August Sweeps - Day 568

I've never told you this before, but I love Hide the Pain Harold.

Yes, the meme guy.  I just love that dude.  I'd stand in line for two hours to get a picture with him, one hour to get his autograph, and three hours to sleep with your sister.

How 'bout you?

If you don't know, "Hide the Pain Harold" is the internet name for a stock photo guy who is smiling, but it's barely more than a grimace, as if he's suffering so much this is the happiest he is able to pretend to be.  

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In August: 2365

Hasbro made an action figure of Anthony Hopkins's Odin this year, but it doesn't look like Tony Hopkins . . . it looks like Harold.

Hide the pain, my son.

It's hard to predict what will speak to you, what will make you laugh, what will make you cry.  But Harold is one for me.  

Push-ups Today: 70
Push-ups In August: 2729

Harold is actually a Hungarian senior citizen named András Arató, who is hopefully being rubbed against "accidentally" by European beauties young enough to have been babysat by his grandchildren . . . but somehow I doubt it.  But I do hope the knowledge that he is so loved (at least by me).

Words Today: 425
Words In August: 14,483

August Sweeps - Day 565

I woke up just after dawn, having had a dream where I was an extra, playing someone in the Holocaust at a concentration camp.  We were in a big line of people, and there was a sort of assembly line of wardrobe and hair and makeup assistants who would make our clothes look dirtier, mess up our hair, and make us look gaunt and/or mistreated.  I was trying to put myself into character, but there was this guy who kept pushing himself up in the queue, taking all the crutches and Stars of David and donuts and souvenirs for himself.  Something tells me that there were people like that, even in the Holocaust.

I was going to do a "concentration camp inmates" image search, but changed my mind last minute.

The sun just came up and is shining redly through the trees, casting an orange glow on the room in front of me (which has gotten quite cold during the night, though I didn't build a fire).  Marshal Latham has been posting, a couple of times a week, photos he's taken of the sunrise when he heads off to work, and there's something inspiring about that, even though I'd rather dream about being in a concentration camp than get up that early.

I did take a picture of it today, just to pretend I'm a go-getter, my whole day ahead of me.  

The sun is right at the perfect place to shine through the window and onto my hands, and it's got to be a metaphor for something, but I really only know the dirty ones, and even then, a couple years after everyone else in the schoolyard learned them.

(I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of both my hands)

Sit-ups Today: 150
Sit-ups In August: 2043

It's a very cool day outside for August--in the forties--and it's cold enough here in the cabin that I put on a long-sleeved shirt, then a second one over that.

In fact, I went into the bedroom for quiet to narrate another public domain story*  and when I came out of the room, I was horrified to discover that it was snowing outside.

It was snowing.  In August.

Not long after the snow stopped, though . . . came the fog.  Fog is immensely cool.  Fog is rare and special.  Fog is endlessly fascinating.  Fog is, basically, everything I am not.

I am rapidly (okay, not rapidly, but inexorably at least) closing in on the end of my book.  I've known, pretty much since since conceiving of it (I wish I had written down the day I thought, "Oh, I've got an idea for "a darker Lara Demming story," as I wrote in my notes) how it probably would end.  But here I am.  Basically, I need to write maybe two bits leading up to the climax of the story, and then--

Well, I just made my decision, and jotted down how the climax would go.  I'm tempted just to write that bit, then work backward, as long as it takes, to get to where I left off.  A really fine writer, someone who tells stories for a living, would be able to set up a question in the audience's mind, that could go one way or the other, and they wouldn't know which way it would go (kind of like the insufferable "Girl has to choose between two worthy boys" cliché that has permeated YA fiction for the last decade and a half).  I don't know if that's me or not, but I'm gonna go for it.

Push-ups Today: 210
Push-ups In August: 2378

Not once this year have I spent a second night at the cabin.  My schedule just doesn't allow it.  But I'm going to TRY to do it next Thursday night.  We'll see.

Today, I left the cabin with plenty of time to get out of there before nightfall (though not necessarily before dark, since it was still pretty grey out there), but as I was loading up my car, I saw a guy in a truck and trailer trying to back down the road from where the tree had fallen the day before.

I decided I would help guide him, but that was harder than it sounded (I've only ever driven a truck with a trailer attached once, when I was bringing my car back from L.A., and I vaguely remember crashing into everything).  Finally, we ended up moving the barriers the rich folks down the hill have blocking the driveway to their cabin and parking lot (the lot is big enough, no exaggeration, for a dozen cars, whereas I'm quite proud of the two parking spaces we have at our cabin, each almost big enough for a compact sedan (or Big's daughter's Mini-Cooper)), where he was able to turn around and head back.

Head back home, he told me.  He had come up all that way (from where I didn't ask), but was unable to get to his cabin, so he was going to go home to get his chainsaw.  You see, there are two roads leading to where his cabin is at: and A SECOND TREE had fallen today, blocking the other road to it.

Talk about the old Parker luck.

This was right at the start of the second road, and a much bigger, fresher tree than the first.

The man, a heavyset older guy, was really grateful that I had helped him out, and I didn't mind at all (though he did scrape his trailer on a property line marker because of me), but it had cost me the daylight.

I drove down through the canyon, just as the sun--a terrifyingly red sun--was setting.  

It started to rain again, and when I reached the little town at the mouth of the canyon (where I always park to check my text messages from my cousin to tell me who had died), I got a flash flood warning for the road I was setting out on.  That, added to the fact that it was darkening, and there are always deer on that road at night (and an elk that one time), made me nervous to drive.

But I did my best.  That is, until a big black Ford F-150 pulled up behind me, and followed.  They were too close, so I pulled to the right, so they'd go around . . . but they didn't.  Every time the road straightened out and the single line became a double line, I would slow down so they would go around . . . but they wouldn't.  Soon, I had slowed from 62 miles an hour (it was a 65) to 58, then to 55, then to 50, and finally, to 45, hoping they would get upset and pass me.

Well, upset they got, but they absolutely would not pass me, just riding my bumper with their lights on bright to the point where I had to adjust both my rear-view and side-view mirror so as not to be blinded.  I passed a couple of deer eating grass on the side of the road, and it occurred to me that if one were to jump out in front of me, that I would hit it, and then the truck would barrel into me from behind, being unable to stop in time.

However, if this hemorrhoid-with-a-driver's-license would just pass me, and HE hit a deer, I'd be able to stop in time, because I wouldn't be driving immediately behind him like a total sociopath.

