Category: Current Affairs

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please don’t fuck this up.

Posted on By Wil

After one of the worst weeks of my life, I woke up yesterday morning in a world I genuinely believed was gone. I woke up to discover that gravity is, in fact, real. I woke up to a country that didn’t fuck up the open book test again, and for the first time in a decade, I think that maybe I see a warm and comforting glow behind a distant horizon. There’s still a whole lot of darkness to cross before we get there, but at least I can see it.

Which is why I want new leadership in Congress, if the speeches the current leadership has given are any indication of how they intend to use the majority we just gave them. With all due respect to Hakeem Jefferies, I’m going to quote Ashley The Baroness on Instagram, explaining why she believes we need a different Speaker: “What was all that fighting for, if when you get into that room, your courage ends?”

And as Amanda Nelson has so eloquently laid out, Chuck Schumer has shown us how he leads, and his leadership is wildly out of step with the base of the party, the mainstream of the party, and (as it turns out this week) the majority of voters in America. We’ve been fed up with his sternly-worded letters and his threats that whatever unconstitutional depravity coming out of the white house will sure make them look bad, and nothing else, for a decade, at least. America does not need, and can not survive, Democratic leaders who don’t have the stomach for the bare-knuckled brawling it will take to deliver consequences to Trump, his cabinet, his family, and the criminal Republicans who have enabled and protected them.

It was very telling that in his first speech after the GOP’s extinction-level event, Jefferies framed our need for accountability as a desire for revenge. He just doesn’t get it, if he truly believes that. He isn’t stupid, and he knows that if we do not hold all of them to account — which includes prison time — all those new Democratic voters who clearly said FUCK THEM UP SO THEY NEVER TRY THIS AGAIN will never come back, and we will be right back where we were last week.

It is astonishingly tone deaf, and not just a little insulting, to suggest that our demand and very real need for accountability and consequences is simply wanting to get even, to exact a petty revenge. I doubt he believes that, and is speaking in dogwhistles to the corporate donors and AIPAC, which would make his position even more craven than it already is.

Schumer is already surrendering in advance, probably locked in a room with The Baileys while he tries to figure out

Think of it like this: voters gave Democrats a loaded canon and said “aim this at the heart of Republican corruption”. We even set it up for them, so all they have to do is light the fuse. And Jefferies and Schumer swung the barrel around and aimed it at their feet.

Yeah. No. We aren’t going to stand for this. We gave you a mandate. Voters who have never and will never vote for a Democrat again gave you a mandate. The mandate is clear: HOLD. THEM. ACCOUNTABLE. FOR. THEIR. CRIMES.

In other words:

There is still time to get these guys on record and force them to commit to the most intense oversight in history. Call your reps and your senators, congratulate them on their historic wave election, and tell them that we expect them to use their majorities to punish these criminals so severely, nobody will even think about trying this again for at least a generation.

Hi, I’m Wil. I write this blog (duh), I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, which drops new episodes every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and in our Patreon. Occasionally I show up on your TV. You can follow me on Instagram and Threads where I am @itswilwheaton. You can get your own adorable Wil Wheaton Bedhead plushie for another 17 or so days, and if you want my posts delivered to your inbox, here is the thingy:

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I wish I really were a Traveler of all of space and time.

Posted on By Wil

It’s only been like ten minutes since I found out, just before it hit the press, so I’m staggered and doing my best to process everything, while my phone is blowing up. There will be wonderful obituaries and reflections from so many people who knew him. I’m going to do my best to write my own, but that’s going to take a little bit.

This was taken when we filmed Journey’s End.

For now, I want the world to know that Patrick wasn’t just my captain or my castmate; he was my friend and mentor. He made me a better actor, just by being in scenes with me. He never treated me like I was a kid; he always treated me like I was an equal, a fellow artist, at a time when I wasn’t mature enough to understand how precious that was.

I haven’t seen Patrick in a long time, our lives and schedules being what they are, but I thought about him almost every day. He rarely posted in our group chat, but when he did, it always made me smile. He always texted me back when I reached out to him directly, no matter what it was about, and he always — always — made me feel special.

I wish I really were a Traveler of all of space and time, so I could go to him, one final time, and tell him how much he means to me. I think he knew, but still.

There is so much more to say, and it’s going to take me some time to say it. Until then, I loved him, the same way I love the rest of the space family we shared. May his memory be a blessing.

friend computer can bite my shiny metal ass

Posted on By Wil

When I do an interview, or I guest on a podcast, it never feels like it’s enough of a thing to post about it in my blog. It feels like the sort of thing I should just drop into Threads.

