Ten days of chaos and writing starts tomorrow.  Time to finish some shit whilst having new adventures.  I need to finish the Tijuana thing that’s been lurking around for years, and what better way to do that than in TJ?  If I end up down there, I’ll update you here, on my antisocial media.

One way or another, I have to get out of this wretched hotel.  That goddamn charwoman is looking like the Crypt Keeper and generally giving me the fantods.  I need a break.  But first things first… gotta get some sleep.  Or at least see if I can in this disgusting heat.

N.P.: “Fuck You” – CeeLo Green

Good Lord, dear reader.  I just made chicken using the Trader Joe’s Ghost Chili BBQ Sauce.  Not bad.  Usually their “spicy” stuff isn’t really super spicy (I’m looking at you Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips), but this shit is no joke.  Made my chin sweat.  Yowza.

And but so anyway I just started working on a thing about iconoclasts that’s been brewing for a couple of years.  It’ll probably end up here when it’s done.  I find it a rather unpleasant subject.

Alright…back to it.

N.P.: “Anything Goes” – Guns N’Roses

I’m being quiet tonight, dear reader.  We lost another good one today.

Bill W., you will be missed.  Thank you so much.

I’ve been doing a bit of social engineering lately, dear reader…you know, just for fun and profit.  And I’ve got to say I’m a bit surprised with its efficacy.  I used to do a lot more of this, but for some reason I fell out of practice.  But it does work.  You know what doesn’t work?  Walking in the front door and asking for something, a job, a date, whatever.  It’s as if you were playing chess, and your strategy was simply to ask your opponent for his queen, please: the only thing he’s going to give you is a middle finger.  If you want a job, create a crisis or some kind of dire need, and then suddenly make yourself known as a ready solution.  Don’t ask anybody on a date…just make the idea of a life without you seem so repellently boring as to be unacceptable, and the rest is inevitable.

Ain’t no social engineering in writing, though, dear reader, as I know I don’t have to tell you.  For we are the People of the Pen, and we have an endless supply of bitter ink.  Right?  Right.  Write.

N.P.: “Would?” – Opeth

Put in some work on the book today, as well as something silly for here that I’ll put up as soon as it’s done.  And I wrote a short thing about that time Steven Tyler called me “baby.”

I’m feeling very much like Dr. Frankenstein, blindly trying putting this weird-ass book together.  Like I have a warehouse full of body parts laying around, I’m just sticking things together to see what happens when I give it the juice.  The villagers did not react well to The Doctor’s monster.  I’m hopeful my monster will inspire fewer villagers with torches and pitchforks, but one never knows.

N.P.: “Slow an’ Easy” – Whitesnake

Had a bit of a brainstorm in the shower this morning and got kind of a big idea for how to arrange the book,  so I had another go at the table of contents today.  This thing now lists 41 chapters plus an introduction and conclusion.  Which seems like a bit much, potentially.  We’ll see.

It’s kind of weird, I think, to put things together this way…arranging titles of things not yet written or completed on a board, settling on an order, and then writing/finishing pieces to go with the corresponding titles.  I’m pretty sure The Wall wasn’t put together this way.  But that’s cool.  Things are taking shape.

N.P.: “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)” – The Doors

A pretty bad-ass day.  Not that anything particularly amazing happened…just kind of another day.  But occasionally I’ll sort of switch into a third-person perspective, where I’ll almost watch myself navigating through the day as opposed to being completely in my head while I’m doing it…and yeah, there is a lot of badassery going on in even my most mundane days.  I need to remind myself to do that more often.

That said, not much of today’s badassery had much to do with a word count, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write much tonight.  But tomorrow….tomorrow is all writing.

N.P.: “Just Push Play” – Aerosmith

Not as productive today as I have been the last few.  But I still managed to get some good ideas down, so I’ll take it.  Must now collapse.

N.P.: “Heart’s Done Time” – Aerosmith

Managed to write a few pages at a remote location today (usually I can only work on the book in my room at Hotel California).  I’m pleased that things are finally starting to take shape.  Hopefully things will come together rather quickly now.

N.P.: “Fortress Around Your Heart” – Sting