I bet some of you are thinking, “Doesn’t he know it’s actually all hAllow’s eve, hence hAllow e’en?”*

But frankly when it comes to this particular evening, pumpkins are a lot more likely to be hollowed than hallowed, unless your name is Linus Van Pelt. And most spooky stuff is more often associated with hollow than hallow. Hallow always sounds like a British chap greeting someone, whereas the dark empty void of the hollowness brings spooky things. The headless horseman wasn’t in Sleepy Hallow. It’s Hollow.** The horror movie is Hollow Man, my favorite metroidvania is Hollow Knight. etc.

Speaking of Halloween, my latest column has some unexpected costume ideas, so although it’s probably too late for tonight, you can get a head start on next year’s planning if you are a ridiculous person.***

Of course, probably more important is my previous column about the meaning of life, but then again, is anything important? Maybe not, maybe it’s all empty, and there’s something sacred about that. Hollow, Hallow, Goodbye.

* Okay, technically I suspect very few of you think using words like “hence” and “e’en”, but a) I do, and b) even if you don’t, you may have had a differently-phrased but similar thought.

** “It’s -Hedley-.”

*** Ridiculous people are my target audience anyway.

I’m trying to soak in and enjoy the weekend, made much easier by two factors: The pleasantly cool weather we’ve had (compared to previous weeks), and the fact that my weekend has a lot of free time since I have no big freelance projects at the moment. (Obviously, enjoying my life does require money, so it’s good that I have had some smaller freelance projects in the previous weeks and most recently have been doing some interesting ghostwriting work for a long-term client, but this weekend landed empty which is fine by me.)

My intentionally uncut yard has continued being visited by various wildlife, so this weekend has also seen visitations from a cardinal, a butterfly, and a bunny rabbit, all of which I have spent some time just staring out the window at from a few feet away. It’s nice to just soak in the majesty of the natural world every once in a while.

This is ever more important for me to keep in mind since I’m the type of person who could easily assemble a big list of complaints. I’m also the type of person who could make them all rhyme and put them into a song, so if you’d like to sing along, here are My Least Favorite Things.

As I was just saying in my most recent newsletter, we all have the urge to complain from time to time, but it’s really much better for everyone if you can at least make your complaints entertaining. Admittedly, I’m probably biased as a humor columnist. But can you imagine if every town meeting had all complaints presented with some entertainment value, humor and/or rhyme? That could be amazing. I’d be tempted to wish for it if I weren’t distracted by this ancient monkey’s paw I just found…

With apologies to Ogden Nash, how can anything vincit omnia // when it can’t even beat insomnia?

I had basically no sleep two nights ago, and a sub-par sleep last night, and I am very glad that I had mostly already written my upcoming column and only had to put some final tweaks on it today, because my brain is not function* at 100% capacity.

I think the combination of high heat and early morning construction sounds certainly doesn’t lend itself to restful slumber, and I’m already given to weirder sleep schedules when my partner is away. At least I’m still managing to make myself tasty food. The other night I made a modified migas, because you can’t go wrong with Mexican cooking. We all want more tacos.

And today I made fried rice. Even though it had the red of Sriracha, orange of carrots and peppers, yellow of pineapple, and green of peas, the lack of the latter half of the rainbow means it doesn’t reasonably qualify as “Pride rice”, thus denying me the thematic segue I wanted for my most recent column, about how Pride Month is the American Ideal.

Although I guess I cheated and just did it anyway. And really, what’s more American than that?

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*And no, I didn’t even mean to leave off the -ing there. This footnote is being added retroactively** to explain that’s just how bad it is.

**This footnote is being added proactively, before I finish typing the above sentence.

I guess an actual to don’t list would be a list of things not to do, like “To Don’t Today: Gamble, Get Drunk, Die of Heat Exhaustion”. Apparently I should just avoid going to Vegas.

But what I was thinking about was not things that I mean to not do, but things that I mean to do and then don’t, which is how my to do list ends up functioning. Basically, anything due for a client gets added to my calendar and is always completed on time because I am a professional, so that takes priority. Then I have various other time-sensitive commitments or plans which I also add to my calendar, and those tend to get done as well.

And then there’s the third category of things, which are things I sort of mean to get around to eventually but there’s not really a hard deadline on them, nor is there any external party* awaiting progress reports. And at the end of a day where I’ve been working on the first two categories of thing, I don’t really want to do more work, I want to just sit back and enjoy some leisure-time reading.

