I was driving home from my cousin's last night in the rain--the temperature was just under freezing--and all the moisture had me scared. I've crashed twice on that freeway over the years, and skidded on ice innumerable times*, and it has made me ultra-cautious about driving on icy roads. And as happens two to ten times every winter, I go really slowly, and end up with cars (or more often, trucks) pulling up behind me wanting to go much, much faster, and probably calling me the names for bodily orifices' that don't show up in Grey's Anatomy.
There was one section of freeway where it was still covered with snow (but who knew what the snow was covering) because it was, I'm assuming, in between two towns and neither town's snowplows considered it a priority, where the lanes were no longer visible and I slowed way down, worried that I'd hit a patch of black ice and in less than a second, would be spinning or sliding out of control. It was at about that moment that a huge red eighteen-wheeler rocketed past me on the right, going seventy or so, shaking my little car and defecating a spray of slush all over my windshield.
I don't understand how they can drive so boldly in these gargantuan semi trucks (Big says they have to get to their destination on time, regardless of road conditions), whether those behemoths are more secure on the roads, or whether the drivers are too experienced to feel weakness or fear. All I know is that never before had I hated Optimus Prime.
Sit-ups Today: 120
Sit-ups In February: 1763
Push-ups Today: 55
Push-ups In February: 1635
One of the many short stories I recorded recently for audio collections (Big Anklevich had intended to do the same, and it would've given him something to do during his sixty hour-sleepover at work this week) was a little piece called "White House Tour" that I wrote while in Denver with my friend Jeff a few years ago. I wrote it for another of the HorrorAddicts website story contests (they called them "Masters of the Macabre," if I recall correctly), and it did not win.
Obviously, I mean, it did not win, as it's not a very good story, and I hadn't looked at it since submitting it in 2013. But I was surprised to pick up on a couple details that I had gleaned in researching the various ghosts that are supposed to haunt the White House, and wince at the dated reference of Daniel Day Lewis playing Lincoln in a movie at the time. But still, it was what it was, and I'm not at all ashamed of it, and it'll do fine in an audio collection, though I don't know if I'll be releasing it as an episode of the Outcast.
I really ought to, though. Stories like "Run Away," "Suckers For Mystery," "Secret 'Stache," "Waffle Iron Man," "Never Let Him Go," "Z Day Report," and "White House Tour" are written, recorded, and edited, and it's only natural that I'd release some--or all--of them as episodes. Got no plans to, though.
Strange, that.
Words Today: 650
Words In February: 12,241
*Once, I hit some ice and did a complete 180 on the freeway, slamming my car against the inner barrier and stopping in the carpool lane, facing oncoming traffic . . . but luckily, it was one-something in the morning and no other cars were speeding toward me. Still, it was the kind of thrill you wouldn't wish on anybody (save teen bullies and certain politicians).
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