Z.

You receive a notice in the mail. You know the kind. The official looking ones. They're a little heavy, and the return address at the top indicates the notice originates from a high level bureaucratic agency. There's a long barcode along the bottom, and a serial number for tracking purposes.  This is a notice of import and significance, and you weren't expecting it. You're a little worried to open it. But you do. The fear of the consequences of ignoring a notice of this gravity outweighs the consequences of knowing what it contains. When you open it, it does not disappoint. You withdraw a series of folded pages, documents, and a return envelope, addressed to the same bureaucratic agency that sent it. You aren't sure where to begin. But one of the pages catches your eye. "NOTICE OF COMPULSORY TERMINAL DEPARTURE." Below that ominous-looking heading is a diatribe of jargon and legalese. The typeface gets smaller and smaller the further down the page it goes. ...

Do you know?  Do you think so, too? When you're up,  Late at night, Do you wonder who? Do you remember when? Does it fill your dreams? The way it does, for me? Do you get carried away With thoughts Of how it may have been? Guessing questions,  Answers posed, And seeing Where your imagination goes? Do you talk out loud? Telling me things When I'm not there to oppose? Do you sing songs You think I'd like to hear? I do. Don't I? In a way. For you. I know. I think so, too. When I'm up, Late at night, I wander through Memories of when. They fill my dreams, The way it might for you.  I get carried away With thoughts Of how it might have been.  Guessing questions,  Giving answers, And stop When my imagination goes too far.  I talk out loud. I tell you things, Taking my chances.   Singing you songs, I think you'd like to hear.  Do you? Don't you? In a way. You do.

I know the feeling. ( Source ) MAGNECOW I learned once that cows can accidentally ingest a lot of metal while grazing out in the fields.  Screws, nails, tractor equipment, barbed wire. Go on, think of other metal objects a cow might encounter. I don't have to list them all here.  The resulting ailment plaguing these cows is colloquially referred to as "Hardware Disease." Occasionally, farmers feed their cattle something called a "cow magnet".  They (the cow) eat the magnet; it passes through their system, collecting as many bolts and washers and nuts as it can along the way; and exits out the rear of the cow. Presumably, perhaps, to be eaten by accident by the next cow, I imagine. Imagine finding a nice big consolidated nugget of shrapnel out in the field after a long day of eating and regurgitating cud. "You know what? Yeah, actually, I could go for a little iron right now." Except it comes out as: "Moo moo moo? Moo, moo, Moo moo moo moo moo moo ...

Ladies—prepare yourself for some "inside knowledge."  That's right: Sex advice from a man. Technically, I wouldn't be allowed to share this under normal circumstances. But because this blog affords me some anonymity, I can divulge some inner secrets that you may find helpful without repercussions. Sex is always a bit of a leap of faith. For both parties. But the risks for the woman will almost always outweigh the risks for the man. As such, any leverage she can assert prior to that decision is incredibly valuable.  Imagine this: You, a female, are on a date. You and he are seated across from each other in a restaurant for dinner. As the date proceeds, you may find that your male date projects every positive signal of virility you may be looking for in a potential mate. If the moment should arise later (or right there on the table if things go remarkably well), when your best guesses about your prospective partner's romantic stamina are put to the test... ...you ma...

Well, it's been a year. I embarked on this little writer's sojourn in November of 2024 in an effort to recapture some bygone mojo that hath, in recent years, been untimely sapped of me. "It doesn't have to be good. It just has to exist." So here I am, to write about writing. What this process has been like. How it has gone. And where I think it's going. I'll try more original art moving forward, instead of the cheap and easy but vague and soulless AI art heretofore. First—some housekeeping: I am thankful for an amusing muse who, upon reading their works, reconjured a desire in me to delve back into this kind of writing again. I write by trade. But very impersonally. I write as a hobby. But somewhat formulaically. So to write in a third mode, as a way of expression and self-discovery, has been something of a 'palate cleanser' for me. It's a gear I have repressed since I first began to take writing seriously.  Why repressed? Because this "lo...

Conspiracy theories are the junk food of political and social commentary. They feel good because they tap into primal centers of our brains that satisfy without satiating. It can sometimes feel as though we're really 'figuring things out,' 'getting to the bottom of big questions,' or 'finally pulling the wool from over our eyes,' which can impart a sense of liberation, self-satisfaction and mastery. And before I go much further, it should be stated that I am not (necessarily) anti-conspiracy theory. Because, as we know, conspiracies do happen—and theorizing about possible conspiracies can sometimes change the cultural tenor about specific and important issues. But... "Everything in moderation." "Conspirasize" and "conspirascope" are everything. Because we live in a world of compartmentalized, online micro-cultures, there's a subdivision of society—and socially acceptable thought—that orbits conspiracy theorizing.  I used to ...

Scientists Conclude Science May Be Fatally Flawed, Pending Further Study (Photo: Getty-ish) By Z Zeighmn Blog Updated Nov. 13, 2025, 2:11 p.m. MST In a stunning realization by prominent experts across nearly every field—from chemistry to medicine, environmental studies to genetics, physics to economics—the world’s leading scientists are now joining forces to prove, or possibly disprove, a single startling theory: That science itself is broken. According to several alarming studies—including a 2015 Science meta-analysis that found fewer than 40 percent of landmark psychology experiments could be replicated—research has become harder to verify, impossible to reproduce, and increasingly at odds with past findings. Or so the data suggest. Then again, if the scientific method itself is in question, how can we trust the data suggesting that science is in crisis? If science is collapsing, who’s to say that isn’t just another hypothesis awaiting peer review? I spoke with leading experts in the...

SERIES OF SHOTS: A spry, middle-aged man wakes up before sunrise.  Reaching over to the bedside table, he puts on his glasses.  He springs from bed, and begins a series of robust stretches and lunges in his clean bedroom—which, though small, is well-kept, affording him plenty of space for his lunging exercises. He sways and bends from the hips. Rotating his pelvis. He arches his back, far backward—then forward—like an exaggerated dance, though with no set beat or rhythm. Random. Swaying.  With gusto.  A single photograph hangs framed on the wall. It's an old picture of a young boy standing beside an old man. Very formal. They stand beside each other, arms at their sides, next to a young sapling, freshly planted in the ground. The man looks at the picture between lunges. Between stretches which increasingly move his entire body's posture in extravagant poses in his room, dawn growing outside. Later, in the kitchen.  Though he is fit, we see him extract a whole pa...

I've been feeling better.  Losing weight. Discarding some bad habits and states of mind. It won't always be this great.  But it's been a load off. Looking back on some old garb hanging in the back of my closet, I found an old friend.  For an ancient red hoodie, it still looked okay.  This one had been with me a long time. There is one small hole, and the seam of one of the two front pouch pockets is separating.  But otherwise, suitable.  It fits well again.  It has that familiar feel, and a baked-in ease to it.  Those times weren't always great.  But it's nice to be able to look back from a distance.  I prefer the zipper hoodies to the pull-over ones. There's really no comparison.  I zipped it up and wore it out last weekend, running errands.  I found myself entering a kind of strange mental niche all the sudden.  Not bad.  Better than bad.  It was good.  When I parked and stepped out of my car, I looked up ...