…I should probably have updated sooner. I guess if there’s a year for hindsight, it’s 2020.

This has, obviously, been an exhausting year already. As others have pointed out, we’re now six months into January, between environmental disasters and political disasters and so forth. It’s a lot, and I encourage everyone to take care of themselves, because as we learn from the airlines, in case of low pressure, put your own mask on first*.

For me, that’s now being in two boardgaming groups, tonight just back from playing Concordia, which is still one of my favorite games I don’t own for the way it all meshes together. Reminds me a bit of Endeavor or AoE III in that regard, which are two games I quite like and do own. On the videogame front I’m still quite enjoying Slay the Spire, which recently added a new class.

For you, I recommend comedy. Naturally, I am biased towards my own stuff, so whether you want to keep hope alive in the new year, or just appreciate some terrible puns, I’ve got you covered. Also as mentioned in the latter column, I got to see the hilarious Maria Bamford perform the other week, and she was absolutely phenomenal. I believe the vast majority of her set is in her newest special “Weakness is the Brand“, so if she’s not touring near you, consider viewing that on the Internets at your earliest convenience for high-quality comedy.

* “You should probably put your mask on, but, y’know, no pressure…”

I am not generally known for either being particularly spiritual nor excessive displays of sentimentality. But this week I found myself thinking about the holiday*, and how some people take holidays very seriously and the word itself is derived from “holy day”, but I’m not big on holidays and don’t think they’re more important than any other day. But that’s because when I stop to think about it, I believe every day is important.**

Perhaps that’s hitting me harder than usual this week because I lost a friend and artist who I had plans to make a book with. But even without the worst of mementos mori***, I try to tell those I love that I appreciate them on a regular basis, to enjoy every day and appreciate the joys of gaming, eating tasty food, performing, or just spending time in good company. I’d say today is an appropriate day to appreciate what you have, but my whole point is that *every* day is an appropriate day to appreciate what you have.

In lighter news****, if you’ve been on the Internet in the past few months, you might appreciate my poetic take on OK, Boomer.

*Thanksgiving, the one on which Christmas declared war.

****Apparently Zippo also makes flasks.

A year or two ago I wrote a poem about the ubiquity of politics and how it’s impossible to go through your day without having it cast a shadow over everything. Part of me very much wants to get away from that, and I’m sure you want to get away from that too, which is why I write columns about fun topics* like why I’m not married and how I lost hot water and injuring my shoulder.

But also sometimes I write political columns like this song parody The Governor Down In Georgia, because I feel like lately things are getting a lot worse in this country for people who aren’t straight white christian men. And I feel like it’s incumbent upon me to use whatever tiny megaphone** I have to advocate for those whose freedoms are being taken away. Here in the “Land of the Free”, we have more people behind bars than any other country on earth — both in terms of raw numbers, and per capita. Private prisons exacerbate this problem, because private companies exist to profit, and so when locking up more people leads to profit, more people will be locked up.

Maybe this should be a poem instead of a blogpost. I guess WordXWord is in a few weeks, but I get exhausted from doing political poems. I’ve done so many. And this blogpost is not funny, but at least it has links to funny, because it’s important to take a break from the politics and breathe***, right? So, maybe just click through and enjoy some columns for now. But at some future point, speak up for people who just want to live their lives and are being deprived of life or liberty because of who they are rather than what they do.

* I should mention that I have no idea what fun is, as anyone who has ever invited me to a concert or party will confirm.

*** It was only after I typed this that I realized “I can’t breathe” springs to mind, reminding us that for some people it is literally impossible to not be dealing with politics at all times, because politics means fighting for their right to live without being caged or killed.

So, April was National Poetry Month, and I was so busy writing a poem per day that I forgot to make a post here. Oops. Anyway, here’s a poem I wrote last month:
*************

Everyone knows
A funeral is no place to make jokes
I’ve never liked funerals
I guess I’m just not a mourning person
But everyone also knows
A funeral is no place for violence
So after I make my joke
You settle for murdering me with your eyes
Instead of your hands
Don’t worry, I’ll die eventually
We all do
And I hope at my funeral
There will be laughter

******************************

My latest column is about how you can’t believe every T-shirt you read.

I know, I’m slightly behind on my blogging and am very late wishing you a Happy New Year. By now your resolutions may have already failed, but don’t have FOMO, let me tell you about JOMO. Besides, while I’m very late for January, I’m only slightly late in wishing you a Happy Year of the Pig! It’s never too late for new beginnings.

Was just reading something online by a woman who sold her first book at age 59. So if you’re not yet 60, there’s every reason to believe that you have a wonderful exciting life ahead of you. And if you’re over 60, then it’s too late and you are doomed.

