Storage Unit Serenade 7

I don't care whether you like these at this point.  Just gonna keep on doing them.

As always, you don't HAVE to watch it . . .

This one is actually a re-do, since the original (which I still haven't deleted from my Dropbox, despite it claiming it's out of space and for a reasonable fee, it can give me plenty of room) was done in a rainstorm, and that's pretty much all you could hear.

Running Tally
Pre-Eighties Songs: 2
Eighties Songs: 2
Nineties Songs: 1
Aughts Songs: 0
Teens Songs: 2

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.

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."

Marshal and I Talk Coronavirus

Last night, Marshal and I got together (over the phone) to record an episode of the Journey Into... podcast, but before we did, we talked about what's going on in our world today, with the Coronavirus and social distancing and panic, and he was kind enough to put it up for people to listen to.

If you'd like to listen too, well, here you go.



Download it directly by Right-Clicking HERE.

February Sweeps - Day 45

So, with no library to go to, and the world seemingly on lock-down, I'm in for a lonely few days or weeks.  My cousin isn't able/allowed to get together with me Tuesday night, so that leaves . . . well, me.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, I guess.

I did find myself Church Mused* today, knowing I couldn't go to the library, even if I drove over there, and I think it has to be purely psychological, right?  If the library were open, would I be so excited to go write?

However, I could take my laptop with me and go for a drive, maybe up in the hills or down by the lake.  As far as I know, going places where there aren't people congregating isn't dangerous or breaking the social distancing limitations we're supposed to self-impose.  But I don't know.

I looked it up, and my previous record of writing days in a row was 56.  That's another dozen days beyond today, so we'll see if I can match that (although I've gotten more words done in this run--66,834 than I did in last year's longer run--38,778).  I wonder.

So, today was another short day filled with me not doing much but feel sorry for myself.  I can't even remember what I did for half of it, except some yard work, and grocery shopping, and a couple of hours of babysitting.

I jotted down about a page in my notebook while I was in the car, and then vowed to grab my laptop and go for a drive, as I mentioned above.  I took a minute to leaf through my 2017/18 notebook, and I found the first four or five pages of "Sins of a Sidekick," and told myself I really ought to make that a priority to finish, since it takes place before "A Sidekick To Miracles," which I wrote last year (or was it the year before?).  I also stumbled upon a truly sick sketch I wrote for me and Renee Chambliss to do on the show, where a guy explains to his wife that he got fired from his job because they're all a bunch of bigots over there . . . and he dropped his pants in front of a coworker.  Okay, several coworkers.

It was funny, I thought, but I don't know that I'd dare ask Renee to record it with me.  And if I did, and she said yes (she probably would, she's really, really great), would I dare release it on the Dunesteef or Outcast?  It's really quite effed up, and I worry that if I die and somebody reads that sketch out of my notebook, they'd say, "Boy, this guy probably should've been in a mental ward somewhere.  And why is SCROTUM in all caps on here?"

Regardless, before the day was over, I drove over to the park, watching a small group playing volleyball, and then wrote for about an hour on my laptop until it got dark.  I don't have an exact word count without counting the words in the notebook (and/or transcribing them), but I got another day in. 

When I counted it all up, it was quite an impressive number.  Guess there's a little wind in these sails after all.

Words Today: 3,201
Words This Month: 22,083

*Church Mused is a term I coined last month that describes the phenomenon I always have of REALLY wanting to write when I'm someplace where I'm stuck and unable to do so.  I most relate it to being in church, super excited about the moment I'm able to get out, get home, and get writing.  But of course, when I did get out and free, more times than I care to say, I found something else to do other than write, something easier.

Fake Sean V-Day Outtakes

I'm sharing the outtakes from the Fake Sean Valentine's Day Variety Show (or whatever I called it).  They were too extensive to stick on an already-overlong show, so . . . enjoy?



Can't imagine why you'd want to download the file by Right-Clicking HERE.

March Sweeps - Day 44

Well, today was my last day in Vegas.  It was cool for the desert--about seventy degrees--and although the boy pestered me to let him stay a couple more days (no school to go home to, after all), I decided we would drive back today and wouldn't let him dissuade me.  Time will tell if I was foolhardy to go on this trip at all, or if it was a good use of a weekend.  In the world (and this country), the shit really seems to be hitting the you-know-what, and if the worst comes to pass, well, I had one last good vacation with the closest thing I'll ever have to a son.

At the same time--and sorry to be melancholy--there's a damned good chance that the end of the world has not come to us yet, despite the shelves at (EVERY) Walmart looking like this:

Yes, I took this picture.

