Writing – cathedral raisins

Where lies the cathedral of the soul? I have chocolate-covered raisins.

I want to create a world where both those sentences have equal weight. A world where raisins and the soul have the same importance. So far I am failing wonderfully. As I may have said before, I enjoy writing. Not just the accomplishment, but the process as well. In the past I've accepted compromises in my stories in an attempt to finish them. Not this time. This one is going to be perfect. Of course by that I mean perfection to my vision. Each piece is getting better, but they all have a long way to go. The characters are fuzzy, the plot is forking and dead-ending and even the scenery changes from rewrite to rewrite. It's like putting together a puzzle where the pieces keep changing. And I love it. I will conquer this world of my own creation. When I do I will wring a story out of it. The hungry freaks will weep.

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100 Words – Highway

The highway is calling me by name. Not just wanderlust. It knows who I am and wants me and knows I want it. The miles must be beneath me and behind me. Road songs need to find the radio and cheer me on like I always hoped Jo Jo would, but never did. It's hard to have a cheerleader cheer for you when you play no sport. Distance is my goal and the game will never end. There will never be too many nights on the road. Too many towns with sights to see. Roads to drive. America to find.

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Who do you want to be today?

Who do you want to be today?

For me, what do I want to write today. Lately I've been writing a lot of flash fiction, which I love, but it does not fulfill all my writing desires. So what else do I want to write? The problem is that I don't usually get to write what I want to write. I have great literary aspirations, but my inner critics/helpers tend to undermine my goals. It's hard to expound on a woman's elegant beauty when my inner manly man is yelling, "Show us her tits!" But which side is the real me. Sometimes I think I'm "supposed" to write a serious novel, but I'm not a serious person. Can there be depth without seriousness? Is verbal slapstick an art form? Do I overthink everything? I have a novel in the planning stages. It's based on my fear of being in control of my own destiny, which manifests as dreams about preparing for journeys that are infinitely delayed. The conflict is that in real life my journeys happen, rarely with any delays. Then there is the twist, which is that I see this book as an homage to my favorite class of movies, the campy horror story. Sort of Vincent Price in Our Town if it was written by Kafka as told by Brother Theodore. Easy to describe, but to execute? I told you I think too much.

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100 Words – Papers

Leroy fell. His papers flew, littering the crosswalk. The people got out of their cars to help. A small army of strangers collected the papers mixing them into a pile in whatever order they fell. They didn't understand that the pages were worthless without the order. They couldn't know that the papers were not rightfully Leroy's. He thanked the people as best he could. They tried to help him to his feet but his left leg wouldn't work. The security guard's stick did a number on his knee. The mace put the guard in his place. Then came the sirens.  

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Writing – Comfortably Weird

I'm not weird on purpose, only I am.

I blame it on my brothers. They are 2 and 3 years older than I am. I could never compete with them so I wound up finding things that didn't interest them. Things that could be mine. Things I could be best at. That was the beginning of the weird. The trend was cemented by the record stores. I had little money so I scoured the cut-out bins. There I found many things never played on the radio. Odd voices praying to the night. Then there was PBS. Late night on PBS in Boston was a parade of oddness. Foreign films, British comedies, video art. My sensibilities were altered. Then I found the authors that my teachers never told me about. People who knew a world they never fully understood. Passions and paranoia unbounded. I wanted to be one of them. Now it's my turn to create. I wrote short stories to learn how to write. I wrote a novel so that I could say I wrote a novel. I write flash fiction to still the voices. Now there is the new novel. I am writing this one for me. My goal is to write a book that I would want to read again. It will not be a best-seller. It will be good though, just kind of weird.

