I keep getting asked how I’m holding up. I keep giving honest non-answers like, “As good as can be expected” or “I’m hanging in there.”

I’m not good. I’m not fine. I’m upset, sad, disappointed, hopeless, uninspired, tired, and pessimistic. But I don’t think anyone wants to hear that. Not from me.

I’m not gay or trans. I’m straight, white, male, and financially stable. I’m not an immigrant. I’m not a professional working for the government. I live in California. I am, in a word, safe.

I project enough arrogance that Trump would probably like me if he met me in person. I look like the kind of person he likes, and I’d stare him down just like the kind of people he aspires to be.

If I kept my mouth shut and didn’t write anything political here, if I chose to stay in my lane, I could probably cruise on to my death bed without any conflict. That’s a pretty wild choice, isn’t it? How luxurious it is to be in my position. How lucky I am to have all of these properties and privileges I never asked for, and that I’m not proud of because I didn’t earn them.

I will not be choosing silence or meekness. If you are one of the very large targeted demographics, I will defend you. I will continue to criticize those in power, even if that makes me “an enemy within.” I will live my life with integrity and kindness and as much love as I can muster, and I will not stand by as people are bullied.

I am still not a Democrat. I went back through my old posts. Here’s some stuff I wrote in July:

I will still vote for the Democratic candidate. I’ll do my part. But the Dems have fucked us.

They’ve thrown away the incumbency.

They’ve set up a situation where they have 100 days to come behind a single candidate, hopefully without bloodying each other and allowing Trump to cruise unscathed.

They’ve set up a situation where the focus will be on the electability of the Democratic candidate, rather than highlighting how the Republican wanna-be despot is unelectable.

They’ve set up a situation where they are not highlighting their own plan for the future, which would be a great contrast to Project 2025.

They’re most likely going to get behind Kamala Harris, which means that the American voters will have to overcome racism and sexism. This, during a time where social media is commonly joking/complaining/spreading memes about DEI hires.

Democrats, why did you have to make it so much harder than it needed to be?

If Trump is re-elected, this is why.

Right after I wrote that, the Democrats — the people in my sphere — appeared to be energized for Harris. I thought, “Well… maybe we’re going to be okay, after all.”

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because she “didn’t provide a plan.” Trump’s plans, Project 2025 plus tariffs, is a shit plan, but it is a plan. Harris talked about some of the things she wanted to do, but that’s not the same thing as a plan. And if she did put out a plan, enough people didn’t see it that it didn’t matter.

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because she didn’t come out strongly enough against Israel.

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because they saw her as being selected, rather than going through the primary. “Why should I vote for someone I didn’t get to choose?”

And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people that didn’t vote for her because of her gender and the color of her skin.

For the first time in his life, Trump won the popular vote. A felon. A rapist. A twice impeached, former president with an absolutely terrible record. Someone that told us to inject bleach. Someone that promoted an insurrection when he lost in 2020.

In a time when we have existential crisis in the form of climate change, we elected the guy that tried to pull us out of the Paris Agreement. The guy that hates windmills.

This election, I learned something. Maybe I relearned something. You can’t win a race based on the faults of the other guy. You have to win on the merits of your own words, record, and intentions.

Let me tell you what I would run on, if I were to run for President.

I would introduce legislation which overturned Citizens United. Corporations are not people. We need to pull that money from our political system. We need to keep Big Business away from all three branches of our government.

I would introduce legislation which applies reasonable term limits to members of Congress.

I would work with Congress to apply some sort of term limit on the Supreme Court. Lifetime appointments without any guard rails has proven to be unacceptable.

I would introduce legislation to actually limit money that sitting members of Congress receive. Part of this would be establishing an independent funding for election spending. Once a candidate reaches a certain threshold, they can no longer accept funds from anyone else to pay for their campaign. Once elected, their estate goes into a trust, just as the President’s estate is supposed to be put in trust, and the only paycheck they’re allowed to take is the one from Uncle Sam.

No one working in any of the three branches of government should be allowed to trade stocks.

It will be hard to push through, but I will remove the electoral college. Every person’s vote should count, whether they live in the city or they live on a farm. No one should be disenfranchised. This will also help eliminate some of the problems we have with gerrymandering.

It will be hard to push through, but I will push for a change in our voting. Rather than first-past-the-post, we’ll use a weighted system. This will make third party candidates viable. My intention is to destroy our so-called two-party system.

I need to shut up about this, now.

This is all purely fantasy. It’s something I can think about as a distraction from the reality we’re living in. We have elected a monster and doomed our country and our planet. We may not have another fair election again. And even though I’m certain I know what’s wrong with our system — it’s the money — I’m never running for office.

So how am I doing?

Shitty.

But I’ll survive, and I will write, and I vow to defend those that the elected felon and all his cronies mean to target.

If we can summon the courage to do what is right, act with integrity, and protect each other, we will be fine. Maybe the 74 million people that voted for Trump will see the error in their decision and stand with us.

I still want to have faith in humanity. Please don’t let me down.

When I got home, the house was quiet and dark. I found Melissa on our bed, looking as sad as I’ve seen her in a long time.

It was around 7:30PM, and she had been following the election news. This year is different for her. This is the first year she has been motivated enough to read up on all the items on the ballot and vote. Voting for Harris to avoid another Trump disaster is paramount to both of us.

It’s 8:40PM, and the electoral map does not look good. I glanced at BlueSky and the mood there is also not good. Some folks are desperately trying to keep hope alive, because this is what the electoral map looked like 4 years ago. It took days for the blue shift to settle in.

Rural, less populated counties are — for some stupid reason — more inclined to vote for Trump, and those smaller areas report sooner. It takes longer to count the urban votes and the places where people actually live. Some states are getting called for Trump that haven’t actually tallied the votes of their cites. It’s stupid, demoralizing, and depressing.

