#Weeknotes S02 E05

Unlike Anderson .Paak, I’ve never had The Best Teef in the Game. I had a minor dental emergency this week. Parts of a back molar around a filling I’ve had since I was a child started falling off. No pain or anything, but it did bring me to a dentist for the first time in, well, a long while. I’ll have to go back in a couple of weeks, but in all likelihood it’s just due to the inevitable bone loss that comes with age. No cavities! (I generally don’t get cavities, not since I had those fillings when I was a child.)

The tooth will likely have to be extracted. If it does, I’m going to ask to keep it as a shank. Maybe tie it to the end of a pole, like a spear.

Oh well, at least my back is doing better!

I’ve been tapped to be part of a task force at work that I really can’t talk about. Not “I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you” top secret, but I’d rather not be another angle someone looking for more information thinks they might be able (inappropriately) pursue. That’ll make my next week interesting.

WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 2 days, but 4 days overall!

Not really a lot of a lot of progress on revisions for Short Story 01, but I’ve worked a lot developing a couple of fresh ideas. Better than being stuck, I guess.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
I wanted to like the film 1917, I really did. Just wasn’t for me, though. I didn’t really glean anything that I hadn’t already seen in BLACKADDER GOES FOURTH, the DOCTOR WHO episodes “Human Nature”/”Family of Blood”, and series two of DOWNTON ABBEY.

Caught up a little bit more with THE EXPANSE. I’m 3 episodes away from Season 3. I’m still a little taken aback at the show’s plot scope and intricacy!

FEEDING MY HEAD
Kit Reed’s STORY FIRST: THE WRITER AS INSIDER is, in the first three chapters, a pretty succinct distillation of the sort of writing truths that most other writing books tend to start talking about halfway in. I’d only ever met Kit Reed in passing before she left us, but I did see her do a few convention panels. So I can actually hear her voice in my mind as I read…

I should say at the outset that if any of you are going to make it in show biz, that is, if any of you are going to write fiction that pleases anybody besides yourself and possibly your most doting relative, you are going to have to develop the habit of rewriting.

So yes, stuff I’ve seen before (i.e. rewriting) with nuggets that are new-to-me sprinkled in (i.e. writing as show biz).

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

(Okay, maybe having Crumb actually would open one up to demonic possession….)

IN THE WILD
Fjallraven Kanken No. 2 backpack I love it when retail therapy dovetails with actual, practical need. I decided I needed a lighter load to carry on days when I have chiropractic appointments after work. It wouldn’t be bad if I had a car, but I’m a bus/walking person, which you can be in the town I live in.

I still needed a smaller, lighter back for my Ultraportable EDC-In-Exile but slightly bigger than the STM bag I was using, that was simple enough that I don’t leave essentials behind when I need my full loadout, yet something that would still be kind to my back while I’m going to a chiropractor twice a week.

I’ve had my eye on this particular Fjällräven Kånken No. 2 bag for awhile, and decided I had nothing to lose by trying it out. It’s been a week and so far it fits the bill completely. I’m still not giving up my Filson, though!

Quickie Review of 1917 (2019) – Not Really for Me

Definitely one of the most beautifully shot films I’ve seen in a long time, even if most the beauty is in the grittier details of the horror and death of World War I. If you thought director Sam Mendes’s Bond films were good, you’ll really be impressed by this, I think. What impressed me the most was the single shot feel which felt completely different from what Alejandro Iñárritu does.

Personally, it wasn’t for me, though. And I tried. I wonder if it’s because I was in “Writer Head” the whole time, at the end of a very long work day.

Writer Head couldn’t find a reason to be invested in the characters. Writer Head checked off each perfunctory stiff upper lipped British soldier whose accent got more RP the higher their rank. Writer Head thought that every artfully placed corpse, every peaceful encounter, every act of violence appeared exactly when it needed to to keep the story moving.

Most of all, Writer Head told me that the film didn’t add to what any of the depictions I’ve experienced in TV, film, and literature (especially British TV and film) had already taught me about WWI. All the horror and trauma and death just to move trenches another six inches forward, yeah — World War I really sucked. We get it.

People are people so why should it be…

Before anyone goes all “Stereotypes!” on me, let me say that yeah, it is a little different when a group points out things about its own members than when an outsider does it. And yes, it can still be problematic in those instances (though I’m not saying anything below is or isn’t). And I’m not implying any joke stealing in either direction.

