Podcast That Dares 34: John Charrington's Wedding

Rish performs (and discusses) Edith Nesbit's "John Charrington's Wedding" from 1891 . . . if he survives, that is.  

Hopefully, we'll be back on track soon to putting out episodes more regularly.

To download the episode, Right-Click RIGHT HERE.

To support me on Patreon, Left-Click HERE.

Logo by Gino "John Charrington's Shredding" Moretto.

Blog 5/13 & 5/14

5/13

Satan is his father, not Guy!*

Okay, so today's creepy spam folder email was "German Sex Industry Penis Ritual Leaked!" . . . which is pretty gross, if you think about it.

Today, I heard that actor Fred Ward died, and I thought, "He was the guy in TREMORS, right?"  But then I thought, "What else was he in?  Is he the same guy you're thinking of?  Is he the guy who directed EVIL TOONS?"*  So I had to make sure.  Ward was indeed in TREMORS (and its first sequel), THE RIGHT STUFF, and ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ.

Remember what I said yesterday about my goal to depict a positive step-child relationship in one of my stories?  I know this doesn't count, but I had a stepfather do the the Heimlich maneuver to save a kid's life in "Balms & Sears" today.  Oh, it's now at 42,000 words.

Writing or Exercising: Writing

5/14

My nephew (the four year old) has baseball (that I take him to), soccer (that his dad takes him to), and breakdancing.  Yeah, breakdancing.  The other day, my sister asked if I wanted to go to his dance recital on Saturday afternoon.  I declined.

I can't imagine a breakdancing recital would be at all enjoyable, especially with how unenjoyable the kid's preschool "graduation" was a couple of days ago. 

But my aunt had some flooding in her room when it rained the other day, so she couldn't go to the recital today, and that left an extra ticket, so rather than let it go to waste, I went along.

It wasn't unenjoyable.  Some of these kids were pretty coordinated and talented, and many were obviously having a good time, so that was impressive.  My nephew's a good looking kid, but other than that, he didn't have much to offer.  When his group finally got their five minutes on stage, all the kids stood in a circle and took turns doing their dance, and my nephew didn't get a turn.  

Still, do I talk about the girl with the facial deformity that was up there dancing with the rest of them?  That made me feel a bit more positive toward the human race (most of the time, I'm disgusted I can still be disgusted at my age).

Now that the weather is warm, I really need to go running at night again, and instead of listening to YouTube, I need to put on music, like I did two years ago.  I could count on the run making my creative juices flow, and there were many times I'd get home sweaty, but eager to jot down a few sentences (and sometimes more).  Last night, I had intended to go running, but my nephew had his friend over, the TV on in the living room, but both of them watching their phones, and experience has taught me that that can go on until two or three in the morning.  So I sat down to edit the "Hatchling" audiobook (which should've been finished MONTHS ago), and ended up falling asleep.  Ah well.

My eleven year old nephew was watching TV in the living room around the time I normally watch "Saturday Night Live," and so, impressively enough, I chose to go on another run tonight instead.  As I said above, I usually listen to YouTube, but I purposely just put music on, hoping it would inspire me to write.  It didn't . . . but the music gave me more of a drive to go faster and harder than I usually do.  I did the whole usual route in less time than I have been.

Writing or Exercising: Both

*For more than thirty-five years, I've known that quote, and for that long, I've been getting it wrong.  I've said, "Guy is not his father . . . SATAN IS HIS FATHER!" pretty much my whole life.  But when I watched ROSEMARY'S BABY again this past winter, I discovered I'd had it backwards (my version sounds better).  Out of curiosity, I went onto YouTube tonight to see how it's actually said in the movie, and someone had uploaded that final scene.  And it really upset me, more so, even than it did in the context of the movie five months ago.  There's something so heartbreaking about the way that movie ends (and brave, making me wonder if the recent remake ended the same way), that it moved me to sloppy, unmanly tears.

**No, that was Fred Olen Ray, director of such masterpieces as HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, BIKINI FRANKENSTEIN, BABY DOLLS BEHIND BARS, and THE GIRL WITH THE SEX RAY EYES . . . who, sad to report, is still alive.

