you know what would be cool?

If there were like, only a few million people on earth. Enough so you’d have someone to talk to, and stuff to trade, but otherwise, you’re mostly left alone to do the things you want or need to do.

Also, if they could all be cool, that’d be great.

It is an issue, though, this overpopulation. We’re breeding ourselves out, and we’re ignoring it completely.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2672 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
Comics: Bloodstrike 18, New Men 10, Brigade v2 16, Team Youngblood 17
Music: The Who By Numbers, The Who

dot dot dot

I’ve been thinking about corpses all day and it’s something I’d rather not.

It hasn’t left me with a lot to say.

I’ve seen too many, and too far gone. Death is a part of life; if you believe the anti-immortals, it’s what gives meaning to life; mostly, I think it adds time pressure, an urgency we don’t always feel.

So many of us don’t feel it at all, do we?

What a waste, man. What a waste.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 961 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magician's Gambit, David Eddings
Comics: Troll: Once A Hero 1, Youngblood Strikefile 5, Badrock And Company 1, Bloodstrike 14
Music: White Light, White Heat, White Trash, Social Distortion

blood tests

I finally found her.

I finally found the person that can’t hit my veins.

This, from the guy who once made a joke to a nurse, “I would have made one hell of a junkie.”

Goals, people.

Goals.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1661 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Last American Vampire, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Bloodstrike 1-2, Youngblood Battlezone 1, Youngblood Strikefile 1
Music: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Billie Eilish (this is a great album, don't care what you say)

feelin’ a bit better today

No more nausea, and the Imodium I took ended the diarrhea, but as it so often does, bound me right the fuck up, which will be worse in a day or two.

Drugs.

Can’t live with ’em, can’t just enjoy being high.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1080 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Last American Vampire, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Brigade 2-3, Youngblood 0, 4
Music: When Under Ether, PJ Harvey

ugh, gas

I’m now at my fourth (?) doctor telling me it’s just gas.

But really, when the pain is so severe, it doubles me over, or the distended belly comes out so far, I start getting lightheaded and threatening to pass out, is it really?

Why I can’t convince any one of these motherfuckers to get me some kind of test – ultrasound, scope, X-Ray, CAT, PET, MRI, I don’t even know which is best, but damn it.

Something.

Assholes.

Healthcare is fucked, and I’ll be honest, walking around like this?

There are points in the day where it’s so persistent and so severe that I’d rather not be walking around at all.

A little fucking help, guys.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1632 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Last American Vampire, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Tomb Raider: Survivor's Crusade 3-4, Tomb Raider: Inferno 1-2
Music: When I Was Born For The 7th Time, Cornershop (featuring one of the catchiest tunes in 90s alternative history, but also, one of the songs that carries it on WAY too fucking long)

sunshine and puppies

And beer. The local Barks ‘n’ Brew, always for a good cause, and a good time.

Beats yardwork, which is all I did this morning, after editing. I could use the break.

Every day seems more than a marathon, it’s a car chase, a manic Daniel Radcliffe running around with guns taped to his hands, a sprint with obstacles that goes the half-circuit.

I’m way too out of shape for it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1347 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: SNAFU, Ed Helms
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 2-5
Music: West Coast Vs. Wessex, NOFX/Frank Turner (oh my god, Turner turning Fat Mike into a lyricist with his beautiful arrangements?  I love me some NOFX, but whoever would have thought?  Too bad the NOFX covers of his songs were... less good.  The second half of this album is brilliant.)

i mean, like, it’s getting there

I’ve got one scene left to revise in my third draft, and despite all my great notes with their wonderful additions and new directions and ideas and such, I’m not sure they all fit, or could fit, without monster rewrites and possible storyline changes, at this point.

Still, it’s a good start, and I will endeavour in the new round to go through all those notes and take whatever will really work, will add to the story and make it better than it is, and put it in.

That’s going to be a major task, I’m sure, and I’m starting to worry my end of year deadline isn’t going to be one I can reach.

I finished The Mungk on time last year; it was a novella.

This is much more ambitious and has taken up considerably more time and effort.

I imagine the next will be that again.

A book a year; maybe I’ll have all my work done before I’m eighty. Or even ninety. Ninety-one, perhaps.

I’ll retire on my ninety-first birthday. How’s that?

And then I’ll fucking die.

If I make it there first.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2869 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider: Sphere Of Influence 1, Tomb Raider: Takeover 1, Tomb Raider 37-38
Music: Welcome To New York, The Rolling Stones

lord almighty

The times, they are a-changin’.

And my body is freaking out with high blood pressure.

I wish I knew why.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1395 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Solar Lottery, Philip K. Dick
Comics: Tomb Raider 28-29, Tomb Raider Journeys 11-12
Music: Weird Tales Of The Ramones (Discs 1-3), The Ramones

guilt

I mean, I’ve got a lot of it.

I try not to have it. I know people that look like me have done all kinds of horrible shit, and indeed, due to stupidity or selfishness or ignorance of the world around me, I’m sure I’ve done more than my fair share.

I haven’t been a great man. I’m still not, as far as I know.

My life has been defined by trauma – not real trauma. I was never beaten or raped or witnessed a horrible crime. I have PTSD from bad employers, but who doesn’t?

My trauma seems inconsequential; it’s not warzone PTSD or survivor’s guilt.

It’s knowing that every day, things get worse. Brain beaten, bit by bit, until my brain feels like a hockey enforcer with CTE, even if it might not look that way.

But it’s all excuses, or so I’m told. Avoidance. I should feel guiltier, they tell me. I should feel the weight of two thousand years of straight white male oppression.

And I do.

I don’t know how I stand it.

I don’t know how anyone stands it. I sit at the bottom of this world, like Atlas without the muscles, squished, guts oozing out my sides, eyes literally popping out of my skull like a sausage being run over by a Mack Truck.

And yet, somehow, still alive.

I feel it. I feel it all.

I feel the world’s pain, its anger, its suffering.

And I’m not sure how much longer I can stand.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2287 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: World Of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Comics: Tomb Raider Journeys 5-6, Tomb Raider 23-24
Music: Weezer (White Album), Weezer