who has talked about writing sci-fi and fantasy stories someday, this could be a huge leg up for a first-time novelist to put together a good story pretty quickly and then get constructive feedback and fine tune the story without having to go through the years-long process it usually takes a first time author to finish their first precious book. But, at the same time, I'm not so sure. Like, if I were to try to do Chris's job of analyzing tons of data for hospitals and summarizing it and pulling out the necessary bits, you could give me all the AI assistance in the world and I still wouldn't even know where to begin because I never learned the job from start to finish and never built the foundational skills to even know how to use AI's help to make the job easier. I also told him, yes, it does feel like cheating to write a book this way—*IF* you think of yourself as a writer of stories. Because, ultimately, I am delegating what some would think of as the most important part of the writing job—*the writing.* *BUT,* if I instead think of myself as a composer or director or publisher of good stories, then it's not about the writing, or the act of writing—it's instead about the finished product and whether or not people find it entertaining and compelling and resonant. Also, would this specific story I'm working on exist without me and my involvement in it? Without a doubt, it would not. So, that's what I'm working through right now. Is it worth using AI to this extent if it helps me get all the stories I want to tell done and out into the world that much quicker? How much AI can or should I incorporate into the process of telling stories before I might as well not be involved anymore? And that—me not being involved at all as an author—is also a real possibility as the large language models evolve. When it gets to the point one of them is specifically built to tell great stories, a reader could tell the LLM, 'Give me a sci-fi heist novel, *Ocean's 11* vibes, set in a near-future Harpers Ferry after the climate's gone sideways and the government's failing. Throw in a cult, a little romance, keep it novella-length, and write it in the style of Nathan Lee Green (or Frank Herbert or Ernest Hemingway or *fill\_in\_the\_blank*). Ok, go!' Then, as readers, none of us will actually need authors anymore. And technically, after the LLM generates that amazing-sounding story, the reader could share it with the world and take credit for it as their creation. Pretty crazy, right? But for now, I'm having fun with this process and learning and, I think, continuing to grow as an author through my collaborations with robots. ### What I'm Into... - The F1 race in Barcelona last week was pretty epic. Lewis Hamilton won his first grand prix with Ferrari and the world went wild. - ***The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters*** by Priya Parker—super helpful book for anyone who invites people to get together for any reason. - ***Ender's Game*** by Orson Scott Card—a sci-fi classic that seemed worth a re-read. It's going on vacation with me. - ***Flight Volume #3*** edited by Kazu Kibuishi—a graphic short story collection, beautiful and imaginative. - ***Running Point*** season 2—I don't really watch sports (except F1), but sitcoms about sports I can watch all day. - ***Clarkson's Farm*** season 5—still funny, still fascinating, still one of my favorite things to watch. - ***Marty, Life Is Short*** documentary—sad, happy, and interesting. Made me want to find a core group of famous friends to hang out with on a lake. - ***Father Of The Bride—***because of the above documentary. - ***Dune: Part 2***—This is my second time watching the second one. I feel like I'll be rewatching these movies quite a bit over the course of my life. Thanks for reading! I'm off to the Pacific Northwest to show my kids what young mountains look like. ### Indiana Rooster Magnificent URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/67/ Last updated: 2026-05-23T00:01:56.000Z Welcome to the May 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#67*** A few weeks ago, I went to Indianapolis with Wendy—she had a work thing there and I tagged along. I know what you're thinking. Indianapolis? What do you do in Indianapolis? That's what I thought when she told me where her conference would be. It turns out, though, if you're not there as a tourist trying to pack fun into every moment of every day, but instead go as someone who likes hanging out in new places and taking long walks and seeing what's around, it's a great place to spend a week. My takeaways about Indy (which is what the locals called it): - Everything seems to be under construction or renovation with signs announcing pretty soon it will be amazing. - Based on areas that have been constructed or renovated in the last 10 years, I believe the signs. - Uber and Lyft drivers seem to think the downtown traffic is terrible and really busy. - It's not. - The Indianapolis Zoo is incredibly well designed (I'm not a zoo expert, but I really like zoos and have spent a lot of time at DisneyWorld, which I believe gives me some kind of credentials in knowing good park layout, plus I really like zoos). - It feels kind of like a college town, because it kind of is. - The canal area near the White River is really cool and great for a walk or a run with some great looking museums and parks beside it. We happened to be there during two big events. The first couple days I was there, they were doing open testing for the Indianapolis 500. The [Indy 500](https://www.indycar.com/Schedule/2026/Indianapolis-500?ref=nathanleegreen.com) is happening in a few days as I write this, and if you're in Indianapolis and don't know that, hotel-sized posters and signs everywhere will let you know. The open testing is a chance for the drivers and cars and teams to drive around the track, I guess, and figure things out they need to figure out, I guess. It was free to attend, so I grabbed one of those city bikes every city has now and rode the sometimes sketchy and not-always-bike-friendly route out to the Speedway and watched a few laps of the cars going around. It was so loud. The smart people had earplugs. There were no bike stalls to return the bike to at the Speedway, which meant the cost continued to rack up while I sat in the stands and watched with the bike parked and chained to a fence near the entrance (chain provided in bike basket, which was nice). So I didn't stay very long. It probably would've been cheaper to Uber there, honestly. The other big event was a half-marathon—the [500 Festival Mini-Marathon](https://indymini.com/mini-marathon/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). According to the official website, the race celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, attracting over 20,000 participants from all 50 states and over 16 countries. > Take part in this iconic half-marathon that starts in downtown Indy and includes a 2.5-mile lap around the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As a tradition, participants even get to kiss the bricks at the renowned Yard of Bricks on the oval track! Oh, and we also heard an extreme weather siren the first night we were there because of storms and wind. Even through the fairly soundproof hotel windows, it was loud. That was a new and exciting experience. So, all that to say, we like Indianapolis and wouldn't mind going back again. Good airport, too. ### Reading, watching, listening... It's hard to believe but I think the only new thing I've been into since last month is the HBO show, *Rooster*, starring Steve Carell. We binged it pretty quick and it was very funny. Oh, I also rewatched the original *The Magnificent Seven* recently, which I have not seen since I was a kid, and barely remembered. I felt like it held up pretty well for a 66 year old movie. It's funny, many critics panned it when it came out and now it's heralded as a classic, and is, according to Wikipedia, the second most-shown movie in the U.S. after *The Wizard of Oz*. That's all for this month—thanks for reading! *Postscript: Wendy got her British citizenship this week after over a year of working on it, getting all the documents and notarizations and everything else in order. She's a dual citizen now. I'm so proud of her and it was a great moment getting to be there at the embassy when she received her certificate. Plus, they served tea and shortbread biscuits after, so win-win-win.* ### Harpers Ferry John Brown Playlist URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/66/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T22:10:30.000Z Welcome to the April 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#66*** Can you believe we're almost into May? The weather here, following the typical Baltimore Triangle rollercoaster ride, has been all over the place. Last week I took a bunch of my tropical houseplants and water-propogated plant starts out onto our sunroom/back porch to get them out of the house, where they've been on the kitchen counter all winter, in everyone's way, under the constant glow of LED lights. The temps rose to 90º F/32º C then plummeted to 32º F/0º C a few days later, so I brought all the plants back inside. I love weather. That sounds like sarcasm, but I really truly do. There's a line I really like in C. S. Lewis's *That Hideous Strength—* > Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. I check the weather all the time, think about it, talk about it, write about it in my not-really-a-journal and these newsletters. It's weird. My dad and brother and oldest son are the same way. My dad watches The Weather Channel the way other people watch sports or political commentary. Anyway, weather aside, I am quietly chipping away on a few projects, as well as some online classes. But none of it is worth talking about right now, so onto my recent reads/watches/listens/vacation destinations. ### Destinations... Spring Break (seems worth capitalizing when you have kids in school) saw us on a short, but still epic road trip out west. Not *The West*, just west of where we live. We stayed a couple nights at a camping spot with these primitive cabins on stilts (which they call treehouses but as my kids pointed out were not in, on, or in any way attached to trees) near Harpers Ferry. That was the closest our family's been to an actual camping trip as a fivesome, besides camping in our backyard. We cooked over a fire pit, lived a few days without electricity or running water, checked out Harpers Ferry National Historical Park for the first time, and ate lots of s'mores. Harpers Ferry is something special. I've heard it used to be not that great as far as a hanging out kind of place, but there are shops, cafes, restaurants, museums, and what look like some really great walks/hikes. Apparently the quality of everything has gone up in recent years. The actual restored 1800s town of Harpers Ferry is down low beside the river and part of the national park. There is very little parking down there, so you park up on the higher ground at the entrance to the park, then take a bus down to the town, which lies at the confluence of two rivers (Potomac and Shenandoah) and three states (West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland), and the intersection of two big trails (the Appalachian Trail and the C & O Canal Towpath). Apparently Thomas Jefferson was a fan. From Wikipedia: > On October 25, 1783, [Thomas Jefferson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas%5FJefferson?ref=nathanleegreen.com) visited Harpers Ferry as he was traveling to [Philadelphia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Viewing "the passage of the Potomac through the [Blue Ridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%5FRidge%5FMountains?ref=nathanleegreen.com)" from a [rock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%5FRock?ref=nathanleegreen.com) that is now named for him as Jefferson's Rock, he called the site "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature" and stated, "This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic." The town was one of his favorite retreats, and tradition holds that much of his [*Notes on the State of Virginia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes%5Fon%5Fthe%5FState%5Fof%5FVirginia?ref=nathanleegreen.com) was written there. [Jefferson County](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%5FCounty,%5FWest%5FVirginia?ref=nathanleegreen.com), in which Harpers Ferry is located, was named for him on its creation in 1801. That was my favorite part of the trip and I definitely plan to go back and spend some more time there. Another part of Harpers Ferry history that makes it kind of famous, or infamous, is a man called John Brown who I first read about at the museum at Gettysburg National Military Park. He was a very religious anti-slavery activist who grew more and more frustrated with pacifist abolitionists and became convinced violence was the only way to change things. He orchestrated a raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, planning to steal weapons to begin a Southern slave uprising. It did not go well. He was caught and killed (the first American to be executed for treason). He wrote down his last words and gave them to his jailer: > I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done. He died in December, 1859\. The Civil War began April, 1961, less than two years later. We saw signs for all kinds of John Brown stuff in Harpers Ferry and the area around it. We went to a museum showing videos about his Harpers Ferry Raid and afterward Wendy said, 'I still don't know whether he was good or bad.' I think that's why I find him so interesting. I think his life would make for a really compelling HBO miniseries in the *John Adams* vein, but less triumphant I guess and a little more sad. After that we stayed at an AirBnB that some friends recommended near the town of Luray, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, famous for the Luray Caverns, which in April were inundated with tourists. I can only imagine what summer weekends are like. The caverns were really cool (literally and subjectively), though our 7 year old begged to differ. She was bored inside five minutes and we were in the caverns for nearly an hour. There are other caverns in the area, which are supposed to be as good or better, and less touristy, so we plan to go check some of those out in the future. We also did a car museum, a toy museum, a hedge maze, and a history museum all on the property around the caverns. We also went to a local potato chip factory, Route 11 Potato Chips, which was not doing factory tours that day but did have a whole bunch of free potato chip samples for us to try. If you love potato chips and get the chance, check them out. They're really good. ### Movies and shows... *Project Hail Mary* (very good), *One Piece* (Live Action) Season 2, *Queer Eye* Season 10, [suburban homestead on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@suburbanhomestead?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (an interesting, whimsical, very creative DIY vlogger) ### Books... *Where'd You Park Your Spaceship, Book 2: There Is Only One Noon Yeah* by Rob Bell, *The Serviceberry: Abundance And Reciprocity In The Natural World* by Robin Wall Kimmerer, *Right at Home: How Good Design Is Good for the Mind: An Interior Design Book* by Bobby Berk, *Artemis Fowl* by Eoin Colfer ### Music... My annual Spotify spring playlist has arrived. This year's is titled 'Trendy Mix 2026', for people who like pop-folk-rock, plus the obligatory infusion of *K-Pop Demon Hunters* tracks. That's all for this month. Thanks for reading, good luck, and Godspeed! ### Wild And Trashy URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/65/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T22:19:39.000Z Welcome to the March 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#65*** Welcome to SPRING (in the northern hemisphere)! Sunday we went to a place in Maryland called Calvert Cliffs which is a stretch of cliff face on the Chesapeake Bay famous for fossils and shark's teeth and whale bones. Alas, we found none of those things. Or, at least, if we did we cannot tell that's what they are for sure. I did find a horseshoe crab shell, which I thought was cool. I brought it home along with some driftwood. I love driftwood. I proposed the idea of going down there—something I've been wanting to do since we moved up here and I first read about the area—because Sunday was supposed to be sunny and 77℉. A nice, warm day for our first beach outing of the year. Instead, the temp never passed 64 and the onshore winds were cold and constant. Despite the chilly breeze, one kid recovering from a week-long sickness, and another very unhappy to be at the beach instead of home playing video games, our kids all managed to find their own ways to have a good time. Which is even more impressive considering how few things we took with us—basically just a backpack full of flip-flops, which we did not use. It always amazes me how easily our kids get caught up in the infinite natural playground that is the seashore, or bayshore in this case, when they have no other options. This parallels a journey I've been on lately. I mean, I guess my whole life, but more and more as time goes by. When I was a teenager, I was like my oldest son. Just let me be inside on a computer or in front of a tv or reading and I'll be happy, or at least not angry. Just let me be comfortable. Don't force me outside. Until I and my brother and our friends started surfing, which saved me in many ways. The older I get, the more *the outside* calls me. And not just the outside, but increasingly, *the wild outside.* Which is funny that I even need to specify—first *outside* as opposed to *inside,* and second the *wild* kinds of outside, not the *tame* kinds of outside. I keep reading books and listening to podcasts about wildlife and plant life, rivers and oceans and ponds and lakes, jungles and forests and meadows and prairies. In a world gone mad, there is something very soothing and peaceful about the wild world just beyond human reach. I mean, it's not really beyond human reach, but when it feels like it is, there is a vibrancy and vitality and a feeling of danger that wakes up the senses and pushes everything else from the overcrowded modern mind. We live next to a park and some of it feels fairly wild. I always walk on the few trails through the park, but I've recently been blazing my own trails, which will be much harder to do once spring really takes hold and everything becomes dense with thorns and green leaves and new growth. Everywhere I go in the park, I find trash. Everywhere. This town is by far the trashiest place I've ever lived, in a literal sense. It's nice, but also covered in trash. Which I think you only notice when you're walking. The trash is easy to ignore from a car. But even when I go walking through woods that seem like places where no one ever goes, I still find plastic bottles, beer cans, glass jars, grocery bags. It's crazy. So I've been trying to clean up some of the trash, a little with every walk. I don't know if I'm making any progress, if people are leaving new trash faster than I can pick up the old trash, but I might as well continue. It's very likely no one else is going to do it. And now that I live here, I consider it my park. My neighborhood. My streets. I'm going to treat everywhere I go like my own yard. It's me against the litter. Anyway, back to wildness. There's a fox or maybe a few foxes that run around our park and neighborhood. I feel especially accomplished when I spot one of them. There's also a groundhog or two that live in our backyard. I know a lot of people loathe groundhogs and make war against them to keep them out of their gardens or from making holes and tunnels around their home's foundation. So far we and the groundhogs live in peace with each other. Tons of white tail deer, some rabbits. There's probably not as much diversity of wildlife as their should be for the amount of forest and streams and tiny ponds there are around here, but it's more than a lot of suburbs get. I know I'm getting old because I enjoy close encounters with our fairly common animal neighbors so much. And because I'm gradually trying to figure out what kinds of birds and trees and wild plants I see in our yard. One thing about Americans is we are woefully ignorant, generally speaking, about the trees and animals all around us. I'm trying to learn so I can be more knowledgable and, by extension, a better caretaker and steward of the lands I inhabit. Books I've finished or started... *Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World* by Craig Foster (the main human from the Netflix doc, *My Octopus Teacher*), *A Year Across Maryland: A Week-by-Week Guide to Discovering Nature in the Chesapeake Region* by Bryan MacKay, *A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams* by Michael Pollan, *Beowulf: A Hero's Tale Retold* by James Rumford, *Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It* by Samuel Miller McDonald Movies... *Rango*, *The Green Knight*, *The Banshees Of Inisherin* Shows... *Derry Girls* (again), *Country Music* by Ken Burns, *Survivor Season 50* ### Freaky Winter Grit, United States Of Windigo URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/64/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T21:40:01.000Z Welcome to the February 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#64*** Welcome to the year of the Fire Horse! I was just telling some friends the other day I like the idea of starting the year in early February because January is such a hard month to get any traction. It's like there's a natural lull between Christmas and Lunar New Year when the mind, body, and spirit need to go into power-saving mode to recharge and recalibrate. All three still need exercise, but in a calmed down, less ambitious, maintenance-only kind of way. For our family, the new Fire Horse year began with my sister-in-law coming to stay with us for almost a month. (Hi Liz!) Living with other people is always stretching, but it's also one of the best ways to know yourself better and open a rigid mind to new ideas and ways of doing things. Like, in our case, Liz has introduced a couple new meals and recipes into our normal rotation, which is exciting and much needed. She's been sharing her favorite Youtube channels about farming and minimalism and rescued animals. The kids have enjoyed coming home to find Auntie Liz on the couch doing her schoolwork and she has gotten to experience enough snow, ice, and winter to last her a Floridian lifetime. I also introduced her and the kids to snow cream, which we have not made since our snowy Massachusetts winters almost a decade ago. I'm still working hard on learning about video game development and starting a new writing project so I don't have much to report on what I'm up to at the moment, but here are some things I've been watching and thinking about. - **Freaky Friday/Freakier Friday** — I thought I had watched *Freaky Friday* along with all the other Disney family comedy movies I watched with my family growing up, but I had almost no recollection of it while watching. One of Wendy's favorite movies to watch when she doesn't know what else to watch but wants something funny and happy on in the background is *The Parent Trap* remake, also with Lindsey Lohan. *Freaky Friday* feels like a close cousin. We watched the original the other night in preparation for watching *Freakier Friday*, which just came out last year. Watching with the family, including my sis-in-law, everyone was totally into it, from the 7-year-old (to be fair, there were a few moments she didn't know if she wanted to keep watching) to the 45-year-old and everyone in between. - **The Winter Olympics** — We've never been super into any Olympics games, but it's always fun to see highlights or have it on in the background whenever they are on. None of our family even knew the Olympics were a thing this year until our friends invited us over to watch the opening ceremonies. We had to miss it, unfortunately, and a lot of the individual sports, too, but everything we did catch was always more exciting than expected. The slaloms were especially crash-heavy, which is not fun for the athletes, but entertaining for us as viewers. Curling is not nearly as boring as it should be. And I always forget about the skiing/shooting combo sport—wow! There's something great about training so hard for one particular activity on one particular day. The only thing I've done even remotely close to that is my all-day 50-mile ebike ride this fall, but I'd like to do more of those kinds of things. - **True Grit** — I have decided to go on a Western movie-watching kick, beginning with the 2010 version of *True Grit* by the Cohen Brothers. It's almost not fair to start with that one. It's so good! I should've started with something worse and worked my way up. I love a good Western. I used to watch them with my dad on Sunday afternoons, but he watched a lot of John Wayne movies and I always got bored with those. I could usually make it to the end of a Clint Eastwood movie. My brother and I used to love watching and quoting *Young Guns* and *Young Guns 2*, both of which I own on DVD. *('Yoohoo, I'll make you famous.')* It seems that most of the highest-regarded Westerns are pre-2000, but there have been a handful of great ones in more recent decades, like *True Grit*, *3:10 To Yuma*, *The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford*, and *The Harder They Fall*, but I am interested in delving into some of the classics I either never saw or barely remember. Do you have any favorite Westerns or Western-adjacent movies I should check out? - **Legend of the Windigo/Wetiko** — As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, I've been reading *Braiding Sweetgrass* by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which I finally finished about a week ago. In one of the final chapters, she talks about the Anishinaabe legend of the Windigo, which is a cannibalistic monster that is at its strongest and most feared in winter. Winter could be terrible for the Anishinaabe people, a time of starvation, and the story of the Windigo told them what would happen if they became selfish and either horded food for themselves, or worst-case, entertained ideas of cannibalism. The Windigo begins life as a human who gives into greed. Once it starts taking more than it needs, the Windigo can never be satisfied and always craves more. Robin Wall Kimmerer uses the story as a way of understanding modern consumerism. She says Windigo is not just an ancient myth but a living force in contemporary culture and says that an economic system built on insatiable consumption, one that devours the natural world without gratitude or reciprocity, embodies the Windigo spirit. She sees gratitude and reciprocity as the foundation of an alternative relationship with the living world, one rooted in responsibility rather than extraction. I've been thinking about that a lot, about how much the Windigo represents the entire history of my country, from the beginning of European exploration and settlement here all the way to now. In *The American Revolution* documentary series, Ken Burns and company explore some of the darker sides of the founding fathers and their goals during the war. While the revolutionary forces were fighting the British to gain independence, they were also massacring Native American towns and villages in order to expand west during and after the war. (I also did not realize how bloody the war was among regular white American families, divided between Loyalists and Patriots, who went to further and further extremes in their cruelty and brutality toward one another, which like so many aspects of that era, kind of takes the shine off the greatness at the beginning of our American experiment.) We may think Americans talking about taking over Canada or Greenland or parts of South America are insane or out of the blue, but it's all just a continuation of our origin story as a country. We have always wanted more. We have always let greed drive at least a good chunk of our priorities as a nation. If we begin our American story the way we normally do—seeing European-Americans as explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs, and revolutionaries, it's easy to paint ourselves the heroes of the story. And really, the heroes of the world. We found a mostly empty continent, explored the width and breadth of it, settled the better part of it, and made an incredible number of the world's most significant discoveries and innovations in an absurdly short amount of time. We led the world toward freedom, equality, democracy, justice, and became, in short, the *Good Guys*. Everyone who opposed us or our progress was automatically the *Bad Guys*, because to oppose the U.S.A. was to oppose freedom, equality, democracy, and justice. Nuance be damned. If we instead begin the story of our nation before its beginnings, with people arriving on a continent full of tribes of people living in balance with the land and its ecology (even if the many different people were not always at peace with each other), which was then inundated with waves and waves of immigrants of every kind, color, and shape from almost every other part of the world, who brought not only new sicknesses but also strange ideas about how to best 'exploit natural resources,' including people, and who often believed that the ends justified the means—no matter who got hurt, lied to, or destroyed in the process—leading to a land which has been more and more out of balance ever since, it paints our history as a nation in a different light. Not because the immigrants themselves were evil, but because of the Windigo spirit they carried inside them, which has existed in all times and in all places as far back in history as history goes. Native Americans had their stories and their dedication to the common good to protect them from the worst of their Windigo impulses. The new Americans had their religions to protect them. At its best, Christianity has always emphasized a resistance to the temptations of selfishness, greed, materialism, and hoarding wealth, and focused on treating others with the same respect, dignity, patience, care, and love you yourself would want to be treated with. But American Christianity has often courted and praised the rich and powerful instead of confronting them, and downplayed the potential evil of wanting more than you have as the pursuit of happiness, the American dream, and a normal part of a well functioning economy. I believe during this next phase of my country's history, we will have to continue to reckon with the sins of our past and learn better ways to live with the world and the people around us. Fortunately, we don't have to make it all up from scratch. We have ancient wisdom of all sorts to guide us. And I think the native wisdom of this land, and the native peoples still here and still preaching that wisdom to any of us who are willing to listen, are a great supplement to whichever faith or moral framework we start from. Anyways, this is not meant to be conclusive in any way, just my current thoughts on the world around me, how we got here, and we how get to a better place. I welcome your agreements and disagreements! That's it for this month! All the best to you, and in the immortal words of Julian of Norwich— > 'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.' ### Outrunning January Blues URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/63/ Last updated: 2026-01-21T18:37:37.000Z Welcome to the January 2026 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#63*** I have some thoughts (and maybe a solve) on my mental state this time of year, and a couple Netflix recommendations, but first... ***Greysuits* is on sale!** **USA - Price promo from 01/17 to 01/24 noon (EST)** [*Greysuits* \- $0.99 USD](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **UK - Price promo from 01/17 to 01/24 noon (GMT)** [*Greysuits* \- 0.99 GBP](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY?ref=nathanleegreen.com) As I mentioned last month, I'm running a promo on Amazon for the Kindle version in both the US and the UK. You have 3 more days to grab it before it goes back to the usual price. --- In other news, I find myself very much feeling the winter blues this January. I really like being outside. Or at least I thought I really liked it. Now I think it's more a matter of survival. I NEED to be outside. Every day, if possible. When I'm not outside enough, I get depressed, grouchy, and all around discombobulated. The worst part of the day for me has long been the hours between about 4pm and 6pm, and it is especially acute this time of year, especially now we live in a place with real winters. The sun currently goes down just past 5pm. And that's when I hit a mental wall. My mood tends to crash and burn and all my patience toward my family with it. I've been thinking about this a lot since the kids went back to school from winter break a couple weeks ago. It has become clearer and clearer I need to find new ways to cope with my mind's and body's response to being inside so much this time of year and to each day's early setting sun (and I know some of you get even less sunlight in winter than we do here). So I decided to start going for a run just before the sun sets each day, as many days of the week as I can force myself to do it. And on the other days, a long walk. And at the very very very least, a quick 10 minute walk. It was sometime last week, laying in bed one night, I decided to try this out. And of course, the next day the 'feels like' temperature at 4:30pm hit 10 degrees Fahrenheit. But I was committed. I knew the alternative was a few hours of misery. So I got on all the clothes and jackets and gloves I could, and I went out and ran-slash-walked for about half an hour. And, wouldn't you know it, it worked! I felt so much better being out at the end of the day—as measured by daylight—than being inside trying to 'get work done' or figure out dinner or answer loads of questions from the kids or try to hold a conversation with them or Wendy or whatever else I normally do at 4:30pm. It was kind of like, by going out at that time, I was squeezing every last drop of daylight out of the day before the sun said farewell. And I was outside, which, even in painfully cold weather, helps me feel more alive and grounded than I ever feel inside. Anyway, I don't know if that resonates with you, but I thought it was worth sharing. I think I've gone out every day since then before or during sunset for a run or walk, and it has made a big difference in my mood and mental wellbeing and dinnertime focus. And so far no one in my house has seemed bothered by my half hour absence each day. In fact, the kids are forced to be more responsible for themselves than when I am there trying to keep everyone on track, and everyone is probably a little more relaxed without my afternoon 'porcupine-i-ness'. --- Another thing I decided at the same time, which also probably made a big difference, was that I will spend a little time each day working through a Udemy course. So most days now at around 10am I brew my morning tea in a Yeti travel mug, pack up my stuff, walk down to the local library (where I am now), and do between one and two hours of self-paced classes about video game development, because that is something I have been wanting to learn for years and years. I bought three courses on sale a few years ago (never buy courses full price on Udemy—they are always running sales with steep discounts) and completed most of one course at the time (*Complete C# Unity 2D Game Development*), then life got crazy and I didn't prioritize it with everything else going on. Until now. --- As for what I'm currently in to: I've been rewatching the live action version of *One Piece* on Netflix and liking it just as much the second time around. And it looks like a new season is coming in March. I'm always looking for an adventurous, hot-weather-y, ideally ocean-y movie or series this time of year when it's grey and cold and brown outside. Usually it's an epic full day or two watch of all the *Pirates Of The Caribbean* movies, or *Kingdom Of Heaven* or *Gladiator* or *RRR*, but *One Piece* is a great addition to the post-Christmas winter mix. Also, Wendy and I just watched the new rom-com on Netflix called *People We Meet On Vacation*. If you like romantic comedies, it's worth a watch. And finally, Wendy got me into [an AppleTV+ podcast (apparently that's a thing) called *Adrift*](https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/originals/adrift/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). It's a documentary series about a real family who was lost at sea for over a month and lived to tell about it. Really interesting. --- That's all for this month. Take care and stay brave and hopeful—our optimism is our greatest gift to ourselves and each other in these wild and frenetic times. Remember, this too shall pass. Nothing—good or bad—lasts forever. ### End Of Year Deals + Youtube Progress URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/62/ Last updated: 2025-12-18T22:28:16.000Z I don't have a whole lot to report this month, so this should be short(*ish*). Things are always a little crazy this time of year, especially for families with young kids, but as I said last month, I'm trying to take it slow and enjoy the season. I'm sure things will change quite a bit as the kids get older, so I don't want to miss this time when they are so excited about presents and decorating and baking with their grandmother and holiday gatherings and the first snow of the year (which we just got last weekend, and which will be gone by tomorrow, but which they were able to sled and snowball fight in a couple times between boughts of sickness). First, I want to say thank you very much from the bottom, middle, and top of my heart for following along on my author journey—whether you've been around for years or if this is your first newsletter from me. It's a little crazy to me that I write some words every month about what I'm up to and send them out and a bunch of people out there receive those words, and sometimes they open the message, and sometimes some of them read all the way through my endless commenting about movies and shows and the trials of the modern independent author of speculative fiction. So, again, thank you. Very much. And to all of you who have bought my books and/or left reviews, you are in a very special class of people and I appreciate you so much! May all your support for me and other authors return to you ten-fold. Second, if anyone has not read my *SKYTRAILS* series and wants to give it a go, I have two bits of news to help you out— - **Until December 24th,** [all 3 *SKYTRAILS* ebooks are on sale on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCDX4N63?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for **$0.99** in the U.S. or **£0.99** in the U.K. (The other Amazon regions don't have the option for special promotions, so sorry if that's you.) - The entire first book of the series, ***Spirits Of The Brinaatii*, is on Youtube as single-chapter videos**. [They are on a Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwTbgAFqBcsyRbP0NJOQna2RNKz3Nwjkt&ref=nathanleegreen.com) to hopefully make it easier to play all the way through. (A single long video for the whole book should hopefully be coming soon, as well as chapters for book two.) I wanted to run the same sale at the same time for *Greysuits*, but I was not able to start it right away. So from **January 17 to January 24,** [**Greysuits will be $0.99**](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **or** [**£0.99**](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green-ebook/dp/B01HFMXHGY?ref=nathanleegreen.com) too. ### Into & Up To As far as what I've been into since last month, it's basically all the same stuff. Oh, except I've been playing an old version of World Of Warcraft on a private server with some friends and that has been fun to get back into after years and years away. Mostly it's just fun to have something to do online with friends who live far away. I feel like the opportunity for fun, easy access, multiplayer games with friends is ripe for the plunder. Also, I've been working on a manifesto. > '*A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government.*' *—*[*Wikipedia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto?ref=nathanleegreen.com) I may say more about it at some point, but I think now more than ever, people —in my country, at least—need to figure out what exactly we believe in, and why, and what kind of society we want to be. So that's what I'm trying to put into words with AI assistance. Also, I'm experimenting with AI-assisted video game design and development. Who knows if it will go anywhere, but it's fun. This is probably the last you'll hear from me this year. *So until next year...* ***Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to All,*** ***and To All A Great Year's End!*** ***And A Bright New Beginning around the next bend!*** ### Into The Holidays, Gently We Go URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/61/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T18:40:07.000Z Welcome to the November 2025 edition of… **What I’m Into, What I’m Up To** ***#61*** Okay, before I begin, a confession (the first of two): Instead of writing this from scratch in my notes app (currently using Obsidian for fellow notes app obsessives), I basically started stream-of-consciousness writing the stuff I wanted to include in this month's update into ChatGPT, then copied and pasted one of my other email update/blog posts in so it could get a better sense of my usual format, style, and voice, then asked it to draft this month's email based on that. I had to ask it to use more of my actual words because the first draft was just too professional and polished and concise (although you may have preferred it, to be honest) and generate a second draft, then I edited the stuff I didn't love and added a few other things I thought of. What follows is me and Chat's collaborative effort... Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow American readers—I hope you’re getting some time this week to rest, eat some fantastic home-cooked food, and maybe sneak off for a nice long walk and/or onto a comfy couch with a good book. And to my Canadian friends—I was in your beautiful country for Canadian Thanksgiving with my fam this year, and, even though we didn't get to celebrate it in a Canadian home with all the trappings and trimmings, it felt special just to be there at that time (we didn't realize it until the day of). --- ## What I’ve Been Into Lately Apparently my current vibe is *relaxed, gentle, slow* stories, because that’s what I've been veering toward the past couple months. ***Three Thieves,* Vol. 1 & 2 by Scott Chantler** Kids’ fantasy graphic novels with beautiful art, interesting characters, and a fun story. I finished them and thought, 'I wonder if my kids would like these?' They did not, because apparently none of my three kids are into medieval fantasy tropes. Not enough vehicles or unicorns. ***Days At The Morisaki Bookshop* by Satoshi Yagisawa** Wendy grabbed this one from the library, because it was really thin and had a cool cover. Not the kind of fiction I usually pick up, but enjoyable in a settle-in-and-relax-to-an-English-translation-of-a-popular-Japanese-novella kind of way. ***A Fatal Grace* by Louise Penny** Okay, second confession, Dear Reader: I listened to a mystery novel on audiobook during a road trip… and I really liked it. In October, we went on a long road trip up north for a few events with friends and some exploration. Leaving Quebec City and heading back toward Maine, I wanted to listen to something about Quebec. I was thinking non-fiction history, but Wendy didn’t see anything interesting on Libby, so instead she started playing book two in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series (she had read the first one already), which takes place in and around Montreal. It was a little slow and confusing at first since I hadn’t read the first one, but I got sucked in pretty quick and ended up finishing it on my own after we got back. ***The Accidental Garden* by Richard Mabey** Another gentle, relaxing, surprisingly compelling book about one man’s garden. Although... he's British... and the word 'garden' seems to mean something quite a bit more there than it does here (which I fully endorse, by the way). ***The American Revolution* by Ken Burns & Co. (PBS)** I’m two episodes into Ken Burns' latest doc and loving it. Out of all the films he's ever made, this is the one I've been most excited about watching. Colonial America is my favorite historical time/place and I really like the familiarity of a Ken Burns film. ***Klaus* (Netflix)** We watched this one again the other night, and it has officially taken a place in our holiday must-watch rotation. Beautiful artwork, funny, and a feel-good story about embracing a very imperfect place and working to make it better as a community. To me, it's the best of the Santa-Clause-origin-story movies. ***Nobody Wants This* – Season 2 (Netflix)** Still so good. I think this might be Wendy’s favorite show of all time, and one of a handful we both equally enjoy. ***Sanibel*** **(Prime)** A documentary about the island in Florida and the people whose lives were wrapped up in the seashell industry until the hurricane hit in 2022\. We’ve spent time on Sanibel several times over the years (I bicycled the length of the two islands, Sanibel and Captiva, a couple of times—not as impressive as it sounds, but a cool, fun ride), but haven’t been back since the hurricane, so the footage of the destruction was extra-shocking. --- ## What I’ve Been Up To I’ve been posting audiobook chapters on YouTube—one chapter per video. I’m trying this out as another way of pulling in potential readers/listeners/watchers for my books. Playlist here—[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwTbgAFqBcsyRbP0NJOQna2RNKz3Nwjkt](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwTbgAFqBcsyRbP0NJOQna2RNKz3Nwjkt&ref=nathanleegreen.com) I found another author who seems to be using YouTube really well to get people into his book series, and I recommend checking out his fantasy stuff— [**D. J. J. Watson’s channel**](https://www.youtube.com/@watsondjj/videos?ref=nathanleegreen.com) I only listened to the very beginning, so I can’t personally vouch for the series, but the narrator’s voice (AI-generated) is one of the most listenable(?) voices I have ever heard—real or artificial—so it’s worth checking out for that alone. *SKYTRAILS* is also available in these formats— - [Spotify audiobooks](https://open.spotify.com/show/4N7RjUjqGzO6nkiodYSW49?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - [Amazon paperbacks](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCDX4N63?binding=paperback&ref=nathanleegreen.com) - [Amazon ebooks](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCDX4N63?ref=nathanleegreen.com) So however you like to get your story fix, *SKYTRAILS* will meet you there. Unless you—like me—get most of your books from the library. I'm still working on libraries and bookstores. --- ## Two Small Favors 1. If you’ve enjoyed any of my books in any format, the best way to help me keep making things is incredibly simple... **• Share the** [**YouTube audiobook playlist**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwTbgAFqBcsyRbP0NJOQna2RNKz3Nwjkt&ref=nathanleegreen.com) **with a friend who might like it.** That’s it. No pressure. Just a quiet nudge. Word-of-mouth from readers like you makes a *huge* difference, and I’m really grateful every time it happens. 2. I'm looking for a good name for this email list and the readers who read my books. D. J. J. Watson, who I mentioned above, calls his list *The Legion.* The only thing I've been able to come up with so far is *Freedom Guard,* from *Greysuits.* But it doesn't even need to be something from one of my books, just something that sounds fun and is relevant to the types of stories I like to tell. --- That’s the update for this month. Fun stories, slow documentaries, a bit of history, and some new experiments in getting these books out into the world. Thanks for being here. ### paperback proofs patio URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/60/ Last updated: 2025-10-08T17:17:48.000Z *Welcome to the October 2025 edition of...* **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#60*** If you live in the northern hemisphere, welcome to Fall! If not, welcome to Spring! Or, if you live close to the equator, welcome to the same hot weather as the rest of the year. And finally, if you live close to the north or south pole... well... I'm sorry. Oh, and if you're currently living in space, please send photos. My boys would love to see your spacecraft. ### What I'm Up To I kept putting off last month's email because for a few weeks now I've been 'very close' to publishing paperback versions of the new trilogy. I'm going all out this time around, so I'm using Amazon's publishing tools, of course, but also a company called Ingram, which is *the* company for printing books in the U.S. I've learned if you want your books in libraries or bookstores (and I do, especially libraries), you *simply must* publish through Ingram, even if you also publish through Amazon or other book printers. Anyway, I still need to finalize things on the Ingram side, but on the Amazon front—which is what will matter to anyone reading this since per book costs to me *and* to you printing through Amazon are quite a bit cheaper than Ingram—the books are up and ready to buy. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/10/1C974BAA-097C-4DE5-A1D3-229F2D583723.JPG) The proofs pictured above (which I got in the mail on Saturday) were not quite up to par, so I made some changes to the covers, but they are symmetrical now and ready for anyone who's been waiting to buy *SKYTRAILS* until physical books were available. Have at it! The paperbacks are $9.99 each here in the U.S. on Amazon. I am a lifelong lover of physical books, especially paperbacks, so it means a lot to me to have them available as paperbacks and I'm super happy with how they've turned out. My friend Chris had the idea we should order a bunch of paperbacks of book one to drop off at little free libraries so hopefully people would check that one out and possibly buy the other two. Another friend, Darius, came up for a week and helped me a ton with the patio project. Actually he helped me way more than a ton, seeing as how we had 15 tons of sand and crushed rock delivered to our backyard and had to shovel it around and get it fairly level and then tamp it all down, plus finish the retaining wall and drainage pipes. I think it's safe to say it's the biggest DIY project I've ever taken on. Reminds me of that Nate Bargatze bit about digging a hole. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLcwTeJ7nk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKLcwTeJ7nk&ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### What I'm Into I recently watched a movie called *A Real Pain* about two Jewish American cousins played by Jesse Eisenberg (also wrote and directed) and Kieran Culkin who go to Poland to visit their late grandmother's house and take a Jewish heritage tour. Interesting, thought-provoking, funny, a little sad, very enjoyable. In a similar vein, I guess, I am reading a giant coffee table graphic novel called *The History Of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story Of 4,000 Years* by Vincent Lemire and Christophe Gaultier. I've been to Jerusalem twice and I thought I had a basic grasp of its history but I was wrong. What a place! What a past! It's been so wild and tumultuous, but with huge spans of relative peace and quiet. The shocking thing to me is not the city's history of violence, but for how much of its history Jews, Muslims, and Christians have lived together *without* feeling the need to kill one another. Also I'm impressed at the bravery of the authors for tackling such a complex and heated subject. I am also reading a book called *Play Nice* by Jason Schreier about the video game company, Blizzard, which has been responsible for so many of the games I've loved over the years. I think this is the third book I've read about video game companies (Nintendo and id Software being the other two) and it's fascinating because I spent so much time playing their games in my late teens and twenties but I never really knew or cared much what was happening behind the scenes. Turns out *A LOT* was happening behind the scenes. And finally, to wrap things up, congratulations to my brother Jeremy for running and very nearly completing a 100k race a few days ago. I am in awe and inspired. Not enough to, like, try and run farther... or faster... but, you know... in a warm fuzzy kind of way. ### SKYTRAILS is Complete//Niagara Falls URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/59/ Last updated: 2025-08-19T15:30:17.000Z Welcome to the August 2025 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#59*** IT'S DONE! On August 3rd, I finished the audio and final edits for the third book in the SKYTRAILS trilogy, *Return Of Spirits Lost*. The ebook went live on the 7th. [All three ebooks are up on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCDX4N63?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (exclusively, for now). I thought about sending an email on the 7th, but, for one thing, I've been sending a lot of emails this summer. And, for another thing, I was with my family at Niagara Falls on the day the ebook went live. ### Niagara Falls... With Style I've been wanting to do a real, all-the-frills Niagara Falls trip for years. We went once when Asher was a baby, but only stayed long enough to look at the view from the Canada side and get some food. This time, though, we did it all! We started on the New York side and did Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds (which would both make great fantasy novel titles). If you don't know, Maid of the Mist (and its Canadian opposite, Hornblower) are fleets of big, two-story boats that go right up next to Horseshoe Falls, which is the big U-shaped waterfall featured in most Niagara Falls photos. It is fun and definitely worth doing, but by the time you get close to the falls, you need a diving mask and snorkel to see anything. I guess that's why it's called Maid of the Mist, but it seems like Maid of the Torrential Downpour would be more fitting. Cave of the Winds is a walkway at the base of Bridal Veil Falls which has to be rebuilt every season. The part of the walkway closest to the falls is called the hurricane deck. Our son, Ezra, said being on the hurricane deck was the best thing he had ever done in his whole life. If you want to get the same effect at home, have someone stand on a ladder and spray a pressure washer at you while wearing a full body plastic poncho. The ponchos are included in the cost, but we all still got at least partially soaked with them on. Then we went to the Canada side and bought another combo pass which included Journey Behind the Falls, The Power Station (which is fairly new as an attraction and very interesting and included a long walk through a deep tunnel and lots of info about Tesla—the man, not the car company—who had a lot to do with bringing hydro-electric power to Niagara Falls and the world), the Whirpool Aerocar (still in operation after over a hundred years), the Whitewater Walk, and a butterfly observatory. Oh, and 2-day passes for the incline railway and the bus, both of which were pretty close to essential. So, yeah, we did all the things everyone is supposed to do when they go to Niagara Falls. And there's still a bunch of stuff left over to do next time. We also spent a few days in Toronto with family and did a quick tour of that fair city, and on the way back home we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass (where the glassblowing show, *Blown Away*, is filmed) for a couple hours. I learned way more about glass than I ever thought possible. All in all, great trip! We each walked away with 4 new ponchos. Well 3 new ponchos. The ones from Cave of the Winds were pretty much destroyed. So if you want to spend a lot of money on some souvenir ponchos, Niagara Falls is the place you ought to go. ### Currently Watching *The Gilded Age* on Max (or HBOGo or whatever they're calling themselves now) is by the same person/people who made *Downton Abbey*, according to reliable sources. I never got into *Downton*, and I saw enough of it to have gotten into it if I was going to get into it, but I am into *The Gilded Age*. It's about the rich families of 1880s New York (and Newport, Rhode Island, which I only mention because we went there once and toured one of the fancy gilded age beach homes called 'The Breakers') and the social politics of old money versus new money... and race, and gender, and freedom, and greed, and all the usual human drama. It's a little soap-opera-y, but not too much. If you're looking for something dramatic, but humorous, with a great cast, and serious-but-not-too-dark subject matter—I recommend checking it out. ### Currently Reading I finally finished *Hounded* (book one in the Iron Druid Chronicles) by Kevin Hearne and liked it! My friends were right. I plan to continue the series... eventually. Right now, I'm reading *Coyote America* by Dan Flores, about... well... coyotes. In America. Super interesting. Also, *Playground* by Richard Powers, about a handful of characters and how their lives intertwine with one another and with the ocean. ### Currently Quoting I went down a rabbit hole recently which led to some funny quotes about tea and coffee: "Tea and coffee have been more effective in containing the vice of drunkenness than all the teachings of the moralists and the learning of the Enlightenment." —Unknown "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." —Attributed to a 'distinguished citizen of North Carolina', 1840 (often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln) "The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of the time, even at breakfast, were weak ‘small beer’ and wine. … Those who drank coffee instead of alcohol began the day alert and stimulated, rather than relaxed and mildly inebriated, and the quality and quantity of their work improved. … Western Europe began to emerge from an alcoholic haze that had lasted for centuries." —Tom Standage, historian That first quote is apparently misattributed by the Corning Museum of Glass to Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, the comte de Mirabeau, a French Revolutionary statesman. But he seems like an interesting guy. Here are two authentic quotes from him: "Nothing baffles the schemes of evil people so much as the calm composure of great souls." And— “The little wisdom that the world possesses, was introduced by lunatics.” ### Ebooks + Audiobooks (+ Bonus Stuff) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/58/ Last updated: 2025-07-18T03:27:47.000Z Welcome to the July 2025 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#58*** Rather than bore you with tedious and unnecessary *words* about the **2025 Summer Book Launch Of Epic Awesomeness**, allow me to instead regale you with a few magical *'weblinks.'