It’s probably also important to remember that the news organizations that are declaring for Trump at this stage are the same people that have been carrying water for Trump for weeks.

I still think Harris has a shot. But even if the blue wave fully materializes and delivers us a Harris presidency, we still have millions and millions of people that voted for a racist, rapist, fascist, felon in physical and mental decline.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they think he loves America. They apparently never listened to him, because every other word out of his mouth disparages our great nation. Even his motto implies that we’re somehow less than we are. Trump doesn’t love America. He only loves himself.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they think he promotes Christianity. The guy that sold Bibles made in China to pay for his court fees, which were incurred at least partly from his extramarital affair with a porn star. Trump is an anti-Christ. He doesn’t love God. He only loves himself.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they thought he’d be good for the economy. The guy that couldn’t make a casino profitable. How many failed businesses have Trump’s name on them? Under Trump, the economy tanked, and unemployment was up to just under 15%. Trump has never been good for the economy. The only person Trump wants to enrich is himself.

Harris could still win. She ran a great campaign. Her plans make sense, unlike Trump’s insane tariff plan.

The man stood in front of crowds and talked about how he would be a dictator if elected, and millions of people showed up on election day and tried to put him back in office. These people have no memory.

On top of that, at this point in the evening, the senate races aren’t looking great. I was really hoping Cruz would get sent packing, but that weaselly scumbag will remain in office. Texas, you disappoint me again.

I’m going to go to bed early tonight, I think. This whole year has been exhausting. I’m so sick of seeing that asshole’s face, and hearing his whiny voice. Trump exists mostly to make me doubt the existence of justice in this world.

Maybe I’ll drink a bit before going to bed. Just to be sure.

Good morning, friends and frenemies! It’s time for me to talk about this show that has had me buzzing for days. I’m at a Shut up and Write, and ostensibly, I should be working on The Psychic Out of Time, but I don’t have my glasses, OneDrive is taking forever to sync, and I feel a little bit distracted because I really, really want to talk about Agatha All Along.

If you haven’t watched it yet, let me say two things.

1. It’s very good. You should watch it. Watch WandaVision first to get context, then watch Agatha All Along. It really is better to go into it without spoiliers.
2. Stop reading this and go watch the show.

Spoilers beyond this point. You have been warned.

When they first started promoting the show, they did it with all the actors coming out on stage, singing the Ballad of the Witches Road. When I first saw this, I thought, “Well, that’s weird. Is this supposed to be a musical?” But it all makes sense in retrospect. The song is the throughline of the show. All of the threads are woven out of that song. It is the inciting incident that we get to witness in the epilogue.

Let’s pull on some of these threads and see where they take us.

We start the story with Agatha still under the spell Wanda used to trap her in Westview. Agatha imagines herself as a hard-boiled detective trying to solve a strange murder, but it’s all layers of metaphor symbolizing Agatha’s struggle to be reborn from her past life. The dead body looks like Wanda, but the toe tag tells us that it’s really The Darkhold, which weighed Agatha down as much as Wanda’s spell. The Darkhold is destroyed, Wanda’s spell is broken, and Agatha emerges from all of it, stripped down and free to start over.

But, this isn’t a redemption story, and Agatha is still a monster. We may sympathize with her, but she hasn’t changed. The only think that’s changed is her circumstances. She still chooses to do what she has always done, which is trick witches into giving her their power so that she can survive.

Let’s talk about some relationships and parallels in this story.

Agatha and Teen is obvious and sweet. Teen reminds her of the son she lost. In that way, Teen occasionally inspires Agatha to be a better version of herself, right up to the end where she finally takes the kiss of death, dying so that Teen can live.

Agatha and Lilia is a bit less obvious. They both see Death. Agatha has a tumultuous relationship with Death, and spends much of her life fleeing her, steeling power so that she can survive, and hating Death for taking her son. Lilia’s power forces her to see death, so she spends much of her life fleeing her power so that she no longer is tormented by the things that she sees. In the end, Lilia realizes that she loves herself, her power, being a witch, and she chooses to fall and embrace death. They both embraced death, for different reasons, and it’s beautiful in both cases.

Agatha and Jen are both witches that have lost their power and in both cases, Agatha is the one responsible. Jen lost her power because Agatha was paid to bind her, and didn’t even think about it. Agatha lost her power because she tangled with The Scarlet Witch. They are both restored, but Agatha lays down on the ground and becomes one with it, turning to soil and flowers, while Jen emerges from the dirt into the light, free to take flight and lift off into the sky.

Agatha and Alice are essentially opposites, and we have to include Alice’s mother Lorna to see the complete picture. Agatha is the witch that lost her child in spite her best efforts. Alice is the child of a witch that survived because of her mother’s best efforts. Agatha and her son made up the song as a kind of game, and when Nicholas Scratch died, Agatha used the song as a kind of weapon to take the powers of other witches. Lorna Wu adapted the same song and sang it to her fans, which she thought of as her coven, so the song itself became a kind of shield always there to protect Alice. In both cases, it’s a mother’s love. Agatha’s love twisted by grief into something dark, and Lorna’s love uplifted in hope to provide a light for her daughter.

That brings us back to Teen, Billy Kaplan, reincarnated son of Wanda Maximoff, because a mother’s love persisted.

I think I could go on, but that’s probably enough. I love this show. I’m looking forward to watching it again.

It’s good, clever writing, executed on a tight budget and punching way above its weight class. Consider the scene where Billy Maximoff takes over the body of Billy Kaplan. There aren’t any huge special effects in this scene. There is the sound of a slowing heartbeat, a subtle push-in with the camera, and then Billy shouts for his brother. It’s a flawless execution which tells the story as efficiently as possible. It’s perfect.

I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. Let me know if there’s some nuance that really speaks to you that I may have missed.

