Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Notes from the week. Fallout Spoilers below in #2.

1. I am back on track, faced my fear and read my manuscript again. I can totally sympathize with the writers of yesteryear who threw away or burned entire books after deciding them to be trash, but I think the doubt monster bested them, rather than objective critical analysis,  because some of those same books were saved from burning or snow and became classics. I make no such claim about my own book, I just note that I have moved definitively beyond the ability to accurately judge it anymore. So I will move toward publication and the assessment of less jaded minds.
2. I finished watching Fallout, and started watching it again. I enjoyed it: the mystery boxes here felt natural, not forced. I didn’t hear the writers of the show in my head saying:  “See? Here – there? What’s that shiny thing? Ooooh! A BIG secret!! Or it looks like one! Don’t you want to know what it is? You must, you must want to know!” Which was my unfortunate experience watching Halo. I still want guns in space, dammit! Fallout felt very organic, made by people who better understand serial TV writing, and I kind of loved how they built game mechanics into the show. I just accepted a stim shot would heal, no matter what, and only because this show was based on a game, where that kind of thing absolutely is canon in the games I have played. (Like eating cheese fixes a head wound in Blade of Darkness – you just roll with it. Now that would be hilarious, a hack and slash RPG show where the heroes just eat crusts of bread, cheese wheels and legs of meat and have multiple lacerations just heal up. It’s all in the mould (mold), baby. Maybe not hilarious, just too damn meta. Anyway.) Any other fictional universe would have to work a lot harder to explain to me why a 1950’s style syringe of “random” fixes internal injuries, but this show gets a pass. I’ve seen some complaints about it, but as someone completely ignorant of the game, I enjoyed it, and I did not agree with inconsistencies in character, to be honest. I was dubious of Maximus all the way, but an excuse was provided near the end, and then followed through on. I’m still not completely sold – but like that fact. Uncertainty is not always the enemy. It really depends on context, and in the Fallout context, so far I’m prepared to give it a pass. By the end of season two I may be singing a different tune, which is what happened to Halo. Back to Fallout: on second watch, knight Titus is an even more obvious coward and unworthy of any respect (he jumped out of the carrier before getting to Filly which is known as being a dangerous place where people get killed – he wanted to shoot stuff? Puhlease. The dude is scared of going into that town in power armor. Lucy goes in there in a 50s jumpsuit, armed with foolhardy determination. And Titus blaming  Maxiumus for his own death is stupid and self-defeating. If Titus had just kept his gob shut for a second he would have lived. I’m only 1.5 eps through the rewatch, and some questions do arise on second viewing, but also more appreciation and enjoyment of what is there occurs too, because it is richer so far, and rewards a second look. Second time around the opening did not feel slow at all, which surprised me as I thought it would drag more. I could go on. I won’t.
3. Watching a Prince cover band made me miss the original terribly. They weren’t bad, but nothing compares 2 Prince. What a talent. Later this weekend I randomly listened to George Michael, another incredibly talented musician who died all too soon. Both in their 50s. Sinead was in her 50s. I’m in my 50s. I need to work on my abs. They are not killer. No, I do not think my abs will save me from the reaper if properly toned, but I’d like a silent grin of appreciation.
4.  I had interesting (*to me) horror story ideas/daydreams when in the hot tub. I always imagine being attacked by a bear or lynx/mountain lion in the tub. That is standard. A deer jumping in starts out as an absurd jump scare comedy then turns to horror when I think of the ticks they carry. It is frankly amazing I ever get the courage to go outside. Story #1: the motion activated light at the back of my house switches on, and off, and on, and off. Then on. I assume it’s the deer (lawn ornaments in my neck of the woods) moving about a bit, nothing to worry about. But then, with a series of uncannily soft yet heavy thump thrump thumps a giant spider walks past, coarse haired eight foot long legs holding up a vast black thorax. It spends forever in my vision, its feet settling through grass into dirt as it moves, and I know to the depths of my soul that though it appears to be moving past, ignoring me as it angles its body to fit between the trees that bar its way to the road, at least two of its eyes see me, and it could at any moment whirl and impale my flabby abdomen with any number of horrid sharp appendages. I haven’t thought that part through yet, just the heavy soft walk into my field of vision, the gigantic, astonishing menace of it, the hopelessness before it. #2. Sitting in the frothing waters, unkinking my back, I turn my head and look through a wooden lattice toward the road. A black figure stands there. It starts moving toward me, but not like in the movies with that stutter fast jumping from there to there to in my face, no. It moves in slow motion. And I cannot stop watching. It draws closer, and I know I should move, but I can’t. I can’t turn away, but instead watch the burred outline draw closer as my mind screams at my body to move away, to push against the hot tub wall, and launch me toward the back door. Instead I watch the slow grace of shadowed arms swinging, the strength of a shadowed stride slowly closing the distance between us. Its head, its face, is lost in darkness.  The moment is broken, and I am half way across the tub, thrashing through the water, all breath and fractured vision. I leap out, only to face the figure, waiting next to my robe. It smells my fear, loves it. I am held again by its presence. I see its spined teeth, and know what it is. It gloats, and speaks, telling me how sweet my fear will taste. Its words break the spell it holds over me, reveals what it is, and I tell it to go suck eggs, and stop being afraid. My fear dies, the sweet blood in my veins curdling back to normality. I might fall for a jump scare now, I tell it, and have a surge of adrenaline if that’s what it wants, but if it wants terror, mine has gone: narcissist vampires who have to announce themselves to get their kicks do not win my respect, let alone my fear. It lunges anyway, now in real time. I see it’s smaller than me. I push it, him, away, then punch him, knuckles crunching into teeth, breaking them. Somehow I grab him, and both enraged and concerned about what I imagine are his inevitably clawed hands, I throw him in the hot tub. Running water and all that, I realize later. He does not like that at all, and shrieking, runs into the night. I stare after it, him, daring him to come back. I go inside, and wash my bloodied hand. In one variant my knuckles are bleeding, and his blood has mingled with mine, but that trope has been done to death, so gets discarded. #3 The spider comes back, and creates an 8 hairy-legged cage over me in the tub, the hairs spindley thorns this close up, black carapaced thorax a ceiling I can’t bear to look at, and it spawns thousands of spiderlings into the tub with me. Body horror and my untimely demise ensue. You need Sting with you in these kinds of daydreams, my lad. But then what would fall into the tub with me… ugh and eew x 1000.
5. This has been a weekend of appointments and cars. Thankfully now over. My car had factory original tyres (tires) on them. From 2017. Over the years I have bought many levels of tires (tyres), and this time I decided to buy the dirtiest of dirt cheap ones, because I’ve never tried that before, and for me they all last about 3-4 years no matter what. (The tyres (tires) replaced today I have owned for 4 years, along with the car, so the timeframe still theoretically fits for me, but I acknowledge it is a stretch.)

And that is that. Will normal service resume next week? Stay tuned to find out!

This blog brought to you by the KLF.