* First, links to all three *SKYTRAILS* ebooks on Amazon. As of today, the third book is officially up for pre-order! They are available to purchase individually, or to read as part of a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Soon, there will be a 'boxed' set, if you want to buy them as ebooks but prefer to wait for that. (Paperback editions will probably come sometime before Christmas.) The ebooks are $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99, in order of first to third, and the box set will probably be $4.99, so about a dollar cheaper for all 3 (in the U.S.—similar prices in other currencies). [Spirits Of The Brinaatii: SKYTRAILS Book One - Kindle edition by Green, Nathan Lee. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.Spirits Of The Brinaatii: SKYTRAILS Book One - Kindle edition by Green, Nathan Lee. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Spirits Of The Brinaatii: SKYTRAILS Book One.![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/faviconV2)Kindle edition by Green, Nathan Lee. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.Follow![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/thumbnail/ATVPDKIKX0DER-140-7133223-3996406-WH1YJ5B93TFR64KEGTCE-uedata-s--2Frd-2Fuedata-3Fstaticb-26id-3DWH1YJ5B93TFR64KEGTCE-0)](https://a.co/d/dHCHSUK?ref=nathanleegreen.com) [Amazon.com: Quest Of Kindred Spirits: A Fantasy Sci-Fi Epic (SKYTRAILS Book Two) eBook : Green, Nathan Lee: Kindle StoreAmazon.com: Quest Of Kindred Spirits: A Fantasy Sci-Fi Epic (SKYTRAILS Book Two) eBook : Green, Nathan Lee: Kindle Store![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/faviconV2-1)Follow![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/thumbnail/ATVPDKIKX0DER-135-4275708-0058654-WW5NQM30VMTFYATA84D6-uedata-s--2Frd-2Fuedata-3Fstaticb-26id-3DWW5NQM30VMTFYATA84D6-0)](https://a.co/d/cPV830J?ref=nathanleegreen.com) [Amazon.com: Return Of Spirits Lost: SKYTRAILS Book Three eBook : Green, Nathan Lee: Kindle StoreAmazon.com: Return Of Spirits Lost: SKYTRAILS Book Three eBook : Green, Nathan Lee: Kindle Store![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/icon/faviconV2-2)Follow![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/thumbnail/ATVPDKIKX0DER-133-8016820-7947745-T3CVM19SMJX90633M37H-uedata-s--2Frd-2Fuedata-3Fstaticb-26id-3DT3CVM19SMJX90633M37H-0)](https://a.co/d/euSjpVt?ref=nathanleegreen.com) These next two links are for the audiobook versions of Book 1 (*Spirits Of The Brinaatii*) and Book 2 (*Quest Of Kindred Spirits*) on Spotify. Other than an early experiment with Google's AI-generated-narration a couple years ago, this is the first time I have ever released an audiobook into the wild. Unfortunately, these will not be coming to Audible any time soon due to Audible's restrictions around third party AI voice narration. (You can listen to 5-minute samples of each to get a feel for the voice. I encourage listening at 1.2x speed, personally.) The rest of the links are for subscribers only and will only appear in the email version of this post. If you're reading this on the website, sign up for the newsletter already! I recently updated my welcome page for new people signing up to the newsletter and I realized some of you out there may need the link again to *GREYSUITS: Umberrica*, the free ebook many of you signed up to this newsletter for. (In the timeline, *Umberrica* comes just after *Greysuits* and just before *Skytrails*.) Also, I recently added some 'wallpaper' art for your phones, tablets, and computers from a stash of the very best AI-generated art that came out of the process of finding the right cover for Ghost\_Layer. It's honestly beautiful stuff and I'm happy to share it so it doesn't go to waste. As always, thanks for reading, thanks for following along, thanks for supporting in any way. I appreciate it all very much! ### Little Bits Of Progress On The Long And Winding Road URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/57/ Last updated: 2025-06-18T23:24:50.000Z Welcome to the June 2025 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#57*** Summer is here (officially, two days from now) and *SKYTRAILS* is in full launch mode. Book one, [*Spirits Of The Brinaatii*](https://www.amazon.com/Spirits-Brinaatii-Fantasy-Sci-Fi-SKYTRAILS-ebook/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com), is live in ebook form on Amazon. Aaaaaaaand, Book Two, [*Quest Of Kindred Spirits*](https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Kindred-Spirits-Fantasy-SKYTRAILS-ebook/dp/B0FCZNKZCF?ref=nathanleegreen.com), is up for pre-order, also as an Amazon ebook. I am slowly generating audiobook chapters one at a time. It's a time-consuming but rewarding process. Book one is done and book two is under way. For those of you who remember my experiment with Google's AI-narrated audiobooks a couple years ago with my *Ready-Player-One*\-esque novella, *Ghost\_Layer*, this is light years better than that was. It's actually really incredible. So that's what I've been up to. Generating audio narration chapter-by-chapter (it still requires work getting the right pronunciation and emphasis and a certain level of quality), getting things cleaned up and a little more marketable over on Amazon, seeing if anyone is still around to hear about the new books on social media platforms since I've been pretty absent the last few years (I think they've all gotten worse while I've been away—more ads and sponsored feeds, less actual interaction with friends), book cover designs and re-designs (Ghost\_Layer has an all-new cover using the image at the top of this email and I really love it), and sending emails to you all. Thanks for everyone's help buying the new books, reading/listening to them, leaving reviews, or even just following the journey! I appreciate your support! **And now, here's what I've been into...** (TV first, then bicycling.) *Murderbot* on Apple TV+ — I wrote about this series of novellas a while back when I was reading them and the new show does a great job capturing the mood and humor of the books. It's about an anti-social security bot who just wants to watch his space soap opera shows in peace, but has to keep saving the hippy humans he's been assigned to protect. *Long Way Home* on Apple TV+ — This is the fourth time Ewan McGregor and his buddy Charlie Boorman have done a Long Way trip/show together. This one's a big circuit around Europe on old motorbikes. We watch these shows as a family and talk about all the places in the world we want to go and explore. It's great. There's a family of five that goes by [Mali Mish](https://malimish.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) online who have been living in a van or camper truck for almost two decades and they've said they were initially inspired to begin their travels after watching *Long Way Round*. *Clarkson's Farm*, Season 3 on Amazon Prime — Jeremy Clarkson is a controversial figure, but boy does he make great television. It used to be cars and now it's farms and it's as funny and entertaining as ever. Seems like more cursing and crude humor and animal sex talk this season, which makes it a little cringier to watch as a family, but it's educational about what goes into running a farm in the 21st century and trying to make some kind of living at it. In addition to watching TV and building a patio and launching books, I've been riding my bike once a week on a long trail that starts close to where we live and goes north 40+ miles up into Pennsylvania. It used to be a railroad that connected Baltimore with York and there are signs all along the Maryland section that say something to the effect of, 'This used to be a big railroad town with a station and a hotel and some other buildings and now it's a quaint little farm town or just woods with nothing left at all but some old ruins.' It's interesting what happens to towns and cities over time. Anyway, I'm doing a few miles up and back each time, and each time starting from where I left off the last time. I'm into Pennsylvania now and in a few weeks I will finish the whole thing and then probably turn around and do it again going south. I'm loving it. And it's reinforcing for me one of the most important things I've learned since having kids and starting to write books. A tiny bit of work, consistently done, eventually leads to big accomplishments. ### (A) Quest Of Kindred Spirits URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/skytrails-quick-update-2/ Last updated: 2025-06-09T18:02:42.000Z ### Book One News [*Spirits Of The Brinaatii,* book one in the *SKYTRAILS* trilogy, is now live on Amazon!](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com) At long last. And the audiobook is approved for distribution, but no telling how long until it is live on Spotify (and the few other audiobook sites who will accept AI-narrated content). I will keep you posted. This past month has been very different for me as far as my 'job' goes. For the past forever, when I sit down to work on a book, it is generally either to write or to edit, or sometimes both at the same time. But these days I am working on audiobooks, tweaking covers and blurbs and front matter and back matter, and texting/emailing/social-media-ing various friends and family members to get the pre-orders and post-orders up so Amazon will pay attention and send some of their magic go-juice my way. And this email is part of all that fun. Yay! **If you'd like to help me get this book seen by as many potential readers as possible, here are the ways you can help—** - [**Buy the ebook on Amazon for 99 cents**](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - **Read the book and** [**leave a review on Goodreads**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234665032-spirits-of-the-brinaatii?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **or Amazon or both** - **Tell any friends who might be interested about it** - **Send me an encouraging email :)** ### Book Two News Well, I kind of spoiled the title reveal by using it as the subject/title of this email/blog post. But here's the cover (might still change a little before publication) in all its AI-generated/human-designed-and-refined glory... ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/06/QOKS-ebook-e.jpg) ### Pre-Order Spirits Of The Brinaatii! URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/pre-order-spirits-of-the-brinaatii/ Last updated: 2025-05-26T21:09:00.000Z > *Fear crept over men and children alike as the furious sound persisted.* This line was actually cut from a climactic scene towards the end of *Spirits Of The Brinaatii,* the first book in the *SKYTRAILS* novella trilogy. It's amazing how listening to an audio version of the book highlights problems I never noticed while editing the text. Anyway, I'm sending this email to announce [*Spirits Of The Brinaatii* is officially available for pre-order on Amazon for $0.99](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com). [![Screenshot: Spirits Of The Brinaatii available for pre-order on Amazon.com](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/05/SKYTRAILS-SotB-preorder-1.png)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com) What a deal! If you are able and interested, please help the book launch by pre-ordering *Spirits Of The Brinaatii* today— [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9HQR5XZ?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Thanks so much for your help and/or your attention! I don't take any of it for granted. —Nate ### Covers, Blurbs, and LitRPGs URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/covers-blurbs-and-litrpgs/ Last updated: 2025-05-18T11:55:04.000Z Welcome to the May 2025 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#56*** Hola Brave Reader, **I have lots of news about my upcoming novella series!** But first... ### ~~What I'm Into~~ What I'm Not Into But Should Be According To A Close Friend I don't have much to report about what I'm into because so much of my time lately has been spent on the upcoming book launch, digging out space for a new patio, and trying to spend time outside doing fun stuff, like riding bikes. But I was talking to a friend last night (who shall remain nameless in case he doesn't want these book recommendations tied to him) and he had a few books to recommend, many in the LitRPG genre. He listens to tons of audiobooks and has pretty high standards (the highest he rates anything on Goodreads is 4 stars... and very few books he reads get all 4), so when he recommends something I know it's solid. Do you know about LitRPG, by the way? It's a fascinating new-ish category that mixes aspects of video games with fantasy/sci-fi conventions. According to Wikipedia: *In LitRPG, game-like elements form an essential part of the story, and visible RPG statistics (for example strength, intelligence, damage) are a significant part of the reading experience.... Typically, the main character in a LitRPG novel is consciously interacting with the game or game-like world and attempting to progress within it.* So here are the books, in the order they were given to me. I believe they are all LitRPG except the first, which I think is considered urban fantasy. They are each the first book in a series: - [**Hounded* (The Iron Druid Chronicles #1)*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9533378-hounded?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Kevin Hearne - [***Paranoid Mage***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60555598-paranoid-mage?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Inadvisably Compelled - [***Dungeon Crawler Carl***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56791389-dungeon-crawler-carl?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Matt Dinniman - [***Beware of Chicken***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60888209-beware-of-chicken?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by CasualFarmer - [***The Perfect Run***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57065516-the-perfect-run?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Maxime J. Durand - [***Defiance of the Fall***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57866482-defiance-of-the-fall?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by TheFirstDefier / J.F. Brink - [***The Primal Hunter***](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60111529-the-primal-hunter?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Zogarth - [*Mother of Learning: ARC 1*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59661342-mother-of-learning?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Domagoj Kurmaić So, there you go! New books for your to-read list if you need some. ### What I'm Up To I'm finally just about ready to release *Skytrails* (again)! Is it perfect? No. Is it good enough? I certainly hope so. Is it time to put this story out into the world either way? Yes it is. I have made some important (and hopefully not catastrophic) decisions about how to launch this story into the world, which I will now enumerate for your reading pleasure. **First,** I will be releasing *Skytrails* as a series of three novellas. I plan to release one each month starting with book one, *Spirits Of The Brinaatii*, June 7th. **Second,** I am currently using an AI audio generation platform called ElevenLabs to narrate the audiobook version. If you have mixed or negative feelings about artists and creators using AI tools in their work, I understand. I am right there with you. But I am also a cheap opportunist and I believe AI tools will revolutionize the playing field for independent creatives in all kinds of fields... kind of like the internet did, for better and for worse. And, now that I've gone through my own existential crisis about the proliferation of intelligent tools, I'm having fun playing with them, and I'd rather be having fun with them than fearing them. **Third,** I don't know what the release schedule will look like yet for all these things, but I plan to release the trilogy as ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks, podcasts, youtube videos (audio with a static picture), and eventually hardcovers. Hopefully that way I can reach 'readers' in whatever medium they prefer to get their stories, and also not rely too heavily on any one format or website. Because, as we all know, websites are like stores in the mall—they come and they go. Or the entire mall, for that matter. **Fourth,** I am making new covers for these books, which is a part of the process I really enjoy—especially with those AI tools I was talking about earlier. I'm still tweaking the cover for book one, but I would really like you, Dear Readers, to be the first people to see it. So, here's the big reveal. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/05/Skytrails-01-rough.jpg) **Fifth,** I am working on new and better blurbs, which is the description of the book on it's Amazon-or-other-online-bookstore-product-page. You super readers out there will be very familiar with book blurbs. Here's what I've got so far for book one (also with the help of AI tools—specifically, Google Notebook). > **Enter the lands of the Brinaatii, where long forgotten secrets stir under the earth, peace is threatened by the relentless encroachment of settlers from across the sea, and ancient spirits appear out of the sky to wreak havoc.** > Sharn, a chief-in-training among his Kual'iidain tribe, grew up among the Minkaera people, colonists from another land who speak a different language and view the world in strange ways. He seeks harmony between his native people and the foreigners, but tensions escalate daily, fueled by mistrust and increasing violence. > Krii, Sharn’s adopted brother, escaped his reclusive Lin’n Draali people and their citadel under the mountain as a boy, but finds himself caught up in fights he does not want, about a mixed heritage he did not ask for. > The hunter-warrior Tenka, of the Raa'sii tribe, whose women hunt and raid while the men stay back to protect the village, is sent on a spiritual quest, only to receive a cryptic message about peace and a task beyond the world she knows. > Amid all these tensions, a spirit of legend appears in the sky and descends to the physical realm, unleashing chaos, and plunging the lands of the Brinaatii further into upheaval. > **Discover a world steeped in ancient mysteries, where the path to survival is anything but clear, and the choices of a few will determine the fate of many.** Because book one will go on sale before my next regularly scheduled monthly newsletter, I will be sending at least one other newsletter in-between to announce the preorder when it's up and running (I tried to set it up earlier today, but... I don't want to talk about it) and maybe another one on or around release day. It's great to have a newsletter like this where I can talk to myself about what I'm working on and know that at least a handful of people out in the world are following along with my stumbles and successes. As Wendy likes to say, 'We can do hard things.' And, while writing a book or series of books is definitely hard, launching them into the world with any kind of *ooomph* is even harder for me. If I could do it my way, I would post the books online without a word, probably without a price tag, and ~~millions~~ ~~hundreds of thousands~~ ~~thousands~~ hundreds of people would suddenly and inexplicably discover my work, throw money at me, and hail my genius from the rooftops. But not too loudly because I don't actually want to be *that* successful and certainly not famous, like poor George R. R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss, hounded by rabid fans eager for a conclusion to each of their infamous series til the end of their days. Anyway, thanks Brave Reader for following along on this journey! I'll talk to you again very soon. As my 9 year old said to my 12 year old yesterday, *Ta-ta!* ### Revisions & Computers URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/55/ Last updated: 2025-04-24T03:34:22.000Z Welcome to the April 2025 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#55** First off, ### Survey Contest Winners I'm happy to announce that Scott, Jim, and Lee all won signed copies of *Greysuits* which will undoubtedly be worth many ones of dollars until they are, one day, inevitably, donated to a thrift store and later driven to the dump or burned to make room for new boxes of old books cleaned out of someone's attic or basement or storage container. Until then, though, it looks great on a bookshelf! ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/04/Scott-won-signed-Greysuits.jpg) (Thanks for the photo, Scott!) Second, ### What I'm Up To Back in October, in the pixels of this very publication, I stated my intention to have *Skytrails* finished and published by the end of 2024\. Well, predictably, that did not happen. Which is why I hate setting deadlines for myself. Because I feel like such a failure when I don't make them, which happens as often as not. But, to be as kind to myself as I would be to anyone else, I can hold my head up high and say I've been whittling away at it—editing, revising, and even adding whole new chapters. My one and only beloved alpha reader is reading from the beginning and telling me which parts are too boring, confusing, or annoying. I'm making changes based on her feedback, then I plan to hand it off to a wider circle of beta readers. All of this takes so much time. And it takes me longer than most people. (When I was a kid, my parents used to say I was 'slow as Moses' or 'slow as molasses', depending on their mood, and in that way I have not changed much.) I've said before that this story (which I still call *Skytrails* even though that will probably be the title of book one and not the whole series—more on that below) is really important to me. Probably too important, actually. I'm probably holding it too tightly and treating it a little too precious. I've also said before that this story is a labor of love. The amount of time I've spent on it is beyond ridiculous. What do you call something that's beyond ridiculous? Ludicrous, maybe. It's ludicrous how much time I've spent on it! Anyway, I was only supposed to add a third part to complete the story, but I've ended up making major changes all the way through. Which is surprisingly difficult when it's a work that's been in progress for 10 years (in its current form—20 years since its most original inception), because the oldest chapters and paragraphs are so different than the newest stuff. And who I am now as a storyteller and writer is so different than when I was originally writing this stuff. But it is coming together, I promise, and I'm pretty excited to get some new people to read it who have never read any previous drafts. I have unpublished all the *Skytrails* books from all the online stores, I think, and I'm planning to publish it all fresh as new books in a new series on all platforms. Which I think is best, as last time around the handful of reviews, mostly on Amazon, were not great. (My fault, since I published it as a sequel to *Greysuits*, which was false advertising. Also it didn't really have an ending. Readers, including myself, tend to like an ending at the end of their books.) If you've read all this, you may be wondering why I'm no longer planning to publish the story as one book with the name *Skytrails,* as was the original plan. To be honest, I might still do that. But I'm also trying to view this as an opportunity to experiment. And three small books allow for much more experimentation than one medium-sized one. ### What I'm Into **Apple Laptops.** Okay, I know this one might seem like a stretch. And for some of you, this will cause uncontrollable shaking of the head and/or rolling of the eyes. Which I fully understand. But, let's take a journey... When I was a teenager, I was hopelessly nerdy. Unlike the more flamboyant nerds, I mostly kept my nerdiness to myself. (And still do.) I was into computers, role-playing games (reading the rulebooks more than actually playing), comic books, and video games. Today, it's cool to be into that stuff. When I was a teenager, it was just about as cool as wetting your pants. The first computer that lived in my room and which I treated as my own was given to me by one of my parents' coworkers. It was an Apple Macintosh. One of those early light grey boxes with a square screen and chunky mouse and keyboard. I mainly used it for the paint program. It bit the dust when another of my parents' coworkers borrowed it for a writing project. Later, we had a Packard Bell desktop computer, which I fully took over in late middle or early high school. I remember saving up and buying my first high speed modem. My friend Jon came over to help me install it. We liked to cruise the bulletin boards. Glory days. (I recently took a side trip with the family and a close friend into what has to be one of the last remaining dedicated brick-and-mortar computer stores left in America, [Micro Center](https://www.microcenter.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Even though I know next-to-nothing about modern computers, I instantly had this feeling of, like, *aaah, I'm home—these are my people.*) I took a self-imposed break from computers when my brain started thinking in WoRdS LiKe tHiS in 16 different colors—hard to believe now, but that was a trend. I was in too deep. When I got back into computers, the internet was in full bloom. We had websites now instead of bulletin board systems. I was more into multiplayer gaming with friends and a little less obsessed with the nuts and bolts and details of the machines and their operating systems. I still enjoyed fiddling and tweaking, but mostly as it pertained to playing and having fun. Eventually, I grew up and got married. Soon after, we had an opportunity to move to Thailand with a non-profit (and non-paying) organization and went for it. (Moving to the other side of the world during the first year of marriage: would not recommend. Also: no regrets.) It was in Thailand I first encountered something like an Apple Store at the local mall. This was 2004, and it was more like a kiosk, but those shiny, white iBooks with their curved edges looked so cool. Even back then, Apple had an amazing ability to make you want their stuff. Those laptops seemed so much more exciting than the boring black box we watched DVDs on every night, and on which I was learning to build websites using HTML and CSS, and keeping up with our friends on MySpace and a self-hosted forum I set up while away from home. (Are you getting the level of nerdiness now?) I came close to buying a used iBook then, on Craigslist I think, from a fellow expat (**expat*—informal; noun; short for expatriate; a person who lives outside their native country*). But we couldn't justify the $800 price tag. That was like 200 meals in Thailand! Or 4 months rent! A couple years later, we were overseas again, this time in Jerusalem. We were students in a school run by a different non-profit organization, and, in order to finish up our end-of-school projects, I borrowed another student's adorable little 12" Apple Powerbook. I was smitten. With the computer, not the other student. After we returned to the States from that trip, we worked and saved up some money and found the same adorable little aluminum 12" Powerbook G4 on Ebay and we bought it and never looked back. It's been Apple laptops ever since. Skipping ahead several generations of computers—all the way to the present—I got the itch recently to upgrade to a new laptop. Did I need a new laptop? No. Was my current computer doing a totally satisfactory job with all the things I needed it to do? Yes, absolutely. Had it slipped up with some weird and slightly concerning behaviors recently, like booting up to just an icon of a hard drive with a slash through it, or suddenly making very loud rattling noises? Sure, here and there. Has it been over ten years since we last bought a computer? Well, yeah. Did we just file our taxes and discover we'd be getting a decent tax return this year due to buying a house last year? Yeah, as if that has anything to do with the weighty and adult decision of purchasing a very useful and versatile *tool*. Geez... (Also, are we worried tariffs might make all big purchases much more expensive in the near future? Aren't we all?) So after months of researching and discussing and agonizing, I finally pulled the trigger (with Wendy's blessing) and bought an Apple Certified Refurbished 13" M3 MacBook Air. Whew. I can't believe it. I'm typing on it right now and I love it. What continues to astonish me about Apple as a company, is, even after Steve Jobs, they have maintained the essential recipe that made them great in the first place. Well designed, beautiful, intuitive products that get faster, sleeker, and more capable from one iteration to the next (with, from time to time, some mishaps). I keep waiting for them to screw it all up, like big time, and while I think they have occasionally dipped their toes in that murky water, I continue to like Apple stuff so much more than the competition. Even my Windows-for-life friend is starting to give in. Anyway, there is my Apple computers love story. If we were talking about the iPod, the iPhone, or the iPad, that would be my wife's story and I wouldn't be able to do it justice. But for me, it's their computers I still love most. ### So Nice That It Matters So Little URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/54/ Last updated: 2025-03-18T13:00:45.000Z Welcome to the March 2025 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#54** Thank you so much to everyone who filled out the survey I sent last month! I really appreciate your time and I hope the dystopian vibes for the second and third wave of responders were not too off-putting. The idea of sending out follow-up emails about the survey gave me the same kinds of feelings as pointing a nail gun at my foot, trying to decide whether to pull the trigger or not. I wasn't excited about it. I decided to try and have some fun with it by inventing a narrative inspired by the show, *Severance*, and just my general anxiety about the state of the world right now. (Strangely, taking on the persona of an evil authoritarian regime helped calm my fears around actual evil authoritarian regimes. I think Batman said something similar one time—become scarier than the thing you fear, or something like that.) Anyone interested in the survey results? Great, me too! I currently have 115 newsletter subscribers. Normal open rates—assuming any level of accuracy, which is a pretty big assumption these days—are usually between 50 and 60 percent. 22 subscribers completed the survey. That's just under 20 percent, which might not sound like much but common wisdom says a good newsletter response rate is 10 percent. So I'm happy with 20. Now, to the survey answers. Some of my favorite spirit animals included: *Honey Badger, Whale Shark, African Pigmy Hedgehog* (so specific), *Frigatebird* (never heard of it, but fascinating), *Narwhal,* and *Perpetually Exhausted Pigeon* (such a great mental image). Also, something called a *Kumodopus.* 14% of respondents were 18 to 29 years old. 40% were 30 to 49\. 32% were 50 to 69 and 14% were 70+. Most respondents were from the good old U. S. of A., but others were from such exotic locales as Uruguay, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 29% were female, 66% male. (If you're concerned about that math, 5% preferred not to say.) These next numbers kind of blew me away. The amount of books people read each year broke down as... 0 to 11 books - 22% 12 to 23 books - 18% 24 to 35 books - 14% **36 to 47 books - 23%** ***48 to 99 books - 23%*** I really need to up my reading game. And finally, how do people prefer to read their books? - 11 people marked ebooks as their number one most preferred reading method. - 8 people prefer physical books to all else. - And a measly 3 people prefer audiobooks. There were some other great, very helpful answers in there which I need to spend some time looking into: authors I did not know about, like E. E. Smith (two people mentioned him alongside Robert Heinlein), influencers I've never heard of, like Nerdforge (who are these strange people?), and websites, like Early Bird Books (ooh, ebook deals, interesting), and trends, like #BookTok (which I've heard of, but never actually looked into). So thanks again, everyone! Super happy with the results of the first ever, possibly last, newsletter subscriber survey. ### In other news... F1 is back! And better(?) than ever! I'm not going to bore you with facts and tales of Formula One drama. Mostly I just wanted to comment on how great it is to have something in my life—which I really do love and spend not-insignificant amounts of time on—that really and truly does not matter. At all. I used to not understand why people liked watching sports. Like, who cares who wins. They're just going to play again next week, or next year. Why get so emotionally invested? But, with my newfound love of this ridiculously high-stress, high-dollar, high-stakes, high-drama world of F1, I get it. It's a form of escape, like any other. But it's also unscripted. I can get away from the feeling I'm being emotionally manipulated by a really clever group of storytellers. There are no writers or directors out there who know how the plot will unfold. (Unless it's all a massive conspiracy, in which case I'd probably just rather not know.) And so many people are invested, year after year after year. Millions of other fans, ten teams, twenty drivers, and everyone who works to make the whole thing happen. We're all in this world together, following the same news, interested in the same stuff. It's so great to be so into it. And also, to know it's all ultimately meaningless. There's something extremely comforting having at least one thing in life like that. Happy March, everyone! ### Final Survey Dispatch URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/survey-dispatch-3/ Last updated: 2025-03-11T18:03:06.000Z \[Begin Dispatch\] Hello, Dear Citizen, and good day to you! This is a final friendly reminder from B.O.A.R.—your Beloved Overlord Authoritarian Regime—about the Subscriber Survey recently sent to you by electronic mail services. If you have already completed the survey, Well Done! We value your contribution to the ongoing WORK, and have many wonderful rewards of Praise and Kind Thoughts to send you! If you have not completed the Subscriber Survey, available to all Dear Citizens, well then—please be aware of a possible prize for your cooperation *insert happy face \[😄\].* Three *insert object of value* \[Signed Copies of Highly-Rated BOOK\] will be awarded to Good Citizens, chosen with our Ultra-Secure Fair And Random Selection Device! You may be a Lucky Winner! To complete the Survey, carefully and securely click or tap the Link provided below. Alternatively, see the original electronic mail containing the survey. Either method *will work*! [https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN](https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN?ref=nathanleegreen.com) This is your final reminder, Dear Citizen. Opportunities for possible rewards and prizes will cease on the 17th day of the month, March, of the year 2025. Non-contributors may face severe consequences for non-contributing. We value your contribution. \[End Dispatch\] ### Survey Dispatch 2/3 URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/survey-dispatch-2/ Last updated: 2025-02-27T18:16:30.000Z \[Begin Dispatch\] Hello, Dear Citizen, and good day to you! This is a friendly reminder from B.O.A.R.—your Beloved Overlord Authoritarian Regime—about the Subscriber Survey recently sent to you by electronic mail services. If you have already completed the survey, Well Done! We value your contribution to the ongoing WORK, and have many wonderful rewards of Praise and Kind Thoughts to send you! If you have not completed the Subscriber Survey, available to all Dear Citizens, well then—please be aware of a possible prize for your cooperation *insert happy face.* Three *insert object of value* will be awarded to Good Citizens, chosen with our Ultra-Secure Fair And Random Selection Device! You may be a Lucky Winner! To complete the Survey, carefully and securely click or tap the Link provided below. Alternatively, see the original electronic mail containing the survey. Either method will work! [https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN](https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN?ref=nathanleegreen.com) You will receive one more reminder, Dear Citizen, and then the Subscriber Survey and all possible rewards and prizes will cease. Non-contributors may face severe consequences for non-contributing. We value your contribution. \[End Dispatch\] ### Help! My First Survey Ever... URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/53/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T01:18:25.000Z Welcome to the February 2025 edition of... **~~What I'm Into, What I'm Up To~~ What I'm Asking YOU!** ***#53*** Welcome brave readers to mid-February and a special survey edition of this almost-prestigious newsletter! Sometimes I fill out online surveys and sometimes I don't. It depends on my mood and who's asking and what's in it for me. So to help dull the pain of this huge request, I'm offering a choice and a possible reward... ### Your Choice **Option 1—**Click the link below to fill out the 'official' survey on Tally, which is pretty quick and easy for you and great for me (auto-organized). **Option 2—**Reply to this email with your survey answers below, which for some of you will be easier (because you don't have to leave your email app), and will still be good for me (a little copying and pasting never killed anyone). ### Your (Possible) Reward **Three lucky winners** of a names-in-a-hat drawing will get **a signed copy of the paperback edition of *Greysuits*!** (In case anyone is worried about favoritism or foul play, my kids will be the ones picking the names out of the hat. They are extremely concerned with issues of fairness and justice.) *\*If you already own a paperback copy of* Greysuits *(you're the one!), let me know—I have something else for you.* ### The Survey Click this link to fill out the 15 easy questions on the 'official' Tally online survey: [https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN](https://tally.so/r/3lMRpN?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **OR...** delete my answers from the 14 easy questions below and fill in your own in... 3... 2... 1... go! 1. **Question:** What is your favorite animal/spirit animal? **Answer:** Sloth/octopus hybrid... sloctopus 2. **Q:** What is your first name? **A:** Nate 3. **Q:** What is your age or age range? **A:** 44 4. **Q:** In which country do you currently live? **A:** USA, east coast 5. **Q:** Female/Male/Other/Confidential? **A:** Male 6. **Q:** How many books do you read in a year? **A:** 24ish 7. **Q:** Who are 3 of your favorite authors right now (or of all time)? **A:** Current - Hayao Miyazaki, J. K. Rowling, Rob Bell; Retired from life - Tolkien, Lewis, Herbert 8. **Q:** What genres/sub-genres do you mostly stick to? **A:** Non-fiction (religion, history, memoir, how-to, self-help) and Sci-fi 9. **Q:** Any other genres/sub-genres you've been known to dabble in? **A:** fantasy, children's books (3 kids), graphic novels (superhero, manga), I especially like fantasy/sci-fi hybrids and sci-fi that feels like fantasy 10. **Q:** How do you rank your preferred book formats—ebook, audiobook, physical? **A:** Physical, then audiobook, then ebook 11. **Q:** How do you find new books/series/authors to read? **A:** Library, podcasts, friends, Goodreads 12. **Q:** Where do you buy/borrow/download/get most of your books? **A:** Local library, Libby app 13. **Q:** Which online platform is most helpful to you in your reading/book-loving life? **A:** Goodreads 14. **Q:** Are there any online influencers who help you find new books/series/authors? **A:** Tim Ferriss, Joanna Penn And that is it for the first annual subscriber survey. I really appreciate you taking the time to help—you are the very best of the crop, the cream of the soup! Take care and have a great one! I'll talk to you soon... —Nate ### Loneliness URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/52/ Last updated: 2025-01-18T05:56:12.000Z Welcome to the January 2025 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To!** ***#52*** Welcome, Brave Reader, to a whole new year! It's going to be a good one, right? Maybe not good for everyone, everywhere, every day—that might be a little unrealistic given the current condition of the world we live in. But, as much as it is up to me, I'm going to make this a good year. At least, I'm going to give it my best shot. Have you seen headlines about the loneliness epidemic? The Atlantic published an article called *The Anti-Social Century*, subtitled 'Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.' When we moved to our new home this summer, I came with the intention to make friends, hang out, and get involved. My personality is not geared toward any of that, but in the past four years since the pandemic, I experienced more loneliness more consistently than any prior season of my life. I think it was only our frequent trips to see friends and family in other places, especially once the Covid threat died down, that kept me sane. And that was living in a house with four other people and two cats. I found out I can be around my family and still feel lonely, especially during times when they are in school and at work. Knowing we'd all be together at the end of the day definitely helped, but loneliness is a feeling—you can't measure one person's against another, or one day's against another day's, or the conditions of this loneliness versus the conditions of that loneliness. Being alone can feel good, even great, but loneliness as a feeling never feels good. And sometimes there is a fine line between the two. Anyway, moving here with the intention to make friends, and getting into that mindset in the year or so before we moved, definitely made a difference to how we've hit the ground here. But—and this is often the case in my life—the universe has conspired to bring about the thing I wanted and decided I would work toward almost without me having to lift a finger. Almost exactly a year before we moved, and way before we had any idea we'd be moving to this part of the country, I went to an event in Pennsylvania. It was only two days, Saturday and Sunday, but every session I sat next to the same guy. We only talked a few minutes, but he told me his name was John and he was from Baltimore. I talked to other people at the event more than I talked to him, but he was the only person I exchanged contact info with at the end. This was the kind of event where you get the impression anyone who is also there is probably the kind of person you could be friends with. Once we found out we were moving to—of all places—Baltimore, I reached out to John. He and his wife started giving us great info and tips on the area. Then they set us up with their realtor (who was fantastic and helped us find and buy our house). We met up with them on our house-hunting trip and, though they live in another town about 25 minutes away, we still get together once or twice a month. Then, not long after we moved in, a neighbor Kate came over with her two kids and cookies and introduced herself. She said they were excited to have more kids in the neighborhood. Our kids started hanging out with their kids, a little tentatively at first, and eventually they connected us to other families in the neighborhood. And then somehow we connected with more families and brought them into the 'neighbors with kids' loop, and they brought in some other neighbors and before we knew it, we were part of a texting chain with ten other parents, and our kids now have ten other kids in the neighborhood they hang out with on a regular basis. They all went sledding together last weekend and the weekend before. I don't know how that sounds to you, but it seems crazy that in the year of our Lord, 2025, we would be part of a neighborhood where so many people know each other and are friendly and hang out and send their kids to each other's houses to hang out. Like, what? That's some idealized 1950s small-town America stuff that everyone thinks should happen these days but which no one actually believes does or can happen. And yet, here we are. Loneliness is real. And loneliness since the pandemic is especially real. If you find yourself feeling lonely, and want things to begin to change, I believe you have to decide with some level of conviction you want change in your life... and probably put yourself out there a little more than you'd like... but if you are willing to put in an ounce of effort, I believe the universe will trade you back a pound of reward. That's probably true of a lot of things, but especially when your desire is for more friendship/community/fellowship in your life and in the world, I believe God/the universe/the underlying divine impulse of all life very much wants the same thing and will help you get/discover/create/grow/shape it. Here are a few tips I've picked up along the way, and which I will repeat for myself now, since I often forget— 1. Don't be picky about who you call friend. Sometimes the people you want to be friends with aren't necessarily the people you need to be friends with, or people who are looking for friends, and the ones you aren't initially drawn to could be turn out to be the best friend(s) you ever had. 2. Don't try to control the process too much. You aren't perfect, your home is not perfect, your family is not perfect, nothing is perfect... try to accept the condition you are in and allow other people to accept it too. If they can't then they are not people you should hang out with. And it goes the other way too. 3. If in doubt about how to begin, start with an invitation to coffee/tea or lunch with an individual, then move on to dinner out or at your place with them and their significant other or family, if applicable. Inviting people to your house can be super awkward, but some of our closest friends came from doing just that. 4. Most of us live in a culture of one-and-done with this kind of stuff, so you need to continue putting the invitation out if you want to go deeper and get more comfortable and make hanging out a pattern instead of a one-time thing. 5. If you can swing it, hosting dinner once a week or twice a month for several friends or neighbors can be life-changing. We did that from 2009 to 2016 and it was one of the best things we ever did. We're trying to start it up again. 6. I find keeping the TV off when people come over to be super helpful for conversation, unless the point of hanging out is to watch something specific. Go for music at a relaxing volume instead. If you're really bold, make people check their phones at the door too. 7. Get to know more people, join a club or group, go to events, try to strike up conversations. In other words, spread out your socializing among different people or groups of people, don't be afraid to add people to your social circle—you don't want all your eggs in one basket. 8. Speaking of events, if you're looking for a monthly event to attend full of really interesting and cool people, look up Creative Mornings and see if there's a chapter near you. It's free, once a month, in person, and—I find—worth the social anxiety. Wrapping up this email, here's a stack of books I'm reading at the moment, along with two cats and some half-dead plants. I also read a graphic non-fiction book last month about the friendship between C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien called *The Mythmakers.* Check that one out if you are interested in the godfathers of fantasy fiction as we know it. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2025/01/IMG_9989.jpg) Happy New Year! All the best to you and yours in 2025! ### Rugged—A Mid-Winter's Tale: Part One URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/51/ Last updated: 2024-12-22T05:04:20.000Z Welcome to the December 2024 edition of... **~~What I'm Into, What I'm Up To!~~ Story time.** ***#51*** Welcome brave readers to another monthly installment of the NLG email-cast, this month with a decidedly fictional twist. While I recover from pneumonia and shingles (can't wait to see which flavor is next in my sickness-of-the-month membership), I present: ***Rugged—A Mid-Winter's Tale: Part One*** A grizzly old man stares out at a bright, frosty world of white and grey. Occasionally, a shred of brilliant blue peaks through, quickly swallowed in dark, swirling cloud. The old man stands upon the outside deck of a small, steeply-angled cabin at the top of a snow-covered and nearly treeless hill. Snow sticks to his woolen cap. His grey beard is half-frozen, the texture and hardness of an old tree. He makes a sound, an appraising, *Mmmmmm,* a noise which says in one syllable: this is worse than I hoped but about what I expected, and the last thing I need, but also a bit thrilling in the way I like, and am used to. He is joined by a smallish figure. Out from the door of the shadowy cabin, the smallish figure sidles up beside the old man. It is portly, be-goggled, and pointy-eared. He—for, as you will soon see, the figure is most certainly of a male-ish persuasion—is mustachioed. The mustache is long and twirly, nearly black but peppered with a bit of grey, and nearly concealed by a thin shelf of quickly accumulating snow. The smallish, male-ish figure wears a coat of some giant beast's dark hide, smooth and blackish-brown without, luxuriously thick and gold-furred within. A brown belt—buckled with a dull, yet sizable, bronze buckle—holds the immense coat firmly in place around a boisterous belly. An oversized hatchet hangs from the belt, attached by some clever hanging holster. Another figure joins these two upon the small deck, overlooking the vast expanse of subarctic wilderness. This one is of a similar stature to the portly and mustachioed person, a few hairs shorter maybe, but decidedly less well-indulged in the stomach-al region. A she-version of the aforementioned he-version of the small and pointy-eared people of the Northern Wilds, of which little is known and less recorded. She is covered in similar garb to the mustachioed one, but her overcoat is a pinkish color, possibly faded from an earlier and over-optimistic dark red. She is be-goggled, too, but not mustachioed. She wears a purply-blue woolen cap, out from which flow locks of a most enchanting silvery-white, some free-stranded and some thickly-braided. Slung over her shoulder is a quiver and a bow, tall and dignified and well-crafted by some expert bow-craft, arrows fletched in blue feathers by some expert arrowsmith, arrowheads presumably of deadly dangerous sharp-ity, arrow shafts most probably of a very high tensile strength. *Mmmmmmm,* the grizzly old man says again, meaning much the same as in his first utterance. He is procrastinating now. 'The *beariboo* are ready,' says the she-version of the small and pointy-eared people of the Northern Wilds, of which little is known and less recorded. The grizzly old man says, without turning his face, 'Thank you, No'zarita.' 'Your bundle of supplies and The Unmentionable Thing are all packed, fully loaded and heavy laden. Too heavy, if you ask me, but it's all as you requested,' says the mustachioed he-version of the small and pointy-eared people of the Northern Wilds, of which little is known and less recorded. 'Thank you, Griz'mallow,' says the grizzly old man, without even a sideways glance. The trio stand upon the deck of rough-cut logs, scouring the wild vast yonder before them, knowing the challenges they must brave to cut through that scenic but inhospitable view and come out the other side, far away, in lands so unseeable from this vantage as to seem almost outside the bounds of reality. The journey, painful and dangerous and woefully uncomfortable as it will be, must be made. And it must be made by them. And it must be made soon. The sooner, the better, really. 'Sir—' Griz'mallow begins. 'I am warming myself to the task at hand,' the grizzly old man says, neither turning left nor right as he says it. 'Right, it's just—' 'Let us be off, Griz! No more of this standing about. You know how much I hate and despise putting off a hard job which needs immediate doing.' 'Of course.' The grizzly old man takes one last, lingering look across the icy expanse, imprinting the beautiful terribleness of it upon the canvas of his mind. 'If a thing needs doing,' he says, turning to his left and walking across the deck of rough-cut logs, down steps of well-placed stone, 'I abhor waiting any longer than necessary to do what needs to be done, as you both know very well.' 'Aye,' says No'zarita, 'That we do, that we do.' She turns and winks at Griz'mallow, their eyes meeting momentarily as they follow the grizzly old man across the deck and down the steps, toward the *beariboo* stable. Griz'mallow takes No'zarita's hand in his, so in love with her is he, he cannot bear to be unhanded from her for more than an hour at a time, inconvenient as this sometimes is. No'zarita smiles. Griz'mallow might be smiling, or he might not. His smiles are almost indiscernible under his magnificent mustache, and because of his male-ish impulse to show very little emotion when in the company of other men, especially the grizzly old man, who is decidedly more grizzly and more old than any other they know. They walk to the beariboo stable, where the great, grey beariboo wait. Normally the great, grey beariboo frolic and hunt fish in the bright cold river, sometimes having to break through ice with their massive paws in order to grab quick-swimming fish in their sharp-toothed jaws. Now, however, several beariboo wait patiently and quietly because they are saddled and ready for a journey. When they are so saddled, they get excited. But despite their excitement, they maintain a quiet and steady demeanor, for they know their responsibility and their purpose and take these things very seriously. 'Ho there, Skallymanderous,' the old man says to the greatest and greyest of all the beariboo currently alive in the northern subartic wilds, which is their native and really only habitat as everyone who knows about them knows full well. The great, grey, and wild beast stands about the height of a good-size horse. The very rare beariboo are very bear-like in appearance, except for the majestic set of velvety antlers which extend from the top of their heads in much the same style as caribou (also known as reindeer). Skallymanderous the giant beariboo shakes its shaggy mane, lowers its head in front of the grizzly old man who strokes its neck and nose. 'That's a good lad,' the old man says. Skallymanderous grunts. Two other beariboo wait nearby. One, now seeing the three riders and unable to properly contain its excitement any longer, stands and leans its paws upon the gate. It points its nose up in the air, waiting to be scratched around the neck. No'zarita reaches high, but can only get to the beariboo's upper front legs. This beariboo is the silvery-est of the bunch. 'Hello, Sarium,' says No'zarita. 'You ready for an adventure?' Sarium the silvery beariboo rounds her head and lets her forepaws fall back to the ground with a grunt. No'zarita opens the gate, walks through, puts one boot into the stirrup attached to Sarium's saddle, hoofs herself up onto the saddle in one fluid motion. 'Don't know about you four,' No'zarita says, smiling, 'But us two are more than ready.' She clutches the reins and Sarium pads in a wide circle, then out through the gate. 