9/30

I accomplished quite a bit today.  I had an appointment in the morning, got a bit of work done before lunch, drove down to my cousin's work and he treated me and a coworker to lunch (I ate a hamburger so big it probably took a week off my life [the worst week, though]), and then we went down to Ryan's childhood home to help his dad re-sod the front lawn.  It was dirty, sweaty work, and Uncle Jerry had allotted both this afternoon and tomorrow morning to getting it done . . . but the four of us managed to get the whole thing finished today.*

While Ryan was driving us down, I had texted my sister to ask if she needed me to mow her lawn.  She said the front was fine, but the back needed it, so after Ryan drove us back up, I went to her house and tackled the back lawn, which is really quite large, but she lets it get so overgrown that every time I mow, I have to empty the bag two or three times (and the first time was one of the hardest mowing jobs I've ever done, with the mower conking out every three feet or so).  

While I mowed, I listened to Hasbro's Marvel Legends team livestream their action figure reveals, which is a fun passion of mine (I've probably given Hasbro as much money over the years as Cheech & Chong have their weed dealer).  When I was done, I was tired and in need of two showers, but I still hit the library right before it closed, and continued to work on "Balms & Sears," which has now crossed the seventy-thousand word mark.

And at the end of the night, I went on a run, just in case working in yards didn't count as exercise.  It was the last day of the month, after all.

Exercise: Yes (26)

*Except for the corners, which Jerry absolutely would not let us help him finish.  Finally, I said, "Why?  We're right here, we're already dirty--let's finish it."  And he said, "You don't understand, I want to finish it by myself."  I guess I don't understand, but we left him to it.

Podcast That Dares 36: The Voice In The Night

NOTE: Somehow, I missed posting this one back in September or so.  But it's here now, and that's all that matters.

Rish presents William Hope Hodgson's short story "The Voice In The Night," from 1907.  A mysterious unseen man has a tragic story to share with a pair of sailors, and now they're sharing it with you.

Complimentary seasickness pills available upon request.

To download the episode directly, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, by Crom, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "The Weird Kiwi Accent in the Night" Moretto.

9-29

 9-29

Often I mention cruddy emails in my Spam folder (I have 536 of them today), like the one that keeps warning me that my prostate is the size of a lemon.  Today's trashy Spam email had the delightful subject line of "Rishout, I pooped INSTANTLY thanks to this Japanese black candy!"  Sorry to be me, but can you imagine a candy (or pill or drink) that made you poop instantly?  Can you imagine the warnings on the bottle or wrapper, to only consume it whilst on the toilet?*

I came to the library for the first time in over a week, and immediately opened Wikipedia to the history of Hall & Oates.  But beyond that, I wrote up most of an author's note for "Balms & Sears," and boy, if I could just hand that book to someone else and say, "Take a look at this, let me know where I need to fix things, and get it out into the world without me ever having to touch it again," I think I'd leap at that.  I don't think the book is nearly as bad as "Hatchling" turned out, but as I have said before, I am a short story writer (if I'm a writer at all, and not just an awesome narrator), not a novelist.

Exercise: Yes (25)

*And it would have to say "whilst," just to class everything up.

My Voice On "My Clockwork Valentine" On HorrorAddicts

Now it's time has come to say goodbye to all our company.  I contributed my voice to "My Clockwork Valentine," the last one of the HorrorAddicts story presentations Emerian Rich asked me to do.  She works harder than an armless juggler, kids.

I voice a character pretty much exactly like me, a malevolent scheming villain with a Cajun accent, with designs on Blanche, a girl with a clockwork pacemaker.  Check it out HERE.

9-28

9-28

Still more green than orange.

When I first entered the canyon yesterday, I was shocked by how many of the trees have changed color, just in the week since I was here last.  Now, it's gray post-dawn out the window, and only two of the trees I see are still green--everything else is orange and yellow.  The way that some people react to pumpkin spice, and others react to the return of Mariah Carey's only good song, is how I react to the changing of the leaves.  I SHOULD embrace fall, because Halloween is right in the middle of it, but I don't.  Both I and my mother always associate autumn with oncoming winter, and we associate winter with oncoming death.

Because I went to sleep so early, I got up way early, which can be nice.  I got another half a chapter edited (I find that the few action-oriented chapters are the easiest for me to do, and require the fewest edits*), and then, frighteningly, I considered going back to bed.  It is only sixty degrees in here, so that might have something to do with it.  I made a fire in the stove, but it promptly went out.  Now the sun is coming up over the trees--that oughtta fix things.

Big Anklevich just put out his first short story collection, "Christmas Creatures" (either that or he's about to--the point is, he finished it), and like I guessed, it made me want to put out my own holiday collection.  But I'm just a little too busy right now--my deadline for Abbie is just over two weeks away.

For the first time this whole year, the family that owns the cabin next door brought their kids over while I've been here, and they have been out and about, shouting and calling each other racial slurs (though I suppose one could be called Mick, and the other . . .  Mike-with-a-K?).  Their grandfather rigged a zipline from the second-floor deck down onto the ground, and they were (loudly) bugging him to set it up for them . . . and then it started to rain.  It was just a drizzle, then it stopped, then it started again harder, then it slowed down, and those kids were so disappointed that . . . well, how terrible a person am I that I enjoyed the drama playing itself out while I watched in my blanket and pajama bottoms, farting and eating scrambled eggs?

Wait, don't answer that.  I know what kind of person would be like that.  I went to junior high with them.

Way more yellow than green.

I edited the best chapter of the book (I may ask Abbie to sit down with me and talk about it, depends on how harried and unhappy I am by the time I finish), and it took more than two hours . . . plus there were a couple of paragraphs ruined by the short in the microphone cable**.  I drank an energy drink (I've never really been a fan of those, being more of a soda guy, but I stole one off the set of the Christmas movie nobody cares to hear about, and I liked it so much, I bought a couple for days like today when I wake up early and are worried I'm going to crash), but it had so much caffeine, I can feel it giving me a headache.

I opened the next chapter, but maybe I should go upstairs and get a little exercise.

I did, in fact.  I went four miles on the bike, which is longer than I've ever gone before (guess that energy drink was good for something), and instead of being cold, I came down again with sweat all over my shirt, even dripping down my arms.  That can't be bad, can it?

I brought a number of DVDs to the cabin with me this week, including the original TRON, JEREMIAH JOHNSON, and the new PLANET OF THE APES Trilogy . . . but I didn't end up watching any of them.  Time just ran out, or I was much more dedicated to editing than before.  Ah well, there's next week, I imagine.

Exercise: Yes (24)

*Oh, don't get me wrong, I still have mistakes and mouth sounds even in those, but I guess I'm more confident doing action, because I do fewer takes and screw up a little bit less.  I am often reminded of the times Renee Chambliss told me that she edits out her errors as she records (I am simply incapable of doing that), so that when she reaches the end, she's done.  And when I asked her, "What about the mistakes you're not aware that you've made?" she told me she didn't worry about those.  I guess it's a different style (like those actors who simply switch on their acting versus the ones who stay in character even between set-ups), except Renee makes her living with audiobooks (putting out a dozen or more a year) and I don't (I'm lucky if I get two).

