Personal Schmersonal

Not Further Behind

It’s Monday, I have coffee, and there’s a trip to the grocer’s in my immediate future. We need milk. I dread leaving the house if it’s not for walking the dogs–at least outside I can cross the street to get away from selfish jerks without masks, and the open air means very little viral load.

At least a Monday visit isn’t as bad as a weekend visit. I’m sure the church crowd yesterday was a Petri dish. And speaking of selfish jackasses, someone is still setting off fireworks between midnight and 1am somewhere in the neighborhood. The Princess hopes they run out of them soon and that all their bacon burns–a quite elegant curse, but I have spent some time cogitating on far less gentle wishes.

It’s a good thing I’m not telekinetic. Especially nowadays.

I didn’t peek at social media this weekend, unless one counts livetweeting Netflix’s The Old Guard on Saturday evening–which I enjoyed roundly, by the way. I like watching Charlize Theron in combat. Plus there was Matthias Schoenaerts, whose performance in a different movie I once wrote a whole-ass romance novel around, and KiKi Layne, who is incredible. I liked the movie very much, if you can’t tell. It was directed by a woman and very refreshing to see female pain not being sexualized by and for a male gaze; I had the same feeling while watching Birds of Prey.

I also got some reading in, and it was pleasant to settle on the couch and fall into a book, even if that book was history and as such, a cavalcade of blunders and nastiness. I’m finding very little to be amused about in the human condition nowadays.

I didn’t get half of what I wanted to done during the weekend. I’m feeling a bit under the weather, and the stress of wondering whether it’s the plague, or whether we had the plague back in March, or whether we haven’t had the plague and should dread its advent… it wears on one. But the dogs must be walked, my own tired carcass must be exercised, and the business of living goes on, and on, and on.

On the one hand, it’s not a bad thing. On the other, it’s exhausting.

There’s also a great deal of work to get done today. I have thrown up my hands and decided “catching up” is a chimera; I will instead endeavor not to fall further behind. And to that end I bid thee a civil adieu, my beloveds; it’s time to get the dogs walked before the sunlight pulls other people out onto the street and drives them insane. Honestly, it’s like the big yellow eye in the sky showers most people with cray-juice or something; they start acting like drunken wasps. No wonder I long for rain most of the year.

All right, Monday. I’m not ready, but I am prepared. Let’s see what you’ve got.

Boxnoggin Regnant

This goofy, adorable fuzzbucket was up every two hours last night, his nervous stomach probably reacting to all the noise and excitement from the Mike’s Deck Affair. (For the curious, Part I is here; Part II here.) All the crashing and banging might have upset his tender, shrinking tummy.

I was a little cranky myself by the end of it. Fortunately about 5am things seemed to settle somewhat and I was able to get some decent sleep, but I woke up from a dream that crossed Midsommar with the Jason Bourne movies.

…look, don’t ask, I certainly don’t know. Getting up and going about my day was the only reasonable option after that.

Anyway, Boxnoggin seems to be feeling much better now that the sun’s up, as evinced by his prancing and appetite. The pale knitted item he’s on in this particular pic is a shawl the Princess knitted for herself, which the dog apparently considers the love of his life or at least someone he’d really like to seriously date. Bless my child, for she simply shrugged and said “He’s getting more use out of it than I am, let him have it.”

Since she spent quite a while knitting the damn thing, it’s a sign and signal of the love she bears this particular furry toddler. He more than returns the favor every time she comes home from work; he is beside himself with glee and treats her arrival as a reunion longed for with the fiery yearning of a thousand suns.

And doesn’t he look handsome? Almost regal, I daresay, if you didn’t know that right before this picture he was involved in licking tender reproductive parts of his anatomy. He flopped back down on “his” shawl and looked at me like “…whut?”, and I started laughing so hard I had to snap this very picture to brighten the Princess’s day at work.

We don’t deserve dogs, man. We just don’t. But I’m so glad they love us anyway.