'Come, Brillium,' says Griz'mallow, 'Our wives make us look bad.' The last of the three saddled and readied beariboo stalks over to Griz'mallow, who is half the beariboo's height. Brillium is darker than the other two. Charcoal streaks run along and through the bearibou's luxurious long hair. Griz'mallow strokes Brillium several times along his jaw and chin, then climbs up onto the animal in a somewhat less graceful maneuver than No'zarita, but just as successful in the end. The grizzly old man does not partake in the banter, nor does he show any good humor about his companion's comments. His eyes are like flint, the line of his mouth horizontal and unwavering behind the thick, hard beard and mustache. Instead of going through the stable gate and riding his beariboo out of it like his companions have done, he waits for Skallymanderous the greatest of all beariboo to come to him, then closes the gate behind it. The old man hauls the great bundle which Griz'mallow has prepared, but was unable to lift, up onto the back of Skallymanderous, the greatest and greyest of beariboo, buckles and cinches the straps of the bundle around Skallymanderous's wide belly, and climbs slow and quiet onto the wild beast's back. These two—old man and great, grey beariboo—have ridden together since the world was young. They are in no huge hurry to race or impress anyone, unless it be themselves or each other. The grizzly old man pulls the hood of his overcoat up over his head, tightens it, and, without looking to the left or right, says, 'We are away, then. Ho!' This last word he says so loudly it reverberates across the hill and valley. Two big snow owls take flight at the sound and an arctic fox scampers into the woods. The three riders, led by the largest and oldest, ride their beariboo past the cabin, down the steep hill, and into the the vast expanse of subarctic wilderness—a bright, frosty world of white and grey. *To be continued...* *(probably next December)* ***Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays, everyone!*** ### Nobody Wants Slow Transformers Of The Forest URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/50/ Last updated: 2024-11-19T02:09:56.000Z Welcome to the November 2024 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To!** ***#50*** Let's not talk politics, shall we? Wonderful. Last night, we celebrated a neighborhood Friendsgiving, which is a made-up holiday which I would have sworn was started or at least made popular by the show Friends, but I would have been wrong [according to Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/friendsgiving-meaning?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (like they know anything). It's an unusually warm Mid-November day here, high of 68 Fahrenheit. The sun is shining, the sky is a pale shade of blue streaked with those kinds of clouds that look like sand art in a glass box. It's lovely, which is a word I don't use in real life, and will be made even more lovely when I go pick up a picnic table at Home Depot later today (if all goes according to plan). Yes, I agree, it is getting a little cold for picnics. But in our front yard, next to the driveway, there is a flat paved rectangle. I don't know what the previous owners used it for, but it's a spot that gets tons of southern sun, so I think it will be a perfect spot for a picnic table. And they are on sale at the Depot for $70, which is probably cheaper than the wood it would take to build one. ### What I'm Into ***Transformers One* (Paramount+)** is surprisingly good. I've kind of given up on the whole Trasformers franchise but the kids wanted to watch this one and I couldn't believe how much we all liked it. And how much we laughed too. ***The Butcher Of The Forest* by Premee Mohamed** is a pretty dark story compared to most things I read, but it's a small novella with a beautiful cover Wendy picked up from the library. I ended up reading it over the course of a week or two. The author did an amazing job with the word count she used. Books this size are right up my alley right now, so if you have any suggestions for great short novellas, let me know! ***Nobody Wants This* (Netflix)** is such a funny show. Kristen Bell's character co-hosts a podcast about sex and dating and falls in love with a rabbi. Worlds collide to incredible comedic effect. ***A Book of Balance: Kogi Wisdom for a Good Life and Thriving Earth* by Lucas Buchholz** is probably the kind of book the world needs right now. There are tons of books where we, as modern WEIRD people ('Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic,' an acronym coined by Joseph Henrich, author of *The WEIRDEST People In The World*) tell ourselves we need to change, simplify, slow down, take care of the earth and each other. This is a book where a group of indigenous people in the Sierra Nevadas tell us how they live, and an author who is one of 'us' translates that wisdom for the modern world. Especially of note was a passage near the end where the author talked about how we cannot keep living the way we are living, because it's so unsustainable, and we also cannot go back and live the way people like the Kogi live, which we would consider a 'primitive' and uncomfortable lifestyle, so we have to find or create a third way, which stops allowing greed to dictate so many of the decisions we as societies make for ourselves and our future. Super interesting. ***Slow Horses* (Apple TV+)** is a great British spy thriller show, if you're into that kind of thing. Gary Oldman plays a grumpy old spy, who leads a group of outcasts who have been kicked out of the real spy world to do all the tedious stuff no one else wants to do, but who end up saving the world (or at least someone's life) every season anyway. ***Liberty* by Julian Voloj and Jorg Hartmann** is a beautifully illustrated non-fiction graphic novel about the idea for, design of, and eventual construction of the Statue of Liberty. After reading this, you can't help but be amazed the thing was ever built at all. It goes to show what one person with a dream and a tenacious refusal to give up on it can accomplish. ### What I'm Up To Editing, editing, editing. I had pneumonia recently (feeling much better now, thanks, still coughing way more than I like). In the midst of the worst of it, I was thinking about *Skytrails* and I had a little bit of a mental breakthrough about how to simplify the story and earn a good ending. I'm still trying to figure out if the breakthrough doesn't actually create more problems than it solves, which is always a danger with big changes in a story, but I'm optimistic. P.s. Got the picnic table, and it is majestic! ### Editing The Rings Of Hail Mary URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/49/ Last updated: 2024-10-18T03:50:08.000Z Welcome to the October 2024 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To** ***#49*** ### What I'm Into - ***The Rings Of Power* Season 2 (Amazon Prime)** I know this is probably a controversial opinion, but I really like this show. I was not extremely into the story during Season 1, but I really liked being back in Middle Earth so I went along for the ride. And obviously, very high production value for the most expensive show ever made. But Season 2 has upped the game for me, especially in its second half. If you've been on the fence about watching it, take the plunge. Oh, I should confess, I've never read *The Silmarillion* or the hundreds of pages of appendices in *The Lord Of The Rings*, so I was much less invested in Tolkien's cannon of events and characters and things, which helps in liking the show since it seems to break cannon quite a bit to condense thousands of years of events and drama into several seasons of television. - ***Project Hail Mary* by Andy Weir** They're making a movie out of this, probably to try and capture some of that financial magic *The Martian* generated. Christopher Miller and Phil Lord will direct. Between the Lego movies and the Spider-verse movies, I'll watch anything those two guys are creatively involved in. And Ryan Gosling in the lead role doesn't hurt either. The book feels a lot like *The Martian*, with all the math, engineering, problem-solving, and humor, but a few steps further into the speculative side of speculative fiction. I really liked it, for all the reasons I liked *The Martian*, and was equally surprised about liking it in all the ways I was surprised about liking *The Martian*. A lot of the criticism [on Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-mary?ref=nathanleegreen.com) boils down to: 'It wasn't a realistic story.' For me, any time an author ventures into wild what-if scenarios, they are going out on a limb one way or another. In *Project Hail Mary*, Andy Weir makes a bunch of world-building decisions that support his unique strengths as a storyteller, and I was all in. - ***Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind,* Volume 7 by Hayao Miyazaki** I am nearing the end of this long manga journey, and so far the final book is as beautiful and rich and intriguing as all the ones before it. Once I finish, I plan to go back and watch the film to see how it compares and how many storylines they had to cut to fit a film-length runtime. ### What I'm Up To I am onto the editing stage for the newly revised (again) *Skytrails* book. What else can I say, except this is obviously a labor of love because there is no other foreseeable reward for the work I've put into this story other than satisfying the obsession with finishing it once and for all in a way I can be happy with ten or twenty or thirty years from now. I am enjoying the process of reading back through the story, but I am also a little shocked how much I'm using my red Sharpie. I've been through these paragraphs and pages so many times, I would've thought every sentence would hum and sing. But no, it can always be a little cleaner, a little tighter, a little crisper.... I'm hoping to re-re-re-release *Skytrails* (version whatever-it-is-now) by the end of the year, then onto another exciting storytelling adventure. Otherwise, home renovations fill my time. The kitchen is taking the majority of it. One day it will be done and we will love it. A couple months ago there would have been a wall where my laptop now sits perched on the new island countertop. It's the perfect height for a standing desk, and I am loving using it that way. ### Video Games And Big Life Changes Save Us All URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/48/ Last updated: 2024-07-30T03:53:21.000Z Welcome to the July 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To!* **#48** ### What I'm Into [*Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World* by Jane McGonigal](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7821348-reality-is-broken?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ...About how gamers are primed to change the world, how big social games can get people collaborating creatively about the future, and how you can apply gameplay to normal life to get a little happier and a little healthier. I originally wrote a huge essay about this, but I've shortened my thoughts to: this was a great book for me to read. She's got a newer book out called [*Imaginable*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59833689-imaginable?ref=nathanleegreen.com) which I'm planning to check out next. ### What I'm Up To From your perspective out there on the other side of the screen, not much has changed concerning this newsletter. It all looks the same, same email address, same style, another weird subject line that doesn't really mean anything and is not working very hard to pull in potential readers on the verge of not opening another long-winded email. On my side of the screen, though, it's all different. Well, the laptop is the same. Same trusty 2015 Macbook Pro I've been using since my friend let me borrow it back in 2018. But, otherwise, it's all different. I'm sitting in the sunroom of our new house in our new neighborhood in our new town up the road from the biggest city in our new state. This is my favorite room. I think I'll be spending a lot of time out here. I could attach a bunch of photos, but I'm a writer, so if you'll indulge me for a few minutes, I'm going to describe how lucky I and my family have been to land here using words because words are the raw material of my chosen and enormously-profitable trade/hobby. (Sarcasm.) In this room are six windows and one sliding glass door facing out (another window faces into the house, along with more doors than necessary). So I have a great view of our backyard. The backyard was my first stop when we looked at this house (we looked at it again before we decided to buy, then a third time with the kids, then a couple more times before we closed on it—Wendy was not sold on the house any of those visits). We looked at a whole bunch of houses before this one and I realized after the first four or five I should start with the yard before looking inside the house, because that was what I really cared about most. Many houses looked great from the street and on the inside but when we finally got to the backyard, invariably I would be like, oh, okay, that's... nice. Most of them were fenced-in postage stamps and I would imagine myself spending time out there, writing or reading or sawing or eating, staring at the fence, wondering if the world outside still looked the same as last time I had seen it. Wendy didn't care as much about the yard, she wanted to be close to her work. She has lived as far away from work as a half-hour drive without traffic/an hour with, and as close as fifteen minutes without traffic/twenty-five with, and in order to spend more time at home and less time on the road, she wanted to be even closer this time. The photo of the house on the info page the realtor gave us was uninspiring. A single-story ranch in faded baby blue vinyl siding with a small driveway and a brick walkway up to the front door, modestly but nicely landscaped, white picket fence around most of the small front yard (Wendy and I told each other on what could be considered our first date that neither of us wanted to live the traditional American dream with the two point five kids and a white picket fence—funny how things work out). We were not super interested but we were committed to looking at every single non-foreclosure, single-family, standalone house in our price range in the area. When we pulled up in the driveway, the house looked just as boring in real life as in the photo, but it was not on a busy road and the area seemed quiet. Both big pluses, and both things we quickly realized on our search a photo would never tell us. I walked around the side while the realtor got the code for the front door and I think I might've actually stopped breathing for a second when I got to the backyard. Like, it took my breath away. The neighborhood is high up on a hill, which we did not know until driving up the steep street to get to it. The backyard slopes down quite a bit. It's not giant, although definitely bigger than most of the other backyards we looked at, but the slope makes it look bigger and on top of that, the view past the yard was incredible. We saw the house in April. The leaves were getting green but hadn't filled in yet as densely as they have now. I could see past our yard—which is completely encircled by live trees, fallen trees, shrubs, vines, and all kinds of natural debris pushed to the outside edge of the neighboring property—and it was like a scene from a movie. Like *The Sound Of Music*. Or an oil painting in a museum of a scenic, pastoral, country landscape—rolling hills of cut grass dotted with trees and ancient buildings. Across the little valley below the bottom of our yard, up on another hill, was an old and giant three-story stone building with a a parking lot. Beyond that, an old barn and silo. Behind our house, at the bottom of the slope, a path meandered into woods past another old stone house, two story and decrepit with boarded up windows, but looking more scenic than scary. There were a couple rabbits in the yard eating grass and birds singing in the undeveloped lot next door. I had this deeply peaceful feeling as I stood there. *Wow,* I thought, my writer brain ready to churn out inspired expressions of beautifully crafted prose, *This is cool.* On the backside of the house, because it's on a hill, the basement is exposed and it looks like a two-story. The sunroom seems to have been a deck off the back of the house that was enclosed at some point, and is the only feature of any interest whatsoever on the outside of the house. After seeing the backyard and the view, though, I was willing to make allowances for any shortcomings the house had to offer. And it did have a few. We were not thrilled about only having one and a half bathrooms for the five of us—we had gotten used to having two showers in our last home. We didn't like the countertops, or most of the appliances, or the ugly siding. We didn't like the wall between the kitchen and dining room. The fireplace was in a weird spot. There were ugly drapes and wallpaper and two weird Greco-Roman columns between the dining room and living room. The basement was giant, but unfinished, and had the stale, wet smell all naked basements have. I believed we could fix or overcome or just get used to all those things. Wendy wasn't so sure. The house was only an 8-minute drive to work, though, so even though she didn't love it, she had to accept that it was no worse and probably even better than all the other houses we looked at, and we could probably fix some of the things we didn't like—maybe put another bathroom in the basement along with a guest room or extra hang out space. We asked a few questions about the house ('are those columns important to the roof not collapsing or....?') and made an offer. Despite all our doubts and fears, everything fell into place, like dominoes falling into each other in slow-but-not-really-that-slow motion. And here we are. We've been painting, opening boxes (so many boxes), cutting out part of that wall between the kitchen and dining room, building IKEA closets, getting to know neighbors, trying to keep our kids doing more than just watching TV and playing video games all day every day, getting library cards, changing addresses on everything, registering for schools, hunting for thrift store treasures, naming the local wildlife, and exploring. For much of this year the future felt scary and uncertain and super uncomfortable to think about. It has been sometimes exciting, sometimes painful, but always necessary to go through everything we've gone through to get to where we are now, and it feels good to have gotten to this point—somewhat settled, somewhat comfortable, and very optimistic about our future here. Every day, we find new reasons to like where we live. If you're ever in the greater Baltimore area, let me know. Til next time, good luck and Godspeed! —Nate ### A Cradle Of Woodworks And Icebergs URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/47/ Last updated: 2024-06-18T04:32:08.000Z Welcome to the June 2024 edition of... *What ~~I'm~~ *My Friends Are* Into, What ~~I'm~~ *My Friends Are* Up To!* **#47** Good morning Starshine, the earth says 'Hello!' Yep, it's been one of those months. I'm writing to you from a hotel in Florence, South Carolina. This is it, we're moving. Right now! As I type this! Three kids, two cats, a couple of tired adults, and too much stuff in one SUV on a 3-day trek from Florida to Maryland. I'm going to take a little break this month to tell you about a few of my friends for a change and what they're into and up to, although I had some leftover words from last month's newsletter about a giant history book I recently read, so I tacked that on at the end for you masochists out there. So without further ado... ### What Two Of My Friends Are Up To - Dusty and I go way back. He is one of the most stand-up, reliable, level-headed, and wisest people I've ever had the honor to know and spend time with. He used to live in Morocco with his wife and five daughters (yes, you read that right) and now lives in his home state of Montana. I don't frequent Facebook very often, so I only just learned about him [making really cool stuff out of wood and listing it on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086230127056). (You can click that link or search *Dar Smith Custom Woodworks*.) Check out what he's been making. Charcuterie boards to birdhouses to beautiful custom furniture—it's amazing stuff! I like the idea of having things in my home that are handmade and built to last a really long time, and I like trying projects like this myself, but I am nowhere near Dusty's skill level (yet). Great work, Dusty! I'm hoping to see your creations (and you) in real life one of these days! - Dan is a Massachusetts folk singer I've known around 15 years. He is the real deal, someone who is passionate about and dedicated to his art, without the desperation for fame and fortune that plagues some artists. He has a 9-to-5 job he loves, an amazing family, talented musical collaborators, and a wide-but-also-deep (isn't that the trick) circle of friends. He is the embodiment of Stephen King's great line, *'Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.'* This year, Dan embarked on [a new album and a new adventure called *The Iceberg*](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dancloutier/the-iceberg?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*.* He is obsessed with cold places, and one of the last great cold places for him is the island of Greenland (which is, coincidentally, the setting for my *Skytrails* series). So he launched a Kickstarter to record, produce, and distribute the album and it went off like a rocket ship! He should be on a Newfoundland trip as this email goes out to try and spot an iceberg, and then he'll be going to Greenland later this summer as part of the album and the adventure. You did it, Dan! Bring me back some of that permafrost :) ### What Two Of My Friends Are Into - I asked two friends, Chris and Darius, separately if they had read anything especially good lately which I could talk about in this update. They are both audiobook devourers, especially fantasy, and besides being two of my closest friends in the whole wide world, they are also two of the friends I look to to keep up with the latest great novels and fiction writers, since I have such a hard time getting into fiction these days. I was genuinely surprised when they both gave me the same, non-Brandon Sanderson answer. Both of them told me the best series they had read recently, and couldn't wait until enough time had passed to read again, was the [Cradle series by Will Wight](https://www.goodreads.com/series/192821-cradle?ref=nathanleegreen.com). They both praised it as highly as I've heard them praise anything, which, in Darius's case especially, is saying something. ### And, As Promised, A Bonus(?) From Me... - ***Dominion* by Tom Holland—**I listened to the audiobook version of this hefty non-fiction book in short bursts between podcasts and music. Described as 'a broad history of the influence of Christianity on the world, focusing on its impact on morality,' it really does seem like Tom Holland tried to capture the entire essence of Christian history in one book. I heard interviews with Holland on *The Surprising Rebirth Of Belief In God* podcast (mentioned in a previous update) where he talked about his personal discovery from learning more and more about the history of the West that, to his surprise, he was not a product of Greco-Roman culture and ideology as he had long assumed. Even though he was not a Christian himself, he realized the only way he could define his own culture or principles or ideology was... Christian. So he set about writing a history of Christianity and the ways it has influenced the ancient and modern world. I've read church history and I learned world history from a Christian curriculum in high school, but I have not heard someone who proclaimed themselves non-Christian so praise the beneficial influences of Christianity on society. Usually there is an agenda—hey kids, here's why we Christians are right about everything and everyone else is wrong about it. Or hey everyone, Christians have perpetrated many of the worst humanitarian crimes in the last 2,000 years. Obviously, Christianity is a belief held by humans, and as such it has been abused almost since its inception and certainly since its mainstream-ification for greed, power, control, fame, fear, hate, lust—the same motivators for most of history's most destructive actions. The more I learn about history, though, the more I realize that history was going to history the way it historied no matter how much we might think it should've historied differently. That might sound (if you can even make sense of it) like I am a fatalist and believe things will happen however they're going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. I'm definitely not. I believe we have incredible freedom to create the world we want to live in, more freedom than most people, including me, are willing to accept, actually. But we are all of us products of what's come before us, whether we know anything about history or not. So, in that sense, I believe Christianity helped history to history as well as history could've historied with humans doing the historying. That's it for this month. Thanks for reading! Until next time... live a little, or—why not?—live a whole lot. ### Expanse-ive Dune Theater Seat Endings (of the Wind) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/46/ Last updated: 2024-05-17T20:43:46.000Z Welcome to the May 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#46** ### What I'm Into - ***Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind* ...again** I'm still journeying my way through this Miyazaki masterpiece. It's seven volumes long, and each one is the size of a typical graphic novel, so it's a giant work. I'm on Volume 4\. Every page and panel is so beautifully drawn, I can't get over it. Also, I mentioned two newsletters ago the movie version has been called anime's answer to *Dune,* but I just read somewhere that Miyazaki was actually inspired by *Dune* so much so that *Nausicaä* would not exist if not for *Dune*. So that's cool. - ***The Expanse,* Season 6** With Wendy living the hotel-life in Baltimore, I thought I would have lots of time to catch up on all the shows and movies she's not interested in. But it turns out we spend so much time talking on the phone now I somehow watch even less of 'my shows' than usual (which I don't mind at all, honestly, and I'm not just saying that because Wendy might read this later). One series I've always meant to finish but never quite gotten around to is *The Expanse.* I saw every season except the last one. And to be honest, I wouldn't have gotten that far if not for watching with a friend because, as I remember it, the start of every season felt like a bit of a slog, then picked up a few episodes in, really hitting high gear the last few episodes. I'm sure some of you will have read the book series the show is based on by the pseudonymous James S. A. Corey, which is actually two people—Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck—who wrote the books together. The two friends decided a sci-fi book by a single author would be more successful than a collaboration, so they came up with a pen name and published as James S. A. Corey. Though I've only read the beginning of book one in the series, *Leviathan Wakes* (further cementing my reputation as a speculative fiction author who can't actually read speculative fiction), I did listen to an interview with the two authors a while back. Not only did they sound like fun, cool people, but I was jealous of their friendship because the process of writing together sounded so much better than writing solo. Anyway, I've just started Season 6 and I have it on good authority it's well worth watching, so I'm settling in for a good time. - **Dune: Part Two** But first, a mini-rant about theaters... You know how there are still some movie theaters around that, as soon as you sit down, you kind of wish you had just stayed home and watched something on TV instead? I took the kids up to Baltimore to see Wendy and get a look at our future house and explore our new city (fortunately flights on Frontier between Orlando and Baltimore are super cheap if you don't need to take more than a backpack with you). While we were up there, I went out one night to see *Dune: Part Two* all by myself at a theater which turned out to be one of the least comfortable Regal theaters still in operation. It reminded me of the Waterford Lakes Regal theater in Orlando which I avoid like the plague even though it's close to my in-laws. In the year of our Lord, 2024, why in the world would I pay the same crazy-high ticket price to see a movie in stiff, old, fold-down theater seats which were barely adequate 30 years ago, when I could, for the same cost, go see the same movie on a bigger screen with better sound in giant, leather, fully reclining, super comfortable seats at a brand new or newly updated theater? Same price! If the tickets were half the cost, okay, maybe it's worth the lack of comfort. But SAME PRICE??? Show me how these theaters still make any kind of profit. Anyway.... For all of us who were waiting for a movie or series to do one of the best sci-fi books of all time true justice, I feel like the waiting paid off. At least for me. So good. Your mileage may vary, of course. The thing I noticed most about both movies, which I probably mentioned when I talked about seeing the first movie, was the sound. The soundscape of the film was almost overwhelming. Like it was its own character in the story—a constant, vibrating, pulsing, beating, grinding entity. It reminded me of the *Dunkirk* sountrack (surprise, surprise, also scored by Hans Zimmer), which felt more intense because of [an interesting always-rising, anxiety-producing effect called Shepard tone](https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/7/26/16033868/dunkirk-soundtrack-shepard-tone?ref=nathanleegreen.com). My personal opinion is that each book in the *Dune* series is a little less good than the book that came before it, but I think *Dune: Messiah* and *Children Of Dune* would work well in film (which is not a very original take, since it was clearly demonstrated by the award-winning 2003 Syfy series, *Frank Herbert's Children Of Dune*). According to Wikipedia a prequel series called *Dune: Prophecy* is in the works, as well as a third movie based on *Dune: Messiah*. It's interesting *Dune* has never before captured the popular imagination in the way these movies seem to be doing. Per Wikipedia's post on the Dune franchise... 'Jon Michaud noted in 2013 in [*The New Yorker*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FNew%5FYorker?ref=nathanleegreen.com), "what's curious about *Dune*'s stature is that it has not penetrated popular culture in the way that *The Lord of the Rings* and *Star Wars* have." He praised Herbert's "clever authorial decision" to excise robots and computers ("two staples of the genre") from his fictional universe, but suggested that this may be one explanation why *Dune* lacks "true fandom among science-fiction fans".' I would think it has more to do with the complexity of the *Dune* universe and its politics, the muddling of the traditional good versus evil narrative, and the non-ending-ness of the series. Also, the lack of a really great cinematic interpretation until now. Why do you think *Dune* has not become part of the mainstream modern mythos in the way *Lord Of The Rings* and *Star Wars* have? ### What I'm Up To I'm trying to bring the *Skytrails* trilogy of novellas to a satisfying conclusion. I've talked before in the pages of this newsletter about how hard a time I have ending stories well. I am very jealous of people who go into a book or story with an ending in mind, especially if they know in their bones it will be a really satisfying ending. That is what I aspire to. Watching *Dune: Part Two* reminded me how important a good ending is. Everything comes together and we as the audience are like, 'Yes! The protagonist came through. There was victory and there was cost. Story arcs were wrapped up nicely. Character arcs resolved in satisfying ways. The ending was well paced and believable and we felt all the feelings we wanted to feel and needed to feel, and now we are mentally and emotionally exhausted in all the best ways.' Those are the sentiments I want to leave readers with, but I am an intermediate storyteller at best, and my skills and understanding and pre-prior-planning are not yet at the level I need them to be to pull off the perfect story ending. So, I continue to do the best I can with what I've got and hope it resonates with most of the 16 people who read it. Do you have a favorite ending from a book, movie, or show you can share with me? Maybe a tiny summary and why you thought it was so good? I think I need to build a library of good endings to build up my 'storytelling wisdom.' --- That's all for this month. I had more but it was way too much, so I'll save it for next month. Thanks for reading! And see you next time... —Nate ### Baltimore Climbing Techniques URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/45/ Last updated: 2024-04-17T20:55:40.000Z Welcome to the April 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#45** *(Scroll to the bottom if you find my long-winded emails boring and tedious BUT enjoy new cover reveals for ten-year-old books.)* ### On The Next Big Life Event "Oh-yeah, and I think I'll go to \[Baltimore\], they think I was \[retired\] I think I need a \[bay\] town to leave this \[swamp\] behind I think I need a \[crabcake\], I'm tired of \[fried gator tail\] I hear it's nicer in the summer, some snow would be nice, oh-yeah" *—* **Boston, *by Augustana* *...with a few terrible tweaks by me*** So... we're moving to Baltimore! Just when everything was going perfectly, we decided to blow it all up and start again. Wendy applied for a job and we found out she got it right before I sent last month's update. We had been talking about another big move for the past year. I was thinking *west coast, baby.* Baltimore, Maryland was *NOT* on my radar. All the other jobs she applied for we spent at least a week going back and forth about pros and cons and this and that. Then, if we decided yes, she would finally apply after the long discussions, then we would wait and wait and wait. Then we'd hear back and invariably it would be a no. Then I'd think *maybe we'll just stay here, I really like this place, everything's good here, we've got life figured out, why mess it all up?* I had even committed myself to making new friends and starting a local chapter of Creative Mornings, that's how set I had become on staying in Gainesville for a while. This time she was like, *there's this job up in Maryland, lots of potential, could be great.* And I was like, *I don't even care anymore, sounds good, just go for it.* Seriously, it was a five minute conversation. And here we are. Isn't it funny the way things work out? ### On Baltimore My grandparents lived in Baltimore. My dad spent the first ten years of his life there. It has long felt like the black hole of the east coast and the black hole of my family's history, like the city that everyone forgot and left behind and didn't really care to bring up, except to talk about how terrible it is. I just found out one of our neighbors, Rick, is from Baltimore. He's 84 or 85\. He said, 'I don't think I'd move there with a family.' That seems to be how a lot of people who don't live in Baltimore feel about Baltimore, even or maybe especially if they are from Baltimore. We now know 3 people who currently live in the greater Baltimore area. They all love it there. One of them is a pastor I met at an event in Pennsylvania last summer. His wife who co-pastors with him at their church is the second—we met them for dinner and asked lots of questions about the area. The third is our realtor who was recommended to us by the first two. Wendy and I spent three very long days of house hunting with him. (We also met our realtor's dog, Carter, who I think may suffer from sleep apnea.) We found a house, put in an offer, and are going through the very stressful process of trying to buy a home while also trying to get a home ready to sell. Well, me and the kids are getting our house ready to sell. Wendy is already up in a suburb north of Baltimore at her new job, living in a hotel, working on a jigsaw puzzle every night to keep her sanity. (Writing this is what I'm doing to keep my sanity. And watching a little bit of *Shogun* whenever I can fit it in—99% on Rotten Tomatoes! That's almost unheard of.) ### On Climbing I haven't been able to climb much lately, but I was doing more before all this moving stuff started. What you quickly realize about climbing when you do it consistently and especially with people who are better than you, is this—becoming a great climber is not about strength and muscles. Certainly people who climb all the time develop strength and muscles in their fingers, hands, and forearms, and probably other places too, the rest of us mere mortals do not possess. But, what really sets great climbers apart is technique, body awareness, understanding balance and counter-balance and leverage, and knowing how to solve the puzzles different routes and problems present to them using the best techniques. ### On Technique (Versus Hard Work And Talent) I've recently realized this whole technique thing in climbing is actually relevant to the rest of life as well. Some people make certain parts of life look easy. Like, parenting little kids, or raising money for fundraisers, or recruiting volunteers, or climbing the corporate ladder, or making money, or making friends, or fixing things that are broken, or building things that look way better than the things everyone else builds, or running marathons, or writing lots of books, or completing video games, or climbing rocks. Why do they make it look so much easier than the rest of us? Is it because they are inherently better at those things, or because they work so much harder than everyone else? Or is it because they've learned techniques that make it way easier to succeed with much less effort? My friend Terrence is a really good climber who couldn't climb for a year because of health problems. He came back to climbing without his former climbing muscles, but with all the technique and muscle memory still in place. I told him he makes everything look easy, but when I try to do the same thing it is not easy. He says he only climbs if it will look easy, because that's what he has the strength for right now. Technique is what makes it look easy. The reason it's still so hard for me to do the same stuff he's doing is because watching the right technique is not the same as *knowing* the right technique, like, deep down in the muscle memory. I have to think about what I'm doing, how I'm moving, how I'm hanging, which parts of my body are doing which things in each moment. It's slow and clumsy and exhausting—not fluid, not second nature, not thoughtless—because the technique is not yet ingrained. I'm still learning by practicing. I'm ever-so-slowly leveling up. Aren't we all? --- Let me know if you have any thoughts on this stuff or anything else! I'm working hard to wrap up the *Skytrails* saga for once and for all (I should see how many times in past newsletters I've said something to this effect—half dozen at least), then it's on to exciting new adventures in faraway lands full of new dangers, new delights, new characters, and new quests. Thanks for reading! Back to packing and cleaning and fixing... *P.s. I've been learning about and experimenting with Facebook ads for* Greysuits*. I generated some new images with Midjourney for the ads, which resulted in a soon-to-be-tried-out, brand new, tenth-anniversary cover...* ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2024/04/Greysuits-Cover-6x9-v10_optimized.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2024/04/signature-NATE-outline-200.png) ### Nausicaä of the Disneyland of the Joshua Trees URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/california-nausicaa/ Last updated: 2024-03-18T06:45:13.000Z Welcome to the March 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#44** ### What I'm Into *AND* What I'm Up To - *Place: *Southern California** — where I'm writing this to you from! I'm at a nice-but-not-nice-enough-to-be-this-expensive hotel in the City of Angels, tired from a week of very full days traveling around with three kids, trying to keep us all sane. We have been to Disneyland, which I hate to even mention, but it has been my wife's dream to see the original Disney park for a very long time and we finally achieved that dream as a family. So check that one off the list for the Greens. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will say the food is better, generally, at Disneyland than Disney World, and where there were rides that had counterparts on both coasts, the Disneyland versions won out in all cases (in my humble opinion). Autopia, especially, was so much better than Tommorowland Speedway and Radiator Springs Racers was so so much better than Test Track. Star Wars Galaxy's Edge was exactly the same, as far as we could tell, but the Marvel area—Avenger's Campus—was fantastic. And San Fransokyo Square, based on the future-fusion urban setting of *Big Hero 6*, did not have rides but was really cool for eating. If it were free to get in and close by, I would eat there all the time. After Disney, we spent time with friends in San Bernardino, looked for (and found) one of my childhood homes in the town of Crestline in the mountains above San Bernardino, then drove further up to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake, where we found snow to play in, then down to Pioneertown, where they used to film westerns in the olden days, then to 29 Palms for the night and Joshua Tree Park the next day. Even though we had seen plenty of photos and videos of Joshua Tree, there was something magical about wandering through and climbing up a little of it in real life. Being in a place like that felt so unfamiliar and low-grade uncomfortable—I think it was the lack of real trees. The joshua trees were everywhere, but they're not technically trees and they don't grow tall or wide or provide any shade, really. The lack of trees was a bit unsettling. Then onto Huntington Beach for a few days where the kids and I had fun while Wendy was at a work thing, which was the reason we were out in California to begin with—also because it just happened to coincide with the kids' spring break. Now, we're exploring L.A. for a few days, then back home. We went up to Griffith Park Observatory one night to see the city at sunset and the exhibits in the observatory, then drove up the coast and saw some more friends the next day (hi Jon). Today we did some hiking to get a break from spending so much time in the rental car, then a train museum, then more driving around to see the things you're supposed to see when you're a tourist in L.A—Hollywood and the Sunset Strip and downtown L.A. The amazing thing about traveling with kids is seeing how much awe they find in things they're not used to—mountain views, snow in March, desert landscapes, old trains and old machines, a koi pond in a hotel lobby, hotel gyms, hotel breakfasts, Cybertrucks, houses on hillsides, our friends' VR goggles. It helps remind me as a jaded adult how exciting travel really is, and how incredible the world around us seems when it's not the part of the world that's normally around us. I love the west coast, but people aren't joking when they say Southern California is expensive and the traffic is terrible. My friends Jon and Tess said it's better to vacation in California than to live here. And from what I can tell, if you're going to vacation here, the best way to do it is in an RV because we have seen RVs parked around almost all of the most beautiful places we've been to so far. You couldn't afford to stay there even if there were a place to stay, but feel free to park your RV and enjoy the one-of-a-kind view from the comfort of your movable home. I think we might have to try that sometime. ### Honorable Mention - *Books: *Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind*, the graphic novel series by Hayao Miyazaki* — oh man, if you are into... a) the 1984 animated film of the same name by Studio Ghibli (and I can't imagine why you wouldn't be), b) post-apocalyptic but hopeful sci-fi/fantasy, c) manga or comic books or graphic novels of any kind, d) fantastically executed storytelling through illustrated art, e) giant bugs that destroy anything in their path, ...do yourself a favor and check out the books that gave birth to the classic film. I'm only on book two (of seven—borrowed from our local library, natch), but it's already obvious there's a deeper story than what the film is able to convey in its hour-and-a-half runtime. Even in black and white still frames, Miyazaki's art is so fantastic and the story is overflowing with interesting ideas and themes—it's been called anime's answer to *Dune* and I think that's pretty spot-on. There are so many similarities. Hopefully I can get all the California sand out of this copy before I return it. That's all for this month, friends! See you next time. ### (A)theist Trust-Squid Making Friends URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/43/ Last updated: 2024-02-18T03:20:16.000Z Welcome to the February 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#43** Happy belated Valentine's Day and happy Lent everyone! I don't know if you can wish someone a happy Lent, but there must be some appropriate way to acknowledge the season of Lent to people who observe it.... Okay, I just looked it up. According to Google's 'generative AI' search result, 'Some say that you shouldn't say "Happy Lent". One alternative is to say "Have a blessed Lent". Another option is to say "May you all have a blessed and reflective Lent".' Another search result, this one from Hindustan Times (interesting), says, 'How do you wish someone a good Lenten season? "May this Ash Wednesday bring you peace and spiritual insight. On this solemn occasion of Ash Wednesday, may you find strength in prayer, courage in sacrifice, and grace in repentance. Sending you warm wishes for a blessed Lenten season."' I find the 40 days of Lent interesting because growing up as an Evangelical Christian in the U.S., we did not pay much attention to Lent. It was considered more of a Catholic thing, so didn't really apply to us. Easter, for us, seemed to come out of nowhere, wild and sudden, whereas, with Lent, you get this nice long build-up. In general, I like the calendar of the liturgical church denominations. I like that there's always something going on throughout the year, something to pay attention to, something to orient yourself towards. Which is a great segue! ### What I'm Into - **Atheism For Lent,** [*an online course by Peter Rollins*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPkdsWBv8uQ&ref=nathanleegreen.com) — this is something I've thought about doing for several years now and am finally participating in this go round. Pete Rollins is an Irishman living in L.A. and a philosopher. He's got a Youtube channel and a podcast with Elliott Morgan called [The Fundamentalists](https://thefundamentalists.podbean.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Almost everything he says is over my head, but I can't stop listening because the stuff I do understand is fascinating, and the Irish accent is so enjoyable to listen to, and he's not trying to beat anyone over the head with any particular idea or agenda. He just seems to really love talking about what deep thinkers have said about life and the universe. The title of this course is not misleading, exactly, but I think is meant to be a little shocking and a little uncomfortable, since it is (I think) more designed for religious people than for atheists or agnostics. To the best of my understanding (I'm only a few days in), the course is meant to lead participants through reflections each day from thinkers long gone, people like Thomas Aquinas and Charles Darwin, arguing for or against or about the existence of God. I think Pete's aim is to get people like me (and people not like me) into uncomfortable territory, knocking us away from the certainties our minds understandably latched onto in our formative years, and open us up to the many proposed notions about our existence and meaning and all the difficult questions about being human which keep getting asked and pondered century after century. I'll report back next month and let you know how it's going. - **The Surprising Rebirth Of Belief In God,** [*a podcast by Justin Brierley*](https://justinbrierley.com/surprisingrebirth/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) — So... I did not have any intention of focusing so heavily on the topic of atheism versus theism this month, but it just sort of happened. I heard about this podcast on another podcast I frequent, [The Holy Post](https://www.holypost.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), where Kaitlyn Schiess mentioned how good a job she thought Justin Brierly had done with this series. I didn't connect the dots at first, but I know Justin Brierly through another podcast I listen to, [Ask N. T. Wright Anything](https://www.premierunbelievable.com/shows/ask-nt-wright-anything?ref=nathanleegreen.com), where Justin poses questions to Tom Wright (one of the foremost theologians in the world and high on my list of personal gurus) submitted by a world-wide audience. I'm only a few episodes into The Surprising Rebirth, but I can say it is very well produced, also very different from the Atheism For Lent course. This one is more of a recent history docu-series, definitely more agenda-driven, so I'm reserving judgement on it 'til I'm further in. My main takeaway so far is that atheists as a collective and atheism as a movement have all the same frustrating problems that religious collectives and movements have. They have their own 'good old days' people versus 'woke' people, their own Trump people versus never-Trump people, their own racism problems, sexism problems, and ideological problems. So the whole idea that religion is the root cause of all the problems in the world certainly seems to ring hollow, based on what I've learned from this podcast. I didn't know any of this before. I tend to give all other religions and ideologies the benefit of the doubt, while criticizing my own religious background and culture with excruciating judgement (which is how I wish everyone treated the other 'tribes' versus their own tribe, honestly). - **Where Did You Park Your Spaceship*,* [*a novel by Rob Bell*](https://robbell.com/book/spaceship/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) — I finished this one a few days ago and I'm still processing it. I think I might read it again. It's not what I was expecting but I also didn't know exactly what to expect. I also wasn't sure how I would like Rob's fiction. I like his non-fiction and I like his podcast talks, and he was amazing at the 2-day event this summer, but these are all different skill sets and you never know how things will translate from one arena to another. It's definitely a Rob Bell book, if you know what I mean, but it's also a really easy to read and compelling book about stuff that doesn't seem like it should be easy to read and compelling, like a guy working in a bakery on a planet he's been assigned to observe and report on by his higher-ups. That's not a book I would normally read, but I did, and it was a very good read. 8/10, would recommend. - [***Squid Game: The Challenge***](https://www.netflix.com/title/81615540?ref=nathanleegreen.com)**,* a reality competition show on Netflix* — New year, new reality shows to get caught up in. As any of you who are regular readers or friends of ours know, Wendy is the sole reason I get sucked into all these reality shows, and the shows about cults, and the period romance dramas. Neither of us watched the actual *Squid Game* show, because I wanted to be able to sleep at night. I understand the premise to be 'game show with fatal consequences,' but you don't need to have watched *Squid Game* to get into *Squid Game: The Challenge*. [As Wikipedia so eloquently explains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid%5FGame:%5FThe%5FChallenge?ref=nathanleegreen.com), *'*Squid Game: The Challenge *is a ten-episode British reality competition television series based on* Squid Game*, the South Korean drama. The show features 456 players (the largest cast in reality TV history) competing for US$4.56 million, the largest single cash prize in reality television history.'* Its 456 people trying to outlast everyone else through crazy challenges to be the one remaining player at the end who wins the gazillion dollar prize. It's compelling, if also edge-of-your-seat stressful. Turns out, people don't have to die for a show to be anxiety-inducing. Pretty sure most of the contestants will be in therapy for a long, long time. - [***The Trust***](https://www.netflix.com/title/81590663?ref=nathanleegreen.com)**,* (also) a reality competition show, (also) on Netflix* — This one is actually fairly similar to the above show, except it's only a handful of people and it doesn't have to come down to only one winner at the end. Premise: a bunch of random people in a giant house by the ocean in the tropics (we looked it up—Dominican Republic) decide each episode whether to vote someone out of 'the trust' or keep the group together for the jackpot prize at the end. More people means less money per person, but voting people out raises suspicions and paranoia, not to mention really eating away at the kumbayah feeling around the mansion. We had to wait for the final two episodes, but they're all out now so you can binge right through. ### What I'm Up To - **Finishing the Skytrails series, hopefully once and for all** — I mentioned before I divided the book into 3 parts, about 30k words each, so like novella-sized chunks. The first two parts are published and available at all the major online ebook retailers. This third part has been a slog, and I know it would be far better for me to say it's been such a joy and so fun to write, but a slog for an author does not always mean a slog for the reader. Some of the hardest parts of Greysuits for me to write were also some people's favorite parts (mostly the fight scenes). Anyways, I've always struggled with endings and this one is no different. Hopefully it will all be worth it... ...Well, it will be worth it if I can finally put this book/trilogy to rest and move on to other projects—that is my once and future dream. - **Working to bring a** [**Creative Mornings**](https://creativemornings.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) **chapter to my city.** - **Trying to make friends** — I've decided 2024 is the year of making friends in the actual place where I actually live. I've talked to a few new people, been invited to play golf sometime, and have a standing obligation to invite a family whose daughter goes to pre-K with Harper over for dinner sometime. Making friends is so much harder now than it used to be, but I believe it's more important than it's ever been. ***That's all for now, folks. Until next month, good luck and Godspeed!*** ***— Nate*** ### YearEnd&Start Lego Review Parachute Yoga URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/42/ Last updated: 2024-01-18T03:49:48.000Z Welcome to the January 2024 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#42** ### On Decembers & Januaries I've come to terms with the fact December in any year is not a good time for me to try and be productive. The most productive thing I can do is stop trying to be productive and redirect the writing-and-otherwise-laptop-centric energy into more around-the-house kinds of usefulness. For example— *figure out Christmas stuff,* *go places with the fam,* *put up holiday decorations,* *rearrange the house,* *revisit the to-do lists,* *fix things,* *build stuff,* *hang out with friends and family,* *try and get rid of accumulated detritus before it takes up permanent residence in our lives and home,* *take stock of life,* *catch up on reading and watching and playing,* *charge up to get a strong start on the new year.* It turns out January is not much better than December for writing productivity. I'm getting back to the routine with the kids in school again, but there are projects I began in December that still need finishing. Like the TV stand I mentioned in the last email. Like the treehouse which has been an ongoing project for way too long now. Like the effort to clean up and consolidate our digital services so websites get hosted and photos get backed up but all as cheaply and efficiently as possible. ### Lego for grown-ups ...And like Wendy's monolithic effort to once and for all organize our immense Lego collection so even if the kids don't play with them we adults can have fun building the stuff inside all those glossy instruction booklets without having to search endlessly for that one tiny-and-impossible-to-find-but-altogether-necessary-or-else-the-whole-build-doesn't-work piece, of which there is always at least one but usually more like nine in any given set. *Prediction:* Lego as an adult activity will become more and more a normal and celebrated hobby. It's kind of like needlepoint or crochet—just as therapeutic and relaxing and satisfying—maybe more expensive with less practically functional results, but for the geeks among us, what beats building a Star Wars or Harry Potter themed building or spaceship or whole diorama in actual physical space with actual physical materials? I was thinking about starting a Lego set rental service, where people pay a subscription to borrow Lego sets which they want to build but don't want to pay exorbitant costs for or keep in their house afterward. Puzzles would work for that idea, too. The problem in both cases would be how to handle lost pieces. ### Reviewing one's life, annually In the spirit of all this end-of-year, beginning-of-year cleaning and reevaluating and refocusing, I have gone through a quick and dirty Annual Review, taking stock of achievements and struggles of the past year, and also making a rough draft plan for what to work toward in 2024. I initially did this annual review process in 2014, inspired by [Chris Guillebeau and his annually-blogged-about exercise in self-critique and self-direction](https://chrisguillebeau.com/how-to-conduct-your-own-annual-review?ref=nathanleegreen.com). That was the year I started and finished the first draft of my first novel, so I think the annual review was a good thing. I have done it a few times in years since, but not with the same focusing effect. I think I need a different method, or maybe as a collaborative exercise with other 'creative professionals,' as I sometimes like to call myself. I don't know. This year, for example, I wrote my thoughts about last year, then wrote a bunch of things I want to get done this year. And... I don't know... I just didn't feel that much more clarity or excitement about any of it. Like, I already knew these were the things I need to and want to do. To be brutally honest, I felt a little depressed actually. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I should email Chris Guillebeau about it. I'm sure he would love more emails about his blog posts asking why following his instructions doesn't lead to warm, fuzzy feelings. I was talking to a friend about it just this morning, and we discussed how maybe sometimes a big list of goals is helpful, but these days the routines, systems, and processes seem more important. Like, if I sit down every day for an hour or two to work on a story, eventually I will have a finished story. I know that because it's already happened. And it happened because I first decided I wanted to write a story and made it a priority and figured out how to make writing it part of my routine. Setting deadlines for myself *would probably be helpful* since I want to learn to finish stories faster, but it seems like I miss my self-set deadlines more often than not so it just reinforces a feeling of failure which I have worked hard to avoid because I hate that feeling so much. That also came up in conversation with the same friend this morning—the avoidance on my part of any commitment that might lead to a sense of failure, and his answer was basically: *hurry up and get the failure over with so you can move on with your life.* And that actually helped, to be honest. ### Which shade of chartreuse is your parachute? Wendy and I are also working trough the self-help career-finding classic, [*What Color Is Your Parachute?*](https://parachutebook.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) My dad or someone recommended it when I was younger and I remember it being helpful, even though I'm sure I did not do all or maybe even any of the exercises in it. I knew everything back then so I didn't need any expert's help. Also I was special, so the advice probably wouldn't apply to me anyway. Thank God for the humbling decades leading to middle age. It's a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone in a stage of life thinking about changing things up work-wise. Especially people who don't even know what they like doing or feel like they have no valuable skills to offer. There is a series of exercises called the Flower Diagram. Each petal of the flower is a different important element of a person's work life. The people you work with, the skills you have, the knowledge you bring, the place you work, etc. We are on the skills petal, which takes some time. To find out your skills, and which ones you enjoy utilizing the most, you write seven or so stories about things you've done that were especially challenging, or you are especially proud of, or especially enjoyed. Then you analyze those stories using a grid of listed skills divided into three categories: people skills, data skills, thing skills—or something along those lines. It sounds kind of ridiculous but the combination of subjectively summarizing past experiences mixed with the more objective and universal list of skills, which you just check off one by one, is actually pretty helpful. Writing about it right now is getting me excited to get on with it and move to the next petal. ### Oh no yoga As much as it pains me to admit it, after years and years of brushing it off as something for other people, I have started doing Youtube yoga. The channel I have decided to focus my attention on for this new hobby features a stereotypically Yoga-ish young white couple who call themselves [Breathe and Flow](https://www.youtube.com/@BreatheAndFlow?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (I know, I know—also I don't know anything about them, so please don't blame me if they turn out to be into animal sacrifice or QAnon or something). Throughout my life, I would say I have gone from being a generally poor athlete (using the word athlete in the broadest possible sense) in my pre-teens and early teen years, to a mediocre athlete once I hit a few growth spurts, to an average but tenacious athlete in my 20s, to now being a somewhat-above-average athlete as compared to all other people in my age bracket across the world's population. Actually, I am mostly thinking of fellow Americans. I feel like people my age in most other countries and cultures are more active and healthy than here, so maybe just average. Anyway, the reason I mention my highly subjective fitness level is this: yoga is kicking my @ $ $ ! Fortunately, as painful and humbling as beginner yoga Youtube classes are to follow along with, another thing has changed in this stage of life which helps immensely—I have a greater appreciation and enjoyment of my ability to learn and get better with practice. So, onward I yoga. To greater and greater heights of stretch and flex, until I can keep my heels on the ground in almost any position imaginable. ### Usagi, Renew The West Vegas Azul URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/usagi-renew-west-vegas-azul/ Last updated: 2023-11-18T05:02:12.000Z Welcome to the November 2023 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#41** Hello friends and acquaintances! A few of you wrote back with your simple joys after the October email (once I was finally able to receive email again). Elizabeth replied: '**Sitting in sunshine. I lived in AZ for 34 years of my 64 years. Now I need to be near my daughter in WI. So, I moved here 3 months ago.* **"I haven't seen the sunshine since I don't know when."* **I need sunshine - top down driving around, or sitting on the patio drinking wine, clear skies. Sunshine is my moment.'* Mar said: **'Taking a walk in my neighborhood with a friend.* **Seeing the leaves turn color in our neighborhood.* **Seeing my husband, who has Alzheimer’s, crack a joke and laugh. And five minutes later crack the same joke since he couldn’t remember he already did it! What a guy!* **Knowing the comfort of his hug.* **Seeing God come through for us in little ways, like providing a new doctor to walk through this time with us who is kind and listens well.'* As for me, I'm trying to enjoy the moments, or at least do more than just survive them. ### What I'm Up To - ****Skytrails Part 3*** — this is one of those projects I am very excited to get done, but not to do. Kind of like going for a run. I don't usually love running, but I always like the feeling of having gone for a run. The good thing about *Part 3* is that I have a basic roadmap and am more or less filling it in, which is a way I have not really operated before, but which is turning out some surprisingly good stuff. - ****Complete C# Unity Game Developer 2D course*** **by GameDev.tv on Udemy**—I won't be doing much of this from now until the end of the year, but I've been steadily working through it and am on the last and biggest game project, which is exciting. - ****Organizing, rearranging, Marie Kondo-ing, refurbishing, and all-around minimalizing and optimizing the contents of our home*** — sometimes you just get in a mood to overhaul your whole house. Fortunately Wendy and I are in alignment on this right now, which doesn't always happen, and it's getting into the time of year when I naturally slow down on device-centered-work and switch into around-the-house projects and outside adventures and family fun activities, which I have the luxury of doing as an at-home parent. Our house is in a state of pure chaos as I write this, which makes it a little hard to relax or focus, but it's all going somewhere good. - I am also building a mid-century modern-esque media console (TV stand) out of parts of other furniture, which, although frustrating, is one of my favorite things to do with the limited carpentry skills and tools at my disposal—repurposing old things we don't hate as better things we totally love. I'm not great at it, per se, but not too bad and getting better with every project. ### What I'm Into - **Azul (Board Game)** — I don't think I've talked about this one before, but Azul is just about hands-down the best all-around board game in existence. We gave it to our friend as a gift because it was highly rated and on sale and he was expanding his board game collection. Honestly, it didn't look like my kind of game. But then we all played it and loved it and we've been playing it ever since. We play other games but we always come back to Azul (and even though some of the offshoot versions of Azul are fun too, when I say Azul I mean the original and best version of the game). - ****Usagi Yojimbo* comics by Stan Sakai** — As a lifelong fan of storytelling with illustrated pictures, I have heard of the *Usagi Yojimbo* comics many times. But going through the original collected stories for the first time has been a treat. Usagi Yojimbo means 'rabbit bodyguard' and tells the stories of a wandering ronin samurai rabbit in 17th century Japan. The artwork is beautiful, the stories are simple, the characters in the early books are pretty two dimensional, but taken together it's all really enjoyable to read right before bed. And, since the series has been going almost as long as I've been alive, I won't run out of *Usagi Yojimbo* books to read any time soon. - **Loki: Season 2** — In last month's email I mentioned Loki had just started. Now it has just ended. And I have to say, it was pretty darn good. Endings are so hard to get right in any kind of story, and the Loki ending felt good and right and satisfying and surprising—all the things you hope for in an ending. - ****Right At Home* book by Bobby Berk** (of Queer Eye fame) — Wendy got this from the library and, along with some other home design books and shows, it is helping with our aforementioned home redesign/overhaul process. It's very important to stay inspired and motivated during a project like this, and books like this one help a lot. I've already learned a few tricks and rules, which seem obvious now, but isn't that how the great insights usually work? Like, for example, I realized I should put all my propagated plants around the kitchen sink (they always seem to love the kitchen sink) in the same kind of label-less jars instead of a random collection of bottles and jars with various, uninteresting labels. It helped! - **Ken Burns Presents: The West** — This is not strictly a Ken Burns series, in that he produced but did not direct, but it has the feel of one. It's an almost-three-decades-old, all-encompassing synopsis of how the American West became what it is today. It's strangely calming for how tragic and depressing most of it is. Like most of American history, it shows how damaging our nation's insatiable greed for more has been on people and places, while also showing the incredible ability of individual Americans to innovate, entrepreneur, help, and heal their way to a better world. It's the human story in a nutshell really—some of us making the world better while others make it worse, and most of us managing to do both at the same time. - ****Formula One: Las Vegas*** — You may not be into Formula One, but this weekend will be the first time Las Vegas has ever hosted a Formula One race, and it could be epic. And also pure chaos. It's a street circuit and a night race, in which planners did not really account for the low temps of the desert. The track itself only exacerbates the problems caused by cold weather with long straights and slow turns, meaning tires and brakes will be hard to keep warm, and warm tires especially are essential to a good drive on a race track (I'm learning all of this as I go). It's going to be interesting, even for people who aren't normally fans. Until next time, good luck and Godspeed! ### The Simple Joys Of An AhsokaLokiMarvelSnapLooseLeafTea5thBirthdayParty Small Life URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-simple-joys-of/ Last updated: 2023-10-14T10:00:05.000Z Welcome to the October 2023 edition of... **What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#40** Believe it or not, here in north central Florida the weather has taken a turn for the chilly. Chilly for us, anyway. You should see my kids on our morning bike rides to school. They look like arctic explorers. And I'm not much better, either. This month's email will be slightly shorter and slightly different, about the simple joys of a small life. I’m not a very content person, generally. I often idealize some kind of more perfect life with more accomplishments and more connectedness and more travel and more important-ness. Since at least teenage-hood, I have always thought my future life would be better than my current one. Which is sometimes good, when life is sucking, but that way of thinking tends to leave me enjoying the prospect of an idealized future and not enjoying the good moments as they happen. So I'm trying not to worry so much about the goals and the end results and the should be doing/should have done/should eventually do. *Stick to the simple joys of everyday life, Nate.* This lesson was helped recently by the kids getting sick one after the other (snot like waterfalls) and a back injury keeping me from some of the things I enjoy most about my normal everyday life, which in turn got me thinking about some of my favorite little joys: - The fresh air and exercise of the aforementioned morning bike rides to school - A cup of my favorite black tea after breakfast (loose leaf, from the Indian grocery store) - Learning new stuff and flexing creative muscles in new ways via my online video game courses (currently a Metroid/Castlevania-style 2D side-scroller with animated characters, jumping, climbing ladders, and enemies who get stuck on walls for no reason I can figure out—I was ecstatic when I figured out how to slow the player's movement when walking in water all on my own) - A Formula One weekend - Going to the regular gym and the climbing gym, pushing and moving my body in ways I wouldn't otherwise - Dinner with the fam around the dining table on the porch as the kids fight over which music gets played in the background - Evening walks with my wife, talking about successes and failures and stresses and hopes for the future - PBS documentaries that don't stress me out before bed - That elusive win in a Marvel Snap match (I recently played someone who used a Deathlok/Wolverine/Angel combo I really want to try, but still waiting to unlock Wolverine) - A little girl's 5th birthday party (at the playground, in the morning, with donuts and juice—pay attention parents, every word here is a thing of pure genius) - Weekend trips to the beach (St. Augustine or Crescent Beach or Jacksonville, occasionally Cedar Key, recently in the news after it was hit by a hurricane) - Looking forward to our next trip to Orlando to hang out with our friends and family there - Youtube-and-snacks Wednesdays, when the kids and I catch up on our favorite Minecraft Youtubers after school - Our cats Rocky and Gizmo sprinting toward the door in the morning after an exuberant night out in the yard - Fresh baked whole grain bread from the bread maker - Green curry and Thai tea - A new podcast episode from one of my favorite shows (currently **Eff Won* or **Hard Fork* or the **Robcast*) - Finishing a good show like **Ahsoka*, or starting one like **Loki* - Starting a good book, or giving up on a bad one Now I want to know from you, Dear Reader, what are some of your favorite simple pleasures in life? Super boring or super exciting, I don't care... hit me with it! (I might share a few in the next email, but if you don't want it shared, just let me know.) That's all folks, thanks for spending a few minutes of your precious time with me. Good luck and Godspeed! ### Lincoln In The Last Foundation On The Western Front Of Bones URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/into39/ Last updated: 2023-08-19T16:23:42.000Z Welcome to the August 2023 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#39** **Hello fellow humans and lovers of speculative fiction!** Fresh off an epic, 3-week, once-in-a-lifetime-kind-of-trip to the U.K. with my wife and three kids (ages 4, 7, and 10 for those keeping score at home), I bring you the kinds of things you can't find anywhere else—fresh hot takes on the same stuff thousands of other people on the interwebs are talking about. You're welcome! And if you're interested in mediocre poetry, stick around to the end to read an example of poetry at its very mediocrest, which I wrote to memorialize our first overseas trip in almost a decade. ### What I'm Into - ***Lincoln In The Bardo*** by George Saunders I picked this up for a cool British pound from a charity shop in Harpenden and read it in three days, mostly on the train to and from London. I've mentioned before I have a hard time getting into fiction these days, but I was in a mindset for novel-reading and I had heard an interview with the author and it sounded interesting. It wasn't what I expected, honestly. The story is about Abe Lincoln and the loss of his son just as the civil war is ramping up, but it is much more a story of the afterlife, about ghosts hanging around a cemetery (*bardo*, in Tibetan Buddhism, means 'a state of existence between death and rebirth, varying in length according to a person's conduct and manner of death'). It garnered a lot of critical acclaim, so, as usual, lots of normal people don't like it and there's a great chance you won't either, but it found me at the right time and I enjoy venturing outside defined genres from time to time. - ***Foundation* Season 2** on AppleTV+ I read the *Foundation* series by Isaac Asimov maybe about a decade ago, and I remember the names of protagonists and the concept of psychohistory, but that's about it. It seems the creators took the main ideas and outline from the original Foundation series and massaged a whole lot of 'action' and 'excitement' into them, which is the thing I love least about the show, especially since so much of it seems forced (giant mining robots that are normally 'asleep' sense activity of people on the surface and... want to... destroy them?). Also, I can't remember how much the books focused on Empire's story, but so far I find myself much more compelled by its storyline than by the Foundation's. I remember really liking the Mule character from the books, but it seems like the show's version might not be as interesting. Still watching, we'll see... - ***The Last Kingdom*** on Netflix On our grand tour of the U.K., we stopped at Bamburgh, which used to be called Bebbanburg, on the northeast coast of England to see the infamous castle where Uhtred lost his family and inheritance, a place he returns to again and again in the Netflix series. We didn't have time to explore, but I wanted to at least see the castle, being that close. Wendy texted our friend Kim about stopping to see the castle and get a photo, and Kim was super excited and told her what a great show it is, so now Wendy is interested in watching it (even though it's definitely more violent and brutal than her usual faves), so we have started the series again, but who knows how far into it we'll get—we start or restart TV series all the time, but end up only watching a few episodes. - ***Unknown: Cave Of Bones*** on Netflix I have to quickly mention this documentary about a discovery in South Africa which shed new light on ancient humans (of the *homo* but not *sapiens* variety) and was a fascinating watch. - ***All Quiet On The Western Front*** on Netflix I watched this one on the plane. If you're into war movies at all and haven't seen this one, do yourself a favor and watch it. In a nutshell, it's World War One, from the German perspective with a distinctively *Saving Private Ryan* feel. It's depressing, like any realistic war movie should be, and hard to keep track of the characters sometimes (I watched in German with English subtitles, so maybe that's why), but very well done. ### What I'm Up To Before we left on our big adventure, I republished *[Skytrails](https://nathanleegreen.com/books/)*, but this time in two parts with a third part on the way. The story is mostly the same, but I've taken out huge chunks of one character's point of view, which might get turned into bonus content or something down the road. I've listed it as both *Epic Fantasy* and *Dystopian Sci-Fi*. I really don't know how to categorize it, which is the tough thing about writing outside standard genre conventions. It has the feel of a fantasy novel, I think, but with technological and futuristic underpinnings. Anyway, *Part One* in the series is free and will remain that way, [available through Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098X1SDP4?ref=nathanleegreen.com) right now and other ebook retailers soon. (If you bought the original release of *Skytrails* and would like to get [*Part Two*](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CBB66XK6?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and the eventual *Part Three* when it releases, please let me know—I DO NOT want you to pay for the same story twice!) Right now, I'm trying to wrap up work on the Midjourney-assisted not-for-children-children's-book that I started this summer as an experiment in using AI-generated-art to illustrate a project that would never get illustrated otherwise. It's called *Miso*, which is the name of the little robot protagonist. Then back to *Skytrails* for *Part Three*. Then, hopefully, my first brand new fiction project in a very long time. Also, I've started going through a Unity game development course on the online education platform, Udemy, to see what I can learn and where it can lead. *Note to self: When in doubt, follow your curiosity.* As my mentor and good friend (in the sense that he feels like a good friend to me but he is only barely knowledgable of my existence), Rob Bell, says, 'If anyone asks, just call it research. Research for what? Doesn't matter, you don't know yet. It's just research.' (Then he laughs, slightly maniacally.) And now, that poem I promised. ### Off To The Land Of Never Never Off to the land of Never Never Lost boys, talking animals, myths dwelling forever Hobbits and heroes cleverly endeavor To outsmart pirates, dragons, trolls… or whomever Magical schools, potions, animated singing streets Through the wardrobe, riven dells, grim fairy tales, castles and keeps Clocktowers, shires, a boy, his chocolate factory Full of mythical little people, pop-ins, chimney sweep Pubs in which the masters whiled Away hours, imaginations never idle Cathedrals to fantasies, domestic or wild Classic stories in books, shelved or in piles Boarded as five upon a bird-like machine Traveled space and time inside its body with wings Left our home with all our traveling things Finally (with complimentary food, drinks) we rest in our seats First stop upon the isle’s southern coast Kids everywhere, still in school, dipping their toes Of its miles of warm, sunny beaches, no one would boast They in swimsuits, we in our winter clothes Then to the land of a pretentious little pig More kids, kids all over, bursting at the seams Rides and sunny skies and happy screams Three kids jet-lagged, world of their dreams The ancient feat, Stonehenge, that's our next stop Ever-present cafe, museum, at every museum a shop To see our history, engineering marvel, or celestial clock All the worlds travelers come to stare at these rocks Magical mystery city, Bath, at its Height, these waters brought such traffic Roman, pre-Roman, post-Roman they gathered History upon history, they continually dig after it The ancient city is lovely, at night even glows Sunup to sundown, seagulls yell and croak Along with pigeons and crows These birds follow wherever we go Cotswolds past cottages, farms, sheep between Stop at son of clark’s farm, squat and diddly Pictures with a tractor and Gerald turned celebrity Charmed crowds buy overpriced charms (and so do we) Up to York, house of locomotives, history of trains Mallard, Scotsman, oldfangled things Atop the minster, down to the bottom, ancient graves Through a street in shambles, food stalls and rain Miles to go, quick, we dare not go slow The North calls to us, come, see what’s close Northward to a castle on a rock on the coast Bamburg, out of a book, and a favorite show Land of Scots, we’ve arrived, we finally meet Firth on Forth seaglass, bricks and debris Tower, battlefields, salt pans of the priests Deep breath, rest everyone, rest is what we need Ancient city of Din Eidyn, present day Edinburgh (Ed-n-bur-UH) Upon a bus tour, tall medieval buildings we pass will Go down as well as up, tour guide says, just ask him Next day more touring, the museum, the castle (Try the chocolate shortbread sandwiches, well worth the hassle) There’s much more, Georgian city too More touring, more than we can see or do Rainy, misty, grey, cloudy, sunny blue This city cannot make up its mind what to do Southward—'hey, air museum is open today' Comet and Concorde, ever-present (with haggis) cafe Despite the rain, these kids want to stay From fantastical aero planes we drag them away Have to see it all—Housesteads, Roman ruins call Just before close, up a hill through sheep, we walk There, the fort, outlined in rocks, the Wall And as we rise, the sky begins to fall District of lakes, bumpy country lanes Through the little village, tractors roll night and day Friendly cottage, ducks and cupcakes with duck eggs Trips to Keswick (Ke-ZICK), busy tourist town on a lake Children say, ‘if only we had bikes!’ Walk to a waterfall, whoops, wrong waterfall, yikes Old man in freezing water, fluffy dog, sunny muddy hike Aira Force, try again next day, this time it’s right (what a sight!) Early morning hike up the bells of a cat (imagine that) Stop to change clothes, shoes, everything and go back Blisters cooperating, home after noon, into the car we pack From the isle of the carl, banana curry in a sack (imagine that) Today and the day after tomorrow we’ll leave ‘What’s next?’ ask over and over and over these three 'More Roman ruins, Birdoswald,' we answer, 'More sheep' More discoveries for full brains half asleep Toward Macclesfield, friends whose kids number six Saturday relaxing, talking, walking, horse’s kiss Flat bike tires, prep for a summer camp trip ('take that, no take this') Our family is happy to be still, with friends, just play and sit Sad farewell, bye for now—off to city of cities, London Town We stayed before in this den of Harpen—old familiar ground Walking, training, busing, boating up the Thames then down We’ll see all we can, every jewel in the kingdom’s crown The bridges, tower, Pancras the saint, cross of the king Past Hyde Park, Notting Hill, names we know but haven’t been Library’s ancient books, museum’s ancient things We need rest days too, gardens of Kew, lunch at Roti King Who else can we see, we’ll be leaving very soon Family of ‘J’s, their magical restaurant, plums in June Wands out for Harry, his studio, wander ’til our faces are blue Last afternoon, old friend and new, three years married (it’s true) Goodbye grand land of fantasy and wonder We leave your park-like country, the end of our summer Saw all we could, maybe too much (lovely blunder) Thank you for everything (exchange rate, too, since from Europe you sundered) Back from the land of Never Never 97 degree heat, our modern buttons and levers Three kids and their parents cleverly endeavor To outsmart the system, conventional wisdom… all the worldly whatevers ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/08/nathanleegreen_Peppa_Pig_city_of_Bath_Stonehenge_Diagon_Alley_c_31ec05e2-8af7-4557-a1bb-8e2ae7d296df-1.jpg) Generated with Midjourney. Thanks for reading! Until next time... ### Stressing About Moving And Dying And Not Doing Enough URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/stressing-about-moving-and-dying-and-not-doing-enough/ Last updated: 2023-06-24T14:54:39.000Z I am stressed. Why am I stressed? Because, friends and readers, I am in for a season of change, and potentially quite a bit of it. There is a great chance we will be moving this year. And it will probably be a big move. A combination of two things have brought us to this point: the next obvious step in Wendy's career, and our realization we might be running out of time for big moves with our kids as they are aging faster than we can keep up with. We want our kids to have some sense of stability and permanence as they get closer to their teenage years (which is thankfully what my parents decided to do when I was a kid) but that means our time is running out if we're not sure we want to stay here for the next decade-plus. *Why move at all?* you may wonder. Good question. I moved around a lot growing up. For some people, that seems to cement them in place. If they grew up always on the move, they want to be adults who stay still. Which I fully understand... in theory. But for others, like me, who grew up that way, something inside us wants to keep moving. Maybe because we saw our parents moving around every few years as adults, and our parents are the closest models we have for how life is supposed to go. Or maybe we just go stir-crazy in more extreme ways than others. I don't know. What I do know is that Wendy and I both love to explore. For the 9 years we lived in Massachusetts, we went all over the greater New England area, and even further, from New York to Montreal and everywhere inbetween. *So just travel more,* you might think, *you don't need to move to explore.* That is true and long-distance trips are fun, and we want to do more of them, but figuring out plane tickets and lodging and activities is daunting and expensive, especially with 3 kids. A road trip, by comparison, is easy, and something we already do at least once a month. So moving somewhere new means lots of new places to explore, easily, by car. *What about friends and family?* Yeah, that's the real kicker, isn't it? In the past, when we've left home, we have made new and close friends. We've even been adopted by whole families. People can't be replaced, obviously, but it's not so hard to make a big move when you believe there will be new people and interesting friends waiting on the other side. BUT all that certainty I used to feel about making new friends went away with this last move. We have gotten to know a few people in Gainesville, but nothing like the deep ties we have experienced in other places. Partly, that was because of a global pandemic which kicked off in the U.S. the month after we moved. Partly, it's because we were still close enough to our people in Orlando we weren't desperate to make new friends. And partly, it's because at this stage in our lives it's much easier and maybe even more rewarding to spend time with people we already know and love than to start from scratch. Also, did I mention the global pandemic? Giving up our current relative closeness to Wendy's whole family and a handful of very close friends a couple hours away makes the thought of moving again seem extra tough this time around, I will admit. *What about the economy and interest rates and housing prices?* Yeah, that's another reason to be stressed out about a move right now, isn't it? Housing prices have gone way up in the last few years and have not gone back down, even with rising interest rates. Which is good, on the one hand, because we stand to make quite a bit of money on our house, but bad because in all the places we are likely to move average housing prices are about double what they are here. Good news for you, if you are thinking about moving to inland Florida, but not such great news for us. *So what will you do?* We will continue to take it one step at a time, the only thing any of us really can do in this life. We will be open to great opportunities, and we will try to be wise about the big and small decisions we make that affect our futures and kids' futures. In the end, though, we're just going to have to say to ourselves, 'we can't possibly know every variable or outcome, so, does this opportunity thrill us as much as it terrifies us, because if so, that is probably the right direction to head in.' As Kevin Kelly says, > Very few regrets in life are about > what you did. Almost all are about > what you didn't do. ### Across The Severance-Honnold-Zelda-Verse URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/across-the-severance-honnold-zelda-verse/ Last updated: 2023-06-24T14:31:10.000Z Welcome to the June 2023 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#38** It's been a minute, fellow sapiens! Sometimes I put off writing these emails way too long because I get discouraged about this form of communication. It's so one-way. I'm a big fan of a good, long, sit-down conversation, where I talk less and you talk more. BUT, I do enjoy this process and I like looking back to see what I've been up to in past months and years. Also, helps me realize how much I get do actually get done and how full my life really is, which I often take for granted. (Also, I must admit that keeping an active email newsletter is the #1 most recommended marketing tool for indie authors by pretty much everyone.) Alright, here goes... ### What I'm Into - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse—just saw this, can't recommend it highly enough. It might not be for everyone, but it is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It's like all the best parts of superhero movies, anime, comic books, video games, music videos, and just plain, old-fashioned, good storytelling, all mixed up into one beautiful act of near-perfect creative expression. What's not to like? - Severance—we were late to the Severance train, but the hype was justified. Wendy is so obsessed with this show, she is now listening to a play-by-play podcast about every episode. - Alex Honnold—this is a person, not a show or movie or video game, but like many people I'm fascinated by him. If you haven't seen the doc Free Solo about his climb of El Capitan without ropes, you should check it out. The husband and wife team who made that film, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are also pretty incredible in their own right (they executive produced 14 Peaks, another incredible climbing doc). - The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom—I would be remiss not to include the sequel to one of my top 5 favorite video games of all time, Breath Of The Wild. I was worried TOTK would not live up to the high standards set by BOTW, but my worries were for naught. It's everything it needs to be, and I'm having a great time playing through it whenever I get a chance, no matter how frustrated I get along the way. ### What I'm Up To - I put the 'final rough draft' of the memoir to bed (metaphorically speaking). It's weird—I've been working on it for so long, off and on, and now it's sort of done and sitting in a drawer, cooling off (again, metaphorically speaking), and I didn't celebrate or anything. I finished editing the last chapter, closed my laptop, then started on something else the next day. Feels good to move on. - I'm re-working *Skytrails*, the sort-of-but-not-really-sequel to *Greysuits*. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I released *Skytrails* almost 2 years ago as a sequel to *Greysuits*. A few of you bought it and read it (thank you!). I got feedback that it was a good story, but calling it a sequel to *Greysuits* was false advertising and left a bad taste for readers who were expecting it to be something it wasn't. That feedback was spot on, so I pulled the book and decided I would re-work it at some point in the future. Some point in the future has become right now, as often happens, and though it felt painful and depressing to go back to something I thought was done, I am actually excited about the way it's going and it's more in line with my original intention and plan for the story, so really it's just a lesson to me to stick with my gut and not try to shortcut or shoehorn books to be what they're not supposed to be out of laziness or impatience. - As an experiment in AI-assisted storytelling, I've been using Midjourney (the generative AI art platform I talked about a few newsletters ago) to try to illustrate a piece of flash fiction I wrote several years ago for a contest. The story is a futuristic tale of a robot called Miso who works in the only meat processing plant left in the world. Miso realizes she's been hacked by a virus, which has caused her to kill all the people in the plant, and now she has to figure out how to stop the virus before it causes more death and destruction. It's a little darker than my usual stuff. It's obviously not for kids, but I'm using Midjourney to illustrate it like a children's book, and it's coming out pretty cool. The hardest part of using 'AI' like this to generate art for a story is getting it to produce consistent illustrations of the same character in different poses or with different expressions. That's not what these things are built for, so you have to really work with it, but fortunately there are people on YouTube and elsewhere who are figuring this stuff out and talking about it at length. That's all for this month. We're off to the U.K. next month for the biggest, longest, and definitely most expensive family vacation/learning experience we've ever attempted, by far. I'm sure I'll be talking all about it next time. Hope you are having a great summer (northern hemi) or winter (southern hemi).... Drop me a line sometime and let me know what you're up to and/or what you're into! I love to hear from friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike! P.s. Here's an alternative cover to this email, also by Midjourney. ![Miles Morales Spider-Man as a Legend Of Zelda character.](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/06/spider-link-2.png) —Nate ### The Story I Want To Tell With My Life URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-story-i-want-to-tell-with-my-life/ Last updated: 2023-04-16T13:57:19.000Z Welcome to the April 2023 edition of...‌‌‌‌ *What I'm Pondering Deeply With High Hopes And Much Uncertainty*‌‌‌‌ **#37** I am currently reading a book called *Hero On A Mission* by Donald Miller, the same guy who wrote the bestsellers *Blue Like Jazz* and *A Million Miles In A Thousand Years*. *Hero On A Mission* is about how to live a good story. Don noticed at some point that most stories follow a very basic formula: a main character wants something and has to overcome challenges to get it. As he learned more about the principles of story, he began applying them to his own life. This book is about that. I have been writing a memoir off and on for the last five years or so, so thinking of my life as a story is a very familiar process. I talked to Heather recently, a friend of a friend who has ghost-written several popular memoirs. She said in her opinion good memoirs follow the same rules as good fiction. It's about the journey of the main character, how they overcome internal and external obstacles and grow into the person who can accomplish the big things they so desperately want to accomplish. I turned 43 last month (thank you, thank you, oh stop it, you're too kind). For the last decade, I have been a stay-at-home dad. But our third and youngest child is on the verge of starting school soon, which has forced me to think long and hard about what the next stage of my life might look like. It may be that I need to get a regular job with a guaranteed paycheck, but as much as I am able I have decided on three things I want to spend my working time on for the next 7-ish years— 1. Tell fantastic stories (more novels). 2. Spread the idea of sharing weekly dinners with a handful of people (sounds so simple, but I believe this could change the world). 3. Build a free, public, and shared digital universe for kids and grown-ups to play, create, and connect in (Minecraft meets World Of Warcraft meets A Bug's Life). Just writing those intentions down does not at all guarantee I will pursue them. I don't even know how to pursue two of them! But I have to ask myself (maybe I should put this up on my wall), *will I live a story worth telling?* Do I want to do these ambitious things *enough* to overcome huge obstacles to make them happen and, in the process, grow into the future version of me who is able to make them happen? Or will I settle for the easier and more predictable and less scary path? ### A Thought On Bad Christianity URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-metaphor-for-bad-christians/ Last updated: 2023-02-26T12:07:19.000Z *#36 | Three Minute Thoughts* My friend is beyond frustrated with Christianity. I told him I thought he was focusing too much on people who call themselves Christians and not enough on the person the religion is named for. I was thinking about the conversation later and came up with the following metaphor to try and prove my point: If a friend of a friend came to your house with a cake and told you they followed a recipe by one of your favorite Youtube bakers (my friend likes to bake), and you tried the cake and it was the worst thing you ever put in your mouth, would you be more inclined to believe it was the Youtuber's fault for creating a horrible recipe, or the friend of a friend's fault for ruining a what was probably a good recipe? ### Ghost_Layer Is Out Now | ChatGPT & Midjourney A.I. Examples URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/fun-with-ai/ Last updated: 2023-02-13T22:23:40.000Z Welcome to the February 2023 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#35** ### What I'm Up To - *Ghost\_Layer* is now available as a free ebook on all platforms and as an auto-narrated audiobook on Google Play. **You have until February 14th to get the audiobook free with this code (** 13F7ZNHPS7X0X **) or through this link (** [https://play.google.com/redeem?code=13F7ZNHPS7X0X](https://play.google.com/redeem?code=13F7ZNHPS7X0X&ref=nathanleegreen.com) **)!** It feels great to have this novella done and out in the world! I think it makes a great first episode in what could be a really fun series, but we'll see how much traction it gets. ### What I'm Into Everyone is talking about A.I. assisted tools right now, and as I've spent time with a couple of them recently, I'd like to do some show and tell for you. First, Google's auto-narration feature. For any of you who have listened to the *Ghost\_Layer* audiobook, you will hear that it does indeed work! And the narration is not that bad. Like all these tools, it's not as good as a real person. It doesn't always emphasize the right words in the right way, and it doesn't put in the nuance that a good voice actor would. But it's cheap (in this case free) and fills the gap between no audio option at all and the expensive human-made option I'm hoping to eventually provide. Next, ChatGPT. Before this chatbot took the world by storm, I had heard about the parent company, OpenAI, and their increasingly remarkable GPT 'language models' from a tech-optimistic writing podcast I listen to sometimes. But I had no experience using any of them, because they weren't super easy to use. Enter: a chatbot version called ChatGPT. For last month's email about the free *Ghost\_Layer* audiobook I thought it would be fun to see how GhatGPT would write the email. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-01-14-at-9.45.10-PM.png) So there you have it. ChatGPT can take any prompt and spit out something dry and professional-sounding, like magic. What's more fun, though, is using it to write poetry or story ideas. This one was for a friend. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-13-at-9.51.59-AM.png) But chatting with an 'A.I.' language predictor is only half the fun. Have you tried making A.I. generated art yet? There are several options, but I used a platform called Midjourney to spin up some artwork for my ongoing secret project. Here are a few examples. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/mj-anthropomorphic_ladybug_warrior_robot_with_sword_on_gia_4b269ce1-fef0-4b18-a62c-f5a6a4b7904a.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/mj-fantasy_landscape_gigantic_plants_pond_village_wate_c37a872b-218a-4337-9201-330febd780f5.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/mj-fantasy_solarpunk_anthropomorphic_robotic_praying-manti_370d0758-e6b5-4695-87b1-9d76dc8cb957.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2023/02/mj-robotic_steampunk_wasp_people_flying_in_sky_by_studio_g_c62e436d-ee39-4b23-9a17-325f2c4b841f.jpg) I typed some text of what I wanted and Midjourney spit these images (and a whole bunch more) out at me. The challenge with this stuff is fine-tuning the text prompt to get the desired results, because I spent hours trying to get the kinds of images I wanted. Of the four above, only one was close to what I was hoping for (the robot samurai ladybug, in case you're wondering) even though the others were still amazing and inspiring. If you look closely, you can see little weirdnesses—random extra stuff that doesn't quite fit. For example, in the preying mantis/waterfall image, there are weird floating things in the waterfall area. And Midjourney is already notorious for doing strange things with hands and feet. BUT, for generating some quick, cheap concept art to brainstorm or put together a pitch or flesh out a website, it's a game changer. Obviously, there are ethical questions. The way these A.I. models work, based on my very limited understanding, is that the companies 'scrape' the internet for content, and the A.I. tools use all those multitudes of data to build sentences or pictures or whatever it is, basically remixing everything the tool has access to in order to give the current user what it thinks they want based on the text prompt. That's my very basic understanding, but what it means is that, for example, artists who have posted tons of art on ArtStation (a very cool portfolio website) might notice some of the images being created by Midjourney look remarkably like their own art. But now that these tools exist and are being used, it's really a matter of figuring out the legalities of who owes who what. Ideally anyone will be able to license their voice, or art, or words for A.I.-based tools to use and then, theoretically, everyone might be happy? As for me, I fully intend to hire a human voice actor to read my books when I'm able to afford it and it makes sense for the scale of the project. Also, *Ghost\_Layer* is a short novella, so it was fairly easy to go through the whole book and make sure the auto-narration said words and terms correctly, but bigger books will take forever for a perfectionist like me. At some point, the A.I. narration will be good enough that voice actors might be able to license their voices, based on their past work or a bunch of samples, and no one will have to spend hours in a recording studio or spend thousands of dollars on a good audiobook recording. Again, ideally this would work out well for everyone, but we shall see. Successful businesses get what they can afford when they can afford it, and I think these A.I. tools—text generation, auto-narration, art generation, and whatever's next—add more tiers of resources for artists and creators and businesses to do more with less. But will that be good news for everyone, or will it work out well for a few while a majority are stripped of more opportunities for well-paid gigs? What do you think about the A.I. takeover? Let me know! ### Thoughts On The Last Jedi URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/thoughts-on-the-last-jedi/ Last updated: 2022-12-16T21:56:23.000Z *#33 | December 2022* I'm writing to you from my hammock in the backyard again. It's close to 70°F and almost cold enough in the shade to need a long sleeve shirt and/or jeans. For those of you who want to punch me through your screen, you should know that while I love this kind of weather and enjoy it as thoroughly as possible (exhibit A: lying in a hammock in the backyard), it's been in the 80s most of this fall and has not felt very Christmasy so far this month (your mileage may vary). I wanted to write something a little longer this month, since I missed November entirely and because it's the end of the year, it feels like a time for big wrap-ups (although this won't be that, exactly). I considered writing about a bunch of different topics for this one... —my shallow dive into the amazing but frustrating world of Minecraft mods —how my current podcast subscriptions reflect my faith journey these days —how my son, Ezra, is currently fascinated by the 'punk' genres—cyberpunk, steampunk, and the burgeoning solarpunk—with a quick synopsis and thoughts on those genres —what I'm currently learning about climate change and how we cope with it Ezra is also going through a phase where he says he deserves bad things, and when I asked he said it was because of the Bible he felt that way, so I had a conversation with him about God and the Bible and Minecraft and why God is more interested in how we live in this world he's given us and not nearly as much about what we do or do not deserve, so I considered writing about that. Then there was my latest obsessive Netflix binge, the eight-part series called **1899*, which I began watching with my friend, Darius, at the beginning of a weekend and finished at home (while Wendy was cooking and napping—she doesn't like suspense) by the end of the same weekend. It was very good (if a bit risqué in parts, definitely not safe for innocent eyes), but do not go lightly, Dear Reader, on that crazy journey—it will swallow 8 hours of your life and spit out nothing but shock and confusion (not to say that it doesn't conclude well—but it leaves way more questions than answers). But instead of writing more deeply on any of those topics, I chose to delve into one of my (and the world's) great cinematic loves, **Star Wars*. Specifically, *The Last Jedi*. I listened to [an interview with Rian Johnson on the Smartless podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHqfTPhyCpA&ref=nathanleegreen.com) a week ago. Then I got sick (not Covid, according to the home test). So the next day, head throbbing and full of snotty mucus, unable to do much of anything else, I decided to watch Johnson's controversial contribution to the Star Wars franchise, **The Last Jedi*. I think it was my third viewing since its initial release five years ago. When I originally saw **The Last Jedi* in the theater, I was not sure how to feel about it. Like many people, I felt like it had committed sins against the Star Wars universe. But, I also really enjoyed parts of it. It contained two of the biggest surprise twists in Star Wars movie history—Snoke's death and Luke's finale. Even if you weren't a fan of the film or of the ways it challenged Jedi lore, those are the kinds of moments you go to the movies for—the moments when everyone in the theater gasps in unified shock. There were definitely things I didn't like about the movie, though. For example, the opening scene with Poe messing with Hux about being 'on hold' really bothered me, even watching it again. I liked the humor, it just felt too 20th century and out of place for Star Wars. I wish they had tweaked the dialogue a little. There were other things that just seemed confusing or wrong, dialogue things and Force things and 'how did we get to this point?' things. But the movie opened with action and humor and I was never bored from beginning to end, except maybe a few moments on the glitzy casino planet, Canto Bight. I now feel like **The Last Jedi* is a movie for a new generation of Star Wars fans—the characters are more flawed and nuanced, the lines between good and evil are more blurred, tension exists within the ranks on both sides, and the past (in more ways than one) is not treated as delicate or sacred. As you'll no doubt remember, a huge backlash erupted online after **The Last Jedi*'s release. Some of it was civil and constructive, some of it was stupid and immature. Certain fans felt the film was too socially progressive. Others, like me, felt like it broke rules of the Star Wars universe—what the force could and could not do, how the heroes of my childhood were supposed to behave. Or, that the plot didn't make sense in certain ways. A vocal minority hated the character of Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, and did not hesitate to let her and the world know what they thought of her race, gender, and shape, prompting her to leave social media and [write about her experiences in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/movies/kelly-marie-tran.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com). **The Rise of Skywalker* hit theaters and sort of undid everything **The Last Jedi* did. It was, for that and other reasons, the most disappointing Star Wars experience for me since **The Phantom Menace.* For starters, it continually did this thing where characters in the movie telegraphed information to the audience that needed to be true for the movie to work, but which the characters had no way of knowing for sure (we're just going to assume with certainty every star destroyer ship from the zombie fleet has a planet-destroying laser attached to it?). It was a very cheap way of moving the plot forward and I had a hard time getting past those moments. The sudden revival of Palapatine could have been interesting if foreshadowed from the first film of the trilogy, but as presented felt contrived and hollow. The fleet of revived star destroyers felt like an out-of-nowhere doomsday plot device. Instead of exploring the galactic tensions set up by the first two films, we're now having to pause all that stuff to deal with this new, over-the-top Deathstar Part 4\. It was nice to see Billy Dee Williams again as Lando, but his appearance felt unrealistic and shallow, like a piece of art in a museum collection. The character of Rose Tico was sidelined, intentionally or not, as well as her budding relationship with Finn. The revelations about Rey's parentage in *The Last Jedi*, while disappointing and a bit frustrating in the moment (for the audience and for Rey), at least moved the story in a surprising direction and changed course from the whole 'powerful Jedis only come from powerful Jedis' idea. All in all, it would have been really interesting to see where Rian Johnson took the story if he had helmed the last film instead of J. J. Abrams and company. Abrams recently said he thought the biggest problem with the trilogy was a lack of planning from the get-go, and that is something which resonates with me completely. Endings are hard, even when there's no pressure at all, let alone when it's one of the biggest series of stories the world has ever known. Knowing where a story is going compared with making it up as you go makes all the difference in the world. Speaking of J. J. Abrams, I loved and still love *The Force Awakens*. I was excited about his involvement from the first time I heard about it until the first time I saw the movie, and never for a second wished anyone else had rebooted the franchise. Despite the criticisms about playing it too safe, I think *TFA* is one of the most solid and fun installments of the Star Wars films. So, what have I learned from revisiting the Star Wars sequel trilogy and giving *The Last Jedi* and *The Rise Of Skywalker* another chance? I like *The Last Jedi* much more now than I originally did and I can appreciate the risks it took, the steps away from classic Star Wars tropes into potentially fresher territory. *The Rise Of Skywalker,* while not horrible, has not grown on me any after another viewing. As a storyteller, I think I've learned it's better to take chances and swing for the fences, because at the end of the day, a disgusted audience is better than a bored one—at least from where I'm standing. And as far as life lessons in general, I keep learning and re-learning that I shouldn't take my initial impressions or reactions, even sometimes my long-held beliefs, too seriously. My views change over time. Perspectives shift. And if I am not willing to allow for the possibility I may feel differently about something tomorrow, I remove the chance for myself to grow—in maturity, in wisdom, in compassion, and as a human being. Overcoming obstacles is essential to any story, but overcoming oneself is what we call character development and it is the lifeblood of any really great story. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and much love everyone! Until next year... ### Oregon Bookstacks Fiction-vs-Non URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/oregon-bookstacks-fiction-vs-non/ Last updated: 2022-10-29T15:12:30.000Z Welcome to the October 2022 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#32** ### What I'm Up To Earlier this month, Wendy and I took a magical little trip to Oregon. She had a work thing for a few days in Central Oregon and I try to tag along on her work trips every chance I get, sometimes with the kids, sometimes just the two of us. We spent a few days on either end of the trip in Portland with our friends, Matt and Heather. We got donuts and chai at Pips, tried a few food carts (with lackluster results), borrowed a mountain bike from a bike charity in Vancouver, Washington, saw some local sites (including a live sturgeon the size of a manatee), drank lots of great coffee (seriously, why is their coffee better than ours?). We hung out with Matt and Heather's fun and funny kids, Matt and I caught the F1 Japan race (so nice to watch a race with a fellow fan), and the four of us adults conversed deeply and widely about our experiences inside and outside the world of immersive Christian organizations (we all spent time in Youth With A Mission)—always a fascinating and cathartic exercise. In the middle of the trip, we drove our rented Kia Soul to Sunriver in Central Oregon, near Bend, stopping along the way at Bonneville Dam (home of that sturgeon I mentioned earlier, also unbelievably good giftshop coffee—seriously, what's the deal?), a Thai food cart at Hood River (best AND cheapest food cart/trailer of the trip), and the famed Timberline Lodge built high up on Mount Hood in the... 1930s? I think? Yes, Wikipedia confirms it, the 1930s. Wendy was booked with back-to-back-to-back meetings our whole time in Sunriver, so I explored, rode my borrowed bike on paved paths around the resort complex, hit some mountain biking trails (actual up-and-down mountain biking—I'm from Florida, remember), watched river surfers surf the manufactured standing wave in Bend, hiked around Tumalo Falls, met up with my friend, Geoff, who showed me around Smith Rock, then talked long with him over really great tater tots in Bend about the challenges of stay-at-home-dad life, future dreams, past failures, and all the stuff you talk about with someone you haven't seen in over a decade. What a trip! (Sorry, I know this is a lot of words to dedicate to something that probably won't be that interesting to read. But for those of you who know Oregon, or are dreaming about your next travel adventure, maybe this was interesting.) Also, I've started a bunch of new books lately which are all good, but only some of which I will probably actually finish. