Dear Reader (thank you for bearing with me),

There will be no G-File today. 

But let’s discuss my dilemma for a moment. People get mad if I don’t write a G-File. They also get mad if I don’t let them know there will be no G-File. But if I send out a short note saying, “There will be no G-File today” or even “I have armadillos in my trousers” or “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” I feel like I’ve wasted people’s time and cluttered their inboxes. This then drives me to feel like I should provide some value. But once I start writing I might end up producing precisely what I said I wasn’t going to produce. So how do I tell people I’m not doing something without, in fact, doing the thing I said I’m not doing in the process of telling them? 

(“One possible solution would be to write some abstruse, impenetrable twaddle that encourages the reader to give up now.”—The Couch). 

So the reason I’m not writing the G-File is that I am old and I am sick. 

Among the things I do not like about getting old is the incremental increase in the proximity to death. But what are you going to do?

Another thing I do not like about getting old is the way the cold affects me more now. What’s weird is I still hate hot weather, I just also dislike cold weather more now, too. But the thing that might bug me the most about getting older—again, other than the bony finger of the Grim Reaper getting that much closer to tapping me on the shoulder and telling me “Don’t bother finishing that burrito, it’s time. Also, we’ll open the window on our trip.”—is how much more pollen gets me. I never had problems with allergies as a kid or as a young man. But once I got into my 30s, spring pollen started throwing me for a loop. Now, it just kills me. 

But never have I been hit with the one-two punch of getting a cold right as the pollen tsunami crashed on me. My sinuses are so bad, I feel like there’s a baby’s fist right between my eyes, and for some reason it wants to open up its hand to show off its Super Bowl rings.  

Anyway, I’m loaded up on drugs and hoping my fever will break so I can still go to the Gridiron Club dinner tomorrow night (my first time). If this reads like I can write just fine, thank my editors for taking out all the hallucinogenic typos and tangents on the unique sounds of certain geometric shapes. Rhomboids sound like the way prime numbers smell, and stuff like that. Also bear in mind I’ve been working on this 500-word missive for hours. 

I hate missing writing obligations, and I know this doesn’t do the trick. I’ve included the weird links and the canine update, because I know that’s what some of you tune in for anyway. I’ll get in touch next week.

Various & Sundry

Canine update: The girls are good. Pippa has been doing some particularly excellent waggling (wiggle + wag) lately. People ask why I play ball with her in the same spot so often. Well, I don’t, really. It’s just that I film it in that spot a lot. Also, Pippa feels safe there because there’s no approach the mean dogs could take that she couldn’t spot or that Zoë couldn’t intercept. And you need a safe space to fully waggle. We were gone for a few days and the girls stayed with Kirsten, where Pippa acquired a bookish side and Zoë worked on her sabertooth dingo look. They also spent a lot of time with Clover, who does in fact smile from time to time. Gracie is doing just fine. Her weight has stabilized thanks to her newfound love for grotesque fish-flavored ooze. That’s really all I can muster. I’m going back to bed. 

ICYMI

Last Friday’s G-File 

Last weekend’s Ruminant

Answering your questions on the latest AMA

The GOP is a subsidiary of Trumpism

A moderately rank Remnant with Chris Stirewalt

I’m with Hur

The Remnant with Dan Senor on the state of the Israel-Hamas war

The Dispatch Podcast on banning TikTok

And now, the weird stuff

Spin cycle

Merely the mock

Too high

Good wool hunting

Ship of fools

Cheesy does it

Computer love