The thing is, Threads suppresses the everlivingfuck out of almost everything I post, lately. It tells me that a little over 1.2 million accounts follow mine, but it typically only shows what I post to an average of about 3000 people. If a post is doing extremely well, it will climb up to 20,000. That’s not nothing, to be sure, but it’s a tiny fraction of the accounts that have expressed a desire to see what I post. It’s incredibly frustrating. We have given away so much of our ability to connect to each other, to communicate with each other, to these profoundly evil and destructive companies that are profiting from our dysregulation.

I wonder if anyone outside of the weird little silos the algorithms create and sort us into even see what we post? Or are we just telling other people who are already furious about the Cornell 7, the murder of Nolan Wells, the endless murders by ICE, the rampant and unchecked construction of fucking concentration camps full of children who are raped by ICE thugs things we already know. I wonder if the evil human rights abusers who sit atop these companies will ever be held accountable for their roles in all of this violence and destruction.

Like, there was real promise in decentralized communication, and we saw entire countries use it to rise up and depose the despots who had been standing on their necks for a generation. Of course it was shitty American Capitalists who saw that, recognized it as a threat to their hegemony, and put us where we are right now.

I don’t know that we will ever be able to undo this, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And I am trying today because I realized something last night while I was very successfully not falling asleep for my second hour: there are more actual humans subscribed to my blog posts than the stupid algorithm shows my posts to on Threads. If I have something to say, something fun or cool I want to share, even if it is just a quick thing, a couple of links, a stray thought with something interesting at its end, I will just make a post here, and show it to all of you.

So, to that end, a few fun things I’ve done lately that I wanted to share:

Years ago, I spoke with John Moe for his program, The Hilarious World of Depression. At that time, I wasn’t aware of the root causes of my mental illness, so we didn’t talk about CPTSD or child abuse, or any of the things I do to work toward healing that part of my life. I’m happy to say that I recently talked with John for a follow-up. His show is now a podcast that you can get wherever you prefer. And while you are there, you can also grab an episode of Sleeping With Celebrities that I did. If you’re unfamiliar (as I was), it’s a podcast designed to help you fall asleep, a soothing conversation about something I care about a lot, delivered in a way that should help ease you to sleep. I talked all about this old TV show I love, The Prisoner.

I did an interview with The Advocate, too, talking about my experiences as an ally, and why being othered in my life pushed me to stand up for people without my privilege.

“The only way I could be a more protected class of citizen in America is if I were an openly performative Christian nationalist. I’m white. I’m male. I’m upper middle class. I’m semi-famous. I have all kinds of privilege. And yet, I’ve been othered my entire life,” Wheaton says.

“I was othered by my parents. I was othered by people in my neighborhood. I was othered on the set,” he adds, explaining that his Star Trek castmates were the exception.

“And when I see other people experiencing that, I cannot help myself. I have to throw myself between those people and the people who are hurting them,” he says. “I’m standing up for my younger self in ways that no one ever, ever did.”

Wheaton offers this promise to the trans community: “Sometimes people who won’t hear you will hear me, even when we’re saying the same thing. And if I can use that privilege to reach that person and make a change, that’s one less person who fucking hassles you for existing.”

Okay, finally, I wanted to draw your attention to last week’s episode of It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, The Glass City by AnaMaria Curtis.

If I described for you a sailor, stranded on an island, a thousand miles of ocean in every direction, it would be easy for you to imagine that person’s sense of loneliness. If I described for you a businessman, who has been on the road for a month straight, sleeping in hotels that blur together and smear across the same lobby restaurant over and over again, some of you could probably relate to and imagine that. If I told you about someone who has been Othered, in their family or in their community, told you how they sat in their bedroom with the door closed and wished that anyone would see them, some of you will, unfortunately, understand precisely. I grew up knowing that particular flavor of loneliness all too well. Even now, as happy and surrounded by love as I am, I can remember, and I can feel it. Loneliness is such a powerful feeling, even when it fades, some part of it lingers … at least for me, lurking, waiting, on the horizon of my memory.

This week’s Storytime is a beautiful, surreal meditation on loneliness from Ana Maria Curtis, who you may remember as the author of The Coffin Maker, a wonderful story I told you about a year ago. (If you haven’t heard it, it’s in the archive.) I’m thrilled and honored to speak her words again, and so grateful that you are choosing to hear them. I’m going to go ahead, and when you’re ready, come and meet me. I’ll be waiting for you, at The Glass City. 