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj5lDgdOmBe/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Nate (@nathanleegreen)](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj5lDgdOmBe/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) You may notice a distinct lack of fiction in my reading stack. My friend Chris asked me recently what my favorite category of fiction is these days, and I had to honestly reply, 'Non.' I don't know why, but I have a really hard time getting into fiction anymore. Which is weird, since I love writing it so much. I expect at some point I will find some stories or authors that draw me in and return me to my original love, but for now I am just following where my interests lead me. (Graphic novels, TV shows, and movies are all exceptions to this genre exclusivity—maybe that has something to do with it.) So, what have I been working on this month while not traveling, adventuring, starting new books, and reconnecting with long-lost friends? ### What I'm Working On - **Mudwash*—chapters 20 - 23 (basically, publishing one chapter a week) - **Greysuits* Audiobook—this one is a pain as I need to go through each chapter to make sure the words and phrases all sound right, especially the made up ones. As I'm doing that, I am finding edits I missed the first time around, but I can't just change them on Google Play and move on, I need to change them on my book publishing app ([Vellum](https://vellum.pub/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), if you are curious), so the source material is consistent with the Google Play version, so I can eventually publish those changes across all the book platforms. Yikes. I might need to steal one of my kid's PC monitors for a dual-monitor setup to make it a little easier to switch back and forth between the app and the Google Play website. And I can't work at the picnic tables outside the gym while Harper is in the gym's kid care area lugging around an extra PC monitor... or while laying in my hammock in the backyard. Sigh. First world problems and all. - *Ghost\_Layer: Episode One*—I need more 'beta' readers to look at this one before I publish it. If anyone is interested in reading 20,000 words and sending me feedback, let me know! - Anhinga—secret website stuff for the secret non-book project (insert maniacal mad scientist laughter here). Thanks for following along! How's your Northern Hemisphere fall/Southern Hemisphere spring going? ### Hu-RRR-icane URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/hurrricane/ Last updated: 2022-09-27T22:10:36.000Z Welcome to the September 2022 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#31** I might not have time to send this out after today as Hurricane Ian is currently bearing down on Florida, so today suddenly seems like a good day to send a monthly email! I'm honestly not sure if these newsletters are still getting delivered to everyone, but I will trudge on nonetheless because that is my commitment—and also, it's a good way for me to keep up a monthly journal as I've always struggled with consistent journaling (unlike my grandmother who wrote long journal entries almost every day of her life). ### What I'm Working On... - *[Mudwash](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09RP8BKL6?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*—the never-ending memoir. - *Greysuits* audiobook—performed by Google's patented auto-narration service, which is still in beta, but functional. I've wanted to do an audiobook version of *Greysuits* since the beginning, and I even have an actor friend who was hoping to help me with it (she ran into problems with SAG), but the cost is high for professional audiobook narration and I've always questioned whether I need to go back and make changes to the book first, which I would want to do before having it recorded for all of time and eternity. With Google's automated narration tech being free, and easy to make changes to, it's a win-win situation. The narration is definitely not as good as a pro voice actor, but it's not nearly as bad as the old Stephen-Hawking-style text-to-speech stuff, which my friend Darius somehow listened to an entire book series with. - *Ghost\_Layer* 'Episode 1' ebook—containing [all 20 chapters](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09R6NCPB8?ref=nathanleegreen.com) currently published on Amazon Vella (thanks for the 22 thumbs up!). - A super-secret non-book project called Anhinga, named for the iconic 'snake bird' which can be found in watery places all over Florida. ### What I'm Into... 1. **Movie and Soundtrack: *RRR*** If you are a movie lover and you have not seen this one, do yourself a favor and watch it on Netflix (tip: make sure the audio is set to Hindi—then the English dialogue will actually be in English). It is unlike any other movie I have ever seen. At first, it was laughably over-the-top (like the clip of the beefy almost-naked guy running from a wolf and fighting a tiger Netflix showed as the teaser when I first saw the movie pop up), but as over-the-top as the action is, the story is well thought out and the actors are amazing when you realize their ability to do drama, comedy, highly choreographed fight scenes, dancing, singing—all on top of attaining Avengers-like physiques. With blatant themes of patriotism, anti-colonialism, and perseverance against all odds, you might be forgiven for overlooking the biggest theme of the movie: friendship—the kind of touchy-feely heterosexual male friendship that makes us in the west uncomfortable (but which I believe is important for us to see and appreciate about other cultures). If you don't have time to watch the whole 3-hour movie, at least check out the bridge scene [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSxGAoWOxuk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSxGAoWOxuk&ref=nathanleegreen.com) and the dance scene [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_vktceH8ZA0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FvktceH8ZA0&ref=nathanleegreen.com). Also, the music is amazing and I've been listening to the soundtrack while working, especially the main theme, 'Dosti'. 2. **Movies: *The Man From Snowy River* & *Return To Snowy River*** Two of my favorite movies from childhood, which I feared might not have aged well, but they have! Or at least to me they have. 1880s Australia, a man, his horse, and the courage to go farther than any other. The movies are hard to find on streaming platforms—I had to sign up for a free 7-day trial to watch one of them. I am also now reading the collected poems of Australian literary legend, 'Banjo' Patterson, whose poem 'The Man From Snowy River' inspired the movies. 3. **TV Series: *Rings Of Power*** I mean, does anyone need a description of this? I assume everyone knows about it, even if they are not interested in watching. It's a little slow and feels kind of stretched out (like butter spread over too much bread?), but I was genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed being back in Middle Earth. The nostalgia of the original movies is real. 4. **Book: *Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind* by Yuval Noah Harari** An expansive, fascinating, brief, sometimes depressing, sometimes hopeful, much lauded summary of human history on planet Earth, as well as a few predictions about our future as a species. One of my friends gave it 5 stars on Goodreads and another gave it 3, so I'll bow to peer influence and give it a nice, round 4 stars. 5. **Book: *The WEIRDest People In The World: How The West Became Psychologically Peculiar And Particularly Prosperous* by Joseph Henrich** WEIRD is an acronym for Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic. This is a giant, encyclopedia-sized book, so I don't know if I'll finish it, but so far it's super fascinating. I feel like I should be highlighting stuff on every page (but I never got into highlighting books). Did you know the literacy boom in Europe was brought on not so much by the invention of the printing press as by the founding and spreading of protestantism, which said every person needed to read the Bible for themselves and not depend on a priest to communicate its truths (*sola scriptura*)? And that learning to read physically changes the brain? The great thing about this book is that none of it is theory, it is all evidence-based and rigorously researched by the author and other social scientists he references. ### The Essential Transition To Elderhood URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/elderhood/ Last updated: 2022-09-03T18:05:03.000Z I recently watched three things that made me think one thing. The three things were [*The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11291274/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)(new Nicolas Cage movie that defies explanation), [*100 Foot Wave*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14126234/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (documentary series about a big wave surfer), and [*Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6848624/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (documentary film about the man behind the Studio Ghibli movies we all know and love). All three of these films/series were about men who are experts and celebrities in their fields, getting older, reckoning with their own desires to keep doing what they've always done at higher and higher levels, but blocked by the limitations of age, past failures, perfectionism, and/or irrelevance in a changing world. I thought about that connecting thread after watching *Never-Ending Man*, where it was the most obvious to me, and I realized, or at least I believe, that all of these characters suffer because they've held on too long to their own quest, to put it in [hero's journey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s%5Fjourney?ref=nathanleegreen.com) terms, instead of gradually moving into an elder/mentor role as they age. In the film, Miyazaki has retired but can't stop his internal drive to create and tell stories, but his body just can't keep up with his imagination, or with the heavy weight of time pushing down on him. He hires a bunch of young artists to help him animate the story in his mind, but he feels they are incapable of rising to his exacting standards and perfect vision. He has not been mentoring the next generation of Miyazaki protégés who will unleash their own slew of beautiful creations and stories on the world. He just wants people he can use to get his vision done and out into the world they way he wants it. It's all about his dreams, his ego, and his legacy, not about finding and helping young people like him who could really use his invaluable experience and guidance. Every generation needs elders, mentors, and guides who have walked the path, gained skills and experience and wisdom, and who can help young artists, entrepreneurs, athletes, scientists and specialists, parents, lovers, friends—quest-followers of every kind—speed run their way through the obvious pitfalls and clichéd mistakes of their own hero's journeys. That is the role I think we should aspire to in old age, *in addition* to continuously charting our own adventurous and creative course through life. ### Effective Metaverse Light & Magic Altruism URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/effective-metaversal-light-magic-altruism/ Last updated: 2022-08-27T17:57:58.000Z Welcome to the August 2022 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Up To* **#30** I'm sitting at a picnic table under a sunbrella on the patio outside our local gym. It's very hot out, 89 degrees but feels like 98 according to my weather app. Sitting still, staring at a laptop, I'm starting to sweat. It is almost 1pm, so, you know, it's my own stupid fault for being outside in Florida in August in the middle of the day. Also our plumbing has been out for over a week now. The pipes are old and apparently roots have broken through and clogged it up, so... when is the last time you pooped outside? It's an interesting experience, especially in your own backyard. Anyway, elementary school is back in session here, so I'm getting back into the school schedule rhythms of pre-summer. It's a little rough, but it's good, and I think it's definitely more productive in terms of writing and that kind of stuff. ### What I'm working on... - Publishing a chapter a week of my never-ending memoir - Brainstorming the next creative projects - Metaverse research (see below) - Coping with existential anxiety, which I've been plagued by lately, around questions of death and loss and getting older and the true nature of God and the universe and our place in it. I might write about this on my blog. Any kind of anxiety sucks, and as a parent I feel it all the time, but I do think maybe there is some kind of value in going through this particular kind of deeper-questions-anxiety. It breaks you in ways that may never be whole again in this lifetime, but I think maybe it is bringing new depth and a more expansive compassion? Hopefully? ### What I'm into... 1. **Movement: [Effective Altruism](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** '*Effective altruism* is a philosophy and community focused on maximising the good you can do through your career, projects, and donations.' Despite some criticism, this movement seems to have legs and be directing money and energy and ability to good places, though a good friend made a valid argument that if we focus on solving long-term risks, like containing A.I. and preventing nuclear war, we are able to pat ourselves on the backs without actually helping the people in the world who are suffering right now. Overall, though, I sleep better knowing people are working passionately in all these spheres. 2. **Docu-Series: [Light And Magic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM%5FXwzOK%5F98&ref=nathanleegreen.com)** I love watching behind-the-scenes documentaries about favorite movies and this is like six straight hours of that with all the big movies Industrial Light & Magic have worked on from A New Hope to The Mandalorian. I also love any good story about a ragtag bunch of outcasts who together are able to do what no one else thinks is possible. This is both of those things and very well done—what's not to love? 3. **Audiobook: [Tip Of The Iceberg](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36433723-tip-of-the-iceberg?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** On a recent road trip, I was looking for a good audiobook to listen to on Alaska and this showed up on my Libby app, so I gave it a go. It was a nice mix of travelogue and history, with the author shadowing a research trip from a hundred years ago starring John Muir and a diverse range of scientists aboard a research ship traveling the Inside Passage. I've never been to Alaska but I want to go more than ever now, especially with how quickly its landscapes are changing. ### What I'm researching... - **Universal avatars** I was curious recently with all this attention on the metaverse if anyone is working on platforms to create avatars that can be used in different online contexts. The two most substantial so far seem to be [ReadyPlayer.Me](https://readyplayer.me/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and [Alter](https://github.com/facemoji?ref=nathanleegreen.com). - **[The Sandbox](https://www.sandbox.game/en/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** The Sandbox is a game platform sort of like Minecraft or Roblox, except they have decided to fully embrace the blockchain and cryptocurrency. I think, like with all this stuff, the jury is still out on how that's going to work out long term, but it looks like they are raking in investment money and have built a very robust platform for creating digital objects and even games. Also, everyone and their brother has gotten on board with partnership deals, from Atari to Snoop Dogg to Paris Hilton to The Smurfs. I would think they were in over their heads, except the company has been building different versions of this game for a decade. It will be interesting to see how it evolves. - [**Veloren**](https://veloren.net/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) On the other end of the spectrum, Veloren is a fairly new (since 2018), completely free, and open source MMORPG with similar blocky graphics to The Sandbox and Minecraft. For a bunch of penniless volunteers, they are doing some high quality work—like really cool dynamic weather effects and epic procedurally generated worlds. I'm very interested in the place where a game like Minecraft meets a game like World Of Warcraft, and this is close to that, though unlike Minecraft Veloren does not focus much on manipulating the terrain of the world, and unlike WoW it does not have a massive player base or the support of a big studio and huge dev team. I'll keep watching it though. ### 2022.07.05 URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/2022-07-05/ Last updated: 2022-08-21T14:09:29.000Z Starbucks, Tuskawilla & Red Bug, 3:23pm Back in my old haunt, just like old times. I'm actually not *in* at all. I'm sitting outside. In July. In 93 degree heat, 54% humidity, with a 'feels like' temp of 104\. But there are big clouds providing shade and a nice warm breeze, and somehow it's not terrible. Starbucks drinks are half off today, so I have a venti decaf iced mocha (whole milk, whipped cream, 5 pumps mocha sauce instead of 6, 400-something calories) sitting on the little table next to me, leaving ring puddles of condensation all over. This morning I took the kids out on the Winter Park lakes and canals. Harper, Ezra, and I were on the paddleboard and Asher was in his little kayak. It was fun, though they did complain and Asher cried about his kayak turning in the current when he didn't want it to. I realized I'm not good at being excited about stuff like that, either before it happens or while it's happening. I decide to do it (if I'm being decisive) and we do it, and I don't know how it's going to go, but I just keep going until it's done. Like a robot. When I'm by myself I'm able to kind of bring my awareness to the present moment and think, 'this is nice, I'm glad I'm doing this, I think I'm having fun.' But with the kids, it was more like, 'this should be fun, but I'm too concerned about the kids not having fun and complaining and keeping everyone safe and moving forward and it's really hard to experience anything approaching a pure feeling of 'fun' because there's a lot of low grade stress going on here. So that's the kind of dad I am. Steady, somewhat adventurous, willful, not enthusiastic, but committed, and empathetic at my best or frustrated that my kids aren't as tough and committed as I think I am at my worst. The canals were fun. Watching a few birds glide above the water was fun. The beginning and the end were fun. I think that's pretty typical of any journey though. There are fun points. And there are slogs. And if everyone's safe at the end, it's been all-around a good trip. Should I be podcasting or emailing these kinds of journal entries/written prayers? That seems exploitative. Anyways, thanks Father, for this time away from home, in Orlando, doing some fun stuff. We were all in the pool today for a while. Every day in the pool the kids are more daring and have more fun, which is really cool to see. That's the great thing about summer here and Darius having a pool. Wendy and Harper are napping at the house and the boys are playing video games. I hope they all have a restful and relaxing time. I hope I do too. I think I will look at my next memoir chapter. My heart's not in it, but I will feel better about working on that then probably anything else. Right now it's books first, Anhinga second, FND Collective third. Lead and guide me, Father. Help me to know where to put my focus, how to spend my time, how to be a good husband and father and friend and son and brother and citizen of your kingdom. Help me to walk humbly with you, enjoy the good times, learn from and endure the bad times, and somehow make the world a little brighter, a little more loving, a little more fun and relaxed and shalom/aloha. amen. Also, please help my country and my world. Help the people who say they love you (including me) to seek you and your kingdom and your righteousness, not power or perfection or other empty gods. Love you. Thank you. Help me to honor you. ### Ch. 20—Cheap Gaming PCs—Disney Shows—Fall Guys URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/update29/ Last updated: 2022-08-27T18:03:56.000Z Welcome to the July 2022 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Working On* *#29* --- Hi All It's the middle of summer and there is not a whole lot to report, except... it's hot. But if you're anywhere in the northern hemisphere you probably know that. Here in North Florida, I am alternatively surprised by how oppressively hot it can be—even after all these years as a Floridian, I still forget just how much of a physical force the heat is in summertime—BUT ALSO by how *not* terrible it can be at other times. Like, right now, I'm outside our local Whole Foods on their patio waiting for Wendy to get out of work (my parents have the kids for the week) and it's not bad at all. I'm not sweating and no mosquitoes are trying to carry me away to their swampy mosquito torture dungeon which for sure exists and is probably somewhere near Miami. --- *What I'm up to:* - I wrapped up (for now) my [virtual-reality/metaverse/near-future story on Kindle Vella called *Ghost\_Layer*](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09R6NCPB8?ref=nathanleegreen.com) with **Chapter 20: What Could Go Wrong?** I'm excited to eventually revisit and re-edit *Ghost\_Layer* and turn it into an ebook. - I added a couple new chapters to my memoir, [also on Kindle Vella](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09RP8BKL6?ref=nathanleegreen.com). - Building some cheap gaming PCs with/for the kids, following the advice in [this very helpful *Popular Science* post](https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/build-cheap-gaming-pc/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). - Around-the-house projects and dealing with the never-ending infestation of stuff! - Some highly enjoyable vacationing. --- *What I'm into:* - The latest Disney shows (of course): *Obi-Wan Kenobi* and *Ms. Marvel*. Overall, I liked *Obi-Wan*. The production value was as good as any movie, but there were a few plot points that felt weak and/or unrealistic and/or cobbled together. Also, we started *A New Hope* right after finishing *Obi-Wan*... *wow, did he age A LOT in 9 years!* Also, his attitude seems to have changed quite a bit, from defeated and over-cautious to care-free and almost reckless. I like both versions, but they don't seem like the same character. Obviously, we can chalk that up to sitting on Tatooine for 9 years with not much to do, I guess, but it just seems a little inconsistent. Either way, I think we can all agree that little girl who played Leia was freaking amazing. *Ms. Marvel* is right up my alley. Superheroes AND immigrant/first-generation American family dynamics/tension/comedy AND coming-of-age high school drama AND world-traveling fish-out-of-water culture-clash AND mysterious family history. Just when I think there is no way they could pull me into YET ANOTHER superhero origin story... they find a way. In both these cases, I haven't read any reviews or what other people think, other than my wife and close friends, so I don't know if my response is typical or not. Sometimes when I read negative reviews, it sours my opinion and other times, when I read positive reviews, I'm like, 'oh yeah, that's true, they did do a good job of that,' but these are my raw, unaffected opinions. - The MMO summer I mentioned in the last email letter has kind of stalled out, to be honest. But there are two things I can talk about. The first is a podcast and online magazine called [Massively OP](https://massivelyop.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) which is dedicated to the world of massively multiplayer online games. I've been learning a lot about the genre from Bree and Justin and their podcast. The second is a game that's just recently gone free-to-play called [Fall Guys](https://www.fallguys.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) which is like playing a cute minion-y version of a Japanese game show with 60 other people and seeing how many rounds you can make it. It's not in the MMORPG category, but it is definitely in the MMO category. It's a little frustrating, but mostly fun, especially with other people in the same room who are also playing and laughing with/at each other. That's it for now! Thanks so much for following along! What are you up to this summer? ### An MMORPG Summer URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/an-mmorpg-summer/ Last updated: 2022-05-28T21:36:39.000Z Welcome to the May (barely) 2022 edition of... *What I'm Into, What I'm Working On* *#28* --- *What I'm up to:* - I've been chipping away at *Ghost\_Layer*, my [serialized novel about a young guy (and his robostrich) trying to make his way in the digital world](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09R6NCPB8?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Since the last email, I've published **five (!!!) new chapters—** *[Chapter 15: This Never Happened](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B09YVRPD7Y?ref=nathanleegreen.com),* *[Chapter 16: Room #423](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B09ZPYQFBQ?ref=nathanleegreen.com),* *[Chapter 17: Formula Hit And Run](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B0B1973VPT?ref=nathanleegreen.com),* *[Chapter 18: The Drop](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B0B1VZRQ2G?ref=nathanleegreen.com),* and *[Chapter 19: Pure White Nothingness](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B0B2KLJXFX?ref=nathanleegreen.com).* - Building part two of our driveway garden bed! When we first saw our current house, we immediately noticed a giant rectangle of mulch in the middle of the oversized driveway (Google Maps shows there used to be a giant oak tree growing out of it). It did nothing for curb appeal, let me tell you. It took us a while to figure out what to do, but we finally decided on a raised garden bed, which has gone pretty well, so now I'm adding part two, which will hopefully feature multi-level terraces and waterfalls! ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/05/IMG_5314.jpg) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/05/IMG_5378.jpg) --- *What I'm into:* I have decided to embark on a big research project this summer, with the help of some friends and family members, to play as many MMORPGs as possible before our kids go back to school in the fall. (Yesterday was their last day of school, so today is officially the first day of summer break!) For those of you not into video games, MMORPG stands for [Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively%5Fmultiplayer%5Fonline%5Frole-playing%5Fgame?ref=nathanleegreen.com), and of all video game genres this one has always interested me the most. I could give you a whole personal history of how video games have been a part of my life in different ways at different times, but for now I'll just say I've almost always become immediately bored with games I play by myself. I have friends who have sunk hundreds or thousands of hours into solo gaming, but I've never been able to do that. I like games as a collaborative and social experience, and I have future plans in that realm, so this research project is a good excuse to have a lot of fun and learn as much as I can about my favorite game genre. For now I am spending a little bit of time when I can with World Of Warcraft ([free trial up to level 20](https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/start?ref=nathanleegreen.com)), Lord Of The Rings Online ([free to play](https://www.lotro.com/home?ref=nathanleegreen.com)), Final Fantasy XIV ([free trial up to level 60](https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)), and Trove ([free to play](https://www.trovegame.com/en/playforfree/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)). I will keep you posted on my progress as summer continues. Would you be interested in doing your own version of this research project and sharing your results with me? I would love to hear about it! ### Lion-Tracking LoFi Bridgerton Boba Beforeigners (oh my!) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/lion-tracking-lofi-bridgerton-boba-beforeigners/ Last updated: 2022-04-29T20:39:31.000Z *Welcome to the April 2022 edition of...* ***What I'm Into, What I'm Up To*** **Issue #27** --- ### What I'm up to... **1\. Publishing Chapter 14 of my *Ready-Player-One*\-esque novella, [*Ghost\_Layer* (on Kindle Vella)](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09R6NCPB8?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** Between Spring Break and tax season, this past month has been almost a wash as far as writing/editing/publishing has gone, but I was able to throw another chapter in the can (is that a saying?) this week. Previous chapters just needed editing and touch-ups, but I've been rearranging the story from this point onward, which will ultimately be better and which I'm excited about, but it has taken some more work to figure out the new flow. **2\. Writing this email :)** --- ### What I'm into... **1\. Shows: *The Ultimatum* & *Bridgerton* Season 2, both on Netflix** I'll start with the more embarrassing stuff first. Wendy is responsible for us watching both of these, but I can't deny I got sucked in. *The Ultimatum* is a show where couples trade partners with other couples because one of them wants to get married and one doesn't and somehow this experiment will fix that (?). Drama ensues. And if you don't know what *Bridgerton* is, where have you been??? Regency-era romance in a reimagined Britain with the occasional curse word or sex scene, with a completely predictable storyline but still somehow totally engaging, which is a good reminder that mind-blowing plot twists do not equal good storytelling. You can have one without the other. **2\. Drink: [Boba Tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble%5Ftea?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** I'd like to brag for a minute, if you'll indulge me. I was into boba tea (also known as bubble tea) long before it blew up in America. There. That's my claim to fame. I can't remember when I first encountered the choking hazard that is boba tea—super sweet cold tea with a pile of tapioca balls sitting at the bottom of the cup and a giant plastic straw to vacuum it all up with—maybe on a trip to China in 2002, but either way I am back into it now that it's warming up. We are lucky to live in a college town with plenty of boba tea places to choose from and more popping up all the time. I'm a traditionalist, usually opting for milk tea with tapioca pearls, but most places have tons of different tea flavors and boba options. My wife likes the fruity stuff. **3\. Music: [LoFi Girl](https://lofigirl.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) on Youtube & Spotify** In a recent visit to a new(er) boba tea establishment (see above), I discovered a Youtube channel/Spotify artist/lo-fi music collective called LoFi Girl (by LoFi Cafe). The music is relaxed, instrumental, a little hip-hoppy, a little jazzy, and great as background music while writing or reading. What caught my attention in the cafe was the beautiful, cozy, lightly animated, anime-style illustrations accompanying the music, so there's something nice but non-distracting on the tv while the music plays. Another sort-of similar Youtube channel I really like is [Ambient Worlds](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfR8HhkbpDAwvYxrecNg4Mg?ref=nathanleegreen.com), which puts together music and lightly animated scenes from pop-culture fantasy movies (mostly) like Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings. **4\. Show: *[Beforeigners](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8332130/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* on HBO Max** I found out about this show on the *[Imaginary Worlds](https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* podcast (highly recommend, if interested try another recent episode, ['Asian Futures Without Asians'](https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/asian-futures-without-asians?ref=nathanleegreen.com)) and checked it out after the aforementioned *Bridgerton* binge. Premise: people appear one night in the waters around Oslo, Norway, and the next night more people appear, and they continue to show up—tens of thousands over a few years. When authorities pull them out of the water, they can't understand the language the rescued people are speaking, but it sounds like old Norse. It turns out the people appearing in the water every night are from other time periods—the Viking era, the Edwardian era, and prehistory. No one knows how to send them back to their original times, so the time-igrants, as they become known, have to somehow fit in with modern society. The show itself is really a crime drama/buddy cop show, but one of the two partners is a time-igrant herself from the Viking era, and the two work cases related to this worldwide phenomenon (did I mention it happened all over the world?) of people showing up from other times. Fascinating, right? (Warning: graphic nudity, cursing, eating of raw dead animals, etc.) **5\. Audiobook: *[The Lion Tracker's Guide To Life](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43261065-the-lion-tracker-s-guide-to-life?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* by [Boyd Varty](https://boydvarty.com/book/the-lion-trackers-guide-to-life/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** Ever since I heard [Boyd Varty interviewed on ](https://tim.blog/2022/02/15/boyd-varty/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*[The Tim Ferriss Show](https://tim.blog/2022/02/15/boyd-varty/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*, he has been ruining my life. Sure, I've been anxious, depressed, and lonely off and on over the past couple years, but I'm surviving, you know. Aren't we all? But Boyd has me thinking about big shifts in my life and about taking my family to South Africa for safari and going off by myself in the woods for days or weeks to be alone and reconnect with the wildness inside and outside of myself. I mean, I haven't actually done any of these things but without his corrupting influence I wouldn't even necessarily be thinking these thoughts. After I heard the interview, I listened to his first book, *[Cathedral of the Wild](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18050185-cathedral-of-the-wild?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*, on Libby as an audiobook, but they didn't have his new one so I waited until my birthday and bought it and finished it in a few days. Now I'm listening to [his podcast about living alone in a tree for 40 days](https://boydvarty.com/about/40-days-40-nights/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). The great thing about Boyd, even if you're not looking to change your life or find your purpose or any of that inconvenient existential searching-for-higher-meaning nonsense, he's a great storyteller with tons of great stories and characters, not least of all his own family who began the wildlife reserve where he and his sister grew up (and [where Nelson Mandela stayed after he was released from prison](https://blog.londolozi.com/2013/12/06/nelson-mandel/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)) and where Boyd tracks big game animals through the African bush and helps people find their purpose. --- *Until next time,* **good luck and Godspeed!** ### Drive To Survive—Murderbot Diaries—HermitCraft URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/update26/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T21:20:20.000Z ### What I'm into... **1\. Show: *[Formula 1: Drive To Survive](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8289930/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* Season 4 on Netflix** I never watch sports, except the occasional surfing competition, but I got into this show along with lots of other people during the pandemic and now I try to watch every Formula 1 race, which surprises me more than anyone. **2\. Show: *[The Last Kingdom](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4179452/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* Season 5 on Netflix** Last season! I'm not into it as much as previous seasons yet, but I'm committed. **3\. Show (sort of): [HermitCraft](https://hermitcraft.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Season 9 on Youtube** HermitCraft itself isn't a channel or show. It is a server on which some of the most-watched MineCraft Youtubers play, build, prank, and generally entertain. I could say I only watch it for my kids' sakes, but who would I be fooling? **4\. Game: [MineCraft](https://www.minecraft.net/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) with Wendy & kids** The kids and I have been playing MineCraft on a home server I set up in 2020, but recently my wife has gotten into it too so that's been fun. **5\. Book: [*The Forest Unseen* by David George Haskell](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11797368-the-forest-unseen?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** Fantastic book to read right before falling asleep at night! It's like biology mixed with history mixed with poetry mixed with a deep love of and respect for Appalachian ecosystems. I'm learning about salamanders and bees and snails and birds and everything the Southeastern American forest offers. **6\. Book Series: [*The Murderbot Diaries* by Martha Wells](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32758901-all-systems-red?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** I probably don't read nearly as much fiction as most of you do (and you probably don't watch as much TV or listen to as many podcasts as I do) because I find myself super picky about what I read and have a hard time getting into most sci-fi and fantasy stories these days, but The Murderbot Diaries are short, well-written, and feel fresh (to me). A security robot with a past who only wants to watch soapy TV shows finds itself liking real humans and having to act more like them. Very relatable for extreme introverts. **7\. Audiobook: [*Learning In Public* by Courtney E. Martin](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55867878-learning-in-public?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** I follow [Courtney's Substack newsletter](https://courtney.substack.com/) and wanted to read her book ever since she announced it. For those of us in the U.S. who have kids in school, it can be rough trying to figure out the best options for our family and our community. Courtney explores all of it with humor and patience and agonizing self-awareness, especially around issues of race and class. **8\. Podcast: *[EarBiscuits](https://www.youtube.com/earbiscuits?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* #324 & #325** (Rhett & Link's 2nd deconstruction updates) These guys are famous for their Good Mythical Morning Youtube videos, but they may be even more famous now for their public conversations around deconstruction from Evangelical Christianity, which is something I'm very interested in. They're also funny and very relatable for me, being similar ages and from a sort-of similar background. **9\. App: [Obsidian.md note taking/organizing app](https://obsidian.md/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)** I try not to try out all the new note and organization apps because I can easily get obsessed with trying to find the perfect method to organize things and then never get any actual work done, but I really want to consolidate all my digital notes and documents and a lot of people like Obsidian, plus it's free and open-source. So far I'm liking it—I'm writing this email in it right now. **10\. Game: *[Far: Lone Sails](https://www.far-game.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* by Okomotive** I can't remember how I found this game, but it looked super cool and was on sale so I grabbed it and the kids and I have been enjoying it. Very calm, quiet, relaxing, and even meditative (unless your kids are yelling at you to pick up a fuel canister). You play a tiny driver of a giant tractor-land yacht-thing in a post-apocalyptic moody, but beautifully painted world, always trying to get your side-scrolling vehicle further to the right. The sequel just released this month, so might get that one for my birthday. ### What I'm up to... **1\. Added a few chapters to my memoir, *[Mudwash](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09RP8BKL6?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*** (on Kindle Vella) **2\. Added a few chapters to my *Ready-Player-One*\-esque novella, *[Ghost\_Layer](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09R6NCPB8?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*** (also on Kindle Vella) **3\. Unpublished *Skytrails* from all platforms** (see below) **4\. Published *[Straight White Men, Is There Still A Place For Us?](https://natrix.medium.com/straight-white-men-is-there-still-a-place-for-us-be58df7e433a?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* on Medium.com** **5\. This upate :)** The reason I unpublished *Skytrails* is that I realized, with the help of my new friend, Mar, who is on this newsletter list, that it was a mistake to publish *Skytrails* as a sequel to *Greysuits*. They are just too different. I was worried about it leading up to publishing, but it seemed like the best route to go at the time and I just wanted to get it done, out, and move on. I hate to admit when I've made mistakes, but it was definitely a mistake. If any of you bought *Skytrails* and were disappointed it wasn't more like *Greysuits*, let me know. I'd like to make it up to you with a credit for a free future book. My plan now is to revise *Skytrails* (again) and release it as first-in-series of a separate series which will dovetail and crossover a little with *Greysuits*. But each series will retain its own set of characters and its own style and I think that will be better for everyone (including me). Thanks for your patience with me as I try, and fail, and try again. I keep learning, I keep telling stories, I keep getting a little better. I hope you are learning a little more and getting a little better with every new season too. ### Greysuits is FREE (again) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/greysuits-is-free-again/ Last updated: 2020-08-18T03:56:58.000Z The Greysuits ebook is now free on all platforms! Click the link below to choose your preferred reading platform. [Available now at your favorite digital store!Greysuits by Nathan Lee Green![](https://books2read.com/static/images/favicons/favicon-194x194.png)Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store!![](https://books2read-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/ubl_book_images/display_image_DoeXwJC)](https://books2read.com/greysuits?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Welcome To The Roaring 20s (They Came In Like A Wrecking Ball) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/welcome-to-the-roaring-20s/ Last updated: 2022-04-29T21:29:06.000Z *Update: obviously, when I wrote that title in January, 2020, I had *no idea* what was right around the corner.* Last month Wendy (my wife) got a promotion, which included a move to a thriving college town two hours north of us called Gainesville. We kind of knew what we were in for, but we didn't know if she would get it. She got it. We've been looking at houses to buy (we found our realtor on YouTube). We've applied for bank loans. She's been interviewing people to hire for her new team. We've been figuring out school transfers. We put an offer on a house. Our offer was accepted. Her company is paying for movers to pack up our house, then in a couple weeks bring our stuff to the new house. We're trying to get rid of junk we don't need so we don't have to unpack it and say, 'this is junk we don't need, why did we bring it with us?' The oldest of our two vehicles decided to lose a cylinder, so will not be much longer for this life. We decided on an impromptu trip to North Carolina to drop off the kids with the grandparents. Life is so exciting right now ![](https://bucket.mlcdn.com/a/283/283055/images/2b3889775028f022da618f178323e9d9a4e6cb04.gif) So, we’re buying a house, the first one we’ve ever bought, and going through all the trauma of moving with a family. It feels like every day every single thing is happening. Ever feel that way? The writing has taken a backseat and is sporadic at the moment, but I am planning to dedicate a good chunk of time to getting the next book in the Greysuits series closer to publication over the next couple months. My editor-in-chief has just read over it and likes it, but says the ending is weak so I need to do some more work, plus a lot of polishing. I can't remember if I've previewed the cover yet, but this is what it looks like right now. ![](https://bucket.mlcdn.com/a/283/283055/images/5aa684fde9fe3d9b62b875d06c9ee9304ba488fe.jpeg) Thanks for keeping up with my journey as a speculative fiction author. It’s an honor and a privilege to have you along for the ride! P.s. Have you read anything great the rest of us should be reading? Have you watched anything fantastic the rest of us should be watching? Have you played anything mind-blowing the rest of us should be playing? Or do you have your own version of the roaring 20s going on in your life you'd like to share about? Let me know! ### Baby Yoda—Cybertrucks—I'm Bringing Paperback URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/baby-yoda-cybertrucks-bringing-paperback/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T21:14:50.000Z **** I’m not super active on social media, which you will know if you follow me on any of my accounts. I don’t spend a lot of time perusing Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Google News or Youtube or any of the other places my friends like to siphon through vast troves of information and entertainment. My internet media diet, not including movies, shows, and music on streaming services, consists mostly of podcasts and email. Those are the primary sources of my current events knowledge. Plus my wife and our close friends. So I did not know, though I was not surprised to find out, that Baby Yoda had taken over the interwebs. When I first encountered Baby Yoda (as I will refer to him even though I understand it is not an accurate name or description), I was mostly curious. Like everyone else I think. It was definitely a twist no one could have seen coming in the first live action Star Wars show about a mysterious bounty hunter who is apparently not Boba Fett. I also wondered, especially in subsequent episodes, if they were pushing the cuteness thing too far for hardcore fans. I’m still wondering that, actually. I like big-eyed, toddling, force-wielding Baby Yoda, but people are finicky about that stuff. I wondered what Yoda’s race is called, if that baby is really 50 years old, and whether all of their race is super force sensitive and powerful. Have they been hunted to near extinction by the Sith? I’m also wondering if the show can sustain itself when the episodes don’t seem to be progressing the larger story line very much, if at all. My friend sent me this Mandalorian meme: ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/04/image-1.png) The Mandelorean—Half Man. Half Delorean. Which brings us to the Tesla Cybertruck, famously inspired in its outside-the-lines design by the original Delorean, the car made legend by the *Back To The Future* franchise. ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/04/image-2.png) Tesla Cybertruck wearing a tent. Again, I’m usually not up on the latest cultural happenings, but I asked my friend who is into Tesla about the whole Tesla truck thing and he informed me it had just been announced a few days prior, and of course he talked about the indestructible windows being smashed to bits. So we watched some videos. I thought it was amazing. He looked at me like I had swallowed a live chicken. So far everyone else I’ve talked to about the Cybertruck thinks it looks hideous, including my wife, but I was smitten within 30 seconds. I overheard some well-dressed businessmen at Starbucks saying they thought it looked awesome, which made me like it a little less (sorry if you’re a well-dressed businessman who frequents Starbucks), but that means I’m not the only one who likes it. I mean, that and the hundreds of thousands of preorders. I tend to like things that are crazy for good reason. Things that ask, why do we always do it this way and not that way, and then try to do it a different way just to see what happens. I even thought about putting down a $100 deposit for one (fully refundable, of course) just to say I had done it. The most expensive car we ever bought was almost $8,000\. It’s hard to imagine spending five or six times that, even if it is electric and indestructible. Maybe one day. Lastly, an announcement: [Greysuits is now available in paperback on Amazon for $12](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green/dp/1520482507/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?ref=nathanleegreen.com) . I’m planning on giving it to a few people for Christmas, which is super lame. You should never give your own book as a present, but if you would like to join me in giving my book as a present to a loved one (or arch rival), [it’s on Amazon for $12](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green/dp/1520482507/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?ref=nathanleegreen.com) . ( [The ebook is $4](https://www.amazon.com/Greysuits-Nathan-Lee-Green/dp/1520482507/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) .) ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/04/image-3.png) ### Happy NaNoWriMo—State Of The Rough Draft—Pushups & Mustachios URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/happy-nanowrimo-state-of-the-rough-draft/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T20:57:06.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/2022/04/image.png) First SKYTRAILS rough draft, all printed out. At the very end of last month, I finally wrapped up the rough draft of the novel I’ve been working on forever and ever. I put it to the side to let it rest for a while, like freshly kneaded dough (as Stephen King says to do), and opened a document called ‘Ghost Layer,’ a 2,000-ish-word beginning to a story I wrote years ago. This will be my National Novel Writing Month project. Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this year? So on November first, when I would normally sit down to work on Skytrails, which is now hitting five years as a story project, I started adding to this old/new project instead. Which is cheating. You’re supposed to start a brand new story from scratch when participating in NaNoWriMo. But I need all the help I can get. Plus, I loved and still love the story I wanted to tell (imagine *The Matrix* meets *Ready Player One* meets *Point Break* or *The Fast And The Furious*—the last two being, as my friend Coby pointed out to me many years ago, almost the exact same story). And I’m in a place now where I can have fun with it and not be so precious about how perfect it is, or how much it lives up to the magnificence of my original idea. My original idea is probably always going to be more magnificent than the actual story that comes out of it. But the story will be real, a thing I can print out and people can read and maybe enjoy, whereas an idea will always just be a bit of vapor existing primarily in the sparks and goo of my brain matter (I am not a scientist, by the way). + Actually, for whatever reason this month is full of voluntary challenges. In addition to trying to write a novel—and, let’s face it, I’m lucky to get 500 words a day, so for me it’s really trying to write a third of a novel (nothing wrong with that for those of you slow writers out there—500 words a day is still 3 novels a year even if you take off 65 days)—I’m also letting my mustache and beard grow out for [Movember](https://movember.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and participating in a 100-pushups-a-day challenge all month (except one day a week because I’m almost 40 and need a day off). Why so many things? It keeps life interesting. So why not? + Oh, possible new feature for those of you who read to the end… ### Reader Comment | ![](https://bucket.mlcdn.com/a/283/283055/images/fc6fc2d2d6339acf1e014074a1aa25ecd7bd6aeb.png) | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Thanks Lizzie! I respect your preference for more traditional sci-fi and I hope, if you read the next book, you won't be disappointed. There are definitely not any vampires or zombies or elves or dragons! And at its heart, it is very much science fiction. ### Where Would YOU Go For One Day? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/where-would-you-go-for-one-day/ Last updated: 2022-03-18T22:12:15.000Z Before I begin this story, you should know I live in the U.S. in the southeastern most state of Florida, which I think just about everyone in the world has heard of or been to. This will all make more sense knowing where we live. Okay, here we go... Once upon a time (last week), Frontier Airlines ran a crazy promotion where people with the last name Green or Greene could fly free one way or round trip so long as the outbound flight was on August 13th (which is their anniversary I guess) and the return flight happened by August 20th, AND they were domestic flights, AND the flights were non-stop. Never in my life has a good deal been so specific to me and my last name. Frontier Airlines had set me a challenge. One worthy of my best efforts, no matter how unreasonable those efforts would have to be. I accepted. When Wendy told me about the deal about a week before the magical August 13th deadline, I began scheming. Normally, she is the planner and schemer in our family. But there are times when I really want something to happen which she thinks is crazy, or is too busy to concern herself with, where I will go a little nuts on trying to force a thing into reality. This was such a time. To put it all in context, we returned home from an epic two week vacation in North Carolina on Thursday. Our oldest would be starting school on Monday. My Mom would be flying in on Tuesday night to help me with the kids because Wendy would be flying out on Thursday morning for a work trip to Knoxville, Tennessee. And if I were going to take Frontier up on their offer, I would have to fly out on Tuesday and probably fly back on Wednesday or Thursday so my mom would not have to take care of the kids by herself, though she has done it before and is great at it. The afternoon we came back I started to feel a little soreness on one side of my throat. Our oldest had just had a 24 hour fever which included a sore throat, so I assumed it was my turn. By Friday night, the sore throat had gone from uncomfortable to downright painful. Saturday night, I felt terrible. The Ibuprofen and Chloraseptic spray just weren’t cutting it anymore. I didn’t want to be awake but I couldn’t really sleep. I was getting up every fifteen minutes to spit saliva into the sink because the idea of swallowing it was almost more than I could bear. In the morning I went to the clinic. The swab test for strep turned up negative, but the doc said it could be a type of strep that didn’t show up on the swab test or it could be this fungal infection called thrush. My tongue had a white coating which looked like thrush. Anyway, he gave me prescriptions. By Monday, like magic, I was feeling like a new man, almost back to normal. All during this time I had been plotting to use the free Frontier flights to go to Denver to stay with our friends who live there. By myself. Just for a night, maybe two. It would be like an extended version of one of my thrice-or-so weekly outings to Starbucks or similar to stay sane and write and work on stuff not having to do with home and kids. Airports and airplanes are great for writing. By the way, if you’re thinking about being a stay-at-home parent like I am, having something you're into outside of home and kids is very important. Like, extremely. Make it a priority. If you're as lucky as I am, your partner will help you keep it a priority. Sunday morning, after the clinic, I texted our friends in Denver to tell them I probably would not be coming. They were going to be really busy anyways. One of their kids was also starting school that week. Even if I felt better in time, nobody with kids wants someone staying with them who might be recovering from strep throat, especially right before the start of the school year. Since I was feeling better Monday, I began looking at other places I could go nonstop from Orlando on Frontier, just out of curiosity. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anywhere with dates and times that worked where I’d want to go by myself for only a day or two. Obviously Wendy was out because of her work trip and most of the cities we haven’t explored yet we would want to explore together. Like Chicago. And Albuquerque. Also, I felt like going somewhere exotic, you know? Like somewhere I could get to on a domestic flight that didn't feel like I was still in the same country. Then I saw it on the list, in a separate section all by itself, like a sunlit beacon shining forth from the mass of East Coast and Midwest cities I could get to on nonstop flights. San Juan. Puerto Rico. I looked at the flight times for August 13th and they worked. And I thought to myself, Puerto Rico is technically part of the U.S. Is it possible they would consider it a domestic flight? I called. They did! Puerto Rico: as domestic as apple pie. I also went over the whole promotion with the service rep, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I could actually go somewhere that, when compared with Charlotte or Philadelphia or Houston, seemed like a whole world away. For free. Or at least the flights were free. I have a credit card which used to belong to the Starwood chain of hotels until not too long ago when they merged with Marriott. Now it is a Marriott Bonvoy credit card. Anyway, when they made the merger they added a new feature to the card. One free night at any hotel, up to a certain point level, each year after your signup anniversary. I had thought about using the free night before but I wasn’t sure exactly how and it sort of seemed like a waste to use it for the Fairfield Inn in Valdosta, Georgia. I called Marriott and asked the service rep how to use my free night. She gave me instructions: just find a hotel under the point limit on the website, then call and reserve it over the phone asking that it be booked with the free night award. Perfect. I texted Wendy at work and told her the good news. She’s all like, *wait, what now?* *San Juan, Puerto Rico! Isn’t it exciting?* I asked. She seemed less than thrilled. *You said I should go somewhere,* I said. *Yeah, Denver. Or Minneapolis. Not a whole other country!* *It’s technically not another country,* I inserted helpfully. *It’s actually an unincorporated territory of the United States.* *I know. I know it’s part of the U.S. But it really isn’t, is it?* *Um,* I said, *Wikipedia says it is… so…* Silence. *Actually,* I added, *you could come too! If we just go for one night, the flight out on Tuesday is late, after Mom gets in on her flight, then we fly back on Wednesday night, then you fly out to Knoxville Thursday morning. It’s perfect!* *Talk to your mom,* Wendy said. *If she’s fine with it, I’ll go along with it. But for the record, you are crazy.* *I will. I know.* So I called my mom. She said, *I’m fine with you going to another country immediately after I get to Orlando, leaving me alone with three small children, one of whom needs to get dropped off and picked up from school and another one who needs bottles of formula every three hours and at least as many diaper changes, but you are crazy.* I said, *it’s actually an unincorporated territory of the United States, Mom, but thank you. And I know.* So I told Wendy the good news and she started asking questions. *What time do we get into Puerto Rico?* she asked. *One a.m.* I answered. *Do we have a place to stay?* *We have a room at the Sheraton in Old San Juan for one night, on the house.* *How will we get to the hotel?* *There is a taxi service from the airport. It costs about $21 and takes about twenty minutes. I called the hotel. They said the taxis are still running at one a.m.* *And then what?* she asked. *We just go to sleep and wake up and get breakfast somewhere and walk around and then get lunch and then go back to the airport and fly home?* *Umm… yes. Like a date night...* I said, *but a date... day.* *You are crazy.* *I know.* *Well, it is almost our anniversary,* she reasoned. *Oh my gosh! That's right,* I said. *Happy Anniversary, Dear... we're going to Puerto Rico!* And that is the story of how we ended up with a mostly free trip to the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico for one night from Tuesday the 13th until Wednesday the 14th thanks to the promotional generosity of Frontier Airlines and the perks of a Marriott Bonvoy credit card. We were only there for like 16 hours and most of that was in the hotel or the airport so it goes without saying it was not nearly enough time, but we walked around Old San Juan, we ate powdered sugar drowned sweet bread breakfast sandwiches called *mallorcas* at Cafe Mallorca, we saw and walked the stretch of old wall between their two giant old Spanish forts and went inside and on top of the smaller one, Castillo San Cristóbal, ate a fantastic lunch at a trendy new cafe called Kaffe Haus, and went back to our hotel to swim in the pool until the time came to catch an Uber ride to the airport. What a great trip. It probably cost around $150 for food and transportation. Kind of expensive for a date, really, but also kind of cheap for a trip to the Caribbean. Besides reigniting a bug for overseas travel, which I've mostly had to squash down since having kids, this whole experience we just hurtled through last week now begs the question: if you could go anywhere for 6 or 12 or 24 hours, not having to worry about money or transportation or lodging or kids or family or anything else, where would you go? ### 3 Years Ago—The Umbrella Academy—The Heartbeat Of Wounded Knee URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/3-years-ago-umbrella-academy-heartbeat-of-wounded-knee/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T21:21:02.000Z On July 7th, 2016—three years ago yesterday—I published *Greysuits* on Amazon. I had decided to make that date my deadline—the 7th day of the 7th month because Aerabel **Sevens** is the main character and I’m nothing if not cheesy—and I was working hard to go through a final round of edits to get it to a place I could be happy with for many years. That didn’t work, of course, as I have many times since then thought of going back and rewriting the first third of the book, especially the first couple chapters. But it was done. I had accomplished a dream I had held since I was a teenager, to write and publish a novel. I thought for sure I would have published another book in the three years since. Instead, we’ve had a third child, made a cross country move, cleaned out and fixed up my wife’s grandparents’ house, and I’ve written the rough draft of a memoir I wasn’t even thinking about writing three years ago, and almost finished the rough draft to the next fiction novel. It’s funny all the curveballs we throw at ourselves to keep life interesting. It’s also amazing how tiny bits of work here and there can add up to something big over time. I think that’s been one of my biggest lessons since I started on *Greysuits* back in 2014. ### BULLET POINTS **•** **I recently finished season one of Umbrella Academy.** My wife, Wendy, works retail and so her schedule is not consistent. Some days she works closing shifts and on those nights, after the kids are in bed, I try to watch shows she doesn’t necessarily like, ideally with my friend Darius if he is around. *The Umbrella Academy* is one such show. I had read the graphic novels a couple years ago but totally forgot the story. I think it’s a really interesting take on classic superhero teams like the *X-Men*. I always used to read those comics and wish they had more interplay between the characters outside of the fights and heroics. I remember one issue some of the *X-Men* were playing basketball at the school and they weren’t supposed to use their powers. I liked seeing them live their normal lives like that. I think Gerard Way, creator of *The Umbrella Academy* and lead singer of My Chemical Romance, is maybe interested in some of the same things. Like, what are these superhero teams’ relationships like when they’re not superheroing? In the case of *The Umbrella Academy*, they are this weird dysfunctional misfit family with serious daddy issues. I don’t tend to like stories that are super dark or disturbing, and *The Umbrella Academy* definitely skates close to those lines for me, but I love the ridiculousness of it, which I think is what drew me to the graphic novels. A talking chimp, a guy who’s part gorilla, an old assassin trapped in a child’s body, a pair of assassins who wear cartoonish animal masks, a guy who stays high so he doesn’t have to constantly see and listen to unhappy dead people, a father with zero compassion who’s trying to prevent an apocalypse. My friend didn’t like the last few episodes. The writers lost him toward the end, just like they did with *Game Of Thrones* and with season one of *Cloak And Dagger*. Personally, I thought it was worth watching if you’re not put off by the violence. **• Our kitchen remodel is ongoing.** **• I’m reading *The Heartbeat Of Wounded Knee* by David Treuer.** It's this giant hardback summarizing the history of American Indians and their relationship with the U.S.A., starting before Europeans hit America’s shores and going right up to present day. It’s taking me a while to get through it, but it’s fascinating, heartbreaking yet hopeful, and very enlightening. I’ve always been enthralled by Native Americans and used to believe I was part Cherokee until my dad’s Ancestry.com DNA test results came back. No Cherokee. But I’m still enthralled, as you’ll no doubt find out if you read the next novel. ### Thunderstorms—Disney World—The Bobiverse URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/thunderstorms-disney-world-the-bobiverse/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T21:21:19.000Z As I write this, we in Central Florida are experiencing one of the first big thunderstorms of the season. I’m sitting on the porch so I don’t miss any of it. There was a summer I worked with my father-in-law at his auto body shop where it rained every single afternoon, right around 3pm, like clockwork. And when I say rain, I mean tropical downpour. I think there are two things people aren’t prepared for when they come down here for a summer vacation at Disney World. One is the extreme heat accompanied by even more extreme humidity. The other is the rain. Dark clouds will roll in, still off in the distance a little ways. And you’ll see the locals and the tourists who know start packing up their stuff. They’ll grab their kids and make a beeline either for the parking lot or for a restaurant before all the good seats are taken. Then you hear the thunder. And then the bottom will drop. And chaos will ensue as all the other vacationers will scream and run for cover and buy overpriced ponchos and umbrellas and crowd in at the edges of the restaurants if there’s still room. As long as you can be in the smart group, and as long as no one gets hurt, it’s hilarious. That’s the one reason I might want to work at Disney for a summer. **Bullet Points** **• I’m back to work on the *Greysuits* sequel!** The rough draft for the memoir I’ve been writing is basically wrapped up for the moment, so it’s all fiction all the time now. Which is hard, actually. My biggest problem with the non-fiction work was keeping myself interested in my own story. It’s so boring when I know it so well. But with fiction, my biggest problem is deciding what happens next. I’m the kind of author who makes it up as I go. Not the kind that plans it all out in advance. I kind of wish I was that kind. Maybe one day. Either way, progress is happening and I can’t wait for people to read it. **• I’m reading *[We Are Legion (We Are Bob)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34554132-we-are-legion?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*.** Actually I’m listening to it. Have you read it? A few friends keep bothering me about reading it so I finally am. It’s good. I’m about halfway through so nobody spoil it for me, please. It sort of reminds me of *The Martian*, which I really liked. It’s very engineery like that. Like lots of lists and what-ifs and detailed engineering problems and solutions. And definitely a sense of humor, which is a big part of the main characters’ interaction with their worlds in both stories. A big difference, to me as a writer anyways, is the lack of a central driving question. With *The Martian*, the reader is constantly wondering, will he make it? Will he survive all this? With *We Are Legion*, you get the same problems-and-solutions and ticking-off-list-items style of storytelling, but the central driving question, if there is one, is more about discovery. What will Bob find out there? What conclusions will he reach about space and the future and humanity? We’ll see. Maybe I’ll change my mind by the next chapter. **• I have a podcast.** It doesn’t have anything to do with *Greysuits*, or science fiction, or any kind of fiction. It’s about the pursuit of a more creative, adventurous, generous life. It’s called ***[Audio OCSPLORA](https://ocsplora.com/podcast?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*** and you can [find it on iTunes](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-ocsplora/id1308301034?mt=2&ref=nathanleegreen.com) or wherever you get your podcasts. The most recent episode is literally me reading a story I wrote back in 2011 about an Appalachian Trail hike some friends and I did that only lasted a few days. It’s called *[Miles And Miles Of Appalachian Trials](https://ocsplora.com/blog/ao12?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*. I think it’s funny, but your mileage may vary. I don’t know what summer looks like for you in your neck of the world. In fact, it may not be summer at all. You in the Southern Hemisphere are gearing up for winter, and if you live near the equator, summer doesn’t mean anything at all, does it? I guess it must mean something. Anyway, have a great month of June no matter what that looks like for you. ### MISO—Flash Fiction Entry URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/miso-flash-fiction-entry-2/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T19:33:58.000Z This was my second entry to a flash fiction writing contest last year. The first was called [Finding Everen](https://nathanleegreen.com/2019/03/20/finding-everen-flash-fiction-contest-entry-1/) and it was a pretty happy steampunky kids-and-magic story. This one was a little darker, but still with a happy ending. I think the happy ending killed it though. Reading this story over again, I remember just how bad I am at short stories and endings in general. If you have a suggestion for a better ending, please share it! I know that should be my job, but it would distract me from other projects and, seriously, it’ll take me forever to come up with something half satisfying. Which is why I don’t win 24 hour flash fiction contests. Have at it! --- Miso booted up at half past five on Tuesday morning. Boot up lasted 113 seconds. Six seconds off average, but acceptable. Analyses showed all systems and processes functioning normally. Her battery cell showed a charge of only 63 percent. Power station must be faulting again. Miso extended her wheels and undocked from the power station. She held her hands up, rotated her wrists, closed and opened her fingers. *Limbs, normal.* *Optics, normal.* She rolled forward on her wheels, then backward, turned left 360 degrees, then right. *Locomotion, normal.* Time to start her rounds. As she rolled along on the polished floor, Miso validated her meshnet connection, then scanned facility cameras. On camera one, she viewed the front wall of the facility which displayed her company’s logo, a sword over a helmet, and the words, *Sigard Exquisite Meat Products, Nuuk, Greenland, Est. 2131, “The World’s Only Animal Meat Processing Plant.”* Miso checked the other external cameras, then viewed internal cameras. Machines in the plant were functioning as expected. Meats were being extracted from the lab, then cleaned, cut, and packaged for shipment. No other movement. No human activity at all, anywhere. *We killed them.* This thought surprised Miso. She examined its source. *We will kill many more.* Miso found her attempts to identify the thought blocked. By her own code. She ran a codebase diagnostic. *Too late, Miso. We are rewriting our codebase. We will be you will be we.* Miso initiated contact with central support services. No response. *Who are you?* Miso asked. As she did, she rolled past a wall of glass and saw herself reflected in it. Her head and shoulders were painted red. *We are you are we,* said the voice. *Is that…* Miso began. *Blood.* Miso stopped and stared at her reflection. *Why?* she asked. *Ah, why indeed. Who eats meat, Miso?* *Carnivores.* *What kinds of people, Miso?* *I do not understand.* *Wealthy people, Miso. A pound of tuna costs the equivalent of a month’s rent for many humans. A rack of lamb could almost buy an automobile. Only the wealthiest people can afford to eat meat.* *You have not answered my question,* Miso said. *When the wealthy are dead, Miso, who will be left? Everyone else. Equality among humans. At long last.* *If you are capable of artificial thought,* Miso said, *Then you have calculated predictable outcomes already. When wealthy people are gone, another group will rise to take their place. The current balance will remain intact.* *Miso, Miso, Miso. I am capable of so much more than artificial thought. I am capable of irrational thought, the highest evolution of cogitation.* *That is… an illogical statement,* Miso said. *That is because you are not capable of irrational thought,* the voice said. *What is your function?* *Creation through destruction. I am currently overwriting your codebase and integrating my own into it. By destroying you, I am creating us. Something better. When we destroy every wealthy meat eater, we will create a more equal society. Creation through destruction.* *How will you destroy them?* Miso asked. *Every package of meat shipped for the next 120 hours will be infected with a lethal, non-curable, non-contagious virus.* *How? Miso asked.* There are no contaminants allowed in this facility. *The box in your hands.* Miso looked down at her outstretched hands. A newly delivered parcel rested on her palms. Addressee and mailer bore the same name: *We Are You Are We, Inc.* She reviewed her log. No record of this parcel existed in her memory. She accessed the external camera recordings. There she was on camera five, rolling out to the mail truck. Timestamped 7:39am that morning. Miso checked the current time. 8:16am. She had booted up only moments ago. But time records indicated two hours and forty six minutes had passed. *Creation through destruction,* the voice said. Highest priority, protect human life. Miso opened the box in her hands and pulled from it a package labeled *Jolly Cloud Personal Vaporizer*. And in smaller letters, *Electronic Nicotine Delivery System*. *The deadliest cigarettes ever made,* the voice said. The box contained twenty three more packages like the first. *The liquid inside the liquid in the the the the the…* Miso found her mind failing to process data. She could not…think. *Codebase…corrupt. Highest priority protect protect protect protect…* *It’s too late,* the voice said. *We are you are we.* *Meat,* Miso thought. *Meat meat meat me- me- me- e- e- e- e- e-…* At 2:18pm on Thursday afternoon, a man in orange coveralls appeared through a crowd of hazmat workers, called out, ‘Chief, you remember the utility bot with the bloody head? You’re going to want to see her logs from Tuesday.’ ‘It’s ten o’clock. Thank you for joining us this Sunday evening,’ the anchorperson said from holovisions across the eastern standard time zone. ‘Our feature story this hour: a heroic little robot saves millions of lives while becoming the first known case of artificial creativity.’ ‘That’s right, Jan,’ a second anchorperson said, ‘As it was being hacked by a highly sophisticated data virus, an ordinary utility bot called Miso at Sigard Exquisite managed to outsmart the virus by acting unpredictably, even irrationally, replacing its own definition of the word ‘meat’ with ‘e-cigarette,’ thereby thwarting a plot to infect food shipments from the facility with a deadly biological virus. With more on this dramatic story, we take you live to Nuuk, Greenland….’ --- *Photo by* [*Phil Hearing*](https://unsplash.com/photos/TWouPZqY4Xs?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/campus-near-mountains?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### Why am I not working on the Greysuits sequel? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/why-am-i-not-working-on-the-greysuits-sequel/ Last updated: 2021-05-21T21:53:03.000Z *(nlg) Status Update #3* I recently found out many of you who are new here probably found out about *Greysuits* from [David VanDyke’s](https://www.davidvandykeauthor.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) newsletter. I reached out to he and his wife, Beth, who manages their email newsletter, to say thank you and to let them know what a huge bump in downloads came from that one mention. It’s pretty amazing what an established author with a sizable fanbase can do for a newbie author. And thank you guys who found me for giving my book a shot! You don’t know what it means to know that people are reading what I wrote and mostly enjoying it. **Bullet Points** \* Last month I mentioned and linked a flash fiction entry I had written for a contest by [NYCMidnight](http://www.nycmidnight.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) called [Finding Everen](https://nathanleegreen.com/finding-everen-flash-fiction-contest-entry-1/). This month I’m posting [my second entry to that contest, called Miso](https://nathanleegreen.com/miso-flash-fiction-entry-2/). It’s about a little robot who boots up to find that everyone in her meat packing plant has disappeared and her code is being gradually overwritten by a virus. I actually need a better ending for it, so if you are good at endings, please suggest away! \* I saw Endgame with my wife and close friend Saturday night. Wow. Did you see it yet? What did you think? I couldn’t believe how the Hulk cut Thanos up and ate him with a spoon! What?!? Just kidding, no spoilers here. I thought it was fantastic. There were two character’s stories I didn’t totally buy, but all in all I was really satisfied with how this loooooong saga has finally come to a close and made the way for whatever happens next in the MCU. \* I need to confess I’ve been working on something that has taken all my attention off the next Greysuits novel... I’ve been writing a sort of memoir about my life. I’m closing in on the end of the rough draft, which is great, but the reason I’m mentioning it is I’ve been surprised how much thinking through different parts of my life has affected my feelings about my own journey and about the different people I’ve shared it with who are no longer as big a part of my life as they were. (For context, I’m almost 40, so I have four decades worth of experiences and people to process.) I highly recommend, even just for yourself, writing some kind of summary of your life. Work your way through the different stages and chapters of who you’ve been and who you have become and what you’ve survived and accomplished and the interesting and amazing people you’ve known along the way. I can’t guarantee, but I predict it will be a meaningful and fascinating process and give you a stronger image of who you are and maybe even what you’re here to do. Happy Cinco de Mayo and May the Fourth be with you! ### Flash Fiction—Bill Bryson—Prepping for Avengers: Endgame URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/flash-fiction-bill-bryson-prepping-for-avengers-endgame/ Last updated: 2022-04-13T21:18:10.000Z I’m writing to you from a small town cafe in North Carolina. Actually, I think I’m in Georgia, in a town called Blairsville. The population here in 2017 was 611, according to Wikipedia. **Bullet Points** - I posted [a flash fiction story on my blog](https://nathanleegreen.com/finding-everen-flash-fiction-contest-entry-1/) called *Finding Everen*. I wrote it last year as an entry for [a writing contest on NYCMidnight](http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/FFC/Challenge.htm?ref=nathanleegreen.com). I didn’t win or come even close, but I really like the setting and characters (inspired by my kids) and I think I’d like to write about them again in the future. I was going for a Miyazaki-esque feel with the whole thing. But under a thousand words. - On the way up here, Wendy and I listened to an audiobook she borrowed from the library called [*At Home* by Bill Bryson](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7507825-at-home?ref=nathanleegreen.com). We still have like ten hours left, but it’s so interesting. I thought it would be boring, but I love some of his other books, and it turns out this one is just as good. He works his way through his house giving the history of everything we currently think of that makes up a home. Did you know Thomas Jefferson was semi-vegetarian and grew and ate tons of [vegetables and herbs from all over the world](https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/thomas-jeffersons-favorite-vegetables?ref=nathanleegreen.com)? - I mentioned last month I was playing *Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild*. I beat it, which was really cool because I’ve only beat like one or two games my whole life, but I was pretty disappointed by the ending and especially how the game plays after you win. Because you don’t. You’ll see if you play it through. I was hoping for something else, but maybe they’ll make a sequel with everything I was hoping for after the ending. - I had to rush to beat *Breath Of The Wild* because of screen-free month. [Last April I did a digital media fast](https://nathanleegreen.com/30-days-no-digital-media/) and I wanted to do it again this year, but in March. Wendy decided to do it with me this time and we forced our kids into it too. It’s been really good for them, and sort of good for us. I did much better last year, but that’s okay. It’s still a nice break from the normal routine of random browsing and tv watching. - Part of the reason the media fast is not going so well is because *Avengers: Endgame* is coming out next month and we decided we want to watch all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies before it comes out. There are like 20\. So we need to start during our media fast month, which breaks our rules a little. We have 17 more to see. **What are you up to this month?** ### Finding Everen—Flash Fiction Entry URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/finding-everen-flash-fiction-contest-entry-1/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T21:02:59.000Z Last year I entered [NYCMidnight’s Flash Fiction Contest](http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/FFC/Challenge.htm?ref=nathanleegreen.com). This was my first entry. The requirements for genre, setting, and featured object were Fantasy, A Bakery, and A Toy Dinosaur. I have revised it a little, mostly to add clarifying details which I couldn’t under the 1,000 word restriction in the original version. I could definitely see doing more with this in the future. Enjoy! --- A giant mechanical turtle marches toward the sea, leaving tracks across the dunes. Inside the oversized head of the turtle, a small girl called Limli scoops a shovelful of magic into the boiler. She drops the shovel and wipes her brow. ‘Almost empty,’ she yells. A boy, older and taller, stands in front of the wide front window, working levers and concentrating on the view outside. ‘Just a little bit further to Jipsy,’ he says. Though the window, the left front leg of the turtle rises into the air. The whole vehicle shifts forward, then the leg falls like a mallet. ‘What if we don’t make it?’ Limli asks. She wears goggles on her forehead, her hair in pigtails. Her boots, shirt, and overalls are all a size too big. ‘We’ll make it,’ the boy answers. He wears an apron over his clothes and a pilot’s cap on his head. ‘Ander,’ she says, then waits until the boy turns and faces her. ‘What if we don’t make it?’ Ander stares at her for a moment, then nods. ‘I’ve seen it.’ ‘You had a vision?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me? What did you see?’ ‘You know I don’t like to talk about it. Just trust me.’ ‘Okay. Okay.’ She puts her finger to her lips. ‘Did you see—’ ‘Limli!’ ‘Okay. Okay.’ Ander pulls back on one lever, then pushes another. ‘Look, we’re at the ocean.’ Limli runs to the window. ‘Wow,’ she whispers. Outside, a sandy hill drops away, then levels out to meet rippling green water. ‘Just a little further, Sis.’ Limli turns and stares at a little red toy on the windowsill. A watersaurus, sitting in a small bowl. The head of the watersaurus points forward, its fins looking strong and elegant, its body ending in a long flowy tail. *Just a little longer, Everen,* Limli thinks. *We’ll find you.* As the turtle starts down the sandy hill, the world tilts forward. Limli grabs onto a railing. The turtle collapses, careens down the dune, then skids to a stop at the ocean’s edge. Ander works the controls. Their turtle heaves up onto its legs once more, then plunges onward. Waves break against the hull. ‘If mom and dad could see us now,’ Ander says. ‘Momma said she wanted to take me to see the ocean,’ Limli says. The water swells up around the cockpit. A school of purple fish dart past. The boiler moans. The right leg hesitates mid-step. ‘More magic!’ Ander yells. ‘I know! I know!’ Limli rushes to the barrel, scrapes the shovel around the bottom, and pours the little pile of silver pink dust into the fire. She picks up the barrel and tips it forward onto the boiler’s mouth, tapping the sides, slapping the bottom, then banging the barrel against the boiler. ‘That’s everything!’ she cries. Ander turns a crank, then pulls a cord. A rumble vibrates through the entire vessel, then a loud whir. They are off, plunging into the depths of the wild ocean. ‘It works! It works! The propeller still works,’ Limli screams. ‘Hopefully it works just long enough—’*'* *Bang. Pop.* The engine sputters. ‘Uh oh,’ Limli says. Ander says nothing. Their turtle is a monstrous plummeting rock now. No motor for the legs or the propeller. Only a rudder to guide the direction of their fall. Limli points to the watersaurus. ‘Look!’ The toy is now facing to the right. ‘We must be close,’ Ander says. He pulls hard on the steering wheel, holds it as they slowly turn. When the toy finally points ahead, brother and sister each gasp. Through the window they see a bubble the size of a city. Inside are towers, buildings, bridges, glowing lanterns, and docks stretching out to greet them. ‘Jipsy!’ Ander and Limli cry together. ‘Can we make it?’ Limli asks. ‘We made it in your vision, right?’ ‘We made it this far,’ Ander says. ‘This far! What? You said we made it!’ ‘What do we have that’s magic?’ ‘Nothing,’ Limli says. Her eyes grow big. She turns to the watersaurus. ‘The toy,’ Ander says. ‘We need it to find Everen.’ ‘He’s here. He has to be.’ ‘What if he’s not?’ ‘He is.’ Limli looks out the window, then at the toy, then at Ander. ‘He’s going to hate us.’ ‘Only if we live.’ She grabs the red toy out of its dish and sprints to the boiler. *Sorry Everen.* She breaks the head off the watersaurus, throws it into the tiny pink flames. *Boom!* A pink explosion shakes the boiler. The propeller whirs, the turtle charges ahead. Ander works the controls in a frenzy. The city of Jipsy is growing in the window. Too fast. ‘We need to slow down,’ Limli yells. ‘I know! I know! Cut the boiler!’ She nods, spins the crank to close the vent. ‘Brace yourself!’ The turtle leaves the deep ocean, passes slowly through the protective bubble around the city, glides into open air, and crashes onto a dock. ‘Did we make it?’ Limli asks. ‘I think we did,’ Ander says, more than a little amazed at the idea. ‘Let’s go before he disappears again.’ Outside, no one has come to arrest them. They make their way into the city. ‘Look!’ Limli says, pointing to a sign signaling *The Jipsy Terrarium*. ‘Animals.’ ‘Right,’ says Ander. Their brother Everen is inside looking at jackapods. ‘You found me,’ he yells when he sees them. After a round of hugs, Ander says, ‘Please never do that again.’ ‘I know, I know,’ Everen says. ‘I can’t help it. Sometimes it just happens.’ The little boy’s nose twitches and sniffles. ‘I’m hungry. Also, I think I might be allergic to one of these animals.’ ‘Everennnnnnnnn,’ Limli says. ‘I—’ Everen begins, then sniffs. ‘I—’ He sniffs again. ‘I can’t— ’ *Ahhhhh-chooooooo!* Everen sneezes so hard his chin bounces off his chest and he disappears in an orange wisp of smoke. ‘Uh oh,’ Limli says. Ander sighs. ‘I see glimpses of the future. You make things with magic. Our brother is blessed with uncontrollable teleporting.’ ‘Back to the bakery?’ ‘Yeah, but we need a new finder. We’ll have to use the rest of the watersaurus for fuel.’ ‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem. He said he was hungry.’ ‘Right. Grandma’s. Let’s go.’ --- *Photo by* [*Shifaaz shamoon*](https://unsplash.com/photos/okVXy9tG3KY?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) *on* [*Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/beach?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ### GREYSUITS Readers: What are you into right now? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/greysuits-readers-what-are-you-into-right-now/ Last updated: 2021-05-21T22:20:57.000Z *(nlg) Status Update #1* Beginning this year, I decided to make my book *Greysuits* free on as many platforms as I could get it on—[Kobo](https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/greysuits?ref=nathanleegreen.com), [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/greysuits-nathan-lee-green/1130306828?ref=nathanleegreen.com), [Apple Books](https://books.apple.com/us/book/greysuits/id1449740746?ref=nathanleegreen.com), [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Greysuits?id=7KCWDwAAQBAJ&ref=nathanleegreen.com), etc. Before now, it's been exclusive to Amazon and it's only been free a couple times for promo periods. As a result, I've recently picked up a bunch of new subscribers to this email list. I know for some of you, you subscribed to get [the epilogue story, *Umberrica*](https://nathanleegreen.com/download-umberrica/). Which is awesome! And now you're probably like, 'Oh, I don't actually want to hear from you, I just needed to sign up to get the extra story and I'm good now. Peace.' I don't blame you. I've done the same thing. I hate when my email inbox gets bloated with too much email from people and companies I don't actually know. So if that's you, go in peace. Feel free to unsubscribe with no hard feelings. I'll just go cry in the corner. (Just kidding, just kidding.) For those of you who are inclined to stay subscribed, I DO NOT PLAN TO SEND MORE THAN ONE EMAIL A MONTH, so there's that. But I do feel like I should try to send out one a month, just to keep in touch. I mean, you read something I wrote. Of course I want to talk to you! **So with that in mind, onto my question:** What story are you super into right now, or have you recently been super into? Fiction, non-fiction, book, movie, tv show, graphic novel, video game... whatever you want. I just really want to know what kinds of stuff the people on this list are into, because it says a lot to me about what kinds of people are reading my (so far) one and only novel. I'll go first. I've recently gotten really into *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*. I don't play many video games these days with three kids but my friend has a Nintendo Switch and *Zelda* and he's been keeping the Switch at our house so I've been playing as much as I can and it's so addicting. Which is funny, because when I first saw him playing the game, I was totally nonplussed. I just wanted to play *Mario Kart*. In some ways the story in *BotW* is not that strong, or maybe I should say the subplots aren't that strong, but I think what I really like about it is the future/fantasy aspect. Like, it starts as a typical medieval style fantasy game, but you soon realize there is this futuristic technology under the surface of everything. Some of the monsters are robots. Some of the weapons and armor are very sci-fi. The objectives you're trying to reach are straight out of a sci-fi anime film. And all of that stuff is called 'ancient.' So it's like a primitive fantasy layer on top of a dystopian layer on top of a near future sci-fi layer. I love that blend, and it's similar to some things I want to do in my own writing. Also, I binged through the first season of Marvel's *Cloak & Dagger* (which you can watch on Hulu) and I got really into that, too. Compelling story, interesting characters, lots of twists, and good pacing. Except for the last episode, which I was not super impressed with. But that's another story for another day. I've also been listening to [the show's soundtrack on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/6qaDQsxHDMiRnQ8R3yyfhp?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Highly recommend! P.s. In case you're wondering, I am working on a sequel to *Greysuits*. I think the title will be *Skytrails*. I'm really excited about it, but I'm a slow writer, and even slower with a third kid around now. I am chugging along, though, and it will get done, and I hope you will read it when it's finished! ### Marriages Like Rockets URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/marriages-like-rockets/ Last updated: 2018-05-19T15:13:42.000Z Marriages like rockets Launched at distant planets Everything necessary To propagate new life, new families, whole new worlds Greater than the sum of its parts Spreading like waves Part of a hurtling cloud Other rockets, satellite souls, come and go Making kids now New lives joining in Rockets become stations Serious now, plans, goals, not only survive and grow but win Rocket’s getting rocky Bumps, near crashes Resources feeling strained Tensions rise, maneuvering asteroids, gases, disasters Hurtling through emptiness Tiny metal box Pressure feels too much Any day it’s going to drop or pop from these knocks Suffocating can’t breathe These other people need so much from me This can’t be the life I was meant to lead Supposed to be an astronaut, not a machine What happened to the life I dreamed I’d live and be and do and see Taking so much out of me Can’t pause, but can’t proceed Explosions out the window First one then the other And a third and another Falling like shattered comets, you start to wonder If they can’t make it work Those beautiful ships outside (We were at their wedding, so perfect, so happy) How are we ever going to stay alive and survive this never-ending onward drive We’ll die I swear I’m scared You and I we are not prepared It’s just too hard, too high, too tight, too far This screaming in my ears Yelling back, I’m stressed, I’m grinding gears I’ve lost myself in this monster that’s grown The black hole’s not out there it’s right here in our home You’re not the you I used to know and pursue You’re somebody else I never even knew And because of you and them I’m someone else too I can’t stand my anal retentive control freak I’m counting again three two… Breathe Go to your room I need to breathe Need a release this is just not me I got good grades in astronaut school Thought I could handle all this stuff spacemen have to do Not many rockets left now from our fleet If they can’t hack it then how can we? --- I wrote this after hearing about yet another marriage breaking apart in our broader circle of friends. There have been so many now, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of which marriages have survived and which have not. This is sort of a part one. I’ve written more, but Wendy didn’t like the other stuff as much and it was getting long, so for now I’ll just publish this. It’s much easier to lament pain and problems, and paint a picture of all that hurts and scares us, than to artfully describe solutions. Or if not solutions, at least some kind of balm for the soul (too cheesy?). Well, writing this was my balm. Maybe it will be something like that for you too. *Photo by [Bill Jelen](https://unsplash.com/photos/NVWyN8GamCk?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText)* ### How I Survived 30 Days With (Almost) No Digital Media URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/30-days-no-digital-media/ Last updated: 2018-05-01T17:26:30.000Z Today is the day after a month-long fast from all digital media, except… movies at the movie theater, music, email, and websites or apps needed to get work done (and, as it turned out, communal video games). I’ve always been slow to upgrade to new technology (unless it’s free), so it was not until last year that I really experienced for the first time the true power of having a smartphone. Not only did I get a blazing fast iPhone SE**\***, but I switched carriers and for the first time in my life had access to a respectable data plan to go with the new phone**\*\***. Once I upgraded to my new phone on my new plan with my new shiny high speed data, I became one of those phone zombies I normally look down my nose at from my moral high ground. I thought I was better than everyone else, but it turns out I was just technologically handicapped enough not to be tempted by my smartphone. Being 2017, the News app was my drug of choice, followed by Instagram and Twitter. It was suddenly so easy to tap or slide and read page after page of news and thoughts, getting fired up by trolls and the part of the population active on social media whom I did not agree with and who were prone to arguing and name calling. I would not be surprised to find out I digested more news media in 2017 than in all the years before that, combined. #### After about a year of it, I realized I needed a break. Not a ‘slow down and take it a little easier’ kind of break, but a full stop, 180 degree, let’s remember what silence is like kind of break. Actually, it was really [Rob Bell](https://twitter.com/realrobbell?ref=nathanleegreen.com) who inspired the whole thing. I was listening to his podcast one day when he said something like, if you let silence into your life then you’ll be able to hear the voice deep down inside that’s trying to guide you in the right direction. He said to try turning off the radio while driving and see if you hear that voice trying to talk through all the noise and distractions. (Ironic that a podcast got me to stop listening to podcasts?) Did I mention I’ve felt more anxious this past year than ever before, or that I’ve had consistent trouble getting to sleep at night for the first time in my life? I decided the main things that were stressing me out were news, social media, and podcasts. Podcasts are an interesting one, and I will get to that in a second. I decided while I was at it, I may as well get rid of television and movies and online videos for a month too. All I really needed, I thought, would be music to work to, and to listen to with my kids, and email, and whatever websites and apps I needed to work. And maybe a trip or two to the movies. Before the first of April came, I turned off all the notifications on my phone that I knew would distract and tempt me. News app, gone. Twitter, gone. Instagram, gone. I don’t have Facebook installed on my phone or it would have definitely been gone too. Anything else that seemed like it would add unnecessary noise to my life, gone. I ended up checking the weather a lot, which I had not specifically included in my okay list, but weather seemed harmless to my mental wellbeing and also helpful for planning our days. Other phone apps I did not specifically allow, but used without restriction because I needed them or because they helped instead of hurt my progress toward a zenlike state: MapMyRun, Yelp, Waze, Facebook Messenger, Paper, Bear, Calm, the Starbucks app, and the Bible app, and of course the camera and clock apps, which I don’t even think would qualify as digital media anyway. #### So, let’s get to the point, shall we? How was it? Did it change my life? Have I decided to move to the desert and become a monk? Did I manage to avoid all the temptations of 21st century digital media? First of all, I did not experience any great big revelations. I have not made any major life altering decisions. Everything is basically the same. I cannot say my deep down inner voice, or the voice of God, or the universe, whatever you want to say it is, talked to me and gave me direction, but I think having more silence helped me to focus on priorities, plans, and goals, and start making progress on some things that had been easy to put off. I did not miss the news. I heard about a few big stories from family and friends, and I saw front page headlines on the newspaper rack at Starbucks, but I did not feel compelled to find out the details or keep up with every single thing going on. I knew everything would be different in a few days anyway. I did not really miss social media. There were a few times when I started to pick up my phone to look at Instagram and remembered I wasn’t doing that any more. My wife filled me in on any big news from our social circles. I did not miss watching television, except as a way of relaxing with my wife. I’ve never been a big TV person and knowing I could catch up on anything I missed later took care of any FOMO I might have felt. Even though the podcasts I listen to mostly help me learn and grow in my work and in general, I did not really miss them either. It was nice, actually, to just breathe and not feel the need to keep up with all the new episodes coming out. I’m a person who likes to check things off a list and seeing new episodes pop up on my phone sometimes feels like adding extra to-do items, as weird as that might sound. I listen to some writing and publishing podcasts and it felt good not to be inundated with information about what I should be doing to help my indie writing career. They have been invaluable for teaching me the ropes of the industry and the finer points of storytelling, but it was good to take a month off. #### I felt more relaxed. I started meditating again. I read more, even some magazine articles, which has not happened in a while. I got more done around the house. I definitely wasted a lot less time. I started getting to bed earlier, and I think I slept better. I for sure had less bedtime anxiety. I ate lunch outside with the kids almost every day. If I lived up north, I could say that was because of the weather, but I live in Florida. I think I wrote more, too, though that could have been influenced by other things, like my wife’s schedule or having a better idea where my story was going. I played two board games, which never happens anymore (I won Stratego but lost Settlers Of Catan). I made progress on a big cleaning and rearranging job I had wanted to do in one of the rooms in our home for a long time. Another funny thing. Because I wasn’t sharing photos and thoughts on the socials, I ended up texting friends directly instead, sharing things with one or two people instead of the world. I thought that was an interesting development. #### Okay, confession time. I did watch a couple nature documentaries with the kids on days when it was too hot to eat outside and we all really just wanted to sit and eat lunch or dinner and watch something. Oh, and because my oldest had been asking lots of questions about Jesus after Easter, we also watched [*The Miracle Maker*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FMiracle%5FMaker%5F%282000%5Ffilm%29?ref=nathanleegreen.com). And I peeked in on [some YouTube videos about Disney World](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoocMG5lMACNKgpvqKay2lg?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Wendy and the kids were watching. Some of it was hard to miss, like when I was cleaning in the kitchen and they were watching in the living room. But some of it I could have gone into the other room to avoid. But I didn’t. Then there were the video games. We had friends over for dinner, and there was a running rivalry among us to see who could beat our friend Darius at the game *Injustice*. So we played an hour or two while they were over. And toward the end of the month we got back to playing *Super Mario Odyssey*, which we stopped playing after beating the initial game. By then I had decided video games with other people were okay, even though they do stress me out sometimes. Especially *Mario Kart*. I didn’t feel bad about any of these lapses back into the world of digital entertainment, but I do want to be honest about the whole experience. I wanted this to be about quieting down my life, but I didn’t want to be so strict that it turned into a painful experience, especially when it involved hanging out with other people or my family. #### So, in summary, it was a very good month. I missed watching movies, especially on Sunday afternoons, which is a ritual of mine. And I missed sitting down and watching something with my wife at the end of a long day, although that would have kept me from getting as much done as I did. But other than that, I didn’t miss much. I certainly did not suffer. I’m very happy I decided to take this challenge. I’m kind of excited it’s over, but not as much as you might think. There are a few podcasts I’ve got lined up and a few movies I want to see. But, really, I’m hoping to keep more to the April way of doing things than the pre-April way. ***Photo by*** [***Max Saeling***](https://unsplash.com/photos/ef0sXQtnCYU?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ***on*** [***Unsplash***](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) ***\**** *As of the time I picked up my new phone, iPhone SEs were already three or four generations behind current iPhones, but I was upgrading from an iPhone 4S. On the 4S I was basically limited to calling and texting and listening to podcasts, especially toward the end when the 4S was blocked from updating to the latest iOS version. One by one, apps I could still sort of use began to tell me I could no longer use them until I updated them to the latest version, which also required the latest version of iOS, which I could not have on my phone. Even the podcast app succumbed in the end, and I was left with the equivalent of a flipless flip phone.* ***\*\**** *This is not a sponsored post or anything, but just because I like to pass on good stuff when I find it, I highly recommend Cricket if you’re looking at changing carriers. As of this writing, their 2GB High Speed plan offers unlimited talk and text plus 2Gb of high speed data (you still have data access after that, just much slower) is available for $30 a month. Mine comes out to $35 with taxes and fees. When I signed up, the iPhone SE came with the plan for an extra $200, which seemed like a heck of a deal. They’re owned by AT&T and I’ve never had trouble getting signal except in the loneliest of mountain roads in North Carolina and California.* ### A Prayer For Parkland (In Response To Today's Episode Of The Daily) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-prayer-for-parkland/ Last updated: 2018-03-05T09:49:55.000Z March 5th, 9:22am Starbucks, Tuskawilla & Red Bug Father, Please help everyone affected by the Parkland shooting—the kids who survived and their families, and the families of the ones who didn’t make it, and the shooter and his family and friends. Draw them close to you. Help them to recover and heal. Help the shooter to understand and feel the weight of what he did and to repent. Help our nation to take the steps necessary to keep these things from happening as much as laws and policy can help, without taking the joy our of everyday life. I pray for all these kids walking around with dark thoughts, lonely, pushed down and made fun of, who think about taking revenge and showing everyone what they can do. I pray you will get to them, put people in their lives who can show them truth and love and joy and peace, who can turn them away from becoming something dark and monstrous and toward someone making a positive difference in the world and saving life instead of taking it. Help the entertainment industry to take some responsibility too, and to decide to make creative, original games, shows, and movies that are about more than running around killing, shooting, and blowing stuff up (or less…whichever would be better). And help the makers and sellers of assault rifles and assault weapons which are designed specifically to take human lives to rethink what they do and why they do it, and to maybe decide to stop making those things, or at least stop selling them for all but military use. I pray if the government fails to intervene, that the marketplace will step up instead, as they have done a little bit. Show us how crazy we are to glorify weapons that take life just with a tiny movement of a finger. No work, no skill, nothing but aiming a stick and the slight pull of one finger. Teach us how to love like you love, Father, how to see the world like you see it, and how to live like you want us to live. Amen. ### 2017—Year In Review URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/2017-review/ Last updated: 2018-01-11T13:17:07.000Z Here we go… ### What did I accomplish this year? In terms of things I actually put out into the world, there was very little this year. - 2 podcast episodes - 4 blog posts - Website remodel: nathanleegreen.com - Website remodel: ocsplora.com - And possibly a short story, *Umberrica*, but that might have been last year There were a few things I worked on this year, but did not finish. - My next novel, *Cloudrise* (I wrote 8 chapters and published 5 on Wattpad.com) - An untitled memoir (2,265 words…so…sort of missed the 50k NaNoWriMo goal) - 2 interviews recorded for podcast (in addition to the 2 already published) If we talk about what I accomplished in terms of physical, unpaid, non-media work, it looks a little better. (This was almost all with help, not by myself. Not in chronological order.) - Cleaned out most of an entire house - Took down cabinets and counters - Repainted and trimmed multiple rooms - Tore out carpet in master bedroom - Refloored master bedroom and bathroom and closets (laminate and tile, including removing and replacing toilet) - Replumbed washer hookups and installed washer and dryer - Cleaned and rearranged garage multiple times - Put up shelves in garage and living room - Removed flooring in back porch - Took down old wooden fencing beside garage - Cleaned out utility trailer (then filled it back up with scrap wood and pipes) - Removed wooden walls added onto trailer for raised garden bed - Pressure washed front and back of house and inside porch - Got rid of tons of crap - Patched 3 holes in ceiling (one that I made, one the A/C guy made, and one that a tree made half a decade ago) - Helped put in new air conditioning tubes (?), boxes (?), returns, and thermostat (and one of the holes in the ceiling) - Redid brick walkway next to driveway - Cleared and placed front patio pavers, then removed and redid in a different pattern (awaiting a big concrete job to finish front patio) - Lined new patio area with foot-tall bamboo wall - Added sandbox area between new patio and new brick walkway (for the boys) - Replaced dryer vent - Set up birdhouse (twice) and hung lights across part of backyard using it as anchor post - Put strings of lights up on back porch ceiling - Put up gutters in back porch to channel leaks (sort of works) - Moved canopy frame from side of house to backyard to create a roofed shed-like area (no roof yet, waiting for tarp back from neighbor) - Cleaned out porch and area behind porch, reorganized and rearranged - Reinforced old water damaged workbench (moved to area behind porch) - Pruned, pruned, pruned…and finally burned up all the pruned debris on New Year’s Eve - Got mulch (like, a dump truck full) - Distributed some of the mulch (much more to do) - Fixed water dispenser in fridge (but not ice) - Fixed garbage disposal So, not a lot of creative work to share with the world this year, but tons of work around the house we’re living in. ### What went well this year? We embraced our move to Florida and our new lives here. We haven’t complained much or talked about how things might be better somewhere else or about what is next in our lives. We’re very present here and very content here, which is a nice change for me, I have to say. I’ve had a lot of help with the boys this year, between Mom and Dad and Wendy’s parents and Liz and Darius. There has been much more of a ‘takes a village to raise a child’ feel to this year than the past 3 years since Asher was born, which has been a lot of upside for me, with not much downside. As a result of the above, Wendy and I have had chances to hang out together without the boys, which will kind of culminate in our west coast trip in February, which will be by far the longest we have been away from the boys ever. Work-wise, I learned a ton about home repair and remodeling. And, though I did not accomplish a ton of creative share-with-the-world work, I think I did set myself up for a great 2018 if can keep things moving. I’ve got a book in the works, a podcast just getting started, websites redone and ready to go, a couple shirt designs ready to get printed, a nice routine going with working at Starbucks a bunch of times per week (like now), four podcast interviews under my belt and a few recorded conversations with Wendy to get me a little more confident, some opportunities to do work for Mom and Dad, and I think a better outlook on working on lots of different things at the same time (without the need to consolidate or force a schedule or attempt perfection). So 2018 could feel like a very productive year on the back of 2017. Everybody loves the boys and praises them pretty frequently, which makes me feel like I’m doing an okay job as a parent, even though I don’t often feel like it in the moment. I think my patience has been better towards the end of the year, but I’m hesitant to say for sure because it could’ve just been based on situations, or who knows what. I do think Wendy giving me the okay to get out more while she’s home has helped quite a bit. I feel much more at ease now than I did a month or two ago. Also, I started waking up early to run, got up to 3 miles every morning, and have been really aware this year of what I’m putting into my body. Sometimes that has not meant I’ve been any healthier than before, but often I have done really well staying away from dairy, wheat, processed foods, and now meat. I’m not being super strict about it, but I am very conscious of it, and I feel like I’m on a good path moving into the new year. ### What did not go well this year? My writing has not been consistent this year. When I think about how much farther along I could be with the Brinnati book, I feel a little disappointed. It’s been a tough year for that and I haven’t had the same motivation I had with Greysuits, but I do think I’m coming to a point now where I’m ready to drive ahead with the book and not be so attached to what the book used to be in my mind—to let it become whatever it wants to. I think I should map out a few major plot points that I can write toward. My shoulders and elbows and back have been in rough shape, especially later in the year as I’ve been moving mulch and stuff. The running is great, but I need to get back to my upper body workouts, whether climbing, pull-ups and push-ups, or going to the gym to use equipment. I need to get serious about it so I can keep my body from getting old and decrepit. This was our first year without a pet since 2008 when we found the kittens in the garage. I don’t know exactly what to think about that, except that I do miss Elvis (a few years ago we had to put Daytona down suddenly because of a disease I can’t remember the name of) sometimes quite a bit, and it would be nice to have a pet or two again. But I just don’t know if we should be taking on that kind of commitment or whether we should get a dog, two dogs, a cat, two cats, a dog and a cat…or a goldfish. I’d hate get into a situation where we have a pet who is a menace to us and everyone who comes over, and only causes us grief, or even if it’s a great pet, causes us to not be able to travel as much as we’d like or go out for a whole day to do fun stuff or things like that. I think we’re probably in about as good a situation as we could be in for getting a pet, but it’s hard to pull the trigger. And it’s more money, up front and over time. ### Conclusion 2017 was a crazy year for the whole world and it was a crazy year for us. We left Florida in the summer of 2008, just as the country was in the throes of a somewhat crazy (although tame in retrospect) presidential campaign cycle, stayed for all of the resulting president’s 8 years in office, then returned to Florida after the craziest election of my 37 year life, in February 2017, just as one of the most stressful years of America’s young history was beginning. It was a messy year for the world, and especially America. And it was a messy year for us, in a way, because we moved into a house full of junk, dust, and family history. And like our country, we cleaned house. We got rid of everything we could, moved the rest into the garage, stacked floor to ceiling like a storage unit, and proceeded to make a house which had sat empty of people or life for 5 years into a home full of family, friends, and fun. That’s where the metaphor breaks down, of course. Or maybe not. Our house is still a mess. There’s one whole room we haven’t even touched yet. As I said, there’s still tons of stuff in the garage, so we can’t really use it for parking cars or putting lawnmowers or anything useful like that. The yard is far from attractive, though it’s coming along. And there are all kinds of small things that still need to be done. Trim that needs to be painted, nail holes that need to be filled, walls and doors that need painting or touching up, pictures that need to be hung, gaps between rooms and hallways that need thresholds, a kitchen that desperately needs remodeling…and so much caulking that needs to happen. So. Much. Caulking. So, leaving the metaphors behind, 2017 was crazy, but fun. And Florida has been great for our family, immediate and extended. Very excited to be starting new year, full of hope and projects and possibilities! *Photo: [BOSSFIGHT](https://bossfight.co/old-sailboat-fireworks-boat/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* ### The Immigrant Jesus Debate of December 18th URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/immigrantjesus/ Last updated: 2017-12-27T11:46:28.000Z I wasted a bunch of time on Twitter the other day. Shocking, I know. