English Murders, Danish Parenting, and a Question for You

Or: what hath I wrought, and what should I write next?

You know what really annoys me? I mean, apart from any account that starts with the words ‘you know what really annoys me?’, because if there’s one thing I dislike, it’s people trying to bond with me over a shared dislike.

Now I think of it, readers in the British Isles might be wondering what I’m talking about; after all, complaining about some sort of petty, minor grievance is practically the tradition over there. It’s a way of making friends. For further information, consider the weather in England. And oddly, this is a habit some must consciously unlearn if they emigrate to America. I have a friend from the UK who moved to North America; she found one couldn’t really complain about the weather to Americans because the implication of negativity made them feel confused and bewildered.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing British social norms. Part of me has always wanted to move to England — and more specifically, to one of those quaint English villages that have a pub called, for some odd reason ‘The Hangman’s Goose’. And there’s some bucolic, rolling green hills and a picturesque stream and a bridge, and hedgerows, and even a nearby manor house called ‘Thistleton Abbey’ or something. But I know I can never move there, because people are always turning up dead in villages like that.

Typically it’s the vicar. Or the curate, if they still have those. Later, it will come to light that he was embroiled in some sort of plot involving Spanish gold. And I guess what I’m saying here is that I don’t want to find myself getting caught up in a situation like that. I don’t want to be interrogated by inept inspectors from Scotland Yard. You can see them, can’t you, sporting these incongruous mustaches? But meanwhile, this very nice and wise elderly lady in a cardigan, who is apparently just visiting and staying with a dear old friend, is gathering all the suspects together in the drawing room at Thistleton Abbey. Which, as luck would have it, just happens to be the AirBnB where I’m staying. I watch, a bemused bystander, from the corner of the drawing room while the old lady skillfully whittles down the list of suspects to one name. Mine. Whereupon those nicely-cooperative gentlemen from Scotland Yard drag my shrieking, innocent form into a van and take me away, for no other reason than because that nice old lady has established a solid track record for identifying other murderers through that elaborate, publicly-performed process of elimination. In fact, the old bat has identified precisely eight murders since February alone, and nobody, absolutely nobody at all, has asked themselves why so many people are dropping dead in every village the old lady visits.

So anyway, that all seems like a lot of needless trouble and agitation, which explains why I’ve mostly been avoiding England in my travels. Also, ever since my daughters Boudica and Hattie came along, I just haven’t had enough money to be allowed into an airport.

If you’ve been reading my adventures so far, you’ll have noticed I’ve lived all over the place. Again, this was before Boudica and Hattie. My wife is the sole earner in our household. My job, more or less, is to talk with the children — which is far more disconcerting than my words, here, can convey. I spend much of my time rattled.

For instance — I should have mentioned this by now — Boudica is currently reading a parenting book called The Danish Way Every Day by Jessica Joelle Alexander. She left it here on the couch for me to read, though she did mention she would prefer to finish it before I start to read it.

Reader? I am never reading this book. I no longer wish to think about parenting in my idle time. Nor even, perhaps, in my non-idle time. I do not want this, Sam-I-Am. I do not want to read these books. I would not read them in a coat, I would not read them on a boat. Take them, throw them in a moat!

Why is Boudica reading books on raising children? Well, it’s to better assist me in my parenting her sister, Hattie, who is two years her junior. More to the point, Boudica wants to help me make Hattie become — generally speaking — a more harmonious and cooperative individual. Hattie’s temperament slightly resembles that of a buccaneer. Sweet as a button, mind you, but intellectually-speaking, something of a pugilist. Boudica, whom even Hattie will tell you is absolutely lovely, feels that Hattie’s general demeanor needs some polish, and therefore she’s taken it upon herself to explore Danish parenting methodologies. To be clear, nobody suggested she do that.

I fantasize about getting myself a career. I have considered Alaska. Or I could compromise, and merely leave the house each morning and return when both children have exhausted themselves with their nonsense, and are feeling rested and calm. I have mentioned this ambition once or twice to my wife. She does not think it funny at all.

Because you see, it’s all my fault. When they were tiny babies, I read to my girls an awful lot. I talked to them constantly. I sang to them and explained everything in the world. I did my utmost to turn them into interesting, lively, intelligent and profoundly creative girls.

Of course, I see my error now. The error compounds each day.

Boudica is reading sections of parenting books to me. She’s twelve. A wayward thought comes tip-toeing into my mind, which is: What hath I wrought, and whither can I run?

So, I don’t have a career. I did have one, once, before they were born. It was a very good career and I was fond of it, though it had its complications. Like, whenever I did anything, I tried to do it well. In my naivete, I always assumed that doing a good job at work is what everybody expected of me. But this is not really how most workplaces operate. You’re paid to operate against your better judgment. Everything’s inefficient, and there are meetings about inefficiency which sometimes go on for hours. And you have to wait for the meeting to end and hope you don’t accidentally suggest sacking everybody who wanted to have the meeting in the first place.