Kidding! In addition to the local poetry mics I attend, I occasionally still perform at events hosted by WordXWord, a wonderful organization. And one of my favorite poets who performs at those events is an octogenarian*, whose poetry I have enjoyed since he was a young septuagenarian. So what if it’s already February, or if you’re already old. It’s never too late to do something you find meaningful.**

*I think if you’re an octogenarian, you should always be able to show up and be considered in theme for 80’s parties.

**I mean, until you’re dead, at which point it definitely is too late. So I recommend trying to avoid death, and that way your options will remain open.

Hey, if you’re not a terrible person, you deserve a Bare Minimum Human Decency Award! And if you are a terrible person, my other recent column has terrible puns.

Had another local comedy show where I performed last week, but more exciting was traveling to see the hilarious Emo Philips live for the first time*. And he was ostensibly going to greet fans after the show, but there was a wait before he emerged from backstage, and the venue was full, and my partner wanted to go home, so we left. And it also left me thinking: Why do I care if I meet a celebrity who will never remember me? And why was I so excited months ago when Emo liked a joke I made in a comment?

And I think the answer is love. For the first two decades** of my life, I viewed love largely as a spiderweb of one-way arrows, because I had a crush on a girl at my highschool who had no interest in me, but was very interested in my friend, who in turn had no interest in her but wanted some other guy, etc. Mutual affection was the elusive grand and glorious prize.

Years later, a number of us are fortunate enough to have mutual affection. But less common is a mutual admiration of craft. If you ask people who they love the most, you’ll likely find a lot of reciprocal listings. But ask people who they think is the most brilliant comedian or the best writer, and if you’re not asking celebrities or a professional cabal, you’re likely to find mostly one-way arrows. People scoff and pooh-pooh mutual admiration societies****, but to me, this has always been the great allure of celebrity: The idea that the people you think are great might think you are great also.

* I mean, he was living before, but previously I only got to enjoy his work via a screen.

** aka the worst two decades***

*** aka the thirst two decades, aka the cursed two decades, aka rhymes burst through decades help i like rhyming too much

**** “You are a handsome bear, would you like some hunny?” “Why yes thank you, and your crop-top red shirt is lovely.”

“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
–Mark Twain

Had a friend over for lunch earlier this week, and we were discussing creative work and motivation. I said for me, there are only three reasons I do something:

1) I enjoy doing it.

2) I am being paid for it.

3) I want to have done it.

Obviously, it’s relatively easy to motivate yourself to do things in the first category. Sometimes there’s a startup inertia to overcome (see: making plans to actually interact with my friends face to face), but generally if you know you like something, it’s not hard to get yourself to do it. When it comes to writing, I’m actually surprisingly good at the second category. If I’m being paid for something, I am fairly motivated to set down and write it. I find this slightly more difficult with larger projects (such as my upcoming Little Book of Mahjong), but still if someone is paying me to write something, I’m pretty good at motivating myself to sit down and do so.

That third category, however, is what I often refer to as a “Mark Twain Classic”. I realized this week that sometimes blogging for me falls into this category, which is why I only end up doing it once a month or so. More (de)pressingly, into this category also falls any ambitious creative project of large scope for which I am not being paid. Small projects often stay fun long enough to also be in the first category. But big projects like books or albums or games*, if the fun is gone and the money shows no signs of appearing, the only remaining motivation is that Mark Twain Classic.**

But things don’t have to be restricted to one category. My humor column happily fulfills all three: I enjoy writing it, I get paid to do so, and I’m happy that the completed columns exist. Heck, I even hope you’re happy they exist, and might enjoy reading about how my family has a tradition of saying the wrong thing despite the Best of Intentions, or how people underestimate the Importance of Inspiration. Come to think of it, probably the best thing we can do is life is try to find outlets which fulfill all three categories at once.

But often that won’t be available, and so we do what I do, which is enjoy the first category as much as possible, plan to work on the second category as available, and tell myself that next month when the paid project is done, I’ll get around to that big personal project.

* Or in my case, a book about games and a game that would include a full album.

** And that’s why it took me a decade to write From God To Verse.

The average frequency, in 2018, of mass shootings and specifically school shootings, respectively.

This is a depressing fact about which I have been sitting and thinking today. Some years ago I wrote and performed a poem about the frequency of mass shootings called Gunmerica, and I am always disappointed that it remains so relevant.