**I DID order and receive a new one, and this one was six feet long instead of six inches.

9-27

9-27

I came up to the cabin last week to find about half a dozen flies buzzing around the windows.  I was reminded of a visit last year when there had been dozens, and was grateful we didn't get a repeat of that (we'd bought a couple of those gross fly strips to hang, and those are always unpleasant).  Today, however, I found at least a hundred crawling along the window, and the next window, and the next window.  Had someone left a door open or something? I wondered, and when I went upstairs, there were a hundred more up there, except I can't reach the upstairs windows.  I swatted as many as I could, then sucked them all up in the little hand vaccuum, and dropped them in the toilet so you could see:

But that only got about half of them.  They keep buzzing and clicking the glass, trying to get out, I assume, but maybe not--multitudes of insects keep flying into the windows from outside, as though they can hear their cousins in here, and want to join them.  It's so strange.

It's a couple hours later, and while I was killing flies for the seventh or eighth time today, I remembered last year finding a bunch of them in the space at the top of the back door, so I opened it . . .

And there were HUNDREDS of flies clustered there, in every available space between.  It was horror movie stuff.  I did vacuum up another fifty or more, but with the door open, they could just fly outside and to freedom.  The ones that flew into the cabin I eventually swatted (unless they went up to the roof, which I might go at tomorrow using a ladder and the vacuum).  I edited two more chapters in the book (I'm more than halfway through now--though just barely--and I found three more Thistle lines I'll have to replace when I get home), but damned if I couldn't hear the flies buzzing in the windows the whole time, driving me to distraction.

I went for my run, and it was in the upper fifties outside.  I wondered if I should make a fire in the stove, but last week, it was in the forties, so I'm not going to bother.

Somewhere around 10:30, I started getting tired.  I was falling asleep while editing by eleven.  I even closed my eyes while typing this.

What a strange phenomenon . . . I'm going to bed now.  Hopefully, I'll wake up all the earlier and get some more work done.

Exercise: Yes (23)

9-26

So, for the first time since last Wednesday, I hit the library, with a bit of extra time to spare, and did what I could to write.  One of my goals this month was to finish either "The Washer Whispers," which I reckon is about two-thirds done, or "Balms & Sears," which is nearly--94 to 96%--done.  I chose the latter, and remembered back in August that I'd gotten an idea for a little page long prologue, so I wrote that bit, and with around five minutes left before they kicked us out, I tackled the very last bit of the story.  I wrote about two paragraphs, and then typed "the end," always in lowercase, as is my custom.  They did make their announcement as I was saving the file, and emailed it to myself, suddenly afraid that all the work I'd done would be lost if I didn't get it sent to me in time, and then left for home, where I recorded with Marshal Latham for a little while.  

Then it was up to me to achieve what I'd failed to do the night before: finish Abbie's book.  I had one and a half chapters to record, as well as the author's note (I also had told my five year old nephew that I would draw him a turtle for his preschool class, the blank piece of paper right on my desk to remind me).  Well, I didn't struggle with sleep this time, and got through all of it, including the re-lines of Thistle for Chapter 15, the author's note, and the copyright for the end.  I was thrilled at my accomplishment*, checked the clock (it was about five minutes to two), and happily dismantled my microphone, drank some water, checked my emails, and went to sleep, a job well done.

Except my nephew Taysom's turtle picture.  I'd blown it on that.

Hey, I'm exactly at the halfway point!

26 / 52

Exercise: Yes (22)

*Of course, the editing will be hellish, and I'll probably have to scramble to make the deadline, despite all this September productivity.

9-24 and 9-25

9-24

Today was the last day of the convention.  Boy, I spent so much money this weekend.  But really, what was I gonna do, SAVE it??

I got to see Kevin Smith again, for the first time in a number of years, and he's same as he ever was (just not as fat): a super-profane, uniquely-positive dude that is a natural entertainer.  He told the story of collaborating with his daughter on a script for a revival of a girls' toyline from the 1980s, and how he got the idea to write the scenes set in the Eighties, while his daughter wrote the scenes set today.  But he writes fast and she writes slow (if she writes at all), and Kevin asked her if he could take a crack at writing one of the 21st Century scenes.  But when his daughter read it, she told him he had no idea how young people spoke or interacted today, and that it sounded like the dialogue had been written by an old person.

This was chilling to hear.  The vast majority of stories and books I write have young protagonists, either teenagers or children, and I'm only a couple of grades younger than Kevin is.  So do I sound like a grandfather when I write a scene of Lara Demming in high school?

My cousin's oldest daughter talked a mile a minute virtually the whole time she was in the car with us, until her father told her she had to stop so we could talk about tomorrow's schedule, but that anecdote Kevin told was something I really wanted to chat with her about, since she is young and I . . . well, I am not.

I was getting gas and I saw this sticker suck to the top of the pump:

Guys, guys, you need to take the anti-Biden stickers THE MOMENT the gas prices start to go down.  God forbid someone think you mean that he was responsible for them falling, instead of just rising.  Be a bit more consistent with your political vandalism, friends.

Exercise: Yes (20)

9-25

We had our last family get-together in the park this afternoon, and while my mom had made herself some kind of ghastly diet chopped fruit and salad dressing bowl, I stopped at Subway to pick up a sandwich.  But when I walked in, I saw something strange: the kid behind the counter was wearing a blindfold, and was making a sandwich for himself totally blind.  It was entertaining--either the kid had been dared by his coworkers, or he'd just volunteered to try it himself--and after I ordered mine, the still-blindfolded kid asked if I wanted him to make me one, free of charge.  So, I watched the guy try--and fail--to put the right meat, cheese, and toppings on the bread--and then get it in the toaster and out again without getting burned.  The sandwich, which he tried unsuccessfully to wrap up and tape, looked absolutely horrendous, and when I took it to the park, everyone commented on what an ugly job the guy had done, but I was happy to tell the story over and over as new people arrived.  Heck maybe I'll tell it on my Patreon Address in October.

Sometimes, I'm not the world's smartest bear.  When I was working on the Christmas movie the other night with my nephew*, a star, brighter than all the others became visible in the sky, and one of the other extras got his phone out to identify it (he had one of those apps that you point at the night sky, and it tells you what constellation you're looking at**).  And when he said, "Oh, that's Jupiter we're looking at," I said to my nephew, "Cool, that's the one with all the rings."

I recorded another podcast with Big (I think that makes four in a row), and then, I sat down to finish up Abigail Hilton's book.  Yes, you heard right--if I worked hard, I would be able to get to the end of the book (except for the Author's Note and retakes, that is).  And about twenty-five minutes into the recording . . . I started to fall asleep.

Now, I desperately didn't want this to happen.  I knew that if I just applied myself, and went for another hour, I'd have accomplished another of my goals for the month (not to mention getting that much closer to reaching my deadline with Abbie, and being able to die calling myself a man), but nothing helped.  I stopped and got a drink of water, I slapped myself heavily on the face (hopefully, that neat sound effect was recorded for posterity), and I cursed the very ground I walked on . . . but I just couldn't do it.  Every other paragraph I'd have to go back and do again, and so, sadly, I stopped in the middle of the second-to-last chapter, and thrust myself onto my bed, where all good things go to die.