Blog 5/11 & 5/12

 5/11

I got a paper jam today in the "new" printer.  Ugh.

But after I figured out the inner workings of the thing, it came right out . . . without breaking anything off inside.

I only had forty minutes to write tonight, and opened the Wikipedia page about Rodgers and Hammerstein, but before I knew it, they were announcing they were closing, I hadn't read any of the article, and I had crossed over the 41,000 word mark.  I wonder what I could accomplish if I came here at six or seven instead of eight o'clock.

I went to GameStop after I grabbed lunch (alone, I usually meet my cousin on Wednesdays), and they had an X-men figure I wanted to buy (it wasn't supposed to be out for months), but their computer said they couldn't sell it to me until . . . November?  What the what?  No big deal, I said, and tried to buy a Star Wars guy instead (I am incapable of simply being satisfied with nothing), and that one, the guy said, couldn't be sold until June.  Huh.  Out of curiosity, I asked about the overpriced Hulk figure.  First off, instead of the super-expensive $34.99 I assumed it would be, it rang up as $44.99 (!!!!!!), but secondly, it couldn't be sold until September.  Well, that couldn't be, so I asked him to ring up two figures I already bought a month or so back . . . and they couldn't be sold until the end of May.  That was super strange.

I grabbed an even older figure, from February or so, and it couldn't be sold until next week.  So we knew something was wrong.  I gave the guy my telephone number and asked him to save me the X-men guy for when the system got sorted out.

And here's the reason I'm typing all this: around five-thirty or so, I got a call from GameStop, and the guy said, "Hello.  I spoke to your husband earlier about an action figure, he tried to buy it but the system wouldn't let him?  Can you tell him that the problem is fixed now?"  I told the clerk that I was the one who had come into the store, but it made me think.  I'm flattered that he thinks I'm capable of getting some guy to marry me, but find it strange nonetheless.

WRITING/EXERCISE: Writing.

5/12

One of the goals I said I'd work on in 2022, besides that kiss-your-own-butt challenge all the TikTokers are obsessed with, was writing a story where there was a positive representation of a step-parent/stepchild relationship.  The year is almost halfway over, and I haven't taken a crack at it.  It's easy to say, "I'll tackle that one day," but I keep discovering how fast those one days pass by.

My four year nephew had a preschool graduation ceremony this afternoon, and I was pretty adamant that I wasn't going to go to it (he's got a dance recital on Saturday, and four is just too young to do anything, really.  I mentioned taking him to baseball practice the other day, right?), especially since he's going to be in preschool again next year, same teacher.  But because my sister and my niece both came over, and were making a big deal about it, I changed my mind.

I had made a Humpty Dumpty cartoon for him to hold up, and went through the rhyme with him three or four times (in addition to however many times my mom and sister rehearsed it with him), so I guess I was invested that much at least.  We walked three blocks to where the graduation was, and man, it was rough--the kids just couldn't stand still or be quiet, and my nephew didn't seem to know the words to any of the songs.

At least the kid wasn't the most troublesome child in the group (that was a little girl who kept jumping around, pushing other kids, trying to stick things into the fire alarm switch on the wall, and then burst into overloud tears when she felt either a) they'd been standing there too long, or b) the attention had been off her for too long.  The whole thing lasted around twenty-five minutes, which was just long enough (and too long to keep the children's attention, or that of the children in the audience).  At one point, to my horror, another kid also recited "Humpty Dumpty," but he didn't have a kick-ass illustration to go along with his.

The lesson I took after the little graduation was that whatever they're paying this teacher, it ain't enough.

Oh, I was pretty happy when that figure I bought with all my trips to GameStops yesterday sold today.  I was less happy when I got an email from the buyer, claiming her son bought it without her permission, and could I please cancel?  

Still, that stuff happens, so I listed it for sale again.  And before the end of the day, somebody else bought it (though for fifteen dollars less than the first buyer*).  And before I could do anything about it, that buyer too emailed me to tell me that it was a mistake and could we please cancel?

Of course I canceled and listed it (yet) again, but it does give me pause, wondering just how cursed this figure is, and how much ill luck will befall anyone who obtains it.

WRITING OR EXERCISE: Both.

*Which ultimately doesn't matter, does it?

