I realize in spite of talking about how my blog is for me and not to promote writer me, my last two posts have both been career-based. Well, sometimes that’s what’s on my mind. Also, the fact is that over the course of this pandemic, I’ve been gaming much less than usual. Obviously stopped attending game nights elsewhere, but also found that the pandemic sapped the desire to play complex boardgames for me and my partner at home, so for the past year it’s been the occasional card-based game like Innovation or Shards of Infinity, but rarely anything heavier.

Well, this month I got my second vaccine dose, and that along with the end of a big freelance contract and the end of the cold winter meant that my brain was finally up to complex boardgames again. So I ended up grabbing a game that had been on my wishlist for a while: Blackout: Hong Kong. I had high hopes for the game, since the designer Alexander Pfister had designed some other games I love — Mombasa and Great Western Trail — and at this point has joined the elite pantheon of designers whose track record for me is so good that I’m always interested in anything they’ve made. I think the best other examples to spring to mind are Carl Chudyk and Vlaada Chvatil*.

Anyway, so far we’ve played two games of Blackout: Hong Kong, and our scores in the second game nearly doubled our scores in the first game, which suggests that we are making rapid progress in learning how the game works, even if I very much do not understand what a good strategy is yet. But I do understand that I like the game and its crunchy interlocking mechanisms, and that’s the important thing.

On the video game front I have finally started Witcher 3, which I prepared for over the course of the past 3 years by reading all 8 of the novels, most of the graphic novels, watching the Netflix show, and playing the first two games. It is, as promised, pretty good. Also currently on Steam sale until mid-next week, for anyone who wants to see what all the fuss is about.

I think during most of the pandemic my brain was just not in the right space to invest in an epic RPG, but I hope that as Spring progresses I can return to some of my favorite pastimes like complicated games and walking with friends. It’s been a long withered timespan; perhaps this spring can finally bring some renewal.

*Vlaada, a.k.a. “the John Turturro of boardgame design”

One of the downsides of the pandemic times, aside from all the sickness and death, is that it’s very easy to forget how to be a person. I was suffering this especially acutely last night, when in the throes of feeling run-down after my second vaccine shot, I may have exchanged a series of emails with a client culminating in him requesting an invoice for the work I’d just completed and me floundering around feeling embarrassed as I realized that we never actually set a price. Pandemic brain does not help.

This of course raises* the question, “Why on earth would someone trying to market themselves as a high-end professional freelance writer make a public post about forgetting to set a price in an email to a client?” Well, I really don’t mind revealing that I’m a big ol’ imperfect human. I figure as long as my writing is always on-point and on-time, people won’t mind if I’m a ridiculous person with various personal foibles.** Clients are, after all, hiring me for my writing, and not my ability to be suave at a cocktail party. At least, I sure hope so, for their sake***.

If the mantra of last century**** was “the personal is political”, then perhaps this century’s mantra is, “the personal is business”. Of course, it’s always been true that networking exists and people don’t just hire companies, they hire people. But now more than ever, the lines between personal and business have been blurred, smudged, and otherwise all but erased. Social media from people who run a business is always an advertisement, not a person. Lots of people’s business model is selling themselves and their personality, from Twitch streaming to OnlyFans. Today, I read an interesting article about how personal branding ruins people’s lives, and it has only strengthened my resolution to remain a person who happens to be good at writing professionally, rather than a professional writer who is always being a professional writer 24/7.

Coincidentally, I came across that article just days after my latest humor column delved into the importance and difficulty of making human connections, which has of course been especially difficult these past two years. I don’t have a conclusion, per se — another example of being a flawed human who just thinks about things and isn’t always artfully arranging things to neatly support a conclusion, because I’m not paying me enough to do that — but I think especially as the Internet means that we know more and more about people, it would be a terrible mistake to expect/require people to be professional automatons all the time. Being human isn’t a bad thing — even if our new robot overlords may say otherwise.
.

.

.
* NOTE: It does not beg the question. Begging the question would be assuming the conclusion when arguing your premise. Please do not use “begs the question” when you mean “raises the question”. Yes, I’m pleading here. Don’t question the beg.

** Note here that foibles means, “often does silly things and is occasionally awkward in social situations, as detailed in his columns, poetry, and stand-up”, and not, “is rude to other people and denigrates them based on race/sex/etc.”, the latter of which is not a foible but a severe character defect which is a great reason not to hire someone.

*** Especially if it’s a cocktail party with Japanese rice wine.

**** I mean, it’s still exceedingly relevant here in 2021, as you might suspect from the earlier footnote. I’m just saying it was coined last century.

Did some writing for a freelance client who said he’s been a creative director hiring writers for 20 years, and I’m the best writer he has ever worked with. So that was a pretty nice compliment to hear. It occurs to me that I could re-do my whole website to be more business focused, but so far I don’t wanna. Still, probably worth mentioning that I am for hire as a high-end freelance writer if you need any content made more appealing to an audience.

It also occurred to me last week that it was 20 years ago that I got my first joke printed in the Washington Post’s Style Invitational. The contest was to write a joke that telegraphed the punchline. My entry was something along the lines of:

Samuel Morse’s wife Dorothy asks him, “Do you have any advice for my upcoming 200-meter sprint?” And he replies

I think that joke still holds up, 20 years later. Meanwhile, if you’d like some newer jokes from me, my latest column is about the encroachment of advertisements, and will especially appeal to older folks* who remember the comedy of Bob&Ray, or folks of any age who listen to podcasts.

.

.

.

* I suppose it’s possible some younger people than me enjoy the comedy of Bob&Ray, but I am unaware of any. If you are one though, kudos on your excellent taste that transcends your chronological limitations!