I’m just saying here’s another example of how people can be more alike than different that works on multiple levels that one can examine at their leisure.

#Weeknotes S02 E04

I spent the majority of my writing time this week engaged in some writing practice, which is to say “the practice of writing.” I’m surprised I had time at all; for a short week it sure didn’t feel like one at work. But I got myself caught up, so maybe just having a lighter psychic weight paid off. Carrying a lighter physical weight might be helping too — my back, at least. Unfortunately, I haven’t followed through on the process of letting go of old tech, but it’s on the list!

No, it’s not you. Just diddling around with the formatting a bit for this post. Might keep it. Might not.

WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 1 day; but 3 writing days overall. That’s progress, right?

Revisions on Short Story 01 continue, but I’m also spending that writing time “sketching” so to speak in my notebook. You can thank Lydia Davis and some of the things I read in ESSAYS ONE.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
As promised, I did a Quickie Review of KNIVES OUT. It was so good!

Much like my To Be Read pile, I decided, Fuck my To Be Watched queue and took in the first couple of episodes of something deep in the backlog, season 3 of WYNONNA EARP. And after that, I plan to catch up with THE MAGICIANS.

The next few things on the list:

  • A couple of weeks of DOCTOR WHO Series 12
  • Season 2 of THE EXPANSE
  • A couple of weeks of the HARLEY QUINN cartoon
  • The first episode of STAR TREK: PICARD

FEEDING MY HEAD
Just picked up a bunch of things in a curated Write Now! Story bundle. And I’m starting with Kit Reed’s (may she rest in peace) STORY FIRST: THE WRITER AS INSIDER. I knew it was a good choice when I came upon this passage…

You don’t have to be a hatchet murderer to write about one. At some time in your life you’ve had murderous feelings. Use them.

Also, the aforementioned ESSAYS ONE.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

I remember writing an entry on an old blog that didn’t seem to make it over to this one about Jim Lehrer. The man helped build and maintain a PBS institution and still managed to get writing done. And that’s always fascinated me. A novel a year for twenty-someodd years? I haven’t read a single one, but if you assume for the sake of a thought experiment that they were all bad, just getting them done on top of everything else is quite the accomplishment!

IN THE WILD

My bag is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time…

This past holiday weekend, I went around with what I call my “Ultraportable EDC-In-Exile.” It’s smart to go with a lighter load every once in awhile, but one thing it does is introduce room for error. In this case, making sure everything I put in there gets back into my real EDC bag, my monster of a Filson 258.

Which, come Tuesday, I didn’t. Which then triggers all of my unresolved control issues and a rant of “Shit fuck goddammit, this is why I should never switch bags, one fucking bag is all I need, I don’t care how heavy it gets, I need everything, every day, all the time, why am I so fucking lazy??”

There’s that old organizational saw that says a weakness is an overused strength. It is a strength that I’ve condensed the gear I need to carry on a daily basis such that I have a good 99% of all essentials with me at all times without much thought. Who can argue with that logic? Certainly not a control freak. And, that’s a problem; not just for my spine, either.

I’m never giving up my Filson. It’s the bag I’ve always wanted, I don’t care how big people say it is! But… maybe I just don’t need every damn thing every damn day. And maybe, just maybe I might benefit from actually choosing (Gasp!) to be okay with going without every once in awhile.

I just need to remind myself that it’s okay to take a load off…

Letting Go

Against every “just in case” instinct that’s genetically coded in me, I’m donating this old ThinkPad T430 to the local ReUse store. There’s a Past Me who would be screaming, “Are you nucking futs??” but Present Me has enough experience to know all the other gear I have (a 6th gen ThinkPad X1C, a Lenovo m10 tablet, a Google Pixel 4) is more than enough. And if my X1C should become inoperable, then a cheaper, newer computer would probably be a better replacement at this point than an age-old T430.

Also, I have a history of taking pretty good care of my gear. I’ve only had one or two hardware failures in the 25 or so years that I’ve owned computers. And yes — god, was I fucked over! But the fact is, I’ve structured things now such that a hardware failure that once would’ve been “an utter fucking catastrophe” is generally reduced to “a real fucking pain in the ass” that I can probably recover from.

And those times when my hardware did fail and I had no clue where the next piece of hardware would come from, you know what saved me? ReUse stores! A $100, 9 year old computer that I could install Ubuntu on was a godsend that kept me going until I could afford something decent. Hopefully, I can give someone else that same experience.