Exercise: Yes (21)

*I still haven't heard from a single damn person who wanted me to talk about that experience, by the way.

**Oddly enough, if you point your phone at someone during the day, that same app will tell you when and where that person is going to die.  Fun at parties, I guarantee you.

Rish Outcast 230: Step-Dads & Adopted Fathers

 Marshal Latham joins Rish in talking about the depiction of step- and adopted parents.

To Download the Step-Episode, just Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, Step-Click HERE.

Step-Logo by Gino "Wicked Stepbrother" Moretto.

9-21 to 9-23

9-21

I saw a lady coming out of the pet store yesterday with a German Shepherd on a leash.  The dog--my favorite kind of dog--was big and friendly-looking, with a wagging tail the size of the entirety of my mother's dog Remi.  I was walking back to my car, and I started to think of that story I wrote ("Rest Stop," I think it was called), where the dude wanders out into the snow after his dog, and encounters a witch or the ghost of a witch or something.  And I wondered if it might be worth it to follow up that story, to find out what became of that guy (Jordan, his name was), after his little run-in (literally) with the supernatural.  And I thought of that old line from The Talisman, the one that goes, "What does it profit a man if he should gain the entire world, but lose his soul?" (I'm pretty sure that's from an old radio serial, probably "The Shadow"), and thought that would be a fun angle: that due to his encounter with Evil undying, he now has incredibly good luck in his new life (was it Montana he was moving to?) . . . but none of it brings him happiness, because, to paraphrasing an old saying, his soul just isn't in it.  Who knows if I'll write that, but I thought maybe I'd have him team up with Will Choner in tracking down something valuable and lost, perhaps just a hiker who ends up off the trail out in the Rocky Mountains.  

Got one more chapter edited.  And I finished the Outcast that Big and I recorded a few weeks back (unfortunately, I kept cutting out mouth sounds as I went, despite NEVER bothering with that before, which kept things slow-going).  Guess that'll wait for October. 

I did a couple of miles on the exercise bike.  It's fun to try to see how long I can peddle as hard as I can.  My record is, um, about seven seconds.

It's been raining for hours, and it's so dark outside, I keep thinking I ought to head home (long before I normally do).  Thing is, if I took off now, got gas, maybe stopped at the storage unit or took a shower, I could still hit the library, then head down to my cousin's when it closed.  That sounds like a pretty full day, except it's cold enough that I feel like sitting here a while longer.  I think I'll edit (some of) another story I recorded last year.  

Well, that was a bust.  I lasted about five minutes before I thought, "This one's a stinker, isn't it?  Is there any point in doing the edit if I'm not running the story on my show?"  Only YOU can answer that one, friend.

I realized that the month is almost over and I haven't done a "Rish On Records" piece this month.  It's something I put out on my Patreon twice previous, and Gino Moretto even made me a cover for it:

So, I got one I recorded in August and started the edit, but then I looked at the clock, and an hour had passed, so I decided to pack it all in and say goodbye for another week.

Exercise: Yes (18)

9-22

Every year, there's a comic convention out of town that my cousin and I go to.  Each and every year, he brings his kids and I bring my nephews, and by the last day, Ryan proclaims, "Next year, none of you will be invited, since you can't behave yourselves."

There are worse things out tonight than vampires.

Exercise: Yes (19)

9-23

Every year, my cousin and I go to the local comic-convention (I guess I already mentioned that).  And it occurs to me that, in all the years Big lived here, the two of us only ever went to it together once (I remember because he ended up locking his keys in his car and after we asked a pair of local prostitutes if they would give us a ride, Big's wife had to drive over to bail us out).  This was more fun than the last couple of cons, even though I spent way more money, and my nephews found way less stuff they were interested in.

My cousin took all three of his daughters all three days, as well as their cousin, and I took my two older nephews all three days.  We chatted with a few vendors about what their lives are like (going from convention to convention, selling their wares), and artist Jason Palmer told me about his encounters with celebrities over the years (he wouldn't tell me if he was working on any official artwork for INDIANA JONES 5, so that can only mean one thing).  

I think my favorite conversation was with a dude selling high-end comic books (for example, he had the first issue of X-men for $15,000).  I asked him questions about scarcity and where he gets his books (most common answer: angry ex-wives or -girlfriends), told the story I always tell about the New Jersey family that found a copy of Action Comics 1 inside their wall--being used as insulation), and whether appearances by characters in the MCU and other films makes books' values skyrocket.  The guy was really personable and friendly, and didn't mind talking to me for an hour despite me not buying anything, and now I wish I'd asked him if he'd let me interview him on his podcast.  

I went to many, many panels (the first day, we skipped a few, but once the kids started getting tired, we went to them just to sit down), and had a good time watching Jodie Benson sing "Part of Your World" and listening to Bill Shatner talk about going into space and seeing the earth down below.  If this is the last con I go to, it was a fine one.

I climbed a bunch of stairs today, but I'm not counting it as exercise.  Ultimately, I was just too tired at the end of the day to go for a run or even do push-ups like I did yesterday.  I think about Big A., who has to write 1000 words every day, and I cannot imagine having to do that tonight.  It would be like passing a kidney st--no, it would be like CHOOSING to pass a kidney stone.  A better man than me, I guess, but I'm going to sleep.

Exercise: No

9-20

 9-20

It's my nephew Kaysen's twelfth birthday today.  I've been calling him twelve for almost a year.  Usually, I go to my cousin's house on Tuesday nights, but since three episodes of "Cassian Andor" are dropping at one am tonight, we had figured we'd watch one of them, and call it a night.  I have to go out of town on Thursday, so that means I can't go to the cabin tomorrow.  But I got an idea: what if I went to the cabin today, got some editing done, and went to my cousin's tomorrow night, and we could watch all three "Andors," and I could also do the cabin thing?

So I did.

It seems somehow responsible, even though going to the cabin is pretty indulgent (once again, no one has been here since I visited last, making me wonder why I bother packing up all my food and bedding and suitcase and such).  

There was a deer out front, eating leaves where my oldest nephew makes his campfires, and when I stepped out and took a picture of it, it took off like a bat out of that town in Texas near Big Anklevich that has thousands of bats.  And it hurt my feelings.  "Why do you recoil?  I am no thief."

I got one chapter finished (there was a bit where Arcove was supposed to say "Roup," slowly, and I must've recorded myself saying it a dozen times, not able to figure out how to make that single syllable slow AND in Arcove's voice . . . and only then did I realize that Abbie had actually written "Roup, Arcove said softly"), started on a second one, and am going to put in relines in a third (one of the episodes had about five moments when the short in the microphone cord ruined the audio for a line or two).  That feels pretty productive--and there's an hour or so before I usually go on my run.*  

Now, it is pouring rain, though.  The sky is that sickly yellow color that happens up here when it rains, but never does at home.  It's pretty darn cold out, and I've put on long pants instead of shorts, and am thinking of building a fire again tonight (a skill of which I've never really gotten the hang**).  Now the rain has stopped, and I know I should head out before it gets dark, but we've gotten to a pretty good part of the book, and I'm eager to at least finish the chapter (even if it means I'll be driving to the dam in the dark***).  Abbie just used one of my favorite words, "transitory."  I've never used it myself, but I still remember the night, back in September of 1989, when I heard that word for the first time.

