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Greetings, this midsummer evening. I hope you're well and that the little things are mattering in your life. By the way, I'm not sure "mattering" is a word. If it is, it might mean something quite different, for instance, inadvertent skin shedding. An example would be, "Someone mattered on the loveseat. No more half shirts in the house, kids."

As much as we're thankful for the little things that keep us going, there are also those big things, or the things that are consequential to all of us. A prime example is the presidential race.  It's played out like a Hulu TV series, but unlike a show that streams weekly, this one puts out a new episode every day, including weekends. Think House of Cards without a predatory star in ManSpanx. 

Season 1:

The president of the United States (and protagonist, whom we'll call Joe) must come to grips with a precipitous decline in his mental and physical abilities. Joe will be the first to admit that he's lost a step or two, but he believes he's misunderstood and that frankly, his pale, tottering meat suit is all that stands between democracy and tyranny. In his view, people have suddenly forgotten his numerous presidential accomplishments and the five-decade body of work preceding it. Still, in the face of plunging poll numbers, Joe appears incapable of seeing what we, the movie watcher, can clearly track: the man is slipping quickly. 

But Joe's got one more chance, one last shot to reverse his fortunes. He's always savored his role as underdog and he's typically been a decent debater. He's no orator, but his populist opponent can barely string a sentence together and prefers to communicate in ideological sound bites. Joe welcomes this test of his Scranton grit. A solid performance could silence his critics once and for all. 

Joe bombs in the debate. Even his opponent is stunned and Joe is humiliated. He knew what he wanted to say, he just couldn't get it out. Days later, his opponent survives an assassination attempt, followed by a coronation at his party's convention. At 48%, he's never enjoyed a higher favorability rating. Politically speaking, things have never looked darker for Joe.

His closest allies urge him to reconsider his candidacy. Joe now faces a decision. The decision. In a soft, mildly hoarse tone, Joe tells us that he's got an announcement to make.

End, Season 1

After years of anxiety regarding Joe's future plans, I haven't felt this optimistic in a long time. And is it just me, or didn't Joe always seem like the perfect stopgap solution, as opposed to a long-term answer? 

Here are some things I've been wrong about:

• Lance Armstrong is a good guy.  

• I can jump over that double railroad tie.

• Today's the day I'll find something new and delicious at Safeway.

• That Hasselhoff can act.

• The ants will go away. 

• I won't worry about peeing before I leave.

But I don't think I'll be wrong in thinking that Kamala is going to win.

Pretty in Gray

Hello and happy June! According to my new bestie, ChatGPT, the month of June attributes its name to Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage and childbirth, among other things.  

Okay, first of all, let's state the obvious: June should not be named after some nebulous pagan deity—it should be named after freaking June Cleaver. She's the goddess of basically everything, and will forever beckon my heart until we meet again for a hearty back hug and glass of whole milk in heaven's kitchen.

And secondly, marriage and childbirth are two completely disparate arenas for Juno to preside over. Weddings don't involve excruciating lumbar pain, ice chips and spectacular torrents of profanity directed at the groom for inflicting such suffering. That happens on the honeymoon (ba-doom-bah).

Anyway, thought I'd grease the skids a little by rattling off a few more fake headlines that were left strewn across The Needling's cutting room floor over the past month or so:

• Kraken drops Root Sports and pisses off all 4 subscribers.
• Trump confused about why Supreme Court won't grant immunity to his debilitating syphilis.
• West Seattle man jogs into crosswalk with 3 seconds to go and still makes it to other side in plenty of time.
• All light rail stations slated to include Level 1 trauma centers by 2035.
• West Seattle man confirms that it's the end of the world and the ants are taking over.
• Justice Alito says every day is Flag Day, bitch.
• "I love that shit, man." Biden perplexed as to why Israel wants to eliminate hummus.
• Group of pissed off kids and a few adults with PTSD chase away Seafair Pirates for fucking good.
• For 143rd straight year, lawn darts and Jågermeister top Father's Day wishlists.
• Record low tide at Alki reveals body of Jimmy Hoffa.
• Trump-Biden debate to include dunk tank.

There we go. Helps the digestion to purge myself of that mental flotsam. I feel randy and spry once again. 

In other non-developments, it's hard to believe I've been pretired* now for over four months.

*"Pretired" is a term I made up. It's defined as the 5-7 year period prior to full-on retiring, when jobless oldsters are most vulnerable to ageist asshole hiring managers and their bullshit attitudes about older people. The word is a shirt-tail relative of "funemployment." 