The sun has been down for a little while and a few trick-or-treaters have blessed our doorstep. We still give away full size candy bars, but we don’t give cans of soda anymore. It seems like getting a can of soda during Halloween was something cool that happened when I was young, but now it’s just this heavy thing that takes up a bunch of room in the bag. I think kids have more access to soda than we did when I was a kid, so it’s not special anymore.

They love CapriSun, though, so I’ve been offering those with the candy bars. Every visitor has taken one with glee. So, the Buhl house is still the house to visit in our neighborhood on Halloween.

I want to say something heartfelt tonight while I’m waiting for kids to come knock on our door. I want to say something real.

Politics have been on my mind. I look at the polls and the news and I see this ridiculously imbalanced race that is somehow down to a coin flip. I don’t know how it can be this close.

I don’t want to talk about politics, to be honest. I don’t want to talk about Harris or Trump or project 2025 or the Supreme Court or any of those things that bother me so much. I don’t think you want me to talk about those things. You either disagree with me fundamentally, in which case I’m wasting your time, or you and I are already on the same page, in which case, I’m wasting your time.

This is not a place that is going to change hearts and minds. This is a place where I talk about my writer’s journey, which includes my experiences through this life. Sometimes this will include politics and my opinions on elections, but it doesn’t have to tonight.

Instead, maybe I’ll talk a little bit about something that is closely related to politics. I’m going to talk about faith.

I want to love people. I want to love humanity, and believe that we are capable of incredible beauty and grace and love, and I want to celebrate our ingenuity and compassion and art. I want to love people. Some people might say I’m describing the message of Christ, to love as He loved, unconditionally, but I’m not going to mix up what I’m talking about with Christianity right now. We may be called to love as Christ loved, to be willing to put down our lives for people that probably don’t deserve it, but I’m not there yet.

I want to believe that most people are like me. They’re just going through their lives, trying to do the best they can. I want to believe that they will help people in need. They need love and forgiveness and grace, just like I do.

This is a core part of who I am. My faith is that people are mostly good. I try to be kind, and though I fail sometimes, I keep trying. For my faith to be real, I cannot be particularly special in that regard.

So why am I talking about this? What does this have to do with anything?

We’re living through unprecedented times, when we are measured and tested, and as I look around me, it’s hard for me to maintain my faith in humanity.

The other day, we went to Mel’s for brunch, and as we were waiting for food, I saw some sort of political commercial playing on television that was clearly anti-trans bullshit. Just two or three minutes of unnecessary hate on the screen, on a sports channel. No one else seemed to notice it. I couldn’t look away.

I don’t claim to be a trans ally, but I acknowledge their humanity and their right to live as they want to live. They do not need to be made a public enemy. They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just people. But there is an entire political campaign using them as some sort of bogeyman in order to drum up their hateful base.

Do you spend much time on social media? Have you thrown out your sense of self-preservation and wandered through YouTube comments? In every corner of the Internet, the most vile, hateful messages can be found. Some may be the work of bots, but the truth is that there are a lot of people out there with enough time on their hands and malice in their hearts that they’re willing to take time out of their day to post nastiness, where everyone can see it.

Again, why am I dwelling on this? There will always be terrible people. Right?

I can’t get over how many people seem to be so different from me in their fundamental alignment. It damages my core belief, that most people are good, decent folks, just doing the best they can.

I’m not saying that anyone that disagrees with me is a terrible person. We can have differences in taste and still be friends. We can have different approaches in life, and we don’t have to be friends, but I’ll still respect your humanity. It’s issues of morality where I start to get upset.

All people should have rights over their own body, regardless of their gender or sexuality. Women’s right to choose is fundamental. Women have died already because of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. It has not made the world better for children. It has not reduced infant mortality, or improved the lives of any babies out there at all.

We are all born from immigrants. Immigrants are not evil. They’re people. But there is an entire political movement that thinks mass deporting of immigrants — legal or otherwise — is a Good Thing. If you are on that side of the political isle, I implore you: Put away the racism, honor your heritage, and leave the immigrants alone. Let them work. Let them live. Quit sacrificing their livelihood for political capital.

The Earth is not flat. Vaccines are not dangerous. Science is a process for learning, not a rival of faith. Racism is stupid. Homophobia is stupid. Transphobia is stupid. Misogyny is stupid. Ableism is stupid.

Nothing I’ve said feels difficult or controversial. At the heart of what I’m saying, it’s The Golden Rule. It is “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” It is also Love They Neighbor. When I look around the Internet, it seems like what I think of as The Golden Rule, bad actors call “wokeness.”

Maybe I should clarify that last point a little, since it may seem like an overstatement. Most of the time I see something being criticized for being “woke,” it’s in regards to a character in a movie or book being gay or a person of color. “The MCU was great before they started pushing all that woke shit down our throat.” What they are saying is that the presence of people that look different than they do is offensive, or part of some kind of agenda. The reality is that the world is full of people that shouldn’t have to hide, and their presence in stories is a more accurate representation of the world we live in.

I’m getting preachy, so maybe I should close this out. It’s already too long.

It won’t be much longer before I’ll turn off the light out front and put away the rest of the candy. We didn’t get a ton of trick-or-treaters this year. I feel fortunate that I can give away candy and make some kids happy every year.

Happy Halloween, everyone. And for those of you getting ready to write a whole bunch in November, good luck!

Hello, everyone. It’s me, your friend Brian.

Many Octobers, I enter the month with the plan of writing a blog post every day. I enjoy it, and from the stats, some of you enjoy it, too. Unfortunately, I got really sick right after the cruise. I’m okay now. A bit of a lingering cough, but I’m fine. And it didn’t seem like it was Covid, since I tested a couple of times and no one else around me got sick. But it took the wind out of my sails, and I’m just now feeling up to facing this particular blank page.

Will I participate in Nanowrimo?

