It's a pretty slow day here at work, so I thought I'd pop in and post an update.
...
Okay, so there's not too much to update.
I've hit the 19,000 word mark on "15,000 Years," so I'm almost at the halfway point (the goal is 50,000 words), which works out to about ten and a half chapters, though I think I've only actually posted two or three so far.
I've been writing it in a sort of stream of consciousness fashion, just sitting down and writing with no fixed idea of what I want to accomplish.
The fact that I'm taking this approach shows, since I'm almost halfawy through and I still don't have any real plot to speak of.
I've got some plot elements, but no clear idea of what I want to have happen.
Ah well, it's pretty much just an exercise anyway, a flexing of my literary muscles. It's not like I have any plans or hopes to publish it anywhere outside of the Web.
One of the plot elements I do have has me a little concerned, as it may seem like it comes completely out of left field when it's fully introduced. Hopefully I will have managed to lay the groundwork for it, so it won't seem too out of the blue when I spring it on the reader.
On a related side note, I should mention that I'm sort of falling in love with the main female character in the novel.
I guess it makes sense, though; I've sort of created her to be my dream girl.
It just annoys me that she doesn't exist anywhere outside of my imagination...
Today's big excitement came in the form of getting two hours off, as my co-workers and I all left work to go bowling as a sort of team activity.
I haven't bowled in like 8 or 9 years, and I was never that good in the first place, so I did pretty poorly today. I really tanked the first game, rounding it off with a pathetic 59. The second game was a little better; I ended up bowling an 83.
Still, pretty pathetic overall, and it's really symptomatic of a larger issue. I mean, there's a reason I don't go out into the world and do things: I'm no good at any of them.
I also managed to injure myself slightly, as the edge of the ball rubbing against my thumb caused a blister to form. The blister then popped and the skin tore loose, so I ended up leaving a little piece of myself behind at the bowling alley.
Still, it was an interesting change of pace, but now I need to while away the three and a half hours I have remaining. I suppose that I should get back to it.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Time flies when you're not having fun
One of the things that I’ve come to find most irritating as I get older is how frequently I discover that the things people told me about getting older, which, when I was younger, I dismissed as nonsense, are largely turning out to be true.
It’s not that I feel the need to always be right, but there is definitely some aspect of my nature that hates for other people to be right.
In any case, one thing that I’ve found to be especially true is my mother’s admonition that as you get older time seems to move faster.
I find myself amazed on those occasions when I think back on some event that seems so fresh in my mind and I realize that it happened five years ago.
Or ten.
Or fifteen.
Or twenty.
The odd nature of my work schedule only adds to the feeling of accelerated time, as five days at work encompasses a period of nine days total. If I take three days off from work I’m away for eleven.
It seems almost impossible to think that’s it already been nearly two years since I moved to Northern Virginia.
Of course, I suppose that I can take some amount of satisfaction in knowing that I am at least disproving the adage about time flying when you’re having fun, since I almost never have fun and yet time persists in flying anyway…
This reflection on the nature of time was largely inspired by reading some of the stories in my latest “Sandman” re-acquisition, “Worlds’ End.”
This particular collection of stories is one that, in my original collection, I didn’t have in the form of a single volume, but rather as individual issues of the series.
I very clearly remember receiving them in the mail as part of my subscription to the series. I feel a heaviness in my stomach as I think back to reading them in that tiny little apartment my wife and I shared back then and I can almost believe that if I were to close my eyes and open them again I would still be there, and yet eleven years have passed since that time.
In that time I’ve moved across the country on more than one occasion, she’s remarried and had a child, and I’ve had to once again buy something that I had already owned once in another life.
The actual set-up of the stories contained within “Worlds’ End” is very similar to that of “The Canterbury Tales,” in which we find a group of disparate travelers passing the time by regaling each other with stories.
Of course, in this case they aren’t pilgrims off on a quest to see the body of the Holy, Blissful Martyr, but are instead travelers from different worlds who have found themselves stranded at a place that is not a place waiting for the “reality storm” that has brought them together to pass.
Since it is a collection of Sandman stories written by Neil Gaiman, all of the stories are extremely good, but there is one in particular that, for reasons that I’m not certain I could articulate, really stands out for me. Since I lost my original copy of the story I’ve missed it a good deal more than most of the others, and I was very eager to read it once again.
You can say what you will about the quality, or lack thereof, of the comics detailing the lives of Archie, Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the gang from Riverdale, but you can’t dispute the fact that with more than fifty years of continuous publication (I think; I have done ZERO fact-checking here. Suffice to say, they’ve been around for a while.), “Archie” comics obviously have some sort of appeal.
At various points in its history, DC Comics has tried to capitalize on that appeal, making various attempts at tapping into this potential market with comics such as “Binky,” with varying degrees of success.
It was, perhaps, in an additional attempt to gain inroads into the “Archie” demographic that in the 1970s DC launched a series titled “Prez.”
Whatever other motivations may have been behind its inception, the inspiration for “Prez” arose from the voting age being lowered to eighteen in 1972. Perhaps too impressed by the activism of the young people of the previous decade, and giving young people altogether too much credit, I think, DC imagined a world in which America’s youth stood up to be counted, taking their civic responsibilities to heart and ensuring that they would have a voice in government by pushing forward an initiative to lower the minimum age for holding office, including the Office of the President of the United States, to eighteen.
Thus, along came the propitiously named Prez Rickard. “Prez” was short for “President,” and he was so-named by his mother who had prophesied that he would one day become President.
Turns out that, like mine with the whole time going faster thing, his mom was right.
(As an aside, so far I have at least managed to consistently prove my mother wrong about the whole “You’ll meet the right person someday” thing…)
So the titular Prez became the youngest President in U.S. History.
My only real familiarity with “Prez” consisted simply of knowing that a comic book by that title had existed and having a dim notion of what the premise was.
I remember thinking that the whole thing was profoundly silly, and it’s my understanding that it pretty much was, if not just entirely bizarre.
And yet…
One of the stories in the “Worlds’ End” collection, and, in fact, the specific story I’m talking about, is actually about Prez, and at the time it served as his first appearance in publication in twenty years.
Throughout the years I’ve remembered the story often, and fondly, since, as I mentioned, for reasons that I can’t articulate (thus sparing you from a lengthy examination of the story), somehow resonates with me.
As silly and bizarre as the basic premise may be, Gaiman managed to craft a story that was moving, sad, and hopeful, and which has stuck with me for more than eleven years.
Reading it again, today, a week after the results of our most recent Presidential election, I can’t help but be especially moved by the story, and think about how there’s one other thing that I’ve heard about getting older that seems to be true.
And as my idealism fades more and more with each rapidly passing day, I really wish that people could be wrong just a little more often.
Want to learn more about Prez? Go here: http://www.toonopedia.com/prez.htm
It’s not that I feel the need to always be right, but there is definitely some aspect of my nature that hates for other people to be right.
In any case, one thing that I’ve found to be especially true is my mother’s admonition that as you get older time seems to move faster.
I find myself amazed on those occasions when I think back on some event that seems so fresh in my mind and I realize that it happened five years ago.
Or ten.
Or fifteen.
Or twenty.
The odd nature of my work schedule only adds to the feeling of accelerated time, as five days at work encompasses a period of nine days total. If I take three days off from work I’m away for eleven.
It seems almost impossible to think that’s it already been nearly two years since I moved to Northern Virginia.
Of course, I suppose that I can take some amount of satisfaction in knowing that I am at least disproving the adage about time flying when you’re having fun, since I almost never have fun and yet time persists in flying anyway…
This reflection on the nature of time was largely inspired by reading some of the stories in my latest “Sandman” re-acquisition, “Worlds’ End.”
This particular collection of stories is one that, in my original collection, I didn’t have in the form of a single volume, but rather as individual issues of the series.
I very clearly remember receiving them in the mail as part of my subscription to the series. I feel a heaviness in my stomach as I think back to reading them in that tiny little apartment my wife and I shared back then and I can almost believe that if I were to close my eyes and open them again I would still be there, and yet eleven years have passed since that time.
In that time I’ve moved across the country on more than one occasion, she’s remarried and had a child, and I’ve had to once again buy something that I had already owned once in another life.
The actual set-up of the stories contained within “Worlds’ End” is very similar to that of “The Canterbury Tales,” in which we find a group of disparate travelers passing the time by regaling each other with stories.
Of course, in this case they aren’t pilgrims off on a quest to see the body of the Holy, Blissful Martyr, but are instead travelers from different worlds who have found themselves stranded at a place that is not a place waiting for the “reality storm” that has brought them together to pass.
Since it is a collection of Sandman stories written by Neil Gaiman, all of the stories are extremely good, but there is one in particular that, for reasons that I’m not certain I could articulate, really stands out for me. Since I lost my original copy of the story I’ve missed it a good deal more than most of the others, and I was very eager to read it once again.
You can say what you will about the quality, or lack thereof, of the comics detailing the lives of Archie, Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the gang from Riverdale, but you can’t dispute the fact that with more than fifty years of continuous publication (I think; I have done ZERO fact-checking here. Suffice to say, they’ve been around for a while.), “Archie” comics obviously have some sort of appeal.
At various points in its history, DC Comics has tried to capitalize on that appeal, making various attempts at tapping into this potential market with comics such as “Binky,” with varying degrees of success.
It was, perhaps, in an additional attempt to gain inroads into the “Archie” demographic that in the 1970s DC launched a series titled “Prez.”
Whatever other motivations may have been behind its inception, the inspiration for “Prez” arose from the voting age being lowered to eighteen in 1972. Perhaps too impressed by the activism of the young people of the previous decade, and giving young people altogether too much credit, I think, DC imagined a world in which America’s youth stood up to be counted, taking their civic responsibilities to heart and ensuring that they would have a voice in government by pushing forward an initiative to lower the minimum age for holding office, including the Office of the President of the United States, to eighteen.
Thus, along came the propitiously named Prez Rickard. “Prez” was short for “President,” and he was so-named by his mother who had prophesied that he would one day become President.
Turns out that, like mine with the whole time going faster thing, his mom was right.
(As an aside, so far I have at least managed to consistently prove my mother wrong about the whole “You’ll meet the right person someday” thing…)
So the titular Prez became the youngest President in U.S. History.
My only real familiarity with “Prez” consisted simply of knowing that a comic book by that title had existed and having a dim notion of what the premise was.