Now I just have to actually get it ready for donation without being tempted to keep it. For once, I’m going to try giving something up when it’s the right time before it crashes and burns, and leaves me in tears.

Quickie Review of KNIVES OUT (2019) (Slightly spoilery)

Believe every good thing everyone’s said about this film! And yes, I might be biased because I actually liked everything Rian Johnson did with THE LAST JEDI.

Like any good whodunnit, no plot or character point is wasted. Not on me, who grew up watching MYSTERY on the local PBS station in Cleveland waiting for classic DOCTOR WHO to come on. Every characterization, even the ones updated for the 21st century, had echoes of every character I’ve ever seen or read. And I can’t think of any detail that didn’t come back around whether or not it was directly related to the crime at the center of the film.

By the way, anyone who complains about Daniel Craig’s Southern accent has never heard Benedict Cumberbatch’s accent in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. (Ugh.)

Okay, I’m going to get spoilery. I can’t help it, because it was my favorite part of the film and something that’ll stick with me for a long time…

I loved how Marta transcends the schemes of the well-meaning old White man who manipulated systems of race and privilege on her behalf the best way he know how and by doing so, ultimately wins by being true to herself. There aren’t too many pieces of pop culture that I can point to as an example of a nuanced view of how White people of privilege hurt, help, and even hurt by helping people of color.

#Weeknotes S02 E03

Not a great writing week for 2020. Catching up with the dayjob after a week of illness/self-care took a bit out of me. I wasn’t 100% this week; more like 85-90%. It was enough. My therapist would be proud of the reduction in the amount of self-criticism.

My back and neck feel progressively better. The chiropractor is covered by my insurance so at this point, I really don’t care if it’s placebo or not. So there!

Still, this week went by quick. And because tomorrow’s a holiday, next week will be a short one. Will it go by faster? I’ll let you know.

WRITING PROGRESS. It took a lot for me to get into the writing chair this week… but I did it!

Longest Writing Chain This Week: 1 day; but 2 writing days overall!

Revisions on Short Story 01 continue.

ROTTING MY BRAIN. No time for writing meant no time for THE EXPANSE or HARLEY QUINN. It’s all in queue, though. But we did make time for KNIVES OUT yesterday. I’ll do a write-up soon but in short: believe all the good things people have said about it!

FEEDING MY EARS. I finally caught the episode of WTF WITH MARC MARON with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. It was uncomfortable for me to listen to, but only because I was projecting my own issues. The tone of the interview — filtered through my own experiences — reminded me of the insecurity I can sometimes feel when I’m hanging out with people who are way cooler than I am, who seem to enjoy my company but are really tolerating or condescend to my presence. I think this is one of those times when I can safely say, “it’s just me.”

FEEDING MY EYES. Because I recommended it to a co-worker recently, I decided it was a good time to re-read my updated edition of David Allen’s GETTING THINGS DONE: THE ART OF STRESS-FREE PRODUCTIVITY. Hey, anything to get myself back on track.

Got through a couple of sections of Lydia Davis’s ESSAYS ONE, as well.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

I’m not sure at what point my reaction to these sorts of advances went from “That’s so fucking cool!” to “Fuck. Fuck. FUCK, we’re doomed!”

ULTRAPORTABLE EDC-IN-EXILE. My usual EDC bag — a Filson 258 briefcase — is basically a portable office with every basic analog and electronic tool I could possibly need to conduct my writing life and personal admin. I carry it with me almost daily when I leave the house. Yes, I’m that guy who just refuses to leave his damn bag at home. Luckily, I’m have the perfect camouflage for this behavior, living in a college town.

But on occassion, even I have to acknowledge there are rare instances where I don’t want to carry everything; that I probably don’t need to be carrying anything aside from my wallet, keys, and my phone. Still, I refuse to go completely without some tools that that would enable me, if I really had to, to get some thoughts down.

It’s for those times that I have my ultraportable “EDC-in-exile” setup, which is an old STM bag with just enough room for the tablet/keyboard combination that’s become my daily driver, AC adapter/2-port USB battery with 2 cords, a microfiber cloth, and the meds I carry around with me “just in case.” I didn’t take it out, but there are a couple of pens and a Field Notes notebook in the bag. Phone goes in my pocket and my Bluetooth earphones are on my head or hanging on my neck.

Why do I feel the need to always have something with me? Etgar Keret put my mindset into words nicely in his story “What Do We Have in Our Pockets?”

