Mushroom Cynosure

I started out the day feeling pretty depressed and angry about the state of the world. The more I fixate on those kinds of feeling, the more bad things pop into focus. So, in order to combat this spiral of depression and fixation, I'm going to attempt the opposite and write a list of things that make me happy, here on August 3rd, 2021. A list of things for which I am grateful. Yes, just like that episode of Big Mouth . Here goes: I'm grateful for my wife, Whitney. I don't actually believe in the concept of "true" love, mostly because it denotes a fictional state of effortless bliss. Love is not an emotional state, but a chemical bond. A state of being. Sometimes those bonds are ephemeral. Sometimes they degrade slowly over time before failing catastrophically. Occasionally, the bonds of love change as people change, and become stronger with time, not weaker. Whitney and I have the third kind of bond. I say that without any fear of hubris. Our love for each other i

After publishing last night's post, and then looking back over some older posts, I realized that one might get the impression that I think being a full-time writer (that is to say, someone who makes their money entirely from writing, and in particular, writing works of fiction) is a near-impossible feat achievable only by those with wealth and connections. I want to apologize if I have made that impression. I know people who are full-time authors. And I know there are lots of people out there making their livings right now from writing fiction. People who got to where they are through perseverance, skill, and adaptation (although, yes, lots of people leverage their connections in the entertainment industry or use someone else's money to bankroll their work). If I sounded disparaging, it is because I am also talking to my past self when I write these things. I am addressing the person I used to be, and the notions he would carry in that sloppy head of his. Like most people, I bo

Rather than make a protracted post about my failure to write on this blog everyday, or address my last entry, which was rather discouraging and defeatist, I am just going to pick this back up as though nothing unusual happened.  I got a vasectomy a few weeks ago. We are officially one-and-done on the child-rearing front. The reasons are multitude. Firstly, I just don't want to put Whitney through the experience of being pregnant again. She didn't enjoy it, and the actual labor process was scary, difficult, and expensive. I feel like we got pretty damn lucky with our little Nemo. And speaking of money, kids are expensive as shit. People wonder why Millennials aren't having children - might have something to do with the cost of living combined with stagnant wages and our fucked-up, for-profit healthcare system. And last, but not least, we want to give Nemo the best life we can, and contrary to popular belief, only-children generally benefit  in the long run from having more r

Poor little old me, feeling sorry for myself again, feeling like my writing isn't worth a damn.  The truth, of course, is that it ISN'T worth a damn. I was fairly proud of myself when I got that review in Publisher's Weekly. I thought, "Wow, this is really something! This is real validation." And when I found out that I'd sold a 100 copies, I thought, "Hey, not bad!" Not bad for a nothing release from a nobody.  But months later, I'm still a nobody. And those 100 copies...that's it. That's the reward for obsessively writing and re-writing a book. It took me a decade. And my reward is a little royalty money and a pat on the back. Should I be grateful?  But it's not like I put the same effort into promoting the book. Far from it. I've been pretty quiet about it. Sometimes out of shyness and a sense of inadequacy. Other times, out of laziness, or because I was busy.  Hard work. Dedication. Love of the craft. I do not exemplify these

I'm already sick of talking about it, but for the sake posterity, I should record the absolutely bonkers week we had. The Democrats managed to win TWO federal senate runoff elections in Georgia, giving them the barest majority once Biden takes office. Yay! But before I could even get properly excited about that, hundreds of Trump supporters rioted in DC and broke into the Capitol Building during the certification of the electoral college votes. Since the incident, it has become clear that right-wing terrorists were aided by police and government officials, all of whom thought this was gonna be the big one. The big coup we've all been waiting for.  Photos show terrorists with zip ties for taking hostages, who would have presumably been executed in a show trial. Five people died, including a cop. There was also a terrorist who may or may not have tased himself in the balls and suffered a heart attack. I'm sure that isn't true, but I'm never going to say differently. 

Maybe I haven't harped on this enough, but 2021 is going to be a year of big changes. The baby could start arriving any day now. What wonders and horrors await us. Are we ready? I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I love taking care of little creatures, and I love my family. This is us growing a new family member from scratch. And kids can be difficult, but I'm no stranger to difficult people. Anti-abortionists are deluded scum, by the way. I understand WHY they hold the opinions they hold. If I was crazy/ignorant enough to believe that abortion was state-sanctioned genocide, I'd be against it too. But it's not. And pregnancy is not a fucking morality play. People get abortions for many reasons, none of which are the business of America's spiritually and philosophically-impaired cult fraternities, known colloquially as churches (among other houses of worship). A fertilized egg is not a baby. A fetus, at any stage, should be treated like a part of its mother's