Or at least, will be tomorrow. Valentines dinner with my wife and daughter tonight in Lisbon, return tomorrow and then start posting all this stuff I’ve been writing while I’ve been gone.
It’s short story palooza this week.
Hold on to your gitch, because after that, it’s book number three.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 987 words, short story: Ultra Mundane
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Fables 160-162
Music: 1973, AC/DC (with Dave Evans)This is the third time I’ve written this post, and for whatever reason, WordPress refuses to save the draft and when I come back to it later, it’s MIA. It’s the bronze medal post, I guess.
Speaking of bronze medals, how good were Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in their final performance? Vincent is one of my favourite songs (mostly through the NOFX version, but the Don McLean version is also great, which is what they used).
I’m not a figure skating expert by any means, but I always question the subjective nature of the judging.
I mean, France was good, and the Americans technically sound, but Piper and Paul brought actual tears to my eyes. The story, the skill, the moment – I legitimately cried. How the fuck that rated a bronze is beyond me. The Kazakhs were brilliant as well, their high energy performance was head and tails above the eventual top two finishers.
The Americans shouldn’t even have rated. Sure, they were technically perfect, but there was nothing eventually remotely connective about the performance. Nothing about it touched me in any way. Nothing even seemed to be connected to the source material, in which they were were the fourth team to do Romeo and Juliet. The only part that actually seemed to be connected to the story was the ending, in which I’m pretty sure one of them stabbed themselves?
I thought they died by poison?
Anyway, Vincent was the performance of the games, better than any other performance we saw, and we’re very proud. Fuck the judges. Fuck America.
Paul and Piper, you were fucking brilliant – one of the all-time best performances ever at an Olympics, in my oh so humble opinion.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1419 words, short story: Ultra Mundane
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Fables 156-159
Music: 1969: Velvet Underground Live, Vol. 2, The Velvet UndergroundWell, we found the place Canadians meet on Thursday, weirdly, on Thursday, without even trying. Good for us.
Plus, I found a super cool looking abandoned restaurant (marine shop? garden?) and it was incredible.
What a beautiful goddamn country.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1133 words, short story: Ultra Mundane
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Fables 152-155
Music: 1969: Velvet Underground Live, Vol. 1, The Velvet UndergroundHa! Another lesson learned!
Or rather, the same lesson, two days apart.
We parked on the boardwalk of Ayamonte, Spain, and while it’s a nice boardwalk, it’s not exactly appealing. One street in, gorgeous.
Of course, I wasn’t really feeling that great still, but man, what a beautiful place.
Oh, and it’s flu, because now my wife is sick, and she didn’t have the shrimp yesterday.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2036 words, short story: Ultra Mundane
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf In Gotham 4-6, Fables 151
Music: 17 Song Demo, Anti-FlagFucking shrimp. Or it could be the flu. Or something in the water?
I’ve shit a bunch, dry heaved once (I don’t actually puke – I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve thrown up since the ninth grade), and slept the rest of the day.
What a shame.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 989 words, short story: Ultra Mundane
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 12, Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf In Gotham 1-3
Music: 16 Biggest Hits: Johnny Cash, Johnny CashOne street further on. Always go one street further than you think you should.
That’s the lesson I learned today, on a rainy day when I thought I’d brought us on a wild goose chase and we were stuck at a bird sanctuary with no birds (there were supposed to be flamingos).
What we found, one street further down was this beautiful waterfront, and the most amazing bakery I’ve ever visited.
Usually, in the displays, there are a few things I don’t care for, that don’t appeal to me. I’m not big on fruit or honey.
But this?
Jesus, works of friggin’ art. I wanted all of it.
And I would have had it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1264 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard
Read: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Comics: Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 8-11
Music: 15 Big Ones, The Beach BoysWhat a beautiful boardwalk.
What I wouldn’t give to live somewhere like here and not the plain, everyday southwestern Canadian town I do. Like, it’s not horrible, but man, the majesty that some people are able to see, every day.
I hope they appreciate it.
One thing I will give Chatham-Kent is that the world over, and I’ve been a reasonably large number of places, is that there are very, very places that get sunsets like ours.
The colours are so vivid, it’s what everyone always wants them to be setting over a Caribbean sea, or a quaint European villa, but they’re right here, in cornfields and flat ground.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 534 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard
Read: The Last Day Of A Condemned Man, Victor Hugo
Comics: Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 4-7
Music: 13 Voices, Sum 41You’ve been beaten, Chicago deep dish (and New Yorkers, shut the fuck up, your flat, sad pizza is like most things big city – monstrously overhyped).
Thank you, Da Michele. Pizza Tedesca. Fucking brilliant.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1470 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard
Read: The Last Day Of A Condemned Man, Victor Hugo
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 48, Everafter: From The Pages Of Fables 1-3
Music: 13 Songs, FugaziNice place. Affogato and ice cream on the beach, which is a crazy orange. Pretty cool.
We’re getting around okay, even with the cobblestones. Great dinner, watched the opening ceremonies of Milano Cortina, which was amazing, because I didn’t realize the room was filled with almost entirely Canadians until we were introduced and the place blew up.
I’m not particularly patriotic, but I’ll admit.
It choked me up.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1097 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard
Read: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 44-47
Music: 13 Fluid Ounces, SublimeWhere I’ve been awake for roughly thirty-six hours, rented a van too big for the small European streets, and immediately scraped the back right passenger side on the ramp out of the airport parking lot, to which I thought, “thank goodness for insurance”, before being thrust into a five lane roundabout (with stoplights! In the middle!) outside the airport, and we couldn’t get out of Lisbon fast enough.
We are Algarve bound, and thankful for it. The scenery is lush and green, with the terrible rainfall they’ve gotten, and distracts us from the fact that everything north of Porto is without power, for the better part of a week.
It soon turns to Sergio Leone territory, before becoming the land of roundabouts, and the taste of a shitty Portuguese beer down by the water and its washed out beach.
There are statues made of washers which are surprisingly lifelike (and kinda sexy, which is probably a weird thing to admit), but still, pretty darn cool.
And cats. Lots of cats.
So, you know, good.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 3524 words, short story: Never Worked That Hard
Read: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Comics: Fables: The Wolf Among Us 40-43
Music: 13, Blur (Coffee & TV is a total earworm)