I replaced the lines in a chapter, only to discover another bit that'll have to be replaced, and started on yet another chapter.  I had felt like I was being irresponsible and indulgent by coming here today, but I've gotten more audio editing done this afternoon/night than I have the past five days put together.

As a reward (or maybe I should say, a "reward") I put on another movie I got from the library, JUPITER ASCENDING, starring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum.  

It was an amazingly inventive Sci-Fi adventure flick, and the two leads were quite good (especially in comparison to the two leads in last week's movie), but I gotta say, every single time there was an action sequence, I mentally checked out, and couldn't follow any of what was going on onscreen.  The first time it happened, I thought it must just be me, but it kept happening, over and over, and I noticed that, even though the special effects were splendid and ultra-realistic, they were shot in a way that was virtually incomprehensible, with just noise and flashes of light going on.  Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't as badly directed as a Michael Bay action scene, but directing action must be a hard, hard thing.  Last week's movie (VALERIAN), as flawed as it was, was better than this, and I feel like TRON 2, which I watched three or four weeks ago, was better than both of them (though I wouldn't characterize any of them as Good).  Also, characters were introduced, then discarded for the rest of the film, leading me to think that either a) this was originally a much longer film, and hacked way down for a shorter running time, or b) much like Rish Outfield writing a novel, it was made by someone who had no idea what they were doing.  Since the Wachowskis have to have made at least one great movie in their careers (I've heard good things about SPEED RACER, so who knows?), I'll chalk it up to studio interference.  Mila Kunis was neat-looking, though.  I wonder what became of her.**** 

I remembered my self-suggestion to start doing sit-ups again (jeez, was that only yesterday?), and forced myself to lie down on the hard wooden floor and do fifty sit-ups just now.  I cannot believe that I did that sort of thing every day for a year.  Can you?

Exercise: Yes (17)

*Honestly, running along the dam until my breath won't catch is preferable than cutting out hundreds of little mouth sounds, some of which don't even show up on the waveform.

**Here's a bit of a digression: a couple of years back, there was a sudden deepfreeze at the end of October, and my brother-and-law and I came up here to thaw everything out and drain all the pipes, in case any of them were about to burst.  And while my job was to find as many containers to fill with water we could boil, he started a fire in the stove, and got it blazing so hot that we had to open the doors and windows in below-freezing weather, and it melted the buckets and garbage cans I had filled with water to heat up around the stove.  That dude knows how to make a fire.

***That reminds me, I saw what I thought was a dead cow alongside the road on my way here this afternoon.  But as I passed it, I saw that it was an elk someone had struck and killed with their car . . . and then cut off the antlers (what would you use for something like that?  Bolt-cutters?  A chainsaw?), and left the rest of the gigantic animal to rot.  I feel like you could destroy a Hummer if you crashed into one of those.

****Maybe someone else saw her embarrassing performance in the Oz prequel, and stuck her in director jail along with Sam Raimi, who only recently got paroled.

9-18 & 9-19

9-18

I'm a big Kevin Smith fan, and he's made a third CLERKS film.  But the only way to see it would be to pay the crazy Fathom Events prices, and see it during the one week it's available (which I believe is more than it was supposed to be--there was enough interest they expanded the showings).  I absolutely love CLERKS, and really, really like CLERKS II, so, at the last minute, I drove over to the theater to see CLERKS III.  

And . . . shoot, I guess I hated it.  It's hard to put my finger on what I felt, exactly, except that it didn't strike me as particularly funny, wasn't at all inspired, and made me much sadder than I would've expected.  He brought back nearly everyone who worked on the first one in 1993, even the bit parts from non-actors in Leonardo, New Jersey . . . but I felt like all of that was somehow pandering instead of sincere.  And then putting so much dramatic weight on poor Bryan O'Halloran (Jeff Anderson got to do pretty much what he did in the first one, only a bit douchier) was kind of hard to watch (when a real actor like Rosario Dawson shows up, it's practically night and day), and the sheer mountain of callbacks was practically overwhelming.  Anyway, I went home, and had to go for a run just to feel alive again.

Even though I've gone running the last few nights, I do find myself pausing at some point before I get home, either to catch my breath, or put on a new YouTube video.  Tonight, I vowed I would not stop, for any reason (just to see if I could), and deliberately chose a forty-one minute YouTube video, so I wouldn't have the excuse of stopping for another one.

I did quite well, until my phone, at the fifteen minute mark, shut itself off due to inactivity.  I tried not to stop as I fished my phone out of my pocket and woke it up again, but in the seconds it took me to not only unlock the phone, but start up the video again, I technically had failed in my vow.  Chalupa for you, but not for me.  Not tonight.

Exercise: Yes (15)

9-19

I may not have mentioned this before, but I am feeling really weird about going to Europe next month.  I keep getting this overwhelming feeling that I don't DESERVE to go on this most-expenses-paid vacation (hell, Jeff's already getting tickets to fudgin' Disneyland, so it really WILL be all-expenses paid if I don't stop him), and it's somehow sinful of me.*  So, when I saw a bunch of books at the Savers thrift shop yesterday that I knew Jeff would want, I took a photo of them to send, and when he said, "I feel bad asking you to buy them," I said, "Well, I AM coming to visit you in a month," so I drove all the way back and bought them for him.  Not that that comes anywhere near paying him back--I mean, he's flying me to a land where people sometimes start sentences with "Oy," for Bossk's sake--but it was the least I could do.

And speaking of doing the very least: I had the option of going to the library tonight and trying to get some writing done, but for once, I chose not to.  I instead went on my run early, and sat down to record more chapters of the audiobook.  I'm nearly there, and it helps that the last few sections seem to be shorter than most.  Once I get the book done (I'll still have to record the Author's Note, I believe--I have the others--but I'll have to ask Abbie), I am going to go all the way back to the beginning and re-record all the lines of dialogue for a particular character, because I could never remember how I voiced him (it's a character that speaks once every six or eight chapters).  Then, I'll have to edit it all, of course, and re-record the parts I messed up on (there are always some . . . you do it too, you know), and then, I guess I'll be done.  Dare to dream.

My Aunt Blanca came over for Sunday dinner, and mentioned that I looked like I was in good shape.  It was a nice thing to say, because a) a year ago, I was still doing push-ups and sit-ups every day, and b) I'm heavier today than I've ever been.  I was trying to get healthier in preparation for my trip overseas, where I only assume that I'll be walking around all the time.  Guess I should start doing sit-ups again, huh?

Exercise: Yes (16)

*I realize that's a crazy bullshit word for me to use, but that's how it feels.  It's like, when my grandmother died in 1996, and I realized the last time I'd spoken to her was to ask her to use her car, having totalled my own one (jeez, I can't even remember what kind of car it was).  It feels morally wrong somehow, taking advantage of somebody in a compromised position.

