Category Archives: real life

Muddling Along on New Year’s Eve

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People complain about years, and I’m tempted myself. The problem is most things we complain about have nothing to do with the year. It’s just another way to shift blame to something outside and beyond our control. We’ve got to stop doing that.

Don’t get me wrong. 2018 has been a rocky year, for reasons anyone paying attention already knows: the effects of climate change, a political system not so much rudderless as corrupt and anti-democratic and reveling in the fact, the rise of fascism (again) across the globe, and bigotry running rampant. Yet all that has nothing to do with the year. That’s just what we’ve agreed to call one of earth’s orbital periods.

The problem isn’t the year. Not last year or even(shudder) the one before.  The problem is people, and I’m one of those. Maybe we can all do better, but right now it’s my blog and I’m talking about me. I’m not making any New Year’s resolutions because that never works with me. Instead I’m going to concentrate on what I would like to do in the new year, and by that I do not mean obligations. I mean things that would really help my attitude and perhaps make me, as a person, more pleasant to be around.

I’ve written a good deal this year. I haven’t written nearly as much as I can and would like to. I haven’t written nearly enough about the things I want to write about.  As always, it will require a shuffling of priorities to make that happen. I’m going to try.

I’ve read a fair bit this year. I would like to read more. There are a lot of good books out now by people whose work I enjoy and admire. I’d like to make room for them, because a writer who doesn’t read isn’t a writer at all, or at least not an interesting one. Reading isn’t water but it does help to refill the well. More like seeding the clouds and catching the rain.

So I’ll say good-bye to 2018 with no insults, nothing derogatory at all. It was a year. Good things did happen along with the bad. 2019 might be better or worse, but either way, it’s on us.

Happy New Year!

An Accident, I Swear

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I have managed to break my glasses, a feat I had not attained since childhood. Dropped? Of course. Scratched? Absolutely. Had a screw loose? In glasses and in life, both. But broken? Nope.

It was way too easy when I was a kid, and it was probably only the support of our extended family that kept my mother from going bankrupt keeping me in eyeware. I think my most notable achievement was breaking a new pair of glasses the same bloody day I got them. All by accident, of course. Get hit in the head with a basketball, shoot out a lens with a BB gun (you’ll shoot your eye out! Nope. Just the lens), face plant in a game of touch football. As I said, easy.

Not so much when you’re an alleged adult. Now it takes more effort. Last Tuesday I had returned from physical therapy, which is another whole story. Sciatica. I has it. Didn’t even know what sciatica was, other than a reference in Harlan Ellison’s classic, “Working With the Little People.” Hoo, boy. Now I know why Charlie the Gremlin was so damn grumpy, but I digress. Hobbled up the steps toward the back patio, tripped and did a faceplant into the concrete. As to the damage to my face, let’s just say it left a mark. Or three. More importantly, I did a number on my glasses.

So now I’m typing this supported only by the vision my genetics and a bad case of measles left me. My new glasses are on order. Maybe when they get here I’ll be able to see clearly again. Which would be nice, since I don’t think I’ve ever seen all that clearly before now.

Hey, a guy can dream.

It’s a Seasonal Thing

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Not quite late, exactly, though this is going up a little later in the day than I usually try to manage. Couldn’t be helped. As you all know, it’s now December, approaching—for those who celebrate, and even for many who don’t—Christmas. It’s hard to avoid at least and impossible at most. Those of us caught up in the orbit of the Yule Season have certain…obligations, shall we say, that go along with the annual celebration. Some of them are familial. A few are even spiritual. For some of us, however, they are more of a ritual.

It was time to re-watch “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” Well, it was either that or “Santa Claus vs the Devil.”

Sure, you could take the easy way out and go for “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” but as far as I’m concerned that particular holiday joy is more in the line of collateral damage. It’s something you often end up doing or being done to, willing or no. Seasonal films like “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” usually require a little more effort. They’re not that hard to find, with the right streaming service, but as a rule you do have to look. And you have to know to look, which to me places them in an entirely separate category.

