My parents showed up unexpectedly last night for a porch visit, which turned into three bottles of wine and the complete derailing of any plans I had for reading, writing, et al, etc, et whatevera last night.
And now I’m hungover.
This is not shaping up to be the catch-up weekend I was hoping for.
Target: 900 words
Written: 1990 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Queen Of Sorcery, David Eddings
Comics: Die 3-5, The Wicked + The Divine 42
Music: Again With The Live Stuff, Iggy PopSounds like a cheesy Eighties find yourself adventure or maybe even a horror movie, where the kind of geeky lost soul goes somewhere, has an adventure, realizes it was all bullshit, and then comes back to sweep the girl of his dreams off her feet.
You know, the girl he’s only ever really known in passing, and who, in reality, would never date this guy who comes out of nowhere with his newfound perspective on life, all based around love (love he has for her, but she’s never really thought about him; she’s too busy diddling over the football star).
He’d have had some partying fun, met a girl who was maybe manipulative, but who would have taken him through his first real sexual experiences, but then betrayed him unexpectedly, making him realize he didn’t actually want what he thought he wanted, and so, he comes down the mountain, proposes to the girl, who is (because this is all about him and not her) expected to swoon and drop everything to be with this brand new bodhisattva/reformed bad boy, because love, and we all jump onboard and presume happily ever after, but really, what do these people even know about each other?
There’s likely some gratuitous nudity, because in this world, women are objects, not people, so making lewd jokes at their expense and paying some struggling actress to doff her top (and probably threaten that she’ll never work again if she doesn’t, or promise that the big studios will come running, and other big stars did it, and also, other stuff, behind the scenes, you know how it works, wink wink nudge nudge), and we’re all just fine with it because we love sexual freedom (which we do), but we also love the exploitation of women as a secondary class, and if we can combine the two… Hollywood!
Anyway, we’re back from Collingwood, and let’s hope that movie never gets made.
It sounds positively horrid.
Target: 900 words
Written: 247 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Gregor And The Curse Of The Warmbloods
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine: 455 AD 1, The Wicked + The Divine 29-31
Music: Random Covers, Spacehog (I've hit a very strange area of my playlists)Not that this matters to me, not having young kids, but it seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest. So many things happening.
I laid the birds fall haiku to rest; the reception has been fairly meager but divine, having garnered more reads than I would have expected (~1600 by my guesstimate), which is crazy.
Secondly, my wife’s work released v2 of their Pay Equity Act chart, which was unchanged from the first one and reiterated the vindictiveness the COO and his cronies have against certain people. I have a lot to say about that, but we’re still figuring out the best path forward.
And then, of course, unreasonable human beings being unreasonable, and catching poor, defenseless creatures who can’t speak for themselves in between. No one’s vanity should come over another being’s life. I’m disgusted by the whole thing, especially when there’s such an easy solution to be had, if only one particular party would stop being entirely unreasonable and give the tiniest little bit (or one would stand up for his damn self for once and realize none of this behaviour is appropriate, normal or healthy). The level of selfishness involved is appalling.
Let’s just say that entitlement and selfishness bother me most of the time in other people, but when it reaches this point, I’m at a loss for words. The whole thing is disgusting.
Yes, the first day of school made me want to scream. To rage. But against what? Injustice? This world gets less just every day. Selfishness? This is a good one, but the selfish don’t feel guilt like the rest of us. Only their own vanity, their own narcissism that needs feeding.
Taking responsibility for one’s bad behaviour requires understanding that one has committed bad behaviour in the first place, and I’m sure that none of these people would be willing to admit that.
After all, that wouldn’t get them what they want, no matter the expense to others, and no matter how small and petty the behaviour was.
At the end of the day, I would like to reshape my life to exclude all of it, but circumstances being what they are, we must suffer through the shit; we cannot control the actions of others, only our reactions to them.
The question is: how much shit are we willing to take, to hold onto jobs, onto love, onto relationships with the innocent victims of another’s sociopathy?
