As folks read the alpha copy of my book, I am taking October significantly slower than I usually do. However, I have never been good at doing “nothing”, so I will be doing “something” instead. Enjoy my October Interludes.

Usually when asked what my defining events as a child are the two that come to mind the fastest are unbuckling my car seat while the car was still in motion and microwaving my family’s shoes and a hotel’s remote control.

However, this weekend I was reminded of a different moment that has been on my mind. The problem is that I have forgotten a lot of the details of the events so the story isn’t quite as sexy to regale, but it’s on my mind.

Sometime when I was living in Washington state, we went to an aquarium and said aquarium had an exhibit on horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs by normal animal metrics are completely alien and bizarre, so obviously I became enamored with the critters. I love it when evolution says “this is it, send it.”

But as a particularly inquisitive and enthusiastic child, liking the horseshoe crab was not enough. No, I had to explain why the horseshoe crab was the coolest thing I saw at the aquarium, so with the help of my mother, I made a… what I would call a zine on everything I could find about horseshoe crabs in an era with a proto-internet. I would then mail said zine with a letter to the aquarium (read: my parents mailed these things), and I got a nice letter back.

I don’t think I have that letter anywhere. I have the memory of it. Like the memory of a roaming dinosaur exhibit and the awe of watching Jurassic Park for the first time.

There was a time where science and technological progress made me excited instead of filling me with untold dread. And I hope that one day I’ll get back to that as my default.