Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 9

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.

Too much fighting, today...

I'm not very well-balanced in my mental or emotional makeup. I can be doing great with everything then one simple problem throws it all off. Today, it was several.

First, dealing with PayPal misdirecting an order I'd made and used them to pay for. They had it sent to Caladex, not me. Turns out, they got that address from Ebay. A site I haven't used in well over a year, and didn't even know they had my old office address.

I think, maybe, back before Covid I had something shipped to the office so I could get it ASAP. But never consistently and certainly not in the last 5 years.

But that's what PayPal went for. Which is fucking ludicrous. I've taken it off that site and checked everyone else I've ever ordered anything through to make sure it's not listed with them, as well.

My doctors' office told me I had an outstanding balance...and gave me four different amounts that were still owed. It took half an hour on the phone (10 minutes of which was waiting on hold) to finally get the final amount determined, which I paid since I have another appointment for a surgery consult on Thursday.

Then as I was headed out to get groceries the muffler in my car blew. Got that fixed quickly enough, but still...another large expense I didn't need.

The one good thing to happen today? I walked a mile in 89 degree heat...from and to the auto repair shop. Wiped me out, but good for the heart, right?

But again...no writing done. And I'm really beating myself up for that.

It's a battle...

Being creative, even as poor at it as I am, is a fight with myself. There's a part of me that knows what it wants to do with a story...but then I meet the characters and they start rearranging my entire plan. Which has worked well, for me...when I haven't fought back too hard or rushed things. 

For example, I pushed through Porno Manifesto without really understanding it and now have an idea of what the story should be about, and who the characters should be...17 years after I wrote it.

That was one of those occasions where I really wanted to let loose with my writing, and asked the characters to help me do it and all I got back is, Do it yourself. Show me you can. Like they didn't trust me...and now I think, Rightfully so. I wasn't ready to let it be free-wheeling and dangerous.

That's what I'm going through with Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. I am still not enamored with the current title because it screams of a more...I dunno...John Waters kind of narrative. Off the rails and without limits, but done in a way that lets you know it's a wink-wink tale, all just in wicked fun.

Rocky Horror Picture Show was camp to the max, and deliberately so. Which worked beautifully for Frank N. Furter v. Brad and Janet. Catch 22 was caught in a sort of satirical realism, which is also not what I'm after. I've tried to get into A Confederacy of Dunces to catch some absurdist flavor, but it just doesn't grab me.

Wag the Dog is closer to what I'm thinking, but still not exactly right. It's both middle-of-the-road and satirical of that creative level. Cabaret might be a good learning tool for this...with its mix of humor, horror, willful blindness and joyful ignorance of life's absurdities.

Maybe I'm aiming for something I don't have the ability to achieve, because I'm not getting a hell of a lot of help from Dirc or Dyarvos. No, I shouldn't say that. Dirc came up with the idea of choosing a particular build of man in order to make sure they had better marbling in the meat they offer.

And Dyarvos let me know him using a cookbook to try and build himself a helper needed to be more off the wall. Substituting ingredients, which he should not have done, may have been what brought Dirc back to life, but it's also made him a joyously amoral monster. One of those recipes where even fucking it up brings out a tasty treat.

So what can I do but stop whining and let the lads lead?

Here we are...

Apparently, Felon47 has decided to start WW3 to take the focus off his non-stop legal losses and plummeting poll numbers. He's bombed Iran, and in true abuser fashion said, "I want peace, so let's just leave it at this...or else." Blaming the victim for their abuse.
This is how it always works. It happened in Northern Ireland, when the British Army blamed Catholics for them being killed during peaceful protests, then got huffy when they were called out about it.

Well...this takes Russia's planned genocide of Ukraine and Israel's planned genocide in Gaza out of the news cycle. A gift, of sorts, to Putin and Netanyahu, while nothing is offered in the way of plans on how to win this catastrophe. And no one really cares.
I remembered the Iran-Iraq war back in the 80s, when Saddam Hussein went after Iran and got beaten back to a stalemate. Which only happened after over a million people died, between them, mainly thanks to Iraq's use of chemical weapons.
That brought to mind the Thirty Years War , in the 17th Century...which wiped out millions of people. Huge sections of Germany and Bohemia were left desolate...with 50% of their populations killed. Another war basically started by religion.
As was the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 16th Century Paris, when Catholics slaughtered tens of thousands of Protestants...and there was the sacking of Constantinople (a Christian city, albeit the wrong kind of Christian) by the Crusaders, and, of course, the Holocaust (the meaning of which has been desecrated by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank).
I'm rambling...and now think it best to ignore the world for a while. It's all insane, and will drag you into the madhouse with it.
At least my trip home was uneventful.

I'm done, again...

More work than I expected, helping the guys hump the boxes from the 2nd floor of a storage facility to a truck in the basement area, using the facility's carts. Plumping them into D Containers, then finishing everything up at the warehouse.

Now I just need to rest for my trip home, tomorrow. Flight's at 6:30am, but that's 9:30am by my body clock. I've managed to keep that schedule, this time.

I just hope my flights home are better than the one coming to Seattle. That was nightmarish.

I'm trying to get back to delving into my fantasy world as I write DCQ, but the political situation and possibility of war thanks to Felon47's meddling and Netanyahu's obscene use of Israel's Defense Forces to protect him from corruption charges are leading us to a real mess. It's hard to get past that when I'm trying to write.

But the reality is, with the rise of AI and remembering Terminator's war with the machines happened in 2029...writing an book may be an exercise in futility. Because it's looking more and more that James Cameron was prescient and humanity is dead meat.

That or it's the Apocalypse...which would really piss me off.

Self-indulgence is good...

The job is packed and ready for pickup, tomorrow, and I am a wreck. Mainly from age, I know that. Feet hurt. Back, too. Brain fuzzy. So I found a McDonald's and had a Quarter Pounder Meal, sized up to large for a late dinner and found myself wonderfully decompressing.

I'm going to have as much fun as I can reworking The Beast into Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. For example, part of the reason Dirc winds up becoming Dyarvos' helper is because the ET was messing up the instructions on a cookbook it had. 

Dirc was dead but being rejuvenated to be alive enough to feed Dyarvos' space craft...only the process shifted his entire psychological, emotional, mental and attitude enough to where he became the missing ingredient in prepping men to be nourishment. And he continues to be after Dyarvos deserts him.

Later, Dyavos verifies the recipe with Irin, who becomes another helper while Dirc is being tried as a serial killer. The ET needs someone to furnish supply for its interstellar diner. Now I'm not toning down on the sex, so much as clarifying it. Making it simpler. The best meals come from regular ingredients, not all them foreign ones...and buff guys are as basic as it gets.

That's why diners are usually better fare than 4 Star restaurants. Simple food, well-made and filling, unlike haute cuisine, which is more pretty than nourishment.

I'd always rather have a BLT than Châteaubriand...

Warning?

Damn, the powers that be did not want me to come to Seattle. Flying into Chicago to change planes was smooth and easy. Arrived to the airport an hour before boarding began. Checked my bag and had a muffin. Left on time. Arrived on time. All well and good.

But the part actually taking me into Seattle? Jesus, Christ, everything that could go wrong did...pretty much. The plane boarded on time. Packed flight in a smaller 737, but I got a good seat. Two people sat next to me with masks on, but kept to themselves...

And once the plane was loaded, it all came to a screeching halt. And not one word about why we were just sitting there for over an hour and a half. Finally, the ground crew said the plane was overweight and they needed 7 people to get off, and offered $2500 to each one. BAM! They got their seven.

Then the bags of those seven had to be removed from the hold. Finally, after minimal explanation and lots of irritated people grumbling and moving about, we got the okay to leave. Went out on the tarmac...and sat for another half-hour. In total, we left two and a quarter hours late.

Then...this plane that only has 2 toilets, is suddenly down one. The only lavatory working is the one by the cockpit, where you're not allowed to congregate. So there's a line all the way down the aisle of people needing to go after sitting there so long.

