notebook / @tww

Haven’t been this jealous of someone else’s writing in a long time. Pure brilliance. Not only does it feature what is easily one of Kate Winslet’s best performances in a career of best peformances - from here on out, she and Jean Smart need to be in everything together, playing every role in everything - but it’s also a showcase for Julianne Nicholson’s under-the-radar talents; hopefully MARE proves to be, along with THE OUTSIDER, the tipping point to the accolades she deserves…

Pulled my well-worn and well-loved edition of THE ANNOTATED DRACULA from my shelves this morning, as I’ve been wont to do of late. Memories of the first time I found it years back on another set of shelves, my grandfather’s, and devoured it, beginning ANNOTATED’s perpetual presence on my shelves. Something about the addition of historical footnotes and asides to Stoker’s epistolary telling brought both the writing and the world to life in ways that Stoker’s writing didn’t by itself.

There’s something further forming here, I just don’t know what (and thus the totality of my working methods have been fully encapsulated).

And ‘tis, apparently, the season (like Christmas, it seems to arrive earlier with each year): second weekend in a row that as-yet-unidentified nearby dickshits have been setting them off after +/- 2100. Last night’s cacaphony motivated the neighbors’ dog to run away in fear; flashlights and calls into the dark abounded. No word as of this writing as to whether or not he’s returned home. Fuck fireworks.

Mental cacophony of waking in the process of an ebb, until it isn’t. But at least I’ve figured out the way forward, the next steps: pretty much the same as the old steps. Writewritewrite.

On titling: These are, as they have always been, The Informalities: each will, therefore, get its own title, even though I am shit at titles. Perhaps I will become less shit in the practice. Wouldn’t it be nice.

P.S. Fuck fireworks.

Morning paw from Kirby.

Backyard, currently.

Negotiations are at an impasse.

Still working on a naming scheme for these morning, day inaugurating / concluding meanderings. I like SitRep - though everything I post throughout the day is, itself, a SitRep but IDK: Avoid lame references to coffee, so: Morning, 04jun2021? Whether Report, 04jun2021 (I kinda like that one, a nod to David Lynch’s Weather Report)? Meanwhile…, 04jun2021? AdInterim, 04jun2021? Suggestions welcome - tww(AT)parentheticalrecluse(DOT)com.

(Alternative: I give each of these individual names but Im terrible at titles so Id rather eliminate the pressure altogether.)

Bowled over by the response to the first newsletter-exclusive short story. Publishing that thing truly marked the end of an era, the first time in more than seven years that its rhythm hasn’t been in my head. For those that have reached out, 🙏

Update: settled on “Meanwhile, 04jun2021” - clearly.

Kirby at +/- eight weeks old, and today, at 16 weeks old.

The reign of the hosta overlords has begun.

Put entirely too much thought into what I wanted this space to be only to - after finally releasing my first NL-exclusive short story in the wee hours of this morning - settling back into what it was and is: a space to think out loud in public if only to myself, and to learn to be fine with that.

In this releasing, and in every release since my narrative re/emergence (for lack of a better term), efforts to chisel Kubrick’s truth in stone, to build the callouses to realize it:

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent – but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

And so these efforts continue, and on and on.

Just hit send on the first subscriber-exclusive short story. This one really terrified me. Which means it was probably the right move - or, perhaps, the only move.

Survival, spite, neighbor dogs, and more in this week’s attempt to answer a frequently asked question that I’ve never been asked: THE GROUND LOOP, Ep0006 - Why do you run?

New GROUND LOOP episode inbound…

Shorn Morkie + Shorn Jorkie + Comics + Grogu

Main reason for not taking a summer GROUND LOOP hiatus (other than I enjoy doing the show)? When I started, it took me all afternoon to record. Today, I finished latest episode (and short story reading) in 45 minutes. Score one for the steady progression of middling competence.

I don’t hate the short story yet - nor have I had the inclination to “change things” (read: fuck it up) before Friday’s NL-exclusive release. Will probably record an audio version of it later today (a handy way to avoid said fucking up of the text), along with THE GROUND LOOP’s return - now that I know what I’m going to talk about, which wasn’t what I had planned to talk about, but there you go.

Relief, too, that my fear of being empty in this new era, the post-seven-year ‘graph that wasn’t a novel but a short story, seems to be unfounded: turned my attention to to RE/EMERGENCE0004, a useful, collaborative palette cleanser between solo projects and a means - the only means - by which to dull the sting of 0003’s cricket-thud.

Trying afternoon work chunk again as I’m not getting my reading done in the current schema. Not sure if this is an actual “taking charge of my day” thing or the middle finger of a mental construct waved in my face; only one way to find out.

On with the day.

This being the morning that the 40lb German Shepherd puppy decided to wake his older, 13lb Jorkie sister by removing all of her blankets from her crate and making himself comfortable. His version of tiny house living?

Reading:

“Above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night, ‘Must I write?’ Dig deep into yourself for an answer. And if this answer should be in the affirmative, if you can meet this solemn question. with a simple strong, ‘I must,’ then build up your life according to this necessity.”

— Rainer Maria Wilke, 17 February 1903, “Letters to a Young Poet.”

Update: the seven-year paragraph is finished. Releasing to NL subscribers later this week (so I don’t have time to fuck it up).

Writing these now in this post-Write1, cup of coffee the second interregnum: when the second cup is finished, so too is my time writing these. Then: the feeding, the playtime, the quick glance (do I really want to say this? Who cares?), photo, publish, back to The Work.

Also: SitRep titling has returned, at least until I come up with a better title. No pressure on these pieces because to hell with it anyhow: I enjoy writing them.

Currently: gave up on Bear (love it but don’t want to keep two different Markdown schemas straight; iA Writer for life, it would seem) and nearing the end of the seven-year paragraph, finding that rhythm, that ever-elusive rhythm. Perhaps releasing to subscribers at the end of this week, first of next?

On with the day.