Pumpkin Season!
Hey there, fellow weirdos. How’s everyone doing out there right now, on what should be the best time of the year? I say best because there’s really no better time in my mind than Halloween. Creepy! Ookie! Delightful! Around our household, we decorate every day as if it’s Halloween, so it’s nice when our own particular lifestyle choices sort of vaguely mesh up with everyone else’s. We even have two giant skeletons on our property (one wearing a pride flag as a loincloth) and a giant skellie dog, so we’re rocking the bones over here.
Of course, I also say this should be the best time of the year, because this time around it is also the most anxious. The election is just around the corner, and I don’t know about you guys, but I am nothing more these days than three piles of anxiety wrapped in a trench coat. Can’t sleep, can’t think, have a clenched stomach and a clenched jaw. Somehow it’s even worse than back in 2020, and I absolutely hate it in every which way possible. That combined with just the general sort of life stress that we all have on a daily basis is really just too much, you know?
So yeah, just a reminder in case you all need it to get out there and vote blue, all the way down the line this time, thank you very much. No protest voting, please. No voting red/fascist. No dicking around, okay? Pinkie swear? Love you more than beans and rice?
Moving on.
Despite all the stress and terror of every day living right now, I have been strangely very productive since the last time I popped a newsletter out to everyone. I’ve just broken 36,000 words on the novel I’ve been circling around for about a decade now, and that is some great goddamn ground, I think. What’s weird to me is that the reason I stopped making any headway on it the last time around was because of the world being on fire after the 2016 election, and now that we are on the brink of possibly becoming a fascist nation, I can’t seem to stop the words from coming. What does this all mean? I have no idea, but I’m glad at least that if everything is going to burn down around us in the coming years, at least I’ll get this fucking book done first.
Pardon my French, I have an extreme potty mouth these days.
Also, in other creative news, I am going absolutely bonkers with doing my 3D art. For those of you just joining us, I’ve been doing a lot of virtual photography using 3D models (a lot of them being cyborgs and robots), and tossing most of them out into the void for people to see or not (though you can actually see a lot of them at my Patreon, Two Francisco page, or Mastodon account). It’s nice to whip out all of my old photography skills from decades of traditional photography, and apply them in a medium that doesn’t require me to actually leave the house sometimes. As a general rule, leaving the house is icky and gross, I have decided.
It has been a full year since we moved out here into Stephen King country, and let me tell you, Maine is a gorgeous place. We just a couple of weeks ago hit peak fall colors in the trees, and now after a few strong cold winds coming down from Canada, we’re just about at the bare branches level that we’re going to sit at until spring rolls around. I suppose I should start popping some photos up somewhere of how lovely it is on the property (like maybe that Instagram that I don’t use and therefore don’t promote—ahem). All I can tell you is that if you haven’t ever been to Maine, you should definitely put it into your planner. They don’t call it Vacationland for nothing.
I am slightly ashamed to admit this, given my decidedly nerdy upbringing, but I have never until recently read a Terry Pratchett book. I know, I know, I am a terrible person and should be brutally flogged. I can’t argue this with you, and I have no real defense to put forth. Suffice it to say that I am attempting to right my wrongs, and it’s thanks to a recent Humble Bundle deal on all of the Discworld novels, which forced me to open up a Kobo account, but it was a small price to pay (both in dollars and effort) to get the entire batch. I am officially 2/3rds of the way through the first in the series, and am enjoying it quite a bit (and yes, I know that you are told that you don’t need to read the series in any particular order, but I am a stubborn old goat like that).
Some things worth watching:
Bad Monkey on Apple TV. Vince Vaughan has never been an actor who either draws me in or keeps me out—solidly whatever in my head—but he does a great job being enjoyably snarky in this series.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder on Netflix here in the States. Emma Myers, the lead actress, is absolutely delightful and so darn cute that we couldn’t stop watching once we started in on it. Since it’s a BBC adaptation, when I say cute I mean that she’s just a normal adorable young person (I don’t say teenager, because she’s in her early 20s playing a teenager), and not who an American production would have cast in the role (a 26 year old Maxim model with lip fillers and a modeling contract)(wait, is Maxim even a published magazine anymore?)(does anyone actually read magazines anymore?)(am I too old to even be allowed to live?).
English Teacher on FX. It’s like the mean and dirty version of Abbott Elementary, with even less emphasis on teacher-student relations and more focus on sex, drugs, and wildly inappropriate workplace interactions. We can’t get enough of it, and the episodes are only 30 minutes each, so you’ll fly through the entire season before you know it. This is one solidly well-written show, seriously.
For your listening pleasure, might I suggest a band that we are very fond of in this household: Vision Video. For fans of the The Cure and similarly gothy bands. Their second album has just been released, and not only are they a great band, but they are also great people. Here’s a couple of video links for ya.
That’s about it for this little edition of the newsletter, gang. I appreciate all of you coming around, and a special hiya to the new folks who just showed up! If the entire country isn’t on fire in a few days, we should all get together out in the woods somewhere, burn a few marshmallows, pick a few ticks off of one another, and celebrate surviving another American presidential election. Of course, if the country is on fire, we should all just hole up in my basement and plan our next moves like the group of wild and stubborn weirdos that we all are.
Love you, nerds. Catch you all later.