There are two answers to that. The first is: I’m no longer associating with the organization itself. The people in this area, I’ll happily hang out and write with, but the organization that hosts nanowrimo.org has lost the Buhl Seal of Approval.

I still like the idea of writing 50,000 words in November every year. The task itself is rewarding to me, even on the years that I don’t succeed. November is still Novel Month, to me. Nomo, if we’re feeling fancy. But will I try to do that this year?

Maybe. I haven’t been doing any writing lately. I haven’t felt well. I’ve been a bit depressed. I didn’t even get any real writing done while on the cruise.

I enjoyed the cruise quite a bit, and I don’t feel like my time was wasted there. I reconnected with community, and aside from getting ridiculously sunburned on my legs and feet again, I relaxed. I needed a vacation, and that’s what the writing retreat became. I attended the classes and I enjoyed everyone there. I just didn’t get any writing accomplished.

Work continues to extract more from me than what I’m capable of replenishing during the week. The days are long, starting before the sun rises and continuing long after the sun has gone to bed. The last few weeks, all I’ve done is work and sleep.

October is almost over. I have a lot on my mind, and I haven’t felt up to expressing it here. I haven’t felt comfortable hanging out with friends, because when I get into this kind of slump, I do not want to bring my friends down. I don’t want to be a burden.

The election is upon us, but I’m not going to write about that today. Maybe this weekend. For now, I just wanted to check in and say, “I’m okay! Hanging in there. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

Melissa and I are sitting in a bar at the Embassy Suites, not far from LAX. We have a giant Blue Moon between us. She’s looking through submissions sent to Cupid’s Arrow. I’m thinking about the next Mel Walker novel.

In a few hours, we’ll meet up and mingle with others in the Writing Excuses Retreat community. Tomorrow, we’ll board the Navigator of the Seas and enjoy a 7 day cruise.

What did it take to get here? I have a lot of ways to answer that question.

Physically, we drove here. Melissa, Mike Baltar, and I got up very early in the morning. Melissa and I took an Uber to the airport, grabbed a Ford Expedition from Dollar rental at 6AM, and we picked up Mike on the way. We dropped the car off at LAX and then joked about how much taxiing we endured before arriving at our destination. As Mike said, our stewardess did a great job.

Financially, Melissa and I spent some money several months ago, because this is our one big vacation we like to take in the year. Since so much is covered by the up front cost, it feels like a bargain. I consider us extremely fortunate to be able to afford taking the week off from our respective jobs and spending the tuition that allows us to take part.

With regards to our responsibilities, we both had a bit of extra work we needed to do with our day jobs in order to make this trip possible. Melissa had to wrap up as much of her work as possible, then prepare her other assistants to take up her slack while she is away. I had to work some insane hours in order to get the development to a point where it would go on without me for a week and a half. Monday this week, I worked from 6AM to 11:30PM. It didn’t feel great doing it, but the work was necessary.

As a writer, it took a lot of hard work and dedication to my craft, though that’s not strictly necessary to join the Writing Excuses community. They take people at all skill levels, and there is no expectation of me to perform as a writer. However, this is our sixth year attending, and I feel like if I hadn’t done something to advance as a writer, I would have a hard time justifying the cost of the trip.

We have the opportunity to learn quite a bit during these events, but it really is the community that is the true treasure. These are my friends. These are my people. It feels like coming home when we get together.

For the last several weeks, I’ve had this trip coming up, and I’ve had to put it out of my mind to keep the anticipation and excitement from distracting me from all the things I needed to do in order to make the trip acceptable. I’m here now, and it’s almost time to board the ship, and I’m having a hard time suppressing the instinct to suppress my emotions. It’s a barrier I’m going to need to topple pretty soon, so I can enjoy this trip to its fullest.

I’m a little afraid of getting Covid again during this trip. Everyone’s been getting it lately. It’s everywhere. Bryanna just had it. A few weeks ago, Mary Robinette picked it up during one of the events she attended. DongWon Song isn’t able to join us this year because they picked it up recently. If you’ve been looking around and seeing it spread like it was 2020 all over again, it’s not your imagination. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Sitting at this bar, Melissa and I are both masked up. We didn’t mask in the car, but we’ve been masking while we’ve been around people. We also both got our vaccinations, just a couple of days after the new vaccine became available. We’re taking all appropriate cautions, but it still seems like some of our group are going to get sick this cruise, and we have to hope it won’t be us.

I think that brings me to the real trick with this whole trip. I need to relax and let down my guard, so that I can connect with other people and really enjoy myself. At the same time, I can’t stop worrying about a highly contagious virus floating around, a virus that almost killed me two years ago. And, as much as I love this community, there’s a part of me that feels like I have to perform, to meet their expectations.

First world problems, I guess.

I’m here. I’m glad to be here. I’m here to work the job I wish I had, so let the vacation begin.

As someone on Twitter put it:

Obviously, this is going to be one of my political opinion posts, so if you’re not into that, skip along.

Trump said some truly outrageous things tonight. He talked about illegal immigrants eating dogs, cats, and pets. He claimed that Harris wants to perform transgender operations on illegal immigrants. Trump had a lot of unsubstantiated things to say about immigrants. Harris rightly called Trump weak to his face, but in such a way that she still maintained Presidential poise.

Trump’s Gish gallop didn’t work that well tonight. The moderators fact checked him occasionally, though not all the time. As usual, Harris had to work harder and was under higher scrutiny and pressure, but she did it with dignity. She came across as the candidate of hope and the future, while Trump… couldn’t complete a sentence as the crazy voices in his head compelled him to say outlandish, foolish things.

I’m relieved to see Harris do well in this debate. It’s still going to be a close fight, but it’s not because Harris is the weaker candidate. It’s close because too many people in this country are unwilling to put country over party. It’s this close because too many people aren’t listening to the words coming out of their chosen candidates intolerant mouth.