I remember thinking that the whole thing was profoundly silly, and it’s my understanding that it pretty much was, if not just entirely bizarre.
And yet…
One of the stories in the “Worlds’ End” collection, and, in fact, the specific story I’m talking about, is actually about Prez, and at the time it served as his first appearance in publication in twenty years.
Throughout the years I’ve remembered the story often, and fondly, since, as I mentioned, for reasons that I can’t articulate (thus sparing you from a lengthy examination of the story), somehow resonates with me.
As silly and bizarre as the basic premise may be, Gaiman managed to craft a story that was moving, sad, and hopeful, and which has stuck with me for more than eleven years.
Reading it again, today, a week after the results of our most recent Presidential election, I can’t help but be especially moved by the story, and think about how there’s one other thing that I’ve heard about getting older that seems to be true.
And as my idealism fades more and more with each rapidly passing day, I really wish that people could be wrong just a little more often.
Want to learn more about Prez? Go here: http://www.toonopedia.com/prez.htm
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Quick update
I know I would misquote him if I tried to remember exactly what he said, so rather than do that, I will paraphrase an idea that author Larry Niven once put forth.
Well, he may have put forth the idea more than once, but I only encountered it once.
In any case the idea was that a writer’s worst enemy is another writer.
This isn’t due to some sort of competition, but due instead to the fact that anyone who wants to write is likely going to be someone who likes to read.
The most valuable asset a writer has, more so than a good word processing program, a command of the language, or even a good idea, is time.
So Niven’s theory was that, if you’re a writer, other writers can rob you of time by luring you in and getting you to while away your precious hours reading what they’ve written rather than writing your own stories.
He definitely had a point, I think, though he certainly didn’t suggest that writers shouldn’t read. On the contrary, reading, for a writer, really is fundamental.
Still, you do need to find the right balance between exploring the ideas of others and putting your own ideas down on paper (or on hard drive, as the case may be).
For me, that balance has been a little skewed so far this week as I find myself being suckered in by other writers.
As such I’ve made very little progress on “15,000 Years,” and even less progress here.
But I have finished with most of the reading material that’s really been capturing my attention, so hopefully we’ll see some progress, in both places, over the next couple of days.
After all, I do have plenty of time, and no intention of leaving my apartment for any extended period of time between now and Friday morning.
In any case, I thought I should at least pop in and say hello to anyone who may be out there and keep you apprised of my progress.
Well, he may have put forth the idea more than once, but I only encountered it once.
In any case the idea was that a writer’s worst enemy is another writer.
This isn’t due to some sort of competition, but due instead to the fact that anyone who wants to write is likely going to be someone who likes to read.
The most valuable asset a writer has, more so than a good word processing program, a command of the language, or even a good idea, is time.
So Niven’s theory was that, if you’re a writer, other writers can rob you of time by luring you in and getting you to while away your precious hours reading what they’ve written rather than writing your own stories.
He definitely had a point, I think, though he certainly didn’t suggest that writers shouldn’t read. On the contrary, reading, for a writer, really is fundamental.
Still, you do need to find the right balance between exploring the ideas of others and putting your own ideas down on paper (or on hard drive, as the case may be).
For me, that balance has been a little skewed so far this week as I find myself being suckered in by other writers.
As such I’ve made very little progress on “15,000 Years,” and even less progress here.
But I have finished with most of the reading material that’s really been capturing my attention, so hopefully we’ll see some progress, in both places, over the next couple of days.
After all, I do have plenty of time, and no intention of leaving my apartment for any extended period of time between now and Friday morning.
In any case, I thought I should at least pop in and say hello to anyone who may be out there and keep you apprised of my progress.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Checking in at the end of week
So the elections are over.
There's a lot I could say about how they turned out, and I probably should say it while I still have the right to say things that aren't officially approved by the GOP, but I have too much to do today and altogether too little time in which to do it.
If you've been checking out my novel blog, you've probably noticed that I only have one chapter posted.
I have actually done some more work on it, I just haven't gotten around to posting.
I still have no clue where the story is heading, but I am still working on it, so if you're interested, keep checking back periodically.
I believe it was Larry Niven who said that a writer's worst enemy is another writer, simply because time spent reading works by other writers is time that could be spent writing.
I'm finding that to be especially true this week, as I've been engaged in a lot of reading.
Of course, I've probably been doing it just to avoid doing writing of my own...
In any case, I should probably get back to doing either one or the other right now.
There's a lot I could say about how they turned out, and I probably should say it while I still have the right to say things that aren't officially approved by the GOP, but I have too much to do today and altogether too little time in which to do it.
If you've been checking out my novel blog, you've probably noticed that I only have one chapter posted.
I have actually done some more work on it, I just haven't gotten around to posting.
I still have no clue where the story is heading, but I am still working on it, so if you're interested, keep checking back periodically.
I believe it was Larry Niven who said that a writer's worst enemy is another writer, simply because time spent reading works by other writers is time that could be spent writing.
I'm finding that to be especially true this week, as I've been engaged in a lot of reading.
Of course, I've probably been doing it just to avoid doing writing of my own...
In any case, I should probably get back to doing either one or the other right now.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Please don't screw things up, Florida
So it’s Election Day, a day that could very well be one of the most pivotal and decisive moments in this country’s history; a day that serves as the culmination to one of the most contentious and divisive campaigns in recent memory, made especially so by the events of the last election.
Clearly, this is a topic of utmost importance that deserves careful and considered analysis.
Which is why I’m going to talk about a porn site.
There’s a site out there known as “The Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes,” which I visit fairly regularly for the sake of finding new reference photos for my art (Honest; I go to much more extreme sites for my actual porn consumption).
There are at least three things wrong with the name “Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes.”
For one thing, “Bi-Daily” seems to mean “whenever,” though no more frequently than every two days. Typically it’s updated only once or twice a month.
“Celebrity” seems to mean any woman who ever got her photograph taken…in Italy.
“Nudes,” of course, refers to the fact that, underneath our clothes we’re all naked.
I first encountered an iteration of The Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes sometime back in 1996. Back then, it was “The Daily Celebrity Nudes,” and it consisted of only one photo a day.
Eventually the Webmaster found that he couldn’t maintain the “Daily” updates, and, without an actual name change, it became Bi-Daily.
I went a long time without actually visiting the site again, and found that it had become the front window display for a pay site. They added more photos to the site, with even more made available for paying customers.
It was a combination of trying to make money off of the Web surfers’ desire to see nude celebrities and the more extensive content in the free area, I think, that led them to broaden their definitions of “Celebrity” and “Nude.”
After all, you don’t want to put the good stuff out there for everyone to see, and there is a definite limit to the number of legitimately nude celebrities in the world.
That’s pretty much all I actually have to say about the site, and I only said that much because I’m sort of reaching for topics today.
Today has not been especially productive.
Not only did I not go out and vote (See the most recent episode of “South Park” to understand why I didn’t feel the need to go out and vote), apart from going out to get my mail, I never left my apartment.
Since I still have a freezer that’s overflowing with frozen leftovers I have no reason to do any cooking this week.
I haven’t really done any work on “15,000 Years,” though I have come up with a few concepts for it, concepts which seem to be steering the story in the direction of the Fantasy genre.
Still don’t really have anything resembling a plot, though.
I did finally make some peanut butter cookies today, but they really didn’t turn out that well, and now I know better than to ever buy “all-natural” peanut butter.
I had actually started out the day intending to accomplish things. I was planning to get up, go for a walk, come home and shower, then sit down and write for a solid 7 hours.
Ha!
Still, the night is relatively young, and election coverage and the start of the stupid basketball season have ensured that there will be nothing good on TV for the next couple of hours, so I suppose that I should get to work.
Clearly, this is a topic of utmost importance that deserves careful and considered analysis.
Which is why I’m going to talk about a porn site.
There’s a site out there known as “The Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes,” which I visit fairly regularly for the sake of finding new reference photos for my art (Honest; I go to much more extreme sites for my actual porn consumption).
There are at least three things wrong with the name “Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes.”
For one thing, “Bi-Daily” seems to mean “whenever,” though no more frequently than every two days. Typically it’s updated only once or twice a month.
“Celebrity” seems to mean any woman who ever got her photograph taken…in Italy.
“Nudes,” of course, refers to the fact that, underneath our clothes we’re all naked.
I first encountered an iteration of The Bi-Daily Celebrity Nudes sometime back in 1996. Back then, it was “The Daily Celebrity Nudes,” and it consisted of only one photo a day.
Eventually the Webmaster found that he couldn’t maintain the “Daily” updates, and, without an actual name change, it became Bi-Daily.
I went a long time without actually visiting the site again, and found that it had become the front window display for a pay site. They added more photos to the site, with even more made available for paying customers.
It was a combination of trying to make money off of the Web surfers’ desire to see nude celebrities and the more extensive content in the free area, I think, that led them to broaden their definitions of “Celebrity” and “Nude.”
After all, you don’t want to put the good stuff out there for everyone to see, and there is a definite limit to the number of legitimately nude celebrities in the world.
That’s pretty much all I actually have to say about the site, and I only said that much because I’m sort of reaching for topics today.
Today has not been especially productive.
Not only did I not go out and vote (See the most recent episode of “South Park” to understand why I didn’t feel the need to go out and vote), apart from going out to get my mail, I never left my apartment.
Since I still have a freezer that’s overflowing with frozen leftovers I have no reason to do any cooking this week.
I haven’t really done any work on “15,000 Years,” though I have come up with a few concepts for it, concepts which seem to be steering the story in the direction of the Fantasy genre.
Still don’t really have anything resembling a plot, though.
I did finally make some peanut butter cookies today, but they really didn’t turn out that well, and now I know better than to ever buy “all-natural” peanut butter.
I had actually started out the day intending to accomplish things. I was planning to get up, go for a walk, come home and shower, then sit down and write for a solid 7 hours.
Ha!
Still, the night is relatively young, and election coverage and the start of the stupid basketball season have ensured that there will be nothing good on TV for the next couple of hours, so I suppose that I should get to work.
Monday, November 01, 2004
First chapters and old stories
I put in a couple of hours of diligent typing and cranked out the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo/NaNoBlogMo contribution, the novel “15,000 Years” today.
The first chapter comes in at just under 3,000 words, (2,980 to be exact), which is respectable. At a rate of 3,000 words a day, I would complete the requisite 50,000 words in about 16 days, leaving me 14 days to spare.
