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5 things I want you to know

Posted on By Wil

Here are five things I want you to know:

  1. My friends, Kumail and Emily, wrote and produced a movie called The Big Sick. It’s about how they met and fell in love, and it’s wonderful. It’s a great date movie. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming without being saccharine, and it’s a true story! It’s a little indie movie, but it’s holding its own against big summer blockbusters, which is awesome. I want everyone to see it because it’s a great film (it should absolutely be considered during the award-o-rama season), but also because the way the studios work, it’ll only stay in theaters if it continues to outperform expectations. So please go see it, and tell your friends about it. (Those of you who are old enough to remember the early MeFi days will know where I got my linking style.)
  2. Yesterday morning, Anne woke me up twenty minutes before my alarm did, because she needed me to hear the noise our air conditioner was making. It couldn’t have waited until I was ready to wake up, when I was starting to come out of my deep sleep cycle, because it was making a noise similar to putting a handful of ball bearings and some broken glass into a blender. It turns out that the motor blew out during the hottest three days of the year so far, because I am a fucking idiot who forgot to change the ten dollar air filter (in my defense, we did the math on the calendar and realized that Anne was in emergency surgery when I should have been changing it, so I may have gotten the reminder from my task list a whole second before I dismissed it forever). It was so hot in our house, things in our pantry were melting. I’m grateful that we had eighteen hundred dollars in a sock just for such an occasion, and by the time the sun had done its worst, it was repaired. So consider this your reminder to go look at your air filter and change it, if necessary.
  3. I played games for the first time in months yesterday. My group was dealt a TPK when the last two members moved away in January, and I haven’t had anyone to play with. At first, I was happy to take the break, because gaming has been my job for the last four years. But as time went by, I became acutely aware of how significant gaming is to my life, my joy, and my reason for being. Tabletop is complicated for me, (and, honestly, Board Game Subreddit: maybe it just isn’t the right snow for you and you don’t need to rage at me about every single episode we do) and while I’m grateful as hell for everything it’s done to promote the hobby, the way Legendary has handled the fourth season and the relentless shitting on it and me by random internet strangers has taken its toll. I’d been so consumed by the things that made the show a bummer this season, and I’d been unable to play games for the sake of playing games for so long, I completely lost sight of how much I love gaming, how proud I am of our show, and the good it has done not just for my life, but for the thousands of other people who have shared their stories with me. So when we played Lords of Waterdeep and Splendor yesterday, it was like coming out of a fog of sadness for the first time in at least half a year.
  4. I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Marley recently, and just this morning I came across a record I didn’t know about: Dreams of Freedom (Ambient Translation of Bob Marley in Dub). If you enjoyed the ambient tracks or the dub reggae I played on Radio Free Burrito, you have got to check out this record. It’s beautiful.
  5. Speaking of RFB, I had an episode about 3/4 finished two weeks ago, but I really just hated it so I sent it to the land of wind and ghosts. I know that I’m overdue to release a new show, but I didn’t appreciate just how challenging it is to do a weekly podcast that isn’t about current events, or features interviews. I feel like I have to go to this mental box to find stuff to talk about, and recently it’s been empty and sad (HEY JUST LIKE ME HA HA THAT IS A JOKE AND NOT REAL AT ALL EVERYTHING IS FINE I AM FINE HA HA HA). So rather than force something that I think is shitty garbage that sucks, I’ve just been waiting until I have something worthwhile to make.

So that’s five things I want you to know on this lovely Sunday that’s way too fucking hot. What do you want me to know?

EDIT OH SHIT I FORGOT I WANTED YOU TO KNOW THIS ALSO BUT SIX THINGS I WANT YOU TO KNOW IS WEIRD TITLE SO I’M NOT CHANGING IT: I am honored to be a guest on this week’s Lovett or Leave It podcast.

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Some pictures from today’s big old walk at the beach

Posted on By Wil

“Do you you have to do anything on Monday?” Anne asked me.

I checked my calendar. “No, I turned in the draft of my Star Wars story, and I don’t think I’ll get notes on it until after the Fourth. Why?”