How far must we go? How much must we endure?
And is it worth it for the scraps we are thrown from the table?
Anyway, fuck today and most of the people involved.
Maybe reason will rule the days to come, but I doubt it. We aren’t that lucky.
Target: 800 words
Written: 649 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: I Hate Fairyland v2 7-9, Untold Tales Of I Hate Fairyland v2 1
Music: Random Acoustic Stuff, Screaming TreesFriday 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.
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. Who knows how long we have?
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: Under A Billion Suns, Mudhoney (so much better than Vanishing Point, which was bad, at best)I think I liked life better when my idols weren’t being constantly accused or exposed as total creeps.
You expect it from Republicans, but man, I wish so many of the people who I grew up thinking as good people, people to pattern oneself afterward, didn’t turn out to be assholes.
Maybe they didn’t.
So much of it is speculation and hearsay, so much of it divorced from reality and put upon with one’s own prejudices, that a person has no choice but to take it with a grain of salt.
It’s one thing when accuser after accuser comes out of the woodwork, because this shit tends to be serial among the rich and famous, but when it’s isolated, without evidence or corroboration… do we still believe every story?
I’m all for believing survivors, but to assume that every accusation is the god’s honest truth is downright naive, and actually malicious when put into practice. Weaponized outrage.
Some of the stuff coming out of all this has been truly horrific; some of it much more complicated than its rage conductors would have us believe. Blind belief never serves anyone. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to be certain, as certain as one can be, and thereby discourage those who would wield outrage for personal gain, revenge or whatever against trotting out lies and thereby destroying someone’s life and career?
Anyway, thoughts on the day; I still side with women, in most cases, with the caveat that blind acceptance is always a bad idea. Myopia is never a good look. We owe it to ourselves and the presumption of innocence to at least wait for the facts before we condemn.
Target: 800 words
Written: 402 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Regiment, Farley Mowat
Comics: Postal 24-25, Postal: Mark 1, Postal: Laura 1
Music: Out Of Exile, AudioslaveOr your colon. Or your horoscope.
Things are going bad to worse. I’ve been awake since three in the morning; a casualty of our rat terrier’s deathly fear of storms.
She’s from Texas, originally, which means she likes heat, spicy food and hates fucking storms, because I’m guessing she’s been through a few.
We don’t know the details of her background prior to our rescue; there’s been hints that it was a total hoarder situation, followed by a neglectful situation involving asshole kids.
My gut told me we needed her. Her gut tells me she can’t live without me.
She is my shadow. I am her helicopter parent.
We are in love.
My gut tells me, this one is going to hurt, when it finally comes, almost as much as the Pyrenees.
Or worse.
Target: 700 words
Written: 734 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Postal 13-14, Symmetry 6, Eden's Fall 1
Music: I Don't Give A Fuck About You, Pearl JamIt’s a question I’ve wrestled with since the day I decided I wanted to be a writer.
I want to be authentic. Open. There should be nothing between you and my thoughts but the desire to keep other people’s secrets secret, because they’re not mine to expose.
Of course, we all present ourselves through a filter, either by intentional omission or unconscious deceit (or vice versa – intentional deceit and unconscious omission.)
I don’t like to do either, but at the same time, I don’t want to be a martyr anymore than I want to be a charlatan. I’d like to write for a living, but there are two non-negotiables:
First, what I write is what I want to write. I hate the idea of being tied to a particular genre, and I don’t want anyone else to dictate the content of my stories. No Hollywood motherfuckers who think they know better or need to “sex it up” (although I am heavily fixated on sex, so that seems like it might not be an issue), or publishers/editors who want a happier ending or something more “clever”.
Save me from clever art, as Palahniuk would say, while being weirdly over clever, yet somehow, managing to hold that instinctual, emotional raw nerve. (It is a brazen and wondrous talent, those who can do this, and I am in awe of it.)