Audio Collection 4 Now Available On Audible

Boy, this is a couple of years overdue, but I finally got out my fourth volume of short stories in audio, which I'm calling "Who Can It Be Now? and Other Storeis: The Audio Fiction of Rish Outfield.*

Gino created me yet another cool cover:

And within, you can find the following:

• Introduction 
• Who Can It Be Now?
• Radio Ga Ga
• Too Much Information
• Closet Case
• Message To My Girl
• Have It His Way
• Roll With The Changes
• Walk of Death
•  My Funny Valentine
•  Dying Is Easy
•  Skipping
•  Parent/Teacher
•  White House Tour
•  Try Your Luck
•  Troubled Child
•  Secret ‘Stache
•  Murdertown – 1 Mile
•  Z-Day Report
•  Mind Games
•  The Key Collector
•  Gatekeeper
•  Remember the Future

Italics designate Flash Fiction.

I don't know if anybody wants to buy it, but at least it's out there, and I can go on to the next one (should be "Hatchling," which is months overdue at this point).  If you'd like to support me, check it out HERE.

*Complete with misspelling.  I thought that gave it character.

Blogs 5/9 & 5/10

5/9

To my relief, the replacement printer came today.  Also, winter came again, as it was cold enough outside again today to make me wear a sweater and keep the window closed.  Of course, when I picked my nephew up at his football practice, he said it was hot and wanted the windows rolled down.  To each their own.

I've been reporting on the weird email messages I've been getting in my Spam folder.  Today I got one that said, "This is the WORST Food you can Possibly eat!"  Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link.  Yep, it's week-old potato salad.*

You won't believe this (well, I certainly don't), but with the writing I did last night before falling asleep (my laptop was still open next to me and the light was still on when my alarm went off) and what little I managed just now . . . "Balms & Sears" is now over 40,000 words long.

I guess it's safe to say I'm in the zone now.  Huh.

WRITING/EXERCISE: Writing.

5/10

Maybe I complain too much about the little hardships in my life, but being able to send a label to a printer and have it in my hand a minute (or less) later is really appreciated.

I took my four year old nephew to his baseball practice today, and it is the absolute beginner tier for sports . . . but even so, it was like wrangling a hornet's nest on that field.  My nephew hasn't even mastered catching a ball with his mitt yet, and it was frustrating to see how short the attention spans of the children involved were.  But when they split the kids and the parents into two groups and we had to throw a ball back and forth, well, that's when I discovered just how uncoordinated and unathletic I (still) am.  

Oh, I could catch the ball when he'd throw it (providing it came anywhere near me), but since he'd just stand there like a scarecrow with his arm out, I found it extremely difficult to get the ball into the mitt more than a single time.  I often wish I could go back in time and do my life over again, zigging when I originally zagged (or more likely, just sat on my hands instead of zigging or zagging), but to be the weakest, most backward and uncoordinated kid on any team again . . . well, that does not appeal to me in the slightest.

Well, I was pretty much just wasting my time here at the library, reading people's opinions of DOCTOR STRANGE 2 online and such, and it occurred to me that I ought to leave if I'm not going to do anything productive.  I wrote about four paragraphs, which isn't anything to brag about, but I'm going to take off, grab something to eat, and maybe finish editing the story I owe EscapeArtists.

I went to my cousin's house, who was feeling sick (he's been sick all this week, but made it clear that I am NOT in his will), and was able to watch the first episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

It tells of Christopher Pike as Captain of the USS Enterprise on its five year mission, and somebody somewhere said it was the longest period of time between a pilot (1964) and the series it spawned (2022).  I quite enjoyed it, especially the optimistic, more fundamentally decent take on the "Trek" universe.

Oh, there's still a few things that remind me I'm not watching the "Original Series" or "Next Generation," but it didn't seem to have the disdain for those shows that some of the new stuff trumpets.  And I was both moved and inspired by the end.  I'll have to ask Marshal and my cousin what they think of the show.**

WRITING/EXERCISE: Writing.

*Actually, when I clicked on the link, there was a video that it wanted me to watch, and when I started to exit the page, this big "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CLICK AWAY?" window popped up.  I will never know what the worst food I could possibly eat is, so I'm destined to consume it one day. 