I wonder if I should write today.  I drove for several hours, always trying to keep to the speed limit (cars and trucks were zooming past me like the Riders of the Apocalypse were after them, and I kept thinking about the ticket I got on Thursday, and how I would possibly pay for it), and there were some moments when it was hard to stay awake.  

There was a stretch of about seventy minutes where the radio stations were all staticky, and what did come in was one Country station and three religious broadcasts (one of those was an Easy Listening station that I'd have been fine to listen to, except for that on Sundays they become all liturgical, and that sort of thing ain't my bag, baby).  

I listened to a few Country songs, but was sure glad when the usual stations started showing up on the dial once again (I had brought an audiobook to listen to when my nephew fell asleep, but dude, it's got two point of view characters and two narrators, but both of them are female, with the same accent and pitch of voice, and I'll admit I could never keep them straight.  Why the heck would you hire a second narrator unless it would be clear to the reader it's a different person reading this chapter than the last?  Sigh).

The twelve year old was good company, most of the time, but he's at that age where he's extraordinarily solipsistic, and when he wanted to eat, or sleep, or go home, or do something else, it wasn't a suggestion, it was a divine decree from his holiness the Emperor.  And I imagine when he becomes a teenager, it'll become even worse.  It certainly was for me (and I never quite outgrew it).  When he was fun, though, he was very fun.  He vows to never accompany me to do karaoke (I really wanted to do it last night, but guess what, a lot of casinos, buffets, and karaoke bars closed in Las Vegas due to fear of spreading the virus), but he sang several songs with me, including Bohemian Rhapsody, Message In A Bottle, Sunglasses At Night, Hotel California (twice), and Circles by Post Malone multiple times.*

I got home around nine-fifteen pm, and after unpacking the car and doing a full run (I figure, the healthier I am, the longer I'll last when I get Captain Trips), I was tired and I didn't much want to write.  But I sat down a little after one, and started a new story.  In it, yet another dead rock star calls somebody from the Noble Oaks Bed & Breakfast, and though I guess I'm repeating myself, I just couldn't help it (in the very first story I wrote in this series, a music journalist has come to the hotel in hopes of interviewing the ghost of Jimi Hendrix--and it is never revealed whether it works out or not.  And then something I wrote last month involved Natalie Whitmore getting a phone call from David Bowie, which I haven't used in a story, but may one day, because I really, really liked it).  I just love the idea of speaking to friendly ghosts (the unfriendly ones tend not to speak, in my mind), and I wouldn't be surprised if Marvin Gaye or Janis Joplin or Del Shannon or Biz Markie (who isn't dead, but belongs on this list anyway) shows up in one someday.

In this story, Meeshelle, a young woman who used to work at the place, but quit after a quite terrifying experience, gets a call from everybody's favorite dead Beatle (unless you're a George guy), asking her to come back to work, on behalf of the boys.  It was fun.

Then I wrote a bit more on it.  I don't know if it will go anywhere, except that I now have three stories already written with Meeshelle working at Noble Oaks, so it's likely to be relevant eventually.

Tomorrow, I'll get up and see how much the world has changed.  Hopefully, there's still room for me in it.

And you as well.

Words Today: 818
Words This Month: 18,882

*I asked him how many times we heard it, and he told me nine.  I don't know if that's an exaggeration or not.

February Sweeps - Day 43

Well, along with my nephew's school, I just heard that the library is closed for the rest of the month.  There goes my word count.  But hey, it was a darn good run, and it took a pandemic to stop me.  Or it will, if it stops me.

I called Big Anklevich this morning, and I guess I misunderstood when he said, "Let me switch the phone to hands-free," because I started saying all this stuff that I probably shouldn't have, the way I would if it were just him and me (including, "My uncle with the bride younger than his daughters is really living the dream, huh?" and "Gosh, do you remember how hot your wife was when you first met her?" and "I hope the prostitutes in town don't get Covid-19 for a good long time, for my sake," and "I sure could use a few lines of cocaine right now, like we shared at your dad's funeral," and "You tell that daughter of yours she's not too old for a spanking.  Oooh, I'd like permission to spank her myself, if you don't mind me subbing for you in that regard").  At one point, he was reacting strangely, such as when he said, "No, I never helped you kill that itinerant preacher, that must've been someone else," and I said, "No, no, it was all your idea to murder him in the first place, you stupid bast . . . wait, am I on speakerphone?"

It turned out that not only had his wife been listening in to our conversation, but also his three children, including the daughter I offered to . . . uh, discipline not-at-all-inappropriately.  It's hard to remember exactly how much I said that should not have been overheard, and maybe that's for the best.  I imagine we were both equally mortified, but I am still kind of reeling over that, and will probably avoid calling him for the next couple days.

