How My Vacation’s Going

Let’s be real. It’s gonna be a miracle if I get to attend Worldcon (for those just joining, I’ve been holed up in Scotland for days at a writer’s retreat I’m missing out on because I caught Covid). It’s not impossible, but it sure seems unlikely right now. I’m not a thoughts and prayers or send good vibes kind of person, but if you’d like to honor my struggle, I’ll just ask you to remember that there’s a huge surge of a particularly virulent strain going around right now*, and to comport yourself accordingly by avoiding crowds, masking in public, and testing as regularly as is reasonable for you.

I’m not unduly suffering, save for missing out on a vacation I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. But there are people out there not as blessed with good health as I am, for whom a Covid infection could mean dying or being sick for a long time or even just missing out on things that make life nicer and more worth living. I know we’re all exhausted by the pandemic but the struggle’s not over, and it won’t be til we can all pull together and beat it. We all just have to do our part.

*I caught this variant despite masking in crowded places and reupping my vaccination two weeks before traveling.

Starting a New Book While on Writers Retreat After Catching Covid

It’s been interesting here at the retreat from the retreat. I had planned all along to start a new novel. Not only that, but a novel outside the fantasy world I’ve been working in/creating for the last ten years, which not only has its own history and let’s call it magical physics but also its own vernacular or maybe idiom, which I’ve been formulating for most of that time (there was a sea-change moment several years back where the story went from being one thing to being another, which spoke itself to me in a very particular way). Anyhow, after setting aside the epic doorstop and writing what I hope is a quick-and-dirty noir spy thriller, I was ready to flex some different muscles and go back to the near future dystopia with emergent magic realist elements that used to be what I did until a funny little idea for a fantasy story got way tf out of hand.

Then I got Covid. Or maybe the Tinkerer (what I call my subconscious writer self, who’s got this whole workshop full of ideas and half-finished projects) had other ideas. Either way, I didn’t have but the vaguest idea what I wanted to do other than a magic realist-ish road trip through a soft apocalyptic American landscape derived from the worst that could happen if the fash get their way come November.

Now, normally I’m a ‘just start writing and see where things go’ kind of guy. Make the road by walking, as it were. At least I used to be. At least with new projects. But whether it’s the brain fog or the Tinkerer learning new tricks, I haven’t felt the urge to do that so far. To be honest, I’m barely working at all, just fucking around on the soshmeeds (bite-size thoughts being perfect for my current Covid-brained state). But bit by bit, things are coming to me. I’ve got a doc that I labeled an outline. But it’s really more of a treatment, I guess? Call it a description of scenes, with little notes and epiphanies as they occur to me on the way. A map, as it were. Which seems appropriate for a book about a cross-country road trip. I’ve only got the first section blocked out, got a few notions about where it all goes, a couple things I’d like to happen along the way. But it feels right, just letting it kind of accrue on its own when it’s ready instead of trying to make a word count every day. It’s helping me learn who the characters are, where they come from and what they want and where, ultimately, they might end up. It’s also likely to be a bit more personal than my fantasy work has been, because it’s likely to echo some of my own journey and experiences (the trip is from Florida to the Northwest). It’s also kind of fun, thinking a bit more about the big picture stuff before i get into the weeds of words and sentences and paragraphs and chapters.

Maybe I was always going to do it this way. Maybe it’s because I caught Covid, and trying to write coherently for longer than, say, this brief essay seems like a heavier lift than I’m up for. Maybe over the years I’ve actually taught myself one or two things about how to write novels, or at least how *I* can successfully write novels. Which was always what I wanted to do with my life but daunted the absolute shit out of me for most of it, and still does, most days.

Either way, it’s nice to know the journey of discovery continues. And hey, when it comes time to actually write this thing, maybe I’ll half know what I’m doing. What a fun change that would be.

So You’re Worried About Joe Biden Running For President After That Debate Performance

It’s not unreasonable. He did poorly. Really poorly. He looked like the tired old man we’ve all been told he is. It’s entirely reasonable to entertain doubts as to his fitness to run and, by extension, to be President another four years. Gawd knows enough virtual ink has been spilled on the subject to float an aircraft carrier and all its support vessels.

And there’s your first warning, far as I’m concerned: the cabal or at least loose but extensive confederacy of unelected elites leading the ‘Step down, Joe’ charge. Every one’s got their wish-list of candidates (curiously few of whom mention Vice President Kamala Harris, whose literal job, besides casting tie-breaker votes in the Senate, is to be the spare President). Everyone alludes to some ‘process’ at the convention whereby other unelected elites choose a candidate in what once upon a time would have been the proverbial smoke-filled room without any actual voters being consulted.

It’s bullshit. A collective fantasy of editors and other elites who don’t think much of democracy and see a chance to sell a lot of ad clicks. Don’t believe the hype.

