something that looks like escargot

That’s what I’m coughing up now.

(Thanks, Phil Hartman)

Coughing non-stop; I’m hoping it’s the last gasps of this cold trying to cough itself out of my system; I fear it’s mutating into a chest infection.

Would that I had a doctor I could see; that our current health care situation is so fucked can only be the result of the typical Conservative “break everything, then use that as a sign everything is broken” policy of social services.

Assholes.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 746 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X
Comics: Preacher: Saint Of Killers 3-4, Preacher 19-20
Music: Nuggets, Iggy Pop (it makes me shudder to think how many older bands have songs about underage girls)

slept in

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

cold

Not physically.

The mucus kind.

It hasn’t been great. I’m trying not be a manbaby about it, but it’s hard. Grit and determination, man. No need to pull the wuss card yet.

Save it for when you’ve got a real disease.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 312 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Haley/X
Comics: Preacher 13-16
Music: Nowhere, Ride

the need for vengeance

I understand the impulse, from a fiction standpoint. Who doesn’t love a good revenge story?

John Wick isn’t what it is for nothing. (They killed his dog, so he spent four movies murdering everyone that’s ever been even tangentially related to the guy who did it. As a dog owner, I’ve never been more invested.)

The problem is that revenge seldom works out the way we want. The fantasy that plays in our head of getting that asshole boss in trouble with HR or having the perfect takedown of that bitchy girl in your friend group, more often than not, what happens is… nothing.

HR doesn’t care, because that asshole boss is so far up his asshole boss’ ass that HR finds him untouchable. That bitchy girl, she’s been insulting people so long, she rebuts with a brutal takedown of her own, and it has truth in it, and you’re cut to the quick. Your friends all titter, because they, too, are assholes.

Congratulations, you’ve just made your life worse.

All I’m saying is that as nice as the fantasy is, unless you’re some superheroic powered individual like John Wick, it probably won’t work out for you. Better to cut those influences without words, and move toward your happy, rather than your revenge.

Of course, some of us can’t, and that seething anger becomes all consuming, until we’re delusional about the whole damn thing.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 360 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X (and Alex Haley, I guess)
Comics: Preacher 9-12
Music: Now For Plan A, Tragically Hip (the title track is so good)

happy fuckin’ new year

I can’t complain. We had a good time last night. I stayed sober enough to drive, which was fun.

We played the Game of Death, which is always a good time. Nobody got radiAIDS this time, so I suppose that was a win.

(RadiAIDS = AIDS + radiation poisoning. I mean, come on. You have to laugh.)

I feel like I need to go into full retreat now that the holidays are ended.

New Year’s resolution? Sell a book, write a book.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Do better today than yesterday. Start cutting out the toxic bullshit.

No more evil in my life, by my action or another’s, sanctioned by my silence.

Write. Write more. Read. Read more.

Fuck. Fuck more.

Lose some goddamned weight.

You know, the usual.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 263 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X (like it would be written by anyone else)
Comics: Preacher 5-8
Music: Nothing's Shocking, Jane's Addiction (what an album)

evil clarification

I should clarify yesterday’s post – I’m working on a western comic which deals with revenge, and the inciting event brings our heroine face to face with true evil, men who care nothing for the value of life or the freedom from violence to which people ought to have the right.

A key component is that afterward, our heroine thinks a lot on evil; indeed, she doesn’t (or rather, her husband doesn’t) believe in original sin. She wrestles with knowing these men were bred this way and not born, and moreso with the fact that they may have transmitted this evil into her with their vicious acts.

It’s a question of where evil is born. Is it bred? Created by circumstance? Or is the potential for it contained in all of us (certainly an indisputable fact even if it has no bearing on whether a person is actually evil – potential does not equal actual. Having all the ingredients to make a cake does not make a cake if nothing’s done with them).

What I’m looking at is real evil here, less so the more mundane evil of selfishness, myopia and callous disregard for the people and world around you that while. Not truly evil in the sense that it’s not committing violence, but evil in the sense that it creates the underpinnings for evil, for toxicity, for bad men to thrive like we see now in the right wing.

Again, the way a cake is not a cake until it’s made, we talk of the same with steel and bullets and wood for stocks.

A gun is not a gun until someone’s built and loaded it.

Then it becomes a vehicle for evil (even if it’s working in defense of justice and freedom).

A violent man will die a violent death, as it’s said in the Tao.