This was the hardest writing day since I started this.  I didn't get to it by the end of the day, and I was tired, and I absolutely didn't want to do it.  I laid down on my uncle's pull-out bed, and closed my eyes, to just let myself go to sleep (this was a little bit past midnight, maybe close to one, which is early for me, but I was tired).

And then, I opened them again and laid there, thinking, asking myself if I would let myself sleep or force myself to write.  There would be no consequences if I went to sleep, and there would be no benefit if I got up and worked.  It was touch-and-go there, and I actually surprised myself when I sat up and woke up my computer to write, just for a couple of minutes, just enough to say that I had written something.

But once I started, I did alright, and sort of got into it, even though this story stopped being fun--oh, about as soon as I came up with it.  But I wrote through until I got to the end, and then typed this bit.  I'll go to sleep now, but hey, I wrote again when I didn't think I would.  Do you love me, now that I can dance?

Watch me now.  I can Mash Potatoes, I can do the Twist.

Words Today: 1,204
Words This Month: 18,064

February Sweeps - Day 42

Took this picture of a baby desert tortoise today.  Not everything sucks, kids.

So, I'm in Las Vegas today.  Keeping the cigarette companies in business for over a hundred years.

A homeless guy walked up to me today.  I asked if he was alright (never know what to say to these guys) and he said, "I'll be honest with you.  I just got out of prison.  I need some money to get out of the rain."  I wondered if that works for most people.  In my mind, he seemed like a nice guy (ex-con or no), and that speaks louder than his police record or appearance or skin color or the words of the sales pitch he chose.

In other news, all this end of the world talk has got me feeling pretty sorry for myself.  I just can't get over it--it's like there's a dark cloud hanging over me, and its name is la vague à l'âme*--but I might have to go for a run despite not living around here or having any running clothes.

I spent nearly the whole day with my twelve year old nephew, and it was a little bit tiring.  At one point, he put on a Hip Hop song where a woman sang in baby talk and the chorus was (according to my nephew) "dance monkey dance monkey dance monkey ooooh," and I have to admit, pretty much all of my affection for the boy disappeared in that little stretch of time.

While we were together, he got a text that school has been canceled for the rest of the month.  It is hard not to take this a little bit seriously, and ask myself, "What's it all mean, Basil?"

I guess we'll see, sooner or later.

My uncle has all sorts of Trump memorabilia on his gun cupboard, and I briefly considered taking an ironic picture with it.  But it felt too shameful to do, even as a joke.  I also considered stripping naked for a photo and putting a MAGA hat on my jimmy . . . but again, that little guy's done nothing to deserve such punishment.**

In my uncle's defense, he did say today, "Who needs to hoard toilet paper when I got these?" and he wiggled all ten of his fingers.

So, I did go running tonight, and there was a nice wind and moisture in the air that reminded me of the ocean breeze I always enjoyed in California.  And I gotta say, some of my sadness and melancholy did sweat out of me, at least a little.  I don't know if it was those released endorphins the health experts are always talking about, or if it was the China Crisis song that I started listening to, and the lyric,
"Take comfort and possession of yourself; 
No reason to give up on the illusion."
Either way, that really spoke to me.  Some of my loneliness hurt a little less as I heard the line again (and honestly, it could be "take confident possession of yourself," which works too), and thought, "Yeah, this obscure Eighties New Wave band is right: there is no reason to give up on the illusion!"  And for a moment, I ran just a little bit harder.

Well, I have no idea what The Arizona Sky  is about, except that I love that song almost as much as I love you, whoever is bothering reading this (ironic, considering you're reading it, in the future, with a pulse, and I am by then, long dead).  But I'm a fan.

So, lastly, I VERY nearly didn't write today at all.  I finished editing the audio version of "Who Can It Be Now?" and was going to send it to my Uncle Len, since he helped inspire it (feel free to buy a text copy HERE, if you're getting desperate).  And then I was going to lie down and read, but I could feel myself getting sleepy, and I had a decision to make: do I just go to sleep, knowing I didn't write, but hey, I had a pretty full day anyway?  Or do I force myself to get up and not give up on the illusion?

Well, I did the latter, and just wrote for a half an hour or so.  And it came out to only eight hundred words, but still, exactly eight hundred words is kind of neat.  That doesn't happen every day, like the Arizona sky taking my breath away.

Words Today: 800
Words in March: 16,860

*Not sure why the cloud would speak French, but its pronunciation is much better than mine.

**Last night, my uncle said a most disturbing thing.  He said, "You know, Trump should use this Coronavirus thing to declare himself President for another four years.  That'd show 'em."  Apropos of nothing, I believe it was the Great Prophet who said, "Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."

