Usually around April I make a joke about how T.S. Eliot was wrong, but I think this year amidst all the Coronavirus shutdown, it is actually the cruelest month for once. It’s hard to not be constantly worrying about it, and I’m certainly not immune (ha) having written up both a Coronavirus FAQ and Coronavirus and Chill humor column. Most recently, I got a little personal with a column on Following your dreams.

My dream*, of course, was to be a writer. And with April being National Poetry Month, I’ve been writing. Perhaps more relevantly to you, I took the first few months of the year to submit a lot of poetry, and so April saw a few of my poems appearing in Verse Virtual, Sparks of Calliope, Reapparition Journal, and Ponder Savant. It has been nice to see some of my poetry elsewhere, although I still miss reading for the small crowd at my local poetry mic every month before the pandemic hit.

So, monthly poetry and comedy nights on hold, and weekly boardgame nights on hold. But I’ve been playing lots of boardgames with my partner, which I recommend for those of you self-isolating with someone you like. For those of you who are not so fortunate, videogames are also a tremendous balm in these troubled times, and I will say that my two absolute favorites, Warframe and Path of Exile, are both 100% free** to download and play on PC. And if you do end up playing one of those on my recommendation, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll hook you up with some free stuff from my stash in-game.

After all, the month could use a little less cruelty.

*Well, my metaphorical dream. Literally, my recent dream involved me visiting the “Museum of Haste”, where a moving walkway zipped me past the exhibits at 20 mph before slamming me into a wall. But I don’t think that’s anyone’s lifelong goal.

**And like, actually free for all content, not like mobile game 5 minutes free and pay to keep playing or MMO first dungeon free pay for access to the good stuff.