May Sweeps - Day 468

I haven't gotten beaten up (physically) in a long time.  But the day after getting the vaccination shot feels awfully similar to the day after a beating from one of the bastards of yesteryear.  I have to admit that, despite having no excuse for it (I sat on the couch and watched three or four hours of television last night until I finally fell asleep), I took a nap in the afternoon, and still feel weak and sore and fat-arsed.

My sister told me that one of her coworkers is extremely religious (her husband is a pastor) and said that she absolutely will not get the shot, because only atheists get the vaccine.

Sigh.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In May: 1416

Exercising was hard today (for the aforementioned reason), and for the first time this year--and maybe since I had COVID or earlier--I had to alternate running and walking on my usual 1.6 mile jog.    Honestly, I had suspected that maybe all my soreness and weakness was psychological (ie, I had been told that I would get knocked out by the second shot, so I convinced myself I was hurting when I really wasn't), but I just had a difficult time doing anything, from going down stairs to putting the lawn mower away (my nephew has now been given the job of mowing the lawn, which is fine and good, but he's not capable of emptying the grasscatcher or getting the mower back in the shed).

If I don't feel better tomorrow, I'll start to worry that it might be AIDS.  I think I heard the weatherman on Fox News mention it's AIDS season again.

Sorry.

I continue searching for images of spooky silhouettes on Unsplash.  Today's photo is this one:

Now, THAT is actually pretty darn good.  I like that it's vague and ominous (and vaguely ominous), so I totally could use it for "Meet the New Clerk," but I don't think I will.  I have this image in my head of a scary man standing in the shadows in a stairway (probably because that's a scene in the story, and one I thought worked quite well in the recording process).  I don't know if I'll find one like that, exactly, but maybe I'll find a picture of a silhouette, and a picture of a staircase, and ask Gino if he'll combine them for me (or Big could do it too, I suspect).  

In the meantime, I'll keep looking for pictures.

Big Anklevich tells me that "Florian" is a masculine name, so I oughtn't to use it for Victoria Holcomb's sister.  But I like it because--

And then it occurred to me: I wanted to use Florian because it sounds like Klarion.  As in, Klarion the Witchboy.  

Again, I've never read a comic (or seen whatever animation the above image is from) with Klarion in it.  I just love the name, to the sickening point of having to buy a comic with him in it.*

I remember in THE LAST BOY SCOUT, Bruce Willis's horrid daughter (played by Danielle Harris) was named Darian.  I thought it was the worst name I had ever heard.  That was, what, 1991?  And I still remember it.  So, so weird.

Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In May: 1554

Because I had recovered somewhat from my lethargy (and because Krispy Kreme was about to close), I asked my nephew if he wanted to go with me to Krispy Kreme and get some donuts.  At nearly that exact same time, my sister and brother-in-law were going to a friend's house to play some cards, and my nephew didn't want to go with them.  So he said he would go with me--the lesser of two evils?--and as soon as my sister left, he no longer wanted to go.

Even so, I thought he was just being a selfish little kid, so I made him put his shoes on, get in the car, and drive over with me.  But when we got to the donut shoppe, he absolutely refused to get anything, even though I was buying.  When I asked him why, he wouldn't say (I suspect it was to spite me, but he probably hasn't the vocabulary to express it, since he spends all his afternoons watching video game playthroughs on YouTube), and when I told him to get a donut he could eat tomorrow, if he wasn't hungry now, he still said no.  When I asked him what normally liked, he wouldn't say, so I ended up ordering donuts for myself.

And you know . . . that made them taste not as good.

They weren't like ash in my mouth or anything, but the experience was definitely soured.

Lastly, I'm getting closer to the end of my twin story.  Since I don't know how it's going to end, I don't know how close I am, but I'm very near to the big revelation scene, which I conceived of right before deciding this would be my next story.  

I really have to decide where this is going to go--especially if the story ends right afterward.  I got so close to a thousand words today, it isn't even funny, but I gave up after rewriting a sentence, and then in trying to copy and paste it into the wordcounter, I ended up pasting it over the ENTIRE document, taking 947 words down to 26.  You'd give up too, kids.  Maybe longer ago than I did.

Words Today: 963
Words In May: 7884

*Ooh, maybe I'll sit down and read the comic and do an episode about it, combined with the one where Morgan Freeman explains that everybody poops.