Tuesday, March 17, 2020

March Sweeps - Day 46


The plague year continues, and today was the last day that the movie theaters in the state were open.  Tomorrow, they're all shuttered.  I wonder if I shouldn't have gone to see something, like I did the last day Movies 8 was open and I saw MOANA again.  But I kept myself busy anyway, despite not being able to hang out with my cousin.  Guess I've now cut down the times I eat fast food a week to zero.

And that can't be right, can it?

No writing today, though I did go to the storage unit and get a box of Star Wars figures out that have been buried for two years (jeez, the amount of crap I have in that unit . . .), and then sang another song there.  It has become one of my rituals, like writing, doing push-ups, and feeling sorry for myself.

And speaking of rituals, I went jogging tonight, just after the sun had set.  A couple of weeks ago, I heard somebody boasting about how they decided, on the spur of the moment, to enter a marathon in September, because running is just so easy.  You see, when they go running, it's the first two miles that are the hardest, and all the miles after that are all a breeze.

The first . . . two . . . miles.

It was a totally demoralizing thing to hear because, in the five weeks that I've been exercising, I've never been able to make it more than three or four blocks without having to walk for a ways to catch my breath.  And literally every time I've run since the day I heard that (I believe it was February 14th, to boot) I've replayed it in my mind and felt flabby and weak and rather less-than.  Not what I needed to hear right now.

But today, I vowed to at least run through one complete song before I let myself rest.  It's something I've done before, except today, I accidentally started playing one of those live tracks by Meat Loaf . . . and those suckers are long.  But I made myself do it, and suddenly, I hit a strange point I've never reached before where I no longer felt like I was controlling my legs, but that my body was being remote-piloted by some external force.  It was surreal and weird, and I started thinking about my story-in-progress rather than how terrible I am at jogging (and writing).*

So, I haven't written anything yet today.  But I sat down after my run (the longest I've gone and that damned phone app STILL claims the Holocaust didn't happen) and began editing the next Dunesteef episode until, whoops, the back of my head hit the wall with a little clank.  I guess I nodded off, but instead of my head falling forward, it fell backward.  Neat.

I also recorded a new story for StarShipSofa.  It's a pretty good one, which I don't hate, and I even got to do the voice of a sick old man in it, which you know I loved getting a chan--

Oh, I hear what you're saying: Rish, you said StarShipSofa would never ask you to do a story for them again, and you were actually grateful for that, because fuck those guys.   Well, in my defense, I'm not sure I said that last bit, and only hinted at the middle part, but you're right, I totally never expected them to ask me again after sending them an unedited file a month ago.  So, I was wrong.  Maybe they like me, or maybe they're really, really desperate.  Either way, this story's a good one.

And I'll probably be wrong again, in the next ten hours or so.  Like when I started to type, "Tomorrow, I think I'll hit the library so I can concentrat--  Oh."

I'm getting pretty tired of this writing thing.  Of course, yesterday was a three thousand word day, so you never know where tomorrow will take you.  Right now, I'm still working on that new "Dead & Breakfast" story, but there are a few that I've started in February Sweeps that I haven't finished, and those should be the priority.  More important would be the ones I vowed to complete in my 2020 New Year's Resolutions, but you can't do everything.  You do too much, you're not Superman, you know.

Words Today: 1771
Words This Month: 23,854

*Apparently, that is common for runners, but hey, I've had my soul leave my body on multiple occasions, and when I've asked people about that, they ALWAYS say, "No.  No, dude.  That has never happened to me.  Ever."

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