I hate to brag but sometimes in life you just have to trumpet your accomplishments. So here goes: I ate 3 apple fritters the other night. Plus an entire dinner after. And this was on a Wednesday. I know! I wish you could have been there too.
Writing. This is to be a therapeutic exercise. And from Anne Frank to Frank Abagnale Jr. everyone loves a journal. I think. I am treating this like a job at Fox News; no research.
What to write about. What is there to write about? What is everyone writing about? And what makes them so compelling?
I dunno. No research, remember?
I want to start tracking my exercise. A friend told me to always set goals and she seems smart. She got on that pedestal I made for her after all. And she got me into running which in and of itself is impressive. She's like Jesus; her stories inspire me and I don't know if she exists. I don't even know if her name was Jesus. Christ that's eerie.
I think I should monitor my work, my sleep habits, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, how I feel day to day, my bizarre diet, what I do with my leisure time, which way I pronounce leisure, etc. etc. I should basically accept the fact that I am fucked up and work on myself.
God, I hate it already. But with a smile.
SUNDAY
I woke up way too early but still late if that makes any sense. A bad nights sleep left me with 3 things: Day long exhaustion, over-caffeinated (more coffee, bigger mugs, different brews), restless inaction (I HAVE to do SOMETHING but I am TOO TIRED to DO ANYTHING).
I made sure to exercise. Usual time, after 10. This is a good window for me. I have tried to workout early morning but that is a very steep hill to climb. Never liked the feeling either. The hike was different somehow. Can't get up there now. Treacherous.
I exercised, even if it was primarily a push ups routine: standard, wide, narrow, one handed Left then Right (I am right handed after all), Supine. Each round followed by the complementary back routine: a fly Left and Right, wide and narrow rows, etc. It was all part of the Hundreds. Y'know where you do a hundred of something and its opposite for balance and body health? I threw in some other upper body stuff to keep me busy. And everything was done quickly. Not sloppily just with more pop to the pump. Felt good. Nice contrast to the slow and steady approach.
Went shopping.
Slept the afternoon away. I guess I needed it.
Night time was spent reading. Fiction currently. I have been trying to bounce back and forth between genres. Always a gamble with authors new to you. A sample only tells you so much.
I read this Jodi Taylor novel "Just One Damned Thing After Another", Book One of the Chronicles of St. Mary's. The title may actually be longer. This was cheap and the first in what appears to be a 28 book series all written by the same person. Far out, right? And it is about time travelling historians and whimsy and all that British bullshit people like in Doctor Who or Harry Potter.
Initially it came across like a YA novel, harmless and English. But as time went on it felt like one long Cathy Guisewite strip punctuated by engaging prose and bizarre tonal shifts for example: this dude character, friend and jerk-ass to our lady protagonist suddenly tries to rape and kill her while on a research trip to the cretaceous period. This happened in a time travel novel. Granted, I should probably have suspected this man was up to no good because of his name, SUSSMAN. DO YOU GET IT?
The whole book up until that point was thoughts about tea, how wacky St. Mary's is, how unreliable historians are, our protagonist is both a screwup and amazing at her job, isn't much to look at but is beautiful and the object of desire for all men. The book had a glossary of names, a cast list as its opening and for my tastes that means I'm going to have a bad time. Like there is no way these people are going to be distinct or named in such a way, outside of SUSSMAN (would-be rapist/killer), that I could remember them.
People seem to dig on this book and series. The cover declares One Million Copies Sold; the McDonalds of modern literature. In this opening story of a 28 book series the main character has a miscarriage, an affair with her boss who it should be noted, is from the future, she loses her job, she gets it back, she loses everything, she gets that back, she is the worst at things, but also the best at rescuing people trapped back in time. Like I don't know anything but I have read those terrible Jack Reacher novels so I think I understand male power fantasy -- at least through the lens of Lee Childs -- but is this novel what women want in their fiction?
Fuck I wish I could remember the protagonists' name but she finds out she has a miscarriage with the child of future man, she doesn't tell him - as you do - and when he finds out - convenient - he fucking screams at her like a maniac. Calls her a whore. This is someone who loves her by the way. Dude marches out, leaving her a mess. And then they forgive each other.
I have a general question for the audience out there: we can't have characters that just love each other? We need to bolt on dramatic incidence or bizarre out of character behaviour to eat up a few pages or a few hours of screen time. People aren't sick of that yet? In 2024 we're still like, fuck yeah, another story where a lady loses a kid. I hope someone is an alcoholic, we haven't milked that fucking cow to death yet.
What would have been refreshing and novel in this novel is a male character being like, yeah, you losing this zygote neither of us ever knew about or planned for is devastating for you but seeing as how shit happens every day and I got to cum without a thought or care for what could happen its none of my business to level any accusation against you. All I can say is that I love you and will support you moving forward as, and again this should be noted in bold letters, I am just the cum guy. You as the woman are the extraordinary vessel that takes like a quintillionth of that matter, fertilizes an egg and builds A FUCKING HUMAN LIFE out of it in 9 months. So really, how could I complain because, again, I am the cum guy.
But I guess guys are just jerks. And would-be rapists if given a chance, back in time, surrounded by dinosaurs.
Anyway, I didn't like the book.
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