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GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #286: DOING BATTLE

Sometimes when I'm writing I feel like I'm going to battle. I felt that way a couple of novels ago, a book that I sadly aborted. I've been feeling it a lot in the novella I'm working on now. Every time I've tried to write this thing, it fought me every step of the way.


Until tonight. I finally got to the point where everything comes together, and I wrote like white hot lightning today. I expect the rest of it to slip out of my head like the perfect shit Dr. Kellogg was talking about in The Road to Wellville. I needed to do a lot of setup in order to get to the awesome payoff I'm getting to right now. I can't describe to you how that makes my dick hard. It's exciting.


In all honesty, I can't wait to be done with this one. But now I'm having so much fun after months of misery. I hope when I go back to edit the setup that the stuff feels good. I can't in all good conscience release a book that wasn't fun for me. If I didn't like writing it, I know no one will like reading it. Writing that first draft is supposed to be fun.


I'm fairly certain that I'm almost done with this thing. I'll set it aside for a month and work on something else for a bit. Then I'll do the first edit. I hope the months of misery was worth it, because I really like how this is working out.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #285: I AM IN AGONY

I had my first full workout today, minus any foot exercises and most of my stretches. Holy fuck, my body is killing me. Even though without the leg stuff, my workout was a lot shorter, it still fucked me up. I expected that I'd lost a lot of my flexibility, but I didn't expect how weak I've become. I used to be able to lift weights pretty well, but I can barely do five curls with a 25 pound weight. This is distressing to say the least. I used to be a strong fucker, but now I can barely get out of bed. I'm going to have to work on this.


At least I made a lot of progress on projects I've been working on. I work on a lot of things at the same time, and many things wrapped up today. One major project, two experiments and a few editing projects. I'm very happy about this. I'm also happy that I haven't been rejected by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine yet. I have a good feeling about that submission. I'm hoping I'll finally break in.


A lot of other projects aren't faring quite so well. That's OK. Sometimes 1 out of every 10 projects work out. At least I have that one, which proves that I'm not an impostor. I'll take it.


I just need my neck and gut to stop killing me so much. That would be nice. I've taken some powders, but they haven't kicked in yet. Hey, I have a new system of taking care of myself. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime soon. It could help for others having similar problems. Stay tuned. If I don't fuck this up, I'm sure I'll post about it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #284: MY ATTEMPT AT LIFE

My doctor has always taken a hard line with me. When he saw I was reading a Walking Dead novel, he said, "Do you know who doesn't survive the zombie apocalypse? Fat diabetics." He also told me that I have to avoid the 5 Ps. I only remember pizza, pasta and Portillo's, but there were two others. He also said I should hang out outside of Taco Bell and compare the fat people who go in to the skinny people.


So when I saw him recently, he merely said that I'd gone in and out of the hospital. What did that mean? "That I'm doing something wrong?" I said. He nodded with very little care about it. It bugged me that he didn't care anymore. That he'd accepted my negligence.


I chose this life. I do not want to live much longer than I have. At the  same time, I figured maybe I should be better.


I took steps forward today. No more caffeine after lunch. No fast food. Two drink maximum tonight. I even worked out slightly today. I can't do leg exercises. They hurt too much for my left foot.


Let's see where this goes.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #283: MY GARDEN SURPRISES

I think I've said it before, but my backyard always has a surprise for me. The couple who lived here before me cultivated a garden in the backyard. I have done next to zero work back there, and every spring I get a surprise. Usually it's a single stalk of corn, and it always grows in a different place back there.


This year, it's a tree.


On Sunday, there was nothing but blooming plants and flowers in my backyard. It's been raining ever since, and it will continue through to Friday. And then I took out the trash tonight and saw, shockingly, that there was a tall plant near my separate garage. The stem is made of bark. Maybe, just maybe, it's a lilac bush. I have one back there that is so big it would qualify as a tree. But this new growth is blooming up top, and it doesn't look like lilac.


How is it possible that a tree is suddenly growing in my backyard? Nothing has been planted back there in the more than 15 years I've lived here.


This garden never ceases to surprise me.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #282: BLUE COLLAR

Sometimes I miss working a blue collar job. I have worked white collar for almost 15 years. I have been in telecom for just that long. You know what happens when you work in telecom? You realize that she shit you do almost means nothing.


I remember when I was a kid, and my mom would bring me to the park. Aside from playing Luke Skywalker on the bridges and at the pole, my favorite thing was the shovel. I'd sit down and scoop into the sand, digging as much as I could and casting it aside. I could never dig as deep as I wanted to, but I tried, goddammit.


Fast forward to now. I take the train to my telecom job in the city. Along the way, we pass several scrapyards. At one of them, we pause so some train employees can get on at the first car. I love watching as cranes pick up scrap metal and move it. It doesn't even make sense, but I like to watch it.


When I worked a blue collar job, I went home with the satisfaction that I actually accomplished something. In my white collar jobs, that's impossible. I never go home thinking I made the world a better place.


Here's the deal. Telecom works kind of like magic. I'm well versed in the history of the industry--back to when it meant lighting giant fires on mountaintops so other people on mountaintops could see it and light their own--and the fact that any of this shit works at all is kind of a miracle. I don't get it, and I've read extensively on this. People get furious when it doesn't work, and I get it. Telecom is a convenience that people are used to. If it goes wrong, it's a catastrophe. Yet from my perspective, people should never get upset over this. Because fuck magic when it doesn't work, right?


I remember not being in an office. I remember being on the open road fulfilling the needs of my fellow blue collar workers. I miss that kind of freedom. At the same time, I never got the awesome benefits that I get now when I worked blue collar. It's a constant struggle between the two worlds.


I wish I had another option. But fuck it. We're all doomed, aren't we?