9-16 & 9-17

9-16

There's this guy I know, Terry, who I'm sure I've never mentioned before.  He's a big, jovial guy with a Santa-like beard and a Santa-like belly, and what I know him for best is telling jokes.  He's probably told me twenty over the past five years, and of those, my favorite is, "I asked my wife last night if I was the only one she'd ever been with.  She said, 'No, the rest were all nines or tens.'"  But I had this idea that, in the story I'm writing for Marshal about the good stepdad, that the guy could tell a joke to break the ice with the boy, so I approached Terry, and asked him if he had a joke for me.*  I figured, whether it was good or bad, I would use it in the story.  Terry goes, "How do you think the unthinkable?"  Maybe you already know the punchline, but no, it was not a good joke.

I went to the library with only a little time to write, wrote barely two hundred words, and called it quits.  No big deal--I'll focus on recording tonight.

It had been threatening rain all day today, and as I looked up at the sky, I saw an amazing electrical storm, with lightning criss-crossing the sky and going off every other second or so.  It increased, getting brighter and brighter, and once I started noticing multiple lightning streaks at the same time, i decided the time to go on my run had come, even if it was just to the overlook three blocks away, so I could watch the storm.

Because Big Anklevich was headed home from work at the time, I decided to call him and bother him about it.  I was impressed with myself for choosing to exercise when everybody else was running for shelter . . . until the rain started to pour down, veritably pissing down like almost never happens outside of the movies.  And I was out in it.  Who felt bold and cool now?

Exercise: Yes (13)

9-17

I took my nephew out to catch minnows in the pond yesterday, and today, he wanted to order a metal contraption made for that purpose for fourteen dollars.  I still had to re-order a microphone cord (the damn thing was shorting during last night's recording session--and man, I am getting seriously close to finishing the easy part of the book), so I added that to the order.  But it still wasn't enough for the free shipping, so I ordered the new Stephen King book, even though I won't get it read until November at the soonest (I suppose I could take it with me to Europe, I'll have to ask Jeff).

Still moving pretty slowly, as far as the editing goes (the recording, however, is kicking all kinds of arse).  Here's where we stand:

19 / 52

I went to the library and actually worked on one of the two projects I vowed I'd finish this month, "The Washer Whispers."  I wrote on it for a little while, and it occurred to me, I don't know how this story is supposed to end.  I will have to think about it, especially if I'm supposed to finish it in the next thirteen days.   

Exercise: Yes (14)

*Much like Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS, I think he's here to amuse me, like a clown or something.  But he doesn't always have a joke.  Sometimes he just tells me to take a good look in the mirror sometime, if I want to see a real corker.

9/14 & 9/15

9-14

It had been raining today and last night, to the point where everybody but my cousin put on long pants instead of shorts, and I knew the cabin would be even cooler, so I took a jacket.  And yeah, it's cold up here--in the fifties during the day, the forties during the night, and I not only put on my jacket around the cabin, but I slept in it as well.

I was pretty tired when I arrived, and started editing audio as soon as I'd had my stuff brought upstairs . . . but couldn't keep my eyes open.  So I laid down on the couch, set the timer on my phone, and napped for a few minutes.  And now I'm back, baby, with energy to spare!  Okay, not to spare, but with energy sufficient to accomplish a bit more editing.

It was the hardest chapter (for me to record) in the whole book, and the editing was actually easier--although there were two lines that were Halvery's that I delivered in Roup's voice, so I'll have to do them over again.*

When editing Abbie's book got too hard, I'd switch over to an Outcast that I recorded with Big Anklevich (probably won't drop until October now), because it's so much less labor-intensive, but I found myself noticing mouth sounds or breaths that Big and I made, and cut out two or three of them before I realized I didn't have to.

I got a chapter edited, then recorded Frank Sinatra lines for Big's podcast.  And man o' man, was he foolish to have me voice that character.  Oh, not because I do a bad job, bucko--hell no, I'm firing on all cylinders there.  But because now I can't stop talking like Frank Sinatra, even as I walk around the cabin, worried that it's gonna be miserable cold once it gets dark.  But that's what the Big Man made long-sleeved shirts for, ain't it, sister?

For an upcoming episode of my movie review podcast with Marshal, I grabbed VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND WORLDS (still hard to get my mouth around that title) from the library, along with JUPITER ASCENDING, two massive Sci-Fi flops from the last decade, both of which I heard were pretty bad.  By the time he and I get around to talking about it, I'm not going to remember anything about it, except how disastrous the casting was.  Sigh.

Exercise: Yes (11)

9-15

That's it, middle of the month (already).  Everybody out of the pool.

Okay, that's not true.  It's more that the lifeguard blew the whistle and shouted, "Fifteen minutes!" to let the kids know that the fun is ending soon--you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here (at least not like fat Rodney Punder, who they found floating at the bottom of the deep end at the beginning of the summer, causing them to close the pool for nearly two months out of some kind of misbegotten respect for the dead).

Exercise: Yes (12)

*Maybe no one else would notice, but hey, maybe they would.

9-12 & 9-13

I've now got a couple more files to Abbie, putting me at:

18 / 52

By my math, that means I'm just over one-third of the way done.  If I get as much edited this week as I did last week, I'll be at halfway by this time next week.

 Big says the Dunesteef feed expires in twelve days, so, FYI.

My cousin called me just as I was coming up the stairs at the library, so I was pretty rushed for time when I finally sat down.  Big Anklevich mocked me with his sickening number of words for today, so I put my head down and typed as fast as I could.

And kind of a miracle, I managed 1782 words.

Exercise: Yes (10)

9-13

You know, it's been a while (how long?  Shrug, a few months probably) since I was here at the library writing and due to something--a computer crash, them logging me out six or seven minutes early, a mentally ill person calling me Sigmund Freud and then throwing a copy of Biblical Archeology Review magazine at me, etc.--I lost everything I had written.  But I've got a feeling (woo-hoo) that it's gonna be today.

So, what can I do?  Maybe paste everything I've written into an email every ten minutes or so?  Oh, I'll do that thing I did yesterday where I text Big Anklevich what my word count it, as though it's a competition . . . and every time I do that, I will paste what I've written in this email to myself.  Cool plan, Jan.

You might not believe this--I certainly don't--but I got 3250 words.  By the time they did their jarring announcement, I had already typed "the end," in lowercase letters, like I always do.  Pretty cool, even if the story isn't.

I don't know what came over me, but as the clock got nearer and nearer to the moment they would kick us out of the library, I became fixated on finishing the story by then.  And either the ticking clock motivated me, or thinking about the story while mowing the lawn and exercising helped me, because I blew any previous writing productivity away.

The bad news was, I had spent my free time writing, so I wouldn't have time to go home and eat AND get some exercise in before driving down to my cousin's.  I could do one or the other.  So, I chose to eat, but I figured I could do a bunch of push-ups and sit-ups in the living room while I waited for my food to cook.  Except my sister was in the living room, watching something on her laptop, and the days of me getting my exercise in with other people around have apparently fled me.  So, no exercise (even though I used to do some at my cousin's house while he was upstairs tucking his youngest daughter and wife into bed, and it didn't even occur to me to do it tonight).

Exercise: No

9-10 and 9-11

9-10

I saw a car in the Target parking lot, with "Help Me!" written on the windows, front, sides, and back.  Kind of upsetting, I dunno.

