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Dec 25
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And to you — hope you're having a good one :-)

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Hi Michael! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

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Hey Pat — and to you and yours!

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"Maybe we should let ourselves misspell our own lives sometimes if that’s what makes sense for us."

Sorry, this is mine now.

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I was only borrowing it from you ;-)

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See, you get it.

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Last night, I spent the evening sitting between Harry Turtledove and Barbara Hambly, listening to them talk about their first novels, their writing careers, and various travails. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better Christmas Eve. I hope your holiday is warm and lovely, Michael!

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Thank you — and the same for you!

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Merry Christmas to you too, and to all your family

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And to you and yours!

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Merry Christmas to you and yours! (and Season's Greetings to all of your Substack readers too 😁). Thanks for all of the Warm Recollections of 2024. Looking forward to more next year. Cheers! x

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Thank you and Merry Christmas!

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Love the life autocorrect. While acknowledging that autocorrect will frequently suggest completely the wrong word for the sense of what I was trying to type. Sometimes truly bizarre words I would never think to use. These prompts from the wings may be terrible ideas, or interesting diversions, or things I would never do. Great idea!

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I'm fascinated by the idea of "whims"... the way they're acknowledged as being ours, and yet somehow... coming from somewhere else...

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Oh yes! Brilliant. I don’t think our brains and consciousness and the whole package of body and mind and being, work quite the way we think they do!

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Ciao, Michael!!

Merry, Merry Christmas!!!!!

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And to you — hope you're having a good one!

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Thank you.

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I enjoy reading these so much. To offer up a completely frivolous response to your carefully crafted thoughts, your note on psychological discomfort rang very true. And the quote that always comes to mind when I think of psychological discomfort is from one of my all-time favourites, Clueless: “I had an overwhelming sense of ickiness.”

These icky moments are the times when I'm forced to acknowledge I don't *know* myself. Becoming older, you learn to know your body very thoroughly. But your mind and its workings? Not so very much I would say. In fact I'm increasingly happy lately NOT to know. Let it stay Darkest Peru in there please, icky as it undoubtedly is.

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Totally agree. I'm getting into the mind's business. It's weird. Kundera should have titled his novel "The Overwhelming Sense of Ickiness".

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