I started to think about what James Bond would do, going through them from Connery to Brosnan, deciding which ones would run him off the road, which ones would leave him in their dust, and which would simply shoot him ("He's licensed to kill whom he pleases, where he pleases, when he pleases!").  For about a half an hour of my drive, he tailgated me, and ruined any pleasure I would've had from the drive, as I was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I kept having to wipe my hands on my pants.

Only when we got to the main road out of the canyon did the affectionate driver pass me by (I pulled into the far lane first thing), and I was able to see what kind of vehicle it was (the rest of the time, it was a dark shape and blinding headlights).  I felt closer to Dennis Weaver than I ever had before.

Words Today: 480
Words In August: 12,967

*Remind me to tell you how dumb I felt reading this one in an English accent sometime.

June Sweeps - Day 500

Today marks five hundred days writing in a row.  When you do the math, it comes to almost three thousand words total!

Even though I know I'll sit for an hour surfing the internet instead of writing, I mean to go to the library this afternoon, and force myself to write at least five hundred words before I leave.  Five hundred is nothing.  It's what Stephen King writes before nine in the morning, every single day.  It's what James Patterson contributes to each one of the books his name's on the cover of.  It's how many words Brandon Sanderson accomplishes between sitting down on the toilet and flushing.  It's what George R.R. Martin writes in a month.

I can do this.

Of course, I've been sitting here more than an hour, and I've only managed 106 words so far.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In June: 1638

The drought continues, along with the hottest temperatures ever recorded for June.  Add to that, wildfire season, which occurs in mid-summer every year, has been moved up a month or so.  There was an article in the local paper today about restrictions about campfires, target shooting, fireworks, welding or grinding metal, and, most surprising to me, "no smoking unless in an enclosed vehicle" or building, "or while in a paved area free of vegetation."

These restrictions don't apply to city limits, but there is talk that there will have to be some kind of regulation on fireworks in July, since--

You know what?  Land of the free and home of the brave and all that, but dude, there are always little wildfires that break out the first week in July--in fields and orchards and hillsides and apartment complexes, houses that burn down and children that are turned into Fred Krueger lookalikes* . . . and that's on a regular summer, without record heat and preternatural dryness.  Can't we just tap the brakes and say, "Okay, for every fire that breaks out, that's more water we're not going to have to water our lawns or wash our cars . . . or worse, shower in and drink when August arrives.  Just have a little consideration this year, like we all were supposed to do last year with mask-wearing and social distancing.

Oh, but I remember how that went over.  The outcry of people who refused to cover up their ugly, triple-chinned faces because some radio personality told them it made them seem weak, in order to maybe protect the health of strangers and loved ones alike.  The near-deafening shouts of "My comfort is more important than your safety, rah, rah, rah, make America great again, you can't tell me what to do, emails, Bengazi, Pizzagate, Freedom Fries."

Hey, I love the Fourth of July.  But I walked to my nephew's school last year and sat on a blanket, separated from other families, and watched the town launch over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of fireworks into the sky, while the next city over did the same thing, both within sight of each other.  And every neighborhood had their own private fireworks display, and every family had sparklers or towers or whistling petes.  It just seemed like such a waste, so much competing noise, like a political rally where every attendee had their own megaphone.**

I guess I'm getting off on a rant.  I didn't mean to.  I just wish people could say, hey, we live in a community, and sometimes, I need to put my personal wishes on hold--just momentarily--so that society can benefit.  Somehow, we now laud and respect the people who refuse to do so, rather than encourage and recognize the many that nod and say, "Sure, I can hold off until ____ (it rains again, there's a vaccine, it's safe to toss cigarettes out of a moving car again, the wind dies down, etc.)."

Push-ups Today: 184
Push-ups In June: 1832

What I decided to write--if I actually decide these things (who knows how my brain chooses these thing?)--was on my latest "Lara and the Witch" story, the one I've mentioned a couple of times here, that takes place when Lara's a Senior and is asked to go undercover to investigate another teenage witch, one who has been less under the radar, so to speak.

Yes, it's a lesbian love adventure featuring Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it's going to be so explicit, Larry Flynt would've turned away in horror.

Okay, that's not the case.  But still, I'm sure Old Widow Holcomb had adventures much more akin to those, when she was seventeen.

Something that's remarkable (to me, anyway--you might have been doing this for centuries) is that writing a story about Lara years in the future means I can throw in little references to stories I've already written, but also to those I haven't written.  Adventures she has had in the five years since "You're In Good Hands" that I may never get to.  Stuff like "Already she had had two different magic users try to take her life.  Encountering a third one wasn't exactly enticing."  

I could do any number of things to amuse myself in a story like this, such as referring to a scar Lara got at some point in the past, or mentioning a character I introduced in a previous story but is now dead (but not spelling out what happened to them).  Just little shortcuts to writing future stories one day.  We each have our mechanisms to keep ourselves entertained.

I got about seven hundred words written, and would've gotten more, had I not decided to include a reference to an extinct bird (I originally typed "Great Auk," but it wasn't what I thought it was), and fell down the rabbit hole of reading about what are known as terror birds. I read about them, looked at fossil pictures, then investigated a 2016 horror film (starring such luminaries as Greg Evigan and Leslie Easterbrook) called TERROR BIRDS.

It's a real shame, because had I not gone onto this mental tangent (and then blogged about it), I might have managed a thousand words.

Words Today: 804
Words In June: 11,670

*Or Reggie Nalder, if you're Marshal Latham and happen to be reading this blog.

**Or, as Webster's Dictionary calls it, the internet.

February Sweeps - Day 384

I did two story pitches in the last twenty-four hours.  Not professional pitches, but just telling others about two story ideas and getting their opinion.  The first was to Big Anklevich as he was stuck in the car driving home from work last night.  There was a story contest I saw with a premise I thought I could get behind, and I told him my idea.  Unfortunately, I later discovered that it was one of those writing contests where there's a fee for you to enter it, and I'll admit that that deflated my excitement quite a bit (Big likened it to a vanity press saying, "You pay us and we'll publish your book!").  He did suggest I write it anyway, not necessarily for the contest, but I have SOOOOOOO many works-in-progress that will never get completed that it seems foolhardy to even consider that.*

The other pitch was today, to that twin that I have been pestering, telling her I had come up with a twin-centric story for her.  About halfway through the pitch, she said, "Wait, where is this from?  This is something you've made up?"  I couldn't tell if she was impressed or disgusted (probably the latter), but it was a pretty darn good idea, if I do say so my own self, and later, I came up with the way it could end, but didn't quite dare bother her with it, since she seemed less-than-impressed that I came up with a story about her and her sister.** 

Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In February: 1822

I came to the library and found almost no one here (my suspicion is that young people have exciting and fun things to do on Friday afternoons, and they're off doing them), and sat down in the exact same chair I sat in yesterday.  But yesterday, I was annoyed to discover that the legs were uneven in the chair and I rocked back and forth as though there was a hole in the floor or something.  Of course, I am far too lazy to get up and sit somewhere else, despite this chair rocking to a John Cougar Mellencamp song only it hears.

