working for disappointment

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Rejection is a thing. I’m a wannabe writer and I’m not Brad Pitt or Wayne Gretzky, so naturally, rejection comes with the territory. Nobody’s beating down my doors because I’m so good at what I do or because I have a terrific eight-pack or symmetrical face.

Interlude: I’m married to a wonderful woman, so don’t take that as looking. It just means pre-wife, things weren’t so super easy. I did okay sometimes, but yeah. Nice guys finish last for good reason (and I have a lot to say about the mistaken belief that somehow the “nice guy” is getting screwed by the “asshole” – it’s a largely false narrative propagated by John Hughes that ultimately drives a level of delusion and entitlement in normal men that is absolutely toxic. Thanks, John Hughes, for inspiring incels).

Ultimately, it has nothing to do with nice or asshole, anyway. Lots of “nice” guys are actually dicks, and the “asshole” may actually be a great guy. The asshole may also be an asshole, and the nice guy may be a nice guy as well, just super insecure or shy. Like I said, false narrative.

Anyway, #rantoff. Back to writing.

Target: 100 words
Written: 182 words, comic: Romance #1

Read: Choose Yourself, James Altucher
Comics: Pretty Deadly 9-10, Pretty Deadly: The Rat 1-2
Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Zephyr Song (like, 3 different single versions.  I have a problem.)

the ineffable hat

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“This hat is ineffable,” he said.

She had to agree. The way it contoured his head, at once enlarging and somehow, amplifying his cranium, struck her as near impossible. Unexplainable.

“Might I try it?” she asked.

He agreed, but only on the terms that she have a hat of her own. There was a flash as the man spun in a wild, enthusiastic gambol. Light emanated from atop his head. She held up her hands to shield her eyes and something dropped into her lap – a brand new hat. She picked the newly formed hat up in her hands and examined it closely, before placing it on her head. There was something wonderful about the hat, at once masterfully complex and wonderfully benign.

The hat was indeed ineffable, she decided, faceted as it was to astutely represent the whole of the deftly transcendent and the undeniably simple. How like life, she thought, as the man bounded away, hat both askew and not askew – a multifarious and crystalline explosion, reflected and refracted in impossible planes and colours through infinite refinement, on simplistic foundations. She adjusted the hat on her head. A passerby smiled at her.

“Nice hat.”

“Yes,” she returned the smile. “It’s ineffable.”

Target: 100 words
Written: 213 words, short story: The Ineffable Hat

Read: Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Comics: Pretty Deadly 5-8
Music: Zeitgeist, Smashing Pumpkins

flower is a flower

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A flower is nothing but stem, leaves, roots and seed. But the variations are endless and can range from medicinal to delicious to fatal.

When we talk about a flower, we all know what mean. It’s simple.

But when we think of the multitude of different types, their functions and forms, how they interact with the ecosystem around them, from feeding bees to eating flies, their symbiosis with the soil, air and water in the world around them… it’s grandiose in its complexity.

Simple to complex. These are the things that make me happy.

Target: 100 words
Written: 844 words, short story: The Ineffable Hat

Read: Ice Cream & Sadness by Cyanide & Happiness
Comics: Pretty Deadly 1-4
Music: XO by Elliott Smith

simple/complex

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I’m a bit obsessed with systems, I’ll confess.

There’s a profound beauty in a well-designed system. The base is always a simple concept; in the variations and expansions, there comes complexity.

But it all boils down to a simple flow.

Systems based on complexity break easily. It’s like building a building without understanding the concepts of squares and triangles, circles and arches. Like saying the best way to describe a circle is to start with a Moebius strip.

I think that’s why I have such a difficult time getting into things that bow too hard to pretense and cleverness; people doing weird to seem smarter or cooler or whatever; it’s all such a show and a pathetic one at that. Like complex for complexity’s sake, it’s a thin premise that collapses easily.

Target: 100 words
Written: 211 words, short story: The Ineffable Hat

Read: Hot Sex by Jamye Waxman, Emily Morse (nice visuals, appreciated the inclusivity, but yeah - still read like a bad Cosmopolitan article, as though they'd Googled the answers, instead of living them).
Comic: Wytches 5-6, Wytches: Bad Egg (such a terrific series with very personal themes on parenting; I wish the makers had more time for it).
Music: Linkin Park - Xero (early LP, pre-Chester.  Very similar to later LP, post-Chester).

birds fall

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birds fall down upon
weighted wings they choose to fall
blindly into night

Target: 100 words
Written: 83 words, poem: Birds Fall

Read: Do The Fucking Work by GFDA (don't bother, pure tripe)
Comics: Wytches 1-4
Music: X Essentials by X
Happy New Year.  Beware the things you choose, but refuse to acknowledge that you allow.  The thing you don't pay attention to is the thing that drags you deep.