Month: May 2024

long, fast, weekend

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Another whirlwind weekend.

My life is ending so quickly. I have a thousand lifetimes of things I want to do, to make, to experience and find connection with, and it’s going so fast.

I’ve wasted so much time.

It’s all too much. Other people are too much.

One minute, you’re running and laughing; the next, disemboweled on a tree stump caught at too sharp an angle.

Strangely, that doesn’t begin the downfall. That would happen four years later, when preparing for confirmation, I made the mistake of reading the Bible, and the realization that I was being lied to, that the philosophy I’ve been presented, that was supposed to represent good and true in the world, was a steaming pile of bullshit?

I’ve been spiraling ever since.

Target: 600 words
Written: 224 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
Comics: American Vampire: Survival Of The Fittest 1-2, American Vampire 17-18
Music: OK Go, OK Go

three

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Man, I cannot believe she’s three already. A picture popped on the screensaver of her parents’ television and it was her, at a very young age, in her high chair, bib and face covered in white icing.

It seems like yesterday.

It’s all moving so damn fast.

So damn fast.

Target: 600 words
Written: 995 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
Comics: American Vampire 13-16
Music: OK Computer, Radiohead (been a while, but it never fails to remind me why it's considered one of the best.  albums.  ever.)

not quite three

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Man, this kid.

Also, I’m simultaneously way out of shape and still surprised that I can scamper up a giant play zone to help lift up to higher heights or rip down slides as much as I did.

I did realize my claustrophobia is starting to get worse.

Some of those tunnels were way too tight.

Also, I couldn’t help but think about Wytches and kid farts and matches blowing the Jones family onto the wall.

Birthdays are weird.

Target: 600 words
Written: 185 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
Comics: American Vampire 9-12
Music: Oingo Boingo Essentials, Oingo Boingo

off to see the baby

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Well, she’s about three now, so not really a baby, but I’m due for more childish glee and less adult drama.

Hell, nobody really wants drama, unless they’re enjoying fiction or missing something in their lives.

Peace is much more fulfilling.

Highest filling, next to a nice garlic cream sauce.

Target: 600 words
Written: 436 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
Comics: American Vampire 5-8
Music: Oil & Gold, Shriekback

shitty spots

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I can’t help but think of how the last forty or fifty years have left us in such a precarious position.

As a member of the first generation to be poorer than its parents, I can’t help but be furious with those who’ve put us in that position, and the fact that we’re still having to fight that battle, that we’re being told poverty and debt jail and total submission to the whims of billionaires is a fucking good thing?

I mean, I don’t know about you, but it’s enough to make me want to scrap the whole system and start over, sans cash.

Sans power.

Billionaires made to live on the fucking street, so they know how it feels.

What they’ve done.

Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all. If I’m ever a billionaire, I’m giving it away. Keep enough not to worry, to be able to live and do what I’d like without having to worry about if I can afford it. Simple pleasures – a quiet place to live, the ability to take my whole family to dinner and the ability to travel frequently and wherever. I don’t need pampering. I’m simple, man.

Keep enough to keep me in shelter, food, books and travel.

And the rest? Fucking gone, in the pockets of whoever needs it.

We can all dream.

Target: 600 words
Written: 348 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins (do you think this guy understands how much damage he's done?  I doubt it - after all, half of his "models" turned out to be con men and wannabe fascists - an unconscious attraction of like to like?  Or does the utter superficiality of his philosophy keep him from seeing past the paint to the rotting structure beneath?)
Comics: American Vampire 1-4
Music: Oi To The World, The Vandals (still the king of Christmas albums)

about yesterday

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I’m sorry about that. The world is getting to me these days. Too many assholes, or people who aren’t necessarily assholes, they’re just lost and don’t know that if they dropped all the bullshit, they’d probably get along much better with others.

At least, we wouldn’t roll our eyes when they talk.