Currently I’m on book 62 of Bleach, because I read the first few and I’m a completionist. And I dunno, there’s something nice about finally reading all these big popular manga serieseseses.*** But also, it means that “find person who will fix roof siding” is pushed back another week.

In my defense, that’s an item I’ve actually tried repeatedly to address, the fact that a single piece of siding just under the roof has fallen off, but the roofers say it’s a siding problem, and the siding people won’t take jobs unless they’re re-siding a whole house, and the general contractors only get back to me when the 95 moons of Jupiter are all in perfect alignment. And the ones who have gotten back to me won’t fix that anyway.

So at some point I should probably call another dozen places, but it’s not going to happen today, and tomorrow’s not looking too good either****.

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*The only parties I throw are internal parties.**

**Sadly, sometimes my stomach throws an internal party and I’m not invited but things get a bit too raucous. Then I yell at my stomach, “Keep it down!” That’s my acidic wit. I can’t help it, it’s just a reflux.

***I believe the correct plural is “seriespodes”.

****In terms of calling people, that is. In terms of enjoying a long weekend, tomorrow is looking great.

I guess I could write this whole blogpost in rhyme,
But conceivably that would take up too much time,
Unless I just type straight away and don’t edit,
Okay I guess I’ll do just as I said it.
I’m writing a poem every day (this won’t count)
By the end of the month 30 is the amount
Of new poems I’ll produce, which to make very clear
Is more than I produce in the rest of the year.
Although most of these new poems don’t rhyme and don’t meter,
Thus making them less cool for your average reader
Expecting a poem to sound like Dr. Seuss,
(Even though my poem senses have gotten more loose
Over time, while my jeans have only gotten tighter.
Just kidding, I’m sweats only now. I’m a writer!)

And anyway, even my brand newest column
Is in rhyme this month (though it is a bit solemn)
It’s an important topic, and though it’s not fun,
It’s a fact that we all need to face: It’s The Guns.
You may be rhymed out after reading this blog,
Which I guess is my fault. That’s an “oops” from me, dog.
But it’s only one month every year that it happens,
And hey, it could be worse, at least I’m not rappin’
Although if I did it would have better flow,
Since I no longer rap Seuss (I did long ago),
And then speaking of my raps, I’m once again sharin’ the
Multi-award-winning Hamilton parody
That I co-wrote with Sam Hammersley and
Thom Mesrobian, honestly it’s pretty grand,
So as musicals go, a political one,
I can recommend this, and it’s called Simpleton!

Otherwise, things continue on here much the same,
Eating tasty food, Genshin Impact is the game,
And I’m writing freelance for the clients that pay
(So if your friends need great writing, send them my way)
That’s about all that needs to be said in this post,
So I bid you good day, and some cheese on your toast.

It’s me! I’m the March Fool! It’s sort of like the March Hare, only with less hare*, and more foolishness. While April Fools is all about lying to fool people, the March Fool is instead all about telling the truth, which is often even more foolish for a person trying to run a business. (Which is also me; I’m accepting clients for my freelance writing, specializing in humor or rhyme, covering everything from speechwriting to children’s books.)

But as a professional Fool**, one of the most foolish things I can do is to share too much about my thoughts. For example, today is the Trans Day of Visibility, and I noticed that while I saw a lot of posts about it on Facebook and Twitter, I saw very few posts about it on LinkedIn, and pretty much exclusively from people working in the DEI field. Which I’d guess is because there it’s on-brand, but otherwise bringing up politics outside of your field might alienate some potential clients for no gain.

For me though, one of the advantages of being my own boss is that I don’t have to hide my core beliefs. Which goes beyond politics. Politics are things like do I like Biden or Trump (neither), should UBI exist (yes), how should taxes work (better). Those are just opinions I have, but one of my guiding principles and beliefs for life is this:

People are people.

Pretty simple, really, but no less important for that fact. People are people, regardless of their race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, favorite music, or weird hobby that you think is a waste of time. Generally, people are just trying to live their best lives, and as long as they’re not hurting anyone else***, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to do so. You don’t have to be a fan. You can even think, “This makes no sense to me and I’d never live like that.” Nobody’s asking you to.

