Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 14

Avoidance redux...

It's the 4th of July and I am not celebrating. Never in my life did I think I would witness the complete collapse of America, especially not within 6 months. But here it is. We are no longer the leader of the free world, because we have become the very thing we fought against for decades...centuries.

America has never been perfect, but she was slowly improving...until that motherfucking bastard in the White House came along and yanked back the curtain to reveal how cowardly, hateful and racist half our country still is. I didn't want to see anyone, be near anyone, all day...because I was grumbling nonstop.

But...I needed DPZ so braved the madness and hit the grocery store to get some...along with a couple more things. There were so many people running around the first place I went to, I nearly came home. Instead, I drove to another one miles away, had a pair of veggie rolls and DPZ for lunch and zenned. That store had a balcony area where I could stay apart from the crowd till I was ready.

Got what I needed...except for Vodka. I was going to make a screwdriver, but don't think it's a good idea, right now. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

I think I'm settling in on Dirc and the Dyarvos Bones as the title for this book. It sort of settled into my brain so easily. We'll see how I feel once this draft is done. I'm through 45 pages out of 310. Not as far along as I thought. Shit.

It's going to be a beast...and I am ready for that.

Unavoidable catastrophe...

I kept my sanity, today, by ignoring the world and working on Dirc, the Cannibal Queer. A title I still don't like, only I can't find a good one for this book, yet. But I needed the space. Needed to focus on something that was at least a little bit under my control, in the face of the monsters in Washington.

The MAGAt Class is, literally, celebrating kicking millions of people off food assistance and taking away healthcare, all to give billionaire more tax breaks.

Like we told people they would. And were called liars and alarmists and fools. May they all go to hell. And Democrats practically let them do it, only fighting back when it was too late. 

The only positive aspect of this fiasco is I had plenty of anger to focus into the story of Dirc hunting men for the aliens to feed on, so he can be reborn. He was shot and killed by a cop but is re-alived in order to help Dyarvos' living spacecraft rebuild itself.

I've shifted his victims to mainly white men of the MAGAt Class...but not all. He gets stopped by a gay man he's kidnapped just as he's about to attack a college guy...which leads into him first being found mentally ill and then tried as a serial killer and condemned to die. And that's in just the first 25% of the book.

I'm trying to trim ii down, but it's up over 101K in words, right now, and I fear I'm out of my depth...because I hate to cut...

I'm going to start drinking, again...

I never really stopped, just cut it down to an occasional beer with dinner...but I think having something like a glass of wine or even a Screwdriver would help me release the hounds on DCQ. Thing is, I've never really been a big drinker...

Well, except for a six-month period in college where I wasn't sober a single day. All that achieved was me finally having a blackout and driving home drunk out of my mind. Scared the piss out of me and I stopped, right then.

But something is holding me back on this book si I want to stop that, right now, and if this works...

I did have a discussion with Simon en-route home, for PvSH. Mostly along part of the 75 heading down to Toledo. There was an eleven mile stretch where traffic was going barely 10mph...and often much slower. For no reason. Oh, there was construction and the freeway was down to 2 lanes, but at the end of it was nothing. No reason for the slowdown. 

Anyway, Simon wants to actually approach Paley and invite him back to his hotel room. Paley arrests him, claiming he offered money for sex and Simon wanted to do it in an alley close by a school...which he vehemently denies. No little tricks or convoluted events to get things going. Just a simple event.

Simon is arrested for being queer and making a pass at the wrong guy, that's all. But it escalates and expands and develops into a serious situation, thanks to several people in the city's justice department assisting in trying to put Simon in the wrong  Makes a lot more sense. Nothing loud and symbolic...just a guy living his life.

FWIW, I'm home, again, and sipping hot tea as I write this. 

Old age strikes again...

I forgot to post, last night. Never even entered my brain. And today I'm so fucking tired, I don't know if I'll make any sense.

This job finally kicked me in the balls. The truck to collect the boxes showed up on time...but didn't have anything to work with. No handcarts. No pallets. No pallet jack. Not even straps. It was empty. They had to go back to the warehouse to get what they needed.

So we got started an hour and a half late, while working under a time constraint. We had to get them to the freight company by 6pm to meet our booking.