Finally, Sleep

Nobody was setting off fireworks last night, and I was exhausted from the Mike’s Deck Affair. (Suffice to say one of my neighbors was engaging in what sounded like demolition or incredibly enthusiastic home renovation and I lost half a tumbler of whiskey in the calla lilies, with bonus squirrel… look, maybe you just had to be there.) What I’m trying to say is that I actually slept, and so did the dogs. They are bright and bouncy this morning, while I am logy and wishing I could go back for another round of smothering the pillow with my face.

Instead, I have coffee, and the dogs need walking, and I should haul my carcass through a run. I’m sure by the end of the last I’ll feel somewhat energized, and ready to tackle a full day’s worth of work.

Or, you know, I’ll simply be mildly exhausted and wanting a nap, but settling for tea instead and yanking words out one at a time as I chip at the coal face in my mind.

At least The Bloody Throne is proceeding apace. What I thought the book’s shape would be turns out to be close but no cigar, as they say, which means frequent pauses to stop and feel my way in the dark. I know it ends in the same place and I know the major handholds, but that’s somewhat like five different people trying to describe the elephant from constituent parts, as in the old tale.

The book keeping me alive right now is The Black God’s Heart, where a flying seventies-era van just carried the protagonist over a lot of water and to a skyscraper to meet a particular sorcerer from folktale. (Aw, come on, lemme see you saucer, Bugs Bunny crows inside my head, and I’ll have a hard time not putting that in the book, let me tell you.)

I can tell that someone’s going to ask me to make parts of this book clearer, but I am not a writer who hand-holds much if at all. So I’m already anticipating the editorial give and take on this one will necessitate much self-searching–am I refusing to change something because I’m selfishly resistant to altering my word-baby, or do I really have a point? Finding that balance will be difficult, but at least I’ve been through the process enough that I can spot a hurdle or two ahead of time.

Apparently I’m going to be messily mixing and mangling metaphors today, too. If that’s what a little sleep does to me I might as well stay awake.

…just kidding. I’m over forty and have had a lifetime of insomnia, I will always choose sleep. Whether or not I actually get it is another matter.

And with that, it’s time to get out the door, for the weight of a canine stare upon my right shoulder is absolutely crushing. Boxnoggin is near the door, looking very much like an ancient Egyptian statue with his nose pointed at me and his ears all the way up. He is READY for a walk, thank you very much, and as soon as I hit “publish” and bend to tie my shoes he’s going to be nose-deep in my shoelaces attempting to “help.”

Heaven knows I need all the aid I can get today. See you around, dear Readers.

Off the Ground

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I can’t quite seem to get off the ground this morning. (Morning, I say, though I’ve had a spot of lunch and settled with a cuppa.) I blame the lack of sleep from some douchewads setting off fireworks at midnight again. It’s past the “maybe they’re just confused” point and well towards “it’s a good thing I’m not pyrokinetic.”

A very good thing.

On the bright side, there was actual rain this morning–not very usual for July, but I’ll take it since it means most people stayed off the road. A Fed Ex truck did follow the dogs and I for most of our walkies–not the driver’s fault, he had a schedule and a route, and the overlap was purely coincidental.

Just try telling the dogs that, though. Boxnoggin was convinced the big vehicle was Up to No Good, and Miss B has never met a delivery truck she didn’t long to chase down and capture. I don’t know what she’d do if she ever actually caught one, kind of like her (mostly unfulfilled) desire to catch a squirrel; nor does Boxnoggin. But damned if they aren’t both going to try.

So that was amusing, and so was the snail plague over half my run route. It was more like an obstacle course or a fast dance than actually running, since I don’t want to crush any of the poor gastropods. The mild spring fading into a damp summer is doing them no end of good; I haven’t seen this many in years. Of course my hostas and some other tender plants are a little worse for wear, but I suppose that’s what happens when one hosts a buffet and suddenly guests show up.

Anyway, the dogs are sacked out after their Very Exciting Walk, and since I’m upping my mileage (it’s taken me forever to get back to the low end of my accustomed runs, injury and illness taking a toll) I’m very nearly there myself. The spot of last night’s homemade dal was very welcome, but I’m already hungry again and staring longingly at my tea mug as if it’ll magically refill without any effort on my part.

