[Seth Says] Just because you're paranoid...

...doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
 

And me. And everyone.

Oh right, I was going to maybe start with something lighter and more friendly. So here's a joke I recently shared on Twitter. I wrote this one over two decades ago, and it telegraphs the punchline a bit but maybe you'll enjoy it anyway.

Samuel Morse's wife Dorothy walks into his office and says, "Sam, I'm running in a 100 meter sprint tomorrow, do you have any last-minute advice for me?" And he says...

--
 

Well, fun for me, at least. At bare minimum, I can promise a fact for you: The above joke was actually my very first entry (and also first *winning* entry) to the Washington Post's Style Invitational, 21 and a half years ago (but who's counting). The contest was to write a joke that telegraphs the punchline, and this was one of the rare cases where my compulsive literalism actually paid off. (What's the problem with kleptomaniacs? They always take things literally.)

Arguably that winning joke even indirectly led to my becoming a nerdcore rapper, although perhaps that's a story for another newsletter. (By which I mean, another issue of this newsletter. I'm not sure what other newsletter wants to delve into how I started doing what I do. I'm not even convinced this newsletter wants that. And how would we know what it wants? Maybe we should ask Floral Spuzzem.)(The reason this newsletter is free is because of jokes like that where the target audience is the three people who were playing Magic the Gathering 28 years ago, and I'm one of them.)

 

That's the promise I make to you, dear reader, that every issue of my newsletter will contain some terrible jokes. What if Sir Mix-a-Lot's girlfriend had her computer taken over, by someone who used it to fire her only child? Bun-backed hon hacked, son sacked.

Arguably (read: actually) those aren't puns, but it's all just playing with words and trying to find a little fun, which we could all use given the world, right? You know what I do when I want to have a little fun? I order Chinese noodles. That's the best part about Chinese food: they know how to make chow fun.
 

My column last week was very factual, and the fact is: I am tired. Putting this out in print feels like acknowledging a truth that many of us are dealing with, in spite of so many societal directives telling us to proceed as normal and get back to normal because everything is going to be normal again and if we normalize saying normal than normally things get back to normal. But I maybe took aim at that. And said Ready, Aim, Tired.

Admitting in print that I don't want to do anything these days because I find the world exhausting may seem a sign of not doing well. But let's be real: The world is exceedingly exhausting lately, and it doesn't help that the structures and governments that one might hope would swoop in and improve things have often said, "Well, basically, you're on your own." My column this week (which I entreat you to read while you can) attributes this to A lack of commitment.

And those are the better ones! Worse ones have said, "Well, you're not quite on your own because we don't trust you to exist and make decisions about your own life. We want to make it illegal for certain types of people to make their own decisions or even be considered full people, as well as making it illegal for anyone to help those people exist how they want, or letting anyone learn about their history or present circumstances or really anything that acknowledges them as human at all."

Which, y'know, not great. How do you stop a rising tide of fascism?
 

Oh wait, that's how you get to Carnegie Hall. Although I guess in another sense, practice (read: praxis) is how you accomplish anything. I have just turned in my mail-in primary ballot, after reading up on the various local candidates and then voting for Tom Stackpole wherever there was only one person running for the position. But certainly we've seen just how important local elections are when schools and libraries are already being besieged by the forces of deny that different people exist. So local elections matter, and even primary elections matter. As do...
 

As always, I thank you for joining me for this ridiculous little newsletter, and we'll be back in two weeks with two more columns. I was going to do a final callback to that joke I shared at the beginning, but I decided it wasn't worth it.


Without ReMorse,
Seth