open loops / godzillae

in

As I rearranged my desk for the nth time this morning – my wont when I return to MainFictionThing after some time away – I realized that resting upon its drill-bored bankers space is the entirety of my life, of myself, up to this present: the Hot Wheels Jeep; the pewter pig and rings; the bulldog; the wedding picture; the broken Flattop mug with a Hulk ball filling its shattered ceramic skull; Yodas elderly and Baby; a monk figuring riding a triceratops planter; a chessboard whose pieces have been missing for more than ten years and the lie told to an individual who requires the lie to feel better about themselves for a similar durationl; a row of spinebroken Big Little Books; assorted Pops and Godzillas (Godzillae?); and the row upon rows of maybes and open loops either waiting or never to be.

A similar recognition of my vicious cycle: in order to counteract familal stress and delay acceptance of the reality of my present (whatever that may be), I'm adding projects to my dancecard which, because of familial stresses and needs, are languishing in open loops (see rows upon rows, above). Solution: accept reality, accept humanity, pare things down a bit, pare them down to the essentials – Create, think, discuss – and publish new shit (see concluding paragraph).

From this notion, a routine – a Spring routine, that is – one cognizant of afternoons being spent tending to spaces outside and surrounding and further familial: mornings are for writing, for time-based work (trying to be done by 0930 – the familials start texting around then); afternoons (1400 on; postprandial errands and walkies with Kirby followed by a brief reading respite are required) are for task-based – be it family, home (fence mending at the top of that list; improv'ed a fix yesterday but I'm not sure it will hold in the climate change winter-spring transition), TSR assembly, etc; evenings for the liberation of Yara (completed), for blasting my way through the YAKUZA games (I'm on YAKUZA 4 and it is, so far, my least favorite of the series), TSR interviews, and further reading about totalitarianism (see postprandial respite, above) as we witness this century's iteration of a bunkerbound genocidal war criminal willing to annihilate the world to avoid humiliation and condemnation to the shitheap of history do his bunkerbound genocidal war criminal willing to annihilate the world to avoid humiliation and condemnation to the shittheap of history thing.

But rejoice for there are – assuming we aren't living THE ROAD by then – new Cormac novels (PLURAL!) coming this Fall.

Also: finished the first issue of Pornsheck Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkg's THE GOOD ASIAN and I fucking love it. Can't wait to read the rest of Volume One (nightstand reading FTW); I'll be ordering Volume Two as soon as it's available (May, it seems – though see note re: THE ROAD, above).

I will be releasing the yet-to-be-titled Module0004 for free to newsletter subscribers (and to non-subs for $1.99) this Sunday. Do with or do not with what you will.

dissipate / exuberance / return

in

The Sanctum did not flood (nor did the basement, surprisingly) and it seems that yesterday's road-and-field-obliterating floodwaters have dissipated – most fortunate, given the 20ºF+/- temp drop yesterday afternoon and evening: backroad ice skating not recommended.

(Also not recommended: being headbutted by an exuberant German Shepherd dogchild at 0600 (or at any time of day or night) for the stars, they shine they shine.)

Efforts to replace DVDs with Blu editions continue even though I told myself they wouldn't (a balm, no doubt, for the acute and unfolding reminder of why I left this backwater hell in the first place twenty years ago and consider my return to be – in spite of my connubial and dogchild bliss – a failure) until I made my way through the other unopened results of said efforts (LES VAMPIRES, NOSFERATU, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, among others)): ordered the Blu of VAMPYR when I ordered Chemex filters because the impulse buy (via premeditation) has come to online ordering in the form of shopping lists. Dream TSR guest remains Guillermo del Toro to talk NOSFERATU and VAMPYR.

16+ hours of Eliane Radigue right here.

Might've figured out the thing that the thing discussed yesterday wants to be: my wife read it and liked it so of course I changed the form because it still didn't feel right (though I might be wrong – wouldn't be the first time) even when given the seal of approval by someone whose taste I trust implicitly. The question being now how (say brown cow) to release it in a way – other than newsletter exclusive / paid individual non-subscriber – that satisfies a desire to both get the thing out into the unforgiving silence of the ether AND experiment with physical release; while I'm as close as ever to a solution, I want to give it a few days to settle before I decide whether or not the solution I'm looking at is the solution I'm looking for or the solution I thought I was looking for.

And finally: it's good to be home – in this space, that is: couldn't think of a better new name to call these menagerie/collision morning ritual posts so it's only fitting that I return them to the name that always fit them best: Informalities.

floodwater modulae

in

Committing to these once-daily things and only these once-daily things for the next week. Won't let myself backslide. This is a space about writing and thinking and the collisions that occur between.

The road and the fields below are flooded: a brutal rain last night. Fortunately, the Sanctum is dry – or, rather, I haven't stepped in a pond while working back here this morning; the condition of the other half of the paint shop TBD.

An anger brewing, fighting to get out: unsure if a return to meditation is a way to get through it or if my theory – that the last 20 years of meditating were an avoidance tactic to ignore what needed to be felt and that I'm now playing catchup with iterations of myself lost between breaths – is correct.

This, like the other half of the paint shop, is TBD.

Reticent to release what I've written over the last couple of days: it feels like more of the same but is, at the same time, wholly different. Might be best to accept that this rhythm, this sameness, is where I am creatively in this moment and that it's the end – or maybe the beginning, fuck if I know –  of this particular rhythmic book.