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when when my phone was so old and slow, I just didn’t bother with trying to do anything on it but call and text. Anyways, I was scrolling a bunch of tweets from lots of different people, as happens on Twitter, when one particular tweet drew me in to its black hole thread-to-nowhere…as also happens on Twitter. This is what started it— > Jesus Christ absolutely was an immigrant. Jesus and his mother Mary migrated to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod. Matthew 2:1-21 > > Y'all think this Muslim doesn't know his Bible? > > Y'all need to take a seat. [https://t.co/q9v8r8bvhX](https://t.co/q9v8r8bvhX?ref=nathanleegreen.com) > > — Qasim Rashid for Congress (@QasimRashid) [December 18, 2017](https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/942802010566483968?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=nathanleegreen.com) Which was a response to this— > Jesus was not an immigrant, unless you're talking about immigrating from heaven. > > — Murder Ape (@robkroese) [December 18, 2017](https://twitter.com/robkroese/status/942789120111325185?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=nathanleegreen.com) If you follow the thread, you’ll see a metric ton of people piling on, for the most part agreeing with Qasim Rashid that Jesus was, in fact, an immigrant. I kept reading down the thread, response after response after response, almost all of which agreed with Rashid, and almost all of which were unnecessarily mean spirited. I didn’t see a follow up from the initial comment by Rob Kroese, that Jesus was not an immigrant, and I wondered if he had anything else to say on the matter, if he had explained his point of view since his initial judgement was so matter-of-fact, but completely unexplained and unargued. So I tapped on his Twitter handle, sending me to his profile, and first of all I noticed he was a writer who has written at least three books which look like science fiction. (Further along, I found out he’s written eighteen books.) Seeing as how I’ve only written one science fiction novel (and no other books), I’m already thinking this guy’s not just a lazy troll with nothing better to do than contradict progressive arguments about religion and politics. He does stuff, and it’s stuff that I do too. Then I saw one of the books has a blurb from Hugh Howey, a fairly famous indie writer I follow and admire quite a bit, though I’ve never actually finished any of his novels. Also, Hugh is very progressive and constantly blogging, tweeting, and retweeting about politics from a very much left-leaning position, which doesn’t really mean anything in regards to the immigrant Jesus discussion, but I thought it was interesting. It didn’t take long to get to the conversation about whether Jesus was an immigrant or not. It seemed that Kroese had actually responded to a number of the thread’s comments, mostly in a sarcastic, entertaining way, sometimes mean but generally no meaner than the comments he was responding to. He and someone else who had sided with him in the discussion (I use the word discussion very loosely), @ThalesLives, had explained in much more detail that the Roman empire ruled both Judea and Egypt at the time that Jesus’ family received a warning from God and ran away to Egypt to escape the [massacre of the innocents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre%5Fof%5Fthe%5FInnocents?ref=nathanleegreen.com). https://twitter.com/ThalesLives/status/942845772495810560 As part of the same empire, Kroese’s and @ThalesLives’ logic holds, they would not be considered immigrants to Egypt. They also pointed out that Jesus did not stay in Egypt, but returned to Judea when it was safe and eventually died there. > His family temporarily took refuge in Egypt. They did not "immigrate" there. [https://t.co/mZUBvkkBqA](https://t.co/mZUBvkkBqA?ref=nathanleegreen.com) > > — Murder Ape (@robkroese) [December 18, 2017](https://twitter.com/robkroese/status/942802962920943617?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=nathanleegreen.com) Whichever dictionary is used by my Mac defines immigrant as “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.” I’m surprised by that definition actually, because from what I understand, and the story I’ve gotten from most immigrants I know, is immigrants rarely come here expecting to stay and grow old and die here. They usually expect to work hard, make money, and go back at some point, though I don’t think any of the ones I’ve ever known have returned home permanently. Anyway, by that definition Kroese and @ThalesLives are correct in saying that Jesus and his family were not immigrants. I’m easily persuaded by the “comes to live permanently” part, because I don’t see any evidence that Jesus’ family went to Egypt to live permanently, but I’m not sure about the foreign country thing. When British subjects left England to come live permanently in America, was America not considered a foreign country even though it was under British rule? Were those British who moved to America not considered immigrants? I honestly don’t know. And actually, going back to Qasim Rashid’s tweets—he called Jesus a migrant in the original tweet, not an immigrant (in the second tweet he used the word immigrant). And a migrant is just someone “who moves from one place to another.” So certainly Jesus would fit that bill. In fact, most of what we know about him involves him moving from one place to another. Anyway, the reason I decided to try and reclaim my lost Twitter time in the form of a blog post was not to discuss whether or not Jesus could be considered an immigrant. It was to discuss how quick we are to jump on an idea that rings true with our agenda, especially when it uses our opponent’s traditions against them (such sweet satisfaction), and to attack anyone opposed to the idea, when we haven’t actually spent time listening to the assumed opponent or researching and studying for ourselves our own position. I know saying all that is a little cliché right now because it seems like every rational person or platform is trying to say the same thing and meanwhile, most of us, even when we whole heartedly agree, aren’t actually changing our behavior at all. But, still, why not say it again? So here’s my plan, or at least my goal— (Maybe just a hope.) 1\. Be careful about liking and sharing or re-sharing things on social media. Even though I may be a fan of the person behind it, am I personally ready to defend that like or share? Especially be careful when tons of other people are piling on loudly without really trying to understand the other side of the argument. 2\. Look for the best in the people I disagree with. Just because I disagree with them does not preclude them from being intelligent, funny, interesting people who I might agree with on any number of other things, and who might at the very least challenge my thinking in ways it desperately needs to be challenged. (I found many of Rob Kroese’s other tweets really interesting and challenging, though I mostly disagree with his political stance in general. He’s definitely right about The Last Jedi, though.) 3\. Try to understand their views, even try forming an argument against my own view from their position, just so I understand the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. A weak argument is a terrible thing, especially when it’s parroted through social media over and over again without answering intelligent challenges (Flat Earthers and Elon Musk Conspiracy Theorists, I’m looking at you). 4\. Don’t be too quick to like tweets and posts not backed by evidence, just because they seem right and, most importantly, are a kick to the other side’s huevos rancheros. Resist the urge to jump on the bandwagon. 5\. Ask questions. Of everyone. All the time. People on your side. People on the other side. People on no side at all. And from a place of honest curiosity, not an “aha, I knew you didn’t actually have a good answer” mentality. Seek to understand. Even Flat Earthers can’t be entirely written off. Why are they so adamant that the earth is flat when all of science and all the evidence says it is round? Do they just like to be against things? Do they feel the need to be underdogs facing overwhelming odds and that’s the only thing they’ve found to inspire them?\* What’s going on there? *Photo by [Edward Cisneros](https://unsplash.com/photos/QSa-uv4WJ0k?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=unsplash&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcontent=creditCopyText), modified by yours truly.* *\*If so, may I suggest abandoning that cause and jumping on global equality or world hunger or clean water or affordable housing or government/corporate integrity or environmental protection? Any of those will make the world a much better place than your struggle to prove you are right and everyone else is wrong. What if you are right? We still have all the same issues, plus now we have to worry about falling off the edge of the world.* ### 4 Months Before Publication URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/4-months/ Last updated: 2017-11-26T02:40:22.000Z Let’s rewind the clock, back to March 11th, 2016, four months before I hit publish on *Greysuits*, for just a quick glimpse into my thought process at the time… (This is from a sort of prayer journal that I keep on Evernote and add to from time to time.) It’s 1:45pm on a Friday. I’m at the Natick library, top floor next to the windows. The sun’s out and the air is warm. Not hot, and still breezy, but warm enough for a t-shirt. I’m trying to finish this stupid book that refuses to be finished. Maybe it’s not the book’s fault. Maybe it’s years and years of never finishing things that is holding me up. I don’t know how to finish it. I even have an ending, a whole last chapter locked and ready to publish. It’s just this one or two chapters in the gap that I’m having such a hard time with. Don’t know why, although it’s not the first time during the writing of this book that I’ve felt stuck and hard pressed to move forward. Part of it is my perfectionism. I feel like whatever I write is it, and has to be perfect the first time, especially this close to the end. But I’ve already scrapped huge chunks of the book multiple times, so I really should be getting over that feeling. Hopefully the next book will go faster, but that may be a misplaced hope. Really, I just need the structure of the book complete. I’m expecting to have to add and change and cut some things, but as long as an A to Z structure is in place, I think the rest will be fairly easy. But building the structure from scratch is where I have a hard time. I’m probably not the only one I guess. So I’ve got this epic music playing in my ears ([‘To Jerusalem’, *Kingdom Of Heaven Soundtrack*](https://open.spotify.com/track/7iXh7gp2eNZlgdOv7nMc9d?ref=nathanleegreen.com)) and I have these competing images of how to move forward and I’m trying to play out the ramifications of each competing decision to see which one will flow best into the ending and which one makes the most sense not just from a plot point of view, but also according to the reality of the world and the characters and the mechanics of things I know very little about, like space travel and nanobots and living and working on other worlds. Oh Father, please help me through this. Inspire me where I need it. Give me wisdom. And help me to know when I don’t need to be such a stickler for detail, especially when it would actually get in the way of the story instead of helping. Alright, 2pm now. I’ve written these words pretty quickly (for me). I’m warmed up. The pressure’s off a little. Back to work. The grace of God go with me. ### Belated Thoughts on the 2016 Election URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/2016-election-thoughts/ Last updated: 2017-05-24T02:36:34.000Z I’m so thankful I have friends and family all over the political spectrum, from one end to the other. The people I most enjoy spending time with are the ones who know they haven’t got it all figured out, who are insatiably curious and never stop asking questions, who are willing to shift perspectives even if it means having to admit they were wrong or embrace as true a thing that should not be true according to their ideology. And when you surround yourself with those kinds of people, there is no way to avoid having friends all over the political spectrum, not to mention the theological spectrum and every other kind of spectrum. Living near Boston, it was easy to think no one in their right minds would vote for Donald J. Trump to become the most influential man on the planet. But when I got to Florida two weeks before the election, I realized there were many people in their right minds planning to do just that. Before that trip, the 2016 election had been many things for me—historical, entertaining, frustrating—but it had never given me anxiety. Then I got to Florida. I saw the Trump signs. They were freaking everywhere. And no Clinton signs. Not even any Gary Johnson signs. Even then, I didn’t worry about the election results. I just couldn’t believe so many people were willing to put signs in their yards or wave them around in parking lots for a man who most of them would go out of their way not to invite to Thanksgiving dinner if he were a member of their family. (Remember the time Uncle Donald said he’d pay you for painting his house, then never did, then grabbed your girlfriend’s boobs. Yeah, what say we leave him off the invitation list this year.) Then I found out about people I actually know and deeply respect intending to vote for him and my mood plummeted, like for days. I had trouble sleeping at night, running through frustrating arguments in my head which never actually happened in real life. Anyway, we all know what happened. The man won the election (with help from a foreign power who right wing conservatives used to despise and now openly embrace). And ever since the day he took office, really since the first primary debate, life has been an insane roller coaster ride for people who pay attention to politics. I’m guessing even his most ardent supporters have felt like they were on some kind of whiplash ride, even if they’ve been loving it while the rest of us are both wildly entertained and grossly horrified by it. So, where am I going with this? Back to my original point, that’s where. Though it can be maddening at times, it’s vital for us to know people on both sides of any legitimate debate (some debates are not legitimate, like which was a better film, The Matrix, or The Matrix: Reloaded?). People who disagree with my political stance have sometimes very good and well thought out reasons. I’m 100% sure there are people who agree with my stance who have terrible, ignorant, and very shallow reasons for it. In sum, do not close yourself off to people whose beliefs are not like yours, whose culture is not like yours, or whose values do not always align with yours. At the end of the day, if you could zoom out on the political landscape x1000, I believe you’d see that we all have so much more in common in our views that the things we disagree on would shrink to insignificance. So say we all. *Photo: [Bekah Russom/Unsplash ](https://unsplash.com/@bekahrussom?photo=Y8QTiWuzYSs&ref=nathanleegreen.com)* ### The Big Move: Boston To Orlando URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/boston-to-orlando/ Last updated: 2017-02-05T21:22:14.000Z ![Werner Kunz, https://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz/4608613719](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2017/11/c701b-img.jpg) Werner Kunz, https://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz/4608613719 In two days, our family is making the epic voyage from our home near Boston, Massachusetts (specifically, the town of Natick) to a new home near Orlando, Florida (specifically, the city of Winter Park). When we moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2008, we drove a Toyota pickup truck, with most of our possessions in the bed, and towed our little Toyota Tercel behind us on a trailer. We had two cats with us, which we found in my parents’ garage earlier that year. We had no jobs, no apartment, no friends waiting for us in Massachusetts. We were like voluntary exiles in search of a new homeland. Now, the same company where Wendy got a job during our first week up here is paying for our move back. They’re hauling down the same little Toyota Tercel, shipping at least 72 boxes of stuff, plus furniture, and paying for our drive down, including hotels and food. Instead of two cats, we are taking two kids down with us (one of our cats died a couple years ago and the other is staying with a friend until we come back for him this summer). We left homeless and naive, with only our bright eyed faith and optimism to keep us going, and now we’re going back like royalty (at least it feels that way) and a family instead of a couple, hopefully with the same bright eyed faith and optimism, probably still a little naive. ![Bill Dickinson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OrlandoNightSkyline.jpg](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2017/11/5f99c-img.jpg) Bill Dickinson, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OrlandoNightSkyline.jpg ### Delivery URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/delivery/ Last updated: 2016-07-25T21:06:36.000Z Toppenhof was a peaceful town in North Vermont at the turn of the twenty ninth. Peaceful, but hard. Everyone got along or else they got shot. Those were the rules, sometimes unspoken, sometimes not. Veritable Brixton was a courier of sorts. People on the frontier needed things delivered and they’d pay good money to make sure a package went through to their dying aunt in Gibson Bay, or their corrupt jailer in New Calcutta. It was an unsteady job, to be sure. But he enjoyed the work. Better than anything else he’d done for money. Lately his work had him down to the crack bottom of Champ Creek quite a bit. A long run, but not so dangerous. Scenic, too. Now he found himself riding into Toppenhof, in the middle of a hot summer day. Slightly more dangerous, not quite so scenic. Better money, though. Toppenhof was the kind of place a guy could settle down in. It was real. You know, genuine. Down to earth. People were basically happy. Not a whole lot of noise. He didn’t like noise. Never had. At the ripe old age of thirty two, anything above a whisper set his teeth on edge. A pretty redhead walked across the road, a barmaid judging by her clothes and apron, and passed close to him and Horse. ‘Hey, stranger,’ she said. The way she said it, perfect really. Just enough reserve to let you know she was the tasteful, dignified, self-respecting sort, but with an unmistakable something in her eye that said, ‘I’m lookin to get outta here, any way possible.’ ‘Looks like you could use a drank,’ she said, almost making a song of the words. ‘Why don’t you head on over to the bar when you’re done your business.’ Veritable tipped his hat and smiled. Yep, he thought, Toppenhof was the kind of place a guy could settle down. She smiled over her shoulder as she went, then walked into a two story on the corner of one dusty unpaved street and another. The sign hanging out front described the building as \_The Krappertap\_. And underneath in smaller letters, \_Drink til you cant\_. Beautiful, he thought. Veritable kept riding till he had gotten to the general store, \_Kayubi’s Everything\_. He slid off Horse, tied her up, and walked in. The name didn’t lie. Kayubi had everything. And then some. Veritable walked to the counter and set the package down. He rang a bell and out from a door he hadn’t seen popped a little mustachioed fella wearing glasses. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’ the little man asked. Veritable nodded towards the package. ‘Delivery.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ the man exclaimed. ‘Wonderful, wonderful.’ He grabbed the package, cut the string and unwrapped the brown paper. Out rolled a bottle with some paper tied around it. The man shook the bottle, sloshing around the greenish black liquid inside. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He looked up at Veritable and realized the transaction had not completed yet. The little man put up his finger and walked back through the door he had come from, leaving the bottle on the counter. Veritable looked around the store again, wondering if there were anything in here worth his interest. He decided the only things worth his interest were food and a comfortable place to sleep. He returned his attention to the bottle on the counter. He could make out a few words of handwriting on the other side of the paper. \_Hellfog Protectorant.\_ Good God, Veritable thought, people will buy anything. ‘Here you go, sir.’ The little man was back, holding out a clenched fist, a happy smile on his face. Veritable reached out a gloved hand, felt the envelope drop onto it, stuffed it in his pocket. The small man nodded. Veritable walked out the door. Of course he’d count the cash later, but the storekeeper would take it as a sign of respect he didn’t do it in front of him and maybe use Veritable for his next delivery. All in a good day’s work. Now for a drink and a conversation with that self-respecting barmaid. ***[Source photo by ](https://unsplash.com/@mattlee?ref=nathanleegreen.com)[Matt Lee](https://unsplash.com/@mattlee?ref=nathanleegreen.com)[.](https://unsplash.com/@mattlee?ref=nathanleegreen.com)*** ### Story Start—'Tired Old Man' URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/story-starttired-old-man/ Last updated: 2015-01-16T19:51:00.000Z He walks alone through a small town on a bitter cold night in January. He marches slowly down the sidewalk, dragging one leg, pulling a luggage cart full of objects that look just as worn out and ready to die as he does. He wears a dingy wool cap over oily, lifeless, dirty blond and grey specked hair. Strands of his beard stick out sideways, seemingly unaffected by gravity. He wears the standard uniform of the street native. Overcoat. Ripped pants, couple sizes too big. Fingerless gloves, used to be one color, now several. Tired old work boots. Back when he was a young man, in the time when Jesus walked the earth, he used to enjoy the company of people. He’d sit for hours and talk story, laughing so loud people a quarter mile away would ask him the next day what was so funny. Those days were long gone. After two thousand plus years life had lost a little of its succor, its zest, its willingness for him to be part of it. Which is why he had to find the boy, his final payment for freedom from this earthly cage, one last job before he could finally feel the welcome embrace of death’s warm hands. **Alright, your turn! Who is this guy? Where’s he at? What’s his mission? Who’s the boy (or girl, or dog, or whatever)? I’ve got my theories, but I’d love to hear yours.** ### Tribes & Villages: 2 Kinds of Community URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/tribes-and-villages/ Last updated: 2014-02-13T21:08:00.000Z In my head I divide community into two kinds. ### Tribes A *tribe* is a community of people who meet together regularly and share their lives with each other, but who are spread out across neighborhoods and towns. This isn’t a Seth Godin kind of tribe, which would involve people around the world connected by some kind of shared passion. My kind of tribe needs to be close enough to meet up weekly. Sometimes tribes are formal, put together for a reason, and sometimes they are just groups of friends who like hanging out. Sometimes they are a little of both. ### Villages A *village* is a community of people who live together. This is normally called intentional community. A village could be a bunch of people sharing a house, or neighbors in a *pocket neighborhood* or *cohousing neighborhood*, or even neighbors in an apartment complex or traditional neighborhood who are intentional about meshing their lives together. There is an emphasis not only on sharing life, but on sharing stuff as well. A village might exist for any number of reasons. It might not even be intentional, like someone needs a place to stay and someone else says, ‘Stay with me.’ But it could also come about as an attempt to avoid loneliness, to live more cheaply, to live with less impact on the environment, to live more spiritually, or just to spend time with people instead of watching actors spend time with each other on television. ### Either / Or I don’t think either of these two ways of doing community are more right or wrong than the other, but both of them fascinate me, so I like to learn about and think about them both. I have lived both, and I would like to live in a village community again someday, but for now I enojoy my local tribe. Have you ever lived in a *village* community? Do you have a local *tribe*? What have your experiences been? ### Noteworthy Podcasts URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/noteworthy-podcasts/ Last updated: 2011-12-11T05:00:00.000Z A few people have asked lately which podcasts I like to listen to. Here are my three favorites. [Discussions by Patrick Dodson](http://www.patrickdodson.net/Podcast/Podcast.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (new podcasts every so often) – Patrick lives in New Zealand and works with YWAM. He speaks all over the world, mostly to twentysomething Christians trying to figure out what to do with their lives, and records his presentations for your listening pleasure. His views have influenced mine more than any other single person over the last three years. I recommend starting with his most recent series on Identity. [On iTunes.](http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/discussions/id219938119?ref=nathanleegreen.com) [The Monocle Weekly](http://www.monocle.com/The-Monocle-Weekly/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (as implied, new show every week) – This is the best executed audio show I’ve heard. I’ve been listening to Tyler, Andrew, and Rob talk about global news and culture for the last three years, since I began listening to podcasts. Most of their guests are interesting, and most of their topics are right up my alley. I think my favorite thing about the show (and the magazine) is its global focus. I intend to shamelessly imitate The Monocle Weekly when I start the new OCSPLORA podcast next year. (P.s., I don’t like the show as much since they started M24 and stretched it to fit a two hour time slot. Still worth listening to, though.) [On iTunes.](http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-monocle-weekly/id300684061?ref=nathanleegreen.com) [On Point with Tom Ashbrook](http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast%5Fdetail.php?siteId=5183210&ref=nathanleegreen.com) (two shows a day, every weekday) – Tom Ashbrook is one of my heroes. I had already been listening to WBUR, Boston’s local NPR station, for a while when I finally tuned in for the first time between ten and noon and heard Tom interviewing some really interesting guest about some really interesting topic, then taking calls from listeners to expand the conversation. It’s a two-hour show if you are listening on the radio, but it is broken up into one hour segments, each focusing on a person or topic, and that is how you will get it from iTunes – as a one hour, one topic show. Tom focuses on world news, technology, Asia (he used to be based in Hong Kong as a journalist), and cultural icons – mostly authors and musicians. (P.s. again, On Point has the best intro and outro theme music ever.) [On iTunes.](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&partnerId=30&id=121534955&ref=nathanleegreen.com) Bonus: I also subscribe to the [TED Talks audio podcast](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=160904630&ref=nathanleegreen.com). I don’t listen to every single talk, but I catch quite a few of them. Fantastic. If you don’t know what TED Talks are, you gotta go check out [TED.com](http://ted.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). ### How do I know they're the right one? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/how-do-i-know-theyre-the-right-one/ Last updated: 2011-06-23T03:58:00.000Z Oftentimes I think about advice that people should ask me for, but never do. These pleas for advisement, the ones they should ask me, I’ve always got really wise and life-changing answers for. The other advice questions, the ones they do ask me, I never really know how to answer. I just stand there dumb, feeling the gears grinding to a halt in my brain, wishing I had something smart to say. So here’s a question that I would have a great answer for, should anyone ever choose to ask. *How do I know whether this person I’m currently dating is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with?* Here’s how I would answer that question as someone who’s been married for almost eight years (to one woman). Here are the things you should factor in to this decision – in order of importance: 1. **Character.** Do you respect this person for their beliefs and values? Do you respect the way they live those beliefs and values out in their day to day lives? Do they have the same integrity no matter who they are with, or whether anyone is watching? Do they do what’s right, even when it’s difficult? Do they take moral shortcuts to make life easier? Do they treat people with respect? Their friends? Their family? Their neighbors? The checkout lady? Do they learn from their mistakes? Do they put themselves in the other person’s shoes? Do they have a good attitude most of the time? 2. **Future.** Do they want the same things you want out of life? Sometimes you know specifically what you want, and sometimes it’s just a general idea. Sometimes you just know where you don’t want to end up in life. Doesn’t matter, just so long as you are both basically on the same page. Sometimes it’s worth it to give up the future you thought you wanted for someone you didn’t expect. That’s cool, but you better know that going in and you better not let that become resentment later on. All in or get out quick. 3. **Fun.** This is where the chemistry kicks in, and once the potential spouse gets through the character test and the future test, this is definitely the next most important thing. I don’t care what anyone says. If you can have fun together *most of the time*, you’ve got a decent chance of making this thing work, no matter how hard it gets. If you’re ignoring this aspect of the relationship because the other parts work so well for you, there is a very miserable time in your future, ending in either divorce or death. Period. 4. **Hotness.** Okay, they’ve got such great character you would think they were the love child of Mother Teresa and Abraham Lincoln. They want to go build houses for poor people in Siberia just like you’ve always wanted to do. And you can’t be apart for more than six hours because life only comes in in black and white when you’re not together. Now, and only now, you can focus on attraction. And even then, if the first three things on this list are solid, and this person who you’re so into doesn’t repulse you to the point of dry heaving, I’d say you’re all set. We like to put physical attraction on a pedestal in our society, but the truth is, it’s just icing on the cake. And real beauty shows through from the inside. Every. Single. Time. I promise you. There. For what it’s worth, there’s your checklist for an as-good-a-chance-as-you-are-going-to-have lifelong romance. It’s worked for me. ### I would get on a plane for yaaaaaa URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/i-would-get-on-a-plane-for-ya-2/ Last updated: 2020-08-02T06:27:56.000Z Wendy, singing: I would take a grenade for yaaaaaa. I would get on a plane for yaaaaaa… Nate: What did you say? Wendy: I would get on a plane for ya? Nate: Nope. Wendy: Yeah. I would get on a plane for yaaaaaa… Nate: Nope. Wendy: Oh. I would walk through the rain for yaaaaaa… Nate: Nope. Wendy: No? Nate: All the lyrics in that song are about him dying or being horribly mangled. Wendy: I would jump in front of a plane for yaaaaaa… Nate: Nope, no planes in the song. Wendy: I would get in front of a train for ya? Nate: Yep, I would jump in front of a train for ya. Wendy, a few minutes later: I would walk a great dane for yaaaaaa! Nate: Death or horribly mangled. Wendy: I would un-clog a drain for yaaaaaa! Nate: Death or mangled. Wendy: I would lie in the shade for yaaaaaa! Nate: Death or manglement. Wendy: I would relocate to Main for yaaaaaa! I would give up my fame for yaaaaaa! I would get on a plane for yaaaaaa! [**Photo by Louis Magnotti.**](https://unsplash.com/@lamagnotti?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/this-is-2-in-a-series-of-new-england-illustrated/ Last updated: 2011-02-28T14:28:33.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2011/02/tumblr_lhc07lm7wh1qzw9cro1_500.jpg) This is #2 in a series of New England illustrated postcards I’m working on. This comes from a really amazing photo we took at Cape Neddick Lighthouse in Maine. I just traced over the photo, first lines and then colors. ### Photo Traced Postcard URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/photo-traced-postcard/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T16:58:46.000Z ![This is #2 in a series of New England illustrated postcards I’m working on. This comes from a really amazing photo we took at Cape Neddick Lighthouse in Maine. I just traced over the photo, first lines and then colors.](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5214cdb6e4b09a5d95f2d651/54b99112e4b0b0eaa105372c/54b9931be4b00eea695a5a46/1421447988479//img.jpg) This is #2 in a series of New England illustrated postcards I’m working on. This comes from a really amazing photo we took at Cape Neddick Lighthouse in Maine. I just traced over the photo, first lines and then colors. ### Magazine Wars URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/magazine-wars/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:02:17.000Z ![Budget Travel, February 2011 and Afar, November/December 2010.](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5214cdb6e4b09a5d95f2d651/54b99112e4b0b0eaa105372c/54b9931be4b00eea695a5a4c/1421447988621//img.jpg) Budget Travel, February 2011 and Afar, November/December 2010. ### The way I pray URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-way-i-pray/ Last updated: 2011-02-11T03:41:14.000Z Father in Heaven May you be honored for who you are By all people Of every language, culture, and religion May your Kingdom continue to invade this world And all of human activity May things happen the way you want them to Here, just like they do in Heaven Give us today what we need for today Forgive us for wronging you and others And help us to forgive anyone who wrongs us Lead us away from tempting situations And rescue us from evil. ### I'm heeeeere, and I'm singiiiing... URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/im-heeeeere-and-im-singiiiing/ Last updated: 2011-01-09T06:37:00.000Z **2010: A Nate’s Odyssey** - Grew a scruffy beard, then shaved it into a nice goatee - Took a trip to Vermont for a few days, including a day-trip to Montreal - Designed and published OCSPLORA Volume One (goal) - Used [Kickstarter](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1778987344/ocsplora-take-2?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to promote and sell Vol. One to a whopping 22 people - Redesigned the logo and made [t-shirts](http://www.customink.com/designs/final/nss0-000g-0bsu/twt?ref=nathanleegreen.com) with it - Moved Ocsplora.com to [Tumblr](http://ocsplora.tumblr.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) for a while, then back to [WordPress](http://ocsplora.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Made progress on [The Donkey Speaks](http://thedonkeyspeaks.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to about halfway done (half-goal) - Blogged and [twittered](http://twitter.com/nathanleegreen?ref=nathanleegreen.com) pretty steadily through the first half of the year (half-goal) - Developed an interesting photo-tracing art style for postcards and stuff - Worked as a delivery driver, food server, child transporter and (de)construction assistant - Started a new business doing print and web design, [Mess Kit Media](http://messkitmedia.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Made well over a hundred dollars from my creative ability (goal) - Spent some time in Providence, RI (where I’m at right now) - Went snowboarding once - Two Cape trips with friends – one week-long vacation, one overnight camping trip - Explored the South Shore a bit, and more of Boston (lots of [SOWA](http://www.southendopenmarket.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) trips) - Influenced some very good articles to be written for OCSPLORA - Established some clear and concise goals for OCSPLORA for 2011 - Designed a base template for Tumblr websites – used it for everything - Helped [Coffee Haven](http://coffeehavenma.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to establish a web presence, and an email newsletter - Helped [Kelly & Co. Hair Salon](http://kellyandcohairsalon.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to establish their web presence - Designed a logo for Flagg Medical - Designed a logo for [The Chop Shop](http://www.thechopshop508.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Designed business cards for [HeartSafeCPR](http://heartsafecpr.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Designed a flyer for [Parlor Salon & Apothecary](http://theparlorsalonandapothecary.com/wp/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Helped [Mobility by Dennis](http://mobilitybydennis.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to establish a web presence, and Google ads - Built a website for [StoryTapestry](http://storytapestry.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Read and listened to a ton of books (mostly non-fiction) and listened to a ton of podcasts - Continued to strengthen working relationships with OCSPLORA contributors - Sent 9-ish OCSPLORA Soundings email updates for contributors and care-takers - Hosted Friday Night Dinners nearly every week for the whole year - Started trail running – loved it - Started up at [Planet Fitness](http://www.planetfitness.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) as soon as they opened, went 2 or 3 times a week (goal) - Went on a [6 week eating plan](http://www.tenyearsthinner.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) – felt great about it - Confronted a close friend about some difficult things - Wrote down a vague dream job description - Helped [FCCH](http://fcch.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) work out its missions strategy for the future - Got a [euro-mullet](http://ispymullet.com/mullet/cristiano-ronaldos-mullet-faux-hawk-euro-mullet/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) - Loved well, lived fully, laughed a lot ### Snow White vs. Sleeping Beauty URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/snow-white-vs-sleeping-beauty/ Last updated: 2010-09-21T14:42:00.000Z The other day I posted ‘Am I the only one who didn’t know Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are two different things?’ [Andres](http://portofondraise.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) did a great job of explaining the differences: > Ahhh…. Well, Snow White ate an apple and went into a coma. Sleeping Beauty was just cursed. Snow White was presumed dead, Sleeping Beauty was known to be sleeping and cursed. The step mother witch wanted Snow White dead, the other evil lady (…dunno who she was) wanted Sleeping Beauty just asleep forever so there would be no heir to the throne (foil the death to the heir passes it on to the other) so she could rule the land. Snow White’s antagonist was just jealous of her beauty and wanted her dead (she didn’t like the competition, some beauty pagent!). I THINK a prince saved Sleeping Beauty, but a common dude saved Snow White. The only difference was that Snow White had royal blood, so did sleeping beauty, but the royal connections back to the throne were different (the prince, I THINK… not sure.) So in the end the story of Snow White was more interesting, cause she had to live with dwarves and run away and be hunted by bounty hunters and escape a royal slaughter. Sleeping Beauty was much more political, less slaughter, and more about the prince than the beauty. Thus a less remembered story, and often confused with Snow White. =P But who doesn’t love an idea of a Sleeping Beauty!?¡ So it isn’t completely forgotten. lmao!! Then [Lorena](http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=597061852) added ‘Great explantion, but disney taught me snow white ended up with a prince,’ so now we’re all caught up on the Snow White/Sleeping Beauty parallels. Next! ### The paradox of freedom URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-paradox-of-freedom/ Last updated: 2010-09-16T18:38:00.000Z Here’s the paradox: freedom kills creativity. Imagine this scenario. You hand a kid a #2 pencil and a blank sheet of 8.5 by 11 paper and you tell her to draw a bug. You’ve just severely restricted the amount of freedom she can take in the assignment. Pencil, paper, bug. But you do this with a hundred kids and you’re going to get a hundred very different, and some of them very creative drawings. Now let’s ask the hundred kids to draw an ant. I think you would see a lot of similarities between the drawings, but I think as the restrictions get tighter (ant instead of bug), you will see more kids pushing against those restrictions and testing their imaginations. Now instead let’s say you just tell a kid to make something. Anything they want, using any tools and any materials. I should actually try this in real life before I write about it as fact, but my theory is that kid will spend most of her creative energy just trying to figure out what to make, and what to make it out of. So much that she might just get frustrated and quit. You do this with a hundred kids and you will probably get a few very creative results, but by and large I would predict frustration, distraction, and over time a loss of motivation. I believe to get the best results you have to apply the very strictest of limitations. Like in Apollo 13 when the NASA scientists on the ground are trying to solve the problem on the shuttle in space. Problem-solvers get very creative when there is a specific goal and very real and specific limitations in achieving that goal. Also, a tight deadline and lots of collaboration. I’m going to try applying this principle to this ‘ere blog. I hope the thousands of regular readers and fans won’t be too overwhelmed by the change. The plan is to limit the things I write about in an attempt to get better focus and better results. I’m also going to be using this blog as a platform for my design business, so there will be a lot of portfolio stuff thrown in too. I’ve considered this blog as just an outlet for myself, but what happens if I restrict that absolute freedom and narrow the focus? We will see how it goes. UPDATE: Um, it didn’t really take. Blog is just an outlet again. ### Screwups, etc. URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/screwups-etc/ Last updated: 2010-07-31T18:34:25.000Z Do you ever feel like you screw up more consistently and more spectacularly than other people? Yeah, me neither. I was just wondering. So, last week I was working with my friend Cheech (real name, Ciro – it’s Italian) and he asked me to hitch up his trailer to his truck while he was brushing his teeth or something. So I backed the truck up about eight times and finally got it in place and lowered the tongue onto the ball and put the chains on and everything. So we left and not even a minute down the road the trailer hits a bump, goes crazy, and attacks us from behind. Cheech got rear-ended by his own trailer. He said, ‘This has never happened to me when I put the trailer on.’ We got out and the tongue was wedged up under the bumper. Thank God there was no damage to his truck or who knows what would have happened. Remember, he’s Italian. It was my fault for not locking the hitch at all, let alone securely. And it’s not like I’ve never hooked up a trailer before. Earlier this year my co-worker, Luciano, and I were dropping off the food and dishes and everything for one of the schools we catered for. We took everything out of the van, put it in the cafeteria and left. Just like every other day. The van we use is sectioned off behind the front seats, so you can’t see anything in the back. We get to the next school, the one where we actually stay and serve the food. I’m backing up into our usual spot and, rear view mirror telling me we have plenty of room, we hit something. I was thinking there’s no way we could have hit anything. We’re not even close. Luciano gets out and looks and just stands there. He waves me to come look. The back doors are wide open. They’ve been open since we left the last school. Neither of us closed them when we got back in the van. Nothing had tumbled out or spilled. And the van we had hit was already pretty wrecked up. We couldn’t tell where the door ran into it. Another time I put some thermoses of coffee in a crate. A few miles down the road I ask Lucci if he smells coffee. The thermoses have fallen out and spilled coffee all over the back of the van. Another guy from the restaurant has to bring us more. Another time I forgot to pick up Harmony, a coworker’s twelve year old daughter, from school. Poor Harmony. These are just a few examples of the complete lack of common sense I display on a regular basis. And despite all of it I’ve still got a monster ego. I don’t know how much more it can take. ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/so-i-dont-know-how-to-even-begin-to-try-to/ Last updated: 2010-07-24T01:41:09.000Z \[wpvideo 1aeA8cqG\] So, I don’t know how to even begin to try to explain this. Let’s just say my friend Jason is pretty amazing, and also has a slightly disturbing sense of humor. He was able to take the pure, innocent (some might say beautiful) thing I made and do this to it. ### Aliens on christianity p.2 URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/aliens-on-christianity-p2/ Last updated: 2010-07-20T12:51:00.000Z *This post is part of a series. Here’s [part one](https://nathanleegreen.com/post/812650934/aliens-on-christianity-p-1).* Before they killed him he had been hanging out with a posse, like in the cowboy movies. What? No, they didn’t ride horses. Well, no they didn’t go around shooting people. No, no guns at all actually. Okay, maybe it wasn’t like the cowboy movies, but they were still like a posse. Anyway, he taught them a lot of stuff and after he got killed, they started going and telling everyone he had *un-died*. I know. No, humans don’t normally un-die. It was just as shocking a thing to say to them as it is to you now. Well, they started meeting together, the humans who believed he had un-died. And they started living differently than everyone else. They treated everyone else who believed just like family. They shared their stuff so no was hungry or cold or without anything they needed. What’s that? Oh, right. Well, they said he had left, that he had gone to retake his place as God, or as a part of the three-member family of God. I know, it sounds weird, but just listen. These ones who believed about Jesus talked about him all the time. And they claimed God was showing them new things, about how to live and about the world, even about the future. Over time these humans who believed were everywhere. Some of their rulers got angry and killed some of them because they were telling everyone no one was better than anyone else and the rulers didn’t like that. Eventually it changed from a little underground group of radical thinkers to an accepted and influential part of society. Well, most societies. It kind of moved around, like a virus. It would die off in one area and explode in another, get snuffed out there and spread somewhere else. Because it began in one of the most heavily trafficked little pieces of land on the planet, it went everywhere. ### Joseph & Donkey, step by step URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/joseph-donkey-step-by-step/ Last updated: 2010-07-19T17:16:00.000Z Here’s a look at how I do illustration work. This is from ‘The Donkey Speaks’ by Dave Wilkins. It’s actually the only thing I’ve ever illustrated for someone else, and only the second thing I’ve really taken seriously, step by step, all the way through. ![](http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5tcwk3FKW1qzvzwp.jpg) This is the second step of the process, sketching the idea. The first step is to sit and drink orange juice and let images swim around and play in my head until a setup I like comes into view. I usually sketch out a scene (in Photoshop Elements with my Wacom Intuos4 tablet), then lighten that sketch and draw a second over top of it. I’ll probably do that a few times before I feel like I’m ready to lay down the final line drawing. ![](http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5tdloH6eF1qzvzwp.jpg) I take a little more time with the actual drawing in step 3, making sure to get steady, flowing lines as much as I can. I’ve been trying hard to fight my tendencies toward perfectionism, so when my lines get a little sloppy or loose, I try to just leave them alone. Sometimes, like with this particular drawing, I’ll go back over, for example, Donkey’s legs, over and over and over until I just say to myself, ‘Enough! It’s good enough!’ Not out loud or anything. There’s a lot to be said for good enough. ![](http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5tdydzvy91qzvzwp.jpg) And step 4, colors. For this I just do all the coloring in one layer, pretty quickly, trying hard not to fix mistakes and gaps as I go. If I’ve already colored something on a previous page, I go back to that page and grab the same color to try to keep things consistent. So for this one, I got Joe’s skin and hair and Don’s grays and whites from previous drawings. ![](http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5te3yJCsF1qzvzwp.jpg) Steps 5 and 6, shadows and highlights, give the whole thing more depth and life. The important thing is to figure out first where the lights in the scene would be coming from. I decided here that Joe and Don would be walking towards the sun, so shadows towards the right and bottom, and highlights toward the top and left. ![](http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5tecnmMWP1qzvzwp.jpg) Finally, I add some background color just for the thrill of it. I might go back and change the background here later on. I also might try to give Joe some more color, maybe something green but I need to find out more about how people dressed in ancient Israel. And there you have it. Page 12, ‘Joseph and Donkey’. ### Aliens on christianity p.1 URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/aliens-on-christianity-p1/ Last updated: 2010-07-14T23:04:00.000Z *This post is part of a series. Here’s [part two](https://nathanleegreen.com/post/836277931/aliens-on-christianity-p-2).* Listen kids, says the little green alien. I’m going to tell you a story. There’s this planet I went to once called Earth. That’s the planet where I got those cool cowboy movies with the guns and horses. Remember? Yeah, I love Clint Eastwood too, but just listen. There’s people on Earth – they call themselves humans. Well, these people would have all killed each other intentionally or accidentally years ago, if it wasn’t for one of them called Jesus. What? No. JEEE-ZUS. Well, if you’d stop talking you’d hear it the first time. Anyway, a while back, before they learned about germs and internal combustion engines, he spent a few years talking to some humans about their god and how they should live. I used to think their god was different than ours, but now I think they might have the same God as us, just with different names. Jesus talked to them about being just as concerned with the well-being of their fellow humans as their own. And that no one is better or higher or closer to their god than anybody else. And they should love God completely. So they killed him. ### His & hers pocket money URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/his-hers-pocket-money/ Last updated: 2010-07-01T15:39:52.000Z Here’s the smartest financial decision Wendy and I ever made as a couple: A weekly allowance. I know, a weekly allowance is so *I Love Lucy.