No rest for the wicked
1) I am in the process of putting together two separate collections of short stories for publication. One will be straight noir/more or less conventional science fiction, and the other will be the more “out there” material. The noir volume is a bit thin, so I am working on four to five new stories based on some of the more unsavory local crimes I’ve followed over the years. I think Patty is getting a bit apprehensive as she recalls the very strange and dark places I went on the writing campaign of early 2010.
2) Speaking of strange, this Xmas is one I wish to quickly forget. Due to circumstances far beyond my control, two of the grandchildren spent the night here on the 18th. Their father and his girlfriend were still recovering from COVID, so I spent the night in a hotel as geezers with diabetes don’t recover very well from this shit. While driving from my lodgings to pick up some dinner, my venerable 2001 Honda CR-V bit the dust. All sorts of hilarity ensued, from turning Gein Manor upside down in a fruitless search for the car’s title, to the state refusing to give me a duplicate title because they claimed I never paid off the loan for said dead auto, to a mad dash to Indianapolis to buy a replacement vehicle. In the meantime, Patty and I are once again in quarantine from one another due to the grandchildren, and this is the first Christmas in our lives during which neither of us sees our siblings. I also miss the birthday of Sister #1, who shared birthdays with our father. This was a big one for her, as she surpassed the age at which Pa Gein expired ... don’t know why that plays with our heads, but now there’s two of us who’ve been on earth more years than anyone in the previous generation.
3) A friend posted something on FB about stupid shit a grade school teacher told her. This reminded me of my abusive fourth grade teacher who would call me up in front of the class and say “you won’t even be fit to polish the door handles at a college let alone be admitted to one.” If only there was a hell in which she was basking, and that there was an internet connection so I could regale her with my adventures in academia, or, at the very least, I could share photos of me watering and fertilizing her untended grave, which I do every time I get back that way.
4) The “puppy” now weighs 12 more pounds than Stella, who turns 13 in February. Stella has all sorts of health issues, but is hanging in there. Biggest problem right now is supply chain for her prescription food.
5) I think I am more comfortable than ever with how little I know and how badly our species is foundering. The ability to communicate our projections into past and future give us the illusion of wisdom and a perspective on reality, which is the zenith of both ignorance and arrogance. The longer I live, the more dumbfounded I am by my fellow creatures who think they know how anything really works, as if the universe spit out human beings to understand it.
Cheers!