Horror of horrors, I caught myself in the reflection

Just a reminder, my goal is to get the whole "Arcove's" book recorded this month (I'm well on my way), to exercise twenty-five days, and to finish one of my writing projects.

Exercise: Yes (went for a run)(8)

9-11

I drove up to the city today and found myself in a part of town I didn't recognize it (directions have never been my strong suit, as Big can attest with the many, many, many times I've referred to cities we were in by the wrong names), and asked my phone to direct me to the nearest Burger King.  The effing thing first tried to take me forty-two miles out of my way, so I had to ask it again and again, ultimately finding a street sign and telling it to find the nearest Burger King from there.

It told me, I drove up there, parked, got out of my car, and walked up to find . . . a sign on the door that said they were out of meat.  The door to the lobby was locked, so I trudged back to my car just as a pretty twenty-something pulled up in her little car.  "Hey, it's closed," I warned her.  "There's a sign that says they have no meat."  She didn't even hesitate, instead telling me, "I'll just get nuggets," and walking up to the building . . . where an employee inside the restaurant opened the door for her.  It sort of blew my mind, and as I followed my phone to the NEXT-closest Burger King, I kept thinking about what had just happened.

I ended up sitting in the other Burger King--in a neighborhood where English was clearly not the native language and it took me fifteen minutes to get my meal even though no one else was in line with me--trying to come up with a story where I could talk about Burger King having no meat.*  Ultimately, it came to me: I could write a story where a man takes his new stepson out for lunch to get to know him, and when they get there, the restaurant is out of meat.  That would click the box for the plan I had made about depicting a positive step-parent/step-child relationship.

I ended up writing two sentences on it when I got home before being distracted with something else (my eleven year old nephew had gotten a ball or something stuck on the roof and had gotten his also-eleven year old friend to carry a ladder onto the back deck so they could climb up on the roof to get it).  But it's the thought that counts, as always.

Later on, I had the option between going on a run and recording more chapters of "Arcove's Bright Side."  Ultimately, I chose . . . both.

Exercise: Yes (9)

*I actually had this happen one time before, when a big group of us went to the amusement park up north, and all met at Burger King to eat, only to find they were out of all meat, including chicken (didn't ask about the nuggets, though).

Rish Outcast 229: Whatchoo Leave Behind

In this ep, I talk a bit about a dead collector, and then lay out my plans for the end of October/start of November.

Sorry about the title.

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Whatta Behind" Moretto.

9-8 & 9/9

9-8

The other day, Big texted me to remind me that September was almost over--how fast the time flies--and I almost gave into despair, since I hadn't written a single word this month (I last went to the library on August 30th).  He was only joking, of course, since September had just begun, but hey, now we're a week in, and the next time I blink, he'll be right.

Soon it'll be time to pack it in and head on back, and I got three episodes edited on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, and one today (so far), along with an Outcast.

I guess I'd better go outside and pick up that pan of water I left for the deer--I never saw a single solitary creature, from deer to ground squirrel, drink from it, but I've always felt that it's the thought that counts, no matter what the Satanic Bible teaches us.

I went out, and there were a couple of bugs in the water (now only halfway full), and some blown pollen, but of course there was no evidence that animals had gathered round it and thought, "Gee, maybe them human beings ain't so bad after all.  Maybe we'll call off our murder plans."

But I noticed my brother's motion-activated camera nearby, pointed in the direction of the cabin, and wondered if it had caught anything approaching the pan and drinking from it.  So I got out the memory card to look at in my laptop* and . . . huh.  It was empty.  I'll have to ask my brother about it, but both it and the one nearer to the cabin, had been turned off.  Disappointing, yes, though not as disappointing as I was to my parents.

Okay, I finished editing another chapter, and the reading of a story I recorded back in November, and as a "reward," I went upstairs with my Houdini book, determined to finish it whilst on the exercise bike.  To my surprise, there was only one chapter left, and then acknowledgments, so I was done before I knew it.  Now I'm back downstairs, considering starting another chapter of Abbie's book (ultimately, I did--it was a short one), or starting to edit the podcast I recorded with Big Anklevich two days ag--wait, how can it be two weeks ago now?  Where the devil does the time go??

This is going to sound crazy, but I think I'm gonna pack up early, head down, check to see that my appointment is still on for tomorrow morning (it's 60/40 in my mind), get home, shower, and hit the library before it closes, see if I can't get a few hundred words.  That strikes me as both responsible and ambitious . . . in other words, completely out of character.

Only got 361 words before they kicked us out.  But that's 361 more words than I had yesterday.

Exercise Day: Yes (7)

9-9

"Loneliness and frustration,

We both came down with an acute case."

Warren Zevon

I got a couple more chapters in the 'box for Abbie.  That puts this crazy graph at:

14 / 52

This is another one of those days where I absolutely don't want to write, and the difference between today and all those other days . . . is that I don't have to write today.  I'm under no obligation to do so.  I'm editing audio and exercising this month, not writing.  So yay.

I only got 179 words, but the worst thing is, right before they did their little announcement, I started getting into it, enjoying the writing.  Funny that.

Exercise Day: No (7)

*I know I've said this before--heck, after a thousand blog posts in the past three years, I've said just about everything, including the new dirty word "grundle," which I vow to insert in 2023 stories as inappropriately as I do "Joanie Loves Chachi" now--but in looking through my brother's photos, I get this fun idea for a movie scene, where you're going through the pictures, and discover two or three of them have captured some . . . thing that's been lurking about unnoticed, causing a nice, upsetting moment in the film.  Today's version was a guy who meets a girl who freaks out when he speaks to her, tries to run away, and he begins to suspect that she is an honest-to-badness ghost.  But hey, there's one of those motion-detecting cameras on a wall or tree, and he retrieves the photos to prove his theory to himself . . . and only the girl is in them.  Whoops, he realizes at last, she was freaked out not because I could see her, but because she could see me.

My Voice on "Mowbot" on HorrorAddicts

Once again, I contribute a voice (or two) to the tireless Horror Addicts podcast.  This time, it's for the story "Mowbot," written by Dana Hammer (how cool a name is that?  More a private detective or professional wrestler name, do you think?).  

Here's a question: Would you spend three thousand dollars for a lawn mower that ran itself, maintained itself, and could think for itself?  And what if the neighbor's cat disappeared a day later?

Check it out HERE.

9-6 & 9-7

9-6

My cousin went on vacation with his family over the weekend, and that meant we wouldn't be getting together tonight, so I decided to pack up my stuff and hit the cabin a day early, and see if I couldn't get some more editing done.  I keep forgetting to post the little progress bars on here, but you would not be impressed if I did it every day because, while I'm kicking names and taking ass as far as the recordings go (I think I'm thirty-six chapters in), I find it almost torturous to get the chapters edited.  Every time my mouth makes that little clicking sound when I talk or I say "Roup," and the P at the end is too poppy, I have to cut it out, and that means that each chapter takes . . . well, it's forever in there, Daddy, it's forever in there!!!!!!!

I went out on the dam and did my run (ooh, I'll get to do two this trip), and inhaled a bug which I didn't cough up until I was done.

