Well, hello again.

Plenty has transpired since I delivered a death blow to Donkey Kong on a rainy morning back in early April. I taught another semester of Game Journalism at Vancouver Film School. We shot approximately nine thousand episodes of the show. I left town a couple of times, making trips to New York and Los Angeles. I came down with a summer cold (after Los Angeles) which took two nose-blowing weeks to kick. I wrote this and this. I got an X-ray in Chinatown, which sounds like a line from a Tom Waits’ song. I became mildly obsessed with Mets journeyman pitcher R. A. Dickey. I should have scooped out the litter box 98 times, but only did so 81 times. I saw one good superhero movie (The Avengers) and one bad superhero movie (The Amazing Spider-Man). I fooled with crossword puzzles, read books, took naps, treated myself to a second cup of coffee whenever I felt like having one, and went for several lengthy walks on Sunday afternoons through Vancouver with my excellent girlfriend.

I read Tim Kreider’s “The Busy Trap” piece in The New York Times (a recommendation from Excellent Girlfriend), which I strongly suggest you don’t read, unless you want to moon around for a couple of not-unpleasant days in a state of entitled procrastination.

I’ve also dealt with an inordinate amount of adult matters lately. The other day I was on the phone with a lawyer in New York named Larry when it occurred to me that I was on the phone with a lawyer in New York named Larry. I’m generally not a talking-to-lawyers-named-Larry kind of person. In early June I tweeted that I was “off to sign IMPORTANT PAPERS which always has the effect of making me wish I was 10 and under the blankets in my old room again.” My mother, after spotting this sentiment on Facebook, replied that the blankets are always ready for me, should I need them. Of course, our old house is gone, my parents having sold it more than 10 years ago now. (They currently split time between a small apartment in Florida in winter and a leaky RV in upstate New York in summer.) And the old blankets are gone too, except for one: a blue and white afghan that my mother crocheted for me when I was small.

The afghan has been with me for several decades. The blanket and I got through four years of college together starting in 1987. It traveled to Chicago with me in 1991, moved to Syracuse with me in 1993, then came to New York City with me in 1996. Finally, the afghan and I took an apartment together in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2009, where the two of us have been ever since.  I am convinced that this afghan possesses magical powers. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by things, I take the afghan down from the closet. I get into bed and attempt to pull it over me. I say “attempt” because the afghan is not big enough to cover my adult frame. If I pull it up to my head, then my feet are uncovered. If I cover my feet, then my head is uncovered.

No matter. I spend a few minutes covering as much of myself as I can. Then I close my eyes and let the afghan go to work.