I got very little writing done in my time at the library.  Although, in my defense, I did write up notes on my story "Identical" (although it might be better to call it "Exact Duplicate"), so that, a year from now, when I stumble upon the file, I say, "Oh, I had completely forgotten about that idea!"***

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In February: 1963

I saw somebody online mention how much they loved the song "Drivers License" on Wednesday or Thursday, and remembered hearing a few seconds of a song called that after leaving my cousin's house Tuesday night (playing 9s and 10s to stay awake until the icy road did it for me).  I checked out the song myself, frankly pretty dubious, since the singer/songwriter was born in 2003 (she turns eighteen tomorrow.  Whoa).  

But to my surprise, "Drivers License" by Olivia Rodrigo, which is apparently the biggest hit song of . . . the 21st Century? . . . completely wrecked me.  It didn't matter that I have stains on my pillowcase older than Olivia Rodrigo or that I've been around way more than twice her lifetime (while only racking up a third of her life experience, oddly), the song totally spoke to me and broke my heart.  And I've listened to it a dozen or more times since, like a fudgin' Zoomer.

My whole life I've been afraid of saying I love something, because you put yourself out there when you do ("Holy smoke, I love SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE."  "That movie's gay and so are you."), and it's so much easier to just say you hate something (which I do often . . . maybe too often).  But dude, I'm old enough now (I've started getting those Reed Richards white streaks in my hair right above my ears) that I need to just own what I love and give as few shits as possible that people feel differently.

So, hey, I'm a fan of this song, even with that awkward "insecure" in the second verse.  I guess it's like my unabashed love for Taylor Swift, that Ed Sheeran song where he says "grass" but makes it sound like "cross," or PEARL HARBOR (which I apologized to Kate Beckinsale for asking to autograph the poster of), or just last week talking about that "Golem and the Jinni" book, or JENNIFER'S BODY, or the greatest movie ever made, 1987's MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.  Except the last one is kind of meant to be funny, even though it probably isn't.**** 

Words Today: 550
Words In February: 13,770

Christ, I'm gonna keep talking.  We always--we old people, I mean--always talk about how worthless and stupid teenagers are (I know, I do it too), and how their feelings aren't real feelings, their life experiences aren't real life experiences, and when they get older and grow up they'll understand that all that drama in high school was for nothing.*****

But at the same time . . . it is real.  The teenage years tend to be (a generalization, yeah) when you fall in love for the first time, break up for the first time, make new friends and lose them, and experience so much newness that I can forgive them for all the noise and melodrama.  I remember what that was like . . . because it was five minutes ago.

And this girl, Olivia Rodrigo, really seems to be feeling it in the song (whether that's manufactured by her billion-dollar record label or not).  I believe it when I hear the song, and that's half the work right there.  And I feel it too, even though her experience is surely 99% different than my own (or lack thereof).

Part of me will never get over my bitterness about my teenage years (and believe me, I've enough bitterness to fill a Smiths album, two Counting Crows singles, plus a Fallout Boy EP), and that may be why I'm always writing about teenagers.  In a lot of ways, I never evolved past that stage of development--I'm still that kid that wanted to cry because the Eighties were over and I never got to do anything in them.

I'm never going to be a successful writer, I realize that.  But I'm gonna keep writing my "little stories" (as my dad called them), because that's what keeps me sane(ish), and because it gives me purpose and a feeling of control in my life.  And maybe, just maybe, somebody will read one of them one day and say, "Wow, that was really excellent, and exactly what I wanted/needed to read tonight."  You never know.

Yes, this is what you think it is.

*I got this idea on the drive to the library just now of doing an Outcast episode where I talk about unfinished stories/novels, and read either Edgar Allan Poe's last incomplete story or one of my own, or both.  Still think there's something there worth talking about.

**I had told her, a month or so back, "I'm gonna write a story about it, about identical twins," but she must not have considered the icky implications of that.  And by icky, I mean, absolutely no implications whatsoever.  

***Stephen King would tell you that, if you forget about an idea for a story, then it wasn't that good an idea to begin with.  According to him, it's the ideas that nag at you, over and over, to write them, that make the best stories.  And I'll bet Big Anklevich would agree with him.

****When I first saw it in 1999, I proclaimed it to be the GOAT, and it upset my roommate so much I've never not said it since.

*****I often talk about the one production of "Romeo & Juliet" that I went to in college, and how the director said (in the program) that the titular characters were a couple of naïve, pubescent know-nothings that threw away their lives for no reason at all, and how wrong-headed letting someone like that direct the greatest romance in stage history seemed to me at the time (and even more so to me today . . . like whenever I'd hear Jack Sholder, the director of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 [and about five other horror films] complain that he hated Horror, and yet the only jobs he got offered were in that genre and how I'd think, "You ungrateful knob.  Stop doing horror movies and go on the effing dole then, and let somebody who loves that subject matter take over), but I still was both thrilled and moved by it, regardless of the director's attempt to screw over his own production.

November Sweeps - Day 299

Today is Thanksgiving, and I am sleepy from overeating.  It was not a large gathering: just my sister's family and me, my mom, and then my older sister and niece came over (after going out and getting a COVID test to prove they were okay to visit).  After dinner, my brother-in-law's son came over and brought his Nintendo Switch.  We all played Mario Kart for a while, and while it was really enjoyable (except for the part where my nephew climbed on me to make me lose the race)--

--I was done after half an hour or so.  The boys, however, all played for several hours, again and again, until the sun was down, and the day was gone.  My sister decided to get them a Switch for Christmas, so I imagine the hours and hours of playing will not be a novelty anymore.

Normally, we have relatives come over from Las Vegas, or at least my uncle and his monsters will come over for Thanksgiving.  But this year, even my brother stayed at home (which I'm still not quite sure of the reason for . . . I suspect he thinks that the Coronavirus is a liberal hoax to make minorities vote or make homosexuality mandatory).  But we still had a much bigger gathering than most people, I imagine, and the food was good and plentiful.

