The present moment* is filled with a lot of not-great, and unfortunately I find myself with minimal ability to mitigate it. What I can do, which is not nearly as helpful but hopefully still at least a little helpful, is to offer explanations.

For example, President Trump has denied writing the innuendo-laden** birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that bears his signature. Many critics argue that he is simply lying and obviously wrote it, but my recent column lays out some alternative explanations.

And as our country increasingly begins to become more dystopian, I am far from the first one to notice that in many ways these developments were predicted by classic dystopian science fiction. However, I may be the first one commissioned by a music director to write her some mid-song lyrics explaining the particular parallels which she then put into a lovely Science Fiction song (for which I definitely recommend the closed captioning to catch all of said lyrics)

I considered a tortured metaphor*** to couch my current gaming as explanation, but really it’s just my preferred escape from the everything. This month marked my 18th annual Alphabetic Boardgaming Challenge with Debbie, a lovely September tradition that provides some metaphorical light in endarkened times. And meanwhile I started Hollow Knight: Silksong, a game at which I am clearly not good enough but so far continue to persist anyway because I refuse to give up.****

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* aka the decade that 2025 has been so far

** albeit, not terribly subtle innuendo. “HELLO, WE SHARE A WONDERFUL SECRET AND IT’S ABOUT ENJOYING PEOPLE WHO DO NOT GET OLDER AND ALSO I HAVE DRAWN AN OUTLINE OF A FIGURE IN CASE THERE IS ANY CONFUSION TO WHAT I REFER”

*** “We have ways of making you a mynah bird!”

**** probably useful energy to have roundabouts now