20/20 Category
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Thirty: Time
Posted on September 30, 2018 27 Comments
This entire series is about time; it makes sense to end it with a piece directly on the subject. There are a number of ways for me to consider time, particularly since 1998, the year in which I started Whatever, and the point in which, for the purposes of this series, I start considering the […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Nine: Death
Posted on September 29, 2018 23 Comments
Well, I guess it’s closer now than it was in 1998, isn’t it? Not that I knew that in 1998, by which I mean I couldn’t have been 100% certain then I would reach 2018. Statistically speaking, it was likely in 1998 that I would live another 20 years, in that I had no major […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Eight: Age
Posted on September 28, 2018 13 Comments
Well, I’m twenty years older now than I was in 1998, that’s for sure. I haven’t minded getting older in these last twenty years, I have to say. For one thing, bluntly, the last twenty years have been great for me, in terms of career and life and general happiness. If the worse things that’s […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Seven: Fame
Posted on September 27, 2018 31 Comments
I touched on fame (such as mine is) briefly before in this series, but I was asked to expand on it a little. The topic I had scheduled today was pretty nebulous, so, sure! Let’s swap this one in instead. I usually start any discussion of my fame by noting that I am not, in fact, […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Six: Ego
Posted on September 26, 2018 16 Comments
Oooooh, I’ve always been an ego-filled little doofus. I do think at this point the ego may be better justified. And also, I’ve worked to change where my ego is centered. 1998, I will note, was a very important year for my ego. That was the year it took its first major hit, when I […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Five: Writing
Posted on September 25, 2018 19 Comments
Writing has gotten simultaneously easier and harder over the last twenty years. Easier, because, bluntly, I’m better at it now than I was 20 years ago. Better at which parts? All of the parts. There are literally no technical aspects of writing (including the technical aspects of creativity) that I don’t just simply do better. […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Four: Reading
Posted on September 24, 2018 4 Comments
Over the last 20 years, and on a day-to-day basis, I don’t think what I read has changed much. I read a lot of non-fiction, a fair amount of science fiction and fantasy as well as the mystery genre, and I read a whole lot online, specifically news and tech sites, plus the occasional magazines […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Three: Technology
Posted on September 23, 2018 36 Comments
Much of my creative life, and certainly almost all of my professional life for the past 20 years, has been greatly influenced and impacted by technology. It starts earlier than that, of course. In 1984, the first Macintosh computer came out, and it came with a simple word processing program. Coincidentally, 1984 was the first […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-Two: Taste
Posted on September 22, 2018 27 Comments
Here’s an interesting question to consider: Do I have the same taste — the same cultural likes and dislikes in terms of things like style and entertainment — here in 2018 that I had in 1998? After all, it’s been twenty years. That’s a long time in terms of culture, style and entertainment. But then […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twenty-One: New York
Posted on September 21, 2018 22 Comments
I’m actually writing this in New York; I’m currently loitering at a hotel near Penn Station, in room that looks like the nicest dorm suite at NYU and can hear the street noise rising up to my windows. It’s surprisingly nice white noise, although history reminds me that sometimes it’s just noise, and loud. It’s […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Nineteen: Hobbies
Posted on September 19, 2018 16 Comments
I’m not sure I had hobbies in 1998. I definitely didn’t have the hobbies I have now, back then. Hobbies are, for the purposes of this entry, things you do that you enjoy for themselves, and not because you plan to make it a professional part of your life to any extent. I think it […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Eighteen: Health
Posted on September 18, 2018 21 Comments
The difference between 1998 and 2018 as regards health is that in 1998 I never really gave thought about my health, and now I think about it a lot. Why? Because I’m older and because (as noted earlier in this series) I weigh more than I used to, and because over 20 years I’ve had […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Seventeen: Kids
Posted on September 17, 2018 22 Comments
When I started Whatever in 1998, I didn’t have a kid. But I knew one was coming, since Krissy was pregnant. Her due date was December 17, but as it turns out, and in the first indication that this child was truly my child as well, the baby was kind of lazy and in no […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Sixteen: Hair
Posted on September 16, 2018 46 Comments
I’ve not been a fan of my hair these last twenty years. Honestly, my hair and I have never been on the best of terms. I come from a family that doesn’t have great hair; it tends to be thin and wispy in the best of circumstances, and I, who started balding at around age […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Fifteen: Music
Posted on September 15, 2018 28 Comments
In no particular order, a playlist of 20 songs from the last 20 years that have stuck with me.
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Fourteen: Day Jobs
Posted on September 14, 2018 12 Comments
I did actually have a day job in 1998. Well, for about a quarter of it. I worked at America Online as its in-house writer and editor, and got laid off that March. I got laid off not because I was a terrible employee, but because my group was being dissolved and while everyone else […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Thirteen: Whatever
Posted on September 13, 2018 20 Comments
One, today’s entry title is a little reflexive. Two, it doesn’t feel like it’s been 20 years. But I don’t think anything ever does. Time is a funny thing which spans backwards and forwards from you, but at the moment it’s only ever now. You keep living right now, and being now, and in my […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Twelve: Travel
Posted on September 12, 2018 20 Comments
I never thought I would travel as much as I do today. This year, as an example, for work: Two book tours, comprising a total of 21 stops and just over three weeks. Conventions in Detroit and Phoenix and San Jose and Albuquerque. Festivals in Los Angeles and Nantes, France (with a side trip during […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Eleven: Personal Politics
Posted on September 11, 2018 51 Comments
In the past twenty years, I’m not sure my personal set of politics have changed all that much. I’m pretty sure what has changed is how people view them. And what would I say my politics are? Well, at the base of everything I believe that the goal of society should be to develop independently […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Ten: Spouse
Posted on September 10, 2018 46 Comments
This one is easy: I’ve had the same spouse the last 20 years, and if I’m lucky I’ll have the same one twenty years from now, and if I’m really lucky I’ll the same one 20 years after that, too. If I have the same one 20 years after that, there’s probably been some amazing […]
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