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08/29/26: raccoon mother

Today would have been my mother's 63rd birthday. She would not have cared.

August 12 is a sort of pseudo-anniversary of her death, for me at least. She went missing from her trailer outside Thunder Bay, Ontario and the RCMP found her body in the forest in the early hours of August 12, 2013. She had been dead for 1-3 days. My sister had reported her missing on Aug 7 after not hearing from her for 4 or 5 days. I found out about the discovery of her body in the late morning of the 12th.

The night of Aug 11, I had gone camping with my friend Adam and his girlfriend whose name I do not remember. At dusk, we trespassed across someone's property. We snuck down their driveway, ducked under their kitchen window, went through their garage, and finally hopped their backyard fence to get to the shore of the Saanich Inlet. Adam and his girlfriend slept on the ground under cover of some trees and I climbed down a small cliff to the rocky beach where I slung a hammock between two arbutus trees.

At some point in the night I awoke suddenly to the sound of an animal directly above me, growling. I looked up and could see nothing in the darkness. I thought a cougar was directly above me, that I was about to be pounced on and eaten. I took my flashlight from my pants pocket and shone it up. It wasn't a cougar, it was a raccoon. Behind her were two babies. When my light hit her, she growled more adamantly and turned her fat little body sideways to make herself look bigger. Her kids shuffled around nervously on branches behind her.

I was no longer afraid of being mauled but Mother Raccoon showed no sign of backing down so I decided to leave her and her babies in peace. I figured it was their tree, I was the intruder, so it was my responsibility to leave. I climbed out of my hammock (and rolled my ankle because of the jagged ground and my rubbery fight-or-flight legs) gathered up my sleeping bag and shoes, and climbed back up the cliff to sleep on the grass. I did not sleep well after that, because I was all jacked up on adrenaline.

The arbutus trees were taller than the cliff. At dawn, Mother Raccoon and her babies came scraping and scratching up the trunk, waddled along a branch that stuck out over the grass, and crossed over into another tree that was on my level. The mother climbed down the trunk onto the ground and chirped up at her babies. The first one came down clumsily and then ran past its mother into the shelter of some taller grass a couple meters away.

The other baby had a lot more trouble. It cried to it's mother. It tried to go down head first like its sibling but chickened out and desperately clawed it's way back up to the branch. Then it turned and tried to come down bum-first but panicked again and desperately heaved itself back up again. It tried these various methods of descent several times, crying all the while, as its mother stood, fully exposed to her enemy (me) and any other predators. She alternated between raising her head up to call to her baby in the tree, turning to check on her other baby that was crying to her from the grass, and keeping an eye one me. The baby in the tree tried and tried to come down. Finally, on one of it's butt-first attempts, it couldn't manage to pull itself back up and slid down the trunk, clawing at the bark and screaming. It landed hard on its fat little butt and ran in full panic into the cover of the tall grass. Mother Raccoon went after it and all three disappeared.

I enjoyed this whole saga quite a lot, though I felt quite stressed out, as I could feel the stress of the whole trio. I really felt for the scared baby who didn't have the confidence for its descent, and I was in awe of the mother who remained fully exposed until both of her children were safe. Vancouver Island raccoons are not like, say, Toronto raccoons. Toronto raccoons are bold, unafraid of humans. They'd steal your food right out of your mouth if they saw an opportunity. Vancouver Island raccoons are forest creatures, they do not like to be seen and cross open areas with all the speed their big ol booties will allow.

I will note here that my mother had a fearsome reputation at our school when I was growing up because my sister was bullied and our mom was known to absolutely terrorize the teachers during parent-teacher conference nights for not doing anything to stop it (and in some cases, encouraging or participating in the bullying). Whenever she was in the school, the teachers were all noticeably deferential to her, extremely polite but quick to find an excuse to leave the area. I have a number of memories of her in other circumstances like this. I was a late bloomer and lagged behind on things and she always fought to allow me the time I needed to do things at my pace.

I am given to magical thinking. Often I second guess it. Like “I'm creating a pattern here where there isn't one, I'm retroactively grafting meaning onto something that at the time was just an event that had nothing to do with me.” But I have also – including very recently – had mystical experiences that are, to me at least, undeniable. The difference between a deniable mystical experience and an undeniable one is not in the event itself but in the feeling of it. Sometimes the numinous presence of God is just there, infused in it, in a way that cannot ever be conveyed to another person with words.

But even the undeniable experiences have an aspect of deniability to them, and I suppose that is the space that is opened up for faith to come in. Or delusion. I don't really care about the difference any more.

Love and respect to Christine, anarchist witch and ferocious raccoon mother.

03/31/26: meat city

My sword & sorcery novel Meat City is now available on Amazon!
Swashbuckling action! Foolhardiness! Intergalactic wizards! Castration curses! Flying eggs! Swamp monsters! Arguments! Old women! A city made of meat!

BUY NOW!

In Canada
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Leave a review on goodreads

ALL WHO ENTER SHALL BE DEVOURED!
Kolvis the Swordless Swordsman swallows a terrible fate: sold into slavery, purchased by the Fallen Angel Alcofribas, unwillingly partnered with a disgraced surgeon, forced to carry out an errand most foul.
An errand that will take him through the depths of the Valley of Heads, over land and sea, to a living city of abominable flesh, a monstrous architectural organism that seeks to consume all who dare venture within its tumorous walls.
But to the Meat City Kolvis must go, for Alcofribas has used hideous Angelic magic to place a curse upon the Swordless Swordsman. To earn his freedom, Kolvis must return to his master bearing sixty-six severed human hands. Should he fail, he will face a fate worse than death!

Paperback and kindle ebook are live. I'm in the process of setting up wide distribution so it will be orderable through bookstores. I'd also like to do a limited edition, locally printed, with original collages by me on the inside front and back covers, but as yet I'm still working that out and have no timeline, other than that I would like to have that local edition ready to go for my local Anarchist Book Fair in September.
I hope you enjoy.

01/23/26: dog men re-release

My first novel Dog Men is available on Amazon after being out of print for about 18 months.

BUY THE EBOOK!

In Canada
In the UK

BUY THE PAPERBACK!

In Canada
In the UK
In America

Only on amazon right now, but it should be orderable through bookstores shortly. I'll update this post when it is.
write a 1 star review on goodreads

Chris has burned every bridge—but that’s okay. He’s fine on his own. A born survivor, all he needs is his hammock, his ax, a little food, and his trusty Toyota Tercel.

In the remote Canadian wilderness, he finds serenity: a life of simple pleasures and invigorating hardship. But his solitary peace is shattered when a chance encounter at a highway rest stop sets off a chain of events that will erupt into an inferno of senseless violence.

12/23/25: at war with the homework doers

The problems with fantasy and science fiction right now are the problems of publishing in general. There are two aspects, and both intertwine material/capital and cultural problems....continue reading

11/27/25: toilet: refuge & risk

After yesterday's blogpost about CJ Cherryh's novel Rimrunners, I am once again thinking about one of my favourite subjects: CJ Cherryh on the toilet. Please bear with me. I don't mean "on the toilet" as in sitting on it, I mean like her perspective on the toilet. Please bear with me. I don't mean her perspective like what she sees when she's on the toilet I mean like...Please bear with me.