Besides the obvious--the Monolith, Taylor Swift, the sunset--I am thankful for a lot of things.  Today is a day to focus on the positive, on the good things, to try to turn a blind eye to our problems, the things we lack.  I like Thanksgiving.

A bunch of people--religious folks, mostly--have been posting on social media all week the things they are thankful for.  Each day, I have been doing it too, posting something I'm truly appreciative of (haven't mentioned boobs, though), and reading what other people are listing.  It has been really inspiring and wonderful.

But . . .

One of my high school friends got on Facebook yesterday to talk about how Feline AIDS is the number one killer of domestic cats.

Actually, she got on there and said that it might be insensitive for people to get online and post about how much they love their spouses or their kids or their brothers or their cars or their eight inch dongs or their summer homes or their legions of screaming Korean fans or their health, because there are people out there that don't have those things.  Lest ye brag about the many things thou hast been gifted with on this special day . . . won't thou please thinketh on the children?

Oh, eff you and the cat you rode in on.  Nobody gives two alien dildos for the lonely or the poor or the sad or the people who name their pillows after your sisters on the other 364 days of the year*, so thanks for taking away the one day when people try to focus on their blessings, Debbie.  

Not all of us have been married four times, kids.  Some will be lucky to get married more than zero.

Sorry, I should not have let that make me angry.  I'd apologize, but then I'd have a hard time getting to sleep tonight on my vaguely human-shaped pillow.

Now, I'm not sure if it's okay for me to make a list (including boobs and the refrain in that Dua Lipa song) of things I'm thankful for on this day.  But I can't live in fear that somebody will take something the wrong way, especially if they've come to my own bloody blog . . . otherwise the terrorists win.

Thanks for the day, and all that is good about it.  

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 2988 (kind of a step down from the weekend where I did a thousand, but ah well)

Words Today: 359
Words In November: 23,358

*Except for Christmas, I will give you that one.

May Sweeps - Day 120

I took the laptop to the park today for a late lunch (I worked until two, then I'll go back and get a bit more done), and there are a couple of young men (around twenty, probably forced home from their missions early) standing in the stream, picking out the biggest rocks they can throw up onto the banks.  I've watched them do it, first with curiosity, now with mild disdain, as they toss the big
rocks out of the water, move along to the next one, and do it until there are many rocks alongside the stream.  Then they get out and pick each rock up and toss it further up the bank.

My assumption is that this is exercise.  The gyms are all closed, they aren't allowed to have sex, so they're doing what they can to keep themselves occupied and in shape.  Except that they--

Oh, I get it now.  I watched where they were tossing the rocks, all in the same place, and now I understand: they are damming up the stream.  They're using the biggest rocks to stop up the waterflow, I presume just for the fun of it.  Maybe they're younger than I thought.  But no harm done, I think I value what they're doing more now than I did.  Plus, it's keeping me from writing, and that is the most important thing.

The dam-in-progress

Despite the unseasonal heat of the day, there is a strong wind blowing that is making this all pretty pleasant.  I am one of approximately seven people here, in the whole park.  To put that into perspective, when I'd come here in the wintertime, there would usually be five or six people jogging or milling around.  On a normal weekday afternoon, there will be thirty to forty, but for there to be practically nobody on a Saturday, something is going on I'm not aware of.  Maybe it's a protest somewhere.

There are a bunch of protests going on across America right now.  Half of them are Trump supporters up in arms (literally, the fucks actually take weapons to these protests because they know they'll not be bothered, even by police) about the phony left-wing COVID-19 hoax the Democrats invented to tank the economy and try to trick good old boys into wearing facemasks.

The other half of the protests are about a man who was killed while being arrested by Minneapolis police.  He was a black man, unarmed, who expressed "I can't breathe" as one of the cops knelt on the back of his neck.  It's one of, I dunno, a thousand cases of this sort of thing happening, but it both happened to have been documented and occurred in a time when tensions are super-high, so there has been a huge outcry about it, with marches, vandalism, messages on social media, and looting.  The response to these demonstrations has been very different, and that has only enflamed the tensions.

Tensions between the races have been high for my entire lifetime, and I don't know what the solution is.  I used to think that one day, the racists would die out, and we'd enjoy a more golden age as people, but racism is taught and passed on, like religion or storytelling or language, and there's always a new generation willing to say that "____ aren't like the rest of us.  They're not really people."

The black voices have been very loud in all this, because they're sick to death of this sort of thing continually happening.  Being a policeman is hard (my cousin started out as a deputy and is now part of the local equivalent of the Special Crimes Unit, and he sees the worst mankind has to offer), but there are people who get a little power in them and it seems to increase their racist or violent tendencies, as much as a gang or prison does.  I do understand that being around criminals all the time can make you think that everybody's a criminal, but it will always be hard for me to fully grasp the plight of the black man in this country.

When I lived in L.A., I became friends with several African Americans (only one of which, sadly, I still talk to all the time), and they did have an innate sense of Us versus Them when they got together, which I often found myself on the outside of.  I always wanted them to know that I liked and respected them, regardless of race, but it just wasn't possible for me to blend in with them like it was on the rare occasions that I spent time around Latinos (where at least I had the language as an advantage).

My friend Matthew once told me, "You have no idea what it's like to feel eyes on you every time you walk into a 7-11, because the clerk is afraid of your skin color."  And he was right--the only comparisons in my experience have been when some employee came after me and my cousin in a Walmart one night absolutely certain we were shoplifting, or a time when I got pulled over (again, with my cousin) by a cop who said, "You just couldn't help yourself, huh?  You thought you'd drive by one more time."  I didn't know what he was talking about, and said so.  He accused us of being the guys who were driving around, making trouble, getting chased by the cops all night (or several nights, maybe).  But I explained we'd just come from Taco Bell, and I hadn't been in town until just now.

And he took our word for it and let us drive away.  But you hear stories ALL THE TIME about black guys getting pulled over and harassed like that because they've got dark skin, or because their car is too nice, or because their grandparents wouldn't ride at the back of the bus.  Would that policeman have just let me go my way, if I hadn't been a dorky white guy?  I do try to understand, try to empathize, but I admit that I don't know what it's like, and the few glimpses I've had--somebody locking their doors in a parking lot as I walk past their car, for example--are almost always the exception rather than the rule.

