The Great River War is Yet to Be Written.
I think the last substantial post I made sort of burned me out. There are much better bloggers than I who can tackle the heavy stuff. Maybe just stick to my little corner and crooning about one thing or another. Leave the rest to the professionals.
Oh, I don't really know much about what's been going on recently. Mel & I are fine for the moment. Travis is overcoming his skin malady, although all the dogs are getting fleas or something. We'll have to look into that. In any case, things are basically normal here.
I went to the SD's school choir pop show last night, which was two hours of interminable, mortifying unpleasantness. I won't go so far as to call it "hell", because I did pretty much endure it. I will have to confess that these are the kind of events I did my best to avoid for the humiliatingly amateurish way they were executed. Yes, these are children, I recognize that. That's fine. It's a nice thing that the schools put on a performance for the parents to allow them to preen and guffaw and parade their spawn around, basking in the surrogate acclaim that they might garner from their children's mawkish efforts. That's great, I guess a lot of people really enjoy that in a very heartfelt and honest way. Not so much me. I come off like an asshole here (not an unreasonable assessment), but I really just don't like these events.
I've just spent fifteen minutes re-writing three sentences over and over, trying to get across a point that I realize makes me a complete fucking awful person - much less a step parent. So. I'm going to keep that to myself and recognize I really should be much more supportive of the SD's hobbies and such and to just stop shitting on my family members. Okay? Okay. Let me just point out that of 30 or so selections, there were perhaps two of them which were actually pleasantly or adeptly executed. Of course, these were the soloists. Everyone else was pretty much as you'd expect. The girls were mostly carrying the show, the guys were either washed out in vocals or suffering from Peter Brady syndrome, and the half-assed attempt at choreography was mostly, well, somnolent. What the fuck do I expect from Junior High productions? I expect not to be dragged to them. All this & I wasn't even allowed to change out of the Monkey Suit. I was rather mortified that someone might think I actually enjoy wearing a polo shirt and khakis.
Mel put a good face on it through the duration. She was wrangling me for kvetching about being there, but when faced with the reality of the performances, there was a severely compelling urge to make with the drinking. Mel's singular moment for the evening was the rendition of "Hey Mickey", a selection she found puzzling for the veiled references to anal sex and condom use (in OUR schools?). I noted that one must never underestimate the capacity for suburbanites to be completely freaking oblivious.
In any case. That was last night and nothing much else happened.
I'm still sort of mowing away at this story, which I can't really do too much with. The problem I'm having now is that I think I have decent seeds for three different stories blossoming out of the one I was trying to focus on (okay, I wasn't trying very hard to focus at all). So, now I'm sort of stuck. I can run with the original story, throwing in all sorts of constant tangents, or break the whole thing apart. Obviously, the latter is preferable (it has the potential to generate further works) but I don't know how much time I really want to devote to something that I know I can't publish. I mean, it'd be great to have three completed short stories, but then they are going to sink down to the bottom of the chest since I'll not be able to use them any time soon. I mean, I sort of have to explain where Doneghal comes from before a story about him in a separate setting is really going to have any meaning. Well, anyway, I'm editing around stuff and trying to make the central story a little more cohesive. I'm also not clear on whether I have Doneghal's voice well situated (and I'm still trying to figure out if I should leave the "H" in his name or not).
Anyway, that's what's going on here. My weekend looks very busy with manual labor and taskhounding, and all that kind of delightful crap. In other news, I grabbed the new !!! album, Myth Takes, which is just as good as the previous one, and also nabbed Grinderman, which I am presently listening to. So far, so good.
Fun.
-12th.
Oh, I don't really know much about what's been going on recently. Mel & I are fine for the moment. Travis is overcoming his skin malady, although all the dogs are getting fleas or something. We'll have to look into that. In any case, things are basically normal here.
I went to the SD's school choir pop show last night, which was two hours of interminable, mortifying unpleasantness. I won't go so far as to call it "hell", because I did pretty much endure it. I will have to confess that these are the kind of events I did my best to avoid for the humiliatingly amateurish way they were executed. Yes, these are children, I recognize that. That's fine. It's a nice thing that the schools put on a performance for the parents to allow them to preen and guffaw and parade their spawn around, basking in the surrogate acclaim that they might garner from their children's mawkish efforts. That's great, I guess a lot of people really enjoy that in a very heartfelt and honest way. Not so much me. I come off like an asshole here (not an unreasonable assessment), but I really just don't like these events.
I've just spent fifteen minutes re-writing three sentences over and over, trying to get across a point that I realize makes me a complete fucking awful person - much less a step parent. So. I'm going to keep that to myself and recognize I really should be much more supportive of the SD's hobbies and such and to just stop shitting on my family members. Okay? Okay. Let me just point out that of 30 or so selections, there were perhaps two of them which were actually pleasantly or adeptly executed. Of course, these were the soloists. Everyone else was pretty much as you'd expect. The girls were mostly carrying the show, the guys were either washed out in vocals or suffering from Peter Brady syndrome, and the half-assed attempt at choreography was mostly, well, somnolent. What the fuck do I expect from Junior High productions? I expect not to be dragged to them. All this & I wasn't even allowed to change out of the Monkey Suit. I was rather mortified that someone might think I actually enjoy wearing a polo shirt and khakis.
Mel put a good face on it through the duration. She was wrangling me for kvetching about being there, but when faced with the reality of the performances, there was a severely compelling urge to make with the drinking. Mel's singular moment for the evening was the rendition of "Hey Mickey", a selection she found puzzling for the veiled references to anal sex and condom use (in OUR schools?). I noted that one must never underestimate the capacity for suburbanites to be completely freaking oblivious.
In any case. That was last night and nothing much else happened.
I'm still sort of mowing away at this story, which I can't really do too much with. The problem I'm having now is that I think I have decent seeds for three different stories blossoming out of the one I was trying to focus on (okay, I wasn't trying very hard to focus at all). So, now I'm sort of stuck. I can run with the original story, throwing in all sorts of constant tangents, or break the whole thing apart. Obviously, the latter is preferable (it has the potential to generate further works) but I don't know how much time I really want to devote to something that I know I can't publish. I mean, it'd be great to have three completed short stories, but then they are going to sink down to the bottom of the chest since I'll not be able to use them any time soon. I mean, I sort of have to explain where Doneghal comes from before a story about him in a separate setting is really going to have any meaning. Well, anyway, I'm editing around stuff and trying to make the central story a little more cohesive. I'm also not clear on whether I have Doneghal's voice well situated (and I'm still trying to figure out if I should leave the "H" in his name or not).
Anyway, that's what's going on here. My weekend looks very busy with manual labor and taskhounding, and all that kind of delightful crap. In other news, I grabbed the new !!! album, Myth Takes, which is just as good as the previous one, and also nabbed Grinderman, which I am presently listening to. So far, so good.
Fun.
-12th.