Driving south offered the perfect view of the evening sky. I first noticed the red-orange moon rising to my left, hovering just above the Wyoming plains in the distance. It looked unreal, as if someone had set it there for me to reach out and grab. Somehow the moon looked to be angled ever so slightly, as if it were a flat circle that had rotated just a little to make it clear that it had no depth. ...

Immediately after coming back from my honeymoon this weekend, I came down with a bad cold. (COVID test was negative, so just your regular funk.) I’m trying to be better at balancing pushing myself to hold to expectations I set regarding my various hobbies and side projects, and giving myself the leeway to relax and take care of myself. Last night, Grant and I recorded a shorter episode of Comical Start without any comics, and I barely did any editing. And for this week, I’m writing this post as a stopgap. ...

Just a quick note, since I’m on my honeymoon: There’s a hurricane on its way through Florida. That’s not something we expected to deal with during our time here, but I think we’re in a reasonably safe spot. It messes with a few of our plans, but we’ll certainly be together for whatever happens.

Erin and I got married on Saturday, September 17. It’s been a few days, and we haven’t yet gotten used to calling each other husband and wife. They still sound like overly adult terms. It’s a funny feeling. There’s so much building up to just a few moments in a day when you move from engaged to married. Then everything is over, you enjoy a party with friends and family, then that is over too. You’re left with a scattershot of memories from a whirlwind of an evening, and a lifelong partner. It’s a lot to take in. ...

I’m writing this over the course of several days before Erin and I get married. I’ll note when these thoughts were written down. ...

I haven’t been to the Minnesota State Fair since 2017, just prior to my senior year of college. Since then, my travels home haven’t aligned with the event, so I’ve missed out on the fun and festivities I was lucky enough to enjoy for so many years. Finally, with Erin and I being back for our wedding, we were able to return. We only spent about 4.5 hours there, but we enjoyed an abbreviated version of the fair trips we looked forward to each year of college. It was genuinely exciting to go back, to have the familiarity of the sights and sounds and smells, and spent quality time together in the unique atmosphere the fair provides. ...

In sixth grade my mom took me to our local Hollywood Video so I could rent Fellowship of the Rings. I had started reading the trilogy, and wanted to watch each movie as I finished the corresponding book. Shockingly, my mom acquiesced — I’m guessing she wasn’t wholly familiar with its contents. More importantly, I saw a box of Buncha Crunch on the shelf. ...

My dad kept score for my baseball teams as a kid, and taught me how to do the same. I would keep score on and off during college when I went to Twins games, and just recently got back into the habit. My goal is — excepting games where it’d be a social faux pas to be nose-deep in a scorebook — to keep score when I attend games in person. ...

I woke up with the chorus of Avril Lavigne’s punk/pop hit Sk8er Boi stuck in my head. Here is the result. ...

I went to a show by the Secret Improv Society this past weekend, which performs in an odd theater building near Union Square. It’s only the second time I’ve been to a professional improv performance, and I was struck by how special the experience is. ...