Welcome to ThePointedQuillBlog!

Hi, I’m Alan Puckett. I live in Seattle and write about whatever strikes my fancy at the moment–current events, yoga, nature and the outdoors, my dog and lots more. This is my first post–the first post, actually–at ThePointedQuillBlog so this will be mostly an introduction with content to follow in subsequent posts.

I grew up in New Mexico and moved up to the Pacific Northwest after gradual school, 15 years ago now. I hadn’t anticipated retiring this early, but life is full of surprises–as the Buddhists say, Good? Bad? Who Knows? It’s working out OK, and I really enjoy being my own person and not going to pointless, waste-of-time staff meetings that make everyone in the cramped, airless conference room pinch themselves to see if they’ve actually died or if it just feels like they did. Tough call but I’m getting by without that, so far anyway.

Given all that’s happened in the past few years, and since I am fortunate enough to have a roof over my head and plenty to eat, early retirement is really a minor footnote in life at this point. I mean, did you ever think we would have a president like the one we evicted from Our White House just a few months ago? Did anyone expect to see a deadly pandemic kill more than 600,000 Americans and nearly 4 million people worldwide in 15 months, with the death toll still rising? And can you believe that Our now-Ex-President advised us to drink bleach for our health–and that some people actually did?

So, it hasn’t been boring, which I appreciate. Though in all honesty, Our New President is a bit less entertaining than his predecessor–and actually, I’m so glad! If I want to watch a clown stick a Sharpie up his nose I’ll go to the circus next time it’s in town, OK?

Yoga and my dog Gloria (who prefers to go by Lulu–one less syllable is a big deal when you’re a dog, y’know?) got me through the first year of the pandemic and are still holding me together as we begin to enjoy The Vaccinated Life. I’m sorry, did I say “we”? Forgive the slip. I meant most of us who are age 12 or older and have a lick of sense, which apparently adds up to about 53% of the total U.S. population at the moment. I don’t know about you, but I was never so grateful for a sore shoulder in all my life. But apparently some folks would rather roll the dice with drowning in their own pulmonary fluids. Hey, to each their own.

Anyway, I won’t belabor the pandemic further at the moment. You’ve experienced it for yourself and will no doubt have some colorful stories for your grandkids about what a strange time it’s been. I hope it hasn’t been too rough on you. We can revisit that Long, Strange Trip and our war stories about it another time.

So thank you for visiting ThePointedQuillBlog.com and for reading My Very First Blogpost Ever–I’m grateful for your time, and WordPress appreciates your eyeballs too. Stay safe and I’ll write again soon.