I’m 40k into The Bloody Throne, and it feels like I’m never going to finish this book. It never had a long run of easy days near the beginning, which I would have liked a great deal but coincided with the first flush of pandemic lockdown. Maybe the Muse will pity me and give me good wordcount when I finally get to the set-piece battles and the long slide down to the end. I know exactly where it ends and all the handholds I need to swing there. All that remains is to bloody well do it.

Which means I’d best get back to work. I’m taking the week off HOOD trying to catch up in however slight a fashion; I sense today will require a great deal of Hauser playing in the background while I stare disapprovingly at misbehaving characters.

On to Tuesday, then…

Monday, Not Usual Speed

Well, the weekend was full of good food, I’ll grant it that. The dogs got a whole pile of corn chips apiece, and they were absolutely beside themselves with joy. It almost made up for the artillery barrages. Even though a majority of voters went for the fireworks ordinance, some douchebags just had to ruin it for everyone else. It wasn’t as bad as it’s been some years, for which I’m grateful, but I’m still vexed.

Hopefully it’s the last gasp of selfish knobs in this particular direction. I find myself hoping for the “last gasp” in many directions lately. I spent some serious time on the couch yesterday and finished reading Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India; it’s been some while since I’ve had the mental and emotional bandwidth to read history. (Pandemic and fascist coup will do that to one.) Whatever hope I have lately–and it’s not a lot, mind you–comes from history’s quiet insistence that the crowds in the streets will bring some manner of reckoning to those who seem unassailable.

Of course the book has its lacunae; James is a firm believer in the Raj’s “civilizing mission” (such as it was) so it’s interesting to substitute certain terms from the language of empire into the language of decolonization. Next up on the reading list is Meyer & Brysac’s Tournament of Shadows, and I’m sure I’ll have to substitute a few terms in there, too.

What I did not do this past weekend was work, or do much more than glance at social media. The world is merrily burning itself down whether I look or not, and I was at the end of my ability to cope. Certainly I’m still going to have to be careful; it will take very little to send me spinning into despair again. The lack of sleep from random fireworks at odd hours, making the dogs attempt to smother me in order to gain safety from my closeness, isn’t helping. But I’m sticking grimly to my scheduled runs, hoping to tire myself out enough to collapse and get some good rest when the douchebags stop lighting off cannon.

If I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to work, I should at least utilize it. I might even turn this bloody epic fantasy in on time–although that is a wildly optimistic thought. It will take a lot of tea, I’m sure. Fortunately, I have boxes and boxes standing ready, though only a few bags of my favorite chai masala. I’ve plenty of British Breakfast and a not-inconsiderable amount of Earl Grey, which should drag me through quite handily.

I won’t be quite at usual speed today; having to sleep with both dogs practically atop me sort of put paid to any real rest. But I can run, and that will both give me enough energy to get through the day and wear me out so I won’t bloody care if there’s stray crackles and booms to make the canines nest on me tonight. At least they sleep when they’re nestled as close to Mum as possible. It’s calming to know that I possess some power, however fitful, to soothe their fears.

Onward and upward, nolite te bastardes carborundorum, and all that. I would wish for peace, but that hardly seems likely; instead, I wish for strength.

Or just sheer stubbornness–always a favorite in these parts.

A Tired Boxnoggin

This is the face of a dog who is Very Tired because someone keeps letting off fireworks at midnight in our neighborhood. You can feel the “for fuck’s sake” energy coming off the image, can’t you? I certainly can. All our quadrupeds need a lot of pets and soothing lately.

Tomorrow is the Fourth, and I’m not looking forward to the malignant nationalism, the rampant drunk driving, or the asshats setting off illegal artillery. I am looking forward to eating a whole lot of tasty things with the kids and reading some history, drinking tea, and putting out our big ol’ flag prominently featuring the entire planet instead of the abstract colors of a single nation.

