notebook / @tww

Current personal eco-system covid vaccine status: in-laws have had both shots, no negative reaction; both grandfathers, likewise. My mother is doing fine after her first, though my wife was exhausted for a few days after hers. I’m eligible for mine, appointment efforts underway.

Good morning; it’s currently 33ºF under cloudy skies and, as of today, I can get my covid-jab. Put in a call to the adjacent southern county since mine is, to put it likely, an organizational clusterfuck. We shall see.

Thinking this morning especially of something John Steinbeck wrote in his essential WORKING DAYS:

“Mustn’t think of its largeness but only of the little picture while I am working. Leave the large picture for planning time.” (18 June 1938–9:45).

Use the run and the non-writing times for the big picture, focus on the tiny details in the Forest-ed chunks. Repeat daily.

And so it goes; the day awaits.

Take a Deep Dive Into the Mysteries of Rian Hughes’s Massive New Alien Thriller Novel, XX, via SyFy.

Archaeologists Uncover a Lavish Marble Floor from Ancient Rome in Southern France, via Colossal.

Haruki Murakami Has Designed a Line of T-Shirts for UNIQLO, via Spoon & Tamago.

Equivalent of Covid emissions drop needed every two years - study, via The Guardian.

Might the pandemic pave the way for a universal basic income?, via The Economist.

Intriguing: ‘Bosch’ Spinoff Picked Up By IMDb TV; Welliver, Rogers, Lintz Reprising Roles, via Deadline.

Hark, for these sounds of gunfire, chainsaws, and obnoxious trucks tearing down the highway signal the springing of spring in this heartlandic hell.

SitRep update: went with all morning. Apparently these rambles are becoming part of my “return to work” routine. Rest of day TBD.

Good morning; it’s currently 30ºF under sunny skies and, according to USPS, my “package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility,” having been in this purgatorial state of transit since 21feb.

And so it is and so it goes.

In the process of reorganizing my schedule for the upcoming yardcare season but also thinking in terms of sitting vs moving and trying to stagger those periods of sitting and moving throughout the day. My workblocks are a combo of both now, especially with the standing desk, whose return has been wonderful. Will probably revert to my creative vampirism, the first block of work being before the sun rises and the second in the evenings instead of after lunch: more moving after dinner and a way to leave the days open for random access servitude.

Also nice to literally sleep on the creative problem from the evening block in the hopes that an answer will be there in the morning.

Equal potential that I’ll just do all of my writing in the morning and that these will be a bridge between the two segments.

Shared newsletter direction yesterday; the reminder worked.

I still like writing these; the day awaits.

The Two Obscure YAKUZA Titles America Never Got, via CBR.

Health orgs. backed Ohio’s pandemic response, then gave $ to politicians working to undermine it, via Ohio Capital Journal.

How far-right extremism is becoming a global threat, via The Economist.

The Story of Napoleon’s Death Mask (1915), via The Public Domain Review.

Long COVID patients say they feel better after getting vaccinated, via The Verge.

A Dazzling Series of Photos Captures the Soft Glow of Firefly Mating Season in Japan, via Colossal.

from last weekend’s MacroParentheticals0042:

With a number of new creative things coming out, an upcoming seasonal increase in demands on my non-writing time (read: in-lawn, digging holes, lifting heavy things, fixing a fence, replacing a side door and frame, and at least another 30 cubic yards of mulch-laying in addition to other fun things which should get me to April), a wish to not besiege/bore readers with multiple emails, and, most importantly, a desire for evolution and creative growth, I need to streamline my efforts and focus on the realization of those new creative things.

Here’s how I’m going to do that:

From here on out, the letter and the news parts of this now-“monthly+” newsletter will be separated, with these letter bits releasing the last Sunday of every month and the news bits coming your way in “extra editions” as new projects and installments are released (best guess being one or two (two at most) extra editions a month, probably on Fridays).

Extra editions will herald:

• Continued early access (+/- a week before public release) to new Socialized Recluse interviews and re/emergence installments.
• Exclusive access to new short stories, serialized things, and et cetera. (There will be et cetera. Perhaps serialized et cetera.)
• Free ebooks / PDFs of aforementioned new creative things, as well as discounts on physical releases of above.

//

While the original plan was to release one novella per year - and may yet be the case (eyes / stomach, all that) - I’ve managed to unblock so many ideas that had been waiting for a place to call home that I’m aiming for two novellas/novelettes per year, the first in February, the second in August, and released as eBooks (free for you, with appropriate, non-subscriber remuneration TBD; Amazon availability likewise TBD).