It seems unlikely that I’ll work at that rate consistently, but it does at least make me hopeful that I can complete the whole thing in 30 days.
Still no real plot for it, but I have at least two characters created for it, and some idea of what their interactions are going to be like.
It’s not much, but hey, at least I’m giving it a shot. I don’t really anticipate that it’ll be the Great American Novel or that some publisher will see it and want to throw all kinds of money at me for it, but at least I’ll have done it, and thereby proven to myself that I can do it.
My weekend was pretty much standard, with nothing especially exciting or interesting happening.
The season finale of Dead Like Me was on last night, and while it was, as an episode, very good, as a season finale it was somewhat disappointing.
Now I have a long wait until it returns (and hopefully it will) for a third season, and am left with nothing to watch at 10 pm on Sundays.
There’s a new series called “Huff” that’s going on in DLM’s slot, but it doesn’t really appeal to me.
I could watch “Boston Legal,” I suppose, since I did watch “The Practice,” which is what it spun off from, but…meh. I initially liked James Spader’s character when he was introduced on "The Practice," but after a while he wore our his welcome for me, and I just don’t feel up to watching another “quirky” David E. Kelley series set at a law firm.
So, with DLM’s absence I’m left with little to look forward to before “Sin City” is released in April.
I am kind of looking forward to the January release of “Wonderfalls” on DVD, though.
“Wonderfalls” was a very short-lived (four episodes) series on Fox from the creator of DLM. It had much of the oddly comic spirit of DLM, though it was a little less dark, and, while it was obviously cut from the same cloth as DLM, it had its own distinctive style.
Despite Fox’s short-sightedness in abruptly ending the series after only four episodes (they had originally scheduled the fifth episode to air, then yanked it in favor of a re-run of “The Swan” at the last minute), thirteen episodes were actually produced.
The DVD will contain all thirteen.
I just checked out a related Web site. “Wonderfalls” will not be released on DVD until February.
In any case, while I do look forward to seeing additional episodes of this wonderful show, I know that ultimately it will make me sad that there are no more episodes to be had, so the purchase of the DVD release will be bittersweet at best.
The one thing of note that happened over the weekend was that I cancelled one of the “Sandman” book orders I had that was still pending. I had been hoping to buy the book in hardcover format, but I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere. The only copies I could find were softcover, and after more than 8 years since I lost my originals, I couldn’t honestly remember if it had ever been released in hardcover.
So I settled for ordering the softcover.
On Saturday, after discovering that employees of my company get a discount through Overstock.com, and I decided, on a whim, to see if they had any of the “Sandman” titles available.
I found the volume in question (“Brief Lives,” for those of you who may be wondering) available in hardcover.
So I cancelled the other order and placed an order with Overstock. While I was at it, I ordered another volume from the series (“World’s End”). At this point, I only need one more ("The Kindly Ones") to bring my collection back to full strength.
Eventually, I hope to replace some of the volumes I already have with hardcover editions, but that’s further down the road.
Apart from writing the first chapter of “15,000 Years,” today was mostly uneventful. I stopped in to pay the rent and requested a copy of my lease, which I had neglected to do when I’d renewed it.
The Property Manager, who is herself a relatively attractive woman, though she’s not exactly my type (too tall and too perky), was somewhat flirtatious with me in an aloof, professional fashion.
While I was waiting for her to make my copies, Kelly, the girl who said told me that I smelled REALLY good, came in.
She paid no attention to my presence, sat at her desk, went to work on something, and basically just persisted in failing to notice that I was there. Being Jon, I was unable to think of a way to interrupt her work and get her to notice that I was there, and since it didn’t take long to make my copies, there wasn’t enough time for me to come up with one, though I’m fairly certain that all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough.
Leaving there, I went out to do a little grocery shopping, came home, put my groceries away, then got in a quick workout.
And now here we are.
I know I’ve mentioned the loss of my “Sandman” collection, which I assembled over the course of a couple years in the form of trade paperbacks, hardcover editions, and individual issues, several times before. Some of you may be wondering just how I went about losing it.
It’s a pretty simple story, actually. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy wants to share his interests with girl, so he lends his favorite books to her. Girl quits job and moves away without giving books back to boy.
It wasn’t anything malicious on her part; in fact, her mercurial nature was one of the things about her that made me fall in love with her.
Throughout the years I occasionally bumped into her, and she would always mention that she still had them and that they were okay, but she never managed to get them back to me.
It’s worth mentioning that while I was very much in love with her, the feeling was nowhere near being mutual, so despite how much I wanted my books back, I never really pursued the issue (or "issues," as the case may be), as seeing her was basically a painful experience.
The last time I saw her she was married and had a kid. She had also put on a considerable amount of weight. That's not especially significant; it's just another detail that I thought I'd mention.
In any case, that’s the abridged story of how I lost my “Sandman” collection, which goes to show just how much love can cost you.
The first chapter comes in at just under 3,000 words, (2,980 to be exact), which is respectable. At a rate of 3,000 words a day, I would complete the requisite 50,000 words in about 16 days, leaving me 14 days to spare.
It seems unlikely that I’ll work at that rate consistently, but it does at least make me hopeful that I can complete the whole thing in 30 days.
Still no real plot for it, but I have at least two characters created for it, and some idea of what their interactions are going to be like.
It’s not much, but hey, at least I’m giving it a shot. I don’t really anticipate that it’ll be the Great American Novel or that some publisher will see it and want to throw all kinds of money at me for it, but at least I’ll have done it, and thereby proven to myself that I can do it.
My weekend was pretty much standard, with nothing especially exciting or interesting happening.
The season finale of Dead Like Me was on last night, and while it was, as an episode, very good, as a season finale it was somewhat disappointing.
Now I have a long wait until it returns (and hopefully it will) for a third season, and am left with nothing to watch at 10 pm on Sundays.
There’s a new series called “Huff” that’s going on in DLM’s slot, but it doesn’t really appeal to me.
I could watch “Boston Legal,” I suppose, since I did watch “The Practice,” which is what it spun off from, but…meh. I initially liked James Spader’s character when he was introduced on "The Practice," but after a while he wore our his welcome for me, and I just don’t feel up to watching another “quirky” David E. Kelley series set at a law firm.
So, with DLM’s absence I’m left with little to look forward to before “Sin City” is released in April.
I am kind of looking forward to the January release of “Wonderfalls” on DVD, though.
“Wonderfalls” was a very short-lived (four episodes) series on Fox from the creator of DLM. It had much of the oddly comic spirit of DLM, though it was a little less dark, and, while it was obviously cut from the same cloth as DLM, it had its own distinctive style.
Despite Fox’s short-sightedness in abruptly ending the series after only four episodes (they had originally scheduled the fifth episode to air, then yanked it in favor of a re-run of “The Swan” at the last minute), thirteen episodes were actually produced.
The DVD will contain all thirteen.
I just checked out a related Web site. “Wonderfalls” will not be released on DVD until February.
In any case, while I do look forward to seeing additional episodes of this wonderful show, I know that ultimately it will make me sad that there are no more episodes to be had, so the purchase of the DVD release will be bittersweet at best.
The one thing of note that happened over the weekend was that I cancelled one of the “Sandman” book orders I had that was still pending. I had been hoping to buy the book in hardcover format, but I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere. The only copies I could find were softcover, and after more than 8 years since I lost my originals, I couldn’t honestly remember if it had ever been released in hardcover.
So I settled for ordering the softcover.
On Saturday, after discovering that employees of my company get a discount through Overstock.com, and I decided, on a whim, to see if they had any of the “Sandman” titles available.
I found the volume in question (“Brief Lives,” for those of you who may be wondering) available in hardcover.
So I cancelled the other order and placed an order with Overstock. While I was at it, I ordered another volume from the series (“World’s End”). At this point, I only need one more ("The Kindly Ones") to bring my collection back to full strength.
Eventually, I hope to replace some of the volumes I already have with hardcover editions, but that’s further down the road.
Apart from writing the first chapter of “15,000 Years,” today was mostly uneventful. I stopped in to pay the rent and requested a copy of my lease, which I had neglected to do when I’d renewed it.
The Property Manager, who is herself a relatively attractive woman, though she’s not exactly my type (too tall and too perky), was somewhat flirtatious with me in an aloof, professional fashion.
While I was waiting for her to make my copies, Kelly, the girl who said told me that I smelled REALLY good, came in.
She paid no attention to my presence, sat at her desk, went to work on something, and basically just persisted in failing to notice that I was there. Being Jon, I was unable to think of a way to interrupt her work and get her to notice that I was there, and since it didn’t take long to make my copies, there wasn’t enough time for me to come up with one, though I’m fairly certain that all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough.
Leaving there, I went out to do a little grocery shopping, came home, put my groceries away, then got in a quick workout.
And now here we are.
I know I’ve mentioned the loss of my “Sandman” collection, which I assembled over the course of a couple years in the form of trade paperbacks, hardcover editions, and individual issues, several times before. Some of you may be wondering just how I went about losing it.
It’s a pretty simple story, actually. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy wants to share his interests with girl, so he lends his favorite books to her. Girl quits job and moves away without giving books back to boy.
It wasn’t anything malicious on her part; in fact, her mercurial nature was one of the things about her that made me fall in love with her.
Throughout the years I occasionally bumped into her, and she would always mention that she still had them and that they were okay, but she never managed to get them back to me.
It’s worth mentioning that while I was very much in love with her, the feeling was nowhere near being mutual, so despite how much I wanted my books back, I never really pursued the issue (or "issues," as the case may be), as seeing her was basically a painful experience.
The last time I saw her she was married and had a kid. She had also put on a considerable amount of weight. That's not especially significant; it's just another detail that I thought I'd mention.
In any case, that’s the abridged story of how I lost my “Sandman” collection, which goes to show just how much love can cost you.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
A correction and some reminders
The name of the young lady in the lacy underwear is Kari Ann Peniche, and her correct title is "Miss United States Teen."
I might be making some additional posts before crashing tonight if I can crank out any more pictures (most likely more RLC), but if I don't, I wanted to remind everyone that Monday marks the start of "National Novel Writing Month," or "NaNoWriMo," which means that, in theory, I'll be hard at work on my novel-in-the-form-of-blog over at http://15000years.blogspot.com/
The plan is to write at least 50,000 words in 30 days.
I still have no clue what it's going to be about.
