Doorwipe

I started this one on Monday.
<Friday>
I have added to it every day this week.
Well, maybe not Wednesday.
I can’t remember.
In any case, I’ve gone back through and sectioned things off by day.
<Thursday>
Most times, the lists come quick.
Other times, shit gets in the way.
Like, 400 words of this are from earlier in the week.
And because I’m trying to get my brain working, we’ll start with something easy.
Like, you know, this fucking majestic weather.
Summer can go fuck itself.
Along with the inflation.
Corporate greed and short-sightedness in the name of profit.
Assholes who promote empathy as a weakness.
Performative anything.
But anyway, the weather is awesome.
Light rain.
Cooler temps.
(Notice, I did not say “cold.”)
Proper start to October.
So.
Let’s get into that a bit.
“A Night in the Lonesome October” book club starts today.
Roger Zelazny.
$7.99 on Kindle.
The paperback is almost $18, so good luck with that.
One chapter a day all month.
If you want to chat as you read, throw it in the comments.
Or find the Discord.
(Yes, the chat is still there, but it’s a bit dusty from disuse.)
Last night I started “Dead Beat” by Leigh Bardugo.
Third in a trilogy.
Probably called Dark Academia.
Basically riffs on the secret societies at Yale.
What if they were steeped in magic and the occult?
The other two were a good time, so …
So far, the atmosphere in this one is perfecto.
Absolute good reading for this time of year.
I think it came out last week or the week before?
I dunno.
I finished James Islington’s “Scion,” yesterday.
Pleasantly surprised.
It was one of my attempts to push through my present-tense bias.
Cyberpunkish.
I’d read his “Will of the Many,” and it wasn’t bad either.
I’ll have to go back and give his fantasy trilogy a shot.
(No, I can’t remember what it is and I’m too currently lazy to look it up.)
Also finished Seanan McQuire’s “Rosemary and Rue.”
Was fine.
Didn’t love it.
I tend to disengage from first-person a bit when they spend too long explaining themselves.
Not sure how to clarify that.
It works when your character’s voice is magnetic, and drags when it’s not.
But I’m always on the lookout for Urban Fantasy.
2026 Book Count is up to 39.
Not sure if that puts me ahead or behind the 52/one-a-week pace, and again, I’m too lazy to open up a calendar and count.
Because that’s a distraction that keeps me from finishing this list.
<Friday, again>
Picked up the kiddo from college last night.
On the way home, I suggested we spend the month watching classic horror flicks.
Not the gratuitous stuff.
Things like, I dunno…
“The Thing”
“Interview with the Vampire”
“Lost Boys”
“Dawn of the Dead” remake
She argued that zombie movies should maybe be their own thing, and not lumped into horror.
Delving into subgenre territory.
<Monday>
Echo chambers are the worst.
I think the best continued support for a broad education is the ability it conveys to discuss past the limitations your preferred subject area.
The world tells us to become specialists, so we can be productive and fit into the worker need it has to generate profit for some rich fuck.
But like what you’re seeing with AI, those techbros do not live in our world, and they only see through their filter.
I’ll be revisiting discomfort and control over and over, so, you know, you’ve been warned.
<Tuesday>
Persistent Drive for Autonomy.
Sigh.
Well.
I know I’ve said this before, but I started writing Lists for entertainment purposes during the pandemic with the “Lift Spirits” mandate.
Yeah, I dunno how to do that anymore.
Uplift yourself.
Or some shit.
Overwhelm.
Okay, that’s not it.
It’s exhaustion.
And disengagement.
Disconnection.
I had to sit here to parse my brain crumbs for topics that keep getting blown to the surface by annoyance eddies.
Oh, right.
When I attended journalism school, Objectivity was the doctrine drilled into us.
State the facts as they are, and keep your fucking opinion out of it.
If you want to add color, go visit the Op/Ed section.
<Friday add>
Which is what I did.
I did not have the attention span to keep my voice out of things.
<back to Monday>
As a feature guy, my challenge involved adding life to stories using objective descriptions.
Like the adjectives would hit different people in the same way.
That was the goal and the discipline.
And it makes your writing stronger.
But truth was the thing.
A responsibility to the truth.
I’m not sure truth exists anymore.
It’s all too easy to wade through the refuse of my feed, sift my hands through the fear mongering and be unable to come up with a shred of real.
Like, I have tinnitus.
I see fucking posts about it every day.
There’s no cure for tinnitus (that I’m currently aware of), but there are a fuckton of supplements and gadgets that allegedly fix the problem.
The Snakeoilsmen claim whatever the hell they want and trust you won’t know what they say isn’t true, or that you’re too lazy to research it.
There are no standards.
No responsibility.
The only goal is soulless fucking profit.
And that’s modern society.
And fuck you if you don’t buy in.
<Friday add … Well, someone was having a case of the Mondays …>
I think I liked this one better focusing on the autumnal aspects.
Proper books. All that shit.
(Right now, I want to turn this into a rant about forced office work and the time theft of mandatory commutes, but …)
Walking from the parking garage to the office this morning in the cool gray air, what I wanted most in life was to settle down at a sidewalk café table, finish my coffee, eat a pain au chocolat, and read a book or write in my journal.
You know, have no timetable, and agency about where my attention goes.
To stop having the priorities of the economy decide for me.
And just … take it in.
That weather, even right now after lunch, is my happy place.
Gray, cool, breezy, and unburdened.
Is that too much to ask for?
Have an October, people.

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