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RVing – Moss Landing to Prunedale

LOG:

8/6/18 Today we drove to Moss Landing. Going down the highway the windshield was hit by what we thought was a rock. It made a huge bang and it looked like it made a big crack. Fortunately we later found that it was just a bug. I mostly love the Moss Landing rv park. The only problem is the horrible WIFI. Just stuff you have to deal with. At least until tomorrow when we go pick up our own hot spot. We were going to do that today but Gilroy was way too hot to stop. 8/7/18 Consumer errand day. Best Buy, Smash Burger, Rancho Laundramat, WalMart. We are finding more restrictions to travel than expected. The fires and heatwave are limiting us and every other RVer to a narrow strip of coast. We're all fighting for space. We're set through Monday but after that, we'll see. 8/8/18 We've made it all the way to Prunedale. A whole seven miles from Moss Landing. We're kind of hanging around till the heat wave eases. Supposed to happen late next week. I love no having to be anywhere. 8/9/18 Time to update the GPS maps. Today it led us to a Black Bear Dinner that had closed some time ago. Fortunately Pat found its new location on Google. It was just one exit further up 101. Upon arrival we were greeted and hugged by a person in a bear outfit. Perfect. 8/10/18 The first of several still days. It's nice to not have to unhook and rehook the RV. 8/11/18 Errand Day. Shopping at WalMart. Donations to Goodwill. Washing the RV. So much fun. 8/12/18 Great day hanging out. Tomorrow we're going to Hollister. A whole 20 miles away.

PICTURES:

[caption id="attachment_3274" align="alignleft" width="300"] This cat is the king of Moss Landing[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3275" align="alignleft" width="300"] Is there anything sadder?[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3276" align="alignleft" width="300"] We had a special visitor grace our RV[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3277" align="alignleft" width="225"] Tonya the tiger says RVing is Grreeaatt![/caption] [caption id="attachment_3278" align="alignleft" width="300"] The laundromat had a dryer called Rex![/caption]

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100 Words – Bacon

"Seriously dude, that is too much bacon!" Paul hated his room mate more now than ever before. A feat which he previously thought impossible. After all, what could possibly surpass the great hamster experiment of 2017? Loving bacon is one thing. Paul himself enjoyed bacon, but at normal non-sociopathic levels of enjoying bacon. What George was doing was beyond the scope of human decency. Four pounds of freshly fried bacon piled on a plate, about to be devoured and washed down with a quart of gas station tequila. George claimed holy direction and dug in. Paul fingered his rosary beads.

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RVing – Here We Go

7/29/18

Chester and I moved the first load to the RV today. It was a bit of an adventure. The storage yard gate wouldn't accept my code. We made several phone calls and pleaded our case to the answering machines to no avail. I was even contemplating trying to climb over or under the fence. Fortunately we weren't the only visitors to the yard and a sympathetic fellow RV'er let us in.

7/30/18

Our first full-time night in the RV. We are exhausted, in pain and emotionally wrung-out. I've never been happier.

8/2/18

So tired. Handing over the keys to the house tomorrow.

8/4/18

Lunch at JJ's. Get the bacon dog. Yum. Though Pat's chicken sandwich was a hamburger. The manager offered Pat a free shake in compensation, but Pat's allergic to milk. However she was able to get the website where the woman at the other table bought her hat.

Dinner at the Star. Thousands of fake pink flowers hanging from the ceiling. Seat yourself. Under-staffed. Great food.

Just after dark our neighbor starts yelling to me. I can't understand him so I go outside where he explains that there is a skunk under our RV. A cute little thing. I came back inside in hopes he'd wander away. Apparently he did.

8/5/18

Said goodbye today to the car and Chester. The Car was easy. Chester was hard. Tomorrow we head out.

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100 Words – Deviant

"I am a deviant." said the man who committed no crime. The judges stared down at him with pity, but there is no room for pity in the law. They whispered to each other and passed notes up and down the line. The man in the witness box looked to his lawyer for some sense of what was going to happen next. The lawyer knew but closed his eyes so as not to tell.

Finally the judges arrived at their verdict. "Not guilty." said the bailiff. Before the man could protest he was grabbed and dragged from the court room.

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