Where I’m At, Plus Some Free Ice Cream

Before I get to the part where I give you some free ice cream, you first must endure a carousel of self-promotion. You will sit there, and it will whirl about you, dizzying and hallucinogenic, until the end, whereupon you are successfully inculcated and now inhabit THE WENDIG CULT, which is mostly just a cult where we wear beards and look at birds. Also there’s a modicum of human sacrifice but we’ll talk about that later ha ha ha ahem.

So, let’s see.

First up, Wanderers is out in paperback on this upcoming Tuesday, May 19th. If you care to check it out, an independent bookstore is the most wonderful place to buy it (indiebound, bookshop.org, doylestown bookshop, let’s play books). If you’ve already read it, please tell others, and if you could leave a review, that’d be great. If it’s not a nice review, then please yell your review at a blue jay, who are the canonical carriers of bad reviews. The blue jay will surely pass the review along to those who require it. I mean, hey, the Washington Post said you should read it.

Second, I was on… a talk show (wait for it)… inside Animal Crossing (no it gets weirder)… run by Gary Whitta, the guy behind Book of Eli and Rogue One (hold on)… a show that recently also hosted T-Pain, Danny Trejo, and Elijah Wood? Yeah. It’s a thing. It’s called Animal Talking. It’s fucking weird. It’s awesome. Gary is good people and it’s a neat thing, so here’s the YouTube of my episode. Check out the show live, too, because what fun.

Also, guess who wrote a spot on Polygon about Calvin & Hobbes in our era of the Quarantimes, and how Lockdown makes it all the more relevant? It’s me! It’s true! Holy shit!

Anyway. I think that’s it?

ONTO THE FREE ICE CREAM

HA HA THERE IS NO FREE ICE CREAM YOU FELL FOR A CLASSIC RUSE

*sigh*

Fine, I am assured by my lawyers that if I said there’d be ice cream, then there’d be some goddamn ice cream, so uggggh whatever. Stupid law. So! The other day I was the recipient of some free ice cream myself, when Jeni’s sent me some of their new SUNSHINE ice cream, which is a luscious gray ice cream (honestly, it’s so fancy it should be grey with an e) that tastes in stark contrast to its color like you just blended up a smoothie of lime sherbet, Froot Loops, and Skittles, and then injected it with some of that vampire-killing Sunshine from Blade II. Point is, it’s fucking tasty, containing a hefty measure of one of my favorite flavors — passion fruit! — and I’m glad I got some, but I also feel like, do I deserve free ice cream? Probably not. Do you deserve free ice cream? Of course.

So, I wish I could give it to ALL OF YOU, but I can’t, because who am I, Scrooge McDuck? Swimming in Ice Cream Riches? (Certain sections of the internet will suggest to you that I am a MILLIONAIRE, full of money like some kind of money pinata, but, uhhh, haha have you met a writer before? Anyway.) At the very least, I feel a contest to give some free ‘scream is fair. I’ll send five pints of Jeni’s — one pint will be Sunshine, the other two will be dealer’s choice (but I intend for them to be fruit-tropical-adjacent). All you gotta do to win is the following:

a) be in the United States, upper 48

b) donate $25 or more to the RERF, the Guy Fieri-led Restaurant Employee Relief Fund

c) email me your receipt (screenshot or FWD or whatever) of that donation to the RERF to me at curious_spider@yahoo.com by Sunday night at 11:59PM.

I’ll randomly pick someone by Monday, will announce the winner here, I’ll get your address.

Then: ice cream for you. A tiny dollop of sunshine and sweetness.

And that’s it.

Here’s a photo of that ice cream, by the way: