F.

Things I did NOT write for work

• What do you write about when you’ve already done ~900 words for work for the day?
• Did you use up all your good material?
• Some of it I’ll cut-and-paste here.
• Maybe.
• Oof.
• The kid had a bad day.
• Started off with me telling her to hurry up too many times.
• In too loud a voice.
• I apologized.
• Because that’s what you do.
• Even when you’re the parent.
• Her day didn’t get much better.
• She heard about Neil Gaiman and all his bullshit.
• Neil’s been one of my favorite authors since I was 17 years old.
• Now I find out he’s likely a fucking creep.
• What do we do with his books?
• Do we hide them?
• Separate the author from their art?
• I have autographs from that guy.
• I’m leaning toward cramming them all in a box and sticking them in a cabinet.
• The news made the Teenager bawl.
• She believes the world is an awful place.
• The Wife said, “In the midst of bawling her eyes out, she said she hated the news and she remembers going to someone’s house and hearing people had been shot in a church.”
• Honestly, she should hate the news.
• Because the shit on TV isn’t really news anymore.
• It’s Shock-for-Profit.
• I have not watched the news … well, basically, I have never watched the news.
• Sure, overheard it from time to time, but I don’t turn it on.
• Not any of it.
• If it’s on the local news, it’s too short to tell you anything.
• If it’s on one of the 24-hour “news” stations, it’s littered with pretty assholes who spew half-assed opinions from moderately educated mouths.
• And that goes for both sides.
• All those stations are for profit.
• All the talking heads are biased.
• I have said this before, and especially to all my friends on both sides of the aisle:
• Stop. Fucking. Watching. Your. News.
• No CNN.
• No NBC.
• No Fox News.
• None of it.
• Get your news from the AP.
• READ IT.
• READ, DAMN YOU.
• Check the source on the media bias chart.
• People keep sending me shit that’s patently untrue.
• Stop it.
• This is one step away from the political arguments none of us want to have with each other.
• And that shit makes everyone miserable.
• And it is crushing the kids, especially ones like mine.
• Again, she believes the world an awful place.
• Who wants to be a grown-up with the bullshit they’re having to see and hear?
• I wouldn’t.
• But the biggest problem with all of it.
• There’s a lot of the world and modern life that’s pretty great.
• And astounding numbers of good people.
• Those are the stories that need to be shared.
• The good, and the belief we can always make the world better.
• That there are more people that reflect good values than not.
• Yeah, there’s a lot that needs to be fixed.
• But you gotta believe to do the good work.
• You have to believe you can make a difference.
• Your children count on you to show them that.
• They don’t count on you to fill them with bias against the Different.
• How other people live their lives is no business of yours.
• You have power only over yourself.
• Stop working to tell others who they are, who they can be, what they can do.
• None of it affects you.
• Not one bit.
• Stop judging.
• Start helping.
• Listen.
• Be there.
• I mean, I’m lecturing myself as much as any of you, and you’re all people I know anyway, so you don’t need to hear it most likely.
• Stop letting fear rule the world.
• Ugh.
• Signing off.