Be sure to check it out, and keep coming back here, as I'll try to have updates for all of you slavering Threshold fans....
NaNoWriMo links:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
http://nanoblogmo.blogspot.com/
I might be making some additional posts before crashing tonight if I can crank out any more pictures (most likely more RLC), but if I don't, I wanted to remind everyone that Monday marks the start of "National Novel Writing Month," or "NaNoWriMo," which means that, in theory, I'll be hard at work on my novel-in-the-form-of-blog over at http://15000years.blogspot.com/
The plan is to write at least 50,000 words in 30 days.
I still have no clue what it's going to be about.
Be sure to check it out, and keep coming back here, as I'll try to have updates for all of you slavering Threshold fans....
NaNoWriMo links:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
http://nanoblogmo.blogspot.com/
Here's a cat I'd be willing to get a prescription to Zyrtec for...
Here's a not-especially-good new RLC pic. This is RLC as Josie in "Josie and the Pussycats," a movie that, while I didn't seek out, I actually sat down and watched simply because RLC was in it.
Apart from the fact that I was hypnotized whenever she was on-screen, there wasn't much about the movie to enjoy.
In alll honesty, I haven't actually seen that many movies that RLC has been in. I think there's only one that I've ever watched from start to finish. I think it was called "Strike," or "All I Want To Do," or something. Kirsten Dunst was also in it. It was set in the 60's and had something to do with some girls' school.
Anyway, I think she looks good as a redhead and, and while I'm not a Furry or anything, and we know that I'm allergic, the cat ears are still kind of cute.
Feel free to make any crude sexual puns about the whole cat thing that you'd like: I myself just don't have the strength for it...
And now for something COMPLETELY different...
Here's something very far away from the topic of misery.
I ordinarily don't like to do pictures like this in which a woman is reduced to just her component parts (it has a weird, "serial killer vibe," I think).
However, I really wanted to try rendering that lacy pattern. The complete image features some nudity, and it would have been a pain to try to to create a covering, and I'm reluctant to post nudes here because I know some people read this at work. This image alone is racy enough as it is without the nudity, I think.
So she got cropped down to this.
In case you're wondering, the woman wearing the lacy pattern that so intrigued me is Kari...something. She is (or, at this point, most likely was) "Miss Teen USA," and she is featured in this month's "Playboy." As for the rest of her, she looks a bit like Denise Richards, and, overall, is a very attractive young (20) woman, with more to her than just a shapely pelvis and lacy underwear.
In defense of misery
A while ago, while flipping through the channels late at night, I stopped, briefly, on a movie titled “Amy’s Orgasm.” No, I didn’t stop my channel-surfing because I thought that it was soft-core porn, as I had actually heard of the movie before; I was just a little amused by something that the titular owner of the “little death” was saying.
(There’s your lesson for the day; some people refer to an orgasm as a “little death.” Oh yeah, and heheheheh, I said “titular.”)
Basically, Amy was the author of a self-help book for women which put forth the notion that a woman can have a happy, healthy life, and here's the hook, without a man.
I think it will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever seen a movie that despite the belief that served as the basis for her financial success, Amy, in fact, was desperate to land herself a man.
In any case, in the scene I was watching Amy was talking to her parents, who were commenting on how much better her life would be if she found herself a man to settle down with.
Again, if you haven’t ever seen a movie in your life, you would expect that, since Amy espouses a belief system that is based on the idea that a woman doesn’t need a man to make her life complete, she would object. Instead, shockingly (for first-time movie viewers), she agrees.
None of this is what amused me, though; it was what Amy actually said in response to her parents.
I’m paraphrasing, but it was basically, “Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I’m not looking for Mr. Right? It’s not like I have his number and just won’t call him or something; he just isn’t out there.”
It was an idea that, for me, struck a chord.
Of course, over the years I’ve developed pretty much zero tolerance for any movie or TV show centering on the difficulties that attractive, single women have trying to land themselves a man. Any man.
I mean, sure, experience has taught me that the world is literally overflowing with gorgeous, desperate single women, and after all, there are dozens of them milling about just outside my door even as I write this.
And we all know that men in general are just utterly opposed to the idea of becoming involved with attractive, single women, and getting them go out on dates is like pulling teeth.
Even so, the theme seems to be even more cliché than…well, me making sarcastic comments about how the world is overflowing with attractive, desperate single women.
Honestly, the biggest problem that I have with that particular theme is that, at some point, someone is bound to say something along the lines of, “All the good men are either gay or taken.”
Syllogism:
syl·lo·gism
n.
Logic. A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the conclusion.
(From dictionary.com)
Using the above definition, draw a conclusion based on the major and minor premises listed below:
All good men are either gay or taken.
Jon is neither gay nor taken.
Okay, so it’s a conclusion that I came to a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I need to have my nose rubbed in it…
In any case, the reason that Amy’s statement struck a chord with me wasn’t simply due to the parallels to my own lack of a romantic life, but to an entirely different aspect of who I am: namely, my unhappiness.
Forget the question of why I’m so unhappy. Perhaps the more germane question is “Why I don’t just stop being unhappy?”
“Jon,” you may find yourself asking, “why don’t you just stop being so gloomy? Turn that frown upside down! Accentuate the positive! The glass is half full!”
…
In the first place, let me just say that, presently, I’m really not all that miserable. Despite my lack of companionship, frequent annoyances brought on by the greater mass of humanity, and a million other minor troubles, the fact of the matter is that I have a decent life. I get along with most of my family, my job is okay, I like my co-workers, I have a nice apartment, a few toys to keep me entertained, and, for one more episode at least, “Dead Like Me.”
And porn. Lots and lots of porn.
The whole curmudgeon routine is just that: a routine.
In my writings here on Threshold, and in my standard interactions with people, I exaggerate my misery. For the most part, particularly here, I do it for comic effect. After all, I think that, in all honesty, the funniest aspects of my life are those aspects that are also the saddest, most pathetic, and most pitiful. My crippling emotional problems are comedic gold, dammit!
It’s my bit. Dangerfield had “I get no respect.” Seinfeld has his whole “What’s the deal with…” thing. Dennis Miller’s got his obscure references.
I’ve got my misery.
And I like to complain. Honestly, who doesn’t? Maybe I complain more (maybe even a LOT more) than you, but the odds are you do complain at least once in a while. It’s a natural human reaction to life.
And apparently I’m just “Mr. Negativity” or something, but as much as I do focus on the negative, and I don’t smile, have you (those of you who actually know me) ever noticed how much of my time is spent laughing? Do you ever notice when I do say something positive (and, occasionally, I do), or do YOU only notice the negative?
As a somewhat related aside, this reminds me of something that used to happen periodically back when I worked at a grocery store.
I’d be sitting in the break room on my break, or on lunch, or whatever, and some other employee would come in. If it wasn’t someone that I was actually friendly with, I might simply say, “Hey,” and leave it at that, not feeling any particular need to engage in small talk, which usually seemed to be in line with what the other person was thinking.
Invariably I’d hear about these encounters from my sister, who also worked in the store. She’d say, “So and so said to me ‘Your brother is so quiet. I sat in the break room with him and he never said a word.’”
My sister would usually respond to this statement with, “Well, what did you say?”
The answer would always be, “Well, nothing.”
So, if I didn’t say anything, and the other person didn’t say anything, why is it that I’m the quiet one? Why is it my responsibility to initiate a conversation?
Maybe, as some people have suggested, I simply radiate an aura of unfriendliness. Maybe, as some others have suggested, though I don’t see how this can be so, I’m intimidating somehow. I honestly don’t know. Most of the time I’m not going out of my way to seem hostile or unfriendly, and the odds are that if you engage me, I will actually converse with you.
But in all honesty, if I didn’t initiate them first, the odds are I would have had a lot fewer conversations in my life…
In any case, getting back to my point, for whatever reasons (genetics, life experiences, chemical imbalances: whatever), focusing on the negative and feeling at least a little depressed are ingrained aspects of my personality. They’re as much a part of who I am as the fact that I’m right-handed, or that I don’t like the taste of fish.
Even though I’m not quite so miserable as I sometimes make myself out to be (or more to the point, as some people think I make myself out to be), the fact of the matter is that I’m not an especially happy person.
I have moments of happiness, which, I’ve come to believe, are all that anyone can reasonably expect out of life, such as watching an episode of DLM, or reading something by Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore, or reading the latest issue of “Catwoman,” which, as scripted by Ed Brubaker, is one of the things I most look forward to every month, or having a pretty girl smile at me, or going for a walk on a beautiful day, or remembering when my niece Jourdan used to fall asleep with her head on my leg as I’d read, “I Love Spaghetti” to her, or, well, any one or any combination of countless things that can bring me some amount of happiness.
But there is no overarching happiness in my life, and in general, yeah, I do tend to have a black cloud hanging over my head, and I’m never going to be cheerful, or optimistic, any more than I’m ever going to be outgoing and charming or suddenly grow wings and fly.
And that’s just the way it is. Why? I don’t know; it just is.
But just as Amy commented that it’s not a matter of having Mr. Right’s number and just refusing to call, for me it’s not like I could just magically choose to be happy and I’m refusing to do it.
Do you honestly think that if I had some means to just magically make myself happy and well-adjusted I wouldn’t choose to do it?
Okay, maybe you do, but the fact of the matter is, if I could just choose to be happy, I would. Maybe I’m the most miserable human being in the world, maybe I’m not, but the fact is, I AM human, and, as such, I do honestly seek out happiness. No one wants to be miserable any more than anyone wants to be paralyzed, or wants to have a heart defect, or wants to have a limb amputated.
“Just be happy,” you tell me, as if you would walk up to a paraplegic and say, “Just walk, or “Just make your heart work,” or “Just grow another one.”
So many people suggest that I go out and do things that will take me away from my fixation on myself, but the fact is that no matter what I do, it’s completely impossible for me to shut off my big, overanalyzing brain. No matter where I go, there I am, and nothing can occupy my entire consciousness to the extent that my brain isn’t still working somewhere in the background. In my whole life, the only activity I’ve found that even comes close to shutting down my thought processes was drinking, and that’s just not an option anymore, and it never really worked that well anyway, unless truly MASSIVE amounts of booze were involved.
Besides, any positive qualities that I do have stem from the same source as the negative. If my brain weren’t constantly analyzing and re-analyzing the minutiae of my existence it’s not like I would somehow be some better, more well-adjusted version of Jon; I wouldn’t be Jon at all.
