Letter to Brenden Month 29:

Hey, buddy:

Mom had a big old needle stuck in her chest yesterday because her doctors saw something on a mammogram - that's an x-ray of my boobs - that they didn't like. The doc used a needle to fish out a sample of the tissue in question and they are testing it right now. I'm on the proverbial pins and needles wanting to know the results of the test.

You can't imagine how awful it makes me feel to think I might not be around to watch you grow up and start a family of your own. Your dad and I both think you're the best thing that has ever happened to us.

Maybe I'm being too melodramatic, but a part of my mind always remembers Asimov's law: If the chance of something happening is one in a million, it's going to happen to one out of every million people. Isaac Asimov, by the way, was a science fiction author who died of AIDS - he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion, so he got a full ironic dose of his own law.

Yeah, I'm kind of melancholy right now. I'm real glad your grandpa got better from his battle with cancer, so I'm not completely down.

I've done a pretty good job this last month of reiterating your progress, especially in language. You now will pester me with "MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!" all the time but that's ok. And might I add you have slept through the night 7 nights in a row now. THANK YOU!

So, I'm going to post a list of authors (in no particular order) I read or have read. All of them are listed because I have read their books over and over and over. Some of these authors I can't really read anymore (my tastes have changed) but they sure kept me entertained.

1) Ray Bradbury
2) Isaac Asimov
3) Harlan Ellison
4) Alistair Maclean
5) Robb White
6) Stephen R. Donaldson
7) Stephen King
8) Edgar Rice Burroughs
9) Michael Moorcock
10) H.G. Wells
11) Dan Simmons
12) Clive Barker
13) William Gibson
14) J. K. Rowling
15) John Varley
16) Robert Jordan
17) George R.R. Martin
18) Joe Lansdale


Just because I read them over and over doesn't necessarily mean they wrote my favorite books. Matter of fact, the first three I list, Bradbury, Asimov, and Ellison, wrote short stories. Look these folks up when you want something to read, little guy.