February Sweeps - Day 41

So, you turn on the news at all this week?  Now, I'm not going to say that all this COVID-19 talk is terrifying, but . . . well, I only experienced one other time like this in my lifetime (and that involved buildings and planes).  People are so freaked out, that I can't help but be freaked out too.

I spoke to Big about it, who works in news, and is inundated with scary news and shocking statistics, and he said, having lived through a hurricane, a forest fire, and three teenagers, that this disaster was old hat to him.  I guess that put things in perspective.

However, my mother listens to right wing talk radio, and she's been whipped up into a frenzy of fear and paranoia, and tried to talk me out of taking my nephew to Las Vegas this weekend.  She even went as far as to suggest that, if I went to Nevada, her grandson would contract the virus, and then he would spread it to her when he came back, and she would die.  And wouldn't that be my fault?

I have to admit that I was pretty torn, like Natalie Imbruglia at her most-overplayed.  Partly because I'm a weepy mama's boy, partly because the money I was going to spend on this trip got spent on a new windshield and a trip to the dentist ("Look, ma!  Three cavities!"), partly because I had my heart and/or loins set on seeing a pretty girl tomorrow (even if it was for less than a minute, without her acknowledging my existence . . . again), and partly because there's a concert on Friday that I really wanted to go to and if I'm out of town I can't bloody well go to it, can I?

But boy, my nephew wanted to go.  He's been bugging me about it since literally March of last year, saving up his money, being on his best behavior so his mom would let him go.  He even told me on Monday that he went to his teacher and got his homework for Thursday and Friday, and actually planned to do it.  Impressive.

Well, my sister said he could go, though she did make him go to school today.  But as soon as he was done, we hit the road to "lovely" Nevada.  We listened to the radio and sang along to a couple of songs, and before the stations faded, we had heard that Dua Lipa If You Don't Wanna See Me Dancing With Somebody song three times.  Three.  I hope you won't think less of me if I admit that I didn't make any move to change it all three times through.

I drove, as though the dastardly duo of Coronavirus and melancholy were hard on my trail, and did a little bit too well, I guess, for I was pulled over for the first time in fifteen years and given a ticket for going ninety-seven miles an hour.  I imagine that will cut just as much into my non-existent savings as my trip to the dentist did.  Goody.

But I can't allow myself to feel too down.  We got to Vegas amid a truly-amazing downpour of rain and flooded streets, and I got lost trying to find my uncle's place in the dark and pouring rain.  A couple of the streets had so much water in them that the waves on either side of the car were higher than the car (my aunt drove through one of those tonight, and actually stalled out her car.  She said four other cars on the same street were stalled out around her).  But now we're here, my shirt is dry, the boy is playing cards with my Uncle Al, and I am typing away at my laptop again.

I wrote a little bit on that horror script (I call it a script, even though it isn't) I started last month, and killed another character.  If I really wanted to, I could stop blogging and finish the story right now.  And then I could go on to another one.  I was thinking of doing a "Dead & Breakfast" where a man and his ailing mother are traveling from Helena (or someplace) to California to spread his father's ashes in the ocean, and they stop off at Noble Oaks for a rest.  I was wondering if there are two guests if that would mean two different ghosts would show up (like Marshal Latham put in his story), and I wondered what would happen if one ghost was benevolent and one ghost was malicious.*

Something that has been a bit of a stumbling block with this story (besides the facts that 1) I keep not wanting to write it, 2) I felt it was morally iffy, and c) that it should have been a screenplay) is that I chose to name the main characters Araceli and Bethany.  Those names are big and unwieldy, and I cannot imagine doing the audio version and saying "Araceli" eighty times.  I've started switching to Cell and Beth occasionally, but dude, I fear the damage is done.

Words Today: 1069
Words in March: 16,060
Words Total: 64,012

P.S. I took my nephew to Taco Bell to eat tonight, and now I'm worried about walking around tomorrow.

*I also considered writing a story from a ghost's point of view, perhaps of him manipulating the hotel staff to get his widow or girlfriend to come to the b&b to see him.  But the fun of the story would be if he does manage to get her there, on the relevant night, and another ghost beats him to the actual visitation part.  I'll keep thinking about that one.

Storage Unit Serenade 6

So, this is the second time I've done a full song on here, and this is one that I learned to do at the storage unit.*  And I very nearly didn't post it at all (since I screw up at least one line in there).

But that's the point of these, so here goes.

Oh, and language warning, muthafucka.

Pre-Eighties Songs: 2
Eighties Songs: 1
Nineties Songs: 1
Aughts Songs:
Teens Songs: 2

*These are fun enough that a) I almost want to take requests, and b) I don't really care if nobody else sees them.  And uh oh, I'm almost out of envelopes, might have to hit the unit tomorrow.