Ahoy ahoy! It’s been a month since I went on hiatus, going dark with the Virtual Memories Show podcast, my social media, and this newsletter, while I decompress, take care of an ongoing heavy-duty work project, and make progress writing my Instax photo-book, GUEST/HOST.

I’ve written a bunch of pieces for the book, but still have 25-30 to go. Because of the format of the book, each prose piece has a max of 225 words; for an expansively verbose mo’fo’ like me, that sort of compression has been a real challenge. I overwrite and then ask: what words HAVE to be there?

But I had to write a 2025-in-review for my board of trustees’ compensation committee this week, and the flow of the prose felt just like my podcast scripts and monologues, or these newsletters, and that got me thinking I could write a bit for you here. Maybe I’ll even make it a monthly thing while I’m on “book leave.”

I’ll admit it’s been weird not to have a public face for the past month. It’s taking me time to stop thinking about experiences in terms of how I’ll broadcast them, to realize I’ll only share things one on one with people, by phone, text, email, postcard — or maybe even keep things to myself — but I like the change. Invisibility is nice.

A lot happened in the past month, but not insta-sharing makes those experiences different, slower, maybe more meaningful. I’m not going to share them here, either, but I do appreciate so many of you guys writing to check up on me, offer encouragement, and thank me for taking time off so they can finally catch up on their backlog of my episodes.

In that vein, not writing the linky-newsletter on Sundays means I’m not reading & checking out links all week to find neat stuff to share with this audience. That’s also a change to how I approach the world, real and virtual. That said, I did read one article last weekend about a psychopath influencer and his “contentmaxxing” lifestyle, and I thought, “Maybe this is my year of ‘contentminning.’”

I will share a little BIRDY! though.

And here I am at my writing desk, with a cup of coffee & my new glasses! I didn’t get any writing done that day, and I was pretty frustrated by that, but I didn’t let it derail me. The words will come, and then I’ll get rid of a lot of them.

Recent podcast episodes: Indefinite Hiatus monologue • The Guest List • Jonathan Sandler • Morten Høi Jensen • Prue Shaw • Glenn Kurtz • Jennifer Hayden

Every book (non-comics) that I’ve finished since 1989.

Even though everything’s on hold, I have to maintain the various accounts to keep it going. If you want to help out with those expenses — this email setup runs $29/month, podcast-hosting is $25/month, and the remote recording setup is $20/month — or otherwise Contribute To The Cause, you can support the Virtual Memories Show with a one-time contribution of any size via Stripe, or a recurring one via Patreon. It has never been about the money, so don’t feel obliged. Maybe save your money for when I launch a Kickstarter for the Instax book.

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Postcardery

My postcard-a-day habit is NOT on hiatus, so let me know if you want to be on my list.

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far. See you next time, I hope.

There’s a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was / And there’s ash in the pages now I’ve got myself lost,