In this issue, I have included several unsolvable coded messages of my own making that I couldn’t for the life of me crack. Now, in more serious business, I found the phrase “me crack” to be laugh-out-loud funny, but when I showed it to my mother, who is visiting on unofficial business, she did not even smile. I guess sense of humor is not genetic, even though mah is now working hard at those messages, confident she is winning. 

Having my mother in my dirty, nasty, provocatively decorated studio apartment is making me understand why everyone keeps telling me to “get a real job”. She is uncovering personal secrets that I didn’t even know I had, and worse yet, I think she may be close to cracking my codes! DNA Wench! I may have sprung from your watery baby cave, but that doesn’t mean I need to bend to societal norms and be, ugh, “wise”. I am fine and happy in my hidey hole with my cheap, breakable things wearing $1 dollar chinos and varsity baseball shirts from the Goodwill. I am not embarrassed of my Toyota Echo. And, traditional success be damned, if I’m not the best Internet Editor, then I’m no one at all. 

Meanwhile, in the middle of this familial crisis, we’re publishing an issue driven by visuals and literary accompaniment. I guess that’s sort of what we always do, but we might be taking it seriously this go around. Nosey has contributed beautiful works, and newcomer Egg Quiche is joining the fray with some drooling-good sketchings of the landscapes we live in. Read the shits. I’m gonna throw those codes out the window. 

– Ed.