“Viv lay on the floor of the tiny room. Well, almost on the floor. The place hadn’t been built with orcs in mind, and the bed was too short by at least two feet.”
                -Travis Baldree, Bookshops & Bonedust, p. 6

                That’s how Chapter 1 opens. Later tonight, my partner and I will read that together. Maybe she’ll be listening to my orc-narrator voice. Maybe I’ll be listening to hers. Either way we’ll trade off, curled beneath our blankets as outside the temperature dives below 15℉.
                There’s something tremendously cozy in reading together before bed. Part of it is probably that I grew up reading with my family. Unfolding the story together, walking through it, talking about characters and happenings the next morning before we go back to say hello—all of that for me is a practice of home. And in another way I think home is a practice. I’ve been thinking lately about how strange it is that the structures of my society make it so easy to live next to someone, live with someone, and not feel like you’re in the same room. (That has a lot to do with how my society imagines, builds, and understands rooms, but that’s another post). So my partner and I practice. We fold ourselves into the little space of the book, realize how interwoven it is with sounds and colors and being togethers, and snuggle in.