Listening to Trump speak for so long gave me an outrageous headache. When the debate ended, I sat back, sweating and nauseous from the head pain, and I mused over how we as a country arrived at this point. There is a clear candidate that is actually decent and good. There is another that is a clear and present danger. And yet, the race is close.

Brace yourselves, because I’m going to say something controversial: I think our country is teetering on the precipice because Bill Clinton couldn’t keep it in his pants.

I will explain.

As President, Bill Clinton did some amazing things for the US economy. For the first time in ages, we had an economic surplus. We were enjoying peace, to the point where our military shrank to its lowest size since the 40s. His legacy should have been impeccable, and it should have been easy for Gore to succeed him, based on record alone.

But, Clinton abused his power and position, took advantage of a White House intern, marring her reputation and destroying her privacy and her name. Clinton’s horniness created a public spectacle. This empowered people like Grinch and Star, and it distracted us from his actual policy wins. It led to the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court handed the election to George W. Bush, a man that has publicly stated that he believes humans and fish can coexist together.

George W. Bush looked at this incredible economy and budget he inherited and thought, “You know what? Instead of using this money to keep advancing America’s interests, and maybe investing in health care, how about I give it all away and screw around with tax breaks, setting us up for future financial ruin?” So that’s what he did. And very briefly, his policies received scrutiny for being stupid, short-sighted, and not in America’s best interests.

Then September 11th, 2001 rolled around and we lost our damn minds. Republicans shifted harder into patriotism as religion. Low-brow red voters put a giant flag in the back of their truck and drove through the streets, because the way we were going to get to the other side of this national tragedy that killed just over 2000 people was by putting up flags. This is also when we had folks like Toby Keith sing about America putting boots in asses, conflating racism with patriotism in ways that I’m not sure we ever really cleared up.

Patriot Act, War on Terror, a newly created Homeland Security agency, and racism pretty much stayed in fashion throughout Bush’s presidency. Kerry was a relatively weak candidate that Bush narrowly beat. But during Kerry’s run, at the DMC, we caught our first glimpse of Obama. He spoke, people listened, and Democrats started wondering how he would do as a candidate.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, after weathering the embarrassment of her husband’s behavior in the White House, after becoming a senator and continuing her service to her country, looks at returning to the White House as President instead of as First Lady. She runs a good campaign, but sexism gets in the way. Also… she’s a huge nerd, and comes across as a huge nerd when she speaks. This detracts from her presence. Whenever Obama speaks, people claim their acne is cleared up, their posture is better, and they keep finding loose change in the couch cushions.

The fight to become the Democratic candidate could go the distance. It could be Clinton, or it could be Obama. If one does not relinquish, though, McCain the war hero could take the presidency.

So, Obama goes to Clinton and makes a deal. Drop out of the race, and Clinton can become Secretary of State and get setup for 2016. Biden is in on this deal, and doesn’t run in 2016. Clinton agrees, McCain’s VP candidate turns out to be a crazy woman with “good foreign policy experience” because she can see Russian from her house, and Obama wins.

Fox News becomes the mouth piece of a conservative movement. We had Rush Limbaugh for forever, but Fox News stepped up their game and fomented the Tea Party, which gives us fart smellers like Ted Cruz. People willing to shut down the government from a minority position in order to force issues. Obama takes Romney’s state medical plan, tweaks it a little bit, puts it forth as the Affordable Care Act, and even with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, it barely passes. It does some good things, but it is not a great plan. It remains as the law of the land, to this day.

Obama inherited a tanked economy, and he turned it around. After 8 years, it’s booming. And it’s now Hillary Clinton’s turn.

But, there are other contenders. Bernie is buoyed by his Bros, which forces Clinton into positions she is not entirely comfortable. Obama endorses Clinton, but there’s only so much he can do. Bernie keeps his campaign going long past its viability, which does irreparable damage to Clinton’s campaign.

Trump, after tricking the Genie into giving him another wish, is the Republican candidate, running as a hateful, ruthless, businessman. He’s a bigot and a monster, but he’s not a politician like anyone has seen before. He gets billions in free advertising from the news media, because he’s good for ratings. At that point in time, I don’t think people really thought he’d do as well as he did.

Clinton, still a big damn nerd, tells people to Pokémon Go to the polls. She is absolutely correct in her assessments of Trump and his basket of deplorables, but she had a weird affectation that put people off. Clinton wins the popular vote, but loses in the electoral college.

And so, we get Trump, the worst president this country has ever endured. He loses to Biden, incites an insurrection, and continues to pollute the air with his terrible voice and his terrible lies. Biden and Trump were our oldest candidates in 2020, and then they were our oldest candidates in 2024. We nominated Biden in 2020 because he was the “safe” choice. And we kept ridin’ with Biden because of the power of the incumbency and his very effective results, but because of a remarkably terrible debate performance, combined with the courage to put country over party, Biden dropped out, delivering us into this Harris versus Trump world.

All this history lesson was to say that if Bill Clinton had kept his Little Willy under control, George W. Bush might not have become president. Even if Bush did win over Gore, Gingrich wouldn’t have been empowered, and Gingrich’s political stylings wouldn’t be in play today, which is where much of Trump’s playbook comes from.

If Gore had been president instead of Bush, we probably wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq. Hell, the tragedy of September 11th might not have happened at all. We might have focused more on climate change. We might have even expanded Medicare so that we have a single-payer option and better healthcare for everyone.

Without Kerry running in 2004, we wouldn’t have had the introduction to Obama. If Obama did not run when he did, then Trump wouldn’t have been carried up in the news media with all of his birtherism bullshit.

Anyway, the game of what-if is fun, but it focuses on the past while the present is where it’s at. In this moment, this timeline, we have a clear speaking candidate in Kamala Harris, and we have an incoherent buffoon in Donald Trump, a monster that in tonight’s debate, said he’d be fine with going door-to-door with the National Guard and local police to deport 3% of our population. Maybe let’s not do that.