The boxes got palletized and back to the warehouse by 1pm...then I spent the next 2.5 hours building 98 cartons into 4 D-Containers, which included cutting two of them down to fit the number of cartons in them (like the one in the image). After that was shrink-wrapping and banding them.

All in hot muggy weather. I actually drank water, I was getting so dehydrated...and I don't drink water.

By the time I was done, I was exhausted. I got to my hotel and took a half-hour nap then went to a Kroger to get dinner. I looked and felt nasty so didn't want to do dine in. Now I'm in a Best Western with crap WiFi and even my phone's Hotspot is minimal. Headed home, in the morning, and so ready...

And so wanting to get DCQ done before the MAGAt Class turns us into Gilead...

We got two Dillons (not Dylans)...

Names are changing in DCQ...and my latest possible title is Dirc, the Cannibal Queer. Which is not really true; he doesn't actually feast on human flesh...except in a manner most abstract. But that's what he gets called by the media when they talk about him, so it sticks.

He doesn't care. He's just another guy makin' his fortune by kidnapping assholes and providing them to an extraterrestrial named Dyarvos, who uses them as the day's special at its truck stop in the sky. Sort of like how Venom has his way with Eddie, when he's hungry...

None of the ones used for the intergalactic diner actually die. They get attached to hoses and cables then submersed in fluid, and milked. It's the DNA from their semen used to create meals. Which I kind of like. A fate worse than death...and very Yaoi. Maybe even Bara...

No question, the first men Dirc took, those who provided nourishment to Dyarvos and its space craft so they could make repairs and leave, do die...and that gets kind of dark. But I'm going to lighten it up a little. Maybe add a layer of wickedness and emphasize Dirc's uncaring nature is initiated when he is killed by his first victim, Molinaro.

Dirc's main nemesis later in the story is Dr. Captain, whose name is now Dillon. Which is going to be a bit confusing, because in my best bi-polar manner I'm also changing Brian Walstead to Dillon Ainsworth, in The People v. Simon Halloran.

That's washing around in my brain, as well, and quietly slipping into something more real and organic in nature and the telling. I'm also going to have a Zephrim in the story. And maybe a Clarice, just to be obnoxious.

Let's see how much fun I can have, in a brutal vein...without going into Hannibal the Cannibal nonsense.

Great expectations not met...

Job was rough but not bad. I had two helpers and that made a huge difference. We clipped through about 70% of the books to pack. I have these two for tomorrow, as well. Then Monday, guys coming to hump the boxes down to the first floor and, maybe, we can reschedule the pickup for Monday, as well. Not really planning for that part, because that's way more difficult. We're requesting two men and a special timed pickup...so it may still be Tuesday. But that's fine.

I had two fans and my helpers brought one, as well. Those kept the heat from taking over. I'm tired but not feeling pissy. May even get to go home early, so it's going to be okay.

One issue is, I can't work through my problems with DCQ because I have someone who does not really know me working close by. If I start talking to myself in Dirc's voice, they're likely to freak out...and I wouldn't blame them.

One thing's for sure...I was making a vague statement on racism by having Dirc target mainly black and Latino guys, with only about 20% being white. Showing how the authorities don't care when men in either race go missing.

No more. He's going to focus on guys who are mainly right wing shits and foreign men who follow Nazi crap. Russians, too. Their own leaders don't give a damn about their soldiers, so that's good hunting grounds.

That's not to say he's going to ignore men of color. He'll take them when the opportunity arises, but he's going to choose the white boys. Makes more sense, since he's really another serial killer and they tend to operate within their own racial makeup.

This is gonna be one fatherfucker of a story...and I'm finally getting to be glad.

Blank brain, baby...

The drive through Canada was so tedious and uninteresting, I could not kick my brain into gear. I just went quiet and let the nonstop fields and occasional trees and nothingness pass me by. The roads were in beautiful shape. Traffic was fairly light. Didn't have anything in the was of a truck stop till I was more than halfway along...and that was called an OnRoute.

Seriously, nothing interesting happened until I hit Windsor and crossing the bridge back into the US was cut down to one lane. I stopped at the Duty Free shop to use the toilet before braving that mess. I'd probably still be there awaiting passage except I have a Nexus card, which is like TSA PreCheck for Border Patrol, so got to use the special lane.

I'm returning by way of the 90, through Ohio. I hope that's more interesting.

