Jeff O'Handley

The Doubting Writer Finds His Voice

Thoughts on Sleeping Beauties, Part I

A couple of weeks back, I wrote about the Netflix series, Godless, a good show on many levels but one that fell far short on living up to the promise of its preview, which looked to be a lot more woman-driven than it turned out to be. This week, I’m finally coming back to Sleeping […]

Thoughts on ‘Summit Fever’

Last week over at Writer Unboxed, Annie Neugebauer wrote about the perils of ‘Summit Fever,’ a condition in which mountaineers allow the desire to reach their goal–the top of the mountain–to supercede good judgement in getting there (and back down again) safely. If the mountaineers are lucky, they make it safe and sound and maybe […]

Godless: Opportunity Missed

A couple of months ago, The Wife made me and The Magpie watch a trailer for a new Netflix show that was soon to be airing. Pretend for a moment you have neither heard about nor seen trailer or the show itself, and watch the trailer (just under two minutes): I’m not necessarily a “Western […]

Weekend Update: (Temporary) End of the Cold edition

Greetings, all. Woke up this day to a welcome sight: the mercury in our outdoor thermometer was above zero, which it hasn’t been before sunrise in close to a week. Not that you can feel it, mind you; took the dog out and was surprised at how cold it felt, courtesy of a decent breeze […]

New Year and Old Business (Reading List, Part IV)

Well, good morning, and welcome to 2018, I hope it’s a good one for you. Thank you to all of you who come by and spend a few minutes every week with me, and especially those of you who regularly have something to say. I always aim to give you something to come here for, […]

Another lightweight post

“Gonna take two weeks, gonna have a vacation”–Summertime Blues, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Capehart Last night, in the final hour or so before I went to bed, I was writing today’s post in my head, a non-review review of Sleeping Beauties, a 700-plus page doorstopper from Stephen and Owen King. The super condensed review: I liked […]

Weekend Update: Post-travel edition

This past weekend saw us travel for a funeral. On our return trip, we got hung up in the snow that came up the coast, which added an extra two hours–and an untold level of stress–to the drive. The weather reports gave no indication that the storm was going to impact as far as it […]

The struggle to keep current

In the Netflix comedy series, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Ellie Kemper plays Kimmy, a 29-year-old woman who spent literally half of her life imprisoned in an underground bunker with three other women, and the doomsday cultist who kidnapped her when she was 15. Upon being freed, Kimmy decides to move to New York and start fresh, […]

Back to normal…for now

We have a saying around my office to describe those draggy, low-energy days that happen from time to time: “Feels like the day after a board meeting.” That’s because our board meetings take place in the evening, they run typically two, two-and-a-half hours long, and there’s a certain degree of stress in preparing for and […]

Semi-random thoughts in advance of Thanksgiving

I’m in vacation mode, so if my thoughts are more scattered than normal, you’ll know why! Having found myself needing to use approximately 8 days of vacation time before the end of the year, I decided to take the first half of the week off (we get Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving). I don’t know […]