Recently, I went to my friend’s house to play some board games. I love board games, almost as much as I love tabletop roleplaying games. However, heading out and trying to be social might not have been a great idea. I was still dealing with the wave of emotions from Chris’s accident, and when I’m feeling that raw, I’m not always the best person to be around.

I did my best. I told everyone what was up, and we did a little bit of a vibe check on the games. I said I was hoping for something cooperative, or at least, not exceedingly cutthroat. They all got it, though I could tell there was this one Dune game they all really wanted to play which was counter to my stated needs.

For those that don’t know me that well, I can be exceedingly competitive. I think it’s a trait I picked up from my mother. We’d play scrabble and she would absolutely trounce me. I was in my early to mid teens and she had forty years of experience on me. She could have chosen to keep it a friendly game but instead she cackled over her immaculately recorded score.

Sometimes when I play games, I become my Mom. It’s not an entirely bad thing, but there’s a time and a place.

I knew on game day that the competitive asshole inside me was just beneath the surface, and I really didn’t want to let him out. That’s why I requested we go light on the competition and avoid some of the cutthroat. My competitive edge can be razor sharp, and I didn’t want it to cut any bonds of friendship.

Unfortunately, there was one guy at the table that was absolutely the competitive asshole I was trying not to be. By the end of the evening, I “won” but maybe at the expense of getting invited back, and I feel bad about that.

I’m not going to name names. I’ll refer to the other asshole at the table as My Rival. The first hint that things were going to go hard in the paint was during the first game, Scythe, when every time My Rival’s turn came up, he’d salivate and take on this tone of, “Now watch THIS” and then do some weird mechanic in the game to give himself advantage. He won the first game, and while we mostly had fun, it felt kind of icky to me, like I just watched this guy jack off on the table while he made us watch.

The next game was Codewords, and I was thankful because I see it as a very light and fun game. Our host had to step out for a little bit, so the four of us that remained paired off in teams of 2. There was a mechanic in the game I forgot, so I blundered a little during the first round, but I didn’t see it as a big deal. At one point when I was on the guessing side, the other team missed a clue, and in the course of talking about it, I gave him the answer. My Rival said that’s what “cost me the game,” which hit me as weird because until he said something, I hadn’t felt like I’d “lost.” We were just playing.

“What do you get for winning that game?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” My Rival replied.

“I mean, is there some prize for winning a game of Codewords?”

“Well, no, but–“

“You say I lost, but I felt smart for catching the clue, and it felt good to talk about it. I don’t feel like I lost at all.”

He didn’t like my response. I was getting the impression from him that the only reason he saw to play a game was to win.

The final game was Dune. It wasn’t Dune: Imperium. I don’t know the exact name of this Dune game, but it had a big map that unrolled onto the table, and it reminded me strongly of Cosmic Encounter. Each player takes on a faction which breaks the game in a unique way. This was the competitive game that they all wanted to play from the beginning. I went along with it because I didn’t want to get in the way of the group having fun.

After about a half hour of setup and rules explanation, we started the first round. Because I had never played the game before, I did not play optimally. As the Space Truckers, I should have been able to go last, or whenever I wanted. My Rival took advantage of this. My Rival sat back while everyone kind of floundered. Then he declared, “I win” and explained how he won by taking advantage of our ignorance.

After most of a day of build up and anticipation of playing this game, then thirty minutes of setup, it was truly unsatisfying. No one had fun at the table, except My Rival, because the only thing he was interested in was winning.

We agreed to run it back so that we could actually play the game, and I replayed my turn more in accordance with how it should have been played, which kept My Rival from winning on turn one. We continued playing, but My Rival kept repeating how he won the first game, and this was sort of a victory lap for him.

After the second or third time he said something like that, I broke bad. I didn’t shave my head or start a meth lab. Instead, I unchained the competitive asshole within me. It was time to live up to my terrifying potential.

I looked at the game, the board, and My Rival. There was no path to victory for me through regular game play. My Rival, who knew the game, had picked an imbalanced faction from the beginning and it really wasn’t possible for anyone to win but him. Unless I played a little bit differently. If, instead of going for a victory of my own, I played every turn to minimize his gains, I wouldn’t technically win the game, but he would never be able to get ahead of the other people at the table.

I said, “I know my win condition.”

“What do you mean?” My Rival said.

“I know what my win condition is now.”

“The rules are the rules. You either win or you don’t.”

“I’ll follow the rules, but we always get to choose our own win condition.”

He did not like me saying that.

The game continued, and I kept playing to prevent him from advancing. When an event happened that allowed alliances to be formed or broken, I revealed my strategy. My Rival did not like it, and thought I was an idiot for playing in such a way.

“You can’t win playing that way, and I already won the first game–“

“Did you win the first game, or did we have a mulligan? It can’t be both.”

He really did not like me saying that.

A few turns went by, and My Rival finally saw the merit in my gameplay. As the Space Truckers, I had passive income, and it was cheaper for me to deploy troops. I would always have money to deploy and create fights. Since I kept deploying in such a way as to keep him from getting income, he could never gain any advantage. He would win every single battle with his broken faction, but he could never win the war as long as I kept impeding him.

He rage quit. He got up and left.

“Okay, see ya!” I said. “I’m never playing with you again!”

“You’re an asshole!” he said, in the same tone. He might have added some other expletives.

I talked to the host and the remainder of the group. I apologized. They said it was okay, and laughed a little bit.

“If you never invite me back, I completely understand.”

“No way, man. You’re crew.”

Still.

As always, there are some lessons that can be taken from this. We can talk about “Know thyself,” which I did, but chose to go the dark path anyway. We can talk about doing things too soon after a trauma. We can talk about the pros and cons of a competitive nature.

I mostly want to focus on this: You can always choose your own win conditions.