I just really loved this story, and I thought I did especially good work telling it. If you have some time to spend, I hope you’ll consider spending it with me.

That’s all for now. Until next time, maybe it will happen today.

Hi, I’m Wil Wheaton and I write this blog (among other things). I’m glad you are here. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here’s the thingy:

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sensual daydreams to treasure forever (can’t you just see it?)

Posted on By Wil

I swear to all the gods, the Grim Reaper is really fucking up. It’s like he caught Mitch McConnell and decided to take the summer off, leaving some intern in charge who just does not understand the assignment.

While we were reeling from the loss of Dolly Parton, we found out that Tim Curry had passed away. Late last night, I heard that he passed on the same day as Dolly, but his estate kept the news private, so as not to step on her memory. That’s such a wonderful thing to do, and it doesn’t surprise me; as far as I can tell, listening to people who knew him, that’s exactly what he would have wanted.

Like a lot of Gen X theater kids, my introduction to Tim Curry’s existence was in a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have never talked about it, ever, but one of the things I took away from my first viewing (my first experience, really) is that drag is more fun than you could ever imagine. I always wanted to do a full-on face and stuff, when I went to a show, but I never had the courage to risk my dad seeing me. So I’d borrow black lipstick and eyeliner from on of my friends, and put it on in the car.

My friend and I are going to a screening soon, and we are both going in full costume. She’s thinking Magenta, and I’m thinking Frank. We’ll see how it goes, and there will be pictures if it does.

Speaking of Gen X theater kids (we never really stop being those kids, do we?), Rocky Horror reassured me that there were lots and lots of weirdoes just like me, and they weren’t the scary deviants the news and my parents told me they were. They were lovely people who welcomed everyone with open arms into a safe place where we could all just … be.

(Don’t dream it, be it, right?)

Way back in 2008, when I was a baby writer, finding my voice and figuring out how I could tell stories like the storytellers I admired, I wrote a couple of blogs that helped me level up. One of them was about the first time I ever saw Rocky Horror Picture Show, when I was a weird teenager who desperately need to belong somewhere.

Today, as we remember and celebrate Tim Curry, I wanted to repost it as a tribute to a man who meant so much to so many.

A few days after my sixteenth birthday, I lost my Rocky Horror virginity with my best friend, in a shitty little duplex theater in Van Nuys.

I’d wanted to see Rocky since I was ten or eleven on my way to an audition and my mom drove us past a marquee advertising a midnight showing every Saturday. My parents couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me what it was about (my memory is hazy on that specific detail) but anything that happened at midnight on a Saturday sounded great to me. The creepy lettering and word “horror” in the title only increased my antici . . . pation.

Darin and I were at a place on Van Nuys Boulevard called Cafe 50s. These fifties cafes were everywhere in the eighties (some blame Stand By Me and Back to the Future for their popularity) but this particular one was my favorite. Though I’ve never actually been in a diner in the fifties, this one felt the most authentic, which means it copied what I’d seen in movies better than anything else, and had Del Shannon’s Runaway on the jukebox.

We gorged ourselves on patty melts and chocolate shakes and vanilla Cokes while we talked about all the things that seemed important after you discovered girls, like how to actually, you know, talk to one and convince her to take an unforgettable trip with you to second base for sixteen seconds of passion. We argued about the time travel paradoxes in Back to the Future, confirmed that quoting Monty Python to the 24 year-old waitress is not the best way to get a stand up double when you’re sixteen (or ever) and admitted that Michael Keaton was a vastly superior Batman than we’d been prepared to give him credit for. In other words, it was a Saturday night like any other, and as midnight (and the restaurant’s closing) drew near, our attention turned toward that most important of teenage activities: doing anything but going home.

“Have you ever seen Rocky?” Darin asked.

“God, I hate that stupid movie,” I said. “And the sequels are even worse. It’s like, we know he’s going to win, so why waste our time wi –“

“I mean Rocky Horror.” He said.

“Oh.” I said. “No, but I’ve always wanted to.”

“It’s playing across the street at midnight. We should go.”

As quickly as I’d gotten excited to see it, I lost my nerve. Through the pre-internet grapevine that gave teens of my generation the truth about Mikey from Life cereal (“Ohmygod he died by eating pop rocks and drinking coke”) I’d heard about Rocky virgins being deflowered in horrifying ways (“Ohmygod this guy I know went to see it in Santa Monica and they made him take off his clothes and wrote VIRGIN on his chest in lipstick!”)

