revived perspectives

in

Hello, October: think I've figured out how to (re)start this comics thing (yes, this is the gamble I'm taking on myself): each project tells you how it wants to come to life, what it needs from you in order to become something from nothing – in this case, a somewhat more linear writing process than MainFictionThing (in other words, a little less Muse and a little more Obsidian), until the prescription changes, of course. Middle section might have to be figured in Muse, though – I need to see it, shift it, move things around… still coming up with a series name for the little comics thing posted yesterday. Suggestions welcome.

muse and obsidian for brain and blood management / coordination

in

First section (or reasonable fascimile) of MainFictionThing finally in place. Some nips and tucks req'd eventually, but the main jist is there and duly reflected in reorganized and slightly less manic Muse board though it has to be said that working in Muse really helps me get into the fucked up headspace of one of – ok probably both of – my characters: the board's exhausting to look at – just as I'm sure it is to live in this character's mind.

I know the feeling.

Can't leave Obsidian out of what seems to have become a workupdate post: not only is it the focal point for the (mis)management of my creative brain, but it also helps keep me alive: makes an excellent tool at recording blood sugars and meals and such, especially if I eat at a restaurant: I've got a spreadsheet at the top of my daily notes and use a tag for the restaurant which lets me quickly find instances of when I eat there and the requisite insulin to make sure it doesn't kill me on repeated visits. Handy.

update: paint shop window shards

in

Neither insignificant nor earth-shattering sum for all needed renovations/repairs to paint shop / house… a year from now. Suspect they’re still making up from the storm that blasted through here in June and the many many houses that needed new roofs and new, well, everything. Fortunately, showed me how to repair or at least temper the expansion of the crack in the six-foot window. Stress fracture caused it and I’m 99% certain of what caused the stress fracture: accursed ivy got under the window sill and grew very, very large. And caused much stress.

PRESS (A) 01 extract: what i wish someone had told me when my parents divorced but no one did so im saying it now to anyone who needs it

in

An extract with a very long title that I won’t reproduce here because it’s already in the title of this post from PRESS (A) TO START 01: LAST CHRISTMAS IN JULY: A COWARD'S EXORCISM, featured in the debut issue of my newsletter-exclusive zine, is now available on the PRESS (A) page. Note that I said extract, not excerpt: this was something that didn’t appear in the zine itself and was cut not because I didn't like it or because I disagreed with its sentiments but because it didn't fit in with the eventual final whole (and the POV shift was a bit too jarring, even for me). That said, I still wanted to publish it somewhere so here we are – this being a case in point of the benefits of carving out your own space on the internet. It has been edited only to reflect its newly standalone status. You can find it about midway down the PRESS (A) page:

An excerpt from the extract:

Having made it to early middle age without killing myself (though I've held more than one knife to my wrist (the right one, I am, after all, left-handed) and, on more than one occasion over the last five years, weighed the benefits of injecting a full 300 units of insulin with breakfast instead of my usual two or three) I'd like to take a moment to impart one lesson to the youths in my sphere, few though you are (my wife's cousins kids (which makes them ??? to me), our niece), yet uniformly the children of divorce.

Let me be clear about one thing: 99.999% of the time, the divorce is the right move, far less damaging in the long-term (the short- can really suck too) to everyone involved (the end of my parents' marriage was the best thing for both of them; truly, they never should have been together and I never should have existed – I'm a temporal aberration, apparently). In even the best pairings, the people that were married are never the same people that split – or even that stay married: the marriages that endure, that last, are the ones that accept that people change, that people grow up and out, and that duly evolve in tandem with the participants. Marriages are not staid institutions and opportunities to take one another's presence for granted nor are they a contract of ownership: each is a unique, living, breathing thing that have their criteria for evolutionary survival apart from and yet indelibly linked to the needs of participants who have decided to take their journeys together.

To put it plainly, having been married myself now for the last eight years – and with the intention of being married for many, many more – I can safely tell you, youth of my sphere, that marriages are hard fucking work.

The whole thing lives midway down the page; you can subscribe and request your copy of the complete LAST CHRISTMAS here.

home-home / ... A CASTLE

in

As I wait for 1300 to roll around and the contractors passing judgement on the best way forward WRT replacing some windows and potentially a wall I'm asking myself, perhaps more than I have in a long time, what would help me feel like I'm "at home" in this place I've lived for the last 11 years?

It does feel like "a home" - the dogchildren, K (they are my home; perhaps it's more the people and less the place?) - but it doesn't feel like "home-home," not at all; I haven't felt at home in the "home-home" sense anywhere since 2004 – though it could be argued that I haven't felt at home-home anywhere since 1997, give or take. I catch myself, on more than one occasion, saying "I'm ready to go home now."

Anyhow, what would help me there? Acceptance? Resignation? Casting aside of lingering iterations of self that no longer serve a purpose?

Transitions of transitions (especially for those who've read it): Finished Shirley Jackson's WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE and it is now a.) one of my favorite books of all time ever and b.) a gateway drug into ensuring that the rest of her work makes its way to the to-read pile pronto. So very, very good.

(Is that movie about her with Elizabeth Moss worth watching?)

Oh and speaking of 1997, I've got a thing that I'm whipping into shape, a piece cut from LAST CHRISTMAS IN JULY, coming later today – once I get it in order and grow enough of a pair to publish it in public.