Surprise! I have officially returned within a week of my last post. While this was intended to be a more “active” website, I’ve found myself feeling very sluggish this March. Not in the sense that I have given up on my profession, but I am being more meticulous with projects. To jump over to The Memory Tourist is to see two articles that, while I’m proud of, aren’t a substantial representation of where I’m at mentally right now. In theory, I should have a more ballooned amount to brag about, but part of my current writing journey is doing what I want to do when I want to. Maybe I need motivation to get back to a regular schedule, thus feel more fulfilled, but that isn’t to say I’ve avoided doing things behind the scenes.
To continue on my train from last week, I have some writing projects that are in various states of completion. The prominent focus was my short story collection, still untitled, which has 20 selected works chosen for a potential release. I have read and edited them in a way that I feel fits as a consistent flow. Now I’m working on doing a section that I call “Further Thoughts,” which is where I expand on what my influences are. Not to drag up a tired topic, but I generally am against the concept of Death of the Author. While you can choose to ignore their input, I see art as a conversation between artist and audience. It’s the most intimate moment in one’s life when you interpret something, ideally with limited outside influence. It can improve your perspective, but I’d argue that at some point, art has to be visceral, and my “Further Thoughts” section is designed to be a helpful viewpoint of where I was going, even if I look back on a lot of things I’ve written just in the past decade and feel like invisible details have changed. It’s the fun thing about cementing your ideas on a page, if just to remind you of what life was like during that time.
I’m also ploughing along with Novel4. In short, I reached a stall point in outlining recently and am currently hypothesizing different ideas for where I want things to go. I am happy to say that I should be able to push ahead very soon, but for now, it’s roughly 2/3 done and should be out between 2028 and 2029. I recognize that this buys me more time to be meticulous, though, conceptually, I might be a little behind the pattern, given that it takes me one year to outline, one year to write the first draft, and another unspecified period to edit into my final version. I can’t be dragging my feet too much here.
So anyway, how has life been since I last wrote? Let me state the obvious. The weather has been miserable. While Southern California is by no means on track to match the hellscape that can be an Arizona heat, it’s still obnoxious to have 90+ degree temperatures in the middle of March. In my mind, we are still in the waning days of winter and should have more moderate temperatures. I’ve done what I can to stay cool, though at some point you feel the heat sweating down your back, and the very act of walking across the house leaves you at risk of dehydration.
Maybe that is why I’m sometimes existential about whether I’m doing enough with my day. Even if I respect having downtime to relax and regain energy, there is a need to push through the tougher elements and have something every day where you look back and say, “I did that!” By some miracle, I’ve been able to strategize this so that I have some outdoors time every day. Even if I cannot claim to be the most efficient handler of heat, I have been surviving just fine. For example, I mowed my front lawn during a high point of the heatwave. While I do regret it on some level, I also thought the weeds in my yard looked stupid, and I needed to put that peace in my mind.
Otherwise, I have been doing extensive work in my backyard to combat the crazy landscape of weeds. In general, I have dedicated 60-100 minutes most afternoons to pulling weeds slowly but surely. While I do think it currently looks like a bad buzzcut, there’s still some hope every time I end those sessions by standing up and noticing that, yes, the yard is slowly looking better. I get that covering often looks better than a bland dirt field, but at the same time, it might become more manageable once everything is where I want it to be.
During this time, I’ve also taken to listening to music. As mentioned before, I am high on the Gorillaz kick at the moment and have been cycling through the albums. I have finally checked out “The Now Now,” which I’ll have to say is one of my lesser favorites by them, even if I love that they have never gone in a predictable direction. There’s plenty of creativity and pathos mixed in that convince me future listens will deepen my appreciation, but for now, it’s just a fine and disposable record with a really weird song about “Idaho” that’s been stuck in my head ever since. I have also been listening to Aesop Rock’s “Black Hole Superette,” following a very favorable discovery of his side project Lice, whose new E.P. is a real hoot and a fun pick me up when I need rap music that’s wacky and insightful.
