Hello and good morning, as always.  It’s Thursday—the first Thursday and the second day in June of 2022—and so, of course, it is likewise time for the first edition of my weekly blog post in June of 2022.

I posted a section of Outlaw’s Mind on Tuesday of this week, but it was still May then.  It was quite a short section; not much happened in it other than Timothy exploring some of what goes on in his titular mind when he practices mindfulness meditation.  It’s looking good for him for right now, and he will find meditation both interesting and beneficial, but of course, this being a story by me, it’s wise not to become sanguine.  It won’t be too long before things take strange, dark, and unexpected turns.

I’ve also been working well on The Dark Fairy and the Desperado, having written almost six thousand words already this week so far, and that’s without writing on Saturday or Sunday*.  Our heroes are now on their way to their first quest and have just encountered one of the characters I’ve been planning for this story almost as long as I’ve had the story idea.  That’s kind of nice.  I’m looking forward to their interactions.

I do wish that I could write full time**.  Then I wouldn’t be commuting as much (obviously) and thus I wouldn’t take the pounding that appears to be worsening my back and leg and hip pain daily, and I could also write most of my stories and books and everything even more quickly than I already do.  That would be nice, because I have more stories to write still than I probably have time in my life.  I guess that’s better than being in the opposite situation, but it’s still a bit frustrating.  I’m sure you can all relate.

It would be nice to win the lottery, not so that I could be idly rich, but so that I wouldn’t have to keep my “day job” (though I do like my boss and most of my coworkers).  That’s not likely to happen, since, as in the joke about the devout religious man who prays to win the lottery, I never buy a ticket.  I understand the mathematics of the situation too well ever to play it except as a lark, and I just don’t find it interesting enough to bother doing it for fun.

As for everything else—well, that’s mostly it, I guess.  I’ve done no new music recording, but I still diddle around on the guitar for a bit more mornings than not.  But the recent and ongoing exacerbations of my back and leg issues are really taking the wind out of my sails with respect to doing much of anything at all.  Also, I’ve had a secondary change*** in my living circumstances that, being the way that I am, I find quite stressful, so that coming home from work is no more a thing to which to look forward than is going to work in the morning.  It’s not seeming to get any easier over time.  I guess this is part of being apparently “neurodivergent” as they say…because we must have identifying labels for ourselves and our tribes****, mustn’t we?  Heaven forbid that we should simply be individuals without some external form of “identity” to separate us and alienate us from whole masses of other people.

That’s a sore spot, obviously, and I’ve got enough of those already, so I’m going to leave that topic.

And that’s about it for the moment.  I don’t want to bring everyone down too much, so I won’t talk about certain other things that always preoccupy me.  I’ve been tilting at that windmill for months, now, without much measurable benefit to speak of—mostly without people even seeming to notice—so fuck it.  I’m giving up.  I guess I never really expected anything to come of it in the first place, and goodness knows I don’t deserve any help or rescue or even sympathy.  Not that “deserve” is a concept that makes sense, anyway.  All such notions are mere fictions—often useful ones, admittedly—created by humans who made the error of thinking the words represent something real, something overarching and even cosmic, rather than a provincial, parochial custom or ritual relating to the social structure of a single primate species on a single world orbiting a single sun among hundreds of billions in its galaxy, which is one of possibly a trillion galaxies in the accessible universe.  It’s not important.  Maybe nothing is.

Nevertheless, I’m sure there are people who are important to you, and it’s perfectly reasonable for you to reach out to and look out for them, and to enjoy their company and be thankful for their existence.  If you’re up to it*****, look out for yourselves as well, and try to be as happy and as healthy as you can.

TTFN

*Most people don’t count Saturday as this week, and I don’t really, either, but I just wanted to make it clear that I’m referring to my writing since last Friday, and I did not write last weekend at all.  I didn’t really do anything last weekend but try to rest my back and legs, which may sound good, but it gets old after a very short while.

**Of course, if wishes were horses, we’d all be shoulder deep in horseshit.

***By which I mean that it was not I who changed anything, but the person with whom I had been living, and those with whom I am now living, all without input from me.

****To be fair, I don’t have a “tribe”.  I’m not really a member of any group or collection or way of thinking or identity agglomeration, or whatever.  I don’t even feel like a human, to be honest.  Not that it’s any big loss not to be part of that disg-race.

*****I’m not.