[Hi gang! I don’t wanna run a whole friggin’ website anymore, all I ever wanted was to make with the fake lies, yelling, and jokes that aren’t worth the legwork for the people, to be a simple blogger. To that end, you can now find me over at The Naming Way courtesy of the truly excellent Pika, alongside such Dudes of Quality as Brenden! It’s The Bageler will stay up until my subscription runs out next year and I’ll continue to cross-post until then; thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you over at my new pad!]
SO CONCLUDETH BLAUGUST 2024. I think we can all agree: a rousing success, by any measure¹.
I will be honest, reader(s): I do not have a Topic for you today, but the goal of Blaugust has never been to produce Content™️, but rather just to write; write more, write better, and write like we mean it.
I didn’t write as much as I wanted to, largely because of Work Stuff that gobbled up most of my Action Points this month; new case-assignment, overtime, heists, etc.; same old, feat. same old. But I wrote more than I might’ve, and I’m happy with what I got done; I hope everyone who participated feels the same way.
I am a fan of symmetry, of things ending where they began and coming full circle and other things that could be Muse album-titles. And so, to set down as I set out, I will tell you about my day.
- The power—tempting cruel, hilarious Fate though typing this may—did not go out, mashallah.
- We went to Costco² and purchased a NEW CAT-TREE, which we constructed in our habitual fashion: with laughter and the periodic realization that normal couples fight during projects like this, and calling each other ‘my good bitch’, ‘Buckfutter Jones’, and ‘Elon Musk’s search-history’ to compensate. At the risk of being a Wife Guy: you guys, I love her so, so much. She’s the best and she was sleepy and punchy and unpredictably hilarious and adorable today because the asshole cats woke her up too early, and every second of it was wonderful.
Jasper/Dazzy/Woo and Headless Cannoli provided for scale - THEN TO THE VETERINARIUM, for to get three of our small, terrible men up on their vaccines and as traumatized as possible. In pursuit of this, I was relieved of a number of my bloods, but it’s okay, I can grow more if provided enough wholesome, nourishing Dr. Pepper and grape Big League Chew. Cannoli, Cooper, and Misu were evaluated, poked, measured, jabbed, weighed, temperatured³, and lightly sautéed. DIAGNOSIS: GOOD AND CUTE AND SOFT AND FFFFFFFFFFFUCKING EXPENSIVE.
- THENCE HOME, where awaited us EVERYTHING BAGELS and HOMEMADE RICE KRISPIE TREATS and an EPISODE OF COLUMBO THAT PROMISED A HELL OF A LOT MORE VINCENT PRICE THAN IT DELIVERED.
Columbo is the epitome of the Good Boring and is ideal just-something-to-have-on television: every episode is actually a TV-movie and there is a LOT of air in them, presumably for in case people would channel-hop or go make make some chili because the power of suggestion is real, and then afterward naturally need longer bathroom breaks than commercial time allowed for; you really don’t need to pay much attention, and even drifting in and out you’ll still be able to tell what’s basically going on, and I actually think that’s indicative of the strength of the production qua what it is and what it’s trying to do. - I then hung out with my buddy Isaac for a bit, because our normal book-club-pal William DOESN’T LOVE US ANYMORE and needed to “prioritize” his “entire family moving into a new house” and other such likely-ass stories. So we just chilled and engaged in what I believe—and I hope to Store-Brand God this means what I think it does—the Youth refer to as parallel play; we just chatted while he played some Dredge and some Balatro, I played some Vampire Survivors and then got distracted by backseat-driving his game of Balatro because he was streaming it to me and HE WAS PLAYING IT WRONG⁴. Highlight of our time together: pairing a Joker that featured a spooky mask and a Joker that featured a wampire, which worked really well together and which we realized were an accidental Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure reference when paired. A+, 10/10, would recommend lampin’ with Isaac except you can’t, he’s my friend and you can’t have him.
On a more semi-serious note, I’ve got the Productivity Brainworms and have a very difficult time just hanging out with even people I love dearly if we aren’t Doing Something; William and Isaac are helping me break these mental chains, and for this I am grateful. Go waste some time with a coupla homies! You’re gonna die one day and being unable to play a game of D&D without recording it for a podcast or whatever isn’t gonna keep that from happening or get you any points when it does! - Then the last two current-season episodes of The Morning Show (amazing, go watch the whole thing now), a couple of of Newharts, and now to play with the outside kittens a bit and then to bed.
What a lovely day.
And I think we can call that Blaugust. Thanks for coming along with me, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Too sleepy to think of a snappy sign-off,
—C.W.
¹ The measure I’m using is ‘was it fun’, cross-referenced with ‘hoorayyyyyy’
² For my non-American readers, a Costco is a kind of medium-sized country where food lives
³ Interesingly, Cannoli and (Tira)Misu, as befits a pair of actual litter-brothers, had a startling number of 1:1 matching metrics; both weighed 12lb 9½oz, both registered temperatures of 101.6º F , both had respiration-rates of 60 and heartrates of 200. Yes, I record these things; they call me Doctor notes, good evening how are you, I’m Doctor Notes.
⁴ I should hope this is obviously a joke, if not because I wouldn’t tell someone else how to play their game, then because the idea that my advice re: Balatro is valuable is laughable.