To address Aesop Rock real quick. He is someone that I always really like when I listen to, but I always seem to struggle to listen to as a complete album experience. That may be because he strikes me as an ideas man who is more singles-driven than any greater story. With that said, “Black Hole Superette” is one of those records that, if you’re open to it, will leave its ideas with you and make you appreciate the artfulness of what the medium can do. He’s great at wordplay, and his storytelling skills make you want to lean in. He has another 2025 album that I hope to check out soon to see if the goodwill can continue to expand. If I have one criticism about “Black Hole Superette” after one listen, it’s that the hour length feels overlong for something so impulsively weird and all over the place. Still, I don’t know what you’d take out. Long story short, check out the Lice E.P. if you haven’t. I’m a fan.
If there is one thing I want to apologize for, the heat has made me a bit irritable. Not in a way that’s caused me to lash out at anyone, but just in the sense that I don’t want to deal with people outside of my inner circle, period. This has mostly been evident in wanting to use social media. I like being on Bluesky, but I have struggled to find the community I want since leaving Twitter, and I am at a loss on how I can find that group to be vulnerable with and feel invested in their personal journeys. No offense to Bluesky, but the gang’s not there. Good people are, but I’ve unfortunately buried it in their whack algorithm that never fully lands for me.
In a move that might be one of the stranger signs of irritability, I have been especially annoyed by my Letterboxd productivity. Not so much that people are ignoring me, but that I’m somehow hung up on people recognizing my latest post. It’s not even the best-written thing I’ve done this year, but something about the loopy prose for Requiem for a Vampire makes me wish anyone would give it a like. My dumb self-punishment has been to not watch a movie until that moment happens, though I’m going to probably end up settling for a week or so. That said, I haven’t been in the mood to watch films in general and, as you can tell by my pick, the heat’s made me favor less intellectually driven work that is more impulse and direct emotion. Admittedly, an arthouse pseudo-lesbian vampire softcore erotica film might be a weird thing to hang on the “respect my criticism!” debate, but that’s where my head is at. I’m trying to push through it, but part of me is still being too stubborn.
Which isn’t to say that I’ve filled the time with anything more meaningful. I have been continuing my journey through Ken Burns’ Revolutionary War docuseries after forgetting about it for a bit too long. As someone who enjoys history, it’s been an engrossing experience to see the perspectives grow into something deeper and less conventional than what I was taught. Sure, I find the overabundance of focus on war to be a bit tedious at this point, but I recognize that’s part of the core myth that this country has produced.
Then again, maybe I just have an aversion to old-timey war stuff ever since I took an Old English class where the majority focus was on the subject of violence and dominance. Because of how we studied religion’s connection to this, I’m not terribly surprised by later events. However, I think it speaks to how limiting the “winners tell history” perspective is because I would love to hear about anything else. Even in something like “Paradise Lost,” where it’s fan fiction about the bible, you’re left with this all-out larger-than-life war. Long story short, Ken Burns knocks it out of the park once again. Also, I’m working my way through Homer’s “The Iliad” right now and having a great time despite what I said. For what it’s worth, Old English is kind of insufferable, but other countries really had more empathy for the common reader. I do love how much of it is weird comic book-adjacent stuff about Gods moving pawns across a board for their own amusement. I will say that I get why “The Odyssey” sits more favorably in my mind, but at least this is keeping me engaged and making me understand the function and evolution of literature that was not too far off from existing. Hell, this is making me get the reason “Pilgrim’s Progress” was written that way, and that book’s beyond wackadoo by today’s standards.
I’m also working on a monthly project that includes using twine to make a basket. While I am fearing that I will top out very soon at 65% success rate, I love the challenge of attempting to make something valuable in four weeks and determining whether I have discovered a new hobby. In honesty, nothing has quite topped wood burning, but I keep chugging along. Without properly assessing the finished product, I do think twine is fun in theory, but the instructions for this particular project are supremely frustrating and not helpful to someone who has no idea what they’re doing. I guess it’s good on a base level, but it needed something else.
I know that this essay is a bit scattershot and all over the place, but I also want to give a quick shoutout to Underscores. Given that they released one of my favorite albums of the decade so far with “Wallsocket,” I have been eager to hear what April Harper Grey does next. The best that can be said is this is more stripped back, less lore-heavy, and more centered around a passionate drive of late-90s/early-00s pop love songs. Given that Jane Remover has been doing the same, it’s been fun to hear the hyperpop girlies have some fun. I’m still not sure where I’ll ultimately land, but Underscores is never boring to say the least. Also, Hurray for the Riff Raff has released a new live album, which will hopefully be in my ears in the not-too-distant future.