Nobody will notice, but I’ll feel better.

Thankfully we have some anti-anxiety medication for the quadrupeds of our household, which they’ll start on around noon tomorrow since we know from experience that’s when the scattered booms generally begin. At least we have better living through chemistry to help our poor pets.

I wish you a quiet, happy Fourth, my friends, full of good food. And I’m going to try to be hopeful that something will change in the near future and I’ll have a country I can be proud of.

Dum spiro, spero, and all that. Hope is an agony, but I suppose I have to engage in it. The alternative’s frankly too terrifying to contemplate.

Over and out.

Midnight Sonic Assault

Some jackasses decided to break the law and set off fireworks late last night, which meant we were all jolted and the dogs spent a long time huddled against me, trembling furiously, before any of us could return to sleep. I don’t know if it’s a case of white supremacists attempting to place an entire neighborhood under siege (as has been happening in a lot of places where protests are ongoing) or it’s asshats who think their “fweedoms” include blowing shit up at midnight simply because voters supported the ordinance telling them not to. And good luck getting the police to persuade the asshats into behaving responsibly or arrest a few entitled bigots; I’m sure they’re too busy downtown trying to menace whatever protestors our community can produce.

I’m sure it will only get worse from here, since the Fourth is coming up. I am extremely nervous about what that might mean. Fireworks have been illegal in our city for a while now, though outlying rural areas cherish the “fweedom” to let loose the artillery and fill the emergency rooms with burns, amputations, and assorted other injuries every year.

I have never liked fireworks, personally. They always remind me of the sonic assaults my childhood abusers used during rageaholic sessions. You’d also think anyone who has a pet would take a look at the shuddering, the drooling, and the hiding most animals do when the fireworks start and think gee, maybe this isn’t a good idea, but apparently, selfishness and sadism reliably wins out for most people.

And it is sadism. If you have pets and you let off artillery for an abstract “celebration,” you are taking a direct hand in traumatizing your animals, betraying the implicit contract to protect and care for them. It’s that simple.

I’m sure people will scream “but what about fweeeeeedom! and patriotism!” and additionally moan that I’m a killjoy and have no right to accuse them of being sadists, that they love their Fido and Kitty and it really doesn’t upset their animals that much. I shall have no ruth for such bullshit, because my dogs were pressed against me shaking in fear for at least an hour and a half after the last boom reverberated through our otherwise quiet neighborhood while I lay internally raging against the selfishness of fuckwits and wishing I could explain to my poor furry companions.

I’m sick of it. I’m so sick of selfishness and fuckwittery. Some days it seems like there’s nothing else on this damn planet, at least as far as a certain species of bipedal primates is concerned.

I’m also worried about what the booms and crackles might cover. An entire army division could move in and announce martial law while racist asshats and their fuckwitted racist friends are busy blowing shit up for “fweedom” and we’d never know until too late. Don’t tell me it’s an outlandish notion, for God’s sake, just look at the news–outlandish shit is happening night and day.

“But it’s tradition!” some people will moan. So was bull-baiting and cockfights. “Tradition” is not a reason to keep doing fuckwitted, stupid, racist, sadistic, or abusive shit. It’s also not a defense.

…you can tell I’m feeling the lack of sleep. I’m annoyed, and even coffee isn’t soothing the urge to let my claws slip free. Maybe getting a run in will help, maybe not. I can probably let a little of it out on the heavy bag, and see if there’s a combat scene or two I can write today.

Time to take the dogs for a walk. And if there’s spent fireworks scattered in the street before particular houses, at least I’ll know which of my neighbors is a fuckwit. One always has one’s suspicions, of course, but confirmation is confirmation, to coin a phrase.

Christ, I wish people would just stop being fuckwits. But apparently asshattery will always be with us, lo unto the pearly gates. It’s enough to make even an optimist think there’s no redemption for our silly little species. Today I’m almost halfway there already, and if I have to go pick up milk I’m sure I’ll see something that will push me the rest of the distance.

Over and out.