20/20 Category
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 […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Nine: Weight
Posted on September 9, 2018 68 Comments
Well, this one isn’t as cheerful as some of the others have been. In 1998, I weighed a shade over 160 pounds. Today as I popped myself onto the scale, I was a smidge over 191 pounds. This is not great. This weight gain is on me, both literally and figuratively. As much as there […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Eight: Cars
Posted on September 8, 2018 60 Comments
For the weekend Whatever 20/20s, I’ve picked some topics I can be brief on, because, hey, it’s the weekend. Thus, for today, let me talk about my extremely boring history of cars. In 1998, I was still driving the very first car I ever owned: a white 1989 Ford Escort, which was a “Pony Edition” […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Seven: Friends
Posted on September 7, 2018 18 Comments
In 1998, I believed that I had probably made most of the friends I would ever make in my life. At the time I didn’t think this was an entirely unreasonable assumption, nor was I depressed about it. I was 29 then, and there is some generally accepted wisdom which states that you’ll have most […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Six: Presidents
Posted on September 6, 2018 111 Comments
So, let’s review the presidents we’ve had since 1998: A sexually harassing policy wonk, a genial imbecile, a malevolent imbecile, and Barack Obama. I don’t think we do presidents well. This assessment is bolstered by looking at the other five presidents who have been in office in my lifetime (in order, a crook, a placeholder, […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Five: Social Media
Posted on September 5, 2018 39 Comments
Was there actually even social media in 1998? Oh, my, yes. There was. And it acted in pretty much the same way as it does now, in all the good and bad ways. The players were different, of course. In 1998, in place of Twitter and Facebook you had USENET and America Online (as two […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Four: Books
Posted on September 4, 2018 12 Comments
Well, this one is simple. In 1998, I had no published books. In 2018 I have — (counts fingers) (counts toes) (counts fingtoes) — thirty, depending on whether you count individually published novellas (I do), and that number will rise by the end of the year. This number doesn’t count books I didn’t write entirely […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Three: Home
Posted on September 3, 2018 36 Comments
In the last twenty years I’ve called two places “home”: The first house I ever owned, and (I suspect) the last house I’ll ever own. The first house I ever owned — and by “I” it should be understood that I am a part of a “we” as Krissy and I were both on the […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Two: Money
Posted on September 2, 2018 27 Comments
Over the last twenty years I’ve had an interesting relationship with money. It’s been mostly positive, to be sure (spoiler: these last twenty years I’ve been generally financially secure), but I’ve had a lot of time to think about money and what it means to me and my life. So let’s go ahead and dig […]
1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day One: Cats
Posted on September 1, 2018 28 Comments
Over the course of 20 years, I’ve had seven cats, roughly grouped into three generations. The first generation of cats was a single cat: Rex, who I acquired in 1991 from my sister Heather. Heather and her children came to live with me for about a year when she was getting a divorce from her […]
Announcing 1998/2018: Whatever 20/20
Posted on September 1, 2018 13 Comments
As most of you probably know by now, September 2018 will mark the 20th anniversary of Whatever, the blog you are reading right at this very moment. Twenty years is a very long time to be writing anything; it’s a long time to be doing anything at all, to be honest. I wanted to commemorate […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying