slept in

Until EIGHT. In the AM!

Crazy, right?

I haven’t had more than about six or seven hours of sleep in months, without being ill.

Of course, I’m ill today, but fuck it. I am using this downtime to push forward hard on the things that I love – writing, reading, comics, with a side of meditation, exercise, cooking and music.

That’s pretty much the sum total, although I think travel, sex, video games, and various other sundry storytelling mediums also play a part.

What else could you possibly need? A greater purpose? People who love you? Righteous vengeance?

I don’t know, but I’m feeling better, anyway.

Still sick, but hell if I couldn’t use eight to ten hours every night.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2575 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X/Alex Haley
Comics: Preacher: Saint Of Killers 1-2, Preacher 17-18
Music: Nowhere Generation I & II, Rise Against

happy fuckin’ new year

I can’t complain. We had a good time last night. I stayed sober enough to drive, which was fun.

We played the Game of Death, which is always a good time. Nobody got radiAIDS this time, so I suppose that was a win.

(RadiAIDS = AIDS + radiation poisoning. I mean, come on. You have to laugh.)

I feel like I need to go into full retreat now that the holidays are ended.

New Year’s resolution? Sell a book, write a book.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Do better today than yesterday. Start cutting out the toxic bullshit.

No more evil in my life, by my action or another’s, sanctioned by my silence.

Write. Write more. Read. Read more.

Fuck. Fuck more.

Lose some goddamned weight.

You know, the usual.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 263 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X (like it would be written by anyone else)
Comics: Preacher 5-8
Music: Nothing's Shocking, Jane's Addiction (what an album)

original sin

I don’t believe in original sin. I think it’s fucking ridiculous.

Only a deluded soul could believe that anyone is born evil. Babies are babies; they just are.

Evil is not born. It’s bred.

It’s influenced and created, it has supervillain origins. Origins often tragic and relatable, but it doesn’t ultimately matter because the evil is so ingrained as to overwhelm any compassion one might hold.

It’s a henchman created by an overbearing boss, a desire to please, a fear of independent thought, or whatever.

It’s selfish, narcissistic, and considers no one’s needs but its own. It feeds and feeds and feeds, growing larger and larger, until someone cuts off the damn trough (or it empties its own and starts feasting on everyone else’s, which is when true evil begins).

It needs a slap in the face.

And sometimes, it’s so far gone, so committed to its story of itself as hero, itself as victim, itself as the only character in the story whose needs need to be fulfilled, that there’s no chance of turning back.

There’s only awful behaviour, and ultimately, exile or death.

If, in your story, you are the only one that matters, or you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s?

Fuck you. You’re the problem.

You weren’t born that way; circumstances pushed you a certain direction and you didn’t bother to course correct once you knew.

And ultimately, you started making the choice to be evil, all on your own.

So, fuck you, overentitled pieces of shit, bigoted assholes trying to pretend you love freedom and not just hating on others.

Fuck you, snooty pricks staring down your noses at people for not having the “right” views or the “right” look or having read the “right” books, when the extent of your engagement with justice is a fucking social media post to mask the fact that all you care about is status.

Fuck you, too, people who stand up and say, I’m decisive, I’m advocating for myself, I’m a strong person, but are, in actually, just assholes who treat everyone else like shit over the pettiest bullshit in order to prop up the fiction that they’re somehow worth more than everyone else (your insecurity is showing). Your obsessive need to prove yourself, your obsession with validation, it’s destructive – to you and everyone around you.

And it’s led, time and again, to the same choice – grow, change, be a better person, or close down, stop thinking and fuck everyone else.

Otherwise known as, you know, evil.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 3085 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 9-10
Music: Not The Actual Events, Nine Inch Nails

spoiled children

Not the granddaughter, that’s for sure. She may be spoiled, but she’s not entitled (yet, thankfully). It’s more loved than spoiled. The fruits of being the only grandchild, I suppose.

Still, there are some individuals around here who behave like sullen teenagers forced to a relative’s house pouting on the couch. Spoiled, ungrateful, living in a fantasy land of projected (but untrue, or at least, delusioned) bad behaviour that ultimately allows them to claim the victim position, despite being almost entirely the offenders.