That said, having rechristened the former Stories Modulae, I do feel more free to write and to publish whatever springs to mind – even if I've (potentially) climbed so far up my own ass that I can't see the dog scratch on my nose in the half-hearted sun.

I am weary of being weary.

sun/20220306

in

Kirby is barking at some unknown something somewhere in the world or across the street IDK... newsletter brain in full force, social media breaktime (save for TSR releases or other work notifications) because fuck it at this point: I've got my internet home and it's here... Started Spielberg's WEST SIDE STORY last night and goodlord the opening shot: every frame is a work of art – and Lenny's music still delights... MacroParentheticals0071 in +/60; the day awaits.

sat/20220305

in

Finally making sense of what I'm doing here, the form of this thoughtspace/stream being a cacophony of non-sequitur panel transitions/collisions hurled into it throughout the day with occasional allowances for aspect-to-aspect transitions maybe.

Plans to attempt evening work fell victim to a hypoglycemic bout during the day's run and resultant superhighbloodbounceball status throughout the day which rendered me an inert mess... trying going back after breakfast instead. Though I’m not a huge fan of jamming everything into the morning, I’m generally convinced that it’s the best way forward: it’s the one time of day that I’m all but guaranteed to have to myself thus making me the primary cause of any and all potential failure.

I am awash in wonderful Ukrainian music.

fri/20220304

in

A fantastic (second) chat last night with Wallace Stroby (HEAVEN'S A LIE) on my favorite film of all time, Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST: spending the whole of yesterday watching, processing, and discussing Leone's masterwork was beyond wonderful (and a more than pleasant way to avoid the nightmarish war crimes unfolding at the Zaporihzia plant), the goal of the chat (or of any of my conversations about things I've enjoyed), to see something I love through someone else's eyes, was more than accomplished. Planning to continue doing these sorts of conversations.

Settling into the recognition that it's OK to switch to another project when forward movement grinds to a halt on the primary: all too often, the missing pieces in the path –  small assignments, usually – emerge while toiling on something else. Pondering: is being stuck on something as much a cue that you need to move on to something else and let your subconscious take over as it is to dig in your heels and stick with it? Yes, I think so – the trick to figure out which one it is. About 70% sure I made the right choice to fiddle with another short story while I push through on assembly of last night's TSR chat. Aiming to play with different rhythms on this one, which get to the heart of what these Modulae are: experimental narrative etudes (composed over a set period of time?) by which to explore things the Main Work precludes – or at least doesn't require, yet.

Greatly enjoyed doing the chat in the evening: I've decided that most of my conversations will take place then. Also considering moving my second block of writing to evenings as well – though, given that I'm awake at 0445 and will, by the time evening rolls around, have put in a 14-hour day (of my various roles, writing and non–), to discount the possibility that my reserves might be depleted would be folly; on the other hand, my inability to overthink (or think deeply, two wildly different things) on other side of the day's Novolog might make it the perfect time to dig back in / my body/schedule is a lab experiment.

wed/20220302

in

Past few days being ones of internal discord and a growing sense, correctly or in–, that my mornings here, writing in the Sanctum, are little more than an act of pretend, a self-sanctioned adult iteration of waking up early to play with my action figures under blankets during my late-single/early double digits before the reality of life in this place – this backwoods hell – snuck in, a reality of life I sought to escape in my teens recycling itself in a groundhogday clusterfuck day in and day out in my forties that dangles the reasons why I left in the first place like a broken cat toy on a frayed string, the only difference – other than my age, my marriage, and aforementioned dogs pictured – between then and now being that, back then, I could see a light at the end of the tunnel: I could see my escape.

But then again, it's my choice whether or not to bat at the frayed cat toy – and I have been, of late, making the wrong choice. And let's be honest: it's not like I'm going anywhere – I like being married, I like the dogs (oh, the complications) – but I do recognize the need to, as my therapist advised in the pre-backhoe years, "shake things up" – precisely how being a mystery since the day he prescribed it.

(Thanks a lot.)

Meanwhile, in "extricate your head from your ass and have some perspective" news: KYIV, author Yevgenia Belorusets's daily chronicle of her life during Putin's atrocity, is being published daily by isolarii and is a must-read.

Random workthought: if ever you happen to find yourself working on two not dissimilar projects at once, combine them: you might find something you didn't know you were looking for. You might also injure your forehead when you smack yourself for failing to see it, it being the answer to the sticky above your monitor, WHAT AM I NOT SEEING?.

tue/20220301

in

Slept, woke, worked (small assignment found), will work again, then will run, then familial mailcheck then eat then repeat...

Finished Butler's PARABLE OF THE TALENTS other day (will probably write about it here tomorrow); moved on to the next from the unknown stacks, Hannah Arendt's "as good a time as ever to read it" (and a useful –though unsoothing – pairing with TALENTS) ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM: nothing like a little light reading to assuage the mind in this, the next phase of our era of perpetually-unfolding WWIII.

mon/202228

in

Starting back on AnotherFictionThing which reminds me of why I both love and loathe Mondays: love in that I get to spend it laying the groundwork for the rest of the week; loathe in that, because of the way my workweek is structured, I spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out where to start. Solution: figure the start out on Sundays after you send the NL; spend that last chunk doing just that. Come to think of it, a good practice for every morning...

The Morkie and The Jorkie off to the doggiedayspa for de-scruffiness; Kirby and I holding down the fort – the day awaits.