goodbye, jan

It will never cease to feel strange when you realize that someone who’s been part of your life will nevermore be.

They will exist in memory, but eventually, even those will fade.

Our lives are sparks for the ones that remains behind; inspiration to keep going, to be better, to live.

Sometimes, that’s as a cautionary tale; others, it’s a set example.

I pray mine will be both, and in that, can avoid pillory or pedestal to maintain humanity, even when I’m nothing left but a thought.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 957 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Bloodstrike 17, Team Youngblood 16, Youngblood 10, Youngblood Strikefile 10
Music: We Were Born In A Flame, Sam Roberts (good Canadian boy)

wake

My aunt died. I’ve only got two; this is the one on my dad’s side and the one that lives near us.

We’ve spent a fair amount of time with them over the years, the kids were all close, even if I wasn’t particularly with her.

We had different styles. She was a teacher, very prim and proper; my family torched her family’s house back during the teetotaler’s movement. We were upset (and probably a little drunk) and unhappy about their attempts to ban our firewater.

Obviously, that’s all ancient history, it’s still funny how that kind of attitude filters down, even if her love of red wine was almost as great as my own.

In any case, we’ll miss her, but it’s been a long road for her – post-polio, cancer, all that. She deserves the rest.

We’ll miss you, Jan. I’m sorry you had to to go through all that. I’m sorry my ancestors burned your ancestor’s house down.

Raise a glass of merlot, then. À la santé, and we’ll see you again.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1397 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Brigade v2 14, Youngblood Strikefile 9, Badrock And Company 4, Battlestone 2
Music: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Bruce Springsteen (what a rocker)

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: We Built This City, Closet Monster

i’m not a bad person

I’m just stupid and exhausted.

So, in that sense, I’m a lazy, dumb person, which is pretty well equivalent.

At least, if you’re a MAGA, it is.

Slam, bitches. Thank goodness I’m not.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1516 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magician's Gambit, David Eddings
Comics: Youngblood 7, Team Youngblood 11, Brigade v2 11, Troll II 1
Music: Wayne's World Soundtrack, Various (come for the Alice Cooper, stay for the Queen)

where does it go

Time, it slips away so easily. One minute, you’ve got it all.

Then…

Like Keyser Soze, it’s gone.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1181 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dead To The World, Charlaine Harris
Comics: Brigade v2 9, Bloodstrike 10, 25, Team Youngblood 9
Music: Wave Of Mutilation: The Best Of Pixies, Pixies

reconciliation

I would like to reconcile a lot of things; the question is, how?

Our pasts, personal and ancestral, are littered with misdoings and tragedies.

How do we move on? Will we ever reach a point where we can be forgiven?

I’m not sure how to answer that. On one hand, I don’t want to spend my life feeling guilty for things I haven’t personally done, or heartbroken from the sins of a world beyond my control.

On the other hand, we can’t just ignore it.

We have to level the playing field, I think.

No more classes; no more bigotry.

When that’s gone, I guess we can lose the last vestiges of shame and guilt and move on to joy and union.

So, a few million years ought to suffice. Where there are people, there will be abuse.

I think the trick is not to blanket the earth in order to deny the sun to the weeds.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1238 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Image 0, Brigade v2 4, Team Youngblood 2, Bloodstrike 4
Music: The Warrior's Code, Dropkick Murphys

in the weeds now

I mean, I’m working harder than ever, and tomorrow’s a holiday, so we can sit and think about what we’ve done, which admittedly, is a weird reason for a holiday, and I’m not sure it’s tangible help to native communities, but here we are.

It’s probably better to ask them than me, but I suspect the answer is that we’re not doing enough to reconcile the sins of past with creating a better future for the indigenous.

In any case, not to make light, but I’ve spent the last fifty minutes trying to have a character explain why he’s still considered liberal if he’s opposed to butt stuff.

It’s a hygiene thing, not a commentary on homosexuality.

(The character, not me. You get your freak on, boys and girls. As long as it’s consensual and doesn’t involve children, animals or those not capable of making that decision, then you get on getting on, however you wanna do it.)

Anyway, life’s weird and horrible things that require solemnity often overlap with the absurd.

I think we’d die if we had to take it all so seriously (which ironically, sums out how we got to our current edge-of-Armageddon political apocalypse). We all got too sensitive, hunkered down, doubled down, doubled down again and instead of letting shit go a little and talking it out, we’re about to have a civil war a hundred kilometres or so to the south of us.

Lighten up, jerks. Drop the militants, and get back to using your words.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1249 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Brigade v2 0, 3, Team Youngblood 1, Bloodstrike 4
Music: Warped Tour 2001 Compilation, Various (but mostly Anti-Flag and Flogging Molly)

and caught up

So many distractions. So little time.

If only life weren’t so filled with insanity.

Why must we be so insane?

Who lives simply?

Can I move there?

Would they let me?

Or would I merely be a refugee, a symptom of the disease of modern living that consumed us all?

I suspect turnabout is fair play.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1507 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Last American Vampire, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: Youngblood 1-3, Brigade 1 (jesus, Liefeld is a garbage writer)
Music: Warpaint, The Black Crowes