**There are still too many characters introduced to keep things super-straight, but because you're (presumably) already familiar with Pike, Spock, Number One/Una, Nurse Chapel, Doctor M'Benga, and Uhura, it's not quite asking so much of the viewers.

Marshal and I Consider Star Wars Celebration

So, Marshal Latham and I are going to the Star Wars Celebration later this month (postponed from 2020), and we talk about it in the most recent "Delusions of Grandeur" episode HERE.  But I just wanted to post this here, in case some of y'all had questions for us to answer along the way.

Also, what should we talk about, if we podcast during our twenty-four hour drive?  What should we take pictures of there?  Who should we try to meet?

Blog 5/7 & 5/8

5/7

DR. STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS was a Sam Raimi movie.  I found that pretty entertaining.  It also had nothing to do with SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, but was much more a follow-up to "WandaVision."  That surprised me.

It went pretty dark, with gruesome scenes that I felt tiptoed up to the edge of what you could get away with in a PG-13 movie.  Thematically, it was really dark also. 

I had tried to avoid social media in case of spoilers, and for the most part, I succeeded (going by the trailers, I wasn't sure even know who the villain of the film would be). 

It's my mom's birthday, and a bunch of the family members are giving her a surprise party in the park, like we did last year, and the year before (though it was in her backyard in 2020), but I jetted off to the library beforehand and tried to work hard on "Balms and Sears."

And you know what?  I got it to 39,000 words.  Easily too.

It's only the seventh, and it'll be 40K by the time the moon is full again.  Cool.

WRITING OR EXERCISE: Writing.

5/8

My four year old nephew likes watching this inane YouTube channel where a bunch of twenty-somethings destroy walls or electronics or art, screaming like castrated howler monkeys all the while.  It bugs the crap out of me, but since I'm not his parent, I can rarely force him to mute or change it, just because I want him to (I'm not considered an authority figure, for the most part).

This afternoon, though, his mother heard I Castrati Urlanti, and made him turn it off.  He was upset, complaining about being bored, and so I said, "Let's play a game.  You go out in the hall, and I'll hide your stuffed animal in your room.  Then you come back in and look for it."  He was hesitant, but I had already grabbed the stuffed fox, so he went out eventually.

I hid the fox, and told him he could come in now . . . but he didn't come.  

I went looking for him and found him in my room.  "Hey, come find the fox," I said, and he found the fox in about thirty seconds in his room.  I told him I'd hide it again, then asked, "Hey, what were you doing in my room?"  

"Hiding your wallet," he said.

(I absolutely ADORE this picture.  It's probably the greatest photo on the internet . . . barely edging out that one of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on VJ-Day)

We went into my room as fast as possible, and I said, "Where?  Where's my wallet?"  He told me I had to look for it.  But my room is not like his room--my room is like the final shot in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but instead of recovered artifacts, it's filled with thousands dirty socks and used handkerchiefs.  I couldn't find my bed, let alone a 3x4 wallet.  "Okay, I give up," I said, "Where did you hide my wallet?"

He concentrated, shook his head, and said, "I don't remember."

Late that afternoon, I took the boys out for a drive.  My uncle had mentioned "a turtle sanctuary" a couple of miles away, and we'd talked about going for weeks.  He gave me directions, and we actually found it on our first try, but there was no turtle sanctuary there.

Years ago, it was the bad part of town with lots of trees and dark shadows that young people called Rape Avenue (I can't imagine why).  But in the decades since then, they'd beautified it, landscaped, put in lots of lights, and now young people go there to sit on picnic blankets and teach their children to fear universal health care.  And somebody built a duck pond complete with a fence around it to keep (most of) the children from drowning in it.

Apparently, there were turtles there in years past, but now there were posted signs NOT to dump your turtles and goldfish in there (it said nothing about dogs and cats, though), so there were no turtles to be found.  There were many ducks, though, and families were giving them breadcrumbs and Quaker oat cereal.

Still, we all missed the turtles, to be frank.

I left writing too late today, and nearly failed completely.  It has been pissing rain since before the sun went down, so I wasn't in a hurry to go out running, but now it's 1:39am, and I haven't written a word.  I sat down to write, and grabbed a container of peanuts while I did it.  Well, I've never been allergic to peanuts before, but I certainly had an allergic reaction tonight.