It’s taken me a while to learn this, and even though I applied the idea in a semi-destructive way in this story, there are positive applications in other areas of our life. Let’s talk about how it can help a writer.

The typical “win” condition for a writer is to get published, quit their day job, and live off their labor of love. That’s the dream. Unfortunately, there are a lot of moving pieces that the writer has no control over, so they really have no way of guaranteeing such a “win.” Statistically speaking, almost no one wins that game.

Here are things a writer can do that can constitute a win:

• Write 2000 words a day in the month of November (I’ll talk about NaNoWriMo in another post)
• Attend 4 conventions or retreats in a year
• Submit 1 query or submission every 6 weeks
• Read 1 book a month outside your typical genre

Pick any or all of these things, do them, and consider it a win. Or pick something else that’s in your control that positively leads towards the dream.

When you choose something to focus and make that your win condition, there is nothing outside your control to keep you from winning. This works everywhere.

• Maintain your diet for 4 days in a row
• Get all of your work tasks logged by the end of the day
• Spend 15 minutes a day researching that project you’ve always wanted to do

Anything can be a win condition if you need it to be.

Finally, if you set yourself up some goals as win conditions and you fall short, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up, because you can go again. And the next time, you can win.

It is another Sunday morning, and like last week, I’m sitting in Pachamama’s, writing a blog post before jumping back into The Psychic Out of Time. It has been an eventful week. There’s been a lot to process.

Last week on Sunday, as Melissa and I enjoyed our time in the coffee shop, Chris laid his bike down. He, a novice, rode with a group of bikers on a very technical route. His friend Nico rode ahead of him and went down first. Chris didn’t know Nico crashed until he went down himself. Chris got a little bit of road rash on his right arm and some deep bruising on his shoulder, but was otherwise unharmed. Nico sustained much more serious injuries. Nico died in the ambulance. Chris was the last person Nico spoke to.

Melissa and I didn’t find out until later that evening. Chris went to the hospital, and they gave him fluids. He didn’t call us. The accident occurred around 9:30AM, and Chris walked in the door at home a little after 9PM. He didn’t want to talk about it. He definitely didn’t want to talk to his Melissa, because she has been critical of his decision to get a motorcycle the entire time. He went outside to call his boss. I went out after him, hugged him, and gave him an opportunity to grieve. He told me he hadn’t been able to cry about what happened until that moment.

The next day, I had some processing to do myself. I almost lost my son. He was fine, physically, but it could have gone the other way. Chris walked away from the accident, but his friend died. Somewhere out there, a father that lost his 21 year old son. There is no denying that I could have lost Chris.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I went into the office and worked. My boss was in town, so I met with him. We had a couple of new people join Trimark, and I needed to train one of them. I navigated some unnecessary drama concerning where I was going to sit while in the office. Mostly, the normal stresses of work helped me deal with the abnormal stress of a near-death experience of a loved one.

I continue to process, but Melissa struggles. She had to go to the place where the accident happened and see it herself. She questions details of the story. Chris said he didn’t see Nico until after he went down. The other people riding with him and Nico kept going because they didn’t see Chris or Nico on the ground. Melissa can’t wrap her head around that. She’s having trouble getting to the other side. She doesn’t seem to want to feel relief from the fact that our son is alive and still with us.

Chris’s motorcycle sustained some damage. One of the front spokes is bent and will need to be fully replaced. There is quite a bit of cosmetic damage. With some money and some TLC, I think the bike will function again. Chris wants to ride again, and that also bothers Melissa.

How do you deal with a trauma like this? What’s the right thing to do?

There may not be a right or a wrong answer here. The way I see it, getting a motorcycle was Chris exercising his ability to be an adult. He did the research, bought the gear, took the courses, and made all of the decisions on his own. He picked something and exercised a little bit of ambition and free will to make it his thing. He found a community of people enthusiastic about riding and he joined them. He chose to make this a part of his identity. As a parent, isn’t this what I want my children to do?

Melissa thinks that he shouldn’t ride again. He could have died. Motorcycles are dangerous. How can he go back to it?

I think he should continue making adult decisions. I don’t think he should let fear control him. He should acknowledge the fear, learn from his mistakes, and evaluate what’s best for himself. He could have died, but he didn’t. He wore protected gear that helped him. I’m sure that when he was going down, he followed his instincts and training, preventing the situation from getting worse.

Choosing the safest way isn’t always the best choice. Letting an accident define your choices and redefine who you are isn’t the best way to handle adversity. Chris chose to become a biker, sort of how I chose to be a writer. He now has to choose whether or not he wants to keep that identity.

There is still more processing and healing to be done. Chris doesn’t have complete mobility in his right arm yet, and needs a doctor to sign something saying he can go back to work. He still needs to deal with the loss of his friend. Melissa still needs to process the shock of nearly losing her son, and to a certain extent, deal with the loss that comes from one of her children growing up and choosing their own path, even if it’s a path she disagrees with.

I probably still have some processing to do, too. This isn’t the blog post I meant to write, but I think it’s the one I needed to write.

Before I get to the review, let me talk about what’s going on with me and my writing.

It’s Sunday, almost afternoon, and I’m sitting in Pachamama’s coffee shop downtown. In a little while, there should be a Shut-up and Write here. I think my friend Mike Baltar will show up then. Unless he reads my blog beforehand, my appearance here today should be a surprise.

Yesterday, Melissa and I celebrated Bryanna’s birthday by taking Bryanna and her best friend for a ride. We went through the Jelly Belly Factory tour, something we haven’t done in ages. We spent some time in Benecia, sampling fancy oils, looking at art, eating tasty food, and sitting by the water in the bay. Once back home, we went to the Tower Cafe near downtown. We did our best to make Bryanna feel special, and I think we did a pretty good job.