I'm sitting here watching the near-full moon moving up the side of the window.  The weather is absolutely perfect here today, what I imagine a tropical island night would be, with pineapple-tasting drinks in coconuts and steel drum music in the distance and girls milling around with bikini tops on and almost glowing skin.

I got a chapter done, discovered I had mis-attributed a line to Halvery instead of Arcove, and opened another chapter.  I also edited about fifteen minutes of my conversation with Marshal about parenting. 

After that, I made myself the literal worst corn chowder I've ever had (it tasted like that time I accidentally bought a case of "diet" vegetable soup), and watched another movie from the library (which I haven't gone to in a full week now).  It was TENET, which was visually spectacular, but even more confusing, somehow, than it had been the first time (I always figured that, if I ever saw it a second time, it would make way more sense, but really, that just made the bits that didn't make sense stand out even clearer).  I hadn't hated the movie the first time I saw it, though I did speak to some who did, but I'm leaning more toward hating it now.  Huh.

At the end of the night, I went up on the deck and rode my exercise bike while looking at the stars.  There was a frog somewhere that was singing, and I kept hearing what sounded like a canine howling at the moon, but every time I'd stop peddling to listen closer, it would stop.  There's no way they have wolves up here, right?  Not with how gun-crazy folks were when it was settled (and still are).*

Exercise Day: Yes (5)

9-7

I woke before my alarm, but not very early.  I made myself some bacon and eggs just now, while I listened to a podcast, and looking out the window and saw a young fawn walking by itself on the neighbor's property.  Weirdly, I thought I might fill a tray or pan with water and take it over there, somewhere I can see from here, and observe whether the deer would drink the water I provide for them.  Heck, I'm gonna do that now.

I wonder if deer have a heightened sense of smell like other animals do, and wouldn't partake of the water because it stinks of humans.  In my experience, pretty and noble animals as they are, they don't strike me as smart enough to equate my gift with nasty, murderous humans.  We'll see.

I was asked to narrate another story for the Kaleidocast podcast, which I believe has run two of my readings in the past.  I took a break from audio editing to record it, and found it was the story of two alien intelligences who disagree about humanity, and ultimately battle for our fate.  I think I'll do a fun robot effect on their voices, and if you don't like that . . . well, you can have the Balzac.

Back to editing.  On the chapter I'm editing today, I can tell that it was the second or third chapter I had recorded that night, because my mouth is dry and some of the words are a bit more mealy-mouthed, a bit harder to get out.  I hope Abbie doesn't notice, not when a full THIRD of a chapter I was editing last night was unusable because of the frayed microphone cord and I'll have to re-do tomorrow, if I remember.

As the moon rose, it looked close to full to me, and before long, I could hear the owls starting to call . . . along with something else.  I only heard it twice before I decided the time had come to close the windows (so much for going out on the deck and riding the exercise bike, like I did last night).  The noise was unlike anything, really, and the scene just writes itself.  "Honey, what . . ."  Carl licked his lips.  "That sound?"  It came again, long and echoey, like a woman giving birth, if somehow she'd gotten pregnant at eighty.  "Yes?  What . . . is it?"  "That," Carl said, raising his chin, "is an elk, calling to a female.  They call it trumpeting."  "An elk," Marilyn said, relieved.  "Oh."  Carl nodded, keeping his confident, brave face.  He didn't think it was an elk.  He didn't know what it was.

Exercise Day: Yes (6)

*Just a reminder, good citizens, that if that terrible Obama is elected in 2008, he'll take away all your guns.

Eye-Opening Guest Appearance on Anklecast

If you miss the Dunesteef, Big Anklevich was better than his word, and to Announcer Man (who did NOT die), he became like a second father to him.  So over on the Anklecast, he had me as a guest, where I do a voice and participate in the after-story banter, just like old times.  His story was called "Eye-Opening," about a naive artificial child brought into a family to replace the biological child who died.  

He's got music, sound effects, and a full cast, including an honest-to-Bossk CHILD doing the child's voice.  Big cast me according to type, and I get to scream and rant and beat a child with a crowbar.  It really does feel like old times, even though it's Big this time trying to have a conversation with decade-old Announcer clips.  Check it out HERE.

9/5

Today was Labor Day, which gave me a chance to catch up on work, and, because the library and post office were both closed, let me focus on stuff other than work and writing.  Went for a run at night, and recorded two chapters of "Arcove," including probably the best chapter of the book, with two former enemies talking about their lives when they were young, and seeing the world the way the other did.  

And afterward, I watched EL CAMINO, the Netflix movie sequel to the series "Breaking Bad," which I'd never much cared about seeing before, but was sure glad I did, as it was excellent, and wrapped up the story of Jesse Pinkman just as "Better Call Saul" did with Saul Goodman.  It had a great pace, and made me care about the Jesse character, who I often struggled with on the show in a way that literally nobody else did.  I was glad I watched it, and it made me wish I were a real writer instead of just a bum, which is what I am.*

Of course, I then wasted, gee, a half hour or so reading posts of people either claiming or denying that Harry Styles spat on Chris Pine at a film festival in Venice.  I could've written something, I could've edited something, I could've read an article about Goya's fourteen "black paintings," I could've gone for a run, a walk, or a pee.  But I didn't.

Exercise Day: Yes (4)

*That reminds me, though: as down as I sometimes get (it's not really even that often anymore), I try to keep it to myself most of the time.  But the other day, I thought of Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster in BRIDE saying that he hated the living and loved the dead.  That moment kept echoing in my brain until I posted on Facebook an image of the Monster, and the quote.  Unfortunately, what he says in the movie is, "Hate living, love dead."  And after I posted that, I got a message from a girl I went to college with who interpreted it as some kind of cry for help (suicidal thoughts maybe) and asked me if I was alright.  It's not a huge thing, but I'm mentioning it anyway, because, hey.

9-3 & 9/4

9-3

I went on a trip with the family to the cabin, hoping to go catch salamanders with my nephews.  I will still try to edit a chapter (and my Patreon address, which is pretty overdue) tonight, after everyone has gone to sleep.

My sister got two used kayaks (a word I've never had to spell before today) and my nephew and I each took one out on the lake, which was busier than I've ever seen it before, with rafts and little boats and kids on inner tubes, and we paddled around, until he wanted to get out on the other side and see if we could find salamanders.  We had no luck, but after an hour of hunting, muddy and sore (there were so many scratchy plants and plenty of mosquitos), he stumbled upon a black, drying puddle, that had so many in it that you could catch them by accident.

I technically didn't work on "Arcove's Bright Side" today, except that I was listening through Chapter 8 to see if there were any errors I had missed (I keep missing mistakes--sometimes obvious ones--and sending them to Abbie, and then, oh, does that thunder roll*).

It was the first day this whole year in which the power ran out, with my mom running an electric cooler, my sister with her own, several lights on in different rooms, and my nephews watching MONSTERS INC. on the projector against the wall.  But my brother-in-law said it was me with my laptop plugged in that had drained the electricity, and voiced his displeasure about it.  Even though I try to get along with him, our relationship seems more and more strained lately, either because he's stressed all the time, my irritating ways have just about broken the camel's back, or he's just a tool.

