everyone’s going to die

I don’t know why, but I’m watching this guy talking about fashion on TV and all I can think is…

Someday, he’s going to die. So is the interviewer (which is a shame, she seems nice – they both do).

But so will I, so will my wife. So will my daughter, my dogs, my cats, my extended family, and every since animal, plant and person that’s ever existed.

Bummer, dude. I get that growth cannot be endless or it becomes cancer, but damn.

If there’s a higher power, garbage build, bro. Change is the only thing that does not die.

Target: 900 words
Written: 454 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Shining, Stephen King
Comics: 100 Bullets 61-64
Music: Never Saw A Thing Coming, Gregger Botting (a friend of mine - check him out)

if you see me getting by

Knock me down.

Or least, that seems to the motto of the universe around me.

Are there actually happy people against whom the universe doesn’t conspire? I should think not.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1610 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Lost In The Barrens, Farley Mowat
Comics: 100 Bullets 1-4
Music: Neck Of The Woods, Silversun Pickups

revelations that we pray are not

I’m not talking about the Bible (which, by the way, is bullshit, and anyone who’d actually read it would tell you right away it’s not something to be followed), but about personal revelations.

It occurred to me in the midst of making notes about editing for this ninth draft that I could be one of those people that has a repressed memory that they refuse to acknowledge, but which has subconsciously destroyed their entire life, and sent them so far off track from normal that there’s no real return.

It would explain a lot.

The problem is, I can’t think of any instance of that. I know my downward spiral began at twelve, when I was going through confirmation classes and I decided, because I am a completist weirdo, that I would read the Bible (so I guess I am talking about it).

Keep in mind that I’d really committed myself to being a holy little roller at the time, and I will say it again and again: nothing will turn you atheist more than actually reading the Bible cover to cover. If you’re not out by the end of Leviticus and its pro-slavery, anti-woman stance, then certainly, by the time Saul and David have committed their eighteenth genocide, you’ve got to be asking questions.

Anyway, that threw me sideways, because this was the dominant philosophical framework of the world around me, and if it was not only faulty, but downright evil, well, then, what to believe?

(The burgeoning alternative scene that came along around the same time didn’t help – thanks, Matt, for introducing me to INXS, Dead Kennedys and R.E.M, which led directly to grunge, punk and any manner of anti-social glory. I’m sorry I never got into Cannibal Corpse. Rest in peace, friend. I’m sorry it fucked you up even worse than me.)

Anyway, this repressed memory. What if I’m walking around with one of these things dictating how I interface with the world through a lens of trauma I wasn’t even away I had?

The world is spinning out. Please don’t be a revelation. I don’t want it to be.

Target: 900 words
Written: 904 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Wishsong Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Once And Future 23-26
Music: Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen

it’s a day for staring blankly

I feel like my body is about to burst from my skin, and yet, the only thing I want to do is sit and stare blankly.

Being a vegetable seems cool to me, somehow.

I worry I might be a bad person; on the other hand, maybe I don’t give a shit.

Target: 900 words
Written: 328 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Club Dead, Charlaine Harris
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 40-41, Die 1-2
Music: Use Your Illusion II, Guns 'n' Roses

tight pants

I’m tired of them.

I can’t take the pushing on my belly anymore. I had lost about a dozen pounds, but then, of course, we went away so I regained seven or eight, and now my belts, my shorts and even those that are just stretchy push in on my stomach and leave me feeling nauseous.

(Not to mention the blood pressure raise.)

Anyway, I hate going to the office; where are my comfy pants? My PJs? My board shorts with the elastics so old that they’ve lost most of their elasticity?

An elastic with no stretch; if that ain’t a metaphor for getting old, then I don’t know what is.

Target: 900 words
Written: 764 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Club Dead, Charlaine Harris
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 38-39, The Wicked + The Divine: 1373 AD 1, The Wicked + The Divine: The Funnies 1
Music: Use Your Illusion I, Guns 'n' Roses

shadow

Yesterday, I saw my shadow stretch across the yard, a giant apparition that stared back at me with thoughts of monstrous consumption.

We stared at each other for a while; it’s said one should not stare into the abyss.

Surely, it looks back.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1736 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiness Of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 18-21
Music: Upstair's At Eric's, Yaz

new beds

We’ve got new beds coming today, and I’m praying it does for my sleep what a remote mountain lake does for my peace.

I’m praying to sink into oblivion and forget everything that exists.

Until, of course, the next time it does.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1276 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiness Of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 14-16, Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl 3
Music: The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Red Hot Chili Peppers

caught up, okay

I’m okay. I’m probably okay.

I mean, nobody’s really okay, but I’m okay-ish. All my idols are being destroyed one by one, which probably means one shouldn’t have idols. The lovely men and women of the world never seem to be the ones at the forefront, the darlings; it’s always the guy nobody really realized until they were gone.

Also, again, no correlation between talent and being a good person.

(See Spacey, Kevin)

It’s easy to go off the rails, and I think we underestimate how much fame can affect a person. How when people start throwing themselves at you and it’s no longer an effort to earn things, one can become entitled to the point of criminality.

For the most part, we let them get away with it, which is why it’s such a goddamned shame when the public image is ripped away.

Fuck ’em, for the most part.

But still. The Usual Suspects, Neverwhere, The Belgeriad… still good, or even great, even if the ones that created them are monsters.

It’s a conflict that never ends; is great art made less great by bad behaviour, or is bad behaviour just one facet of an artist, to be divorced or overlooked when evaluating the content of the work?

No one is perfect; some men are far less so.

There is no answer here, only acknowledgement.

Perhaps we’re just fooling ourselves, because we want to believe. We want to enjoy. We want to love.

But humanity is complex; there are ever demons with which to be dealt.

Target: 900 words
Written: 949 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, Wil Wheaton
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 12-13, Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl 1-2
Music: Up To Here, The Tragically Hip (fucking seminal, man - if Gord Downie is ever outed as a rapist or racist or whatever, I will lose all faith in humanity.)

letting it slide

And so I did. Let it all slide.

Everything but the writing and reading.

Meditation? Nope.

Exercise? Nope.

I even forgot to walk the dogs, and neither my wife or I noticed until it was bedtime.

Good thing we wore them out the previous couple of days.

Now, if only someone would allow me a day of rest.

My “sick” day, taken for rest, wasn’t exactly restful. I’m tired of the constant go.

I need hibernation. I need newness. I need to get laid.

I need to be out of this routine, and committed (in either sense of the word).

Target: 900 words
Written: 649 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, Wil Wheaton (ironic, ain't it?)
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 8-11
Music: Up On The Sun, Meat Puppets

headaches and light beers

And being behind.

I let stuff go off the rails yesterday. I could have done better, but I didn’t.

Blame it on lack of motivation, lack of sleep (another storm, another night up with Sofi Jo), lack of willpower, depression, hopelessness, fatalism, whatever.

But I shit the bed on everything but writing and drinking yesterday, so here we are.

Behind. In pain.

Pray for me, children. This headache shall not last.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1023 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Unholy Night, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine 4-7
Music: Up From The Catacombs, Jane's Addiction