Category: health

happy endings

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They’re kinda bullshit, aren’t they? I mean, all endings can be happy if they release the tension risen by the narrative, but still, complexity is better than 80s style TV wrap-ups.

I love it when a plan comes together, says Hannibal, chewing his cigar like cud. Yep, everything wrapped up nice, no real damage done. Lots of bullets fired and things blown up, cars flipping sideways over conveniently placed ramps, yet everyone walks away with nothing but a bump on the noggin and no concussion or post-injury brain bleeds or whatever.

Whatever.

People should end up scarred and broken. It gives them something to work on and overcome.

Like Scott Snyder wrote in American Vampire, scars on the skin aren’t bad things; they’re part of the story.

It’s a shame to filter them all away.

(Speaking of which, is that what’s behind this skincare craze, beyond corporate greed? People trying to make sure they have absolutely no blemishes, like an Instagram filter that scrapes away a person’s leathery skin, so when you see them and you think, yikes, what happened? Are you okay?)

Anyway, be proud of your aging skin. It got you where you are.

Nothing wrong with aging gracefully. Just me and Harrison Ford and Leonard Cohen. Looking like silver-haired gods.

(Them, not me. I’m but salt-and-pepper yet.)

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1597 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 10-11, Capes 8-9
Music: Hallowe'en, The Misfits

soooo tired

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So, so fucking tired.

How come the universe lets you have crazy dreams all night as a method of processing the sub/unconscious, but doesn’t let you have a goddamn night’s rest?

Huh, universe?

Am I sick of people or what?

Thanks, local mayoral and council candidates, for weeding yourselves out with your pro-AI data farm stance.

I was having trouble sifting through who’s what, and now I know.

There’s a few names off the list.

Fuck AI.

For the record, AI companies – none of you have any permission to use any of my work ever, for any reason, under any circumstances.

Or you can, but the cost is a billion dollars a word.

In other words, fuck you.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1832 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Armada, Ernest Cline
Comics: Invincible 141-144
Music: Half-Hour Of Power, Sum 41

redactions may end my life

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I don’t think I’ve ever been so terminally bored at work. Like, I might actually just nod off to sleep and not come back, since my mind has decided it can’t take any more of it.

The worst.

The absolute FUCKING worst.

Although, I suppose it could be worse. I could work in a sewer, or with other people’s shit or something.

I get enough of that with our dogs and cats.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1726 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Anyone, Charles Soule
Comics: Invincible 126-128, Tech Jacket v2 12
Music: Hacks | Official Playlist, Various (I really wanted this to be better, because the actual soundtrack was so good)

wow, editing is hard

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And time-consuming. Not sure how I’m going to manage being up at the granddaughter’s this weekend. Up early and late, I guess, as usual.

Ugh.

Would that this didn’t require the theft of sleep.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1572 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Rule Of Capture, Christopher Brown (well done, sir)
Comics: Tech Jacket v2 1-3, Invincible 113
Music: Future Nostalgia, The Sheepdogs

hangover

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Haven’t had one of these in a while.

This sucks.

And yet, I was able to prepare a six-course meal.

Go figure.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1504 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Rule Of Capture, Christopher Brown
Comics: Invincible Universe 8-9, Invincible 107, Tech Jacket 7
Music: Funk Essentials: The Best Of Kurtis Blow, Kurtis Blow (I hope)

on the verge of existential crisis

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It’s bizarre to me how when I throw on the headphones at work and put on an album, that it doesn’t matter what it is, it hits me somewhere directly in the raw nerve feelings, and every workday in the office begins to feel like an existential crisis.

Today, for example, I swerved from Transplants to Jimmy Buffett to Cameron Halcombe and Billie Eilish, and it felt like absolute hell, in the most incredible way. Nirvana didn’t help.

Why are all my nerves raw?

Why am I experiencing such psychotically exquisite depth of feeling?

Why so barenerved?

Like my chest, ripped to pieces.

Why?

And why don’t I hate it?

Target: 1600 words
Written: 960 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Invincible 79-81, Guarding The Globe 5
Music: From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, Nirvana

rainy day card games

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And other such fun. We did get out for lunch, which was nice, but yeah. If I’m going to be stuck in my cabin all day, maybe it shouldn’t be with the whole gang, and no time to read, and a goddamned plugged toilet minutes before I go to bed (not my fault).

I’ll be honest. I am short-fused when I don’t get that sweet, sweet alone time.

It is something I wish the people around me truly understood.

It is something the world, in its current incarnation, barely understands, with its constant notifications, constant connection, constant updates.

Never was a world more lonely than the one where no one ever shuts up.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2604 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Invincible 68-69, Invincible Presents: Atom Eve & Rexsplode 1-2
Music: Frizzle Fry, Primus (fuck, I forgot what a killer album this is)

today, i feel gravity

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Not the seriousness of the situation, but the sensation of being pulled down, to my knees, to the floor, to sink in and let my mind bleed out my ears into insensate despair.

I am fighting.

I am not yet losing, but it’s real fuckin’ close.

The kindness thing I can do for myself today is breathe. Continue to breathe.

I’m not sure what the trigger is – probably the monstrous headache I suffered through all day yesterday, and the copious amounts of Advil required to stave off the smallest part of it, plus all the stress of getting everything ready to go away for a week, which should be joyful and peaceful, but is often too busy and people-filled to be so.

Would that I could live in the woods, and release books for free.

Or hide them away, to be discovered after I’m gone, and released to posthumous brilliance.

To the floor, it be, then.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2383 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Faded Sun: Shon'jir, C.J. Cherryh (perhaps it's just the knowledge of my inferiority)
Comics: Noble Causes 37, Brit v2 9, Invincible 55, Dynamo 5 18
Music: Freaked Out And Small, The Presidents Of The United States Of America (but hopefully, not this last one)

poop breath

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My baby Sofi is a wicked cute little girl, but she’s fucking gross.

Sami had a reaction to his painkillers and had diarrhea under the bench in our entryway. By the time the smell hit us, Sofi had already eaten every last drop.

Needless to say, face kisses are a strict no for the foreseeable future.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2585 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Jules Verne
Comics: Invincible 48-49, Dynamo 5 11, Invincible Presents: Atom Eve 2
Music: No Man's Land, Frank Turner (the obsession continues)

no time again

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Cat surgery. Hopefully nothing major.

But yeah. Sucks.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1762 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Jules Verne
Comics: Dynamo 5 9-10, Invincible Presents: Atom Eve 1, Brit v2 4
Music: England Keep My Bones Down, Frank Turner (still more obsessed)