I had heard that getting a job was more challenging for those of us a little longer in the ear hair, but experiencing it in real time was a little shocking. One interview seemed to have gone particularly well. It was a solid 45 minutes long and it seemed like the role was a perfect fit for my skill set. In addition, I felt like I'd really hit it off with the Chief Creative Officer (a title I now find sort of obnoxious). I was ready to enter the weekend feeling more confident than Rudy Guiliani with a new catheter. But at the very end, just before signing off, he thanked me for my time and told me that "we're looking for someone who can inject some energy into our department." 

Right. Energy. I understand your code, hipster. One of the most frustrating things I've encountered during my job search is the assumption that five or six good years at a place just isn't enough for an employer to take the "risk". Here's a little secret for the chief creative poobah: My generation is one of the most loyal workforces out there. I can't speak for X, Y or the Millennials, but in my experience, if you can get five years out of anyone these days, that's pretty damn good. 

But bitterness is not a good look, right? Two recent documentaries—Brats, with Andrew McCarthy and Thank You, Goodnight, with Jon Bon Jovi—illustrate just that. Both men are staring down 60 and both appear quite unsettled about their legacies. They go to extremes to get answers, and (spoiler alert), I'm not sure the answers were the ones they were chasing. Men my age tend to define themselves by their careers, and that's my challenge. Paradigms grow calcified over time, and I can choose to wallow in the unfairness of it all, or I can move forward and find joy in the everyday. 

It's what my favorite people already do.

A First Quarter Newsletter

Hey! Great to be back in front of your foxy eyeballs. My last post was back in '23, so I thought it might be nice to pull out the BIC ballpoint and get caught up. 

As Ross might say, a few things have pivahhhht-ed. At its onset, 2024 showed unmitigated promise. The year opened with my Huskies earning the college football silver medal following their greatest season ever. Just twelve days later, my baby girl was married in a ceremony that was so much fun, no more fun was available for the rest of the month. 

My wife came down with covid two days after the wedding, then I caught it. A week after that, just as things seemed to be returning to normal, I was laid off from a company I'd been with for 32 years. Shocking? Yes, like a bad dream. Surprising? Not really. Artificial intelligence is upon us, and it was apparently time for the robots to take over designing ads and emails. I can hear their metal fingers tapping the keyboard as they work silently in long rows. They don't take lunch breaks or waste time in the bathroom stalls because they don't eat. And go ahead and get rid of the Keurig because robots don't drink coffee either. So many wins. 

I've been hemming and hawing about further discussing my joblessness. It happened over two months ago now and I already thoroughly plastered it across LinkedIn and Facebook. Before that, I posted this cryptic IG story: 

A lot of you reached out in the ensuing days and weeks with words of encouragement and empathy. This was huge. I'd never been laid off before, and I really think I'd gotten to the point of considering myself unlayoffable, which I realize now was a little naive. Regardless of who we are or what we do, there's always a chance that the coach is going to want to see you in her office on a random Thursday morning. And yes, bring your playbook.  

I did finish the puzzle in late March:

And that's about it. Tragically, I learned that All My Children and One Life to Live went off the air a while back, so I'm working through how to fill that hole in my daytime life. I've been looking for jobs, both freelance and otherwise, and collecting unemployment. Life's not too shabby. I've had the time to go for really long walks and write a little bit more. In fact, since you are a loyal reader, I'll let you in on this headline I wrote for the Needling that I didn't really tell anyone about since it's, well, inflammatory: 

Like I said, I just came up with the headline, but the whole article is here.

To close out, here are a few more fake headlines that were not selected. You might notice that I was a little salty about the way things shook out in college football:

• New UW coach Fisch vows to give Huskies the best months of his life.

• South Lake Union poodle fed up, leaves Instagram.

• Overworked mom enters transfer portal.
• Coach DeBoer sidelined with sexually transmitted infection after fucking so many schools.
• WSU to have bake sale for football team Thursday night at the Elks Club. 

• New Carnation Amphitheater hopes to compete with larger venues by also making your departure a living hell.

• Banned from sheriff's association, Loren Culp fine with just being the town drunk.
• Citing years of futility, Mariners petition MLB for aluminum bats and an extra outfielder.

I hope you're doing well. Take care of yourself and try not to think about the election yet.