I would also like to briefly mention that while I was not a fan of the Oscars ceremony as a whole this year, I am fine with most of the winners. One Battle After Another may be the most disengaged that I’ve been with a Paul Thomas Anderson film, full stop, but I am happy to finally see him win a few statues. As someone who made a prognostication website because of their love for The Master, the simple triumph means a lot to me. This may overall have been a middling year for winners otherwise, but at least the art they awarded felt purposeful and challenging, the medium that I love. Finally, I’m here to give a personal hug to Marty Supreme. No “you were robbed!” talk here, but the ballet and opera talk is a bullshit example of how social media has made overreactive to the most inessential topics. Let the man have his opinion. He’s not burning down an opera house. And also, don’t make the Sinners song performance about Chalamet. You missed the point. Fuck you. But it’s okay, Marty Supreme, you’ll always be a favorite for flying your blimp over my house.
To start wrapping up, I want to briefly touch on sports. The first is that we are officially in March Madness! It’s generally an exciting time full of surprises. While I have trouble generally caring for 63 of the 64 teams, the heightened tension creates a fun barrier that allows for those final minutes to be more intense. There’s been plenty of fun upsets. While I wouldn’t call myself a bracket expert, I have been doing halfway decent, given that my busted brackets are currently, on day three, still in the single digits of misses. I’m especially doing well on women’s, where I got to number 13 (lucky number 13) before I had something go wrong. Fingers crossed that something truly memorable happens soon.
Other than that, I am getting ready to attend CSULB’s men’s volleyball game against Hawaii. It will be their last as Big West rivals, which should make it extra special. That, and it’s sold out, so there will be a lot of tension in the air. I cannot wait to root them on, especially after last night, when things went a little south at the last minute. Fingers crossed that the heat doesn’t get to the players too much, especially given how many leg cramps I witnessed in the ESPN+ broadcast. When all is said and done, however, the good news is that this will be one of the rare years in which I have seen the likely Top 3 ranked teams in the nation all in one season. Go Beach!
So there you have it. I’m also currently working on outlining my monthly How I Live Now column, which will hopefully be where I finally talk about seeing Bernadette Peters live after forgetting to write a piece closer to relevance. There’s also likely a bunch of political stuff to throw in there, and I want to talk about the new USA 250 coin and how annoying I think it looks from an aesthetic perspective. I should say I’m not a coin collector nor hold a degree in analysis, but I do like what looks good, and there’s probably at least 100 quarters you could compare the USA 250 coin to to show why it’s kind of complete bupkus.
Other than that, I’ve been enjoying going to sleep to Gorillaz’s music videos thanks to their ongoing GTV livestream on YouTube. The downside is that it’s roughly 24 hours long, so I’ve seen the same stuff at different hours. I’ve also been catching bits and pieces of Breaking Bad on Philio, which… hot take… is a great show. I’m still curious to assess how a manipulative man who takes advantage of his employees plays nowadays as a whole, but in pieces, it’s still riveting stuff, even if “I am the danger” really does sound edgelord these days. Anyway, Bryan Cranston was doing A+ work with that show, and I encourage you to watch it.
Otherwise, talk to me when the heat has passed. Maybe then my neighbors will stop blasting insipid rap music into my backyard without a care for the hour. Also, I hope they stop having social hours until 2 AM and shouting the same three phrases over and over. I write this on Saturday with the expectation that they’re doing it on Sunday. That is the day they usually do it, and I’ve been chill with them doing it on the weekends just because those are socially acceptable gathering hours. However, this has been going on since Wednesday, and I would love a night of peace. Even if the walls drown out the higher pitches, I hear the bass playing nonstop for hours, and it really upsets my body. I genuinely think I’m worse off mentally because of them, and I pray they learn some human decency and compassion for the community. You can’t expect those around you to respect you if you don’t contribute anything worth giving the occasional leniency.
But anyway, off to the volleyball game! I’m sure it’s going to be a great time. I’m likely to post this after the fact, but do know that it’s always a good use of your time to support a team that continues to strive for that number one spot. It may not be our year quite yet, but there are still a few weeks.
So until next time. Hope all’s well and I’ll see ya when I see ya.
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