last day

I spent much of the day on the water, trying to ignore everyone. I could float forever.

The sky was giant blue; there was beer on the shore.

My dogs seem tired, but happy, a little nervous.

The water is cool and refreshing. How nice it must feel to go deep.

Would that I could settle into a soft buzz.

Sadly, I don’t do drugs (anymore).

I do kind of miss them, though; just not all the shit around them. A whiskey to sharpen the edges, a cold beer to take it off. A nice glass of wine to sparkle, a long, low rum to get happy, man.

Nothing beats mushrooms.

Except mushrooms while staring at the great white North, falling into endless stars, rapt with aurora borealis.

I will miss here.

I hate the fields.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 256 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear (maybe someday, maybe someday)
Comics: Deadly Class 52-53, A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 8-9
Music: Essential Thorogood, George Thorogood & The Destroyers (oh fuck, did I ever need this, especially after that execrable Billy Joel - anything for a lifeline out of saccharine, talentless, mediocre tripe)

tomorrow is going to suck

I’ll have a lot more to say on that tomorrow, but suffice it to say, the day is going to be a real bummer.

The anticipation is almost worse than the act itself; neither of which makes me feel anything but horrid.

I’m so sorry, baby.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 701 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Rocket Ship Galileo, Robert Heinlein
Comics: Deadly Class 43-44, Death Or Glory 9-10
Music: Enter The Vaselines, The Vaselines

forty-eight

My health fights my ambition.

My depression fights my motivation.

I’m not sure which is winning.

Happy goddamned birthday.

I’d like nothing more than to go back to being twelve, with the knowledge I have now, and do things the right fucking way.

Then again, would I have all this?

Or would I have opted for the easy way out that time?

Would I have followed Matt into heroin and other hard drugs?

Would I have done something even dumber than the things I already did?

It is hell to be at war, whether it’s with others or yourself.

The dichotomy must die.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1562 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Deadly Class 23-24, Seven To Eternity 3, Black Science 26
Music: Emigre, Anti-Flag

last day of forty-seven

Tomorrow, I’ll be forty-eight years on this earth.

And given how my neck, shoulder and stomach feel today, I have lived all of them quite poorly.

At least, in all likelihood, I’m better than halfway through.

Closer to the end than the beginning, that’s for sure.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1307 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Comics: Seven To Eternity 1-2, Deadly Class 22, Black Science 25
Music: Elvis Presley Essentials, Elvis Presley (can't go wrong with the king)

the one day in the office

Yeehaw, called in sick Monday so we could take the grandbaby out for waffles, and yesterday was a stat day, so only one day in the office.

Now, if only my laptop bag didn’t smell so horribly like cat pee.

My life is one walking travesty after another, punctuated by brief moments of joy that I can barely enjoy.

Depression’s a monster.

The black dog sucks the joy out of everything.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1888 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Agent To The Stars, John Scalzi
Comics: Black Science 10, Low 4-5, Deadly Class 9
Music: Electric Ladyland, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (so at least, I got this going for me)

day two – back in office

I still don’t like it, and there’s even more people here today.

Zero out of ten, do not recommend.

Work from home, kids, in any way you can.

Hell is other people, as a smart man once said, but it’s also the self.

Basically, we live in hell, the darkest timeline, whatever, the world actually ended in 2012, and we’re just lost in a collective nightmare where things only get worse, no one can stop it and we’re all doomed to live out our days watching things turn to shit.

This is why you don’t put the boy back at work; he’s less likely to spiral.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1121 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear
Comics: Fear Agent 21-24
Music: Ed Sheeran Essentials, Ed Sheeran (fuck you, the kid seems like a dork, which is cool with me)

back to office

It’s every bit as bad as I thought.

At least, I’m in a side room, not the main floor, but my boss is right in the room with me (though she’s cool – a cousin of my wife, though neither of knew the other existed prior to me starting there – she looks like a younger version of my wife).

It’s weird though, so quiet. I feel like I’m breathing too heavy, like everyone is watching me.

It’s creepy, keeping my back up.

Hopefully, I get used to it, because otherwise, the background stress of being there is going to kill me.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 702 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear
Comics: Fear Agent 13-16
Music: Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace, Foo Fighters (why is every album so good? A deal with Satan, for certain)

on the verge

Tomorrow, we start this back to office program. It’s only three days a week, but I’m not sure how that’s going to affect my writing schedule.

Weeks were I’m in now tend to be struggles to find time, because of the extra prep and travel time involved, but I had two weeks to catch up if things went off.

Now… every week, possibly three days where I’m having to get up earlier or stay up later or drop other things I need to do in order to keep up?

Or worse, postponing everything to try and shove them in Thursday or Friday, or that other time that we’re supposed to have time but don’t, a weekend?

I am fretting.

Yes. Fretting.

Okay, freaking out.

I want this life, and I’m tired of fighting myself for it; I certainly don’t need the rest of the world piling on.

The Mungk left me hopeless, fatalist.

Bad Neighbours only feeds my anger.

I don’t need any more anger.

I have always had more than enough.

Fuck.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 611 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Almayer's Folly, Joseph Conrad
Comics: Fear Agent 9-12
Music: Echoes - The Best Of Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd (no shit, for real)

day off

I’m taking the day tomorrow. Mostly, because we’ve been asked to take care of our granddaughter for the day/weekend (yes, sir! No problem, sir!), but because I am spiralling. I’m really not in a good place for work.

I feel like I’m behind, overworked, disorganized, putting way too much personal pressure on myself to meet standards and targets, and that’s not just work.

It’s me, fucking myself up.

Self-destructing, as always, and wanting to scrap it all and start again.

But I’ve done that too often.

I’ve come too far and I’m out of time.

After all, Donald Trump’s fascist state may invade or bomb us at any time. The psycho’s capable of anything, if it feeds his sad, little ego.

So, yeah.

Taking the day tomorrow.

Fuck Donald Trump.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1106 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Comics: Fathom v6 8, Aspen Universe: Decimation 1-3
Music: The Early Year - Underpaid & Out Of Tune, Dropkick Murphys (fuckin' Dropkick, man, love 'em.)

brian wilson

And now, Brian Wilson?

Goddamnit.

Sly Stone I could take because I don’t have a lot of connection there, but I’ve been listening to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys as long as I can remember (fuck Mike Love). We even saw them in concert when they (meaning Mike Love and a bunch of randoms) came to play at the bandstand in Tecumseh Park.

It was nice.

The innocence of it all hiding the troubled mind in behind… wouldn’t it be better if Brian had sang what he wanted? If he’d sang about his pain.

Wouldn’t it be nice?

For Brian Wilson to be still alive.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 798 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Comics: Aspen Universe: Decimation 0, Fathom v6 5-7
Music: Early Trax, Ministry