Last night there was big thunder and lightning; the rain came in rivers down the house, sounding like it was inside, running over the windowsills like blood from a mouth in a horror movie. I very much enjoyed it. One of my favorite feelings is being safe and warm inside a house while weather beats mercilessly against that house. It was a pleasure briefly stolen from me for the year-plus that our roof was leaky, and I’m glad to have it back again.

I’m still at my island residency. I’ve been swimming twice, and the cold water shoots straight to the heart. If anyone is keeping track, I hope they’re impressed by how prepared I was with all these comics drawn in advance. I don’t have my scanner here. I am a champion. We’ve been watching the Ip Man movies in the evenings and I regret nothing.

File under, DEEPLY not regretted: I got to talk to Erika Swyler about her new novel Light From Other Stars, which I deeply love and have cried reading more than once. That conversation is up today at Electric Literature, and I hope you’ll take a look, then buy/borrow/steal (don’t steal it, actually, just get it from the library if you want) the book, which is wonderful.

(Periodic reminder: if your library doesn’t already have a book you want, they will order it for you upon your request. Libraries are magic.)