1000 Days

I toyed with returning to “The Thing Is“. Tonight I’m giving it a shot.

Olsen got started quick tonight. I planned on a conversation that started with “I can’t believe the fucking Cowboys lost again.” or “What the fuck is up with T. Boone Pickins anyways?” or “I still can’t believe they tore down the Dairy Bar.” Instead I got this.

“We’re not driving all the way to Tulsa tonight, just Stillwater. Do you want to start with ‘the fucking thing’ and never get to ‘the thing’ or dive right in?” I asked.

Olsen scanned the roadway for cops. Seeing it all clear he lifted the beer from between his legs straight up to his lips like it was on a wire, took a swig, then ran it back down the wire to it’s hiding place. Somewhere outside a loud cricket Dopplered by the open pickup window like a siren. Olsen oh-shitted.

“You have got to be frickin’ kidding me.” I dropped off the gas pedal and drifted to the shoulder a little to really set the hook. Olsen whipped around full sideways to face me with one elbow on the dash and one on the back of the seat. His head flipping up and down the road he’d just cleared like a windshield wiper.

“Ah fuck. I’m sorry, dude. I don’t even see any lights. Where the hell is he?” I smile, hit the gas, and pull back into the slow lane. “You fucker! For that I just might talk about farts the whole way.”

I turn KXY the rest of the way down–it’s not like you could hear who they were playing anyway with this 2-70 air conditioning going. “Tell me why Karen left you.”

“Not why, dude. Where.”

Word count: 281
Day 222

And the link that takes you there.

There are books.  There are lists.  And there are the Internets.

These three things combine occasionally to brush past me like a work friend on her way to get coffee or lunch.  We pause to chat then get back to whatever we were up to before crossing paths.

Today she passed me again.  A thought I had the first time but didn’t mention rose to mind again this time, so I’m mentioning it now.

In recent years I’ve been reading maybe three books a year, because I just need the time.  I’m not like some of these monsters that crank out a couple books a month.  At 39 a 230 pound non-smoker doesn’t have alot of good years past 80, so that leaves me 41 years of book reading available.

2 * 41 = 82

I have at best less than one hundred books I can read before I die.  No shit, that scares me too.

I should have a plan to remedy this.  A few things that come to mind:

• Lose weight
• Read shorter books
• Kill the TV
• Kill the Internet
• Read faster
• Live longer
• Audio books (do those count as read?)

That’s about it.

How many books do you have left to read before you die?

[place weekly bitch about not writing here]

The [something interesting] Choir stared after the body on the floor—willing it to take a breath. Jackern ignored them all—the body and the Choir. He grasped two daggers, one in each hand, butt to butt, one up one down in a neutral but ready stance. He let the inevitable victory replace the air in his lungs with each breath. He felt it’s warmth suffuse his blood and then the cells of his body. This moment, this ephemeral sensation, was the only real moment he allowed himself. Maybe slipping into character was the only other moment he allowed.

Jackern made his stance sloppy and forced himself to disdain everyone in the room. He glanced to eyes of the body at his feet long to see the pupils contract before the saving breath then scornfully sucked his teeth loud enough to draw the Choir’s attention. Jackern smiled like a fox exiting a pheasant coop and spread his arms as if to hug the entire gathering.

“Who’s next?”

Word count: 174
Day 220

I’ve been thinking about doing a regular post to sum up the week’s aikido practice. Recounting my experiences would give me a nice career log as well as an excellent forum to teach back to myself. (Is that the word ’study’?).

Recording my progress now might give me useful perspective in the weeks and months and years to come. I’d read back to the first few weeks to see how far I’d come as well as to empathize with the newly joined white belts. Who knows, maybe such a collection turns into a book of sorts.

More immediately, such an effort would instill the principals and techniques I practiced that week. I like the idea of summarizing because it gives me a mechanism for organizing that the mat doesn’t. Right now I step into the dojo’s stream to let it carry me where it will or to let it wash over me as needed. If there is a weekly wrap up, I’ve not showed up on that day.

I’m just not sure where to write it. Which is a totally dumb reason to withhold, but it’s the reason most slowing my down at the moment. I’m not really inclined to create yet another subject themed blog, but I’m not sure using up one of my 1000 days each week to write about aikido is the best way to go. Sure I’ve got that main blog I keep ignoring I guess it could go there. When no one is looking, does it really matter?

Maybe I just write stuff up and save it till I’m ready?

Word count: 269
Day 219

I belong to an online music club. I pay $7 a month to get a hardcopy CD mailed to me from my queue of chosen CDs. If my queue runs out they charge me anyway-I’m not this foolish. Initially I front loaded my queue with ten or so CDs I’d been wanting to get for the first time or replace in my current collection. Since that batch ran it’s course I’ve spottily kept barely ahead of the ‘nothing in your queue’ gotcha. Normally I’ll add a whole album based on a song I’ve heard recently on the radio or the Coverville podcast.