Now that I've taken two Benadryl, and my sneezing has subsided (my throat is still itchy, and my eyes are still swollen), I'm gonna get a few words in, and then call it a night.

WRITING OR EXERCISE: Writing

Rish Outcast 220: Q&A: Broughton To The Core

Rish answers some questions by listener Rob Broughton.  Again.

Rish answers (again) these questions by listener Rob Broughton:

Which supernatural encounter would you want to have?  Would you "go" with a fairy?  When did you last "go?"  What's the nicest thing someone has said to you?  Which audio production makes you most proud?

To download the episode, Right-Click THIS BIT.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE, and may Bossk have mercy on your soul.

Logo by Gino "Already Been Broughten" Moretto.

Blog 5/4 thru 5/6

5/4

Today was May the Fourth, what they typically call Star Wars Day.  I usually try to create an image to post on Facebook, usually with one of the black sheep of the Star Wars universe.  This time, I picked an image from the anti-smoking PSA from around 1981:

Not to be outdone, Big Anklevich posted a worser one:

A bunch of websites had sales on Star Wars merchandise, and there was a little toy reveal by Hasbro.  Also, the new "Obi-wan Kenobi" trailer came out, but I didn't really need to see it, since I'm watching it later this month.  I'm going to be in Anaheim when the show starts airing, but I'm not particularly excited about it.  It's a Prequels show, what with Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor coming back, and that's not really my era.

I got a weird invitation the other day.  It was an email that said, "Add Six INCHES to you're Unit with this eazy hack!"  But I must've clicked on it wrong, because, if anything, it's even smaller today than yesterday.

No, actually, what I got was an invitation to narrate a story for The CatsCast . . . a podcast for cat aficionados.  It's a podcast done by the same guys who do Podcastle and Pseudopod, but they list their cats as associate producers.  It's not like I was on the fence or anything, but I considered emailing the editor back and saying, "You do realize that my two favorite cat stories are 'Pet Sematary' and Poe's 'The Black Cat,' don't you?" but figured, work is work.  Heck, I'd narrate a story for the JesusIsGodAndTheMyPillowGuyIsHisProphet podcast if they pretended they liked my narrations and offered me money.

I agreed, but Big Anklevich suggested I call them mean names on my blog.

Well, I didn't go that far, but I did pretend that I thought CatsCast was a podcast about Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, and expressed my devotion for Rum Tum Tugger.  So there.

You're not gonna find a picture of me with a cat, so I found one of Blofeld that works (sort of).

5/5

You wanna feel particularly old (even if you're ten)?  I was driving my nephew home today and let him choose the station, and heard my first-ever Olivia Rodrigo sound-alike song.  A sound-alike, boys and girls.

Don't that turn your chonch hair white? 

As you know, Bob, I keep having to save my labels, email them to myself, and print them out at the library.  I purposely ordered a replacement printer from Arizona, so it would arrive quickly, but I didn't count on them not shipping for a while.  This afternoon, I finally got an email that they'd sent it off.  Ah well.

Oh, the reason I started blogging again was to report on whether I wrote or exercised each day (my goal is the whole darn month).  What I ought to do daily is put, at the end, "Wrote/Exercised?" and then say which one.

WROTE OR EXERCISED: Both

5/6

Something I absolutely LOVE about getting older is that my legs don't quite work right three or four times a week.  I find myself limping, even though there's no pain, and after a minute or so, my legs are fine.    Guess it's just a sweet, sweet preview of things to come.

Later this month, Marshal Latham and I are going on a road trip, which will invariably destroy our friendship.*  One of the things I said I was going to do in 2022 was write a story where there was a healthy, loving stepparent/stepchild relationship.

Thus far, I haven't had the opportunity to do so ("Balms & Sears" has a boy being raised by his kindly great-grandfather and a girl being raised by her sadistic uncle), but I remembered my vow and changed a line in the story, thinking of Marshal.  It's not quite fulfilling my promise, but it's something.

