Category: travel

strasbourg?

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I’ve kind of lost track of where we are. It’s Speyer one day, Strasbourg the next, and maybe Wurms and Rudesheim?

Sorry. I don’t know how to do specialized characters on this keyboard.

Germany so far has been wonderful, but man, they sure love to complain about the French burning all their shit down.

Weirdly, our tour guide looked an awful lot like a German girl named Linda that I used to know that was on exchange in the same town as I was in Seinajoki. Beautiful girl (Linda), though our guide was slimmer.

Both were from Bonn.

Coincidence?

Target: 1100 words
Written: 850 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force v5 2-5
Music: Is This It?, The Strokes

good guides

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Great guide today, telling about the history of the Nazis and Jews, showing us the stumbling blocks, and using that to really bring home the danger of a dictator, bigotry and fascism.

Something the Americans with us desperately needed to hear, and you could tell it made them uncomfortable.

That’s what good education does – it tells you more about your world in real life; taking the lessons of the past to teach us how to be better in the present, and for the future.

So, kudos, tour guide. Well fucking done.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1384 words, novella: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force 10-11, Cyber Force: Artifacts 0, Cyber Force v5 1
Music: Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey (for me, fuck yes.  I adore PJ Harvey)

bone holes

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It’s not a sex reference, although that would be a funny way to refer to them (yes, I said them – there are at least four).

On the other hand, it was a hole in the bottom of the church where they start tucking in the bones of the deceased when they run out of room to bury them in the yard.

That’s a little fucked, right?

Anyway, the Black Forest was cool, but how do people eat black forest cake without getting pulled over a DUI? The amount of schnapps that girl soaked the cake in had to have been criminal.

On the plus side, if you get pulled over, you can honestly say, “I haven’t drank a drop.”

Target: 1100 words
Written: 558 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force v4 6-9
Music: Irvine, CA, Sublime

travel day

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Long, long day. Full flight to Amsterdam, then a short hop to Basel, Switzerland.

You know, as one does.

So, not much time to write today, so what time I have will be dedicated to the novel.

Also, Basel, kinda cool. Never been to Switzerland. It’s pretty sweet. Zurich, maybe, someday.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1352 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force v4 2-5
Music: Irvine Plaza, New York, Anti-Flag

oversea’d

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Well, we’re off to tour Rhine, I think. I’m pretty sure it’s the Rhine.

Let’s fucking go.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 97 words, novel: Bad Beighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Velocity v3 2-4, Cyber Force v4 1
Music: Irresistible Bliss, Soul Coughing

getting out

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Of town, tomorrow.

Today, that means the litany of last minute things we need to do for the friend sitting our house and dogs, for ourselves, for the things we need to be ready or to come with us, for our animals, who we will miss terrible and want to have a few precious moments with each (and when you have four cats and two dogs, that can be time-consuming) before we leave, in case the worst happens.

The worst never quite seems to happen, except in America.

Where exist authoritarians, the worst is always yet to come.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 2399 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Cyber Force/Hunter Killer 3-5, Velocity v3 1
Music: Irish Punk Drinking Songs Compilation, Various

fantasies

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We all have them, whether it’s a kiss with that cute boy, climbing Everest, kicking the shit out of a political figure who badly needs it, or just a quiet Sunday morning with a cup of tea and a danish.

There’s nothing wrong with them.

It’s nice to have the simulation; it just shouldn’t stop us from making it a reality.

Go ahead. Enjoy your lurid fantasies; just don’t harm anyone in their pursuit (except maybe that particular political figure, and maybe you ought to run out all of your peaceful resistance options first).

Violence is never cool.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 103 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
Comics: Shadowhawk v5 10-13
Music: In The City, The Jam

slept in

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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

i get it; i’m late

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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

i think i’d like to walk

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I almost misspelled that as talk. Freudian slip, anyone?

But I do mean walk. I’d like to throw some shit on, grab the only things important to me, and just start walking.

Just. Gone. Tramping down foreign roads with a backpack and a laptop, a Kindle full of books.

In peace. Listening to the birds sing.

Praying for nature to remain unsavage.

It’s savage enough out here.

Target: 900 words
Written: 466 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Shining, Stephen King
Comics: 100 Bullets 65-68
Music: Never Surrender (From Kickboxer), Stan Bush (if this is the best you got, surrender, immediately, because you suck)