Secondly, I don’t want to be someone I’m not. I’m not perfect; if anything, I’m terribly broken, complex and boring, typical and atypical simultaneously; unique, in the worst and most generic way.
I am a work in progress. I’m an ugly piece of granite, in the process of seeing what’s underneath.
It might be a toad.
It might be Psyche.
I don’t know, but I know what I’m trying for.
How on track I remain will determine whether I’ve the smooth and incredible detail of a Cellini or the clumsy stack of a inukchuk (although, given the spiritual connection to the land and to honouring what is, in nature and spirit, that is totally cool). Maybe shattered gravel would be a better metaphor.
Or a pile of crumbling mud.
Anyway, how to tell the world of what I’ve written, while not compromising my self into something I don’t want to be?
I want to be honest, in work and in life.
Anything else isn’t worth it, and bullshit.
Target: 700 words
Written: 98 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 49-52
Music: One Fierce Beer Coaster, Bloodhound GangMy wife was a big fan of the original series; I was more of a Star Trek/Doctor Who guy growing up. My dad always looked down on Lost In Space. If we watched something from that era, it was Captain Kirk or Adam West.
That said, I adore the new one from Netflix and wish it went on much longer. Molly Parker and Parker Posey are two of my favourite actresses and they are terrific in this. I also have a visceral attraction to Molly Parker; I don’t know what it is, but man, she just does it for me.
Anyways, the point is that I recently started watching the original series, as a nod to my wife (sorry about the Molly Parker thing, honey), and I have to admit, I’m in. They do a good job of creating tension and doing that writerly thing of “keep them in danger”, even if it’s outlandish in the actual science part (as, admittedly, was Star Trek).
And Jonathan Harris, what can I say? Every time he shows up on screen, all I can think is “this motherfucker“, so I guess he’s doing what he’s supposed to do, in creating a perpetually evil villain. I suspect there’s a redemption arc for him, but I’m not that far into the series. Certainly, there was for Parker Posey’s Smith, who was also terrific, as she always is.
Anyway, out, bitches (and please picture that said in Parker Posey’s Dazed and Confused character), maybe followed by a stumbling “fuck all of you”, with some middle fingers and shit.
Target: 700 words
Written: 84 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 45-48
Music: One Chord To Another, SloanHere we are, at Tony DiNapoli’s in New York City, my lovely wife and I (and our daughter), enjoying family style fettucine alfredo and baked ziti over a glass of Chianti, because we can. Because we’ve been married for fifteen lovely years, together for seventeen.
I don’t necessarily believe in the reality of monogamy (and I think the insistence causes a lot of unhappiness in the world), but I wouldn’t choose anyone else to share these years with.
I can, without any doubt, say that I am a better man today for her, and for me.
Happy anniversary, darling.
Target: 700 words
Written: 293 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: It Devours!, The Night Vale Guys
Comics: Danger Girl: Trinity 3-4, Danger Girl: The Chase 1-2
Music: Oil & Gold, ShriekbackIs when you’re talking about suicide, depression and mental health around others, be aware that there may be sufferers nearby for whom your demonization or minimization of their struggle has a negative impact, reinforcing the very stereotypes about themselves that may be keeping them in this state of diminished being.
Your words could spiral someone who was teetering, and you might not even know it.
Leave the place better than you found it. That’s all I’m saying.
And for Pete’s sake, if your only contribution to empathy is a social media post or bluster to friends, stop pretending you give a shit, so everybody can know what an asshole you are, and not only those attuned to your hypocrisy and bullshit.
(Also, who’s Pete? Why are we doing things for Pete’s sake? Is Pete depressed? Should we be worried about Pete?)
Target: 700 words
Written: 41 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales (so. goddamned. long.)
Comics: American Vampire Second Cycle 11, American Vampire Anthology 2, American Vampire 1976 1-2
Music: Ocean Of Confusion: Songs Of Screaming Trees 1989-1996, Screaming Trees