I started writing this newsletter in April of 2020, when nothing particularly memorable was happening. In the years that followed, I sent you over 250 satirical pieces, ephemera, observations, and other things nobody asked for.
Then, four years later, I stopped. I stopped finding enough time to write and stopped finding a reason to keep sending. Some people asked if I was alive. To which I would respond with a question of my own: Are any of us, really? Some people unsubscribed. This seemed unnecessary, since I was already not sending anything—what less could they want? And some people signed up for this newsletter for the first time. I assume this was an accident. If not, please understand: your days of receiving nothing are over. Enjoy the silence while it lasted.
Ultimately, I needed a break from trying to find things funny in what appeared to be an ever-less-funny world. I needed time to reset, to read others, to immerse myself in the great fiction of life (the writers of which continue to jump the shark). In short, I needed some time unbeholden to a creative deadline, which can kill creativity. Perhaps that’s why it’s called a deadline. So I turned off my computer, unplugged it, and threw it out the window. I was fined heavily by the city for this. Then, computer-less, I vowed to suck the marrow out of life.
Instead, I spent my entire time away from here scrolling on my phone.
And working on a new book.
Great news about the phone: I finished scrolling. Saw the entire internet. All of it. Even the hippo.
Then I did, in fact, spend some time touching grass. Brat-green grass, even (see: I read the whole internet).
And the book? I have a ways to go on the book.
But now, exactly one full year since the release of my debut essay collection This Won’t Help (best read when ordered in bulk), I’m finding myself drawn again to that most noble of pursuits: writing something and sending it to you over email. In part, I feel that I’m ready to meet deadlines again—self-imposed, or otherwise. I’m also ready to “grapple with the hardness and weirdness of life and of being a human.” I just quoted myself, from my essay on satire for LitHub. That’s is the kind of confidence and bravado I developed in my time wandering the desert of the offline realm. Buckle up.
Some housecleaning:
Paid subscriptions have been paused during my absence. I will un-pause them in the coming weeks—heed this warning! Mark me!
I’ll be sending regularly to all subscribers (you fine folk). Each week, I’ll write… something. This has been the first of those somethings. Again.
And now, to mark one year of my debut book hitting shelves across the country, here’s a reprint of a chapter that feels like it’s taken on new meaning:
Situations in Which the Only Solution Was to Vote
I was on a hike when I was bitten on the leg by a venomous snake. I was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where the doctors told me that I needed to sign for an antivenom injection. But then I remembered an e-mail from my senator that told me the only way forward is to vote. So I informed the doctors that I wanted to vote instead. I lost my leg, but my voice was heard.
I woke up to the smell of smoke and the sound of alarms—my house was on fire. I ran downstairs and picked up the phone. I called city hall and asked the person who answered to rush-deliver me an absentee ballot. My home might be gone, but now I can vote from anywhere.
I was kidnapped and held for ransom. My captors called my family and put them on speakerphone. The kidnappers urged me to ask for a thousand dollars in exchange for my freedom. But then I tried to imagine what my state senators would want me to do. So I told my family to make sure they go to the polls this November and hung up the phone. I’m currently still kidnapped, but I can rest easy knowing that I got out the vote.
I went skydiving, and during our jump my parachute malfunctioned. My instructor shouted at me to grab onto him so that we could float to safety together. I shouted back that I planned to vote for a new parachute instead. My instructor grabbed hold of me anyway—I guess elections weren’t for a while.
I was lifeguarding at the local pool when a swimmer began to drown. Other pool-goers rushed to my side and asked me to do something. I told them that we can all do something—we can vote for a shallower pool. I was immediately fired, but I like to think that I inspired a group of future voters that day.
I signed up for a sunset cruise on an antique sailboat. Unfortunately, the old boat hit some rocks and began taking on water—it was quickly sinking into the ocean. While the rest of the passengers piled onto a life raft, I remained aboard, looking for dry paper to turn into ballots. “Someone needs to stay here and vote for a sturdier ship!” I said. I was picked up by the Coast Guard a few hours later and treated for hypothermia, just like founders intended.
I joined a running club to finally get back in shape. We were training together one morning on a wooded road when a baby bear rolled out onto the asphalt from somewhere inside the dense trees. We all stopped. Someone said, “When there’s a baby bear, you back away slowly in the other direction. We don’t wanna be here when mama bear shows up.” But it was too late—as she finished her warning, the biggest bear I’ve ever seen came plodding out of the forest. So I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Don’t panic, everyone! Let’s vote this bear off the road!” It was at that moment the bear charged. I miss those folks.
I was driving my co-worker home from the office in the car-pool lane, when suddenly an eighteen-wheeler on the wrong side of the road came hurtling toward us. The truck driver blared his horn and motioned with his hands that his wheels and brakes weren’t working. My co-worker yelled at me to swerve out of the way. Instead, I took out my phone and showed him my voter-registration status. “I think we’ll be all right,” I said. “I’m registered to vote.”
What I’ve been reading
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
“Gripping, propulsive, claustrophobic.” Three adjectives that describe this book and also my reaction to any flight I’ve ever been on. A “what-if-it-happened-here” novel that’s screaming to us that it’s already happening everywhere.
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Two Pauls, endless warnings about the way our empathy or lack thereof will drive us into the future. This one with a whole lot more laughs than above (at least until the end).
Exile from Gaza, Jewish Currents
In the midst of endless horror backed by our tax dollars, most of the population of Gaza has been displaced inside their own country. There are also those displaced beyond their homeland — those who got out, and may never be able to return. Four of them told their stories to Jonathan Shamir at Jewish Currents, published yesterday.
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
I’m late to this book, which my wife, who is never late to culture, recommended I read. A sublimely funny, magical dive into the parity between the Capital W World and our own personal one.
How to Dodge a Cannonball by
I haven’t read this yet because it doesn’t come out until next year (though if I can Ocean’s 11 my way into a copy, I will). Knowing Dennard, it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve ever read. And excruciatingly funny. Preorder it.
What have you been reading? What have you been pretending to read?
I’ll see you here soon.
Welcome back.
Thanks for sharing Exile from Gaza.
Welcome back, Eli!