But most of the problems and unhappiness in the world are a direct result of someone deciding that a certain category of people aren’t really people, or don’t really count because they’re somehow lesser and therefore don’t deserve to be treated like fellow people. This is wrong. People are people. And again, that doesn’t mean that you have to like or believe whatever they do. I might think some of your beliefs are unsupported superstition and some of your hobbies are a waste of time. And you might think similarly about the fact that I’ve now spent over 100 hours playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, and refuse to put my winter coat away yet, lest it anger the snow gods. You can even think literally everything I do is dumb, from writing humor columns about Pokemon, to making cranberry chicken salad and liverwurst sandwiches****. But as long as I’m not harming anyone, I deserve the right to live my dumb life in the way that makes me happiest. As do you. As does everyone.

Because ultimately, that’s what we’re all doing – just trying to live our dumb little lives, avoid unpleasant annoyances, and be happy. If we can improve other people’s lives along the way, better yet. But at bare minimum, we should try to avoid making other people’s lives worse. Yes, even if you don’t agree with all their choices. Because other people deserve the chance to live their best lives and pursue happiness too. Other people are people.

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*a bald-faced truth

**an occupation I’m sure I identify with thanks to a childhood spent listening to George Carlin’s “Occupation: Foole” many dozens of times

***Karl Popper says, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!”

****I know it sounds dodgy, but it’s surprisingly good. I recommend it with Russian dressing on rye.

My winter vacation ended, and so I’ve been back to work writing speeches, children’s books, and whatever else clients hire me to write. I like being on vacation and playing games. But it turns out, I also like writing things for clients, especially these past few years.

Since I’m still being more covid-cautious than your average bear* and not doing performances at packed little indoor comedy/poetry shows, I’ve been missing the stage time. I did do a couple Zoom comedy shows the other year, but the demand for that has all but vanished, so I was feeling a severe deficit of I come up with something clever to say to an audience, and then I get positive feedback.

Conveniently, speechwriting ends up fitting that need for me to some degree. Sure, having a client give me positive feedback instead of an entire audience isn’t quite the same**, but it does fulfill much of the same craving, and I find that being paid more helps bridge the gap, as it so often does.

Still, I’ve certainly had clients who hire me and say, “Make this funnier,” and then come back after my first draft to say, “Okay, less funny than that, actually.” Which is one of those revision requests I can’t help but smile at. But it’s also why in spite of enjoying ghostwriting for clients, I also quite enjoy writing things like my column where I can be silly about serious topics like Antisocial Media and how Vince Is Gonna Get You.

And then of course there’s my newsletter, where I am not only unreasonably silly, but also have so many asides and arcane references that it would be unsuitable for a mainstream newspaper. But it’s free and so am I****, and I find that all in all having the page as a stage works out okay for me. Especially since I don’t have to wear pants.

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*Which says a lot, really, since most bears already spend all their social time outdoors and avoid people. And hibernating is a great response to almost any virus.

**Although I do always love hearing reports of success like “it brought the house down!”***

***This was a great review for a wedding speech I wrote last year, but would be a bad review for an architect. Context!

****I was going to say this is a difference between free as in speech and free as in beer, but I’m more often free for tacos.

Technically, hail to everyone in my area at the moment, because that’s the weather we have. Snow, sleet, and slurry. But also, food is amazing and I continue to enjoy eating well. We* recently made tachin, a Persian rice dish I’d never tried. It was quite tasty, and hooray. Hooray for people who cook, specifically. Especially people who cook for me.

What I’ve been cooking up is more columns, and honestly I’m pretty pleased with the columns I’ve put out this month. If you have questions about AI art or ChatGPT, I’ve got answers. Please enjoy

An AI FAQ (with Professor McSeth).

And if you’ve been despairing over Florida and how they’re preventing kids from learning about history, I have appropriately written a children’s poem about it:

Green Eggs and History

Other than that, I’m still enjoying my winter vacation. I’ve just finished book 14 of Robin Hobb’s massive 16-part fantasy series which I’ve been reading. And videogame-wise I finally started Dead Cells and Dragon Age: Inquisition, so I’ve been playing those alongside Genshin Impact. I may not go out and spend a lot of money on things**, but I think my insatiable appetite for food and media still means I’m keeping the spirit of American consumerism*** alive.

And I’m also alive! A fine start to the year. Hope yours is going well as well.

