[Seth Says] Spring Is Here!

SPRING IS HERE!

Ah, Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to going outside for a walk slightly more often, at least if the young man is me, but let's be realistic, I'm not really young any more, although my septuagenarian readers may still feel otherwise.

Anyway, hi! It's nice weather out for these glorious few weeks before the oppressive summer heat sets in, so I hope that you can all take advantage of it. Admittedly, many people would say June is already summer, but it was colder than summer last night, and this weekend calls for rain, which falls right in the middle of college reunion, although saying "college reunion" makes it sound like I'm attending large events and catching up with hundreds of classmates, whereas in actuality I'm hoping to see 3-6 friends and chat outdoors with them for a bit.

I increasingly feel like an oddball exception (impressive given that such has been my brand for decades) when the rest of the country seems to be fine with returning to indoor events, but as more family and friends continue to get Covid, I am continuing my seemingly-bordering-on-fanatical adherence to social distancing and avoiding indoor crowds and so forth. This would really crimp my style if I were a fun person who regularly attended social events, so it's very fortunate for me that I am generally a hermit who never talks to people or goes anywhere.

Ah, Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to not talking to people and staying inside to write and play video games.

Of course, if you've been following the news lately or reading social media at all, really, you'll note that in America, Spring appears to be when a young man's fancy turns to mass shootings.
 

BOWLING FOR COLUMNS: MINE

Normally this is the section of the newsletter where I just share my two most recent columns, Like today's, about No Mow May. But honestly, the gun violence epidemic in this country has reached, well, epidemic proportions. And while Covid's hundreds of thousands of US deaths last year may surpass guns overall, children in the US are now more likely to die from gun violence than any other cause. That's what spurred last week's column:

Little Timmy Goes To School

And the mass shootings, and school shootings, and hospital shootings, and other shootings never stop and keep piling up. I've been writing about the issue for a bit and have more to say about it than fits in a little email newsletter, so if you'd like to read some of my older pieces about struggling with writing humor amidst endless mass shootings, or people trying to blame video games for mass shootings, or even want to listen to my spoken word poetry piece about mass shootings, you know how clicking on links works.
 

LIFE IS SKITTLES AND LIFE IS BEER

So that all sucks. But I'm sure you didn't subscribe to a humor column newsletter just for depressing news, so let me bid a happy Pride month to all my readers. As I'm not LGBT myself, I'm partial to Sloth month. But a number of my very favorite people are LGBT, so Pride is an exciting time to celebrate corporations selling rainbow merchandise and posting Pride ads on social media while still financially supporting regressive politicians who want to eliminate personal freedom for people to live their best lives by living and loving who they want. Taste the rainbow!

Maybe it's not ideal that I always end up getting political. But in my defense, I think opinions like "It's good for people to be happier being themselves (in ways that don't involve hurting others)" and "causing copious death should be avoided" and "racism is bad" shouldn't feel like political and/or controversial statements, and yet, here we are.

Thus the beer part, I guess, which is turning to a substance for escapism, even if my substance of choice isn't beer, but Steam. Still, the world is a hot mess these days (and inching up a few degrees hotter...), so I think everyone needs an escape.
 

I DO, DON'T YOU? COURSE YOU DO!

In the spirit of spreading joy, when I hear the words "spring is here", there is but one song which springs (appropriately) to mind, from whence 75% of these section headers came. So if you're not familiar with Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park", you can immediately rectify (no buts) the situation by enjoying a silly 2-minute song.

Making time for a little fun is an essential part of life, and ever more essential these days. Maybe that's listening to some Tom Lehrer. Maybe that's me ordering another box of delicious Asian snacks. Or maybe that's you taking a few minutes out of your day to read a newsletter with links to some fun humor columns even if this particular issue itself isn't 100% fun although last time was pretty silly so I think on balance we're doing okay and presuming you think that run-on sentences are fun then at least we're ending strong.

Thanks for reading, and we'll be back in two weeks with two (and only two!) more humor columns.



It Just Takes A Smidgen*,
Seth


*(I really wanted to use a valediction here that was a portmanteau of "cyanide" and "sayonara", but as Debbie keeps insisting, apparently I can't make everything into a portmanteau. Even though I want to in spite of it sometimes being a poortmanteau. I may have a problem. I should join a supportmanteau group.)