And when you suggest that I go out and do things, you neglect to take into account that I have gone out and done things. Lots of things. I haven’t spent my whole life sheltered away from the world. I’ve had a lot of experiences in my life, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason that they led me here. Maybe there’s a reason I isolate myself from the world.
Ultimately the suggestions seem to be that I go out and do things that I know that I wouldn’t enjoy. Maybe it’s just a defect in my own thinking, but somehow I just can’t follow the line of reasoning that says Jon + some activity he hates = Happiness!
Don’t bother trotting out the “You never know until you try” nonsense; I’ve never tried shooting myself in the head, but I can be reasonably certain that I wouldn’t enjoy it, and if it didn’t kill me it would at least leave me brain damaged.
Then again, maybe that would serve to effectively shut down my overactive brain. Hmmm…
No, strike that.
Okay, so you’ll say, “So you don’t have to go out and try country line dancing or anything, but what’s wrong with going out and doing something you enjoy.”
Like what? There honestly isn’t that much in life that I enjoy, and most of the things I enjoy are not enhanced by bringing other people into the mix, since I don’t really enjoy being around other people.
Not when I’m sober, anyway, and sobriety, as I’ve mentioned, is a requirement for, well, everything.
After 32 years I’ve probably gotten as good as I’m going to get at handling social situations, and the fact of the matter is that I don’t handle them all that well.
Again, that’s just another part of who I am.
Even with the aid of counseling and medication, I wasn’t appreciably more optimistic or cheerful. I managed to come back from the brink of near-suicidal depression, and I found ways to get through life without relying on booze, and I did learn to “count my blessings,” and any number of vague platitudes that help people make it through the day, but the fact remains that I’m never going to be fully happy. I’m always going to complain. I’m always going to see the glass as half-empty, or even dumped over and shattered on the floor, with one of the shards stuck in the bottom of my foot.
I’m always going to be at least a little depressed.
And I’m always going to make jokes about it.
It’s what I do.
All I can really say is “Don’t take things so seriously.” No, I don’t really think that I have the worst life in the world, yes, I do realize that there are millions of people who have it much, much worse than I do, and I do appreciate the many wonderful people and things that are part of my not-so-miserable life, and I do recognize that I have talents, even if I don’t capitalize on them to the extent that you all think I should.
Most of my misery, as expressed to you, is exaggerated for comic effect, and then that exaggeration gets exaggerated in your minds, and it just grows from there.
Relax. If I were really as depressed as you think I am, I’d be dead. I’d be utterly incapable of getting out of bed in the morning. It’s really that simple.
And honestly, what’s so wrong with being unhappy anyway? Why is it such a crime to be sad? You see all of these “inspirational” e-mails floating around telling you that you need to dance every day, force a smile under all circumstances, sing out your joy for all the world to hear, grab life by the throat and squeeze out every last drop of joy, and be happy, happy, HAPPY, dammit!
Life isn’t the town of Stepford. People are going to get unhappy from time to time, maybe even most of the time, but so what? What’s wrong with having an expression other than a plastered on smile once in a while?
Oh, sure, it’s a “downer” to be around someone who only focuses on the negative, but come on, be honest, who’s more irritating, someone who’s morbidly depressed or someone who is relentlessly cheerful? You know that, on some level, you don’t trust people who are always smiling.
If I were to suddenly and miraculously transform into some upbeat, positive, “Stepford Jon” who dotted his “i”s with little smiley faces, it would take you fewer than five minutes to say, “Jon, please go back to being unhappy.”
Just imagine me as some obscene parody of happiness walking around with a grin from ear to ear and espousing the joys of Joy, then step back from your imaginings and be thankful that I’m the miserable old crank that I am, and I think you’ll agree that we’re all a lot happier when I’m unhappy...
(There’s your lesson for the day; some people refer to an orgasm as a “little death.” Oh yeah, and heheheheh, I said “titular.”)
Basically, Amy was the author of a self-help book for women which put forth the notion that a woman can have a happy, healthy life, and here's the hook, without a man.
I think it will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever seen a movie that despite the belief that served as the basis for her financial success, Amy, in fact, was desperate to land herself a man.
In any case, in the scene I was watching Amy was talking to her parents, who were commenting on how much better her life would be if she found herself a man to settle down with.
Again, if you haven’t ever seen a movie in your life, you would expect that, since Amy espouses a belief system that is based on the idea that a woman doesn’t need a man to make her life complete, she would object. Instead, shockingly (for first-time movie viewers), she agrees.
None of this is what amused me, though; it was what Amy actually said in response to her parents.
I’m paraphrasing, but it was basically, “Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I’m not looking for Mr. Right? It’s not like I have his number and just won’t call him or something; he just isn’t out there.”
It was an idea that, for me, struck a chord.
Of course, over the years I’ve developed pretty much zero tolerance for any movie or TV show centering on the difficulties that attractive, single women have trying to land themselves a man. Any man.
I mean, sure, experience has taught me that the world is literally overflowing with gorgeous, desperate single women, and after all, there are dozens of them milling about just outside my door even as I write this.
And we all know that men in general are just utterly opposed to the idea of becoming involved with attractive, single women, and getting them go out on dates is like pulling teeth.
Even so, the theme seems to be even more cliché than…well, me making sarcastic comments about how the world is overflowing with attractive, desperate single women.
Honestly, the biggest problem that I have with that particular theme is that, at some point, someone is bound to say something along the lines of, “All the good men are either gay or taken.”
Syllogism:
syl·lo·gism
n.
Logic. A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the conclusion.
(From dictionary.com)
Using the above definition, draw a conclusion based on the major and minor premises listed below:
All good men are either gay or taken.
Jon is neither gay nor taken.
Okay, so it’s a conclusion that I came to a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I need to have my nose rubbed in it…
In any case, the reason that Amy’s statement struck a chord with me wasn’t simply due to the parallels to my own lack of a romantic life, but to an entirely different aspect of who I am: namely, my unhappiness.
Forget the question of why I’m so unhappy. Perhaps the more germane question is “Why I don’t just stop being unhappy?”
“Jon,” you may find yourself asking, “why don’t you just stop being so gloomy? Turn that frown upside down! Accentuate the positive! The glass is half full!”
…
In the first place, let me just say that, presently, I’m really not all that miserable. Despite my lack of companionship, frequent annoyances brought on by the greater mass of humanity, and a million other minor troubles, the fact of the matter is that I have a decent life. I get along with most of my family, my job is okay, I like my co-workers, I have a nice apartment, a few toys to keep me entertained, and, for one more episode at least, “Dead Like Me.”
And porn. Lots and lots of porn.
The whole curmudgeon routine is just that: a routine.
In my writings here on Threshold, and in my standard interactions with people, I exaggerate my misery. For the most part, particularly here, I do it for comic effect. After all, I think that, in all honesty, the funniest aspects of my life are those aspects that are also the saddest, most pathetic, and most pitiful. My crippling emotional problems are comedic gold, dammit!
It’s my bit. Dangerfield had “I get no respect.” Seinfeld has his whole “What’s the deal with…” thing. Dennis Miller’s got his obscure references.
I’ve got my misery.
And I like to complain. Honestly, who doesn’t? Maybe I complain more (maybe even a LOT more) than you, but the odds are you do complain at least once in a while. It’s a natural human reaction to life.
And apparently I’m just “Mr. Negativity” or something, but as much as I do focus on the negative, and I don’t smile, have you (those of you who actually know me) ever noticed how much of my time is spent laughing? Do you ever notice when I do say something positive (and, occasionally, I do), or do YOU only notice the negative?
As a somewhat related aside, this reminds me of something that used to happen periodically back when I worked at a grocery store.
I’d be sitting in the break room on my break, or on lunch, or whatever, and some other employee would come in. If it wasn’t someone that I was actually friendly with, I might simply say, “Hey,” and leave it at that, not feeling any particular need to engage in small talk, which usually seemed to be in line with what the other person was thinking.
Invariably I’d hear about these encounters from my sister, who also worked in the store. She’d say, “So and so said to me ‘Your brother is so quiet. I sat in the break room with him and he never said a word.’”
My sister would usually respond to this statement with, “Well, what did you say?”
The answer would always be, “Well, nothing.”
So, if I didn’t say anything, and the other person didn’t say anything, why is it that I’m the quiet one? Why is it my responsibility to initiate a conversation?
Maybe, as some people have suggested, I simply radiate an aura of unfriendliness. Maybe, as some others have suggested, though I don’t see how this can be so, I’m intimidating somehow. I honestly don’t know. Most of the time I’m not going out of my way to seem hostile or unfriendly, and the odds are that if you engage me, I will actually converse with you.
But in all honesty, if I didn’t initiate them first, the odds are I would have had a lot fewer conversations in my life…
In any case, getting back to my point, for whatever reasons (genetics, life experiences, chemical imbalances: whatever), focusing on the negative and feeling at least a little depressed are ingrained aspects of my personality. They’re as much a part of who I am as the fact that I’m right-handed, or that I don’t like the taste of fish.
Even though I’m not quite so miserable as I sometimes make myself out to be (or more to the point, as some people think I make myself out to be), the fact of the matter is that I’m not an especially happy person.
I have moments of happiness, which, I’ve come to believe, are all that anyone can reasonably expect out of life, such as watching an episode of DLM, or reading something by Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore, or reading the latest issue of “Catwoman,” which, as scripted by Ed Brubaker, is one of the things I most look forward to every month, or having a pretty girl smile at me, or going for a walk on a beautiful day, or remembering when my niece Jourdan used to fall asleep with her head on my leg as I’d read, “I Love Spaghetti” to her, or, well, any one or any combination of countless things that can bring me some amount of happiness.
But there is no overarching happiness in my life, and in general, yeah, I do tend to have a black cloud hanging over my head, and I’m never going to be cheerful, or optimistic, any more than I’m ever going to be outgoing and charming or suddenly grow wings and fly.
And that’s just the way it is. Why? I don’t know; it just is.
But just as Amy commented that it’s not a matter of having Mr. Right’s number and just refusing to call, for me it’s not like I could just magically choose to be happy and I’m refusing to do it.
Do you honestly think that if I had some means to just magically make myself happy and well-adjusted I wouldn’t choose to do it?
