The Neurospicy Bean

  So I’ve seen a lot of stuff pitching this as lesbian Ted Lasso, and alas, it simply is not. The side characters are charming enough, but they lack the brilliance of the Ted Lasso ensemble and aren’t given much attention throughout the book. Grace and Phoebe are very much the primary focus, and almost every scene revolves around them. And yeah, it is a romance, but those of you who follow my reviews will know that I firmly believe that the best romances have excellent side characters and spend time developing other relationships – not to mention, other aspects of the characters. This book is trying to touch on some of those things, but the proportions weren’t quite right for me.  For instance, one plot element is Phoebe and Grace exploring their potential neurodivergence. I didn’t realize that would be a plot point going in, and I was excited when it was, but it wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. Grace in particular is really reduced to a throwaway line about mayb...

  This is an essay I wrote for a class I took in Spring 2023 called Wilderness Medicine and Ethics. Some of the discussion is specific to the class, but much of it is deeply relevant to both outdoors and philosophical discourse and I thought it would be valuable to share with a wider audience. I have included sources here both to give credit as necessary and provide links to the resources I reference. My experience with athletics has been, frankly, less than stellar. Although I’ve participated in a wide variety of activities, from climbing to taekwondo, none of them lasted past my first year of high school, and getting me to attend my regular practices was like pulling teeth. It was only recently that I realized part of the problem was how alienated I felt as a disabled person – even before knowing I was disabled, I knew that I wasn’t the same as the people around me, and I knew that fact made me unwelcome. Disability access and inclusion is perhaps one of the least developed front...