10.06.2025

For Those For Whom It May Be a Concern And Probably Is Not: my schedule has shifted and I'm keeping up with a number of responsibilities all at once. All this means for Without a Gun is that the paid Features will still be published weekly but not on certain days until I have the contours of this whole spacetime deal figured out. Maybe Fridays. Maybe on a new day of the week that doesn't have a name yet. Some things need to sort their own selves out.
-JA

An attempt to attend an event up by Berkeley went in some other directions. Thinking it was a leisurely meet and greet I stumbled into the venue (a community events startup space with no listed address) about a half hour late. It was quiet in there and a speaker with a Voice whom I later pieced together was a local NPR host was speaking in low tones to the focused crowd. They fidgeted when I walked in. I felt regarded. There was nowhere to sit and a reel played in my head of me standing there behind the speaker like I was waiting for my turn, in everyone's line of sight with nothing to offer. I looked around like a trapped animal for a pamphlet to grab, something to sign or buy. It was like I'd farted in a library. No one else to blame for it. I mimed an apology to a couple of strangers and found my way down the street to an arcade bar with a sandwich board that promised karaoke. In the bathroom was some graffiti referencing Jeopardy! champion Amy Snyder. If I believed in fate I'd believe that's where I was supposed to go instead.