Okay, maybe you do, but the fact of the matter is, if I could just choose to be happy, I would. Maybe I’m the most miserable human being in the world, maybe I’m not, but the fact is, I AM human, and, as such, I do honestly seek out happiness. No one wants to be miserable any more than anyone wants to be paralyzed, or wants to have a heart defect, or wants to have a limb amputated.
“Just be happy,” you tell me, as if you would walk up to a paraplegic and say, “Just walk, or “Just make your heart work,” or “Just grow another one.”
So many people suggest that I go out and do things that will take me away from my fixation on myself, but the fact is that no matter what I do, it’s completely impossible for me to shut off my big, overanalyzing brain. No matter where I go, there I am, and nothing can occupy my entire consciousness to the extent that my brain isn’t still working somewhere in the background. In my whole life, the only activity I’ve found that even comes close to shutting down my thought processes was drinking, and that’s just not an option anymore, and it never really worked that well anyway, unless truly MASSIVE amounts of booze were involved.
Besides, any positive qualities that I do have stem from the same source as the negative. If my brain weren’t constantly analyzing and re-analyzing the minutiae of my existence it’s not like I would somehow be some better, more well-adjusted version of Jon; I wouldn’t be Jon at all.
And when you suggest that I go out and do things, you neglect to take into account that I have gone out and done things. Lots of things. I haven’t spent my whole life sheltered away from the world. I’ve had a lot of experiences in my life, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason that they led me here. Maybe there’s a reason I isolate myself from the world.
Ultimately the suggestions seem to be that I go out and do things that I know that I wouldn’t enjoy. Maybe it’s just a defect in my own thinking, but somehow I just can’t follow the line of reasoning that says Jon + some activity he hates = Happiness!
Don’t bother trotting out the “You never know until you try” nonsense; I’ve never tried shooting myself in the head, but I can be reasonably certain that I wouldn’t enjoy it, and if it didn’t kill me it would at least leave me brain damaged.
Then again, maybe that would serve to effectively shut down my overactive brain. Hmmm…
No, strike that.
Okay, so you’ll say, “So you don’t have to go out and try country line dancing or anything, but what’s wrong with going out and doing something you enjoy.”
Like what? There honestly isn’t that much in life that I enjoy, and most of the things I enjoy are not enhanced by bringing other people into the mix, since I don’t really enjoy being around other people.
Not when I’m sober, anyway, and sobriety, as I’ve mentioned, is a requirement for, well, everything.
After 32 years I’ve probably gotten as good as I’m going to get at handling social situations, and the fact of the matter is that I don’t handle them all that well.
Again, that’s just another part of who I am.
Even with the aid of counseling and medication, I wasn’t appreciably more optimistic or cheerful. I managed to come back from the brink of near-suicidal depression, and I found ways to get through life without relying on booze, and I did learn to “count my blessings,” and any number of vague platitudes that help people make it through the day, but the fact remains that I’m never going to be fully happy. I’m always going to complain. I’m always going to see the glass as half-empty, or even dumped over and shattered on the floor, with one of the shards stuck in the bottom of my foot.
I’m always going to be at least a little depressed.
And I’m always going to make jokes about it.
It’s what I do.
All I can really say is “Don’t take things so seriously.” No, I don’t really think that I have the worst life in the world, yes, I do realize that there are millions of people who have it much, much worse than I do, and I do appreciate the many wonderful people and things that are part of my not-so-miserable life, and I do recognize that I have talents, even if I don’t capitalize on them to the extent that you all think I should.
Most of my misery, as expressed to you, is exaggerated for comic effect, and then that exaggeration gets exaggerated in your minds, and it just grows from there.
Relax. If I were really as depressed as you think I am, I’d be dead. I’d be utterly incapable of getting out of bed in the morning. It’s really that simple.
And honestly, what’s so wrong with being unhappy anyway? Why is it such a crime to be sad? You see all of these “inspirational” e-mails floating around telling you that you need to dance every day, force a smile under all circumstances, sing out your joy for all the world to hear, grab life by the throat and squeeze out every last drop of joy, and be happy, happy, HAPPY, dammit!
Life isn’t the town of Stepford. People are going to get unhappy from time to time, maybe even most of the time, but so what? What’s wrong with having an expression other than a plastered on smile once in a while?
Oh, sure, it’s a “downer” to be around someone who only focuses on the negative, but come on, be honest, who’s more irritating, someone who’s morbidly depressed or someone who is relentlessly cheerful? You know that, on some level, you don’t trust people who are always smiling.
If I were to suddenly and miraculously transform into some upbeat, positive, “Stepford Jon” who dotted his “i”s with little smiley faces, it would take you fewer than five minutes to say, “Jon, please go back to being unhappy.”
Just imagine me as some obscene parody of happiness walking around with a grin from ear to ear and espousing the joys of Joy, then step back from your imaginings and be thankful that I’m the miserable old crank that I am, and I think you’ll agree that we’re all a lot happier when I’m unhappy...
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Some more random Liefeld-bashing...
The following is excerpted from an entry for Rob Liefeld in "Wikipedia," a free, Web-based, open-source encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). The very end absolutely slays me...
Rob Liefeld is a comic book artist and cartoon artist whose style of writing and drawing came to epitomize mainstream comic books of the 1990s. His work is criticized as derivative and overly stylized, with poor portrayals of characters and backgrounds, as well as an overall lack of attention to detail. He is known as "The Most Hated Man in Comics." (His other claim to fame is appearing as himself in a Levi's commercial.) However, he led the new wave of creator-owned comic books (as opposed to books owned solely by their publishers, including most books by Marvel Comics and DC Comics), and he also semi-successfully marketed his creations to toy companies and movie studios (although his marketing the action figure of his archer character Shaft as "Rob Liefeld's Shaft: 7 Inches, fully poseable" is widely regarded as an amusingly horrific error).
Rob Liefeld is a comic book artist and cartoon artist whose style of writing and drawing came to epitomize mainstream comic books of the 1990s. His work is criticized as derivative and overly stylized, with poor portrayals of characters and backgrounds, as well as an overall lack of attention to detail. He is known as "The Most Hated Man in Comics." (His other claim to fame is appearing as himself in a Levi's commercial.) However, he led the new wave of creator-owned comic books (as opposed to books owned solely by their publishers, including most books by Marvel Comics and DC Comics), and he also semi-successfully marketed his creations to toy companies and movie studios (although his marketing the action figure of his archer character Shaft as "Rob Liefeld's Shaft: 7 Inches, fully poseable" is widely regarded as an amusingly horrific error).
Technically it should be "than I"
Check this out:
http://www.biaf.com.au/BIAF5/wac/15.swf
Just thought I'd put this out there for everyone to see. It's a little on the odd side, but is at least somewhat entertaining.
And, in answer to the question, yes, I do feel that way...
http://www.biaf.com.au/BIAF5/wac/15.swf
Just thought I'd put this out there for everyone to see. It's a little on the odd side, but is at least somewhat entertaining.
And, in answer to the question, yes, I do feel that way...
Just checking in...
Today has been less than eventful.
I managed to get through a complete workout without too much pain, and that seems to have been the major accomplishment for today, if not the week.
Apart from the workout I’ve spent most of the day reading (Sandman), and now it’s almost time for Smallville, so I guess I won’t be making much of a post right now.
More later (or tomorrow).
I managed to get through a complete workout without too much pain, and that seems to have been the major accomplishment for today, if not the week.
Apart from the workout I’ve spent most of the day reading (Sandman), and now it’s almost time for Smallville, so I guess I won’t be making much of a post right now.
More later (or tomorrow).
New RLC
Here's a new RLC pic, done in my more traditional style.
I'm not pleased with how the outfit turned out, but, short of taking the time to draw each individual thread, I couldn't really find an easy way to create the knitted look.
Still, I think I captured her very well, though (insert desperate pun about actually "capturing her" here).
*Sigh*
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Rob Liefeld finally finds his niche
I just got my mail, and along with the assorted junk were two of the “Sandman” volumes that I ordered last week (“Fables and Reflections” and “A Game of You” for those of you wondering).
In the box with them, for some reason, was a copy of issue number three of “Brigade,” a comic book created by artist Rob Liefeld and published by Image Comics.
When I removed it from the box, I looked at it and said, “Uhhh…?”
I checked the invoice to make sure that I hadn’t been charged for it, then began speculating as to why it was included with my order.
I thought that maybe it was included to provide some sort of contrast, demonstrating through its sheer badness just how good the enclosed compilations of “Sandman” stories actually are.
(Scott is probably the only regular “Threshold” reader who would understand just how low-quality a comic “Brigade” is.)
Then I realized that the company that had shipped the books to me had simply realized that the best use for a Rob Liefeld comic is to simply line a box.
It damn sure beats actually reading the thing…
In the box with them, for some reason, was a copy of issue number three of “Brigade,” a comic book created by artist Rob Liefeld and published by Image Comics.
When I removed it from the box, I looked at it and said, “Uhhh…?”
I checked the invoice to make sure that I hadn’t been charged for it, then began speculating as to why it was included with my order.
I thought that maybe it was included to provide some sort of contrast, demonstrating through its sheer badness just how good the enclosed compilations of “Sandman” stories actually are.
(Scott is probably the only regular “Threshold” reader who would understand just how low-quality a comic “Brigade” is.)
Then I realized that the company that had shipped the books to me had simply realized that the best use for a Rob Liefeld comic is to simply line a box.
It damn sure beats actually reading the thing…
Monday, October 25, 2004
Call it a loss
I’m not sure why, exactly, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, I actually slept more than 8 hours on a non-work night. Usually the absolute most I can shoot for is 7 hours, but last night I went to bed at around 1 and I didn’t get up until nearly 10.
After talking to my mother I went over to the weight room to work out.
At some point during the workout I aggravated the tennis elbow in my left arm (No, I’ve never played tennis; when I was in college my work-study job was being a custodian. In that profession I engaged in repetitive motions more frequently than the words “Anna Kournikova” are entered in the Google Image Search. Of course, those search results often yield another kind of “repetitive motion” themselves…).
My workout was thus cut short, since my left arm had become a useless lump of flesh, with electric jolts of pain cascading down from my elbow and ending in five extended points of searing agony where my fingers used to be.
I came back home and took a shower. I had been planning to head to the store to pick up a few things. I didn’t need much other than some fruit and some additional ingredients for a meal I was going to try cooking.