I remember telling Matthew, "When you and I are older, we'll get together and your kids will play with my kids, and we'll raise them to believe we're all the same and they'll look at us, white and black, as best friends, and their lives will be better."  It seems charmingly naïve to repeat it now, but it was heartfelt at the time, because I had found in him a brother (not a brutha, but somebody who I loved like he had always been there, part of my family), and I thought that would last forever.  My friendship with him changed me, for the better, as a human being, but not everybody has that kind of relationship, and like the Cash song says, everyone I know goes away in the end.

I've heard some of the protesters say they don't want whites on their side, that this is our fault, so we should save our tears and expressions of support.  And I sort of get that, or at least I'm trying to.  But They win every time we're divided against one another instead of against Them, you know?  The best I can do is try to do what I can in my small sphere of influence, open my mind up a little more than it has been, and see if I can't make myself better.

Once again, I'm blogging when I should be writing.  If blogposts counted as daily words, I'd be over 200,000 by now.

Since I sat down here, the rock-dammers have stopped and gone home (leaving their job only half-finished), a small group of about ten came and sunbathed for a little while (too far away with my eyesight to really ogle), and a boyfriend and girlfriend went over to the baseball diamond and practiced batting with each other.  Such a dearth of activity I again wonder what I'm unaware is happening elsewhere that everybody is so focused on.

I just checked yesterday's post, where I was at a park with a swimming pool and it was filled to the brim with people (if I had to guess, I'd say two hundred, maybe three), and it was just as hot as today, only a day different.  I can't explain it.

I got VERY little writing done as I sat on the blanket under the tree in the empty park.  Well, I did the word count, and it was six hundred words, so maybe not so very little.  I may have mentioned this, but Monday, the library reopens.  I feel like I did talk about this, but I'll reiterate that, you have to wear a mask to go into the library, and you have to ask permission to use their computers (after which, they'll wipe down the mouse and keyboard, and probably the seat).  No one is allowed to stay longer than two hours, apparently (my guess is that this rule--and the mask one--will not last beyond June first, just because of human nature).  My plan, if I can get my work done in time, is to go there and sit and write like I used to, but REALLY focus my time--no surfing the internet, no messing around on Wikipedia.

Shoot, I just remembered I have to do a Patreon address this weekend.  I will be embarrassed to admit I haven't even started recording "Three-Time Visitor," which was a goal for both April and May, if I recall.  And I can't make it a priority tonight, because I haven't gone running, and I need to sit down and record Abbie's story, which is called "Lucky."  She and I spoke for a good while today, and I regret mentioning that we butt heads in yesterday's post.  She's good people, and have a couple of profoundly similar things in common.  I must just be intimidated by her intellect.

Sit-ups Today: 82
Sit-ups Total: 1738

I got no more writing done at night.  I sat down and started recording "Lucky," and before I knew it, I was falling asleep.  It takes a tremendous amount of concentration to get all the accents, words, and performances right, so I stopped and went to bed.  Tomorrow I will try again.

Words Today: 607
Words In May: 31,080

February Sweeps - Day 100

Haven't written today yet.  But it is Mother's Day, so that sort of thing tends to take priority.

There was quite a get-together today in honor of my mom.  Two of her brothers came, with their wives, two children, and then all of my siblings (my brother, two sisters, my niece, my brother-in-law, and three nephews).  In the days leading up to this, my niece, who goes by Cathexis when we do our "Twilight Groan" podcast*, had asked several of my mom's friends and family members to record video greetings for her, then had spent the weekend editing them all together into a video, which we watched in the backyard. 

It was quite amazing, as we all gathered to watch it, and I was surprised by how many familiar (and unfamiliar) faces she'd gotten to send their best wishes and/or share memories of my mom.

I've heard of funerals for the living, and this really seemed like that sort of thing, with my mom's brothers, sisters, nieces, neighbors, nephews, former coworkers, children, and grandchildren all saying or singing something.  Cathexis had put my clip last, because it was the longest, and I have to admit I took off into the front yard when I saw my face show up (I had shared a story about my childhood, and then sang a Storage Unit Serenade for my mom, and while I'm totally comfortable with my voice--even if the singing isn't perfect--I just couldn't look at myself doing it [though I must admit, I didn't look as fat as usual in the video]). 

It was pretty fascinating to see the different video qualities (I think mine was literally the only one where I had turned the phone to get a horizontal image rather than vertical, so of course, it looked better than most, despite my shite camera), and the affectionate messages in both English and Spanish were pretty darn great.

Well done, Cathexis.

The day went on, and I talked to Big, and he hadn't gotten any words in at eleven o'clock his time.  Scary.  Of course, neither had I.  But it was Day 100, so I had to do it, whether I wanted to or not.  I wrote some words (plenty, I think), and I actually ended up falling asleep early, and woke up around two, realizing I hadn't done any sit-ups for the day. 

And saints be praised, I got up and did sit-ups before going back to bed.

Sit-ups Today: 30
Sit-ups Total: 329

I usually get a lot of sit-ups in when I watch "Better Call Saul" (I have this tradition of not fast-forwarding the commercials, but instead, doing sit-ups or push-ups through them, like my Uncle John used to do years and years ago when he'd spend the night at my childhood home and wake me up to watch "Saturday Night Live"), but that show is over for another year--I swear, they have shorter seasons than your average mayfly.  Maybe I'll find a new show to exercise through; I told Big I might watch the whole of "Community" once it hit Netflix Streaming, and that's now the case.

I look forward to my weekly hikes, and somehow, I did get a hike in today, but I was so tired afterward that I just recorded my thoughts into my phone, knowing I wouldn't want to spend an hour typing them.  We'll see if I can upload them tomorrow.

And that's i . . .  I don't know if I should share this bit or not, but I had typed it earlier, so why not?

The other day, my uncle posted a picture on Facebook that was truly revolting.  Imagine, if you will, the dirtiest picture you can think of, involving something coming out and somebody else about to eat it.  Now, transpose that disgusting thought to something political, involving the worst example of public office we've seen in my lifetime . . . and then throw religion into it.  You got it?

Well, I saw this image, and I almost couldn't believe it.  It was beyond reprehensible, and since there was no caption, I couldn't even speculate that it might be intended ironically.  So I typed a comment about being disappointed to see something like that, and started to scroll away.**

But a moment later, I regretted it.  My uncle is a good man, with a big heart, who does the best he can, and just like Trump says, "There are very fine people on both sides."  And it occurred to me that he might find my comment hurtful, of incendiary (although, dude . . .), so I went back up, and I deleted the comment.  I don't know if I was raised with the dictum "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all," but Thumper in BAMBI certainly was, and that dude's a hero to me.

So, I deleted my comment, and just put it out of my mind, just like Thumper's mother used to say whenever the Playboy bunny got brought up.