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*the culinarily skilled part of we, which isn’t me

**unless health insurance counts as a thing, in which case, I spend way too much money on things

***now I’m imagining a reverse A Christmas Carol, with a friendly and socially conscious main character haunted by spirits of capitalism****

****admittedly, all socially conscious people are probably haunted by the spirit of capitalism to some degree

It may seem silly to write this post two days before New Years and have to write Eve twice. But just think, if I’d waited three days, I’d have to write Eve over 360 times*. That’s a lot of times to write Eve, even** for someone who has written their own rhyming version of the Bible. I’ve also now put myself on the clock for this post to finish writing it and post it before midnight, so hurry up, me.

2022 was not my favorite year. The past few months have been okay, but otherwise it was mostly sub-optimal and I will not be sad that it is over. I have leaned slightly more towards an epicurean hedonism in recent months, which I think is a sensible thing to do given the world. Indeed, as my most recent column explains, it’s a fine thing to comfort yourself.

And while my boardgaming has largely fallen by the wayside in recent months, videogame-wise I’ve been enjoying Genshin Impact and Fallout 4, and not enjoying but still playing Final Fantasy XIII because I liked most of the rest of the series and I kept wanting it to be good. Arguably only a foolish person partakes of leisure activities they don’t enjoy, but if you’ve spent half as much time doomscrolling this year as I have****, you still don’t have any stones to throw.

Still, I — or more accurately the skilled WordPress guy I hired — got my site back up and running properly, and I’ve got tasty food to eat in my house living with my favorite person, so all in all as the header message on this website suggests, some things are definitely going right. Maybe next year even more things will improve? Well, I’m not laying any bets. But let’s do the best we can for the coming year. Me, I’ll be kicking it off the way I’ve done every year since 2010 — listening to Keep All Your Promises (on which I have the final verse).

Stay comfortable.

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*Obviously, at that point I’d just copy and paste. Probably in 5s until I got to 20, and then paste 20 at a time until I got to 360 and type the last few manually. If you’re going to do stupid things, it’s good to have a smart plan for how to do them.

**”Whatcha doin’?” “Just Eve’n.” “Ell, even Eve’n at eleven on Eve? Eve-idently, Eve event!”***

***It’s possible I could have written Eve over 360 times in this post by the time I finished Eves-dropping in these footnotes, but I decided not to. Adamantly.

****“Then I’ve spent twice as much time doomscrolling as you,” he recited, in accordance with the guidelines of the order of ancient comedians.

The more they stay the same. For example, I have updated* my website to the newest version of WordPress, with a whole new interface to make it easier to deal with the thousands of spam comments that continue to pour in (which is why comments are still off; feel free to email me). And it should now be easier to post. Technically. By which I mean technically, and also technically.

Ah, English.

But the primary obstacle to my posting is always my attention span and sense of time, and neither were terribly good to begin with, and the past few years have done neither any favors. Amidst my paid freelancing for clients, it’s harder for me to motivate myself to write things no one is paying me for that I’m also not sure anyone is reading. I have been writing my biweekly email newsletter, which I’m sure at least a few people are reading, because no comment spambots are subscribed to my list. Yet.**

So if you’d like to get fortnightly updates with my latest columns and my even laterest ramblings (this issue: Blisters! Gilligan’s Island! The Apocalypse! Tweety Bird!), please follow the complicated instructions below:

Meanwhile, I’ll share some of my favorite recent columns with you here. If you like Edgar Allen Poe, or poetry, or wonder if his friends ever called him Edgar Allen Poetry, you might appreciate my parody of his poem “The Bells”, but about birds, which I have imaginatively titled “The Birds“. Also, if you’ve been following the news lately, I’m so sorry. I’ve also been following the news, which has been even worse than I imagined, which is impressive given the capabilities of my imagination. I could tell you more about how that all ties together if you’d like to hear about Imaginary Friends.

Life is short; have some sushi.***

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*by which I mean, I have hired someone competent at these things to update my website, because apparently skill at words does not translate to skills at WordPress.

**You could be the first! Act now! No money down! Additional terms and conditions may apply. You might well ask why I am advertising to spambots. Well, turnabout is fair play.

***Admittedly this probably shortens it more for the fish. But actually this footnote is to note that the one tangible improvement in this updated wordpress is that I can now move my footnotes down the page without having to enter a few lines with a single period on them.****

****That’s a footnote I wrote before loading the preview screen, which turns out to be completely incorrect*****, because all my carriage returns didn’t prevent the footnotes from being right up next to the text. So much for modern technology. I’m keeping my carriages. One day I’ll have a whole carriage house. That’ll show ’em.

*****Well, not completely incorrect; sushi still does shorten life for fish.