“Well, we’ve been so busy, we haven’t had much time to do anything together. I thought maybe we could go down to the beach, and take a big old walk together.”

“I love that. Let’s do that.”

So we went down to the beach today, and walked almost eight miles, had lunch, and got to spend a whole day together without anyone or anything getting in our way. It was really wonderful, especially considering that a month ago, we were in the emergency room together.

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Books

10 things I want you to know

Posted on By Wil

Things I want you to know about today:

  1. My friend Mikey Neumann’s show Movies With Mikey is being considered for an Emmy. If you are eligible to vote, I hope you’ll vote for him.
  2. There’s a new Tabletop! It’s Mysterium.
  3. I did a new Radio Free Burrito, and I’m quite happy with this one.
  4. I backed this white noise machine on Kickstarter about a year ago, and I’ve had it for about a month. It is the best white noise machine I have ever owned in my life, and I’ve owned a lot of them. If you have trouble sleeping or wake up easily during the night, check out Snooz. (NOTE: This is not an endorsement and I didn’t get anything for mentioning this. I just wanted you to know about it because it’s awesome.)
  5. I traded in my Nexus 6P for a Pixel and holy balls, it’s an incredible smartphone. I think I’m going to trade in my iPad for a Pixel tablet.
  6. I bought about 50 Choose Your Own Adventure books from eBay. Starting with the next Storytime With Wil, we’re going to have a whole bunch of new stories to explore together!
  7. I’m working with my business team to make some Facebook changes, including changing my personal page to a fan page, so we can do more business … uh … stuff. It’s weird. But one of the things we’ll be doing is sharing stories and posts from other sources (I guess this is a thing people do on Facebook now? I’ve been doing it on Tumblr for years, so I guess it’s the same?) and I’m very interested to know what sorts of sites and topics you’re interested in, if you read my dumb Facebook page.
  8. I’m coming to Washington, DC, for Awesome Con this weekend.
  9. My friend Ashly Burch refused to cross a picket line to perform the voice of Chloe — a beloved character she created — for the prequel to Life is Strange. Gamers are, sadly and predictably, being shitty to her about it. I remind everyone that Square Enix could easily bring Ashly back, by signing an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA, and respecting the contributions Ashly has made to the game. I stand with her, and I wrote about why I do several months ago.
  10. John Doe, from the seminal punk band, X, wrote a memoir about punk in the 80s, called Under the Big Black Sun. In addition to his own memories, he asked other people who were there, like Jane Wiedlin, Henry Rollins, and Jack Grisham. The book is an incredible read, on part with Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, or The Kid Stays In The Picture. But the audio version is sensational, because the essayists who contributed to the book read their own work. If you’re a fan of the music and the musicians, I can’t oversell how great it is to own both audio and print versions, because the photos in the print version are magnificent.

Okay, that’s ten things for you to know. Anything you want me to know?

 

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seven days

Posted on By Wil

It feels simultaneously like a lifetime and like a blink since I woke up to the sound of my wife writhing in pain, setting off the worst three days of the nearly fifteen thousand I’ve experienced so far. Seven days ago, at this exact moment, I was sitting in the ER with Anne, wondering what the hell was going on with her. Little did we know that she was about to get a misdiagnosis that would cost her an organ.

I keep catching myself holding my breath, worrying about her, even though I don’t need to worry like I did. Anne is recovering. She’s able to walk — albeit very slowly — with me when I take one of our dogs around the block. She’s still tired a lot of the time, and we’re going to see if the OB/GYN who did her surgery can help us get to the bottom of that. Maybe it’s just post-surgical fatigue (which is my Thompson Twins cover band) or maybe it’s something more, but it’s one of the things that makes me worry a little bit.

But we’re getting back to something like boring and normal, and I’ve never been as content to be bored as I am right now.

I’ve been recording an audiobook during the days this week, so I also feel fatigued, but it’s the kind of fatigue that feels earned, rather than imposed. It’s a lot of different characters, and it’s a lot of words, but it’s really fun, escapist fiction. I’m enjoying the process more than I thought I’d be able to, and I am on a pace to finish Monday. I can’t say anything else about it, but you’re welcome to speculate, if that’s amusing for you.