Stepdad Has Filed for Divorce

Although we both love wood paneling, we need our own spaces.

Stepdad Collages, 2025

The last Stepdad Collages post was a bold move. I told myself it was an experiment, but I knew it would be polarizing. I’ll admit it: It was a provocation. I was pressure testing my audience, which you don’t deserve.

This isn’t anything new. My writing has always been a kind of pressure test. Of myself. Of the reader. Of how much truth people are willing to sit with when it comes in strange packaging—be it wine, grief, humor, or boobs glued to old Sunset magazines. The major difference has been that most of you know my writing after an editor has reigned me in and made it printable.

I don’t know if it was idealism or delusion that made me think I could house all my creative work under a single Substack. Probably a bit of both. Very on brand of me, even without factoring in that I’m a triple water sign.

Selfishly, I wanted to be seen for everything I am. I don’t think I ever have been. And while I know I never really will, I secretly hoped that by putting all my w…