David R. Michael

I accepted an offer letter yesterday, and rumor has it I start Monday.

But after the last 16 months (tho only 4 of them unemployed), I have developed a mistrust of good news.

Here’s hoping.

-David

To paraphrase Johnny Rico from Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers:

It’s better to do something constructive immediately than to think of the best thing you could’ve done hours later.

That quote came back to me in the late spring/early summer as my job was taken away from me–and with it a lot of the routine/structure of my day.

I had a lot to do–I am a suburban homeowner with a yard and a garden and almost certainly too many hobbies–and all day to do it, so of course … almost nothing got done.

My routine had been disrupted and replaced with the stress and anxiety of finding a new job while navigating Oklahoma’s unemployment benefit system and it wasn’t like all the other stresses of my life had suddenly vanished with my job. The sudden loss of health insurance, for example, added to the load.

I needed something to remind me of what needed doing. Nothing so formal as a Covey-style [1] daily to-do list. That would have simply added more stress. So I decided to make it weekly.

I created a new notebook called “Something Constructive.” I titled the first page “Week of 9 June,” [2] then listed out a dozen or so things that I could at least do something about that week. A lot of these were little maintenance tasks (like prepping old paint cans for disposal), some were more like reminders of things that needed doing but had no real due date (like buying straw bales for use in the garden).

I didn’t really set rules for what I listed. Just shit that needed doing. At some point.

So when I found myself doing nothing, and struggling to think of something I could be doing, I had a list. I could just pick something. [3] If I finished the something, I would strike it out. If not, I would put a check next to it. See? I did something! And it was constructive!

I also add to the list as some new task presents itself.

At the end of the week, I create the next week’s list with copy-and-paste. I erase the items that are done and add some new ones.

So the notebook shows me that I am, in fact, not totally doing nothing. And even if some projects that were put on indefinite hold when things went pear-shaped still haven’t seen new progress, I know I’ll get back to them. Even if only one check mark at a time.

-David

[1] Yes, I am old enough that one of my previous jobs paid to send me to a Covey class.

[2] Sometime in the early 2K’s I adopted the European formatting for dates. I can be pretentious like that.

[3] Or, you know, not. But, hey, I did look at the list. 🙂

By which I mean, was there ever a dance called “The Crocodile Rock?” Like the twist. The mashed potato. The watusi. The dinosaur.

And if there was such a dance, did it involve lurking around the edges of the dance floor, waiting for another dancer to move into range, then leaping forward and snatching them with your claws and your jaws, rolling rapidly to snap their necks, then pushing their still-twitching corpse into a dark corner of the disco to properly marinate in the sounds and heat and sweat of the dance floor?

Or was it, as so many boring people seem to insist, just a euphemism for sex?

-David

I thought I read this book long ago. Like, early 90s. But the more I read, the less familiar the whole thing felt. So … did I imagine reading it? Did I just think I had read it?

I wonder if this is one of those things where the book is so much a part of the zeitgeist that I … absorbed? … the major parts of the story to an extent that I thought I had read it.

Or maybe it’s just that “early 90s” is now 30+ years ago and I’ve read a lot of books, both before and since.

I may never know.

I was working on a story that took a cyberpunk-ish turn, and I decided to re-read some classics of the genre. I read some short stories. Requested Neuromancer from the library. Ultimately, I shelved my story, but the book arrived from the library (via Libby), so I read it. Again? Maybe?

It was a fun, fast read. Raw, with a lot of exposed edges to scrape against (and maybe get infected).

One of the “tics” of the story (and this isn’t criticism) is that everything is referred to by its brand name. For example, there were no “beds” per se. Or even just a “mattress.” They were always “the black Temperfoam mattress” or similar. The “Hosaka.” I’m pretty sure this was intentional, since this is a story about corporations pretty much taking over every aspect of life. It was very 80s, very tech nerd.

Anyway, now I’m reading Bobiverse Book #5, Not Till We Are Lost, which is … kinda cyberpunk? nerdy? Definitely nerdy. I’ve enjoyed the Bobiverse books, but I don’t think anyone is in any danger of cutting themselves accidentally on the stories or prose. 😉

Is “cozy cyberpunk” a thing?

-David

First a bit of backstory.

When I re-started this blog, my plan was simply to post whatever I would post if I were the type of person who hadn’t abandoned just about every other form of social media.

So it won’t be a writing blog, a photography blog, a business blog, or an attempt to be an influencer (I have an immediate mistrust of any business plan based on me being popular). So it’ll be a bit of everything, I suppose.

I’m also not promising any kind of schedule. Feel free to use the “Entries feed” (RSS) to get notified when I post something.

And also also, this blog is separate from my newsletter. The newsletter will be new ebook releases and other real news, not just me being chatty, nerdy, or grumpy. You can sign up for that here.

Backstory done, I’ll continue with what was promised in the title.

What I’m working on right now:

• I’ve started writing Heidi Sees #4. I spent a week or so building the story outline and now I’m writing the actual words. I’m about 1200 words into the first chapter.
• I’m closing out my garden. Mostly. I’ll let the tomatoes and peppers get in some late season fruit, but everything else must go!
• I’m drawing a new sequence of Bauxy panels. I have the sequence planned, and I’ve inked the first panel, but I still have a number of panels to sketch out.
• I’m looking for a job. I had been working at the Veterans Administration as a sub-contractor for 8 years before certain [redacted/censored/withheld for sensitive readers] Who Shall Remain Nameless took office. So I’ve been looking for a new job since May. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
• Edited to add: Nothing. I also find myself doing nothing for stretches of time. Which the recent stretch of unseasonably cool weather has made possible on my back porch.

More news and/or whatever as it happens and/or occurs to me. =)

-David