The fact of the matter is, for both practical and ethical reasons, that if Joe Biden steps down as candidate, the only alternative is Vice President Kamala Harris. She inherits the war chest, the campaign organization, the legitimacy of having her name on the millions of actual votes that were cast. That remains true whether you think she can win or not. And I’ll tell you something else. If the black woman chosen to be second in line, and elected to same, somehow gets passed over in some yet-to-be proposed much less negotiated and accepted ‘process’ it will tear the Democratic party and the coalition that makes it up apart. Black people, particularly black women, are the heart, soul, and backbone of the party, and anyone who forgets or fails to acknowledge that is guaranteeing electoral failure.

So if it’s not Biden, it’s Harris, for practical, ethical, and electoral reasons. So to me, the question becomes this: what is the rationale for Joe stepping down and putting Harris top of ticket? It puts an end to questions about whether Joe’s up to the job (which he’s been doing exceptionally, even historically well), and opens up whole new vistas for fuckery on the part of Republicans and the cabal or loose confederation of journalists and other elites looking for easy headlines. Maybe you think that’s a good tradeoff. I call it a wash at best.

The way I see it, it comes down to a simple calculation. Harris is already the spare President, ready to step in and take over. Joe picked her, we all confirmed it with our votes. So the thing that changes is Harris has to pick her own VP candidate. Someone who presumably brings some electoral or at least narrative strength to the ticket. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anyone at all, who brings enough to that slot to justify the chaos and upheaval that must ensue when a major party candidate for President steps down four months before the general election. In a regular election–whatever that might mean in this time of fascism and the finding out part of climate change in ascendance–it would be wild. In this, the election that decides are we still gonna be a democracy like the Founders intended, it would be catastrophic.

The conclusion is simple. Since Harris is already the spare, ready to step in at a moment’s notice and fulfill the duties of the Presidency, Joe stays, and we all understand Kamala’s ready. And we take our anger and anxiety and point them where they should have been pointed all along, at the Republicans and the white nationalists and fascists who have taken over the party.

They are the real enemy, after all.

Overdue Placeholder

Hello! You may notice, or have noticed, a distinct lack of content on the website here for the last few seasons. I’m still here, I just stopped writing blog posts for a while to concentrate on finishing a novel (it’s going great, thanks for asking!). Things have moved along enough I might start posting again soon. In the meantime, here are links to some of my favorite or most popular posts over the years:

Shit Mountain Blues: Anti-masking, Open Carry, and the Right to Do Harm

The Customer Is Always Right

A Year Ago, I Confessed Some of the Worst Things I’ve Ever Done to Women: Here’s What Happened

The Least I Could Do

How to Writer

Welcome To The Bitch Bubble

I also, x help us all, have a twitter feed, which you can follow here, and use to contact me if you need to.

Please Stay Home This Holiday Season

I’ve always been meh on Thanksgiving because family, right? But my favorite favorite favorite holiday is Friendsgiving, which happens on the same day. Whether it’s a giant gang of all your friends and their spouses and kids and college roommates and some lonely soul they found at the grocery store or just an intimate get-together in a small dining room, there’s hardly a better day all year long: everyone relaxed and convivial, everyone brought a dish or a treat so there’s lots to taste (and less to cook, yourself, unless you want to), and you just enjoy a bunch of good things and good conversation together in a relaxed, unhurried atmosphere that’s as exciting or mellow as you want it to be. I love it. Some years I’ve loved it a little too much. But I love it.

And I’ll miss it this year, as I’ve missed so much, as we all have because JFC on a pogo stick is shit out of hand right now. But I’m staying home, in my immediate bubble, and I’m asking — begging — you to do the same this Thanksgiving.

It’s like, if it was just me, maybe I’d be more willing to take unnecessary risks. But that’s not how pandemics work. It’s certainly not how Covid works. You get other people sick before you know you’re sick, yourself. Worse, it’s the people you love and are closest to you’re most likely to infect, or who are most likely to infect you. Think how you’d feel if you killed your wife, your husband, your mother or father or best friend or roommate. It’s not a good death, either, fucking intubated and surrounded by medical staff in PPE instead of your loved ones. And that’s if you or they can even get into a hospital. Which, if you get sick this week, is a shaky proposition, at best. They’re pretty well full up, and because of the time delay built into how the virus works, they’re going to be for at least another month, if not more. You could have the best insurance in the world. It won’t matter if there’s no bed for you or doctor to see you.

We’re all tired. We’ve all had to give up a lot. And there’s further, so much further to go. But please, for the sake of yourself and your loved ones, for the sake of the country and all the heroic, exhausted health care staff out there on the front lines, for the sake of us all, please just stay home this holiday season.

If you don’t, not everyone you love will be around for the next one. I’d say that’s worth sacrificing for.