“Sometimes the old ways are the best.”
How I can have accomplished so little and be so exhausted, I don't know. I can only chalk it up to a lack of exercise, poor health, worse diet, monotony, and the endless barrage of horrific national and world news. And really, that's enough to put anyone off their feed, I should think.
The high today was 60F.
I only managed a very little bit of work, on The Night Watchers and getting monster doodles drawn and colored (I almost wrote "drawn and quartered"). I'm trying to shift my writing time from 5-8 a.m., which began during COVID-19 lockdown, back to the late morning-afternoon time slot I wrote during for almost thirty years before 2020-2021. I'm fucking sick of writing to the sunrise. And it's especially frustrating, the trouble I'm having with the novel just now, because I know exactly what's coming next. I just have to put down the words.
Things were a bit more productive on the reading front. I've begun both Jay Kirk's Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals and Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea. The latter thanks to a recommendation from Charlotte Chance Thorn. The former, well, I've always been fascinated with Charles Akeley, whose worked has featured in two of my stories, "Onion" and "Ovid Under Glass." And I have my new issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, so I'm set for a week or so.
The afternoon's film was Sam Mendes' Skyfall (2012).
This "kill the rich" thing that seems to be stirring again, I believe (fear) that a lot of people have absolutely no idea to what degree it will not accomplish their desired ends, and never mind the potential loss, along the way, of any claim to holding a higher moral ground. Not to mention, as I have already said, one's humanity. This country willingly elected Donald Trump a second time. And yes, sure, "oligarchy, Republicans, Elon Musk, big oil, big pharma, Wall Street blah, blah, fucking blah," but the sad fucking truth is that more than half the people who bothered to vote (only 66%, which, sadly, was unusually high) voted for the demented son of a bitch. And a great number of them who did so are very, very poor people. This points to a deeper, more insidious problem (or problems) in America, one that would not be solved by killing off the 1%, a problem the 1% have not necessarily created, but are exploiting. Put away Marx and figure out what that thing/s is and work to fix that, and maybe things will get better.
It's not that I don't understand the bitterness, resentment, and exasperation. I certainly fucking do.* And don't get pissed at me for saying these things. Jesus, we do still have freedom of speech, and I'm not defending the bastards. There's actually room for a diversity of opinions. It's how we solve problems in this country.
Anyway...
Because I am as broke as a lot of folks (you should see my royalty statements), please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. Buy something. That's why I do this, to sell books. Thank you.
Have a lone, bony sock.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
6:15 p.m.
* In 2022, the poverty level in Alabama, which overwhelmingly voted red (as usual), was 15.6%, vs. a national average of 11.9%. It actually dropped about 1% in 2024, under President Biden. Things got marginally better. So, people voted Trump back in. Yes, it's crazy. And just to toss in some trivia, consider that in the early years of the 20th Century, pre-WWI, poverty rates in the US averaged 60-70%.
The high today was 60F.
I only managed a very little bit of work, on The Night Watchers and getting monster doodles drawn and colored (I almost wrote "drawn and quartered"). I'm trying to shift my writing time from 5-8 a.m., which began during COVID-19 lockdown, back to the late morning-afternoon time slot I wrote during for almost thirty years before 2020-2021. I'm fucking sick of writing to the sunrise. And it's especially frustrating, the trouble I'm having with the novel just now, because I know exactly what's coming next. I just have to put down the words.
Things were a bit more productive on the reading front. I've begun both Jay Kirk's Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals and Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea. The latter thanks to a recommendation from Charlotte Chance Thorn. The former, well, I've always been fascinated with Charles Akeley, whose worked has featured in two of my stories, "Onion" and "Ovid Under Glass." And I have my new issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, so I'm set for a week or so.
The afternoon's film was Sam Mendes' Skyfall (2012).
This "kill the rich" thing that seems to be stirring again, I believe (fear) that a lot of people have absolutely no idea to what degree it will not accomplish their desired ends, and never mind the potential loss, along the way, of any claim to holding a higher moral ground. Not to mention, as I have already said, one's humanity. This country willingly elected Donald Trump a second time. And yes, sure, "oligarchy, Republicans, Elon Musk, big oil, big pharma, Wall Street blah, blah, fucking blah," but the sad fucking truth is that more than half the people who bothered to vote (only 66%, which, sadly, was unusually high) voted for the demented son of a bitch. And a great number of them who did so are very, very poor people. This points to a deeper, more insidious problem (or problems) in America, one that would not be solved by killing off the 1%, a problem the 1% have not necessarily created, but are exploiting. Put away Marx and figure out what that thing/s is and work to fix that, and maybe things will get better.
It's not that I don't understand the bitterness, resentment, and exasperation. I certainly fucking do.* And don't get pissed at me for saying these things. Jesus, we do still have freedom of speech, and I'm not defending the bastards. There's actually room for a diversity of opinions. It's how we solve problems in this country.
Anyway...
Because I am as broke as a lot of folks (you should see my royalty statements), please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. Buy something. That's why I do this, to sell books. Thank you.
Have a lone, bony sock.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
6:15 p.m.
* In 2022, the poverty level in Alabama, which overwhelmingly voted red (as usual), was 15.6%, vs. a national average of 11.9%. It actually dropped about 1% in 2024, under President Biden. Things got marginally better. So, people voted Trump back in. Yes, it's crazy. And just to toss in some trivia, consider that in the early years of the 20th Century, pre-WWI, poverty rates in the US averaged 60-70%.