Once I got there, though, the pain in my arm just kept building, so after picking up some fruit and grabbing an elbow brace and some Thermacare Heatwraps, I decided to just go home, go back to bed, skip the cooking, and just call the day a total loss.
(As an aside, let me just say that Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK!)
I managed to sleep for another 4 hours, despite the fact that I’d slept for more than 8 hours and had only been awake for about 3.
When I got up most of the pain had gone (Again, Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK!), and I decided that I would, in fact, try cooking.
I walked over to Safeway to pick up what I needed. While I was there the song “It’s Raining Men” was playing in my mind, as the place was just lousy with them. Everywhere I looked it was wall to wall men.
After leaving that sausage factory, I came home and got to work on a meal that took a fair amount of time and effort and wasn’t really worth it. It tasted okay, but wasn’t really anything special.
And that was pretty much my day.
When my elbow blew out on me while I was working out, it led me to wonder “Why am I even bothering?”
Since I began really watching my diet and getting exercise back in May, I’ve lost about 20 pounds and gained about 25.
Granted, given that my waist size has reduced from 34 inches to about 30 inches, and has stayed that way throughout the weight gain process, most of the weight I’ve regained has actually been muscle, but not all of it has.
During the week I carefully watch what I eat. Weekends, not so much, simply because it’s difficult to sit there at work for twelve and a half hours and not snack like crazy. I try (and mostly fail) to make the snacks healthy, but even so, I end up eating more than I’d like.
Despite my failings on weekends, though, between what is, overall, a healthy diet, and a regular regime of exercise, it seems like I should be in better shape than I currently am.
From a subjective viewpoint, despite a few lines of definition that I don’t recall existing before, I don’t think that I look appreciably better.
I’m not that much firmer, either. At best, the one thing I can say is that when I push against the flab, my finger doesn’t sink in quite so far before it hits something solid.
As for feeling better or healthier, for the most part I feel healthier primarily because I quit smoking, and most days I tend to feel sore from working out.
It just seems like I should be seeing a little bit more in the way of results.
After all, there’s no disputing the fact that I have put on a significant amount of muscle, and supposedly that muscle should be working to make me even leaner as it feeds on the remaining fat.
However, it seems that inside of my body the muscle and the fat have achieved some sort of detente; neither is gaining ground, and neither is losing ground.
So, coupling that with the fact that, for the most part, exercising serves only to remind me that I’m not getting any younger, which was driven home especially well by today’s experience, I can’t help but wonder why I’m bothering at all.
In a larger sense, though, it leads me to wonder why I’ve bothered making any effort towards improving myelf: getting sober, quitting smoking, getting contact lenses, spending money to get my teeth fixed…hell, even working to save money for my “future.”
Is any of it worth the effort? I can’t eat whatever I want, I have to get up even earlier on weekend mornings before work, I can’t light up a cigarette when I feel stressed, go to a bar and enjoy a nice pint of Guinness, or just randomly buying whatever I feel like buying, and despite what I've done to improve it, my credit rating still sucks.
So what is all of this for? What am I really gaining from my restraint and discipline?
I honestly don’t know.
Well, I learned that Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK, so I guess that’s something, anyway…
After talking to my mother I went over to the weight room to work out.
At some point during the workout I aggravated the tennis elbow in my left arm (No, I’ve never played tennis; when I was in college my work-study job was being a custodian. In that profession I engaged in repetitive motions more frequently than the words “Anna Kournikova” are entered in the Google Image Search. Of course, those search results often yield another kind of “repetitive motion” themselves…).
My workout was thus cut short, since my left arm had become a useless lump of flesh, with electric jolts of pain cascading down from my elbow and ending in five extended points of searing agony where my fingers used to be.
I came back home and took a shower. I had been planning to head to the store to pick up a few things. I didn’t need much other than some fruit and some additional ingredients for a meal I was going to try cooking.
Once I got there, though, the pain in my arm just kept building, so after picking up some fruit and grabbing an elbow brace and some Thermacare Heatwraps, I decided to just go home, go back to bed, skip the cooking, and just call the day a total loss.
(As an aside, let me just say that Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK!)
I managed to sleep for another 4 hours, despite the fact that I’d slept for more than 8 hours and had only been awake for about 3.
When I got up most of the pain had gone (Again, Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK!), and I decided that I would, in fact, try cooking.
I walked over to Safeway to pick up what I needed. While I was there the song “It’s Raining Men” was playing in my mind, as the place was just lousy with them. Everywhere I looked it was wall to wall men.
After leaving that sausage factory, I came home and got to work on a meal that took a fair amount of time and effort and wasn’t really worth it. It tasted okay, but wasn’t really anything special.
And that was pretty much my day.
When my elbow blew out on me while I was working out, it led me to wonder “Why am I even bothering?”
Since I began really watching my diet and getting exercise back in May, I’ve lost about 20 pounds and gained about 25.
Granted, given that my waist size has reduced from 34 inches to about 30 inches, and has stayed that way throughout the weight gain process, most of the weight I’ve regained has actually been muscle, but not all of it has.
During the week I carefully watch what I eat. Weekends, not so much, simply because it’s difficult to sit there at work for twelve and a half hours and not snack like crazy. I try (and mostly fail) to make the snacks healthy, but even so, I end up eating more than I’d like.
Despite my failings on weekends, though, between what is, overall, a healthy diet, and a regular regime of exercise, it seems like I should be in better shape than I currently am.
From a subjective viewpoint, despite a few lines of definition that I don’t recall existing before, I don’t think that I look appreciably better.
I’m not that much firmer, either. At best, the one thing I can say is that when I push against the flab, my finger doesn’t sink in quite so far before it hits something solid.
As for feeling better or healthier, for the most part I feel healthier primarily because I quit smoking, and most days I tend to feel sore from working out.
It just seems like I should be seeing a little bit more in the way of results.
After all, there’s no disputing the fact that I have put on a significant amount of muscle, and supposedly that muscle should be working to make me even leaner as it feeds on the remaining fat.
However, it seems that inside of my body the muscle and the fat have achieved some sort of detente; neither is gaining ground, and neither is losing ground.
So, coupling that with the fact that, for the most part, exercising serves only to remind me that I’m not getting any younger, which was driven home especially well by today’s experience, I can’t help but wonder why I’m bothering at all.
In a larger sense, though, it leads me to wonder why I’ve bothered making any effort towards improving myelf: getting sober, quitting smoking, getting contact lenses, spending money to get my teeth fixed…hell, even working to save money for my “future.”
Is any of it worth the effort? I can’t eat whatever I want, I have to get up even earlier on weekend mornings before work, I can’t light up a cigarette when I feel stressed, go to a bar and enjoy a nice pint of Guinness, or just randomly buying whatever I feel like buying, and despite what I've done to improve it, my credit rating still sucks.
So what is all of this for? What am I really gaining from my restraint and discipline?
I honestly don’t know.
Well, I learned that Thermacare Heatwraps ROCK, so I guess that’s something, anyway…
Thursday, October 21, 2004
WTF?
I don't know what's up with this; I posted this picture a couple of hours ago, and I actually saw it on the blog, but then it disappeared.
I had mentioned the first time around that recently I found several decent Rachael Leigh Cook photos online, which is why you've seen a spate of RLC pics, in various styles, posted here. As I mentioned when I posted this before, this is the same outfit from the Nagel pic, but with it being in an attempt at the "Comic" style, I opted with keeping the shirt white, as it is in the actual photographs.
Anyway, I hope this actually posts this time...
Sleep GOOD!
It’s gloomy and wet outside today, and, while I haven’t been out there at all, I doubt that it’s any too warm.
Overall it’s a very dismal autumn day here in Northern Virginia.
I can’t complain too much, though, as my mom tells me that back home in Michigan this past week they got 8 inches of snow.
I did miss having actual seasons when I lived in Tucson, but snow was one thing I definitely didn’t miss. 28 years of winters in the Snow Belt were more than enough.
So far I guess I’ve accomplished a fair amount today, all things considered, what with the creation of another blog for the purposes of writing a novel, finishing two pictures of RLC, and doing my laundry.
Well, the colors at least, and while I haven’t folded all of them, I did finish the majority.
I’m feeling very tired and a bit loopy, as I was up for most of the night last night.
Why is that, you ask? Well, my co-workers Brian and Kathleen are getting married in Vegas this weekend, and they asked me to bring them to the airport this morning.
Since they’ve brought me to the airport and picked me up a couple of times, I could hardly refuse to return the favor…even though their flight left at 6 am, which meant that I had to pick them up at 4 am.
Typically on Wednesday nights I’m up until sometime between 2 and 3, so I decided that I might as well not even bother going to sleep before picking them up. I did try to squeeze in a nap during the afternoon yesterday, but without success.
Because they had more stuff than would fit in my car, once I got to Brian and Kathleen’s, I drove them to the airport in Brian’s truck, which meant that I had to drive it back, drop it off, pick up my car, and then drive home.
The end result was that I didn’t get home until sometime around 5:20.
Because I would have to go to bed early tonight in order to get up for my workout and first day of my work week tomorrow I didn’t want to go to bed at that point and end up sleeping all day and totally throwing off my sleep schedule.
However, it’s been a very long time since I stayed awake for much more than 24 hours straight.
I can’t even remember my last all-nighter, though I’m fairly sure that a tremendous amount of alcohol was involved.
In any case, I didn’t feel like I was up to the task of staying awake.
I decided that I could squeeze in around three and a half hours, since getting up at 9 wouldn’t throw my Thursday routine off too much.
It took me a while to drift off, so I’m operating on about three hours of sleep within the last 30 hours or so.
So far I haven’t made any peanut butter cookies and I don’t think I’m going to. I just don’t feel up to it. I guess I’ll have to try to find a way to get through a weekend without them.
I did do some cooking this week, though. I really didn’t need to; my freezer was already stuffed full of enough leftovers to provide me a month's worth of lunches at work.
I didn’t make anything too fancy; Tuesday was some simple roasted chicken breasts with white corn and brown rice, and yesterday was Tuscan Pot Roast, which sounds slight fancier than it actually is.
The Tuscan Pot Roast was an all-day affair, with eight hours spent inside my Kitchen Kettle (the versatile appliance that can function as crock pot, vegetable steamer, and deep fryer; it’s one of the coolest cooking accoutrements I have) just slowly cooking away.
It turned out pretty decently, though I think that if I ever make it again I’ll use a larger roast.