Somewhere I heard George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” so I added his “Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock” CD. I recognized enough songs in the list of 16 that I had no trouble adding it to my queue and then bumping it to the top. I’ve never known what metric a label uses to determine greatness or hit-iosity, so I can’t say if something is obviously missing or erroneously included. I can only say I sing along to some more than others.

I first heard “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” on this album less than a month ago. I love it. I replay it immediately after it ends. I’ll skip back to it sometimes when “Willie and the Hand Jive” just isn’t cutting it for my driving pleasure. I’ve wondered if there are any good covers.

This song makes me feel like I’ve pushed the moldering newspapers off an old chest in the attic and found the storybook grandma read to me as a child. You know, the one about bourbon, scotch, and beer.

Word count: 278
Day 218

Sadly, it’s taken me two days to write the following and three to post. I’ve taken that as a sign to let it simmer—or die—rather than to push it further.

A single voice intoned the chant.

Other voices joined the first in staggering succession as if each new singer required a sense more substantial than mere hearing to recognize the invitation. [expand here] As the number of singers grew others joined more quickly until the swell of the chant could not be ignored by the remaining few—save one, the chant’s initiator.

Thima, toak-Slay ceased chanting after several others took up the song. It waited silently but not unmovingly for the remaining Imbuers to join. Thima maneuvered the crowded dais to the edge and signaled for the next hoop to be lowered into place.

The unseen audience hushed to silence when they heard the

Word count: 115
Day 216 and 217

I am not not writing.  I’m in In-law induced hibernation.

Or was.

If you don’t see something here later today or tonight then I am indeed a slacking bastard and should be taken to task for it.

I extended the inspiration of that cloth covered bowl I mentioned a week back to include a fun new fantastical garment.  Maybe I’ll do that.

This doesn’t count.

The other day I mentioned I was looking for a book. I don’t know if I called it by name. Most likely I referred to it as a writing book—maybe a grammar book. I’ve found it improperly shelved between two outdated software manuals for 3D modeling. “The Creative Writer’s Style Guide” by Christopher T. Leland (dude! where’s you blog?) reads surprisingly well for an instructional book on writing. I credit Leland’s conversational style, terse but varied examples, and lack of assignments for my success in reading his book cover to cover.

The first half of the book outlines technical grammar rules by reflecting examples from fiction writing. He begins with nouns—in case you didn’t know what those were—moves through verbs, then parts of speech, sentences, capitalization, punctuation, and concludes with dialogue and thought. Thankfully he doesn’t use an extended example throughout with the same characters and same scenes playing out only with a new focus on the next topic.

If the first half of the book teaches you how words work, the later half teaches you how to work the words. This last part covers language and style. I’m sure there are excellent topics left out, but looking over the table of contents the gaps don’t spring to mind considering that Leland covers images, slang and dialect, offensive words, description, pace, accuracy, allusion, and experimentation. For me, the book is like a personally designed Swiss Army knife. It matches the appropriate amount of blades with the necessary array of gadgets and leaves out the useless awl and magnifying glass.

I am glad to have it back on my desk—maybe now I’ll get to using that dash correctly.

Word count: 274
Day 215

Last night I had planned to pick up where I left of with yesterday’s writing. I refrained from posting that due to its brevity and incompleteness. With a two-day posting I could conceal the meager effort involved. I didn’t pick that up and now I’m admitting to its low quality so I’ve saved nothing. How’s that for 1000 Days transparency?

Overnight, or this morning since I’m unlikely to have remembered anything from last night following sleep, I precipitated an image of a bowl of liquid draped with a cloth sitting on a simple table or pedestal and surrounded by figures of learning. Presumably this image set the scene for some pending magic ritual.

So, cloth on bowl with liquid on a table surrounded by characters wouldn’t initially seem troublesome to write. Except it is in two ways: first–because this is the order I ran into the troubles–is that I’m sure this reflects some real world scenario and quality obliges me to find the true names of such objects; second, I can’t immediately uncover any conflict in the setting. I don’t have the words and even if I did I would know which direction to steer them.

I have a bottle of vodka chilling in the freezer–it’s been there for weeks. Vodka is the primary ingredient for White Russians, Black Russians, and Colorado Bulldogs (I think). There are other ingredients. I may have them, but I doubt it. I’m stalled in my indulgences for lack of knowing. But unlike my trouble with words this morning this vodka trouble is mitigated with a simple search on the Internet. There is an answer and it need only be found.

Anyway, I had something there and eight interruptions from kids pretty much dissolved what ever tenuous hold I had on that.

Word count: 304
Day 214