020: Nights of Blood and Fire

First, COMPILATION.
Usually I'm all Just Say No To Alley Furniture, but who throws out a perfectly good Eames knockoff worth $200?

I know I'm not the only one to think this, but man tabloid/celebrity/influencer culture is weird. I made the mistake of looking at some TMZ shit for a little while and, like, I cannot imagine finding any celeb gossip interesting at all, especially when it comes to people who literally do nothing. And the thing is, it infiltrates everything, both online and off. Companies that used to make products or provide services that rebrand as "lifestyle brands." News and cultural networks that just ass-kiss and starfuck. I think the worst one is Architectural Digest, which in a couple years went from featuring architecture to just being fawning profiles of famous people in their huge houses. I just. I just don't understand it. What is interesting about some rando buying a loaf of bread? Why is it interesting because said rando gets their picture taken a lot?

I think I just realized there's a lot more Grant Morrison in my syntax than I knew about.

Fired up the SID synth again (that'd be the one we built out of the sound chip from a Commodore 64) and it... mostly works. Seems to be losing some MIDI data somewhere along the way, so maybe it'll just take a reload of the Arduino controller. We'll see. Tomorrow. This is a "later" problem.

Woke up because my inner elbows (UCLs) are  SCREAMING. I seriously don't know what set them off other than maybe weather, but oh my God this is pain like I've never known.

Every time I play Fallout 76, it's been long enough that I forgot why I stopped playing, and it's because I haven't gotten around to launching a nuke to finish the game. Because getting through the bunker to do so SUCKS. So every time I just... Stop playing. Apparently the game is still riddled with bugs and glitches, though, so I guess I'll just wallhack my way through or something.

Ptooooo. Into the void.

I hope my beautiful Japanese husband Yu Darvish gets to the World Series and also finally wins it. So close so many times. [note: in in fact did not get there nor won it.]

You know for as popular as the Polaroid 600/660 is, there's remarkably little on the internet about fixing it.

Today is the day the spouse and I usually celebrate our dating-versary. She worked at a haunted farm and in tae kwon do and I was an idiot writing poems on pizza boxes and trying on identities like windbreakers. Now we have a kid an a small detachment of cats and too many LEGOs.

Me: *changes guitar strings and battery for pickups* Also me: *puts dead battery in guitar, under new strings*

Rejection Day!! A full YEAR later than they said it would be!

Second, MANIFESTOS.
This was my comment on October 11th, which is interestingly the day that the recent INTERLUDE newsletter went out.

It's National Coming Out Day.

Nine years ago was my first bisexual Coming Out Day. A couple years after that was my first trans Coming Out Day.

Thing is, it's never just a day; it may be one big day of celebration or acceptance, but it's a lifelong project. We don't just say "Hey I'm pretty queer" and that's the end of it. It's a never-ending process of personal examination, public declaration, and private explanations. Sometimes those things are easy, and sometimes they're difficult. Society has an ever-shifting set of rules to follow, and individuals make assumptions.

But I'm out because I have the safety of some wonderful people in my life and the luxury of living in a city that is relatively safe for people like me, plus the knowledge that what I am is even something that I can be. And so my message is simple:

There are no boundaries on love, and there are infinite genders--as many as there are people who have ever lived. There are places you can be and be safe. There are people out there who want to see you grow and thrive.

I love you regardless of your status of being in or out of the closet. I hope if you're in there, one day you can find the support to come out. We have a lot of work to do, and until then, you're valid as shit, regardless of who knows you're lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, ace, two-spirit, questioning, or any other thing we can as infinitely potential human beings be.

As man name of Chuck is known to say: Love is real.

Third, CONSUMPTION.
- Read the manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito. It is arguably his most known work in the US, notable for its hyperrealistic style and detail while being absolutely bonkers when it comes to content. It is not a book for the squeamish; it is whole-heartedly horror, and it will haunt you for a long time, especially if you like snails, row homes, lighthouses, hair styling, jump scares, pottery, meteorology, cars, mushrooms, babies, woodworking, or idyllic ponds. Do not, however, come into this book for any sort of logical character arcs. They exist almost purely for weird goings-on.
- Speaking of weird horror, here's a bunch of clips of David Lynch just... being David Lynch.
- Speaking of weird horror and sports, Blaseball is, I hesitate to say, back. I have no idea what they're doing this time, but I hope being Terminally Online is not as much a requirement this year. The lore... the horror. The lore-or.
- Speaking of none of the above, friend of the program Vanessa Ramstack had another poem go live. I'm always floored by her ability to say things so plainly and painfully and perfectly.

Fourth, PROMOTION.
This is the part where I talk about my book, A Void and Cloudless Sky. The book is up for sale on Amazon and BN.com, as well as Bookshop.org! The best deal is with Mr. Bezos, but Bookshop actually lets you support your friendly local bookstore if you want.

Do you want a FREE Advanced Reader Copy? All I ask is that you review it on either/both of those sites and/or Goodreads. Let me know!

And as usual, if you'd like to support this whole endeavor more directly, you can check out my Patreon, where I post poetry, notes to poems, the occasional essay, and whatnot. At upper tiers I even write poems FOR YOU!

If you like what I do here and don't have the scratch or the inclination to do the above, please share this newsletter with you friends. I like making words wiggle people's brainjuices.

Finally, THE OUTRO.
This month seems to have just rocketed by. It feels like just last week I was in Fort Wayne seeing friends and reading my work to real, live people again. In the intervening time I've helped launch a podcast, made major strides (and frustrating falters) on my project car, repaired a guitar that's been broken for the better part of a year, seen my kid go from overwhelmed teen to overwhelmed theater teen (tech week struggle is real), finally hung art on my walls, and then, occasionally, written words for a book. This time of year is always tough for me, but, as I've noted in previous newsletters, there's a reason Persephone is my middle name: this cyclical process of shorter days leading to the cold dying winter nights (during which I was born) and then the progress back to light and life... it's necessary, and it's a part of who I am. No matter how badly I think I'm doing, I'm doing exactly what I need to. In this case, it's doctors' appointments and family caretaking and making plans for gatherings and producing the kind of work that is more easily done when the sun and the leaves and the beach are no longer calling, the dark work of digestion and decomposition, so that work can begin anew.

Remember, these cold nights may come every year, but then before long, before we even realize it, we're back into the flowers and sun. They, too, come every year. Hold on. We'll get there.