But today, the party for Mother's Day was winding down, and I overheard my uncle complaining to somebody about a message on his Facebook account.  My ears perked up: indeed, he was talking about somebody's comment on the picture he posted.  I sort of froze in place, the way a deer does in the headlights, right before you ruin your already-falling-apart Mazda 3 on I-70.  I thought, "Oh boy, did my comment show up after all?"  Because I don't know how Facebook works.  Sometimes, when I'm logged in, and somebody comments on my thread, it beeps and comes to the foreground, so I can see in real-time what a person just posted.  Maybe that happened with mine, despite me deleting it after twelve seconds.

But no, apparently, someone else had seen this utterly reprehensible photo (again, it's only offensive to me . . . and hopefully you too . . . and oh, I dunno, people with souls), and typed, "This makes me very sad."  And not only that, but someone else (a someone soon to be, as the Amish call it, meidung) had Liked the comment.  My uncle was going on and on about how ignorant that was, and how he thought he knew this person, but clearly, they needed to be un-Friended as soon as possible.

I was just a fly on the wall for this conversation, in which my uncle explained his interpretation of the picture he'd uploaded, and in his mind, yeah, I guess it's a little less repellent than how I saw it, but still, not something that is evident without a caption or a lengthy paragraph saying, "I know this picture is virulently offensive, but this is the spirit in which I'm sharing it . . ."

I nearly interrupted his conversation and mentioned that I too had been grossed out by the photo but thought better of saying so . . . and then I decided not to.  Better, I guess, not to open that can of worms.  Religion and politics are even more problematic than being a Star Wars fan.

Words Today: 1083
Words In May: 11,274

*I keep trying to get her to do a remote episode with me, but she has no recorder and seems unwilling to use her Voice app on her phone, so I may have to ask my Patreon supporters if they wouldn't mind paying for the last two episodes, so I can buy her a Zoom recorder.

**Imagine if I posted on my Facebook page, a photo of a dead child, covered with flies, and the caption, "What, no love for the Star Wars Prequels?"  And you, being a thoroughly decent human being, saw the photo, shook your head, and commented, "Maybe not the best photo to share?"  That's the understatement my own comment was.

May Sweeps - Day 96

Yesterday's writing was pretty darn easy.  I had this idea in my head of "what kind of bizarre family Christmas traditions might what's-her-name have?" and I came up with a couple that would be hard for me to tolerate.  The one yesterday was some kind of competition to see how much of Luke Chapter 2 people could remember.  It was only meant to be a small part of the story, but I decided to make one of the siblings insanely competitive about it (my, but I hate people like that, from those who give enough of a shit about the team they root for that they'd fight the fans of another team over it, to those guys who you don't want to play video games with because they take it so seriously it's no longer fun or a game), to the point where, unless you're actually the family I'm parodying in this story, you SHOULD think, "This is not right, guys.  I don't care how much you love X-mas."

This story has gotten so long (I checked, and the darn thing is now 8500 words), that it's lost all comedic value at this point, and has become one of those Judd Apatow movies on DVD where they've put all the bits they cut out back in so the Comedy is now two and a quarter hours long.**  And it's not even Black Comedy anymore, despite what I intended it when I started it.  I guess I too was infected with the holiday spirit, and did what I could to make it a little Christmasier . . . but still not Christmassy enough for the Hallmark Channel.

Today, I haven't written a darn thing (well, I think I managed 11 words earlier), and it's already past midnight.  I finished editing our "Delusions of Grandeur" episode, and then recorded another podcast with Marshal, and once that was done, instead of writing, I did my run, which I enjoyed way more than I would have writing.  But let me think about that for a minute.

The jogging will not accomplish a doggone thing, and absolutely no one will benefit from whatever shape three months of exercise have put me in (still pretty bad shape, I'm afraid, but again, nobody is around to care).  But if I wrote this Christmas story and put it out there, it might get read by, oh, I dunno, three or four people, maybe even five or six if I die in the next year.  And that should make me want to finish the story so I can publish it, or even podcast it, in which case, up to eleven or twelve people might hear it.  Even more, if said death occurs.

And yet, I feel really good after my run (at least I did until I made the mistake of watching the second week of that newly-engaged couple's Vlog, which I may talk about in a moment*), and then I had to do laundry, which takes a while, so I put on an old Podcastle episode where Tim Pratt wrote a Scrooge story, because I wanted to get in the Christmas mood to finish this story I'm working on.  If anything, it just showed me the power of short story writing, and more specifically, how talented Pratt is (and Heather Shaw, who co-wrote it).

Like I said, my story is now too long (and no longer funny), so I doubt it'll be like a Tim Pratt holiday story, but I'm determined to finish it and move on to something else.  And since I just wrote another five hundred words on it, I guess I get to complain about this engaged couple that have vowed to do a video every week for the next year.  Yay!

Truth be told, I based two of the characters in "That's The Spirit!" (just a tentative title, but it's a fine one) on this young couple, who are both dubiously attractive, and almost-as-dubiously in love.  I was trying to describe them in today's writing (they have on matching His and Hers holiday sweaters), and I couldn't come up with the word, but now I think it might be saccharine.  In the first video, there was a bit of them driving, and they kept doing this phuqued-up speaking-at-the-same-time bit where either they're so on the same wavelength that they finish each other's sentences (and the middle of the sentences too), or they're TRYING to show how close they are by doing that.  And it ended up being a less amusing version of that couple that Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig played on "Saturday Night Live" where they'd come out and sing a song they wrote together, but it became obvious they were just making it up as they went along.***

You know how you feel when you read somebody's diary or your sister is on the phone with her best friend and you listen in on the conversation?  I sort of feel that way watching this video (and guys, I know they would not want a bum like me watching it anyway).  But I also feel slightly unwell watching it--because these two are so lovey-dovey and so good-looking and just trying so goddamn hard (there was one bit where they put sweet old timey music under a segment of them frolicking together [who was filming this, and why on earth would you do so??], where I felt tempted to look away like you would from a drunk guy singing bad karaoke or a drunk lady adjusting her thong or a dog taking a dump . . . except it's not gross and the editing is more professional than anything I have ever managed myself.

Can't believe I got to use this image again.

