Self-help

It is one of the universal truths that every marriage will inevitably go through difficult moments. A time may come in which one or both partners feel that splitting up is their best option. To guide your decision-making process, consider the following:

Step 1 — study the literature

1. Read several “couples counseling” self-help books.
2. Discard “couples counseling” self-help books.

Warning: Do not under any circumstances either believe or attempt to act on what you have read.

Note to women: These books are written by women for women, and are not in a male partner’s native tongue. Would you want him operating an unfamiliar piece of dangerous…

Relationship with Time

Wow.

Can you believe it’s April already? It feels like we just started dating yesterday! I remember New Year’s Eve and how we agreed we should sit down and talk things over every few months, just to check on how it’s all going. I guess now’s a good time.

First off, it’s not fair to you that it started out so rough. Every year deserves to have the kind of honeymoon they always dreamed of, but it just didn’t happen. There wasn’t much we could have done, but I’m sorry how things worked out.

And I know being my rebound…

Humor

It’s going to be a lot of work getting this place clean enough for guests. Anybody know the hourly rate for the Army Corps of Engineers?

The other day a friend sent a very excited text: “HOORAY!!!!!! I finally got my vaccine appointment!!!!!! I see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!!!! Everything will be getting back to normal soon!!!!!! 👏👏👏🤩🤩🤩🧨🧨🧨”

Or something like that, anyway. She’s an extrovert, and between the exclamation points and emojis, extrovert texts read like hieroglyphics to me. But you get the basic idea.

I replied with a 👍.

It was a lie.

I…

Some Satire, Some Quotes

My greatest disappointment with American life is our polarization. Why can’t our politicians learn to work across the aisle? We have two parties because the country needs a right and a left wing to fly.

After all, it’s not as if the other side are actual Nazis, only that their policies have certain similarities.

Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we have to be disagreeable.

It’s so destructive to give up our individuality in favor of party affiliation. Tribalism — the idea of “my team” being flawless and “your team” being evil — is delusional.

For instance, it’s a shame…

Writer’s Block Distractions

If you wander around Unsplash, you’ll see that many of the images have been titled by the photographer. However, if you hover over the photos you will be treated to an AI’s attempt to describe what it sees. Accuracy is not guaranteed.

For instance, the image above comes with the description “man in black crewneck shirt wearing black sunglasses”.

I beg to differ.

There are certain themes to the weirdness.

Rule #1: sex sells

Regardless of what you’re searching for on Unsplash — or anywhere, really — your results will likely include at least one woman in alluring clothing or lack thereof.

“Woman in…

Humor…Sort of

The War of Ideas lost some troops today on the Hamburger Hill of American civic discourse, Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

Hi, I’m Logic. Pardon the mess, I’ve been out fighting the conservatives and barely escaped with my life.

I have to admit it was my fault. Some battles are best left unfought, and this is one of the worst: we engaged a right winger on the subject of guns.

Good lord, the carnage. Oh, the humanity.

If you’ve never had this argument, you don’t know what you’re missing. And it’s better that way. Imagine a sort of acid trip in which…

Department of Fairy Tales

“So, what’s it like being the Easter Bunny?”

The rabbit gave me a doleful look as he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. When Jessica had assigned me this profile piece I thought she was doing me a favor, but it was off to a slow start.

He exhaled, and the way his nose wiggled as the stream of smoke trickled out was unbearably cute. I instinctively reached out to touch it but stopped abruptly when he bared his teeth.

“I’m sorry. Is it OK if I stroke your nose?”

“Depends on how attached you are to your…

Satire

There’s an anonymous, high-ranking official in the government releasing information under the name U — and the conspiracy is skin deep.

Are you ready for the red pill? Because I’m about to blow your mind: Everything the government says is a lie.

Yeah, yeah, if you’re reading this you probably already knew it. But I’m here to tell you it’s even deeper than you could possibly imagine.

Maybe you’ve heard of Q? Well, it turns out that guy didn’t know shit, he was some whackjob in Manila who started the whole thing as a LARP. So Q’s run his course.

…