I hit the library yet again today, before going to the theater to see DOCTOR STRANGE with my cousin and my nephew.  I finished writing a new scene I started yesterday, and got the document to 38,000 words (which I think was my goal for May).  At this rate, it'll be 40,000 by the middle of the month, and by the end of the month, I'll be dead.

Just a random coincidence, the police will say.  But you'll know better.

WROTE OR EXERCISED: Wrote. 

*This happened with me once when I went on a trip with Big Anklevich, and his farts were so toxic they briefly turned the windshield black.

Blog 5/2 and 5/3

5/2

My printer went out on me today.  That's a huge pain, but it SHOULD have gone out on me months ago, when there was a paper jam within it and the only way to get the paper out was to open it up, and then it wouldn't go back together again, so it would still print, but the paper would come out the back (I took the cover off) instead of the top).  And then, the roller that pushed the paper through the top broke on one side, and I kept using it, since the paper was supposed to come out before it reached the broken roller. 

But then, today, the paper jammed again, and there was no way to get it out without pulling it through the top, and when I did that, the other side of the roller snapped off . . . and a piece of it fell into the mechanism.  Oh, I swore like a Jehovah's Witness on Fat Tuesday, but I pried the whole thing open, shook it and fished around until the little piece of plastic fell out, and put it all together again, plugged it in, turned it on . . . and all the lights started flashing.  Apparently, something inside the mechanism had been damaged, and it was impossible to go to lightspeed.

Luckily, my sister downstairs has a printer, so I "borrowed" it, plugged it into my computer . . . and it couldn't be detected.  I went online and manually installed the drive for it . . . and it detected the scanner but not the printer.  Well, no worries--even though I was now missing lunch--I grabbed my laptop, plugged the printer into it . . . and nothing.  Same deal, it wouldn't recognize it.  I found the Help file, did what it said, installed the "correct" driver . . . and it would scan, but would not print.

Damnation.

I looked, and the printer I'd been using the last couple of years can be found fairly cheaply (it's the toner cartridge that's expensive, and I bought two of those back in November), but I'd have to wait for another one to arrive, and I really HAD to print today.

So, I went to Walmart, got the cheapest printer on the market, just to print for the next few days while waiting for the replacement printer to arrive, got it home, plugged it into my computer . . . and nothing.  To my intense horror, it was THE EXACT SAME MODEL my sister had downstairs.  Well, this one at least had a CD-ROM with the install drivers, so I put that in my laptop (which still has a DVD drive), plugged in the printer, did an install . . . and you can guess what happened.

This is the printer at the bottom of the garbage can, though it looks a bit like a well to me.

That's right, it would scan, but would not print.  "Driver failed to install, please retry."  So, I did.  Same result.  And I did once more, this time doing the full install with all the extras I would never, ever use.  And I got the same result.

So, I was pretty upset now.  I went to my email, sent myself the labels I needed to print, boxed up the new printer, and took it back.  I was pleased that Walmart didn't ask any questions, didn't even check to see if the printer was in there, let alone all the cords and ink cartridges, just gave me my money back and sent me on my way.

I then went to the library, logged in, and used their computer to print out my labels* and was able to go home and continue my work.  It only took an extra, what, three hours?

There was a family get-together in honor of Cinco de Mayo at what I've come to calling Shinooginah Hill in my stories, a big hill that was attached to an elementary school that closed down about twenty-two years ago, and I went along.  My Uncle Len would've loved it, because there was lots of yelling and clapping and traditional music (my favorite moment was when they did "La Polka Norteña," which was a polka song and dance that was taught to the Mexicans by European settlers back in the 1800s, and sounded exactly like what you'd hear at Octoberfest, except in Spanish), but it got cold and we left early, and my mom bought everybody tacos at a restaurant we used to go to forty years back.

I came home, got some editing done (I need to get my Patreon Address published, despite having started on it more than a week ago), boxed up several bags of loose Star Wars guys (to put in the storage unit), and sat down to watch "Brooklyn Nine-nine."  And then I started to fall asleep.

No big deal, I could just go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.  Except . . . I'd made this stupid goal of either writing or exercising EVERY DAY in May, and it was only May the Second, and I hadn't done it.  I moped around, feeling sorry for myself, and got ready for bed, and then thought, you know what, eff this, I'm gonna go for it.  So I put on my tennis shoes, went outside, and ran for half a mile, before deciding I was too out of shape and too apathetic to go any further.  But ah well, I did it, even when I didn't want to, and that's when it really matters.