“Don’t they do horrible things to people who haven’t seen it?” I said in my most nonchalant voice, grateful that it didn’t crack.

“Not really,” he said, “but if you’re worried about it, we won’t say anything.”

“Okay,” I said, my excitement returning.

The waitress came back by our table. “Can I get you guys anything else?”

Before I could demand a shrubbery, Darin said, “Could we get some slightly burnt white toast?”

The waitress and I gave him the same curious look. He smiled enigmatically.

Twenty minutes later, we bought our tickets, burnt toast in my pocket, butterflies rising in my stomach. We stood in a line that grew to about two dozen people and waited for the theater to open. I made nervous smalltalk with Darin, talking a little too loudly about the great cast they had in . . . I think I chose Huntington Beach.

The doors opened a few minutes before midnight, and we walked into a theater that, Tardis-like, seemed bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outsider: dirty blue and orange curtains hung on the walls. Two aisles separated three groups of squeaky blue seats. The floor was painted a dark navy blue — blue seemed to be a recurring theme in this particular theater — and was appropriately sticky. We chose seats on the aisle near the back. I should have been freaked out when a guy sat down a few aisles in front of us and lit a cigarette, but being rebel-adjacent excited me.

The theater quickly got as full as it was going to get. It seemed that most of the audience knew each other, especially the four people who huddled together at the front of the house, next to the screen.

A dude with long black hair and bright red lipstick emerged from the group, and spoke to the audience. I can’t remember what he said, because when he began, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and saw the most phenomenally beautiful girl in the world standing in the aisle. She had short black hair in a Bettie Page cut, bright green eyes, full red lips. She wore a red corset that fit her . . . perfectly.

She bent over and said, “are you a virgin?”

I was, in every way that mattered, and in that moment I would have pushed my mother in front of a train on its way into a lake of fire if it meant that this girl would remove from me this . . . condition.

If I’d been standing, I’m certain I would have fainted. “W-what?” I stammered.

She extended one hand and caressed my face. She repeated herself, even more seductively than the first time.

My voice cracked as I said “YES!” a little too loudly.

Her eyes flashed and she squeaked – squeaked! – a little. “This is going to be fun.”

She stood up abruptly and hollered, “I have a virgin!”

“A VIRGIN!” Replied much of the audience.

Before I knew what was happening, she stood me up, had me repeat some oath that I’ve sinceforgotten, and spanked me. I remained fully clothed, but by the time I was done, I was soaked through after everyone in the theater sprayed me with their squirt guns and spray bottles. As quickly as it started, it was over, and she disappeared before I could get her number.

My deflowering was, like most people’s, nothing like I’d hoped for or expected, but it was still magical. I loved every second of it.

While other regulars repeated similar rituals with a few other virgins in the audience I looked at Darin. He looked back, mirroring my disbelief.

“That was awesome!” I said. Not only had a girl practically showed me her boobs, she’d touched my face! Seductively! And talked to me! And squirted me with a squirt gun! I was beside myself, and the movie hadn’t even started yet.

The lights went down, and the show began. I didn’t know any of the lines, but I quickly figured out what to yell at Brad and Janet. I threw my toast. I did the Time Warp. I watched the girl who’d taken my Rocky virginity play Magenta, which is probably why Magenta is still my favorite character in the whole show to this very day, twenty years later.

When it was over, we drove back to La Crescenta in my slightly-better-than-Patrick-Stewart’s Honda Prelude, blasting New Order the whole way with the sunroof open and the windows down. I dropped Darin off at his house, and though I got back to mine around 3, I didn’t fall asleep until the sun came up, I was so loaded with caffeine, sugar, adrenaline.

The movie, of course, was campy and not especially good, but that wasn’t the point. It was a shared experience, a place for misfits of all stripes to gather once a week, and fly our Transylvanian freak flags. For the next two years, Darin and I lead an ever-growing group of our friends to Rocky at least once a month, usually more, at the Rialto theater in South Pasadena. I haven’t been since 1991 or 1992, but those years — and the film itself — hold a very special place in my memory. Maybe, just once, I’ll go back to a midnight showing, just so I can do the Timewarp again.

I never did go to a midnight showing. I would be brutal on my middle-aged body to even try to stay awake that late … but caffeine exists, and there’s an energy that can infect and propel you all that way into the gloaming dawn, if you allow it. So … maybe. Maybe.

