lost time incident 18
Hey, folks. We’ve got a short one this week because the real world has intruded on our writing time. Entropy is visiting from out of town and things are breaking or malfunctioning all over. My Xbox has always had power problems, but in the last few weeks, it talked my receiver into turning itself off at random intervals. They’re not-working buddies. Then on Friday, my laptop’s power cord stopped working so my laptop only has so much battery left and can’t get any more. Today my headphones went on the fritz. Something in the plug has frayed so I just get bits of songs, half of conversations, in both ears.
I’ve been forced to actually go outside and run errands to fix all this nonsense during what should have been my leisure time. Time usually spent wool-gathering to fuel this creative effort. I’ve just been plugging and unplugging things. Untangling cables. Talking to customer service reps. Ordering things online. Trying to figure out if there’s any way to avoid having to pay an electrician to show up and stick gizmos in the wall sockets and confirm we’re not cursed.
Bleh.
Anyway. Time to get typing on one of the machines that still works.
cherry
It’s kinda weird, isn’t it, that of the first three facts that come to mind when I think of George Washington, two of them are fiction? (#1 is that he was the first President. That one is true.)
Wooden teeth. Cherry tree parable. Untrue.
I don’t feel like this is common for most famous figures, right?
Abraham Lincoln: Sixteenth President, had two left hands, won a knife fight with the King of Bees
Pope John Paul II: From Poland, could turn invisible at will, invented the Polish sausage
George Clooney: Stole fire from the gods by carrying a hot coal in his mouth, was punished by same gods by being chained to a rock and having an eagle feast on his eternally regenerating liver, always chooses “Rock” when playing “Rock Paper Scissors”
(I don’t actually know a single fact about George Clooney.)
fallout
knock knock
“Who’s there?”
Margaret
“Margaret who?”
Margaret me in! You’re my only hope! They’re behind me and I have to hide!
“I can’t risk it. If they catch you here, it’s the last straw. I’ll be vanished.”
Leaving me on your doorstep doesn’t make you any safer.
“Get in, get in. Get that lampshade on your head and stand still.”
…
Popular culture wants you to think that people who get drunk and are the life of the party put lampshades on their head, but 9 times out of 10, it’s someone hiding from the secret police.
Now you know. Never make eye contact with someone wearing a lampshade. Never accept a briefcase from someone wearing a lampshade. Never make a living as a vendor of lamps when your government is a totalitarian regime.
Orange you glad I didn’t say “Police, open up”?
looking & listening
watching: First episode of Outcast, an exorcism-centric series based on comics from Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead).
listening: Spontaneanation – Hosted by one of the comedy world’s quickest minds (Paul F. Tompkins), every episode is improvised from an initial guest monologue
reading: Manifest Destiny – Lewis and Clark explore the North American continent but it’s full of supernatural dangers. Let me know if you wanna read the first issue. I’ll buy you a copy.
ending theme song
I drank a few cups of coffee post-dinner just to make sure I’d have enough energy to manage even this tiny newsletter, but I already want to take a nap. I know it’s early on, but so far, I don’t care for my 40s. This is some bullshit.
Sleeping is just practice for being dead and I want no part of it.
No more sleep.
…
I might have to sleep.
Don’t do anything exciting while I’m not here.
[Thanks to my wife Amanda for providing the fallout shelter advertising poster!]
–Michael Van Vleet
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Tumblr – reblogging
Goodreads – reading
Bandcamp – listening
Amazon – wishlist