Man, am I ever sick of that pose.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 271 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 5-8
Music: A Northern Soul, The Verve (so good)

gd (granddaughter)

I don’t mean goddamn. Just a good deal.

Man, this kid. I could do away with the rest of the family, but this kid.

Just a joy, even if it comes so fraught.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 191 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 1-4
Music: North America Sucks!!, Anti-Flag/d.b.s.

cleanin’ house

Literally. We have the granddaughter and other various family coming, so it’s grind time.

Nose to the grindstone.

Grindstone to the knife.

Knife to the food.

Food in the belly?

Wait. Where was I going with this again?

Oh, right. Workin’.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 838 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith
Comics: Chew 56-59
Music: Acoustic Things, Stone Temple Pilots

merry christmas?

No time for love, today.

Sick dogs, no time, devilled egg salad.

It’ll be a whirlwind.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 241 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith
Comics: Chew 53-55, Chew: Demon Chicken Poyo #1
Music: BYO Split Series Vol. 3, NOFX/Rancid

i get it; i’m late

For all the things I wanted to do with my life, I probably would have had to have started as a teenager.

Unfortunately, the lessons I needed to learn, the skills I had to grow (and am still growing), the mindset, the life experience, all that stuff… it unfolded a little slower than it probably should have.

Maybe I could have gone a more traditional route, and maybe I could have been content with that, but when have I ever been content with anything? In the moment, I can be, in the midst of a good meal or a great book or great sex, a nice moment in the sun while walking the dogs.

But isn’t that the only time ever?

I know it will take me probably until I’m a hundred and no longer able to function physically or mentally to do the work that I want to do, to see the places I wanted to see, to have all the experiences I’ve desired.

I probably won’t make it, barring terrific medical advances. Of course, I could live that long but the growing spectre of fascism, the threat of climate change, bigotry and hatred, the complete breakdown of both civility and the willingness to stand up for what is right, in action more than words, is likely to end this planet (or at least my life or the ability to do the things I desire to do), all that pretty well guarantees that this is a fool’s errand.

But what’s the alternative?

Giving up?

I know I’m a late bloomer, but hell. Fuck it.

There’s no do-overs, so it’s now or never, and if I die in the attempt, without making the impact I would have liked, well, there’s no shame in trying.

Only in giving up.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1479 words, short story: Late Riser

Read: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (also, this has nothing to do with this book, it was garbage, like Eckhart Tolle fucked Hans Christian Andersen and their baby read The Secret on the way out - stuff like this is why people get stuck in their own heads thinking they just have think things into existence, or that all skill is just natural, instead doing the fucking work.)
Comics: Chew 42-44, Chew: Warrior Chicken Poyo (POYO!) 1
Music: No!, They Might Be Giants

early risin’

I’m up earlier than I wanted to be, but so is everyone else, which kills my time to meditate and read and put on headphones and plow through a random selection of music on my way to the second coffee of the day.

And I’m thinking about time.

I’m thinking about how frozen I am; how stuck; how the only barrier to me getting what I want and being the thing I want to be is myself and this mental block, this block behind the tires of the trailer that is my mine.

My wheels are spinnin’.

Moving beyond is terrifying; there’s so many bad things going on in the world right now to stop it from ever happening, but I cannot control those. I can only control what I need to do to get what’s in my head out of my head.

It’s getting it past that that’s the real trick.

How does the world find it? Can I get it done before I die?

Geez. I guess there really was a theme to all this.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1273 words, short story: Late Riser

Read: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Comics: Chew 39-41, Chew/Revival 1
Music: No, Virginia, The Dresden Dolls

since i was eight

That’s when I wrote a short story for the first time, about a caterpillar who’d fallen into a bowl of popcorn and couldn’t get out.

The sides were slick with butter and he had to dodge the hands that descended again and again, to avoid being eaten.

I guess metaphor was an early love, and an accurate one.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 977 words, short story: Broke Down Car

Read: Permanent Record, Edward Snowden
Comics: Chew 31-34
Music: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion, Various