I really hate it when my mind shuts down and just goes from one moment to the next. It's too much like how my life's been...meandering, not really planned. Dealing with shit as it arises instead of working out how to avoid it. Just hoping everything will come together.

DCQ is being that way. Let's see how this does...or that... I don't even know its voice, yet. Still digging. Trying out things. Smoothing over issues. And that's just in the first section. I think I want it to be filled with black humor, but what I've got, right now, is more like snarky and snotty.

Of course, tomorrow's going to be rough. Three floors of a house and the top floor has no AC in 90+ heat. Scary. And tiring. I doubt I'll have a chance to really go over the story till I'm home, again, and can do my usual whining and banging of head crap.

I do be a creature of habit...

Unlikely heroes...

I just learned about Claude Cahun , a surrealist photographer, sculptor, writer, and resistance fighter in WW2 along with her partner, Marcel Moore . Two women who lived life on their own terms. Their story would make an amazing film...

I'm leaving this, here. Reading about their lives, their art, and how they confronted the Nazi occupation of Jersey helped me center some ideas I'm having for Dyarvos...which I can't really address until I'm done with Detroit.

Off in the morning...but driving so maybe I can do some thinking and sorting along the way. Back on the 3rd of July...

I don't wanna adult, anymore...

It's really tiring and never-ending. But you do it or wind up hidden away in your home, hoping no one will bother you and nothing more will happen to make you crazier than you already are. $1350 to fix my car's muffler...which is too damn close to what the car is worth...but it still sounds grumbly.

The mechanic says after-market replacements tend to sound a bit louder, but this is the fourth muffler I've had replaced since moving up here, thanks to the salt on the roads causing them to rust, and those didn't sound that way. I'm taking it by the shop, tomorrow, to have them listen to it.

The job in Detroit is on...and I wish it wasn't. But...it's what's paying for the muffler, so I gotta do it. Renting an SUV here and driving there, through Canada, then coming home via the 90 through Toledo and Cleveland. Working for 3-4 days in what I expect will be an empty house, in 90 degree weather. I taking a fan with me.

I got into a couple of arguments online when I told myself I wasn't going to do that, today...but I swear to God, the MAGAt Class has gone rabid in their actions and attitudes, not to mention their deliberate disregard for reality.

ICE is taking criminals out of the country, and don't bother me with facts about how that's bullshit. Felon47 is playing 4-level chess with diplomacy...at which point you give up on  their fucking insanity and sit in the quiet and dark, and wonder what the fuck happened to America.

However, one connection with a like-minded person on Instagram did lead me to the perfect quote for Dirc and Dyarvos:

Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu'il a été proprement fait. Le Père Goriot (1835) (The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.)
Which is often quoted as -- Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Which I've heard many times, before. Just needed to be reminded of it.
Of course, with Dirc, it winds up being a crime no one cares about because of the great fortune being made. Kidnapping and using men for food? Who cares? Money overwhelms morality when in sufficient amounts, which is how it's always been...until the bottom half of society rises up and breaks out the guillotines.
I wonder if that'll ever happen here...

Still self-flagellating...

And not in a good way. Too much is up in the air, right now, and I'm more than a little overwhelmed. But to be honest, I don't know why. Or what is causing it. Just the impression in my head that my world is too chaotic to focus.

Maybe it's the whiplash bullshit going on in Washington and Felon47, and his stupidity about the Middle East. Maybe it's the expanding costs of everything around me. Maybe it's how the world is crashing into a new realm of reality and I have no idea how to be part of it or be myself enough to keep separate from it.

What jolted me most was, while I think of myself as being fairly literate, visually, I saw a video that was supposed to be of American military personnel celebrating the destruction of Iran's nuclear program...which didn't happen, btw. We barely dented it with our "bunker-busting bombs." But it wasn't until the last shot in that video that I began to wonder if it was AI generated.

It was. But I had to get verification of it. Which means 95% of the people seeing that video will think it's realer than and not bullshit.

I sort of feel like the world has taken a giant lead into a new realm and I'm still standing here trying to figure how whether or not to jump. And if I can't jump, how the hell to get myself to let go enough to make it not matter? To let me just fuck everything off and do my own thing?

That's something I've always had problems with...uncertainty in myself. Sometimes I can get past it, to an extent, but never completely. But I want to jump and do so completely, for a change...at 72 fucking years old.

Way to take your time, Kyle.