Hello folks! It’s been almost two months since I wrote up one of these. Originally I was going to write one sooner, but that post about satire took a lot of time and energy from me. But now I’m back to talk about how things have been going.

The last time I posted, there were 3496 cases in my state and 110 cases in my county. As of this writing, there have now been 15,142 cases in my state and 1,904 cases in my county with our neighboring county coming in at 2,321 cases. So it seems like when I wrote a few weeks ago that re-opening was a mistake…it seems like it was a mistake.

My wife and I continue to stay home as much as we can, doing curb-side grocery pick ups, and ordering delivery or curb-side pick up if we eat out. My biggest anxiety last post was whether or not I would be going back into the office, but thankfully, it appears that the day job has decided to instate working from home permanently. This would be great news even if there weren’t a pandemic — no commute, I can help my wife, do laundry, keep up with the dishes, take care of my dog. But with the pandemic also? It’s one of the few pieces of truly great news I’ve heard in a while.

Since I last posted, not only has the massive spike occurred in June like I worried, but nationwide, it seems like the US’s cases are still climbing or remaining steadily high. I was worried originally about a second wave, but in point of face, we are still in the first wave at this point. The US has now reached 2.3 million cases and over 120,000 people have died. This is a true nightmare. And the conductor of this train ride into hell held a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma last night in which he admitted that he intentionally slowed testing because the more testing you do, the more positive cases you’ll see. His administration is trying to walk this back now, saying he was joking, but let’s be real: he has said this REPEATEDLY at White House briefings and during interviews. It’s not a tongue-in-cheek joke like they’re trying to spin it; he is admitting that he cares more about appearances and his poll numbers than the health of US citizens. We knew that, of course, but it continues to be stomach churning to see it constantly reinforced.

One of the most bizarre moments of the rally was when he drank from a cup one-handed. This was in response to speculation by some reporters and pundits that Trump may be ill because he constantly drinks from cups using two hands — I’m guessing people were speculating tremors, Parkinson’s, maybe dementia. But from the breathless, worshipful way that his supporters talked, it was like he’d turned water into wine.

Everything is terrible basically.

In the time since I’ve written, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis police department. Initially, the department tried to wave Floyd’s death away as having had Covid-19, or from drugs in his system. When video was leaked of his arrest and subsequent murder, in which Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds while two other officers held him down, it sparked nationwide outrage. Between that and the death of Breonna Taylor, who was an EMT killed in her home while she was asleep when police arrived fired blindly into her apartment, Black Lives Matter protests sprung up across the country, which, as always happens, resulted in police escalating the situation, breaking out their militarized gear against unarmed protesters.

That started right at the end of May, and as we move into the end of June, I’m seeing less and less from people on social media. The protests are still massive, still happening, but it’s like white people got bored of talking about it.

It’s been a very stressful, anxious time in the US and in our house. We are fortunate in that we are white, relatively financially stable, and able to stay home, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling ground down by the sheer amount of awful in everything.

Of course, it hasn’t all been bad. As you can see from the picture above, we’re celebrating 100 days in lockdown. My wife has been suffering from a nasty case of cabin fever, and decide if she couldn’t go wander around Target, the least she could do is get a cake. And it’s hilarious! I hope it gave the folks in the bakery a laugh.

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been working on a short story called “Reading the Stars.” It’s a weird little story that I tried writing a couple of years ago, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Back in May, I finally figured out a way to possibly make it a viable story. And I really like what I’m getting so far. But it’s been incredibly slow going. When I do sit down to write, the words come easy enough, but making myself sit down to write is a whole other problem. Between the pandemic, the protests, the police rioting, and the president being a perpetual tyrant, it’s been hard to gather the willpower to sit down and put words to the page.

Beyond that, I have another story idea pattering around in the back of my mind, and I would like to edit my springtime story that I’m calling “Tempest” at the moment. It needs work, but I love the idea. I really need to try to find some beta readers that could give me some feedback — I will happily return the favor, of course. If you want to be a beta reader, hit me up.

What I’ve Been Reading

I finished all of the books I mentioned last post. All of them were great. Since then, because of the protests and the policing, I’ve bought a lot of books about racism — not that I didn’t already have several, but it was something I wanted to dig back into. I’ve been particularly interested in learning about the structural ways that racism is enforced, so there’s a lot of books on my TBR about how black people were shut out of the economy, how black people were consistently kept from political power, how black people were segregated into specific living spaces and forced to remain there, and how the police have come to be so militarized and aggressive.