I came back, sat down, and was too amped up to go to sleep, so I edited another half hour before finally going to sleep about ten minutes after when I normally do.  Fun.

5/3

I streamlined the experience of printing labels a lot better today than yesterday.  It's still a huge pain to have to drive over to the library, log into their computer, log into my email, download the labels (I took the extra time to save them all to an email so I could just send them directly to their printer, though I still had to resize the first one because it auto-resized too large), send them to their printer, log into that printer, feed money into it, and get my print-outs.  Then I'll have to go home, stick 'em on packages, gather them up and take them to the post office on my way to the librar . . . oh.

You know, I'm at the library right now, typing this.  Maybe I should take a few minutes to write here, so I won't have to come back later.  Except I really ought to be focusing on work instead of the stuff I usually do when all my work is done (he said, having spent ten minutes blogging instead of doing so).  I can't decide what to--

God, that asshole that called me "Lizardface" just came in.  He commented on me to his invisible friend, and that made up my mind.  Alright,  I'm taking off, and maybe come back tonight.

See you then.

I'm now a bit paranoid about losing my writing here at the library, so I've been emailing myself TWO copies of the "Balms & Sears" work-in-progress (once at the start of each session, and again at the end).  Biggie Anklevich would say it's unnecessary, when googledocs saves as you go, but he's a Mac guy, so . . .

*My cousin suggested this, saying, "Spend a dollar or so to print at the library each day until your nice, high quality printer comes, rather than buying a crappy cheap printer you'll just have to replace again in four months."

Blog 4/29 - 5/1

 4/29

Wow, I've come to the library five days in a row.  The people who work here must think I haven't got a life.  Pretty perceptive, the people here.

Comic artist Neal Adams died today at eighty.  He was an excellent Batman artist in the Seventies, worked on the X-men at the end of its run (when the art really got good), and was the artist on Green Arrow when it was revealed "My ward Speedy is a junkie!!!"  

He was very active at conventions, and I wish I had spoken to him more before he died (but he was before my time reading comics, and I was never much of a DC guy to begin with).  He was a co-creator of Ra's Al Ghul, Man-Bat, and was responsible for bringing the Joker and Two-Face into their modern, twisted versions (from the lighter, sillier Silver Age incarnations).

On the "Balms & Sears" front, I got to the part in the story I started writing in 2018 or '19 where a character says "faggot" and Alec's friend Chase (who is in the closet) tries to talk him out of using that word.  It's a difficult scene, because in my day, we used that word all the time, and the student that uses it doesn't mean it as hate speech, just as a casual angry word.  I'm not sure we live in a world where a character can say that and not seem villainous, you know?  And it makes me wonder if I'm a villain if I use it in my story, regardless of context.*

4/30

This marks six days in a row at the library.  But I don't know if today counts.  I was anxious to record a bit for a future podcast, so I took my microphone with me on the drive, and then I wanted to say more, so I just sat in the car with the windows closed for twenty minutes recording, despite the library closing in half an hour. 

When I finally came in, I had sweated through my shirt, which is pretty embarrassing.  But hey, maybe people just thought I didn't know how to work a drinking fountain.

The book now sits at 35,691 words.  But of course, only 34,000 of those are actual story.  To my horror, as I was typing this, I realized I had not emailed myself the work-in-progress.  I'd be logged out in two minutes (although they've screwed me twice before on that, logging me out before the timer reached zero).  I didn't do a great deal of writing today, but any loss is a pain, you know?

Gosh, I wish I were a better writer, and successful at it.  But it's something I love to do, so that's a huge point in its favor.

5/1

It's a new month, with a chance to start again, and get things done.  I wrote and/or exercised every day but one in April.  We'll see if I can do better in May.

May is a cool month.  Well, I'm a fan.

I mostly drove around, talking to Big Anklevich and podcasting today.  Guess all I can say about that is, Buh!

*Like that listener of my podcast that said I was basically a white supremacist for saying the n-word in somebody else's screenplay years ago.