While on the road, I had some time to think about the next Mel Walker novel. I’ve been a little bit stuck on part of the outline, so I haven’t drafted any of the new story yet. Yesterday, while I sat on the passenger side of the car with my laptop open and my mind focused, I did some free indirect writing and realized that my current outline is probably enough. I’ll revisit it once I get going, but Mel Walker stories rely on my wit in the moment of discovery.

I did not outline The Repossessed Ghost, and I had a very short outline for The Psychic on the Jury. Why do I think I need a broader plan for The Psychic Out of Time?

The next Mel Walker novel is more complicated than the previous stories, no doubt about it. But I already figured out the complicated parts. My outline describes a coherent story. It’s just missing a handful of details, which I’m certain to figure out after I’ve started, and not before.

So, it’s time to start.

Before I begin drafting, I want to talk about The Acolyte since we just received news that there will be no season 2, and I think some people (probably Disney) will walk away with the wrong lesson from the first season.

I sort of wrote a short review once already. It looked like this:

I can go deeper, though, so I will. Let this be your spoiler warning. Hereafter, I will dive into the details of Star Wars: The Acolyte – Season 1. If you haven’t seen it yet and you want to watch it without spoilers, now is the time to bail out on this post.

Let’s talk about some of the things I liked, and some of the things that are quintessentially Star Wars.

• Some fun lightsaber stuff
• Twins are a common Star Wars trope, which works about half the time
• The show looked good, and the scenes on Coruscant were consistent with what we’ve seen of that planet in other movies and shows
• Good choreography
• Good ship designs

There are other good things, but this list feels safe. If you tell someone else that watched the show that you liked those things, they would probably nod in begrudging agreement.

I personally like that they visited new places in the galaxy. No time or mention was made of Tatooine. The new places reminded me places we’ve seen before in the Star Wars galaxy, but that’s fine. There should be multiple forest planets and moons beyond Kashyyyk and Endor.

I like that we got to see Force users that weren’t just Jedi and Sith. The Force is mystical, powerful, and everywhere. There should be other people with connections to it that are different and interesting.

Now let’s talk about some of the things that didn’t work for me.

Starting with some minor, arguable points, I think the Jedi should be good guys. In this story, they… weren’t. Should they be perfect? No. Can their arrogance lead to them making mistakes? Absolutely. How about invading a family’s house, murdering everyone inside, and then covering it up for years and years? No. No, that’s a bridge too far.

To write a good story about the Jedi, it is best to treat them like Superman. There are deconstructions of Superman where they take away or reduce his morality, but then you’re not dealing with Superman anymore. I think the same can be said for the Jedi. Unlike Superman, villains can overpower a Jedi, but the Jedi should continue fighting the good fight with The Force as their guide. They can be corrupted and fall, but then they’re not Jedi anymore.

Does that mean that I did not like the antagonist, Qimir? No. Qimir was a Jedi, but then he “fell” and became something else. He said the Jedi would call him a Sith, but I don’t think Qimir was a Sith, either. He was something different, not entirely evil, but definitely not a good guy. There was a kind of fairness to him which made him a more compelling character.

So far, I’ve talked about minor things. I have a great capacity for forgiveness for most things Star Wars, and everything I’ve mentioned so far, I could handwave away, if necessary.

Not this next point, though. Let’s talk about our main characters, and the real failing: Mae and Osha.

We start with Mae tracking down Indara in a weird bar and trying to kill her. Indara is a Jedi Master, but Mae holds her own for the most part. The choreography is good. I enjoyed the action. Then, at the end of the fight, Mae gets the better of Indara by throwing a blade at the bartender, an innocent bystander. Indara, acting as a hero, changes her focus to save the bartender, and then Mae uses the distraction to kill Indara, a true act of villainy.

After this, we’re introduced to Osha, who seems like a nice person. We’re given an extremely minor mystery in the form of, “what’s up with Osha and did she kill those people in the bar?” The mystery is resolved very quickly, which leaves us with twins: one that has done an unforgiveable act in the process of murdering Indara, and one that we want to see reunited with her master so that she can continue learning the Force and become the Jedi she once wished to be.

This is a fine setup. There’s nothing wrong with this. But then, through the course of the show, we’re shown more of Mae and Osha. The story tries to make us like Mae more, but she’s already demonstrated that she’s willing to kill innocent people to achieve her goal. If she hadn’t tried to kill the bartender in order to kill Indara, I might have been able to get on board with her redemption. She was, after all, going after “bad” Jedi, right? The people that were responsible for the death of her family and stranding her alone all those years ago, right?

Then Osha kills Sol and goes off with Qimir. She turned to the dark side, corrupting the crystal in her old Master’s lightsaber. This leaves us with zero characters to root for and care about.

That is what went wrong with Star Wars: The Acolyte. We had no hero.

In the original trilogy, we love Luke, Han, and Leia. We will go to the ends of the galaxy with them and back. They are heroes, and we love them.

In the prequel trilogy, we love Quigon until he dies. We are on board with Anakin, until he becomes Darth Vader and kills Jedi children. We love Obiwan, but he’s not really given that much screen time. And we mostly love Padme, until she disappears in the third movie, showing up at the end to die giving birth to our next set of heroes.

I’m not going to talk about the sequel trilogy at this time.

The point that I’m trying to make is that Star Wars is best when we have a character to root for. It’s best when we have someone to get invested in.

The Mandalorian series has been good because we like Din Djarin. He’s a hero, and we can follow him around and enjoy his stoic heroism.

We didn’t get a hero in The Acolyte that we could latch onto and root for. That’s the biggest failing of the series, and the lesson Disney will fail to learn. Other Star Wars fans may air other grievances, but I think everything else could have been forgiven if we’d just been given one character to love without reservation.

That’s my extended review of The Acolyte. It wasn’t worse than The Rise of Skywalker, in my opinion, but I understand why people didn’t like it.