Each December, these long-form fictions (as well as that year’s re/emergence tales - among other things) will be collected and released as a physical, self-published zine. I’m planning to work with local printers (coincidentally, most likely at the print shop that, growing up, made the smell of a printing press and fresh ink one of my favorites in the world) to produce this effort, which will be available only directly through me (via Parenthetical Recluse, which is, in this new paradigm, switching over to being a static home / storefront for all of these new creative things) and to subscribers for a sizable discount.

Obviously, since I only came up with this in February, there’s only one novella this year and December’s collection will be a small one, a test run, for lack of a better phrase. The two-per-annum will start in 2022.

//

If all of this sounds good to you, I hope you’ll consider signing up for MacroParentheticals. I’m excited to share what I’m building.

Now that I’ve finally settled on a title/category, I guess I do like doing these. Especially since I’m using Drafts for all of my Micro/online posting now. Finally found that systemic sweet spot, maybe.

A flurry of ideas continues apace: capture, capture, capture / get that brain to empty. Hopefully these will ebb in the coming days, once I settle into a new routine.

Returned to wearing my Watch – hopefully without dialing emergency services: mostly missed its function as a dumb phone, allowing me – in the house – at least, to receive texts and make calls (not emergency services) and run my timers and that’s about it.

(DumbWatch?)

Coupled with capital-W Watch return, I’m conducting an experiment: going against typical thought and practice, I’ve turned on lock-screen notifications for all social communiques (these are NOT mirrored to my Watch; Watch is the home for calls and texts and timers, a useful boundary). While I may fall flat on my face, the theory I’m testing for myself is that if I have these notifications on the screen (on a device I rarely pick up during the day, especially with the Watch back in action), I won’t be so tempted to lose myself in the slot machine rabbit holes of the apps themselves. In theory, anyhow.

Started Mark Ruffalo’s Golden Globe-winning I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE last night: Ruffalo deserves every award he earns/earned for this performance. Incredible, so far.

Words are appearing; working to figure out a metric for the day’s work blocks. Word counts give me hives, thinking iA Writer-based highlighted tasks: three per block / can only add a new one once those three are taken care of.

Reminding myself to share the newsletter/zine plan later today.

It’s currently 19ºF under sunny skies; the day awaits.

Feels like it’s been that long.

Today was my first day in the rearranged office: having a standing desk again was wonderful. Didn’t realize I missed it so much.

(Also) reading:

No idea if this is something that I want to do again (for the first time, here), but here I am with the time and the feeling of a particular freedom in this Micro space that was, I can see now, lacking at the main site: a little less pressure to make these daily rambles good or possessed of any value beyond the brain-emptying/clearing properties of their creation?

Case in point / this is what is on my mind:

While I don’t necessarily loathe food made in crockpots, I loathe crockpots in general. Suspect that it’s because, in my mind – or what passes for it these days – crockpots are about the result – not the process – of cooking, and I cannot, in good conscience, allow a perfectly good piece of meat be subjected to its stuff-it-and-forget it whims. But I can’t deny that the house does smell good on crockpot days.

Such is my inner turmoil. And so the day begins.

(Note: while I can’t discount the possibility that my presence in this daily ramble space is part of withdrawal from being done with the weekly newsletter – NL isn’t going anywhere, just shifting to monthly+ for reasons I’ll share/re-share here later this week – I am, in spite of having said I would write these only when I felt like it, fully cognizant of the potential that “when I felt like it” meant “return to daily.” Who knows.)

EarBliss, 01mar2021: CARNAGE, by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.

Sunday visit.

Therapy via side project.

Weather report, 28feb2021.

I can’t remember the last time sending a newsletter felt like such a relief. And, exhale.

Unprecedented numbers of students have disappeared during the pandemic. Schools are working harder than ever to find them, via The Washington Post.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Insulin Can Be Stored Outside Fridge, via Medscape.

Biden is hiking the cost of carbon. It will change how the U.S. tackles global warming, via The Washington Post.

Ricardo Delgado Illustrates Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Anew, via Bleeding Cool.

File under “hell yes”: ‘Superman’ Reboot In The Works At Warner Bros With Ta-Nehisi Coates Writing, J.J. Abrams Producing, via Deadline.

Watching: A SHIP TO INDIA (1947), dir. Ingmar Bergman.