I managed to get in a proper workout yesterday, as there was no one in the weight room to impede my progress. I didn’t see that cute(ish) girl who told me that I smell REALLY good in the rental office when I walked by, though I did talk to her on the phone twice this week, with one of those times being yesterday, shortly before my workout.
At least, I think it was her. On the phone she identified herself as Kelly, and so far as I know there are only three people working in the rental office: the Property Manager, who’s named Shannon, the older lady named Mercedes, and the cute(ish) girl who told me that I smell REALLY good, which, by process of elimination, would make her Kelly.
The reason she called was in reference to some maintenance requests I had put in.
Last week when I signed my lease I mentioned that the fan on my HVAC system wasn’t working, and that the light in the dining room was burned out.
When I came home on Friday evening there was a note on my door stating that someone from maintenance had been in my apartment.
I walked in and noted that the door to my laundry room was open (I always leave it closed), and that there was a note on my thermostat explaining that the transformer had been replaced. I tried the fan and it worked. I then tried the dining room light. The dining room remained dark.
I came to the conclusion that the maintenance person must have thought that the light was burned out in the laundry room.
I wasn’t overly concerned, as I don’t really make much use of my dining room anyway.
On Monday, when I was on my way home from my abortive trip to buy a desk, my phone rang. It was Kelly verifying that the maintenance requests I had made had been tended to. I explained about the dining room, and she told me that someone would be in to take care of it.
Later that afternoon the young guy who replaced the batteries on my smoke detectors came in and replaced the bulb.
Yesterday morning Kelly called to, once again, verify that my request had been attended to. I said that it had and thanked her.
Thanks to Kelly and Kathleen, calling to confirm that I would be bringing them to the airport, my phone was unusually busy this week. Yesterday alone it rang on THREE separate occasions (Kelly, my mom, Kathleen). That might actually be a record for me.
I still don’t know what my blog novel is going to be about.
I don’t think it’s going to be a science fiction or fantasy story, though I was thinking that I might experiment a little with magical realism, though I think that idea probably stems from the title, “15,000 Years,” which brings to mind “100 Years of Solitude.”
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it; none of this will be on the test.)
In addition to some more RLC pictures done in varying styles, upcoming posts may include a new Britney pic. I haven’t done any in a while, simply because ever since she hooked up with her new husband she hasn’t been doing any photoshoots, so new material is scarce. New, worthwhile material, at any rate. There are lots of shots of her walking with the guy, shopping with the guy, throwing food at photographers, and so forth, but no good, posed images.
I do have a lot of older images I could choose from, and quite a few unfinished pictures that I could just finish, but I don’t feel like going back to the old stuff.
In any case, I found halfway decent paparazzi shot of her that I think is worth rendering, so that should be appearing soon on a blog near you.
I’m almost hoping that baseball will preempt The Simpsons again tonight so that I can go to bed even earlier.
Still, there are a few things I should tend to before I finally crash, so I will sign off for now, and in case I don’t return before Monday, I’ll wish you all a good weekend.
Overall it’s a very dismal autumn day here in Northern Virginia.
I can’t complain too much, though, as my mom tells me that back home in Michigan this past week they got 8 inches of snow.
I did miss having actual seasons when I lived in Tucson, but snow was one thing I definitely didn’t miss. 28 years of winters in the Snow Belt were more than enough.
So far I guess I’ve accomplished a fair amount today, all things considered, what with the creation of another blog for the purposes of writing a novel, finishing two pictures of RLC, and doing my laundry.
Well, the colors at least, and while I haven’t folded all of them, I did finish the majority.
I’m feeling very tired and a bit loopy, as I was up for most of the night last night.
Why is that, you ask? Well, my co-workers Brian and Kathleen are getting married in Vegas this weekend, and they asked me to bring them to the airport this morning.
Since they’ve brought me to the airport and picked me up a couple of times, I could hardly refuse to return the favor…even though their flight left at 6 am, which meant that I had to pick them up at 4 am.
Typically on Wednesday nights I’m up until sometime between 2 and 3, so I decided that I might as well not even bother going to sleep before picking them up. I did try to squeeze in a nap during the afternoon yesterday, but without success.
Because they had more stuff than would fit in my car, once I got to Brian and Kathleen’s, I drove them to the airport in Brian’s truck, which meant that I had to drive it back, drop it off, pick up my car, and then drive home.
The end result was that I didn’t get home until sometime around 5:20.
Because I would have to go to bed early tonight in order to get up for my workout and first day of my work week tomorrow I didn’t want to go to bed at that point and end up sleeping all day and totally throwing off my sleep schedule.
However, it’s been a very long time since I stayed awake for much more than 24 hours straight.
I can’t even remember my last all-nighter, though I’m fairly sure that a tremendous amount of alcohol was involved.
In any case, I didn’t feel like I was up to the task of staying awake.
I decided that I could squeeze in around three and a half hours, since getting up at 9 wouldn’t throw my Thursday routine off too much.
It took me a while to drift off, so I’m operating on about three hours of sleep within the last 30 hours or so.
So far I haven’t made any peanut butter cookies and I don’t think I’m going to. I just don’t feel up to it. I guess I’ll have to try to find a way to get through a weekend without them.
I did do some cooking this week, though. I really didn’t need to; my freezer was already stuffed full of enough leftovers to provide me a month's worth of lunches at work.
I didn’t make anything too fancy; Tuesday was some simple roasted chicken breasts with white corn and brown rice, and yesterday was Tuscan Pot Roast, which sounds slight fancier than it actually is.
The Tuscan Pot Roast was an all-day affair, with eight hours spent inside my Kitchen Kettle (the versatile appliance that can function as crock pot, vegetable steamer, and deep fryer; it’s one of the coolest cooking accoutrements I have) just slowly cooking away.
It turned out pretty decently, though I think that if I ever make it again I’ll use a larger roast.
I managed to get in a proper workout yesterday, as there was no one in the weight room to impede my progress. I didn’t see that cute(ish) girl who told me that I smell REALLY good in the rental office when I walked by, though I did talk to her on the phone twice this week, with one of those times being yesterday, shortly before my workout.
At least, I think it was her. On the phone she identified herself as Kelly, and so far as I know there are only three people working in the rental office: the Property Manager, who’s named Shannon, the older lady named Mercedes, and the cute(ish) girl who told me that I smell REALLY good, which, by process of elimination, would make her Kelly.
The reason she called was in reference to some maintenance requests I had put in.
Last week when I signed my lease I mentioned that the fan on my HVAC system wasn’t working, and that the light in the dining room was burned out.
When I came home on Friday evening there was a note on my door stating that someone from maintenance had been in my apartment.
I walked in and noted that the door to my laundry room was open (I always leave it closed), and that there was a note on my thermostat explaining that the transformer had been replaced. I tried the fan and it worked. I then tried the dining room light. The dining room remained dark.
I came to the conclusion that the maintenance person must have thought that the light was burned out in the laundry room.
I wasn’t overly concerned, as I don’t really make much use of my dining room anyway.
On Monday, when I was on my way home from my abortive trip to buy a desk, my phone rang. It was Kelly verifying that the maintenance requests I had made had been tended to. I explained about the dining room, and she told me that someone would be in to take care of it.
Later that afternoon the young guy who replaced the batteries on my smoke detectors came in and replaced the bulb.
Yesterday morning Kelly called to, once again, verify that my request had been attended to. I said that it had and thanked her.
Thanks to Kelly and Kathleen, calling to confirm that I would be bringing them to the airport, my phone was unusually busy this week. Yesterday alone it rang on THREE separate occasions (Kelly, my mom, Kathleen). That might actually be a record for me.
I still don’t know what my blog novel is going to be about.
I don’t think it’s going to be a science fiction or fantasy story, though I was thinking that I might experiment a little with magical realism, though I think that idea probably stems from the title, “15,000 Years,” which brings to mind “100 Years of Solitude.”
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it; none of this will be on the test.)
In addition to some more RLC pictures done in varying styles, upcoming posts may include a new Britney pic. I haven’t done any in a while, simply because ever since she hooked up with her new husband she hasn’t been doing any photoshoots, so new material is scarce. New, worthwhile material, at any rate. There are lots of shots of her walking with the guy, shopping with the guy, throwing food at photographers, and so forth, but no good, posed images.
I do have a lot of older images I could choose from, and quite a few unfinished pictures that I could just finish, but I don’t feel like going back to the old stuff.
In any case, I found halfway decent paparazzi shot of her that I think is worth rendering, so that should be appearing soon on a blog near you.
I’m almost hoping that baseball will preempt The Simpsons again tonight so that I can go to bed even earlier.
Still, there are a few things I should tend to before I finally crash, so I will sign off for now, and in case I don’t return before Monday, I’ll wish you all a good weekend.
Frustrated Novelist...
...or would that be "Blogist" instead? Is there such a thing as a "Blogist?" "Blogger," maybe?
Meh, whatever.
In any case, I've created another blog, available for viewing at http://www.15000years.blogspot.com
This is the site for my participation in "National Novel Writing Month."
Yes, I am going to attempt to write a complete novel in the month of November.
No, I don't know what it's about yet.
The title for the novel, "15,000 Years," is just the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm writing under the pseudonym of "Wolf Priestap," which is actually my "porn star name," as determined by one of the methods I've encountered.
The other method for determining my porn star name, the name of my first pet and the street I grew up on, would result in the name "Wolf M-26."
While sort of interesting, it just doesn't have the same ring to it as the name I came up with using the first pet's name-mother's maiden name method.
I may end up neglecting Threshold during the upcoming novel-writing month, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. I will try to keep up the entries, though.
Meh, whatever.
In any case, I've created another blog, available for viewing at http://www.15000years.blogspot.com
This is the site for my participation in "National Novel Writing Month."
Yes, I am going to attempt to write a complete novel in the month of November.
No, I don't know what it's about yet.
The title for the novel, "15,000 Years," is just the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm writing under the pseudonym of "Wolf Priestap," which is actually my "porn star name," as determined by one of the methods I've encountered.
The other method for determining my porn star name, the name of my first pet and the street I grew up on, would result in the name "Wolf M-26."
While sort of interesting, it just doesn't have the same ring to it as the name I came up with using the first pet's name-mother's maiden name method.
I may end up neglecting Threshold during the upcoming novel-writing month, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. I will try to keep up the entries, though.
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