Truth be told, I had to pause the video several times and do something else.  I CANNOT afford to go to the dentist again this year (once a decade is enough, thank ye very much).  But you know what "Saturday Night Live" sketch it reminds me of even more than the one I just referenced?  In 1991, there was an episode that Linda Hamilton hosted, and there was a sketch where she and Dana Carvey were on a double-date with Phil Hartman and Julia Sweeney, and the latter couple were very reserved and unromantic, while Hamilton and Carvey became increasingly overt in feeding each other, to the point where Carvey starts sucking on her fingers and pretending to be a baby.  It was funny when I first saw it all those years ago, and it's still funny in my head all these years later ("Baby wants sauce, baby wants sauce!").

My favorite bit in that sketch was always how Julia Sweeney, jealous of the affection the other couple is showing each other, asks if her husband might like to try her food, and he snaps at her, "We ordered the same thing!"

Big used to encourage me to do videos on YouTube, even going as far as to say that I was funny and talented when I would complain that they were too hard.  But I have no idea why this couple is doing this, except that they are aware of how pretty they are and that goes a long way.  It does make me wonder (I wonder, [I wo-wo-wo-wo-wonder]...) how I would document a year in a romantic relationship, were I in that enviable situation.

Except I'd like to think that mine would be funnier, and get way fewer views.

Words Today: 1027 (and I'm within a hair's breadth of being done)
Words In May: 5826

Push-Ups Today: 55
Sit-Ups Total: 215

P.S. Don't know why, but each day I post one of these:

Day 36. Oh, this one's easy: "F**k You" by CeeLo Green.  Such a great song and a karaoke favorite, back when I still did karaoke.


*I'll tell you what: if I get some writing done, I will reward myself by getting to complain about their video.  But if I don't write, then I don't get to say anything.  It'll be like "may you speak now or forever hold your peace" bit in a wedding . . . my favorite part.

**Oh, shite, I just wikipedia-ed Judd Apatow to make sure that was him that did that, and then I wasted time checking to see what he's made lately.  Oh, and he was behind a lot more movies than I was aware of, and then I checked out the ones I wasn't familiar with, which wasted oh, about a month of my night.

***I never appreciated that bit when it was on, because it (like so many of the SNL characters) was just so samey, repeating the exact same schtick every time they appeared . . . which was a little too often.

February Sweeps - Day 47

So, there was an earthquake this morning, which is an unusual occurrence around here.*  There was a fairly big earthquake back in 1992, and I remember being freaked out about it (I was reading a Stephen King book at the time--I remember it being a hardcover "The Dark Half," but that came out in 1989, so it might have been "Needful Things"--and the room started swaying around me, leading me to say, "I promise I won't say no more bad swears!  I promise I won't hawk no more dirty books!  I promise I'll eat all my lima beans!"

Well, this one was at seven-something in the morning, and it woke me up.  Honestly, my bed was rocking like Big Anklevich's on a Tuesday, and they said it was a 5.7 on the William Fichtner scale.

While a 5.7 isn't The Big One, it was still the most significant earthquake we've had since . . . wow, 1992.  It still damaged a few old buildings, a few walls came down, and Big's old news station (and mine as well, I suppose) dedicated most of the day to reporting about it.  There was flooding at the airport, a lot of neighborhoods (briefly) lost power, and it was followed by more than fifty palpable aftershocks (we're still feeling them days later).  Well, if that don't get you back to church, nothing wi--

Oh yeah, church is canceled for the foreseeable future.  Whoops.  Sorry, ladies.

My sister, prompted by my mother, who is continually stirred into a panic from the media she consumes, woke me shortly after the earthquake, and asked if I would go to Costco with her, to load up on, you guessed it, toilet paper and such.  I didn't really want to go, but I try to be a good brother, and responsible(ish) and make myself available to those around me.  I drove her to Costco (which is a big warehouse/bulk store, where people buy pallets of items rather than just one or two), and saw something that I usually only see on Black Friday each year: a line of people going around the building and down the street, waiting to get into the store.

Honestly, I've never seen its like.  Even on Force Friday in 2015, when Toys R Us had people lined up down to RC Willey two stores down, it wasn't like this (plus a couple of those guys were dressed as Stormtroopers, so it was a happy queue rather than a terrifying one--come on, you've seen those guys shoot a blaster).  We're supposed to be practicing social distancing (the official handbook says, "Imagine Rish Outfield at a school dance"), but the line of people and carts was such that we got to know everybody in the line around us, asked what people were there for, and if they felt the earthquake or not.  To their credit, none of the people--not a one--were assholes, but I've a feeling that the assholes wouldn't be standing in the line to begin with.

Costco is a store where you have to have a membership to get in, but I found out that some people who are not members get around that by buying Costco gift cards, and being let in to use that.  I didn't know you could do that, but then, I've never had a Costco card, and except for the time I ran into my old would-be girlfriend Patricia in that particular store, I have no affection for the place.

We did stop by at the Walmart around the corner, and there was no rice, no bread, no pasta, no cleaning products, no soup, no canned fruit, and absolutely no women interested in dating me.  Rather vexing, I must say.  For the first time in a decade, I didn't check the toy aisles at all.

The entire morning was eaten up by that, and then my sister had to go to work, but I asked her if she'd like to stop by Burger King (which was fortuitously/mysteriously open) and grab something to eat before she left . . . and she told me she doesn't like Burger King.  So I left her there in the parking lot and drove away, but I regretted it later when I had to unpack all the groceries by myself.

I ended up falling asleep while editing a podcast, and when I woke up, I was groggy and upset that a useful chunk of the afternoon was gone.  So I drove over to the bank of stairs and ran up and down them a couple of--

Okay, it only took one time up those stairs before my body felt at the point of death.  I gasped and choked and couldn't get enough air in my lungs, and did that thing where you try to spit and end up getting it down your chin instead.  And just yesterday, I thought I was getting better.

After going up and down the stairs a time or three more, I went to the same park where I went on Monday, and sat in my car and wrote a little bit (I'm typing this in the car).  I want to be a productive member of society, or be remembered that way, but really, all I have to offer is my writing, my Sean Connery impression, and my audio work/podcasting.**

This story will probably be called "Meet The New Clerk, Same As The Old Clerk," and tells of the rehiring of Meechelle, someone who worked at the Noble Oaks Bed & Breakfast years before, but quit after a disturbing experience.  The story is bound to be even more boring than the others I've written, but I'm afraid I don't much care about that--I'm so enjoying writing this series, that it's already exceeded any other series of stories in my thirty years of writing (unless the Praisden Chronicles counts as a series, since there's probably twenty-five or more of those).