Exercise Day: Yes (2)

*The thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes, another heart grows cold in the dead of night.

9-4

I went to sleep much, MUCH earlier than I usually do, having gotten so little sleep the night before, and getting lots of exercise during the day (paddling those oars is good arm work).  Then I woke up a bit after one, got up, and finished editing my Patreon address, and started on another chapter of the book.  When I could stand it no more, I went back to bed . . . but the children were up (and loud) at six-thirty in the morning.  Instead of lying there, hating them, I got up too, and finished editing Chapter 1 of "Arcove"--which isn't quite as pathetic as it sounds, since there are two parts of the book, wherein the numbering starts over again.  By 7:20am, I had it done, and typed this while Chapter 2 opens.

There was still no power this early in the day, the solar panels having to get an hour or so of sunlight before the batteries charged, so I took all the food from my mom's cooler and put it in my sister's, and used my laptop's battery instead of plugging it in until it reached about twenty percent.

We went out on the lake again for most of the afternoon (I had told my mom I would drive her home, and my sister's family could spend one more night here, wondering why the power runs out at seven when my computer hadn't been plugged in since four), and I got mightily sunburned.  I put sunscreen on my nose and cheeks, but my ears, forehead, arms, neck, and especially my legs were burned quite handily.  Over the next forty-eight hours, I used up half a bottle of aloe vera goo.

Once I got home, I Dropboxed two more chapters just now, bringing our fun graph to (a pathetic):

11 / 52

Exercise Day: Yes (3)

9/2

This was an extraordinarily busy day, and I'm still tired from it.  I worked, then mowed the lawn, then went to get my nephew out of school, because they emailed last night at 1:34am to tell us the calltime had been moved to one pm (from four pm).  The school secretary didn't ask my name or how I was connected to the boy, just went to the class and got him, then wanted to know details about the movie we were working on.  It's another Halmark Christmas movie, this one seemingly called THE HEART OF CHRISTMAS*, this one starring Lacey Chabert, Wes Brown, Ellen Travolta (who played the mom on, that's right, "Joanie Loves Chachi"), and Stephen Chobotsky.  It was far up in the hills nearly an hour distant, where folks have mansions bigger than anyone should, unless the resident is a U.S. congressman who enjoys hunting human beings for sport.

This was such a true 180 from the Christmas movie I worked on last year (where they wouldn't even let us stand in the shade by the "real" actors, and that poor old lady collapsed from the heat) that I wonder if there wasn't some blowback at Hallmark over it, maybe even a (well-deserved) lawsuit.  There were P.A.s running around making sure people were hydrated and cooling off, and they kept insisitng we wear light t-shirts and banana hammocks when we were not shooting, only putting on our winter garb once the camera started rolling.**

I took this picture because it looked like the reindeer were piled roadkill.  Sorry.

We shot everything in a cul de sac where all the houses were decorated for the holidays, including lights and fake snow (they had a big, industrial-sized snow-sprayer on set, that would spray jets of white chemical paste wherever they needed fake snow.  The most fun part of the shoot was the faux snowball fight we had, that we did over and over again, and got the blood really pumping every time we reset, gathered up all the snowballs (they were made of wet cotton-like material), and started again.  It was my nephew's favorite part too, even after someone hit him in the ear with a real one (they had a snow cone machine).

I have at least an hour's worth of anecdotes to share here about the day, but it's hard to know if it's worth it.  For example, there was a little black kid, around five or six, who seemed to be on the set alone (later I noticed that he had an older brother who was watching him, and as it got later, his mother showed up, with an even smaller kid, who looked--literally-two years old, yet spoke and acted like a five year old), and toward the end of the night, I heard him talking, saying that he's in the fifth grade (which makes him ten), but he's always being cast as a kindergartener or first grader.  That, to me, is fascinating (along with the idea that all of his siblings have the same . . . unique characteristic [I nearly said, "affliction," but didn't mean it in a rude way], which Emmanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman could've told us all about).  To you?

There were so many attractive or semi-attractive people milling around, it was kind of remarkable.  And there were a couple of child actors that were just staggeringly beautiful, and in watching one of them, who looked like an actual angel personified, I thought, "I'll bet she'll have a really cool life," and felt warmth not only toward her, but toward all mankind.

It was a very long day, especially for an eleven year old who had never done extra work before, but the pay was good and the activities varied (they must have shot five different scenes that day, four with us in them), and the boy told people he had a good time, which I found to be a relief.  

I haven't decided whether to talk about my experience in (yet) another Outcast episode.  Let me know if you would enjoy that.

Exercise Day: No (oh, I originally considered putting "Yes," because of the exercise of being on my feet for hours and participating in a mock snowball fight, over and over.  But hey, I didn't set aside time to specifically exercise, so I'll not count today...though at the end of the month, I may wish I had)

*I think I read somewhere that movies with "X-mas" in the title got streamed 2.3 times more than the movies without it, so I shouldn't blame them for having such an unmemorable title (I keep forgetting what it was called whenever people ask me), even though I still do.

**Okay, part of that was a joke.  I just find the term "banana hammock" to be amusing.  Too bad you don't.  Maybe the problem isn't with me, good sir or ma'am . . . maybe it's with you.

9/1

I went up onto the top deck to do some exercise (only a mile on the bike, but like writing, every little bit is SOMETHING), and while I was peddling, I heard a beeping sound, coming from somewhere.  It sounded like the noise your vehicle makes when the door is open, or the beep of a smoke detector when the batteries are almost dead.  But I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  I went back inside, and it wasn't here, so I put my shoes on (and me pants, lest I fergit), and wandered around outside, hearing the beeping only when the wind died down enough for it to carry to me.  

Turned out, after quite a bit of wandering, that it was coming from inside the motorhome on the other side of the road, in a property where a family is one day going to build a cabin, but right now, just brings RVs.  It was a beeping, like an alarm clock or something, but it was inside, and I didn't try the door.  

On the walk back to the cabin (time to edit another "Arcove" chapter, kids), I tried to imagine what kind of story that could inspire--someone hearing a sound where there's no people, and going to investigate.  

Or, what if you were walking along in the wilderness, and you started to hear music somewhere.  "What's that?"  You walk a few steps, and think, "Is that Hotel California?"  And you keep looking, and find a car down an embankment or half-buried in a mudslide, and its radio is still broadcasting.  And then . . . ?

I have gotten two chapters entirely edited (finishing out the first section of the book--there are two, though the second is three times the size of the first), and just opened a third.  I also grabbed the recording of my Patreon address and the next Outcast episode, so I can edit on those too, when I get restless.  I also thought I'd finish the video I started last night, and maybe record a story from that book of old British ghost stories.  Cool, except . . . now the sun is already lowering in the sky.  Somehow, the day is nearly done.  And I need to get home fairly early, so I can make sure I know what tomorrow's shooting schedule will be like, and can gather appropriate winter clothes not just for me, but for my nephew as well.  Okay, well, I'll give myself twenty more minutes, then I'll pack up.  Early, yes, but hey.

I set the crazy goal of exercising 25 days in the month of September, so I'll try to keep track of it here.

Exercise Day: Yes (1)