No Rest For The Wicked

Tag: writing

  • Plausible Deniability

    Plausible Deniability

    “If you are not a practiced liar don’t try to start. It will backfire. You are dealing with pros. You would not believe the time and energy that real liars pour into honing their craft.” -Someone on Substack

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s exactly right.

    I don’t think of myself as a liar. I’m an engineer. I almost never tell lies. Lies are dangerous and they’re a lot of work. Lies are unsophisticated at best and they take up a huge amount of working memory. Lies require backstories and supporting evidence. You never know when a lie will come unraveled due to factors beyond your control.

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  • Oversharing

    Oversharing

    Don’t talk about Fight Club.

    OMG, the van is his! I don’t know where it came from, if he bought it or he already had it. But the timing in which it appears matters.

    Two weeks ago Alphonse went to a national gathering of motorcycles out in the middle of the desert with his wife and his brother and his brother’s wife.

    He was gone for a week and I found myself unexpectedly distraught during that time. A couple months ago he went on a cruise with his family and I felt the same way.

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  • Cool Heads Prevail

    Cool Heads Prevail

    Alphonse is a doctor. I like doctors.

    The technical challenges of carrying on a relationship with Alphonse are numerous. Like, too many to count. They’re not my challenges, they’re his, and one of them is that his place of business is not a suitable location for shenanigans.

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  • Raising My Price

    Raising My Price

    It’s not always about money

    2025 was an incredibly challenging year for me.

    Right out the gate my best friend, Monique, dies of MS. At exactly the same time, things with Jared spin dangerously out of control, forcing me to step away from him temporarily. But we weren’t done, fate had other ideas. I got really sick and then rolled an ankle walking down stairs and became grievously injured. The wizard might be broken and crazy but he’s still a wizard. Aside from that, I promised I would not abandon him. I went back to Jared.

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  • The Attention Whore

    The Attention Whore

    For God sake, everyone please shut up.

    The worst part about you-know-who being president, again, is..well, everything. But aside from the rampant stupidity, endless lies, war crimes, pedophilia, incoherent babbling, and unmitigated audacity – the worst part about him being president is everyone else.

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  • An Unpopular Oracle

    An Unpopular Oracle

    A lesson from the 10 of Pentacles

    Sometimes the real work we’re called to on to perform has nothing to do with our job. When we feel put out and frustrated by an older relative demanding help with a menial task, or a friend having a life crisis; when the demand for our time, attention and wisdom makes us feel angry or resentful because of the “work” we’re not getting done, it’s important to consider which “work” it is we’re actually called on to do.

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  • Spirits in the Material World

    Spirits in the Material World

    Two weeks ago I had a dream about Alphonse that was not a dream.

    My dogs had woke me up to go outside around 5:15am and I got back to sleep around 5:30.

    It’s likely that Alphonse was already awake at this time.

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  • Rule #1

    Rule #1

    Jared: part 2

    Know with whom you fucketh.

    Our follow up coffee talk didn’t happen immediately. Sensing that it would be a  point of no return, I was reluctant to schedule it at first. When I was younger, I would do things just for the scandal and to have something to write about. Now, in my older age and with higher stakes, I don’t make a move without a personally compelling reason. So many weeks had gone by marked with awkward verbal exchanges and unanswered texts that I became convinced I had made the whole thing up. 

    Except I didn’t.

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  • Face To Face With The Doctor

    Face To Face With The Doctor

    Jared: part 1

    I met a boy. I knew him for a while actually, but we didn’t know each other at all.

    We were in a professional organization. He was there and I was there but his name had too many vowels and I never learned it. 

    He is a military combat veteran turned doctor of mind fuckery and headmaster of a rehab school for young wizards. Injured in the call of duty and recipient of a purple heart, he runs his business like if a swarm of army ants were an entrepreneur. Handsome and fit, he looks fine on the outside but looks can be deceiving.

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  • I Have A Story For Everywhere You’ve Been

    I Have A Story For Everywhere You’ve Been

    I shot this photo in 2009 but I didn’t get it until just now.

    It’s an Arizona Cardinal.

    I’ve been all over the great American Southwest, to towns that time passed by.

    Speeding down the mother road, a smoke in one hand and snacks littering the floor. Camera gear in the back of the car and hippie deodorant stinking since the day before.

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