Or in this case, a woman?

Target: 1000 words
Written: 576 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Preacher 1-4
Music: Nothing Safe, Alice In Chains
Year Totals:

Target Words: 248 400 words
Written Words: 256 742 words in 1 novella, 4 short stories, 3 poems and 1 comic (plus part of 1 more)
Books Read: 91
Comics Read: 1429
Albums Listened To: 520
New Recipes Tried: 171
Places Travelled: 5 (Collingwood/Kingsville/Temagami/Florida/Bahamas)

original sin

I don’t believe in original sin. I think it’s fucking ridiculous.

Only a deluded soul could believe that anyone is born evil. Babies are babies; they just are.

Evil is not born. It’s bred.

It’s influenced and created, it has supervillain origins. Origins often tragic and relatable, but it doesn’t ultimately matter because the evil is so ingrained as to overwhelm any compassion one might hold.

It’s a henchman created by an overbearing boss, a desire to please, a fear of independent thought, or whatever.

It’s selfish, narcissistic, and considers no one’s needs but its own. It feeds and feeds and feeds, growing larger and larger, until someone cuts off the damn trough (or it empties its own and starts feasting on everyone else’s, which is when true evil begins).

It needs a slap in the face.

And sometimes, it’s so far gone, so committed to its story of itself as hero, itself as victim, itself as the only character in the story whose needs need to be fulfilled, that there’s no chance of turning back.

There’s only awful behaviour, and ultimately, exile or death.

If, in your story, you are the only one that matters, or you think your needs are more important than anyone else’s?

Fuck you. You’re the problem.

You weren’t born that way; circumstances pushed you a certain direction and you didn’t bother to course correct once you knew.

And ultimately, you started making the choice to be evil, all on your own.

So, fuck you, overentitled pieces of shit, bigoted assholes trying to pretend you love freedom and not just hating on others.

Fuck you, snooty pricks staring down your noses at people for not having the “right” views or the “right” look or having read the “right” books, when the extent of your engagement with justice is a fucking social media post to mask the fact that all you care about is status.

Fuck you, too, people who stand up and say, I’m decisive, I’m advocating for myself, I’m a strong person, but are, in actually, just assholes who treat everyone else like shit over the pettiest bullshit in order to prop up the fiction that they’re somehow worth more than everyone else (your insecurity is showing). Your obsessive need to prove yourself, your obsession with validation, it’s destructive – to you and everyone around you.

And it’s led, time and again, to the same choice – grow, change, be a better person, or close down, stop thinking and fuck everyone else.

Otherwise known as, you know, evil.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 3085 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 9-10
Music: Not The Actual Events, Nine Inch Nails

spoiled children

Not the granddaughter, that’s for sure. She may be spoiled, but she’s not entitled (yet, thankfully). It’s more loved than spoiled. The fruits of being the only grandchild, I suppose.

Still, there are some individuals around here who behave like sullen teenagers forced to a relative’s house pouting on the couch. Spoiled, ungrateful, living in a fantasy land of projected (but untrue, or at least, delusioned) bad behaviour that ultimately allows them to claim the victim position, despite being almost entirely the offenders.

Man, am I ever sick of that pose.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 271 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 5-8
Music: A Northern Soul, The Verve (so good)

gd (granddaughter)

I don’t mean goddamn. Just a good deal.

Man, this kid. I could do away with the rest of the family, but this kid.

Just a joy, even if it comes so fraught.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 191 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Art Of Asking, Amanda Palmer
Comics: Chu 1-4
Music: North America Sucks!!, Anti-Flag/d.b.s.

the busiest vacation

EVER.

And not like you’re travelling and seeing and doing things.

Nope.

House cleaning. In-laws that are mildly insane (okay, a lot insane – seriously, someday I’ll write about it, but it’s very difficult to write about it in a way that’s empathetic and believable, at this point. Seriously, you try to explain it to people and they either reduce it to a simple thing that can be easily fixed (it can’t) or they think you’re exaggerating or outright lying).

Hint: you’re not.

Anyway, my back hurts, my brain hurts, and I’m very, very fucking tired.

Fuck Christmas.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 150 words, comic: Western Cradle #1

Read: The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith (cannot recommend higher - it's a shame she's apparently a TERF as well - I guess we'll have to agree to agree on this, and disagree on the trans thing)
Comics: Chew 60, Outer Darkness/Chew 1-3
Music: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, Soft Cell