But generally, a workplace doesn’t want you to do a good and thorough job; it wants you to follow procedures and guidelines. Which, more often than not, have been set down by some people who work far away, in some distant department that is staffed by precisely the sort of individuals who have never in their entire lives done anything properly at all.

And the problem for me was that Harvard Medical School mostly wasn’t like that for me. Frankly, everyone left me alone to do my job, and it was lovely. Oh, sometimes people would try to micromanage me, and then I’d go to work on them, and after a few months they’d take a leave of absence or something, and generally disappear from my life.

I don’t know why I ever admit to making cards like this.

So, I guess what I’m saying, here, is that lately I feel myself succumbing to nostalgia. I find myself wanting to return to some sort of office-based career, perhaps within some sort of large institution. Possibly another academic library. And maybe I live out the rest of my days there, doing a really good job at everything. And only occasionally sneaking into the archives and taking real-life antique swords out of the cabinets and having actual sword fights (if Harvard taught me anything, it’s that when smart people get bored, it’s really funny).

But the truth is, everything I just wrote is merely a symptom of nostalgia. A certain homesickness for my friends at Harvard. But even back then, they were telling me to quit my job and go write for a living. It’s just — instead of that, I had Boudica and Hattie.

So what I think is happening to me, is that I’m sluggishly transitioning from a full-time, devoted parent, to a full-time story-teller who is, for the most part, utterly mad. And this is, let’s face it, what I should be doing. This Substack. This is me, doing precisely that which, I think, Fate quietly expects.

Still, there are some important considerations to be made, the foremost being: what should I do here? What sort of tales do I write? Where should the focus lie? I’ve been wondering about this since April, and I’m still undecided.

Meanwhile, I get the impression that everybody wants me to go back to making new Wrongcards. My concern — all the cards, right now, would be about that orange man in the White House. Some subscribers have specifically requested I write more about him, and those determinedly anti-democratic, goose-stepping oligarchs as well.

(I have to mention this: yesterday, a social democrat won the Mayoral race in New York City. Which means the billionaires are having a terrible day. They spent ridiculous sums on his opponent, because if they fear anything, it is some sort of diminishment of their power. And the other thing, of course, is that you cannot, in the United States, mention things like ‘the cost of living crisis’ or ‘a working wage’ or ‘hey, maybe billionaires should pay taxes’ without being accused of being a communist. So, it’s really nice to see the billionaires experience a moment of inconvenience, for a change.)

Elsewhere, I have friends who recommend I write more about technology and programming and AI — things I happen to know a bit about. I have other friends who insist that I focus solely on explaining to people how they can be creative. This one interests me because I’ve noticed that anyone who makes ‘teaching creativity’ their profession seems to show little aptitude for creativity itself. The entire field seems populated by influencers and grifters, with the occasional psychologist in the mix. Would you ask someone to teach you how to paint or write stories, on the strength of their psychology degree?

On this topic, I’d recommend consulting a shaman before someone with a degree in psychology, and failing that, I’d suggest consulting someone providing evidence of a fertile mind. And perhaps one that isn’t overly given to grift — which would be me, or someone like me, if you can find them. The matter of creativity is, from my perspective, both esoteric and highly-technical. Sadly, audiences have been conditioned to place their trust in the wrong sort of authorities; you know, the sort of people who produce things like, ‘12 Easy Steps to Become More Creative, According to These Marketing Experts’.

So, I’ve contemplated becoming a luminary on the general topic of creativity, because the grifters occupying that niche annoy me. On the other hand, this other part of me says to hell with all of it — the world is collapsing, and maybe what I really need to do is grow a beard and go live in the woods. Make friends in the animal kingdom, and possibly adopt a pet crow. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but years ago I actually had a pet crow. I named him Fabian. He was absolutely frickin’ cool, as you would no doubt expect. The whole story is a good one; I just ... can’t get into it right now with you, I’m too busy saying something entirely unrelated, which is that I’m reaching a point in my life where I might finally be permitted to be a full-time writer. And I’m wary, of course, because this is usually where I get rug-pulled.

The other thing is that I somewhat like Substack, and would like to succeed here. I have 30-ish paid subscribers and I love those people. (By the way, if you’re a paid subscriber and we haven’t had a conversation about getting you a box of Wrongcards; that’s on me. Please reach out to me; I’m just a bit scattered. I mentioned my children, I think?)

In summary, I’m still undecided about what my focus should be here, so I’m opening up the floor to suggestions. I’m taking advice, I’m listening. You can comment here and tell me what you’d like me to yap about, or send me an email — which is what most of my readers do.

But you know, when I started this email, I asked this question: ‘You know what annoys me?’ This is a sound question … and it’s billionaires, obviously. But other than that, I can’t really supply you with a list of answers because, as I mentioned, I dislike bonding with people over shared grievances. In other words, I can’t iterate through a list of petty annoyances without contradicting my main point — you know, the thing about how I want to move to a picturesque village in England, but ... too many murders.

With chaste affection,

Kris St.Gabriel