Friday, June 19, 2020

Day 97



Day 97, self quarantine:

Hello, Friday!

Welp, week fourteen of the apocalypse is a wrap.

Our pizza schedule is messed up, we had it last night, which means tonight must be tomato sandwiches and hand cut French fries.

Is it 5:00 yet?

Gary really stepped up his pizza game.  That white spinach pie was next level.

Don’t hate me but I’ve actually lost weight staying home. Chef Gary is in da kitchen and he makes me eat three (mostly) healthy, portion controlled meals a day so I stopped snacking at night which is the exact opposite of the way I eat when I work at my real office.  I may break 130 next week and actually see the 120s.

Too bad I am never going anywhere again to show it off.

Well, maybe in 2021.

I’m not even joking.

I’m really not liking the news on surging numbers where states have reopened.  My mind is made up.  I’m not venturing anywhere near people again anytime soon.

I’m going to make Julie’s bedroom more office like and by that I mean a desktop computer and good color printer.  Even if my paralegal life ends soon, I discovered something magical and I’m so excited I can hardly bear it.

I can write in this place.

I can write and write and write from dawn until it’s bedtime. There’s a muse in the room, she clearly kissed Julie and now she’s sprinkling her fairy dust on me.

This house is small.  There’s no finished basement or family room.  I never had my own place to write.

I wrote four novels in my living room with Eric practicing the drums two feet behind me and Gary and Julie yelling back and forth a few yards away in the kitchen.

So how weird has it been that since it’s been just Gary and me in the house, it took me almost a hundred years to finish a new one?

I think maybe the two of us enjoy hanging out together a little too much.

But now I come up here early while he’s asleep and write while drinking coffee and listening to music. Honestly, I could write all morning except work but I write all day there, too, so all good.

The acoustics in here are great.

I know a lot of writers can’t write unless it’s silent, I’m just the opposite.

Probably because I grew up writing with Eric drumming behind me.

Gary’s getting his music man cave, why shouldn’t I have a writing cave?

Hahaha you might think the kids just moved out the way I’m talking.  It’s been ten years since they vacated their bedrooms but Gary was sure they were coming back and preferred to leave them as shrines ❤️

Now he can finally admit it’s a good thing they grew up though it’s still hard for him.  Eric recently called him with a plumbing problem in his new house and Gary hung up the phone all distraught.

“Maybe I should drive over and give him a hand.”

“In Nashville?”  I thought maybe I didn’t hear him right.

“It’s only a twelve hour trip.”

“Yeah but there’s a virus...wait, are you serious?”

“He’s my son.”

Aw, Gary.

So anyway, the new book.  To be honest, after having pretty much terrible luck with agents throughout my illustrious career and dreading the process I said fuck it, I’m just putting it out myself, and I gave myself a publication date of April 1 which I thought was perversely fitting.

And then the apocalypse happened and putting out a new book when I was pretty sure I’d be dead in two weeks seemed kinda pointless.

Anyway, last night I revisited it.  And now I’m not sure what to do.

Holy hell, even though I know better, maybe I am going to let the muse in this bedroom do her thing.  I’m gonna swallow my pride, hold my nose, and submit a query to a few agents.

The book is called “What the Hell Happened?”

It’s all about being mentally nineteen and trapped in a bewildered old person’s body.

So yeah, maybe other old people will wanna read it.

And if not...

What’s a little more rejection?

I’m alive, aren’t I?

Wish me luck.

Enjoy Friday, apocalypse dudes.