Category: personal

sadly, i know alcohol

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Listen, it’s not actually an issue. I don’t show up drunk for my niece’s recitals or sneak whiskey shots from my desk drawer at the office.

But it’s there.

It’s a part of life.

I likely don’t exceed a six pack a week, and maybe a couple of glasses of wine. Like, a drink a night (although a lot of nights, I don’t have anything).

But what I am struggling with is whether a seven year old would call Jim Beam Mr. Beam or mis-hear it as Mr. Bean.

But do I want Rowan Atkinson in this? I love the character, but the connection is incongruous with what I’m trying to do.

Mr. Beam, Mr. Bean, Mr. Beam.

Safer to stick to what you know, I guess, and Jim Beam ain’t it.

Nasty stuff, that. I’ll never understand Americans and their obsession with bourbon. It pales in comparison to true whiskey or scotch. Playdough to cement. Koolaid to an Old Fashioned. Sure, it’ll get you drunk, but damn, don’t you want it to taste halfway decent while you do it?

Target: 800 words
Written: 632 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King
Comics: I Hate Fairyland 15-18
Music: More Live Random, Guns 'n' Roses (you wanted the best, but they didn't make it... so here's what you get.)

saturday

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Maybe today, we don’t have anything to do. I mean, it’s supposed to rain, so no point leaving early to go to the pool…

Or wait. Nope. Out at one. Gone. Reading time ripped away like an old, cruddy bandaid.

Save me from other people’s needs, universe. They are smothering my own.

Target: 800 words
Written: 985 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King
Comics: I Hate Image 1, I Hate Fairyland 12-14
Music: Live Shit, Flogging Molly

the best laid plans

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Friday night and we’ve washed the dogs. It’s only six o’clock. We’ve already eaten. They’ve walked.

Everything is done.

That means time to read, time to play. Time to think of better dates with my wife than dogwashing and trips to the dump.

Something involving candlelight, wine and maybe lingerie and massage oils.

So, instead, my parents drop in, unplanned, for a porch drink.

Ah, well, as my wife says, who knows how long they have left? Apparently, we can fuck later.

Target: 800 words
Written: 674 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King (new book!  a classic!)
Comics: I Hate Fairyland 8-11
Music: Random Live Stuff, Creedence Clearwater Revival (except, it's not?  It's Eddie Vedder singing Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay?  How did that happen?)

brothers of earth

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It’s really irritating when you find a good book (and I adore C.J. Cherryh’s worldbuilding and characterization), and no one gives you a second to read it. Sure, it’s a bit denser because of the created language and custom and all, so it might have read longer and more difficult than the average two hundred and fifty page book, but damn, son.

Give me time.

Two pages a day is no fucking success.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to steal time from work to dive in, and finally, I’ve managed to complete it. It was a bit less revelatory than Gate Of Ivrel, but still.

One of the best, in my opinion. One of the absolute best.

Target: 800 words
Written: 483 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh (complete!)
Comics: I Hate Fairyland 4-7
Music: Random Covers, Spacehog (I've hit a very strange area of my playlists)

tumult

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I’m looking forward to the end, I think. I don’t want it to come until I’ve met all my goals, but I think it might be a relief.

The hope is that I don’t lose the ability to do all this stuff before I go, or turn into some mediocre shade.

Or worse, give up.

Fucking suffering, fucking with a purpose. Endless pleasure and a cacophony of orgasm is the end goal, after we get through all the awkward and uncomfortable talk about whether it’s okay to kiss or hold hands.

We’ll get to the kink when it’s time to spice things up, I suppose.

Target: 800 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh (I might even finish this, finally)
Comics: Bully Wars 5, I Hate Fairyland 1-3
Music: Random Covers, Nirvana

anyway, back at work

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Perhaps we could just do away with the whole work thing and just kind of live?

I know that’s not really practical if we want, you know, stuff and food and shit.

But maybe we could make it less horrible, so it’s, you know, less horrible.

Less life stealing.

More enjoyable.

Better.

Please make it better.

Perhaps if we remove the profit incentive and just focus on making cool stuff that’s actually useful and providing for our needs?

Target: 800 words
Written: 654 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh (finally, a bit of progress - it should never have taken this long for a 250 page book)
Comics: Bully Wars 1-4
Music: Random Covers, L7, Mudhoney

not one second

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Of course not. A week off, spent in a remote part of Ontario where relaxation should be the order of the day?

Not one second free.

Return home, with a day in between, so that we can decompress and get refocused for the return to work and drudgery?

Not one second free.

Not. Fucking. One.

I need a vacation from life.

Target: 800 words
Written: 1184 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh
Comics: The Crow: Hark The Herald 1, The Crow: Lethe 1 (thank god after this they took it away from Seeley - Hack/Slash keeps inserting itself into my favourite books and it's annoying because he doesn't understand the characters he's borrowing)
Music: Rando Covers, Electric Frankenstein, Guns 'n' Roses

the long drive home

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I’m going to miss it up there; I think it might be a final residence for me, if ever I can get to a level of independent wealth to be able to leave this situation.

My family may not relocate and what family I have there will probably be long gone by the time I get up there.

Hell, Torontonians will probably have invaded the place and ruined it, as they do with pretty much everything. Fucking Torontonians and their goddamn egos.

The older I get, the more I take issue with the presumed fact that cities are somehow more actually enlightened and their residents automatically better people than everyone else. The older I get, all I see is a sense of false superiority and unearned entitlement, over a desperate and sad posturing over status and cool.

How terribly boring cities must be, with their cookie cutter nervousness and template anxiety. Give me the calm and cruel quietude of nature any day. No bullshit in nature; only peace.

So, naturally, we’re killing it.

Everything humans touch dies.

Target: 800 words
Written: 483 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh
Comics: The Crow / Hack/Slash 1-4 (ugh, I hate it when writers don't understand characters, and use them to push their own uninspired creations)
Music: Random Covers - Anti-Flag, CKY

return from deep water

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Would that I’d left myself in that water, feeling the cool glacial water lake seep into my bones, weighing me down and slowing pulling me into its depths.

I’ve never loved more and felt more torn away.

Interfered with.

Where is the peace that vacation used to be?

Where are the satoris, the relaxation that comes with not really having anything do in a lovely situation?

The afterglow?

Where’s my goddamned afterglow?

Target: 800 words
Written: 629 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh
Comics: The Crow: Memento Mori 1-4
Music: Lust For Life, Iggy Pop/David Bowie

last day in paradise

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Took a trip up to Haileybury, just for giggles and beer.

Not that we were booze cruising. I’m just an aficionado of food and drink, from greasy spoon to Michelin star, from lagers to merlot and back again to scotch and cigars.

I don’t know why. I know it’s all bad for you.

But not in moderation.

And in moderation, we do fine.

Of course, kimchi burger, a stout and later, a bison burger and an IPA may not be the moderation we seek.

Oh, well.

It could also be the coward’s method of self-harm. A slow motion death, in concert with the rest of the planet.

Anyway, it has been beautiful here, despite the family fights, the neighbour fights, the complete lack of downtime or quiet moments to read more than a handful of pages and constant activity in our cabin.

I want to walk into the woods and stay there, but I am ill prepared. I am no outdoorsman.

I wouldn’t last ten minutes.

Target: 800 words
Written: 865 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh
Comics: The Crow: Pestilence 1-4
Music: Random Music, again - Pearl Jam, The Rolling Stones, Todd Snider, Spacehog