The group of kids I was semi-complaining about yesterday decided to camp out outside their cabin last night, which meant there was chatter, giggling, and the occasional whoops until surprisingly late at night. That's no big deal--again, I wasn't trying to sleep or record, though I have thought about going down to my dad's room in the basement and recording something when I'm here sometime, since it's closed-off, windowless, and always an icebox, even in July (which is why I never go in there, regardless of whether it was my dad's room or not).
There's a very high chance I won't be coming back here until August, so it's nice I got a full weekend here as I never manage coming on a Wednesday and returning on a Thursday. It's just surprising that nobody in the family would've come here in the three days, in the middle of summer (in a plague year, no less, when one might want to go somewhere where they'd not having to wear a mask or be around strangers--or as it is when I come in the middle of the week sometimes, see another living soul).
I often ask my cousin why he doesn't come here, since his kids enjoy it, and it's available for anybody in my and his family, not just me and my brother and brother-in-law. But he doesn't like the outdoors, he's addicted to video games, and the prospect of being cooped up somewhere surrounded by his family is absolutely unappealing to the guy. He needs Twitter and Minecraft and Netflix and podcasts to keep him from self-reflection and his own thoughts.* Oh, and he would not have appreciated the mosquitos and seventy-three degree temperature yesterday.
Gosh, why doesn't George R.R. Martin have a place like this he can go, to isolate himself from whatever distractions have kept him from finishing his book, what, nine years in a row?
Does anybody remember what it was that sparked the Murder Was The Case drop I used to do on my podcasts? I stumbled across that Snoop Dogg track, and I honestly couldn't remember why I used to use it. But I'd like to do it again.
So, we talked about my goal of 3333 sit-ups in July, and 1000 sit-ups this weekend, and today, it looks like I might reach both. But just one would be fine.
The wood floor of the cabin is really hard on my tailbone (almost said taint there), so I sometimes toss a blanket or throw pillow on the floor before I do my sit-ups. And I pity the fool that uses that throw pillow for a pillow one day, for they are not going to have good dreams.
Yesterday, I thought it would be fun to try to do sit-ups every hour, just fifty at a time. I counted in my head that, if I did it a few times throughout the day, I'd reach my goal easily, and fifty sit-ups isn't going to get me sweaty or exhausted. I should have set a timer, because I did let a couple of hours go by without doing any, but I managed quite a bit--probably what I got in the first week I started doing the sit-ups.
I brought three cans of soup, a loaf of bread, a can of fruit cocktail, and one of green beans (they just struck my fancy, even though they're the only thing I haven't touched). I also brought two whole boxes of Marvel Legends action figures, to take out of their packages, and use the cardboard to cook my meals with. I made it through about a dozen boxes, but it was actually too warm for a fire one of the days, and I had to open the windows, which let in all the noise from next door. I've heard no crickets or frogs this entire trip, and certainly no owls or coyotes (which are way rarer). But I have heard the generator buzzing next door, which should be incentive to only do this on Wednesdays in the future.
Even so, it has been a fairly good trip. Lots of time by myself, lots of exercise, some editing, some writing, almost no reading (fell asleep again today when I tried), but plenty of time to think and reflect on life. If it's nearly reached the end, I'll die with a ton of regrets (not quite a metric tonne, but certainly the American version), but I don't think coming up here so often will be one of them. My dad used to say, "The worst day fishing beats the best day working," and this is something like that, I guess, even though I haven't fished in a year or two.
Come to think of it, maybe it was Travis Tritt that said that, not my dad.
I got a bit of editing done just now (got half of a two-part Delusions of Grandeur episode edited), then decided to do some more sit-ups. I thought I'd count them up to see how many more I need to do to reach my goal--and I've already passed it. That's kind of cool. I wish I were that way with writing, like I was in February. But I was on fire that month, feeling inspired, floating around on a cloud, going to the library to write and only leaving when my time was up (I even paid for an extra two hours a couple of times), and eager to start on a new project even before the last one was done.
This morning, I thought about Lara Demming, and where I left her back in May or so, when I had broken her heart and was about to have her fall in love again, with some boy who may or may not be too good to be true. I really like Lara Demming, and oddly, I really like Old Widow Holcomb too, and was thinking it would be a blast to write one or two other stories like "Remember the Future," where Holcomb curses somebody who is unkind to her "daughter." Maybe a bully who becomes clumsy at the most inopportune times, maybe some kind of prom queen type whose boobs get a little bigger each and every day until she becomes something out of a sideshow (or a Japanese comic book), maybe a teacher who makes Lara feel dumb in class, who starts to feel dumb himself in inopportune times.
If I were a real writer, these prospects would excite me, and I'd get to work--RIGHT NOW--at writing them. But instead, I sit here blogging, hearing the neighbor kids shrieking over and over (and over and over and over and over), debating whether to cook those green beans or continue watching JANE EYRE, or to just pack up and go home five hours early. Don't think I'll do that last one.
Sit-ups Today: 343
Sit-ups This Weekend: 1102
Sit-ups In July: 3473
Only a fully-trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, can conquer Vader, and his Emperor.
Let's see. What was I saying? Oh yes, so I jotted down some thoughts about love, about Lara Demming grappling with what she's feeling for this boy--is it real? How do you know? And I gave her a new best friend--Kayla--who she's having this conversation with, and that seems to open up the door of: what happens when Kayla finds out Lara lives with a witch? And what happens when she finds out Lara is herself a witch?
It doesn't exactly write itself--otherwise, why the devil am I blogging right now--but it makes me want to write it. Maybe I am a real writer, just not a very good one. Anyway, I've got 585 words on it for today, which isn't a lot, but is more than some days.
My imagination, which I never tire of talking of in my podcasts, has been both a tormenter and a comforting friend to me. Two days now without speaking to another soul, but I imagine that someone else is upstairs, walking around, making the occasional noise, perhaps using the sink or the balcony . . . and I am forbidden to go up there. I can hear her footfalls on the wooden planks, know that she's agitated about something, but I can't speak to her, and she's not about to come down here where I am.
I imagined Victoria Holcomb, having traded her only son away to an evil, evil man decades ago, discovering that that son is out there, full grown, and what has become of him? Is he cruel and spiteful, like his parents? Or is he gentle and decent, like Lara is? Like Holcomb might once have been, a hundred years ago, before absolute power corrupted her?
I also wrote quite a bit on my egg story, which I'm thinking of calling "Hatchling." Good title, n'est-ce pas?
Words Today: 2381
Words In July: 19,593 (and with that, I'm up to a thousand words a day again)
I put on the acoustic version of Foo Fighters' Everlong while I was eating a sandwich, and the song hit me really hard. It felt good to be so moved by a piece of music. It made me wonder if I could ever create something that would so reach and speak to another human being, that my own art could be as powerful as And I wonder when I sing along with you,
If everything could ever feel this real forever,
If anything could ever be this good again?
Guess I've got to keep at it, keep creating, keep putting things out there, in hopes that one day I can get there. Or just get lucky.
Rish Outfield 7-19-20
*That reminds me, though: I was walking on the far side of the lake last night, trying to get my video done, when my phone beeped. "Oh no, its battery is dead too?" I thought, but I looked down at it, and I had just gotten a text message from my friend Jeff in Germany. "What the--?" I next thought. I looked it over, and I had just gotten a text from my cousin, a text from my sister, and one from Big Anklevich. Somehow, way out here in a place remote enough that nobody commented on my singing, there was cell service. Except when I tried to text my sister back, it wouldn't go through. No Service, my phone said. I found that a little strange.
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