This story was fun to write back then, even though I can see all the incredibly rough edges now, that my experience and I want to sand off and rewrite. I suppose that’s part of its charm? Sure, we’re gonna go with that.

If you have a Tim Curry, or Dolly Parton, or Rocky Horror story you care to share, I’d love to hear it; I think all of us theater kids could use a big hug today, you know?

Hi, I’m Wil. I write this blog, and I’m glad you’re here. If you want to get my updates in your email, here’s the thingy:

I narrate short speculative fiction stories every week for my podcast, It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton. This week’s episode is a gorgeous story called The Flaming Embusen by Tade Thompson. I also co-host the official companion podcast for Stuart Fails To Save The Universe with Felicia Day. Episodes for both shows are available wherever you get your podcasts.

the footsteps of a rag doll dance

Posted on By Wil

Marlowe and I were out on her morning walk, when we saw one of her friends.

“Hi Marlowe!” He said with a huge smile, while I struggled to keep up with her efforts to get her head under his outstretched hand.

While they enjoyed scritches, he and I had a long talk about the squirrels and birds in the neighborhood.

Y’all, I became a weird Bird Person so gradually, I can’t even tell you when it started.1

Marlowe looked back at me, letting me know she had finished Friendship and was ready to return to Walkies.

Her friend and I said goodbye, and continued our walks.

We were about halfway up the block when I started thinking about my blog. Every morning, and almost every evening, I sit down at my desk and open WordPress. I click new and spend some disappointing minutes trying to post … something. Usually, I get overwhelmed by options or current events or both, and close the tab in frustration.

I’ve been trying, and failing, to find my way back to writing every day, even if it’s about something that I have decided is silly or pointless. Not everything has to be Super Important, I tell myself, and then I look at the news. It’s so awful. It’s like America ripped off the mask, and the monster we always knew was lurking underneath it wasn’t just a monster, it was a cosmic horror, indescribable and incomprehensible in its violence, fear, and anger. I look at that and I’m like, how can I not do something about this? How can I not talk about it, if only for the record? And I get stuck there.

One of the local ravens, Little Kevin, landed on a branch in front of me. They did that corvid chortle cluck thing, which I have come to understand is a greeting.

“Hey, buddy,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a couple of peanuts. I made my own clicking, clucking, chortling sounds as I tossed them into the middle of the street. Then I deliberately looked away, which I understand is a way to let corvids know we aren’t a threat.

I had only taken a couple of steps when their shadow passed across my face. I glanced behind me and watched Little Kevin pick up one, then two, peanuts, before they flew up into a tree. I made corvid sounds at them.

I love this, I thought. I’m going to mark this moment, so I don’t forget.

We rounded the corner, walking out of the shade. The sun was warm and welcoming on my skin. I am grateful for this. Everything is terrible, but I am grateful for this.

Maybe I’ll write about this on my blog, I thought.

And that’s when I got this anxious tightness in my chest, like I have a midterm in an hour and I haven’t studied. At all.

What the actual fuck is that about?

I don’t know, but It’s literally just a blog post, Wil. It’s not … whatever you’re making it.

I noticed that Marlowe was looking up at me, expectantly. I became vaguely aware of the jingling of dog tags. I realized that my body was on the corner, but my mind was someplace very far away. I realized that I was looking at a dog we call Marlowe’s Nemesis. Their Person waved to me, and I waved back. For the last three or four years, we have worked to convince our dogs that they don’t need to yell at each other when we pass on the street. Around a year ago, something changed and they both just … got over it. So now, when Marlowe sees her, she does a super good sit, just like I taught her. Her nemesis ignores us both, while their person and I exchange a silent greeting. None of us knows each other’s names.

“Better late than never, but waiting until you were 14 was certainly a choice, Mars,” I said as I gave her a treat.

Little Kevin flew over me and landed on the street light. They called, loudly, bowing their head a little bit and opening their wings. Almost immediately, another raven joined them. I was pretty sure it was their older sibling, who was a fledgling last year. We named them Kevin, after the bird in Up. Did you know that corvids live intergenerationally in the same nest? The older sibling will stay for a year and help raise the new fledgling2. We watched Kevin teach Little Kevin how to hunt and eviscerate baby birds last summer, for instance. There’s nothing quite like walking out into the yard and discovering an avian ritual killing, first thing in the morning.

