Category: health

temagami, twenty-twenty-five

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I’m so glad to be up here. I still dream of being buried in the lake.

When I die (or preferably, about to die so I get to see it all again), no Viking funeral, just take me to the deepest part of Lake Temagami, fold my hands on my chest, and let me go.

Tell them never to raise my bones.

I can find no greater peace than to lie still in the frozen waters of the great Canadian Shield, in my home.

Tell them.

These are my wishes for disposal.

(Spread my ashes if you must, if the authorities won’t allow you to sink a body without dredging me out of the lake. I would, however, prefer to be whole and at the bottom, to feed the lake with my corporeal and spiritual essence. I’ll settle for spiritual, if required.)

Otherwise, under cover of night…

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1368 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
Comics: The Scumbag 8-9, Deadly Class 46-47
Music: Warped Tour (Camden, NJ), Sublime (it's bootleg season, if you care)

there was nothing good about today

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Nothing. I’ll write up a whole thing tomorrow about our baby girl and how much she meant to us, but I’m dehydrated from tears and the sweat of digging a grave in thirty-degree-celsius heat (not to mention lack of sleep), and I’ve got a pounding headache.

Suffice it to say, we’ve lost something beautiful today, and my heart hangs in tattered shreds.

People say they’re just animals, but fuck them. Anyone who doesn’t understand the love between a person and their pet is emotionally stunted.

You might as well take your heart and throw it in a river, for all the good it’s doing, you soulless jerk.

Sorry, I’ve never gotten over the comment about our first loss: “It’s just a cat.”

Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1048 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Rocket Ship Galileo, Robert Heinlein
Comics: Death Or Glory 11, Low 23-25
Music: Warp Bootleg, CKY

l names

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There’s a bit in Bad Neighbours regarding last names, so I’ve been trying to come up with as many similar sounding L names as possible. I think I’ve managed it, but well, I’ve hit a wall and then I had to look it up.

My brain is jello.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 43 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Myths & Texts, Gary Snyder
Comics: Death And Glory 6-8, Deadly Class 42
Music: War Sucks, Let's Party!, Anti-Flag (damn straight)

forty-eight

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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: Experience The Divine, Bette Midler (because I hate myself, apparently)

last day of forty-seven

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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: Experience Expanded: Remixes & B-Sides, The Prodigy

the one day in the office

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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: Everything Under The Sun, Sublime

girding myself

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Man, I love this kid, but I know, I KNOW, I’m going to be sore after she’s gone.

My kids were teenagers when I came into their life, so I skipped that whole chasing after toddlers phase, which is fun, but man, running around behind one kid is hard enough.

I don’t know how my mother did four.

Younger, I guess. If I’d done it, I would have been ten to twenty years younger, which would make a big difference, I’m sure.

But now, I’m pushing fifty and well, much as I love the shenanigans and craziness and horseplay, it’s a lot.

So, Advil, be at the ready.

This is going to hurt.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 916 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Infinity Concerto, Greg Bear (I wanted to like it, because so many authors I like have such respect for Greg Bear, but man... no characterization, disjointed plotline that didn't delve quite far enough into the mechanics of the thing... I'm sure he was trying to say something somewhere, but it was almost... art is bad? I must have missed the point)
Comics: Black Science 4-5, Deadly Class 2-3
Music: Every Breath You Take: The Classics, The Police

on the verge

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Tomorrow, we start this back to week 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: Euphoria Mourning, Chris Cornell (god, I miss that voice)

day off

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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 Essential (1955-1983), Johnny Fuckin' Cash

brian wilson

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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: The Essential, Bruce Springsteen (fuck you, you probably don't know what Born In The USA is even about, you nationalistic prick)