The fact is that everything I have in my pockets is carefully chosen so I’ll always be prepared. Everything is there so I can be at an advantage at the moment of truth. Actually, that’s not accurate. Everything’s there so I won’t be at a disadvantage at the moment of truth.

#Weeknotes S02E02

I didn’t slack this week. I got sick. And up until very recently, I didn’t see a practical difference between the two. The voices in my head say, (a) okay fine, “sick” is a reason but you’re still as behind as you would be if you just fucked off and (b) no one wants to hear you whinging.

Luckily, therapy has been good for me. So yes, I can acknowledge that I didn’t keep up with my daily diary (a la Barry) or drawing exercises (a la Brunetti). But I did take care of myself, and that was the important thing. Staying home from work, seeing a doctor, getting my back adjusted — all important things. Right? Right.

(And if repeating that to myself over and over really keeps the demons at bay, well that’s fine too.)

WRITING PROGRESS. So, then how’d my first week of 2020 go?

Longest Writing Chain This Week: 2 days. But I did have 3 writing days altogether.

I suck at coming up with interesting code names, so I’ll continue calling what I’m working on right now Short Story 01. Same “Short Story 01” I was working on this time last year, but I made some decent progress on its rewrite by experimenting with Oblique Strategies (I have an app) to get me through problem areas. The results are interesting, even if I decide not to keep them.

ROTTING MY BRAIN. Still working my way through THE EXPANSE but I’ve been seeing what the animated HARLEY QUINN is all about. Well, it’s now overtaken AGGRETSUKO as my favorite cartoon. HARLEY feels like it has everything I love about old Adult Swim shows but without the “Jokes for you and your stoner buds who’re up too late” vibe.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

Seriously, printing and scanning over WiFi with my tablet has actually made my life better twice this week.

IN THE WILD. Trying to address just one of the various and sundry ways I’ve neglected myself lately.

I know, but it helps my back, shut up. And, no jokes about “Now, why don’t you get your attitude adjusted?” My inner voices beat you to it!

#Weeknotes S02 E01

In 2019 I put a lot of work primarily into my personal life: my mental/emotional/physical health, family, friends. That work goes on, but in 2020 it’s time to invest some of the energy I got back last year into getting more words out into the world.

I’m taking my time deciding what projects I want to continue with or whether I want to start fresh with something new. Both routes appeal to me. I’m bound to pick something in the next couple of days and will go back to tracking and posting about how well I did or didn’t generate a writing chain this week.

I also plan to get through my reading backlog with three things in mind this year:

  • If I’m ever going to conquer my reading backlog, I need to do it in a systematic manner.
  • It might help if I read with an eye toward blogging my thoughts whenever I come across something that especially strikes me. I’m told people actually like my Quickie Reviews.
  • If I find myself slogging through a book, then I just need to just give it the fuck up and move on to the next thing.

Welcome to Donfoolery in 2020!

FEEDING MY EYES. Lynda Barry never disappoints. I’ve occasionally had to stop and put down MAKING COMICS because it’s so dense and full of more good stuff to absorb into my writing practice than I can ever try in a year, I think.

That’s not going to stop me from trying, though!

I’ve also pulled out something I bought but shelved last March, Ivan Brunetti’s CARTOONING: PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE, a book Barry mentions all the time. I know it was March when I opened it up last because I dug up a sketchbook I bought myself at the time dated “March 2019” before abandoning it. There was a lot going on at that time. Anyway, I’m not out to be any kind of cartoonist as a goal, but I’ve looked to exercises and ideas from both these books to keep the artistic juices flowing.

ROTTING MY BRAIN. Another item on this year’s to do list is re-establishing my geek cred. I’m a little out of touch with some things, but I’m catching up!

I don’t know how my geek card didn’t get revoked having missed the boat on THE EXPANSE. I can tell it’s leaving an impression on me, because things that do tend to keep my subconscious mind on the lookout for anything even tangentially related…

Getting through Season 1, I realized I’d actually seen a couple of episodes here and there. Guess it just got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, I’m on it now and yes, it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. The main draw for me so far is Shohreh Aghdashloo, better known to me as Lakshmi-2 of the Future War Cult. I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I saw as compelling a character on sci-fi TV as Chrisjen Avasarala.

What impresses me most of all is how smoothly all the moving parts of the narrative revolve around each other in almost perfect, overlapping orbits. I’m through the first few episodes of Season 2. I’m sure I’ll be back with more to say!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

But you’re doing well
I mean, you’re not dead
So let’s celebrate while we still can