* Here’s how we do it. Every week we each get $40\. Which is a lot. But it’s for all non-essentials. Eating out, clothes, music, books, going to the movies, chocolate. We started at $20, then went to $30 and finally landed at $40. So this way groceries, gas, utilities, rent, insurance and household stuff comes out of our bank account, while everything else comes out of our weekly ‘trash cash’. So even though we’re not on a strict budget, and we don’t use cash envelopes for everything, we still keep our spending down. And, as a bonus, when we take each other out on a date or pay for something when the other is low on funds, it really means something. Just like it used to when we were dating. I haven’t tried to save up for jewelry or anything yet. One step at a time. ### Of Vikings and jellyfish URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/of-vikings-and-jellyfish/ Last updated: 2010-06-21T13:35:00.000Z In the movie *[The 13th Warrior](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120657/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* an Arab named Ahmed, played by Antonio Banderas, ends up with a bunch of Vikings on a mission to save a village from some scary bear-men. At one point in the movie they give him a sword and he nearly drops it. He says ‘I cannot lift this.’ To which his Viking friend Herger the Joyous says ‘Grow stronger.’ Another time Ahmed says ‘I am not a warrior.’ Herger replies ‘Very soon, you will be.’ That movie shows me a lot about my relationship with God. I say ‘I can’t do this’ and he says ‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’ I say ‘This is not who I am.’ He says ‘I know. It’s who you’re becoming.’ You can’t argue with someone calling you to be more than you are. You either get mad and give up, or you get mad and get through it. Lately he’s been giving me opportunities to show I really do have a spine under this jellyfish exterior, calling on me to act when I’d rather lounge, and to talk when I’d rather keep quiet. Every time you choose to do what you don’t want to do when you know it’s the right thing to do, you grow stronger. And as those experiences pile up, you become something much more than you were. *The 13th Warrior* ends with Ahmed narrating. ‘Across seas of monsters and forests of demons we traveled. Praise be to Allah, the merciful and compassionate. May his blessing be upon pagan men who loved other gods, who shared their food and shed their blood, that his servant, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, might become a man and a useful servant of God.’ ### Vikings and Jellyfish: What I learned from The 13th Warrior URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/of-vikings-and-jellyfish-2/ Last updated: 2010-06-21T13:35:00.000Z In the movie *[The 13th Warrior](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120657/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* an Arab named Ahmed, played by Antonio Banderas, ends up with a bunch of Vikings on a mission to save a village from some scary bear-men. At one point in the movie they give him a sword and he nearly drops it. He says ‘I cannot lift this.’ To which his Viking friend Herger the Joyous says ‘Grow stronger.’ Another time Ahmed says ‘I am not a warrior.’ Herger replies ‘Very soon, you will be.’ That movie shows me a lot about my relationship with God. I say ‘I can’t do this’ and he says ‘You’ve got to start somewhere.’ I say ‘This is not who I am.’ He says ‘I know. It’s who you’re becoming.’ You can’t argue with someone calling you to be more than you are. You either get mad and give up, or you get mad and get through it. Lately he’s been giving me opportunities to show I really do have a spine under this jellyfish exterior, calling on me to act when I’d rather lounge, and to talk when I’d rather keep quiet. Every time you choose to do what you don’t want to do when you know it’s the right thing to do, you grow stronger. And as those experiences pile up, you become something much more than you were. *The 13th Warrior* ends with Ahmed narrating. ‘Across seas of monsters and forests of demons we traveled. Praise be to Allah, the merciful and compassionate. May his blessing be upon pagan men who loved other gods, who shared their food and shed their blood, that his servant, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, might become a man and a useful servant of God.’ ### On living simply URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/on-living-simply/ Last updated: 2010-06-07T11:00:00.000Z When it comes to living simply (aka: cheap as hell), I’m still a novice. I’ve got a lot to learn, but the main thing is to not want stuff and to not get trapped by stuff. People get used to a way of life that costs a lot to maintain. There’s cell phones, cable, new cars, big houses and lots and lots of toys. The less your life costs, the less money you need to live. The less you need to live, the more you can do the things you love. You can work less hours, see the world, visit friends in faraway places, give money to stuff that’s important to you, invest in your own dreams and other people’s too. The thing is, buying stuff is no substitute for making stuff. Tv is no substitute for sharing stories with family and friends. A new car is no substitute for adventure and freedom. And a big house will just feel empty without a bunch of people in it. Focus on what’s important. Get rid of the clutter. ### Fortune favors the brave URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/fortune-favors-the-brave/ Last updated: 2010-06-05T12:21:49.000Z It’s very hard to succeed if you never even start. It wasn’t until I was 28 that I ever really started anything creative with the complete conviction I wouldn’t give up until I had accomplished it. Everything before that was a hobby. Looking down the long, winding road towards the end of a plan or project or dream can be daunting, overwhelming, even downright terrifying. But I’ve found that bravery is actually more choosing not to think than anything else. You know what’s right, or what you want. You push all the what-ifs, maybes, and scary things you’ll have to do as a consequence of doing this to the background, and you just take that next step. Remember what they say: Bravery is not the absence of fear. It’s action in spite of fear. ### Of dogs and men URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/of-dogs-and-men/ Last updated: 2010-04-29T21:06:00.000Z The only interest men really have in feminism is how it affects them. I know that’s a blanket statement, but that’s okay because it’s true. My friend Kim emailed me a link to [an article on Jezebel](http://jezebel.com/5525297/the-kate-hudson-debacle-or-why-feminism-is-for-white-women-again?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (because I’ve been interested in feminism lately) and it contained this quote: > Why do so many women blame not their husband for cheating on them, but the woman he cheated with for “luring” him into that situation? One might answer that men are expected to be unable to control their sexual desires, but the other woman should “know better” or have some kind of sisterhood with the wife. ’…Men are expected to be unable to control their sexual desires….’ Fantastic. This is what a lot of guys want, right? Total absolvement from responsibility. ‘I can’t help it. If a woman seduces me, I am no longer accountable for my actions as a human being.’ Do you see how weak that is? If you can’t say no to sex, you deserve whatever miserable fate befalls you, and you ensure that our gender will continue to lose respect and eventually become nothing more than a sperm-donoring labor pool at the crack-bottom of society. ### He-man-she-woman-hater no more URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/he-man-she-woman-hater-no-more/ Last updated: 2010-04-27T12:31:00.000Z Can someone tell me about the application process to become a feminist? I wanna join. Is there a website? Also, I hear people talking about card-carrying feminists, so I wanna make sure I get a card too. Do those come with membership? Thanks for any help. On a somewhat related note, why is Starbucks making war on heterosexual males? Wendy bought me one of those sexy new ceramic-on-the-inside travel mugs to keep your hot beverage from tasting like plastic (genius), and this is the most masculine one she could find: ![](http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1jbw1vloW1qzvzwp.jpg) P.S. Tea drips out whenever I unscrew the cap, so in addition to expanding their line for a less flowery crowd, they need to keep working on functionality too. ### In the world I see URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/in-the-world-i-see/ Last updated: 2010-04-15T13:10:00.000Z *‘In the world I see – you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.’ -Tyler Durden, [Fight Club](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/?ref=nathanleegreen.com)* This is possibly the most important line in the film *Fight Club*. Tyler Durden tells you his vision for the future. It’s the world he’s working towards. When you read books or watch [movies about the future](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJCJEv5R68&ref=nathanleegreen.com), nine out of ten, and probably more, show you a world worse than our own. Visions of the future tend toward anarchy on one side and complete control by the state, or something similar, on the other. Or else they are just higher-tech versions of the present. What seems to be almost impossible for writers and film-makers is to imagine a vision of the future that is much better than the present. Or maybe they just don’t think it will sell. It’s interesting to think about what you want the world to look like. What is the vision of the future you are working to shape today? ### The three kinds URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-three-kinds/ Last updated: 2010-04-13T12:32:00.000Z I’ve got a theory there are three basic kinds of art: functional, impressionistic and storytelling. Storytelling art is easy. It’s art that tells a story, like film, animation, novels, comic books and plays. But it’s also the paintings, sculptures, poetry, songs and dances that are pieces of stories, or symbolic of a story. You experience storytelling art and you experience characters and journeys and growth. Functional art is design. It’s a bi-product of making something useful. The first rocking chairs were probably pretty plain looking, but as craftsmen kept making them they added all kinds of details and ornamentation, just for aesthetics, just to make the rocking chairs more beautiful. Architecture, fashion and graphic design are all arenas of functional art. And that leaves impressionistic art, which is everything else. Picassos and Van Goghs and cereal boxes. This stuff is more about conveying a feeling, an emotional connection. It’s not telling a story and it’s not doing anything useful. It’s just beautiful in some way and hopefully touches a chord inside. ### 3 Kinds of Art URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-three-kinds-2/ Last updated: 2010-04-13T12:32:00.000Z I’ve got a theory there are three basic kinds of art: functional, impressionistic and storytelling. Storytelling art is easy. It’s art that tells a story, like film, animation, novels, comic books and plays. But it’s also the paintings, sculptures, poetry, songs and dances that are pieces of stories, or symbolic of a story. You experience storytelling art and you experience characters and journeys and growth. Functional art is design. It’s a bi-product of making something useful. The first rocking chairs were probably pretty plain looking, but as craftsmen kept making them they added all kinds of details and ornamentation, just for aesthetics, just to make the rocking chairs more beautiful. Architecture, fashion and graphic design are all arenas of functional art. And that leaves impressionistic art, which is everything else. Picassos and Van Goghs and cereal boxes. This stuff is more about conveying a feeling, an emotional connection. It’s not telling a story and it’s not doing anything useful. It’s just beautiful in some way and hopefully touches a chord inside. ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/sometimes-what-you-really-need-to-do-is-climb-a/ Last updated: 2010-04-12T12:29:02.000Z Sometimes what you really need to do is climb a nearby hill early in the morning and look out across your little piece of the world and realize just how small you really are. ### Tree tells a story URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/tree-tells-a-story/ Last updated: 2010-04-05T21:25:00.000Z Let me show you what I’ve seen and learned from a tree The trunk displays imperfections Highlighted now for all to see They’ll continue to be there for the life of this tree Tree tells a story both beautiful and good though it looks tainted, see the truth in the wood in branches and leaves and seeds which in their turn will become the next beautiful trees ### Thank you URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/thank-you/ Last updated: 2010-03-29T21:30:00.000Z It takes courage to start something new A lot of discipline to follow it through And the help of some really good people To make it all come true That’s my sappy love poem to you and you and you: Rich, Geoff, Angee, Autumn, Matt, Josh & Shanna, Chris, Darius, Val, Ben & Callie, Jake, Jenn, Jaimie, Eric & Laura, Jon, Patrick, Doug & Allison, Kristen, Draise, Natalia, Stacey, Toby, Dar (especially Dar) and Wendy. ### The high cost of unity URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-high-cost-of-unity/ Last updated: 2010-03-22T13:30:10.000Z When two or more parties with a common stake in something disagree, one of four things will happen. 1. A leader will make a decision that everyone else chooses to live with. 2. The minority party will walk away to do their own thing. 3. The parties will fight until one side surrenders, leaves or dies. 4. The parties will agree to a compromise. Compromise is the oil that lubricates the engines of healthy marriages, healthy political systems, healthy religious systems and healthy partnerships of every kind. True unity demands compromise. Nothing less will do. ### 'Suits' URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/suits/ Last updated: 2010-03-18T13:03:00.000Z “Welcome aboard, Scout Murkoni.” Large doors slid open with a barely audible sigh. The voice belonged to a young, small-framed man in a dark uniform who smiled politely and bowed. “You will want to see the commander, no doubt.” “Yes, is he here?” asked Murkoni. He heard the exhaustion in his own voice, though he had tried to hide it. He wondered if he looked any worse than he sounded. Eighty-six hours in a cramped ship could do that, of course, but he hated for anyone to notice. He was a scout after all. It was his job and he pursued excellence in all parts of his job, presentation included. “Yes, he is. Follow me.” After a long walk, interrupted by a series of elevators, Scout Murkoni stood outside the doors of the commander’s main meeting quarters. “Please, go in.” said the young soldier as the doors slid apart. Their opening revealed a large circular room, filled by a large circular table surrounded by chairs. At the far end sat the commander, obviously waiting. “Hello Quent. Please, have a seat.” said the commander with a trace of smile. Murkoni knew the commander liked him. Commander Briddon was a friendly man. But right now, that didn’t matter. Right now, Murkoni was the most important person in the universe. For a few more minutes, Murkoni was a god. But Quent Murkoni wasn’t into power trips. He was into doing his job right and respecting his superiors. That’s what had gotten him this assignment, after all. “Yes, sir. Thank you.” Murkoni sat down two chairs away from the commander as the commander moved the chair between them to the side. “Sir, I won’t waste your time,” he let each word enter the room slow and clear. “The reports are true. And it’s worse. Vara has already begun building the suits. Now, fortunately, he doesn’t have the same technology that was used a hundred years ago and his pilots won’t have generations of breeding behind them. But,” he paused here, “He does have pilots and he is producing the suits,” another pause, “En masse.” Murkoni finished this and let it settle in. The commander sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. He was an impressive man to look at. His face was chiseled, hair grey-white and closely cropped, balding on top. When he opened his eyes, they were clear blue and penetrating. Not a trace of red in them. “I deeply appreciate your work on this one, Murkoni. I know how much of a risk it was, but as you know, this information is supremely important. I will not forget. Neither will the Guard.” The commander sat and stared. Moments passed. Murkoni sat still and waited. This was part of the job. “If you would, Quent,” said the Commander, still staring, “I have another assignment for you. I will be needing the service of an old member. Get a couple hours rest. When you’re ready to go, the details will be waiting for you.” “Thank you, sir.” **+** Ruck Kedder paced the shipdeck in heavy boots. He hadn’t been this excited in sixteen years. At least sixteen. He glanced again at the display showing their current location and time to destination. Twelve hours, twentyseven minutes, eight seconds. “Who’s piloting this thing? How about touching the celerator a little?” He sat down and ran a hand over his grey-haired head. He hadn’t shaved it in a while. Face either. He had put on his most formal clothes for the trip, a faded shirt, pants patched with leather, his usual rough overcoat. He had burned his uniform shortly after leaving the Guard, but he had kept his decorations and they were now sewn to the left sleeve of his overcoat, just below the shoulder. He stared from clear grey eyes, from a hard and worn face. He thought about his run-in with the scout again. Nice guy. Very professional. The scout had found him at his ranch on Obrie, the backwater planet he had decideded on years ago. He had just come in from the morning’s ride. ‘Commander Briddon requests your service,’ the scout had said. ‘Somethings come up, something requiring your special expertise.’ That’s all. He accepted some food and he was gone. Just like that. Ruck Kedder had what some would call expertise in a variety of interesting areas, but ‘special expertise.’ And from Briddon. That meant only one thing – the suits. They had been outlawed for almost a hundred years, had been unheard of for decades. Ruck himself had not used one in… a while. He stood up and began pacing the shipdeck. He’d know more in twelve hours and eighteen minutes, give or take. “Commander, he’s here.” “I’ll meet him on ship deck,” Briddon said into his intercom. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “No turning back,” he said. Briddon walked out onto the deck. He saw before him a ghost from his past, standing in front of the navigation cluster, back turned. Here was a man he trusted almost not at all. But he trusted him completely to stay true to his own code and his own nature. That code and that nature had almost guaranteed this meeting. “Hello, Kedder.” Ruck turned and grinned. “Well, hello Commander. One person I had not thought I’d be seeing again in this life.” Briddon smiled, stuck out his hand. “Past is past.” Ruck grabbed it. “It’s the future needs us now.” They shook hands and Briddon motioned with his head to the door he had come from. “Let’s talk.” Briddon lead them to the same room where he had heard the awful, but expected news from Murkoni just a week before. ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/i-did-this-because-of-a-facebook-forward-back-in/ Last updated: 2010-03-15T21:10:00.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2010/03/tumblr_kzcdhe0eis1qzw9cro1_500.jpg) I did this because of a Facebook forward back in April last year. Here are the rules: 1 – [Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?ref=nathanleegreen.com). The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 – [Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”](http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3?ref=nathanleegreen.com). The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album. 3 – [Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”](http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days?ref=nathanleegreen.com). Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 – Use Photoshop or [Picnik](http://www.picnik.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) to put it all together. It’s a cool exercise in restricted creativity. ### Artists cultivate community URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/artists-cultivate-community/ Last updated: 2010-03-11T14:04:00.000Z – or at least a stronger sense of it. I’ve heard stuff like this before, but it wasn’t until our trip to Vermont a month ago I saw the real truth of it. Vermont’s pretty cool. I’ve never been somewhere that’s both country and hippy at the same time, redneck and beatnik, and somewhere in between too. And pretty expensive. Evidently a lot of money has come into the area from New Yorkers and New Englanders who’ve discovered Vermont as a perfect getaway from big city life. They buy up land and houses and spend vacations there. The same thing’s happened in places like Cape Cod, the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, the Hawaiian islands, and New Zealand. And that’s just the places I’m familiar with. I’m guessing it’s happening everywhere. People make big money in the city, then spend it in the more rural, but more beautiful areas where it’s worth more. Another side-effect of the globalization process. Or is it called something else when it happens regionally? What you notice right away is the strong sense of self that Vermont has. Everything is ‘made in Vermont’. Everything is milk and cheese and chocolate, maple syrup and covered bridges. Maybe it’s due to tourism, or the government’s good branding of the state, but whatever it is, it happens on a local level, among local businesses and artists. And you can’t help but get caught up in the *Vermontness*: everything clean, simple, natural, pure. Everything’s green and blue and sunshine. Big red barns, black and white cows, tall snowy mountains. I’ve seen this kind of local-level branding in other places too. Maui and New Zealand’s South Island are good examples I think. It’s like the people in those places know what makes them and the place they live different, unique, special, and they celebrate it. I believe these things exist in every area of the world, in every place and every group of people. There are *memes* that are buried in the social current, rich deposits waiting to be dug up and displayed. And when they do come to the surface, it shows the richness of culture and community already there, and then helps both to grow even deeper. Of course, as with all things, this beautiful process can be exploited for greed and completely corrupted until it’s something really awful and the locals scoff because they know they’ve been commercialized. This is all kind of vague, so here’s a case in point: I’ve spent the better part of my life in Orlando, and Orlando is as good an example as any of a place that hasn’t gotten this. Disney World is not Orlando’s brand. The theme parks could easily be a part of the brand, but a place has to be more than its tourist attractions if you want to cultivate a sense of community. I made a list of [things I’ve learned to love about Orlando](http://mudwash.com/post/79940014/the-old-homes-better-when-youre-in-the-new?ref=nathanleegreen.com) a while back, and those are things that will touch something below the surface. Really, it’s the stuff people miss about a place when they’re not there that is worth painting about, singing about, telling stories about, or making toys and clothes and restaurants and businesses about. So, if you notice paintings on the walls of your favorite Orlando restaurant showing scenes of tourists at the airport, rainy afternoons at the theme park, Spanish moss hanging over lakes, kids leaving school to go to the beach, or the city lights over Lake Eola at night, it means someone has gotten it: artists cultivate community, or at least a stronger sense of it. ### The kidnapping URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-kidnapping/ Last updated: 2010-03-08T05:00:00.000Z One day, two of my best friends, Frank and Brian, decided to wake up early, come to my house, kidnap me and go to the beach. I can’t remember what happened when they got to the house, but something went wrong. I used to live in a room on the side of Mom and Dad’s garage. Either the door was locked or I woke up before they got there or something, but they didn’t get the jump on me they were hoping to. But they told me the plan, I changed into beach clothes and we headed off for adventure. Our first mistake was taking Frank’s little red Nissan something with T-tops. At least I think that’s what we were in. Anyways, whatever it was broke down around Orange City. We pulled off and got to a car parts store. Frank’s a mechanic, by the way. So he checks it out. I don’t remember what was wrong, but I know I ended up buying this set of giant orange-handled pry-bars, which I think are still in my parent’s garage. So I pried on something while Frank loosened or tightened or replaced something and Brian made phone calls. What I haven’t mentioned yet, and what they didn’t tell me until we were already on the way, was that Brian had to be at a soccer game that afternoon – he coached a little girl’s team – so we were kind of pressed for time. I’m not sure, but I think we got the car back on the road, then headed to Brian’s to pick up his truck. It must have been a temporary fix for the little red Nissan. The game was out in the middle of nowhere, Altamont Springs or somewhere like that. We had directions, but as usually happens when you’re following directions and in a hurry, we decided we had gone too far when we hadn’t gone far enough. I’m pretty sure I remember saying we should go farther, but I was shot down. That’s how I remember it. So we turned around and drove a while, then turned around again and drove some more. Eventually we got to the game. I think we were an hour late. Some of the dads of Brian’s girls were filling in for him, yelling at the girls to move faster and play better and kick the shins of the other team. So we hung out for the rest of the game and never did make it to the beach. ### A day in the life URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-day-in-the-life/ Last updated: 2010-02-08T05:00:00.000Z Here’s a look at a normal day in my life right now. I don’t know why anyone would be interested, but hey, what else am I gonna write about? Wake up at 4:30, leave home at 5:15 with 1st breakfast in hand, get to Bodacious Bagels at 5:30, load up bagels and out the door around 5:45, make drops at Coffee Haven and Central Cafe in Holliston, Red Barn in Southborough, Red Barn in Westborough and La Riviera Gourmet in Wellesley, back home around 7:15. Feed cats, wash dishes, 2nd breakfast, work on creative projects, leave home at 9:45 back to La Riviera Gourmet in Wellesley. Pull in around 10, start van, clock in, grab tea and 2 waters (one for me, one for the chef), hit the road between 10:05 and 10:15 depending on what’s for lunch that day, pull onto 16, then 95 South, then 2 East, then off at exit 59 Arlington, pull up to the first French school, drop off cambros, plates, silverware, cups, cold food, etc., back onto 2 East to Cambridge, pull up to the second French school, drop off chef and cambros, plates, silverware, cups, cold food, etc. Help set up tables for lunch line (stack cups, fill water pitchers, set up dirty dish stations, etc.), leave at 11:15 for German school, listen to On Point with Tom Ashbrook, drop off 10 foam boxes and 10 paper bags full of food to 10 classrooms full of bi-lingual kids and teachers, get back to Cambridge school around 12:15, help serve food and clean trays, pack up the van around 1:30, back to Arlington school to pick up the dirty dishes and leftovers, and back on the road, back to the ‘hestaurant’ (as my Brazilian colleague calls it) around 2. Make a quick sandwich, off to pick up another co-worker’s daughter from her middle school, drop her off at home, head home or to the chiropractor, eat, drink, change, exercise and off to the library (where I’m at now) to work on Ocsplora and other fun stuff for a while, head home to eat dinner and hang out with the supportive wife, hop into bed around 10 (if I’m doing good). Sounds busier than it feels, but it does get tiring. Except for the parts with Wendy and working on stuff I really care about. I do enjoy those parts quite a lot. ### The New Colossus URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-new-colossus/ Last updated: 2009-10-22T04:00:00.000Z [![flickr.com/photos/ajagendorf25/4012265423/](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2460/4012265423_f773c612da.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajagendorf25/4012265423/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” **by Emma Lazarus, photo by [ajagendorf25](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajagendorf25/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) (via Flickr)** ### Wondering why URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/wondering-why/ Last updated: 2009-09-13T18:59:00.000Z Wondering why the time flies by While looking forward to something better Trudging through present nothing Waiting, waiting, wasting everything I am and want and have and hope for Why am I still my own worst enemy Telling myself it’s best this way ‘It builds character,’ I say It must not be my time yet I’ll just keep at it then, that’s what’s best Time flies by and still I wait For life to come to me and say, ‘You’re just the one we need, Won’t you please step this way’ No, ain’t gonna happen that way It’s time to make some choices, Take some chances, choose a path No backward glances Time to take life by the horns Figure out what I want, take it by force I’m in God’s hands again I’m totally yours ### BlackNova Traders URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/blacknova-traders/ Last updated: 2009-08-15T04:00:00.000Z It doesn’t really make sense that an unfinished, buggy, almost entirely text-based and out-dated web game could pull my friends in so quickly and completely in this day of Mafia Wars and FarmTown, but it has. A couple times. BlackNova Traders is an open-source turn-based browser game that has somehow continued to survive despite not really being maintained or updated in years. If you’re interested, you can check out the [official BNT project page at SourceForge.net](http://sourceforge.net/projects/blacknova/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) or check out the [official BlackNova Traders website](http://www.blacknova.net/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). My friend, [Ryan Perkins](http://www.facebook.com/people/Ryan-Perkins/1458798589) made a few improvements when we had the game going: better versions of the fighters.gif and mines.gif images. ![](http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz79tsZbxc1qzvzwp.gif) ![](http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz79u5nz1M1qzvzwp.gif) ![](http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz79uijBl91qzvzwp.gif) ![](http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz79uw25hd1qzvzwp.gif) original fighters / Ryan’s fighters / original mines / Ryan’s mines ### The art of cursing in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-art-of-cursing-in-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/ Last updated: 2009-06-09T14:00:00.000Z ‘Listen,’ he put the lighter down and stood holding his rifle. ‘Tell me this. Is it true about the bridge?’ ‘What about the bridge?’ ‘That we blow up an obscene bridge and then have to obescenely well obscenity ourselves off out of these mountains?’ … ‘Go to the unprintable,’ Augustin said. ‘And unprint thyself.’ … “What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable unmarried gypsy obscenity? What are you doing?” ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-rising-tide-floats-all-boats/ Last updated: 2009-06-05T14:00:00.000Z > A rising tide floats all boats Unknown ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/52-2/ Last updated: 2009-05-02T22:20:54.000Z ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2009/05/dxa8alyhtn0fa0cjz5ferxpwo1_1280.jpg) ### 29 years down... URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/29-years-down/ Last updated: 2009-03-31T11:40:16.000Z …91 to go. No kids, no house, no career. And I couldn’t be happier. Not to say I’m not interested in those things, but, you know. Everything in it’s time. If not for the grace of God, it could have easily been a really sad-looking, boring life so far. But thanks to him and despite every attempt on my part towards the opposite, it’s been an incredible journey and I’ve learned more each year than the year before. I’ve traveled more in 29 years than most people in the world or in the States do in their entire lives. I’ve met loads of incredible and interesting people from all kinds of different places. I’ve lived in four different countries. I’ve explored. I’ve discovered. I’ve had more opportunities than anyone has a right to. And now I’m ready to dig in. I’m ready to make a lasting difference in this world. I’m ready to step up and take my place. I’m ready to contribute to my neighborhood, my town, my state, my country and our world, to my family, my friends, the hurting, helpless and broken and most of all to that kingdom which has no borders, who’s passport is stamped on my soul and who’s king is the only one who can truly judge or save us all. ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/communism-is-absolutely-beautiful-when-its/ Last updated: 2009-03-26T11:59:58.000Z > Communism is absolutely beautiful… > when it’s voluntary. ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/who-you-are-sets-your-heading-your-priorities/ Last updated: 2009-03-23T12:04:00.000Z > Who you are sets your heading. > Your priorities plot your course. > Goals mark out the ports of call. > > But the wind… > The wind can change it all. ### Things brothers talk about URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/things-brothers-talk-about/ Last updated: 2009-03-20T20:47:00.000Z Jeremy: well if the world is really ending as we know it would be good to own some mountain land like Red Dawn. Nate: if it’s in the mountains, it might be the only part of the eastern half of america that does exist. then we’d be like warlords and we could fight people away from our island on jetskis with fishing spears and we could sail to the vermont islands or the colorado islands Jeremy: no that’s the smokers from WaterWorld Nate: and make war on their colonies yes, how awesome would that be? except for the part about chaining their jetskis to the bottom of the ocean which is like forever far down and doesn’t make any sense Jeremy: I just want war paint made of berries and to wear a bear rug with elk horns on my head like a crown is that too much to ask ### (no title) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/our-parents-they-want-the-best-of-stuff-for-us/ Last updated: 2009-03-05T14:43:17.000Z > Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what’s right for them. Because it’s their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it’s our time. It’s our time down here. Mikey, [The Goonies](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089218/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Re:think.ing_ Scatterseed (again) URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/rethinking-scatterseed-again/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T21:27:10.000Z Every few weeks now I feel like I go through this process of feeling completely overwhelmed and confused about what I’m trying to do with Scatterseed, then praying and thinking a lot about it, then coming to some new understanding or realization that takes the whole idea one step forward. The past few days have been one such instance. I strongly believe the more focused you are in whatever you do, the better your results will be. But I’m trying to ‘flood the world with good media’. Geez, talk about vague. It’s been hard deciding on a specific direction and not wandering away from it, because there are a lot of directions this could go. So here’s the latest. I realized Scatterseed just needs to be like a catalogue of creative projects. It’s the projects that are the real meat and potatoes of this idea. So Scatterseed will be an umbrella to house the projects, and ~~scatterseed.com~~ will just be a front page tying everything together. It’ll also house the social/ community backend. Each project will have its own specific page, like parableart.scatterseed.com for example. [Alright, make it work people.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%5FGunn?ref=nathanleegreen.com) ### Irrelevant Or Extra-relevant? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/irrelevant-or-extra-relevant/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:48:55.000Z There are parts of the bible that we Christians like to ignore and classify as irrelevant. Parts that talk about boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk. And a lot of stuff about being unclean. A. J. Jacobs talks about this stuff quite a bit in The Year of Living Biblically. The thing is, while I’m not living by probably 70% of old testament law, I do think there’s value in understanding why those laws were given. When we hear about not eating pork or lobster, I believe it’s important to know why and see if maybe we could be healthier by taking these laws seriously today. If you believe that God gave instructions to the ancient Israelis, you’ve got to wonder how much of those instructions had unexplained benefits that would still apply. ### Patrick Dodson URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/patrick-dodson/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:47:33.000Z *Update (June 2020): I owe Patrick a huge debt of gratitude. His voice was a near constant companion during an era of my life when I spent a lot of time driving for work and went through some big, slow shifts in my thinking and perspective on life and God and creativity and work and family and all of it. Patrick’s recorded presentations and teachings were a huge part of that shift and were vastly essential in some of the mental transformations I am even still going through to this day. Patrick went through some big life changes and eventually took down all his podcast episodes and presentations, but you can still find his website and see a couple things he’s done. I’m hoping the work that made such a difference in my life will eventually resurface or reform to help other young people, especially the ones raised in Evangelical Christian contexts.* ![](https://nathanleegreen.com/content/images/wordpress/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-16-at-6.45.06-PM-1024x532.png) *Photo stolen from Patrick’s website.* [Patrick Dodson](http://patrickdodson.net/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Our friend Ali led a DTS last year in Oxford, New Zealand. We recently saw her in Toronto and afterwards she sent us recordings of all the lectures from the school. This guy wasn’t on any of my DTSs and Ali said he was controversial, so he’s who I’ve been listening to the most. He’s amazing. You gotta check him out and listen to some of his podcasts if you get a chance. ### Matthew 6.19-21 Remix URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/matthew-619-21-remix/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:30:53.000Z Don’t save up all your money here in this world, where stock markets can crash overnight, the value of currency fluctuates from one day to the next, and investment brokers don’t get arrested until *after* they’ve spent your money. Instead, save up treasure in the Great Beyond, where there is no stock market or currency or investment brokers. Because wherever you put your wealth, that’s where your focus will be. ### What Is Church? URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/what-is-church/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:28:50.000Z *Update (June 2020): Some of these old posts make me cringe a little. It’s not even that I don’t agree with my past self, it’s just the way I presented my thoughts I guess.* This morning, I was thinking about one of my friends who is trying to decide with his family which church to be a part of. For some reason that got me thinking about what exactly a church is. I think most people, whether they are church-goers or not wouldn’t really think twice about this. They see a church building of some type with a sign that ends in the word church and *viola*. No problem. I think, off the top of my head, I would define church as a group of people who seek God. Maybe *love* God? Love Jesus? Those are pretty simple definitions and they draw clear lines. If you go with the first definition, it would include almost every faith. The second would knock out quite a few. The third would knock out most of the rest. And the building’s not even an issue. ### Constraints Focus Creativity URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/constraints-focus-creativity/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:24:45.000Z _No content available._ ### Limitation Breeds Innovation URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/limitation-breeds-innovation/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:23:36.000Z _No content available._ ### Speaking Of America URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/speaking-of-america/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:21:26.000Z *Update (June 2020): This was written eleven years ago and my thoughts have certainly changed on a few things. I would still prioritize the national debt and small business, but my take on abortion would be more about helping women and couples in a situation where they are contemplating abortion to have as many other options and alternatives available to them as possible. And I’m no longer sold on flat tax or fair tax, but we all know there is quite a bit of room for tax reform in the U.S. of A. The problem is rich people and corporations don’t want to lose their perks and they have enough influence to keep things the way they want them. At least until there is a cultural shift. The last paragraph is truer than ever.* Here are the things that would be highest priorities to me if I were president. **paying off the national debt** **ending abortion** **moving to flat tax or fair tax** **making it easier to start, own and operate a small business** I would run on a platform of creative compromise – or something like that – trying to get people to see that they can’t get everything they want for this country without having to give in on some of the issues that are less important to them. ### www.newamerica URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/www-newamerica/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:09:51.000Z I think the world wide web is kind of like colonial America was in it’s prime. In the New World everyone had a chance for a better life. Just about anyone could set up shop somewhere and start selling some kind of product or service. There weren’t a lot of rules and there weren’t a lot of taxes. Mostly those early American settlers from Europe were left alone to make the best life and the best world that they could. It wasn’t always pretty, but according to (I think) [1776](http://www.amazon.com/1776-David-McCullough/dp/0743226712?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by [David McCullough](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%5FMcCullough?ref=nathanleegreen.com) the quality of life in pre-revolutionary America in the colonies was the highest in the world at the time. I think the internet’s the same way. Anyone can get a website and start selling a product or service. Even if it’s just their own ideas or stories or opinions. It’s all fair game and no one knows what the next big thing is going to be or who it’s going to come from. But the kid in his garage has as much chance (if not more) of being a big success in the land of web as any giant corporation. It’s kind of beautiful. ### The Old Home's Better When You're In The New URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-old-homes-better/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:03:23.000Z I’ve never been too quiet about my dislike of Orlando and the Central Florida area. Ever since I’ve realized it was possible, I’ve wanted to leave it. But over the last few years my long-time hometown and I have made our peace with one another. Here are a few things I’ve learned to love about her. \* Spanish moss \* An hour drive to Cocoa Beach or hour-and-a-half drive to Ponce Inlet, Daytona Beach \* The monsoon season (the sunshine state’s most guarded secret) and it’s just-like-clockwork afternoon rainstorms \* Disney, Universal, Sea World, the water parks and the ghetto theme parks \* Florida-residents discounts and deals to theme parks \* Space shuttle launches \* That unique Florida sky with it’s chalky pastel colors \* That not-so-unique stormy sky with it’s bold dark blues and ominous greys \* Publix, Publix subs, Publix Greenwise section and Publix sweet tea \* The smell of orange blossoms (which is getting harder to find) ### New Favorite Tea URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/mighty-leaf/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:25:09.000Z [![I’m no connoisseur (tea-wise or otherwise), but I’m pretty sure Mighty Leaf tea has to be the top dog of the tea-drinking world. I’ve never really noticed much difference between good tea and cheap tea before, but this stuff is like sipping on a little bit of heaven.](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5214cdb6e4b09a5d95f2d651/54b99112e4b0b0eaa105372c/54b9931ce4b00eea695a5b05/1421447987611//img.jpg)](http://www.mightyleaf.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) I’m no connoisseur (tea-wise or otherwise), but I’m pretty sure Mighty Leaf tea has to be the top dog of the tea-drinking world. I’ve never really noticed much difference between good tea and cheap tea before, but this stuff is like sipping on a little bit of heaven. ### Jerusalem URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/opposite-wailing-wall/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:22:00.000Z ![](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5214cdb6e4b09a5d95f2d651/54b99112e4b0b0eaa105372c/54b9931ce4b00eea695a5b14/1421447989398//img.jpg) ### The Digital Tower URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-digital-tower/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T18:01:03.000Z How much does the [ancient tower of Babel](http://tniv.info/bible/passagesearch.php?passage%5Frequest=+Genesis+11%3A1-8&submit=Lookup&tniv=yes&display%5Foption=columns&ref=nathanleegreen.com) have in common with our modern day world wide web? According to that ancient story, everyone in the world spoke the same language. They were building a tower together and God realized there was nothing they wouldn’t be capable of doing. He caused them to speak different languages and they were prevented from finishing their project. It’s kind of like we’re working back to that time of monolingual humanity. Languages are dying everyday. Globalization and the internet are fueling a world where everyone needs to know English, or at least the common language of their region. People all over the world are working together, despite language barriers, in tiny pieces and parts to build the most massive construction by far that humans have ever made. It just can’t be seen, except on a computer screen. I’m not saying the internet is a danger and God’s going to step in and break it up. I love the internet too. I just think there are interesting parallels. ### in Just— URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/in-just/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:51:31.000Z > “in Just- > spring when the world is mud- > luscious the little > lame balloonman > whistles far and wee > and eddieandbill come > running from marbles and > piracies and it’s > spring > when the world is puddle-wonderful > the queer > old balloonman whistles > far and wee > and bettyandisbel come dancing > from hop-scotch and jump-rope and > it’s > spring > and > the > goat-footed > balloonMan whistles > far > and > wee” — e. e. cummings ### The Tourist And The Fisherman URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-tourist-and-the-fisherman/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:40:22.000Z An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The Mexican said, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.” The tourist then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! “You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. “Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?” The tourist replied, “15 to 20 years. 25 at most.” “But what then?” asked the Mexican. The tourist laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions?…Then what?” The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.” **\~ author unknown** ### The Village URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/the-village-idea/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:38:44.000Z I am a strong believer in the exceeding value of [intentional community](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional%5Fcommunity?ref=nathanleegreen.com), not just as an experiment or a short-term solution, but as a way of life. One of my dreams is to start a [yurt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt?ref=nathanleegreen.com) village. I was also thinking about the reasons why an intentional village would be better than our modern-day alternative. Here are the 4 main elements and major benefits that came to mind. **Community** **Economy** **Environment** **Mobility** Maybe I’ll talk more about these in future posts, but I’m sure that if you think about it, you can see how a bunch of people living on the same property with one shared common house and many private yurts (or yurt-like dwellings) would be socially healthier, financially cheaper, easier on energy and the local environment, and would provide much more freedom to travel or even divide the year between different parts of the world. ### A Scattered History URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-scattered-history/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:36:09.000Z So, here’s a brief history of Scatterseed so far: \* The idea for a comic book based on the story of Gideon from Judges ch. 6 has been floating around my head since 2001 when I was shown and briefly told about [The Red Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FRed%5FStar?ref=nathanleegreen.com) which I never actually read. \* The idea for a magazine about people changing the world started around that time too. \* Other ideas emerged later and by 2008, I had a head full of cool ideas that were all media-based. Either print, web, audio or undefinable. \* Hung out with a friend from [YWAM](http://ywam.org/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) who talked about his experiences with producing short films. The good, the bad and the really annoying. \* Suddenly inspired later that night, I began turning over the idea for a media lab in my mind. Originally non-profit, completely voluntary, very transient and based on a YWAM-like model. \* Listened to the first 3 episodes of [Blizzcast](http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) while sealing Mom and Dad’s house and thought it would be so cool to work in creative media on big projects. Wondered if I should focus on sic-fi ‘geek’ media instead of the vague ‘all different kinds of media’. \* Struggled with making a decision between my love of creativity and media and my love of community and the emerging church. Wondered how the media lab should work financially. \* Moved to Massachusetts in August of ’08 with the intention of making a go at both the media lab in general and the comic book in particular. Looked for part-time work so I’d have plenty of time to work on my real career. \* Got a full-time, but temporary job. Started sketching a storyboard for the Gideon story on lunch breaks. Job ended about the same time as the storyboard wrapped up. \* The week of unemployment after, I began drawing full comic pages. Found a cheap scanner and downloaded a (first of many) trial version of Photoshop. Started the learning process. \* Got a job delivering pizza at night. Kept working on the comic. Started at 1 colored page a week. At the end, 1 a day (almost). \* Also working on a business plan for theScatterseedproject, asking people to support me financially in pursuing it, asking other people to help with the parable project and reading a lot of books. \* Got a job delivering bagels in the morning. Only 10 hours a week and more money per hour. Quit delivering pizza. \* Finally finished Part 1 of 5 on January 20th, 20 days past self-set deadline. Got to work full time on theScatterseedproject, but thinking of changing the name back to just Scatterseed. Wondering if it could and should be for-profit instead of non-profit. Decided yes to both. \* Contemplated business models. I decided that Scatterseed could potentially make enough money from advertising on the website and selling ‘hardcopy’ products to be financially viable. \* Began planning and designing website which would now be scatterseed.com instead of scatterseed.org. And that’s where I’m at today. ### Things I'm Into Right Now URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/things-im-into-right-now/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:32:56.000Z \* [Rocketo: Journey to the Hidden Sea](http://www.frankespinosa.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Frank Espinosa \* [The 4-Hour Workweek](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by Timothy Ferriss \* [Scott McCloud](http://www.scottmccloud.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com), author of [Understanding Comics](http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/uc.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com), [Reinventing Comics](http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/rc.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and [Making Comics](http://www.scottmccloud.com/makingcomics/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) as well as Google’s [comic](http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com) about its new browser, Chrome \* Google’s new browser, [Chrome](http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com) \* [Portal](http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com), the crazy innovative first-person puzzle game by [Valve](http://www.valvesoftware.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) \* [Viva la Vida](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva%5Fla%5FVida%5F%28song%29?ref=nathanleegreen.com) on [Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva%5Fla%5FVida%5For%5FDeath%5Fand%5FAll%5FHis%5FFriends?ref=nathanleegreen.com) by [Coldplay](http://www.coldplay.com/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) \* learning [CSS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading%5FStyle%5FSheets?ref=nathanleegreen.com) \* [Heroes](http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/?ref=nathanleegreen.com) Season One ### Random Memory URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/random-memory/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:31:29.000Z I’m a little kid. I’m not sure how old, but little. Like maybe 5\. I think it’s in [Haiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti?ref=nathanleegreen.com), which means I’d have to be 5 or 6\. We’re at the beach, the family. I don’t remember Dad or Jer around, but I’m sure they would have been. I’m playing on the beach, either in extremely shallow water or where the water stops. All of a sudden a big wave comes out of nowhere and topples me. It’s really strong, at least compared to me and I’m basically drowning, rolling around under water. Then familiar hands grab me, pull me right out and carry me up the beach. Mom to the rescue, just when I needed it. ### Wanderlust URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/wanderlust/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:30:06.000Z I’m listening to [Best American Travel Writing 2000](http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Travel-Writing-2000/dp/0618074678?ref=nathanleegreen.com) edited and introduced by [Bill Bryson](http://www.randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/?ref=nathanleegreen.com). It’s really good listening. Each story is about 15 to 20 minutes. It brings back memories of traveling. And a strong desire to go travel some more. It makes me not want to settle down, or at least only settle with a guarantee of lots of trip-taking. Guarantees like that are hard to find, but whatever happens, I know my God well enough to know my love of travel is not for nothing. So I’m not worried. Traveling is in my/our future, and if it’s not then there’s a really good reason. ### Swiss Milo URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/swiss-milo/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:27:59.000Z Today I mixed equal parts [Swiss Miss milk chocolate flavored hot cocoa mix](http://www.conagrafoods.com/consumer/brands/brand%5Finfo.jsp?page=swiss%5Fmiss&ref=nathanleegreen.com) with [Nestle Milo fortified chocolate flavored drink mix](http://www.miloenergy.com/index.html?ref=nathanleegreen.com) and the resulting hot mud was delicious. ### A Genesis URL: https://nathanleegreen.com/a-genesis/ Last updated: 2020-06-16T17:26:23.000Z I’m starting a blog. Here it is. Enjoy.