Essays
A/S/L, Says the State of Texas
Thirty years ago, you could answer that question with whatever lie you wanted. That was what made the internet awesome.
Essays
Essays
Objection! This Isn't Funny at All (How Pauly Shore Lied to Me About Jury Duty)
There is a small subset of people in this country who don't recognize the comedic genius of Pauly Shore's work in the 1990s, and if you happen to be in that camp, I'd like you to stop reading right now, as I don'
Essays
Do You Read Science Fiction? (And Other Icebreakers I Used Selling Books at STAPLE!)
I managed to snag a table at STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo on January 24, 2026, thus beginning three months of anxiety and ill-conceived plans to dye my hair, change my name, and flee to Mexico. It was going to be my first time ever selling my books in
Essays
The Psychology of Easter Brunch; May Contain Eggs and Nick Miller
The family and I took a little trip out to the Lost Pines Resort just east of Austin and capped off our weekend of farm animals, lazy rivers, and torrential downpours with an innocuous Easter brunch in what the resort calls their "Barn" but was more like their
Essays
Lock the Bathroom Door: The Monetized AI Slop Endgame Is Near
As a science fiction writer, I learned early on how to be comfortable being dead wrong about the future. I grew up in a time when books featured Evil Corporations™️that were trying to steal your data, spy on you, and influence your decision-making through well-placed propaganda. That&
Essays
Old Man Shakes Fist at Words
I don’t know if it’s because I’m a writer or because of the anxiety disorder that’s been quietly narrating my life since middle school, but I am always listening. People talk, and my brain just… grabs it. Out in public, in movies, in books, in checkout
Essays
The Little Man Will Tell You
By the end of the 1980s, my dad's Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was starting to show signs of aging. As a kid, I knew nothing of the mechanical problems plaguing The Great Silver Beast, but something must have been wrong if we were borrowing my grandmother's car
Essays
Opinions Are Like Colonoscopy Stories: Everybody Has One
In retrospect, turning 45 was a mistake. Ever since that fateful day in March, bad things have been happening to me—things even Cool Daniel or Even Steven Daniel can't seem to reconcile. There was the you have angry old man shoulder just deal with it diagnosis from
Essays
Thunder in My Heart (and Other Lies)
Strapped into a go-kart, heart pounding, helmet damp with someone else’s sweat, all I can think is: please, not again. I'm in Group 2, tail end of the lineup, listening to a teenage attendant deliver the safety speech with the enthusiasm of a bro-skibidi-rizz
Essays
What Can I Say Except Dou Itashimashite
May 2, 2025 – Austin, TX The sky in Austin today couldn't make up its mind. Half of it looked like a dingy bedsheet, bleached and stretched, and the other a bruised knuckle, blue to almost black. Rain was coming. The kind of rain that makes you reach for
Essays
Four Hours at Jacoby's
On friendship, fate, and existential nihilism Every time I drive somewhere in Austin, it feels a little like visiting a childhood home and finding it now serves poke bowls and bespoke dog treats. The city is growing, the roads are getting wider, and what used to be sleepy two-lane
Essays
My Dinner With Andre Lunch With Carl
Let it not be said that I have a problem with the English. I don’t. They’re a lovely people—clever, polite, and adorned with delightful accents that sound like they were born in velvet robes and Oxford libraries. I find those accents hilarious, not in a mocking way,