It’s hard sometimes for me not to be a hypocrite, since I’ve often complained to others that comparing two issues is not helpful, and each issue should be evaluated on its own merits. And yet, faced with such disparate responses from our government on the issues of guns (cause many deaths on a daily basis, yet still sacrosanct and can’t be regulated) and immigrants (who cause very few deaths and are the basis of our country, yet so many resources are devoted to keeping them out or removing them), it is hard not to draw comparisons. Likewise the spending priorities for trillion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy (deficit funded, no problem!) and survival-level benefits for those in need (Medicare cuts, SNAP cuts, etc.).

But I know you don’t read this for politics.* So on the game front, I will say that we started Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, and it is quite difficult indeed. It may be more difficult on every axis — character powers are weaker, not all cities take four draws to outbreak, cities have multiple copies of their card in the infection deck, etc., etc. Plus with so many different rules from Pandemic, the lack of familiarity is a difficulty as well.  Videogame-wise I’ve been playing Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, which has some entertaining deaths, but is annoyingly on rails**.

Yesterday was my least-favorite holiday, but at least it gave me occasion to write some entertaining Valentine’s Day poems.

*you read it for the footnotes.***

***not that one, obviously, but the potential for other footnotes, which you have not yet read, but you hope may one day appear like a beam of light from heaven, only in a less potentially-apocalyptic fashion, and make you feel that reading the footnotes has finally been worth it, as if they were carefully crafted with awe and purpose, and not just typed up as a bucket of blather because the author once read Infinite Jest over a summer and ever since has made the mistake of associating preposterously long footnotes with some sort of intelligence and/or humor, two qualities the author wishes to appear to possess, although if he was so smart, he wouldn’t talk about himself in the third person.

November is the time of year when we are reminded to be thankful; the rest of the year is when we ought to be but aren’t reminded. Nonetheless, this month I find myself with more to be thankful to*. First off, someone finally bought my old house, and while I could complain about price or process, the fact is that not owning an abandoned house for another winter is a tremendous amount of mental strain I can now avoid, so I’m quite glad that’s done. My only big issue remaining is a health one, which I thank my loved ones for supporting me through, and hope to be healthy again in the not too distant future. After I get that resolved, I’ll just have the same problems as everyone else in this crazy country.

It’s also been a good month for appreciation of my work. One of the things about being a writer is that you never know if anyone’s reading or enjoying you, but whether it’s someone letting me know they enjoy my raps in the comments, or someone mentioning at a poetry reading that they enjoy my columns, I thank the people who give me feedback on my work.

Boardgame-wise, I have a review up for Concordia, and I’ve just started a campaign of Pandemic Legacy Season 1 with a few of the folks from my weekly game night, so I’ll probably review that once we’re done. And I thank them for providing a nice welcoming place for me to game on a regular basis.

*I’ve always preferred “thankful to” rather than “thankful for”, because thanking is an active verb that takes a direct object. Don’t be thankful FOR your relationship, be thankful TO your partner since they’re directly responsible for your great** relationship.

**If your relationship is very far from great, remember that it is not mandatory.

Well, the world is filled with terrible things lately, which certainly are more terrible than my own personal terrible things, which in turn have nonetheless been sufficient to keep me from posting for a while. I do have a newish boardgame review up for the highly streamlined Caverna Cave vs. Cave, and here’s a recent column you might enjoy in honor of the late Andy Rooney.

I’ve been doing a few freestyle rap performances at the monthly Downstreet Art festival in town, with my final one coming at the end of this month. Meanwhilst, here is a poem I performed at an open mic tonight, which seems relevant given the numerous hurricanes, fires, and other natural disasters currently underway:

“Everything Happens For A Reason”

That’s what they say
when tragedy strikes
When faced with horrors the likes
of which you’ve never seen
They will try to stay serene
and utter this atrocious treason:
“Everything happens for a reason.”

Pray tell then,
What reason requires the suffering of old men?
What reason requires dead bodies piled in stacks
from natural disasters and terrorist attacks?
What reason requires that a five-year old girl get cancer?
I’m pretty sure your answer
Involves something like “God has a plan”,

But, man,
In that case one of two things must be true:

1) You’ve got an omnipotent deity who
Only helps his flock, while other people feel his wrath.
Which, although biblically supported, makes him sound like a sociopath.

or 2) God had some sort of higher plan we cannot intuit
And giving cancer to a five-year-old girl was the easiest way to do it,
But an omnipotent god really ought to be able to do better.

Either way, please unsubscribe me from your newsletter,
Or at least, next time a tragedy chances to occur,
Please keep in mind that some of us prefer
To accept that some things happen with no reason provided,
Rather than be told, “This girl died because a malevolent deity decided.”