Tain, I’m obviously late to this conversation. But are you a school counselor these days? The picture looks to me like compelling proof, but I’m still decidedly (excitedly?) curious.

(F)DJT re: Robert Mueller’s passing: “Good. I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” I wonder if anyone screen grabbed that. Just to have. For the future. Not necessarily for any reason in particular, and certainly not to use at some inevitable point in time. Yeah, I wonder.

That seems like a straightforward rubber stamped “yes” to me.

Screenshot of weather app showing the temperature in Gilbert at ninety-nine degrees with an extreme heat warning.

Meanwhile…

Correct. I have no doubt it is difficult. Things are moving ungodly fast, and balls and strikes, for example, are decided by inches. Understood. But umpire is one of those jobs in which everyone has to be good at it. And that last call in the WBC game was very not good.

If life would ever catch up to science fiction, this is exactly how I would put my clones to work. Never mind crime fighting or the greater good. Let’s divide and conquer all these panels that are scheduled at the exact same damn time.

Could we make that the first panel at AWP too? Like Wednesday night registration/hydration station and vitamin loading.

BWI to Dallas/Ft. Worth by chance? Wish I would have had your book then. The next best time to get it, though, is now.

Well, I mean, if it had to happen to a particular team…

I haven’t posted in a hot minute. The world kept turning. I don’t know what to say these days. Even if I did, I think smarter, more capable people should do the saying. But maybe enough voices still count for something, and my own small one matters in its own small way. I suppose I should find out.

Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad has been sullied in ways it never deserved.

Know what status shows a strong, empirically-supported correlation toward violence? Being a white male. I wonder if Roberts and his oh so trustworthy Heritage Foundation would also be willing to work—incrementally, of course—on a public policy solution on that.

Simply brilliant. I run a collegiate creative writing program in the Southwest, and this template is going into all my syllabi for the spring. I’m taking a screenshot of your post to give proper credit when I roll it out to students. Again, brilliant. Thank you.

Cover art of the album As Good as Dead released by the band Local H in 1996. The image shows a woman, possibly a mother, with a child, possibly her own, sitting in her lap. The woman wears a warm smile, while the child has coins, specifically United States quarters, covering their eyes.

Local H, As Good as Dead. Thirty years on and I’m still thinking about that album and singing its songs.

Could not agree more. I genuinely dislike that little turd.

I had a joke about Actaeon, but my dogs ate it.

Unpopular opinion—The Power by Alderman. President Obama had it on his must read (or whatever) list. Atwood blurbed it. Seemed like a slam dunk, right? I disliked that book a whole bunch.

Automatic F.

You may be dead. Irony, clearly, is not.

Oh, mercy me. I really thought this was going to be the year they broke through. It’s just…sports are mean. Helluva season for the Ms, though. I know it stings, but I hope you’re proud of your team.

Haunted. I am haunted by this very question.

Daily?! Jesus. Wishing you all the best.

Yes!

Wait. Really? Emma, don’t you toy with me. Bake Off is one of the last pure joys I have left.

Anyone else spending today packing up their rejected AWP panel proposal and going home? Just me?

Yep. What Gareth said.

There is no failure so complete, no defeat so demoralizing as a return trip to the car to bring in the rest of the groceries.

And the poor workers shambling in like the walking dead to start a shift at the airport at something like 3:30 in the morning—their eyes listless, their steps heavy with inevitability. Christ, is there a worse place on planet Earth than the airport before dawn?

I don’t entirely know what this post is. I just know I hate it entirely.