Tag: osama alomar

#Weeknotes S02 E25

Not a particularly cheery one this week, folks.

This is the weekend I would’ve spent at 4th Street Fantasy had it not been rightly cancelled. I took the time off work like I always do, and thought about giving it back, but decided fuck it..

It’s four days later and I don’t feel all that better than I did on Thursday.

Maybe it’s because the world’s gone to pieces and maybe it’s because more rot has been exposed in two industries I love. Maybe my meds are off, or maybe I just spent too much time doomscrolling on social media. Certainly, it can’t be because I’m “working too hard” at dayjob stuff; or, maybe it is, who can say?

Either way, I do feel this is one of those days when I’m just going to feel how I’m going to feel, even though I can objectively point to positives. The world might be on fire, but at least the Supreme Court made a couple of good decisions. It’s better I know whose art I should not spend any more time and money on because they had to go around serially abusing people and giving out bullshit apologies.

My meds are fine, at least by every indicator discussed at my annual physical a couple of weeks ago. No, I’m not working too hard, but I am working hard and have been.

I’ve been reading, too. A ton of micro-memoir and microfiction pieces. I continue to be amazed by Osama Alomar’s work. I swear, some of the pieces I read this week are positively prophetic.

Two pieces in particular stunned me: A story called “Whoever Is Happy” which I felt called me out in a big way, which was immediately followed by “Wolves and Sheep,” in which I think of Alomar doesn’t sympathize with what I felt called out over, he at least understands. You’ll just have to read them, if you can get your hands on THE TEETH OF THE COMB & OTHER STORIES.

We have TikTokers and K-Pop stans doing the Lord’s work while I watch the painfully slow but sure change of things going in the right direction — I guess I wouldn’t know about most of it if I hadn’t been doomscrolling. So no, it’s not all bad. Mostly bad yes, but not all bad. I’ve got my people, I’ve got my cats, I’m in okay shape. And while my favorite Tuesday night pseudo-scientific/pseudo-historical reality TV shows are on hiatus, I guess I’ll have more time to whittle at my TBR list and maybe give some more thought as to why I don’t feel as focused as I should be.

Like Asher and my Filson, I guess I’ll chew on it for awhile longer.

#Weeknotes S02 E24

Back on my bullshit. At least, a little bit. This past week, I just refused to let the details of my life slip by. But I did it the only way I can manage right now: Twitter. Maybe it’s cheating; I don’t much care.

1
Luckily I managed a bit of writing and quite a bit of reading this week. I’ll talk about that in a bit. Otherwise, this might’ve gotten to me even more than it did.
https://twitter.com/DonP/status/1271529518814113797?s=20

2
Granted, I am starting to make trips out for routine medical issues now that places have opened up. Still though, the pictures of crowds at bars and restaurants don’t freak me out nearly as much as the blissful ignorance on people’s faces. Which made me ask myself…

3
The scope creep continues!
https://twitter.com/DonP/status/1271822998132178945?s=19

The mixer just wasn’t enough for me, so I ordered a ring light which I know is the right thing to do if I want the quality of my dayjob video calls to improve. But why? Why do I want to improve when so many other people — and this is NOT a criticism — seem happy with what they have? When it ultimately doesn’t affect the quality of my work, just the quality of my presentation? Eh, why not?

4
It’s been a binging week…

  • Binge Watching: #BLACKAF — fuck this is a good show!
  • Binge Reading Beth Ann Fennelly’s micro memoir collection HEATING & COOLING
  • Also, David Lehman’s ONE HUNDRED AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
  • Also, Osama Alomar’s THE TEETH OF THE COMB & OTHER STORIES

I’ve decided microfiction/micrononfiction is all my brain can make literary space for right now. And it’s where my writing’s been for the past couple of weeks.

5

+++

That’s about it for this week. That actually felt like a lot of work given my quarantine/world-on-fire fugue I’m in (that most people I know are in). I might fall off the wagon for next week but you know what — fuck it. Props to my therapist for that one! So until next time, kids…

  • Black Lives Matter.
  • Stay home, or at least wear a fucking mask.

#Weeknotes S02 E13

Doing things in a different order this week. Because I can, that’s why.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
For as much bullshit as comes out of my home state of Ohio these days, I still get occasionally wistful. I was sent an article from SCENE MAGAZINE (oh, I still remember how cool I thought I was in high school carting one of these around every week), “An Oral History of WMMS, Cleveland’s Legendary Radio Station”

Legendary DJ Kid Leo — as famous to me and most Clevelanders as Wolfman Jack ever was — brings to mind the city I grew up in. (If it helps you get into my head, listen to “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders as you read this section.)

In those days, Cleveland was a joke to most in the national media and therefore to a lot of America. Our sports teams were inept, our mayors were fodder for late night talk show hosts’ monologues and hell, our river even caught on fire.

I only understood a fraction of the shit going on in Cleveland radio at the time, except for the big things like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ROLLING STONES ballot box stuffing thing, WENZ “The End.” But names like Malrite, Ruby Cheeks, Jeff and Flash; the competition like WCNX, John Lanigan, the Stern show when it came to town — these are motes and flashes of deep, deep memories of good times I remember. (Yeah, I know it’s a Chicago song, shut up.)

Why am I waxing so nostalgic this week? Because this time period was on my mind anyway after reading this article, and others like it, on how Generation X came up with the skills to cope in this time of coronavirus.

Which, as I tweeted, wasn’t necessarily the most ideal situation. I’m not whining, though. Sure, an outsider’s picture of growing up in the ’80s on the “Mistake on the Lake” is probably close to how you envision it. But much like quarantine, isolation, remote work, fear, and uncertainty in 2020, it is what it is.

WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 1 days for 2 days overall. What do you want, there’s a fucking global pandemic on.

FEEDING MY HEAD
I don’t need any more books, but I got them anyway. It’s been a long time since a writer’s stuff made me happy that they jumped their place in my reading queue like Osama Almoar’s.

ROTTING MY BRAIN
I still think “Replay” is the best episode of Jordan Peele’s TWILIGHT ZONE so far, but I’ll be damned if “A Traveler” doesn’t come a close second.

IN THE WILD
I feel you, Asher. We’re all a little stir crazy. That… that’s my arm, though.

TBR in the Time of Coronavirus

There’s a piece in Alomar’s collection THE TEETH OF THE COMB & OTHER STORIES called “Psychological Barrier” that pretty much encapsules a good 60% of what I talk about in therapy.

Anyway, I recommend the collection!

The other thing I picked up, based on that episode of The Ezra Klein Show I mentioned last week, Jane McAlevey’s NO SHORTCUTS: ORGANIZING FOR POWER IN THE NEW GILDED AGE.

Because dayjob aside, there’s time now… right…?

via GIPHY