For right now, I’ve been focusing on these two books:

• I’m 49% through Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. This has been an incredibly valuable book for me. It’s probably going to go on my shelf as one of those foundational, transformative books like The New Jim Crow and The Warmth of Other Suns. Stamped, in fact, feels like a companion piece of The New Jim Crow. In that book, Michelle Alexander demonstrates how slavery simply shape-shifted after abolition. It demonstrated how anti-blackness was codified into the law, and how the law was given increasingly more power to do what it wanted. The thesis of that book was “Slavery never ended, it just changed.” In Stamped from the Beginning, Kendi traces the origins of racist and anti-black ideas. The thesis of this book is “racism isn’t logical, and it isn’t about belief; it is used to justify existing power structures.” I’ve learned about some of this history before, but I’ve never learned about it from this context, from this angle. To see how shrewdly racists changed their tactics to ensure that black people remained subjugated is horrifying, but illuminating.
• I’m 41% of the way through The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher. I love this book. I’d say it probably belongs in the New Weird or Cosmic Horror categories. Creepy things in the woods, mountains spontaneously appearing where there shouldn’t be, and a growing sense of paranoia. The book is honestly funnier than I expected it to be? But that’s not a bad thing. It manages to balance the creepiness and the humor very well. I’m actually reading this one in print, which is rare for me anymore. I’ve been reading a lot of ebooks and listening to audiobooks, but I’m trying to make a point to buy more print books to support authors AND to support local bookstores.

What I’ve Been Watching

We have watched basically all of RuPaul’s Drag Race that we can for free, so I decided to push for us to watch Avatar the Last Airbender. I had heard good things about it, but I’ve never watched it myself. We got through the first season, and for about 95% of it, I thought, “this is pretty good for a kid’s show! I don’t know that it’s ‘the best show I’ve ever seen’ like so many people online talk about it, but it’s pretty good!” We finished season one and moved onto season two and HOLY SHIT. I get it now. It’s amazing. We watched literally all of season two yesterday, and the only reason we’re not watching season three is because I’m trying to get some other things done. But I love it so much.

We haven’t really watched any movies recently, except for going to the drive-in to see Grease and Footloose. My wife had never seen the latter, and she had a blast. I love that movie so much. It’s hella dorky, but incredibly charming. There is a new horror movie starring Kevin Bacon that just came out that we’re very keen to watch, so I’m going to try to work in some time to watch that soon.

What I’ve Been Doing

I actually spent a ton of time working on documenting a recent protest nearby where police unleashed tear gas without just cause. It was horrible, and the statements they put out to the media did not match the videos I had seen. It was a horrible thing to witness, and since then they’ve allowed another protest with minimal presence, and I’m a bit on the fence because it feels like they knew they looked bad, and they’re trying to do some image reform — like those images of cops that knelt with protesters, and then a couple hours later were tear gassing them. But they got that photo op!

We also recorded our first new episode in two years a few weeks ago, and my brother is working on editing now. I’m very excited about it. I think we had a great conversation, although I was a bit nervous since it’s been so long. I’m also a little anxious about how it will sound because I am extremely picky about that and prided myself on the professional sound I was able to get with a pair of mid-range mics and Audacity. But he volunteered to edit them when we came back, and I’m trusting him even though my perfectionism is driving me up the wall because I’m not doing it myself.

It’s a problem, and I’m working on it, ha ha.

We’re almost out of backlogged episodes, and then we resume our monthly schedule. It’s becoming real!!

I’ve been trying to transcribe our podcast, but I’m out of free hours in the software I’m using. I kind of misunderstood their demo and thought I was getting 10 free hours a month. Turns out, I get 10 total free hours in the demo…and then I have to pay a monthly subscription. I would rather pay a person rather than software, but since everything is coming out of our own pockets, I can’t really afford to pay the going rates at the moment. If we ever start making money off of it from sponsors or patrons or what not, I will definitely hire a person, though.

Speaking of which, there’s a woman on Twitter named Sarah Fader who is offering podcast transcription services. If you can, you should absolutely DM her and get your podcast transcribed. It didn’t occur to me for a long time that I was creating content that by its nature excluded a lot of people. That sucks, and I want to do better, so I’m determined to get these episodes transcribed one way or another. If you can make your podcast accessible and help out a fellow person? That’s awesome and you should. DM her for her rates.

Since we’re moving to a monthly schedule for our episodes, I’ve been thinking about podcasting some short fiction mid-month both as a fun thing to put out on the off weeks and to make myself more more accountable with a deadline for writing. I’m honestly incredibly nervous about the idea. Putting my writing out there for scrutiny, for free no less, is terrifying, but I do like that it would give me a deadline and help me produce more work — which means I’ll only get better as I go.

I was inspired by writers to whom I subscribe on Patreon, like Kameron Hurley and Tobias Buckell, and writers like Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace that used to podcast their fiction.

I don’t know. It may be a stupid idea, but it’s one I’ve been toying with relatively seriously for a while. TBD for now, but…I may have already mocked up a logo…

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That’s really all I have for right now. I have some chewier thoughts on some of the recent events, but whether I have to brain space to write them out remains to be seen. I’d rather focus on my fiction if I can. How has lockdown been for you and your families? Done anything you’re proud of and want to share? Watched or read anything you want to chat about? Comment or or hit me up on Twitter. You can also email me using the About page. I’d love to hear from y’all.

‘Til next time!