“Hi Kevin,” I said. I tossed another handful of peanuts into the street.

I’ve been doing daily meditations with the Calm App, off and on, for a few months. I started using it to help manage my anxiety, and to help fall asleep. It was super effective, so I looked into a more regular meditation practice, averaging about ten minutes a day. I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know and I don’t understand, but holy shit does it WORK. I struggle with nervous system dysregulation almost every day, and CPTSD flashbacks is my Sword of Damocles. I’ve been working diligently for years with a trauma-recovery therapist to help me, well, recover from my trauma. I use EMDR and IFS therapy, and it is working more effectively than I ever thought possible.3 I’m so much better, you guys, than I was just a year ago,4 but recovery is a journey with no destination beyond the next step, so my work doesn’t really end (but daily life has gotten much, much, easier. I think I may have enough to write a book about the experience).

So. To support my therapy, and give myself a kind of booster between sessions, I do meditation. I don’t know how it works or exactly what is happening, but I do know that, starting in like … October last year? I think? … I have been able to slow down in my head. I have been able to quiet my racing, anxious, worried, hypervigilant brain. And I don’t even know how I’m doing it, just that I am doing it.

Slowing down has made a huge, significant, difference for me.

A lightbulb popped over my head.

“Marlowe, this is important,” I said. “When I was regularly writing in my blog like twenty years ago, everything was slower. We didn’t have smartphones; we barely had dumb phones. We didn’t have social media. We didn’t have Influencers. It was slower, quieter. I could spend a whole day thinking about what I was going to write that night or the next morning. I wasn’t distracted and pulled in a dozen different directions. Daily life wasn’t an endless string of compounding traumas while we all hoped with everything we had that it will happen today.

“A thought that is now one or two posts on a social network was developed into a whole post on a blog. There was a community of regular readers who commented every time, and I had no idea how much I would miss that when it was gone.”

Marlowe looked up at me and did her best to understand. The Kevins fluttered down to the ground and began picking at the peanuts.

“It is unrealistic for me to expect myself to write now like I did then, because Now is fundamentally different. I am fundamentally different.”

Is it really as easy as adjusting my expectations for myself? Is it really as easy as not judging myself, and hitting publish instead of cancel?

There’s nothing tricky about it! It’s just a little trick!

I need to unplug. We all need to unplug. We all need to take breaks from the horrors. We need to slow down, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes.

Everything won’t be terrible forever. There’s a reckoning coming and I, for one, want to be ready.

If I don’t write about the mundane, if I don’t exercise the muscles I use when I make a post about walking my dog, watching birds, and reflecting on who I am right now, because all I want to do is scream at the horrors until I have no voice left, then I have surrendered in advance. I have given up doing something I love, that gives my life purpose and meaning.

I keep forgetting that I am a Helper, which I know is silly since I literally just wrote about that. But, you know, trauma makes you weird sometimes.

The Kevins followed us for a few houses. I tossed them some more peanuts and a minute later they both passed close by me, carrying them in their beaks. I could hear the soft rustle of their feathers and felt the downdraft on the side of my face.

I’m not gonna lie, it was magical.

When we got back to our house, I took Marlowe’s collar off at the driveway so she could walk up to the door. She got there ahead of me, turned around, and looked at me with that great Pittie smile, her tail wagging.

“You did such a great job, Mars,” I told her. “A+.”

We walked into the house. She had what Anne and I call “one thousand times drinks” from her doggie fountain, then lay down, happily, in front of the couch. I kneeled down in front of her and kissed the top of her head. She thumped her tail twice and sighed.

“I’ll be in my office if you need anything, honey,” I said, “I going to go write something for my blog.”

Thanks for reading. I’m glad you’re here. If you’d like to get my posts by e-mail, here’s the thingy:

  1. Yesterday, I was on my way out the kitchen door, stopped with a gasp, and quietly called Anne over to see the California Towhee that was perched on the wire over the patio. We have tons of finches and sparrows, even the occasional cowbird, but I just love the Towhees, and this was the first time I’d ever seen one on my patio.
    We sat there and made excited noises for a second. Then I looked at her.
    “Still punk as fuck,” I said.
    “Yeah, obviously. Still punk as fuck.” ↩︎
  2. I was one of the lucky ten thousand about a year ago. ↩︎
  3. Honestly, it works so well, it is indistinguishable from magic at times. ↩︎
  4. today is a terrible anniversary; one year since America pulled the trigger on the gun it put to its head in 2016 ↩︎