Well, shit, dear reader.  Today is the summer solstice.  The first official day of summer.  Which is great for those sun-loving outdoorsy shiny happy extroverted perverts that are into those sorts of goings-on.  But for those of us on the Dark Side, today eats shit.  The longest day/shortest night of the year.  Balls!
The upside is that starting tomorrow, the days start getting shorter by roughly a minute each day until the winter solstice on December 21, exactly 183 days hence.  Let the countdown begin.

N.P.: “Jungle Love” – Prince

Before I knew what to call the matrix of traits that make up my personality, i was taking some stabs in the dark (as it were) and had sort of settled on Militant Introvert as a pretty decent descriptor of my personality.  What that meant was that I am and always have been very much introverted, but unlike other introverts I’ve observed in the wild, is that I will confront and stop extroverts when they come storming into the room with their inane babble and vapid small talk and just shit on the rights of any introverts unfortunate enough to happen to be in the room.  Here’s an example.  I’ll be in a room in the evening, before dusk, when the lighting is low and things are nice and dim.  I might just be sitting quietly in a break room at some job, or I could be in the kitchen slicing potatoes for dinner in the pleasantly low natural evening light, when in walks some presumptuous extroverted bunghole who sees that I (and maybe some other “quiet types”) are in there, doing whatever we’re doing with the lighting as is, and the first thing they do, apparently without giving the slightest consideration to how unbelievably rude, inconsiderate, and self-centered it is to walk into a room already occupied by other humans and just start changing things, not only without asking the people present if they approve of the change or not, but not even acknowledging the possibility that other people in the world are different from them and likely have extremely different priorities and preferences than they do.

I used to just live with it…these aggressively rude intrusions into my world, my comfort, my peace of mind and well-being.  “They can’t help it…they’re just unaware, like children,” I’d think to myself, having no one else to think to.  But as I got older, and stronger, and better, I became less inclined to suffer for the ignorance or inconsideration of others.  These days, if I’m doing my thing in a low-lit room and some jackass waddles in and casually flips the lights on, causing actual pain to my eyes as my pupils desperately try to slam shut fast enough to ameliorate the discomfort, I will stop what I’m doing, stride over with malice aforethought, turn the fucking lights back off, and stand there and glare at the person to see if they want the lights on more than I want them off.  Thus far, the offending parties have seen the wisdom in not pushing the issue.

Sometimes they will whine.  “How can you see in here?  I need the light to see.”  Then you’re gonna need to come back later, you blind motherfucker, because your inability to function in conditions that are necessary for me to function is not my problem if I was here first. Which is key.  I would never walk into a room full of extroverts babbling vapidly at each other and start turning lights off.  Which is another thing: if these same people walked into the same dimly lit room and excused themselves and asked if they could turn on the light because their eyesight just isn’t what it used to be, my response would always be, “Of course…no problem…please.”  Because I’m not trying to be confrontational at all.  If I stand up and slam the light off after someone just walked in and unceremoniously slammed it on, what I’m doing is not “being mean,” and only feels “aggressive” or “confrontational” because extroverts are not at all used to introverts standing their ground because it basically never happens, and when all of a sudden it does, they don’t recognize the feeling and don’t really know how else to process it.

Okay…I need to pinch this off.  I got go on for pages about this stuff.  But I only mentioned it because this headline just popped up in my news feed: 15 Best Jobs for Introverts – Top Jobs for Shy People.  I just wanted to say that introversion is totally different than shyness.  Goddammit.

Okay…back to the book.

P.S.: Oh yeah…there’s a new Prince album out tomorrow.  It’s so cool to be saying that in 2019.

N.P.: “Novocaine for the Soul” – Eels

Gonna just have to do a quick check-in tonight, tolerant reader.  Today was okay enough…just dealing with a lot of non-writing stuff.  I could write so much more if I had people.  But I don’t.  Because, in the words of Kobayashi, “One cannot be betrayed if one has no people.”

Fucking right.

N.P.: “Danza Kuduro” – Don Omar, Lucenzo

Managed to finish a couple of things today.  Ta-da!

I hate the heat.  I need to keep my phone turned off more.  I have no appetite.  The book is coagulating nicely.  I want to read more.  Summers disgust me.  And hell remains other people.

N.P.: “Black” – Pearl Jam

There is presently a moth the size of a fruit bat flapping and swooping around the fucking foyer like it owns the place.

It doesn’t own the place.  And neither do I, for that matter, but you don’t see me flapping around the foyer like some kind of asshole.  Hold on…someone’s knocking on the door.  It might be the moth.

Okay, I’m back.  It wasn’t the moth.  It was the Charwoman.  She wanted to know if my friend would be staying for dinner.  “What are you talking about, woman?  You know I don’t have any goddamn friends.”

“Who’s this then?” she asked patronizingly, gesturing to the moth, who was standing behind her, leaned up against the wall, giving me the finger.  I told them that I was busy writing and that I would deal with both of them as soon as but in the meantime please fuck off and slammed the door.  I think they’re both still out there, just standing, waiting.  Jesus.  Okay…I need to go eliminate that arrogant moth.  I know as soon as I open this door and step out, he’s going to start that flappy bullshit, but I’ll dispatch him before he can take to the air.  I fucking hate moths so much.

N.P.: “Lies Irae” – Dope Stars Inc.

Kind of angsty today.  It could be the “good,” productive kind of angsty that inspires change.  Dunno.  Jury’s still out.

Haven’t gotten the chance to do much writing today, but the evening is still young and full of promise.

“I Walk the Line” – Alien Sex Fiend

I swear to Christ, dear reader, if one more millennial says, “Welcome in,” when I walk through a door of whatever retail establishment I’m being forced by necessity to enter, I’m going to light them on fire.

Today’s experiment with the workflow proved successful in some areas, and more insightful in others.  I very clearly have no problem generating ideas.  I have a significant problem fleshing out, developing, and finishing anything.  So my ideal set up would be a staff of 4-5 clones.  Each morning I’d show up with 4-5 ideas, assign each idea to a clone, have them go at it for a couple hours, look at what we have, then decide if it’s going to be a short piece, or should it be developed into something longer.  But alas, no clones.  What I could really use is a manager.  That is also, you know, a clone.

Since I have no clones, I’ve gotta get back to it.

N.P.: “J’accuse” – Mucca Pazza

I’m going to tweak my workflow a bit starting tomorrow and see what happens.  It should only take 2 of 3 days to know if it worked or not.

N.P.: “Nottingham Lace” – Buckethead

So you know I’ve bitched about having absolutely no idea and no reliable barometer to judge if I’m doing a good job with it because it isn’t funny.  I can tell if something is funny or not, but I can’t tell if this is whatever the hell it’s supposed to be or not.  I know it’s well written….I just don’t know, and won’t know until it’s completed and an editor reads it, how effective it is in accomplishing what I want it to accomplish.

If that makes any sense.

N.P.: “Run Runaway” – Slade