exhaustion hunting

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I made a note while thinking about the next revision this morning that referred to the book (and ultimately, life) as exhaustion hunting.

It runs us ragged, from one crisis to the next, shortcircuiting our brains with constant fight-or-flight responses, until we’re too weary to fight back.

Our entire system seems designed for that. Corporatism, the constant pushing of the incomplete narrative (in itself a truth, that we are all works in progress, for entirely different reasons, none of which can be solved with externals), the fear that you aren’t enough, and you need to push harder, harder, harder…

Is there any question that our current setup is more akin to exhaustion hunting than the acts of creation and production, with corporations and billionaires as the ones feeding off our carcasses when we finally drop dead?

We are grist for the mill. Worse, we’re effluent.

This world. With climate change and/or fascism about to kill us all, I think the notion of legacy is rapidly running down the drain. What impact when the world is gone? How can a body heal itself, when it’s already got stage 4 cancer, and thinks chemo and surgery are conspiracies?

How do we survive this?

I don’t think we do.

Target: 800 words
Written: 370 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Romulus 3, Postal 17-18, Think Tank: Animal 1
Music: Our Lady Peace Essentials, Our Lady Peace

sublime lyrics

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I just want to write Sublime lyrics, as I listen to Saw Red while I try and figure out what I want to say today.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have nothing to say.

Sometimes, that’s enough.

Target: 700 words
Written: 339 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Symmetry 8, Postal 16, Eden's Fall 3, Romulus 2
Music: Otherside, Red Hot Chili Peppers

heartburn keeps me wide awake

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I mean that literally. It’s possible for someone to just die from lack of sleep, right?

Like, too many half-nights, no naps, no drowsing in the recliner while watching Frasier or the latest Yellowstone, right?

(By the way, how great is Kelly Reilly? Whatever one might think about her character’s behaviour, one must recognize what a terrific character it is, and what a great job she’s doing with it. The show can meander a little bit and doesn’t always seem to have an organic forward purpose, but capturing the endless anger of the tragically damaged, and how that can simultaneously mix with little bits of good, and absolutely vindictive evil, she does a great job.)

Anyway, dying from lack of sleep and heartburn. That’s me.

Over here.

Dying.

Target: 700 words
Written: 916 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Symmetry 7, Postal 15, Eden's Fall 2, Romulus 1
Music: Other Words, Screaming Trees

sometimes you gotta listen to your gut

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Or 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 Jam

kingsville

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I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Saturday was my birthday, spent touring the local wine country with my family, and thoroughly enjoying it. It was a very nice day, and I would have no problem spending every weekend like that.

I’m not even particularly worried about my age.

I just look back at the length of my life and think… what have I done?

What have I contributed?

All the shitty things I did because I wanted to be somewhere else, something else? The courageless bluster?

It all means nothing if I haven’t actually backed up what I said I wanted with action.

That’s the thing these days; it’s so easy to fucking talk. To be outraged, to troll, to assert your betterness.

I don’t want to assert I’m anything better; I know I’m not.

The older I get, the more I find myself drawn to realness, to the radical acceptance of the situation, of not wanting to have anything to do with the pretense of others, the falsity of their projections, and most certainly, the epic spewing stream of diarrhea that is my own current state of being.

All talk, no action. No action, and barely even talk at times.

Wanting everything; doing nothing to get it.

Waiting for the dragon inside to finally take over and take flight, and praying it’s not actually a fucking dung beetle.

Anyway, there is desire to change; it hasn’t yet reached the tipping point to actual change. It doesn’t, as Amanda Palmer would say, hurt enough.

Still, it hurts pretty bad and a change is coming; there is an ultimate collapse, an upheaval, I can sense it.

A bottoming out, and endless fall, an impact, waited for and dreaded.

A final end – is it all worth it? Does it turn out all right in the end?

Or is all just shit, to be forgotten a few steps into the future?

Target: 700 words
Written: 595 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Think Tank: Creative Destruction 2-4, Symmetry 5
Music: Original Pirate Material, The Streets

wine and assassination attempts

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On my sister-in-law’s birthday, Trump supporters stormed the capitol, nearly completing their insidious coup.

Now, on my birthday, some idiot takes a potshot at the asshole, leaving us all to wonder, just how bad is this going to get?

Staged or not (and I am in the camp that fully believes there’s a very good chance this shit was staged – I mean, the guy has followed by Nazi playbook step for step and is surrounded by Infowars believers – don’t tell me he doesn’t know the Reichstag fire and what a false flag operation is), it doesn’t bode well for freedom and democracy in this world.

So, happy birthday to me? We don’t know where this is going, but I’ll guarantee nowhere good.

Target: 700 words
Written: 551 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Symmetry 4, Postal 11-12, Think Tank: Creative Destruction 1
Music: The Original Cowboy, Against Me! (EVERYTHING EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!)

forty-seven

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Man, what a fucking waste.

Target: 700 words
Written: 336 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Symmetry 2-3, The Tithe 8, Postal 10
Music: The Original Broadway Cast Recording Of American Idiot (hey, we were recently in Rome, right?)

the night before

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Tomorrow, I’m turning another year older. Almost half a century on this planet, and I don’t know a goddamn thing.

The Mungk got me when I was a child, and has scraped me clean.

I am a shadow, visible, but without substance.

Target: 700 words
Written: 470 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Postal 8-9, The Tithe 7, Symmetry 1
Music: Origin Of Symmetry, Muse

dogsitters

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I wish there was time.

I wish I didn’t love animals as much as I did.

Fuck that. I love my animals to death. I love all animals, even the ones that slither.

Doesn’t make me a vegan, though.

I have too much respect for nature and the environment for that.

The history of agriculture is the history of imperialism.

Target: 700 words
Written: 855 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Postal 7, The Tithe 5-6, Postal: Dossier 1
Music: Organic Soundball, Red Hot Chili Peppers

one down

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One night of sleep down. Now, for more. Many more, all in a row. Broken up by the occasional sudden noise, the caught breath, the whispers suggested beneath the steady hum of a blurring fan.

Is that noise? Music?

Someone talking?

What was that creak? Is it the dogs? Is that lump a dog beside me?

Sudden kisses, licks of the face, a French touch unexpected, smelling of licked assholes.

Reassurance.

There is love where there is no noise.

There is no sleep where there are licks.

Target: 700 words
Written: 372 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pawn Of Prophecy, David Eddings
Comics: The Tithe 3-4, Postal 5-6
Music: Order In Decline, Sum 41