The central conceit of this story--the main point, I mean--is that Something Bad happened to Meechelle about three years before (besides, of course, me naming her a deliberately-misspelled Michelle), and that Something Bad won't get revealed until the end of the story.  Unfortunately, I have yet to decide what that Something Bad was, so I merely drop hints here and there, and expect to be surprised when it is revealed to me.

Of course, all this writing may come to nothing if the pandemic continues to grow, but as Colonel Fury taught us, "Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on."

I finished editing another Jason Sanford story for the Dunesteef, and if one of you wants to listen to it to help me find any errors, I'd appreciate it.  I'm sure we'll talk about it when we do the episode, but there are so many amazing concepts and brilliant bits in this story, it reminds me that Sanford is actually a Writer, while I can only aspire to be a writer.  Good, good stuff, well beyond me and my little haunted house soap opera vignettes.

And so, another day, another few words written.  I hope you are well.  And stay well.

Words Today: 673
Words This Month: 24,527

*I originally left it at that, but Big Anklevich made a big enough deal about it that I thought I ought to expand on it a little.

**I asked if my singing voice counts as something I have to offer, and was told, "No."  There wasn't an explanation, just no.

Rish Outcast 165: I Feel . . . Young

So, this is a reaaaaally personal episode, again.  In this one, I  talk about my midlife crisis, teenage girls, TMIs for a while, and end up discussing THE WRATH OF KHAN.

Oh, and maybe a new story . . . if you're good.



Here's a link to the story "A Mark On The Sky" you'd be doing us both a favor by reading.  And here's the audiobook . . . even better.

Just Right-Click HERE to download the episode.

Just Left-Click HERE to support me on Patreon.  Join the few, the proud . . . the few.

Just a logo by Gino "He Tasks Me" Moretto.

February Sweeps - Day 23 & Book Signing Report

So, as promised, here is my oral report on the book signing I went to over at the Barnes & Noble Brandon Sanderson Living Tribute Bookstore.  There will be some profanity, of course.



Download (for some reason)?

Today is Sunday, and the library is closed.  But it's a sunny day outside, and I think I might go for a drive and write in the car again.

I really ought to write more on that Ben Parks story (it's been over a week), because people actually seem to like those, but they are hard.  Anyway, I will try.  It's about Ben's first "mission" after the death of the Lean Rider, and features the deputy that doesn't like him.  It's only a year and a half overdue.  In writing it, I couldn't remember the deputy's name, or whether Pony (Ben's horse) was a boy or a girl.

So, heeding my own advice, I went for a drive, then headed up the canyon, which I had wanted to do the last few weeks.  It was warm (for February), and I thought it might be perfect to check out the waterfall at the base of the mountain.  A ton of other people must've had the same idea as me, because there wasn't much room to park (the cars were just lined up alongside the road), and people were out bicycling, walking, skateboarding and . . . whatever you call that one-wheeled electric ballboard thing I saw one guy riding.*

It struck me, once I'd hiked the quarter mile or so up the trail to the 80% frozen waterfall, that this place has been just right up the road from me all these years, and I almost never go to it, and how lucky and/or douchey that makes me.  I thought about my pal Gino down in New Zealand and the sights he probably takes for granted, so I decided to get out my phone and record just a bit of it.

It was intended for him, but I ended up shooting about five minutes of footage, and I thought I would upload it to YouTube so strangers could see it, if they wanted to.

I slipped on ice once, but caught myself, and later saw some damned kids crossing the frozen stream to get closer to the waterfall.  My first instinct was to tell them to get off my lawn, same as the doggone skateboarders, but after a minute, I told myself, if they can do it, I can do it too.  So I stepped out on the ice, hoping it would have the decency to make a cracking sound if it was going to break under my feet, and crossed the frozen stream and then, warily, climbed up the icy path to the base of the waterfall.

My phone takes truly terrible selfies, but the video footage should look better, and after a moment, the kids got yelled at by their parents and had to go back, leaving me the only person on that side of the river.  Once again, I sort of wished a Jenny from FORREST GUMP had been with me, but hey, I always do.

After that, I did go sit down--outdoors--and cracked open my laptop to write.  I sat down on a park bench, with the shadow of a tree falling just right so I could see the screen.  I chose to work on the Ben Parks story, but only managed about five hundred words.  There were just so many people there, including a couple of dudes with a drone that they sent so high up in the air that I could no longer see it, then they just sat in their car "driving" it around.  Boy, voyeur me would love to get me one of those.

Again, sorry to repeat myself, but it's the 23rd of February, and I don't know what I'll be doing (or feeling) a month from now.  My goal was to write (and blog about it) every day this month, and then in March, I'm thinking I'll publish a story a week.  But honestly, I exercise every day (that has maybe only ever happened once in my life, back in 2002), and I write every day, and I try to stay positive and be productive every day.  I wake up before my alarm goes off (this morning, it was still semi-dark when I woke up, and I read until I went back to sleep), and somehow still have energy to get to my one am push-up regimen.

Every day my love handles are a little smaller.  I don't know where they went, since I've only lost nine pounds this year, but hey, I ain't looking a gift . . . headless horseman in the mouth.**

But we're not here to talk about that (are we?), we're here to put down how many words I wrote today.  And . . . well, it's not a lot.  This is definitely a day when Big A. has written more words than me.  And that's only right and good.

Words Today: 884
Words Total: 35,602

*Somebody I think very highly of rides a skateboard, but mid-life crisis or no (and as as much as I'd like to have something in common with her), I'm never going to learn how to skateboard.  In fact, it's still hard for me to shrug off my decades-old loathing of skateboarders and how they used to shout "Skate or die!" in the parking lot of the high school when I was a lad.  Even so, I'd like to try rollerblading one day, or barring the courage for that, at least go ice skating again.  Nearly three decades back, I used to go ice skating with my buddies Rhett and Dennis, and though I never got good at it, I got to the point where I could skate around without constantly falling down, and I'm sure it's great calf exercise.  And I don't hate it like I do running, so there's that.

**That reminds me: since Big has been dieting/fasting/inducing vomiting, he's been losing weight like crazy, and has even gone as far as to take one of those pictures of himself shirtless in the mirror to put up against one where he's lost all the weight.  Every once in a while, I'll see pictures women have uploaded on Instagram like that (not so much on Christian Singles.com, though, hmmm), usually after having a baby, but I have never dared do one of those.  Except, I did take one a couple of weeks ago, seeing that I was noticeably less flabby than I had been just in November or December.  We'll see at what point I take another one to put next to it . . . or if I'd ever post something like that.  Sure, I can sing Whitney Houston at a storage unit, but some things are a bridge too far.