Target: 600 words
Written: 675 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: Ares IX - The Darkness 1
Music: Oh, Inverted World, The Shins

pretense

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I think I’ve had it with people pretending to be better than other people.

People for whom a book or a band or a type of food is a status symbol, and not something that’s to be enjoyed.

People who enjoy certain things because they feel it makes them look good to their cooler friends, or better than those they consider to be of less value.

People who automatically assume others are lesser people because they don’t engage in whatever trend they do, because they don’t come from a big city, because they aren’t into something that considered cool on social media.

People who know very little about the background and lives or minds of those same “others”, and fill those gaps with assumptions of “hickness” or “redneckocity” or worse – the automatic lumping in with all the hateful bigots of the right wing.

No one wants to be associated with that – we can all look down upon that kind of evil.

But just because someone doesn’t share your exact views of what’s cool, or because they come from a smaller city, or because they have different life experiences, or different interests (or different skin colour, romantic preferences or genitalia), you just label them: lesser than.

No one wants to be labelled “lesser than”. Ask minorities. They’ve been dealt that garbage hand for centuries, and it’s far past time we put an end to that bullshit.

So, maybe, when you’re out there looking down on others because they didn’t read your snooty books or aren’t into shawarma, ask yourself: do I actually like this? Or am I simply doing the stuck up equivalent of “keeping up with the Joneses”, more interested in looking cool than figuring out what actually makes me happy?

Because from this side, you look lost and insecure, and looking down on the people around you proves it.

Target: 600 words
Written: 291 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: Aphrodite V 2-4, Aphrodite IX: Ares 1
Music: Oh No, OK GO (so underrated, these guys)

that’s what they all say

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I am depression. Depression owns my ass. All is hopeless. All is lost.

And yet, I persist.

The drive to live is strong, even when nothing else is.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to relate.

Yeah. Uh-huh.

That’s what they all say.

Target: 600 words
Written: 118 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: IXth Generation 6-8, Aphrodite V 1
Music: Oh Love, Green Day

sabotage

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Listen up, y’all.

There’s not a guy in my generation that doesn’t know every fucking word of this song, and immediately wants to dress up like a Seventies cop and with a bad moustache and slide over a car hood.

It’s immediate and visceral. I’m not the biggest Beastie Boys groupie, but hell, who doesn’t love that song?

Of course, followed by Come Alive by Foo Fighters, it’s a poignant, hard moment.

Makes me feel like a fucking teenager again, fucked up and wallowing, twisted about in depression and frustration, longing for something more.

And now, middle-aged and overweight, knowing it’s all a horrid lie.

Target: 600 words
Written: 447 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: Artemis IX 1, Apollo IX 1, Poseidon IX 1, IXth Generation 5
Music: Oh Boy - The Best Of Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Buddy Holly & The Crickets

mother’s day

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Today, we brunch and we honour our mothers, those of us who have them, and all the many things they’ve done for us, while ignoring the fairly complicated relationship we’ve had with our parents over the years.

Mother’s Day is a good time, a sticky wicket and a timebomb waiting to happen all in one.

My mother is a good mother; it doesn’t mean there’s not complexity there.

Like many GenX kids, we were largely latchkey, left to our own devices and using that time to spoil our minds with alcohol, drugs and the seedy underbelly of non-corporate living. Part of me wonders if things would be different if we had helicopter parents, but then, I’d never have the freedom or independent mind I was forced to cultivate by virtue of being left alone to figure it all out.

Perhaps a blend would be nicer; I regret a lot of my actions, but I don’t regret being able to think on my own, to be self-reliant.

So, for that, thank you, mothers. For the freedom to be, and the understanding that responsibility is inextricably entwined with that freedom.

We do what we will, and the consequences come, as is inevitable. There is no free ride; only free choice.

Target: 600 words
Written: 141 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins
Comics: IXth Generation 3-4, IXth Generation: Hidden Files 1, Athena IX
Music: The Offspring, The Offspring (wherefore art my offspring)