For one thing, they’re really bad.

As films, that is. As cultural artifacts? Priceless. The sheer cluelessness of  “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is so absolute that it transcends into a sort of pure and beguiling innocence. You can’t find that just anywhere. And after repeated viewings, I still find new things. For instance, for a while I had it my head that one of the Martians was played by Jamie Farr, even though I knew the time frame was too early. Only later, when I bothered to check, I found that it was actually an actor named Al Nesor. Quite a resemblance, though.

And yes, I know it doesn’t take that long to watch “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” Only after watching it we stumbled across “RiffTrax: The MST3K Reunion.”

That took a while.

Worth it.

I Need a Schedule

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Closeup

Or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve drawn. When I was working a regular 8-5, things were simpler. I’d get up around 7AM, get dressed, take out the trash, go to work. When I got home, I’d eat dinner (and usually cook it, too), spend a bit of quality time with First Reader, then disappear into the library and try to get some writing work done. It wasn’t a perfect system by any means, but overall it served.

Now that’s all gone. In theory, I have lots of time. In practice, almost none. There’s always something else wanting my attention. This summer I spent most days working on the room over the garage because we’re turning it into a studio. I estimate it’ll take half of next summer to get everything finished. Regardless, I make time. Plus house maintenance and yard maintenance, which I also must make time for. When’s my writing work time now? Snatches here and there. I always feels like I”m stealing it because, for the most part, it ain’t on the agenda.

This isn’t working.

I’m going to try blocking out the time after dinner. I have to be flexible on this, with an understanding that a disruption of the schedule is just that–a disruption. It has to be clear to me and to my loved ones that this is my time, and if I’m doing anything else, I’m not doing what I need to be doing.

Seems simple enough, of the face of it. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s Winter

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I don’t care what the calendar says. Winter is here. It’s been snowing for the last few days, and I’ve had to shovel the driveway and sidewalk, so that’s winter in my book. Fall was short, and the leaves are already gone, mostly buried under snow.

I’m still adapting to the idea of seasons. As I’ve said before, in the Deep South we really didn’t have them anymore, and that wasn’t always the case. I can remember having falls and springs and winters. Summers never went away, but over the years they kept stealing days from the rest of the seasons until there just wasn’t much left. If you meet a climate change denier over the age of fifty from the deep south, then you’re looking at someone in denial of their own experience.This is something I’ve never understood, almost as weird as someone arguing that water isn’t wet.

Which, by the way, it definitely is.

On a completely unrelated subject, snippet du jour:

“I wish,” Mera said, and sat down without being asked. “Who is the annoying pooka and what did you two do?”

“He’s Nudd, and who says we did anything? Honestly, sweetie, pull yourself together. I can’t talk to you like this,” Aednat said.

“Oh, right. Give me a sec….” Mera the nightmare appeared to be trying to concentrate, which was an expression that would have been comic if it hadn’t been on the face of such a horror. As it was, it magnified the effect. I felt a chill and Aednat actually shuddered. The feeling passed quickly and then we were looking at Mera in what I can only assume was her true form.

It wasn’t quite what I expected.

In the chair was a woman with curly red hair and freckles. Her face was a little flushed, probably due to the drink, but she didn’t look anything like a horse. She appeared about the same age as Aednat, though I knew, as humans reckoned years, both were far older.

“What did you mean, ‘what did we do?’”

“You must have done something. I know why you’re here, and I know where you’re going,” Mera said.

“Oh,” Aednat said, and that was all.

“It’s worse than that,” Mera said. “I was ordered to meet you, though I expected to find you on the train when it leaves. Well, no sense putting it off.”

I frowned. “Put what off?”

“Letting you know I was ordered to come with you.”

Aednat frowned. “You too?”

Mera nodded, looking unhappy. “Why do you think I was drinking?”