May Sweeps - Day 466

My dog, I have accomplished so little today.  I have zero excuses too.  I don't know what to say.

Except I could run over to the park and sit on a blanket in the sun and write--and not get up until I have five hundred words.  That's what a person with ambition would do.*

I did sit down and re-record the first bit of that story today, and managed it in about a third the time as I did it the first time through.  That sounds pretty efficient, unless you take into account that, since writing it in September, that would count as my FOURTH draft.

So, I did run (drive, actually, though a run would've been a lot more healthy) to the park just before the sun set, and threw a blanket down on the grass, opened my laptop, and . . .  well, it was cold.  It was February cold, for some reason, not May cold.  There were tons of people there at the park, but as soon as the sun went down, they scattered like cockroaches in Big Anklevich's rec room.

I forced myself to sit there until I got 500 words, then I went back to the car, shivering like I'd had an icepack on my taint (speaking of Big Anklevich . . .).  But hey, at least one time I suffered for my art this week.

Which is nothing compared to your suffering, were you to read the story.

I had a conversation with Marshal Latham the other day, wherein the name Florian came up.  It's such a bizarre name to my ears, one I've never heard before (that I can remember).  I've decided to name at least one of Old Widow Holcomb's sisters Florian because of it.  Hopefully, I'll find another name I like just as much for another one (I can't recall if I established she had two sisters or three).**

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In May: 1205

My mom brought 75% of a cheesecake home from her birthday party on Saturday, and gifted it to me, since she will never eat it (she won't even taste it).  So, I tried to do a few more push-ups than normal (and 11 more sit-ups) to make up for it.  I know, I know, it would take a thousand more.  But who asked you?

The other day, I was searching for silhouettes (a term I've typed into search engines so many times I can actually spell it now), and found this disturbing image on Unsplash:

I can't think of a story to use it with, but the idea of something showing in a reflection but not in real life is wonderfully creepy.

Push-up Today: 150
Push-ups In May: 1335

I stayed up fairly late with Marshal Latham podcasting last night.  We talked about a 2020 horror movie called THE TURNING, which had, cards on the table, one of the three or four worst endings I've ever seen in a movie (HALLOWEEN 6 is up there, as well as a flick called LOST SOULS that I went to a test screening of and never quite heard whether they'd fixed it or not).

Anyway, THE TURNING was so bad, I felt rather guilty making Marshal watch it***, and then he revealed to me that he, in turn, made his entire family watch it.  And his wife made him sleep, not on the couch ("Couch is too good for the likes of you"), but in the barn that night.  And that meant he had to go across the street, since his neighbors have a barn and he does not.

He seems eager to let me prattle on and on, but I never know if I am irritating or inconveniencing him.  For years (more than ten, at this point), I used to bug Big Anklevich about sitting down and recording an audio commentary for a movie sometime, that we would put out for our podcast listeners.  It never happened, or even came close to happening, as far as I can remember.

But last night, Marshal mentioned the possibility, and I said, "Yeah, I guess we could do that sometime.  I'd have to use my sister's Disney+ account, though."  To which he said, "Alright, that sounds good.  Let's do it right now."  And we did.  So weird.

So, so weird.

Words Today: 524
Words In May: 6582

*Yeah, yeah, a person with ambition would write a thousand words.  And do it every single day.  And never fritter a single day away.  And live his life so that people took their hats and/or pants off whenever they saw him, saying, "Now that's the death I want to have."

**I looked it up, and there's a mention of a Tanya, that was either Holcomb's sister or her cousin.  The witch tells Lara that Tanya was always trouble, but Lara doesn't know which girl that refers to.  Honestly, I'd love Holcomb's sisters to all have distinctive, fun names, like Ariel's sisters did in LITTLE MERMAID.

***It got an F Cinemascore, which is really rare.  Marshal asked me how rare that was, and I didn't know.  But when I looked it up, only thirty-three movies have ever gotten an F Cinemascore.

Little piece of advice: when you do an image search for "F," turn on your SafeSearch option.