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.

If it seems like I’m not only posting more often than usual, but also releasing cool non-column things more often than usual, you’re not wrong! That’s because the combination pandemic, climate crisis, and political hellscape* has served as a massive memento mori to remind us that tomorrow is in no way guaranteed. So I should probably try to do some of those things I always planned  And thus my past few posts where I’ve finally put out my first book of short poems, and finally put out an eBook version of From God To Verse.

Today I’m also pleased to share another cool non-column thing, which is that one of my stories that I told at a story slam has been animated by Mary over at SketchMyStory, so if you want to see a stick-figure Seth become stranded with an ancient warrior god and tasty baked goods**, you should absolutely check out my episode of SketchMyStory.

Which is not to say I’m not still writing things! Whether it’s satire about America’s foremost Anti-Vax Spokesperson, or my column about the time I accidentally squandered a life-changing opportunity, I continue to put words in order. Now that I’ve released two books in the past two months though, I may calm down again with the publishing. Like my brief spate of submitting poetry to many journals last year, it’s fun to get things published when I’m reminded that life is fleeting, but usually afterwards I realize that life also has no meaning, and that goes double for publishing books.***

But being alive is still great, I absolutely prefer it to the alternative, so to that end… get vaxxed if you haven’t already, wear a mask, avoid crowded indoor spaces, and try to survive the pandemic so we can see how the climate crisis goes!

* I’m at the Pandemic! I’m at the Climate Crisis! I’m at the combination Pandemic and Climate Crisis!

**I mean, if you have to be stranded, I definitely recommend having tasty baked goods.

*** Can you believe that nobody wants to hire me as a motivational speaker?

As a comedy fan, one thing I’ve always noticed is how many comedians get less wacky and more philosophical over time. From George Carlin’s stand-up to Woody Allen’s movies*, you can chart an arc of their career and see how wonderfully silly the early stuff was, and how that slowly morphed into a layer of comedy wrapped around something they wanted to say.

Perhaps it’s because I was born old, but I feel like I’m already there. Sure, I’ll write the occasional humor column that’s pure silliness, like my latest on Cool Tips to Beat the Heat, but more often than not these days I’m writing with something to say. I don’t want to classify this as a personal failing, nor as a good thing; I’m simply noticing that same shift I once lamented in other creators of humor, I’m now noticing in myself, and perhaps at a younger age.

In an effort to keep myself young**, I am still playing video games. Most recently God Eater 3 with a few friends, which is a more casual Monster Hunter that suits me well. I’ve also been playing Sushi Eater every Wednesday when our local sushi joint has 30% off their nigiri menu, which does very little for my fading youth, but is tasty. Oh well, no use carping*** about it.

* not that you should watch any of Woody Allen’s movies, or at least not in a way that benefits him

** in lieu of exercise

*** although I can make puns on any topic, the one topic where I always hesitate is fish, because I always feel like a pale imitation of Kip Addotta’s masterwork Wet Dream.

Sometimes people can be right without being helpful.

When I was younger, people told me that I should appreciate what I have and be more positive, and I’d probably be happier. Well, decades on, an older me very much appreciates what I have and is generally positive, and indeed I am much happier. But it didn’t help when people told me that because a) my childhood was not nearly as pleasant as my life now, and b) gratitude isn’t something you can bully people into.

You can force kids to say thank you, but that’s not gratitude. That’s ritual. Truly appreciating what you have has to come from within, and the more you try to push people into it, the less they are likely to appreciate it. Someone having a tough time does not want to hear “you should appreciate what you have!”. Even if it’s true, saying it is most likely to raise their hackles, when what we all want is lowered hackles*. There are some realizations or mindsets you just have to come to yourself. When everyone told me how to feel, all I felt was annoyed at them and resolved not to do what they want. But eventually life came around, I got older and wiser, and in my own time, began to very much appreciate my life.

So even though I could offer good advice and tell you that appreciation extends to individual relationships, and that appreciating your relationships for what they are rather than being mad at what they’re not will make you a happier and better person**, you have to decide for yourself to appreciate things. Admittedly I have the advantage of not working full-time, and a personal philosophy that combines existentialism with epicureanism. But as the pandemic has served as a mass memento mori, I think it’s a fine time for people to re-evaluate how happy they are with their lives, and if you’re very unhappy, something should change. Maybe it’s your circumstances, maybe it’s you!

I realize this post is light on jokes, so click the linked columns for some funny.

*I’m imagining protest signs reading “Lower Hackles Now!”

**Whereas the inverse oft leads to complaints about friend-zoning and can make you a huffier and bitter person.

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.
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* 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.

I realize that doing anagrams is precisely the kind of thing that makes people say, “Seth, you have too much time on your hands*”, but in this case it actually paid off for me, since my efforts were recognized by the incomparable Eric Idle. For a kid who grew up watching a lot of Monty Python, that was a pretty great day. The Bitcoin Rap in my previous post also topped 1 million views, making it by far the most popular rap song I’ve ever worked on. I’m currently** working on another rap song on my own time, albeit one which will likely have an audience many orders of magnitude smaller, but I’m still happy with how it’s turning out.

My latest columns are about the Land of the Free, and how Absence Makes the Heart Go Launder.***  And on the boardgaming front, it’s time once again for our annual Alphabetic Boardgaming Challenge, currently in its 12th year. All in all, quite enjoying a lovely fall in the Berkshires, trying to create as much happiness as possible within this tiny bubble to counter the awful world-on-fire-ness writ large about which I can’t do much.

*Technically, as I wear no watch and carry no cellphone, I very rarely have time on my hands.

**Technically, currently I’m blogging, having finally dispatched all freelance work on deadline. But after this, I plan to record some verses before I sleep. In the unlikely event my producer/beatsmith Don Vito is reading this, hey Don, vox coming soon!

***Technically, it’s not actually about absence, just laundry. But I’m a sucker for a pun title. My document default names should be “Pun-titled Document”.

As a freelance writer, I write on a wide variety of projects, ranging from punching up speeches and scripting ad copy, to ghostwriting business thinkpieces and memoirs. Naturally, I prefer* the jobs that require humor or rhyme, but even with those jobs, sometimes ghostwriting means I cannot share my involvement. However, I am pleased to share that sometimes I get hired for the perfect project, where I not only get to put all my talents to use, but I’m allowed to say I worked on it, and am really proud of the result.

Bitcoin Rap Battle

Life otherwise continues apace, with lots of gaming, tasty food, and regular humor columns — here’s my latest:
Course Catalog For Returning Students

*I mean, I prefer being humorous and rhyming, but sometimes I prefer the big ghostwriting jobs because they pay more, and I’ve done enough of them that I’ve gotten pretty good at them. Still hard to beat “write funny raps” though.

Well, August was WordXWord, which went weawwy* well. I not only got to perform some new pieces to an appreciative audience, but got to collaborate with some other excellent artists on some unique performances. I realize hearing about all that now that you can’t see it isn’t super-fun, but one of my recent columns is basically a poem anyway: “The Funny Part”

On the gaming front, I’ve continued to enjoy Great Western Trail, but the inability to use other players’ buildings reminded me of one of the first worker placement games (and still one of my favorites): Caylus. While many other worker placement games have been made over the years, I think the Provost mechanic still remains unique to Caylus, and it was a pleasure to revisit it.

* Sorry, too many W’s and I suddenly turn into Elmer Fudd. Luckily I’m not competitive so I don’t get too many W’s.