Of course, in the seat in front of me was a crying baby...and that couple also had a toddler who'd been given an accordion-like tube and she was compressing it together then pulling it open. Very loudly.

Fortunately, the crier cried herself to sleep, and I almost joined her until accordion child grew tirde of

When we landed, we had to sit on the tarmac for another 15 minutes because a plane was at our gate. Then the person operating the jetbridge must have been a newby because she inched forward, inched back, inched to the side, inched forward, again, and inched left, again...so that it took ten minutes for the door to even open.

On top of this, it took half an hour for my bag to show up. Then came 40 minutes in line waiting to get a bus to the car rental facility...only to find when once there they'd had a power outage. The only reason I was able to get the SUV I needed was because I'd printed out the reservation.

Even more fun? I used GPS to take me to the warehouse we're using so I could pick up some boxes...only to be taken to a spot on the other side of some railroad tracks from it and told to walk, because the road they were on was closed to through traffic. I had to use Google maps to work my way back to where I could get to them...and they didn't know anything about why I was there.

I had paperwork with their own job order on it. Which they finally began to pay attention to. But I still had to get the office to email them saying it was okay for me to get the boxes so I'd have something to work with, tomorrow.

Of course, on Southwest there is no food, just snacks. And foolish me had figured, since we were due to arrive in Seattle at 10:15, Pacific Time, I'd hold off lunch till we got there. I went from that 5:30am muffin to finally having dinner at, effectively, 7:30pm.

If that is not the owners of the ether telling you, We'd rather you not come. Be careful. Back away, slowly. Everything is dangerous. Then I don't know what is. But stubborn little me is here. God knows what will happen, tomorrow.

Gettin' on a jet plane...

At six-fucking-am, so I have to leave at 4:30, latest. But it's that or I don't get into Seattle till evening, going from Buffalo. That's traveling by Southwest. JetBlue isn't any better, while American and United are too restrictive and more expensive. Same for the return trips. I'm at the point I'd rather drive than take a plane, right now.

I am driving to the job in Detroit. It's not that far, like going from San Antonio to Dallas, and doing that is one hell of a lot more flexible. I can get there through Canada and come back by way of the 90, if I have leftover packing materials.

It was one of those days where things kept messing with me. Including my car. Its muffler is making noises that make me very uncomfortable, but I can't do anything about it, right now. I saw a doctor about my liver who didn't have much to say except, "Lose weight and exercise more."

The medical office I go to says I have an outstanding balance, for which I've never been billed. And I can't figure out how much it is because the receptionist gave me one total, my online chart said something else, and my insurance doesn't have that information yet because it's not put together till the end of June.

So I treated myself to ribs at Chili's...and regret it. $25 for a half rack, a handful of fries and a small bowl of mac & cheese, with a Coke Zero (add $5 for a tip). Not even a fucking beer. I could have made me a burger at home with cheese and onion and everything, and fries, and Kraft Mac & Cheese for less than a third of that. And felt better, afterward.

Now I'm about to hit the bed for a nap, setting my alarm for 3am. Grrr.

Sometimes I hate adulting...because I don't do it well...

Quick turnaround...

I got the eproof for the paperback edition of APoS-HNH and submitted the corrected PDF...and it was shot back to me within the hour. Looked great, so I approved. Now I also need to order a physical copy to make sure. And that will be that.

Dealt with the guy setting up my website...and learned WordPress won't let him do it unless I upgrade to their $300 a year business model. He's looking into options, right now, but this is going to take a lot more effort than I thought. And money. But I've already sunk $108 into WordPress, and I don't want to lose that.

When WordPress says you can work up your own website without any trouble, they mean so long as you're a fucking techie.

Also started the online push for my paperback editions of APoS on Instagram, Facebook and I linked them to Xitter. I'm also pushing them in Ingram's catalogue and, once the website is up, really slamming them through that.

Which is draining me, financially. So I can't stop working, yet. Going to Seattle on Wednesday for one job and the end of the month driving to Detroit for another. A third is upcoming in August. And even though they tire me out, I need the money to give APoS a solid start.

I guess I could return to playing the lottery. It's got as much chance as anything at making me solvent.