Edward Lorn's Blog, page 20

My Semi-Fictional Life #104 (Construction!)

Hello peeps. Today we started work once more on my office/wife’s studio. Those of you who don’t know, last January, as in January 2016, I hired someone to build me an office. This is what that looks like today:

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Then, in late January, my back condition became so bad that I was bedridden and facing permanent paralysis. I had my fifth and supposedly final back surgery that month. Not knowing what the future had in store for my mobility, we pressed pause on the project and turned the office into a storage shed.

Fast forward to January 2017, as in this week, and I’m doing well enough that I feel comfortable sinking funds into this project again. So today construction began again. They got two interior walls insulated and walled and a window put in. You can check out a video tour on my Instagram by clicking HERE.

In truth, Chelle needs this place more than I do. Her YouTube channel has been doing well, and she needs a spot to do her vids without having to worry about interruptions. This place’ll be perfect. But of course it will be nice to get my coffee and go out to the office each morning to write.

Again, because I cannot say it enough, thanks to all of you who have ever purchased my work. None of this would be possible without your support.

*hugs and high fives*

See you tomorrow,

E.

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Another construction pic…

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My Semi-Fictional Life #103 (Sorry… again)

Hello peeps. I’m afraid I’ll have to let you down twice in one week. I simply don’t have a Flash Fiction post in me this week. I’ve been sitting here staring at my computer for 30 minutes and… nothing. If I do manage something, it might even be worse than last week’s post, and let’s be honest, that one sucked a fatty.

My back’s flared up and I’m tired and whine, whine, bitch, bitch. Simply put, I’m sorry. Even the best machines break down from time to time, and I think I need to call in with a mental health day. I hope you understand.

I’ll make it up to you, though. Somehow. Promise.

As for those who submitted suggestions, I’ll use them next Friday. Deal?

See you tomorrow,

E.

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It’s been one of those days…

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My Semi-Fictional Life #102 (Food Bank Fuckery)

Hello peeps. I should preface this with the admission that food banks are terrific. They help people in low-income and no-income situations put food on their table. That being said, not every food bank is created equal.

Some of you know that I feed my mother. No, not like a pet. She does not live with us, but she comes over for (or we go to her) with meals, because my mother has been brainwashed by her church into giving them her food budget as her tithing. My mother will go without to make sure her church goes with, so I stepped in and asked her to eat with us to make sure she is always nourished. I love my mother. I would do anything for her. But sometimes those we love can be a danger to themselves. It’s not my place to judge what she does with her money or her religion, but it is my right to fuss into the void of social media, so here we go.


 


Her church, who just built a new building, does not do food drives. They do, however, have no qualms about reminding a 70 year old woman on social security that she “hasn’t tithed this week.” Seriously, they send her reminders. She then has to remind them that she only gets paid once a month and that she tithes four weeks worth of tithings all at one time. When she broke her ribs, my family (me, my wife, and my kids) took care of her. Not even my middle sister, who lives ten minutes away and goes to the same church, came to help. The church didn’t so much as call to ask why she wasn’t coming. They did mail her a reminder letter and an envelope so she could tithe even if she couldn’t make it to church. They knew she’d broken her ribs. My sister told them. They still offered no assistance to a woman who gives them 10% of her limited income EVERY SINGLE MONTH.


 


I told you all that to tell you this. She went to the local food bank for assistance. The local food bank is not part of any one church, but I’m sure local churches donate. The food bank was her idea. Not mine. I don’t know if her pride is sore because I’ve been having to help her or what. I didn’t ask. She wants to try and help herself, I dig that. I will continue to help in any way I can. So what’s the problem? Well, here’s the list of what she received from the local food bank.


 


A case of cantaloupe


A case of spring mix lettuce


An entire case of lemons


 


I know why this happened. I’m not stupid. They obviously got the overstock of a local grocery store. My thing is, what’s she going to do with an entire case of lemons? What would anyone do with an entire case of lemons? How about donating such a thing to a soup kitchen… Oh. We don’t have a soup kitchen. My bad.


 


So my question to you is, without having to purchase anything else (remember, she’s quite literally broke because of this church), what can my mother do with the three cases listed above? All recipes would be greatly appreciated. smooches


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My Semi-Fictional Life #101 (Trump, Urine Trouble?)

Hello peeps. I had a fantastic night yesterday evening on Twitter. With #goldenshowers and #watergate and all these other hilarious trending topics coming down the chute, who wouldn’t be having a good time? Donald Trump, that’s who.

Okay, so the truth. No, Donald Trump didn’t get peed on. No, he didn’t pull an R. Kelly. What supposedly, allegedly, maybe happened is that Trump hired Russian prostitutes to piss on a bed in the presidential suite of a hotel because the Obamas had once slept in it. It wasn’t a sexual situation. It was a “Fuck you” statement. “Haha, lookit the ladies pee on a place a better man than me once slept, haha.” The thing is, it’s just the kind of behavior we’ve come to expect from Trump.

Last night, when the unverified (I cannot stress enough how unsubstantiated these claims are) news broke like a strained bladder, Trump lost his mind and defended himself with an all-caps tweet of “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” leading even more to believe that the claims had some truth to them.

Do I care if the news is fake? Nope. And here’s why.

Trump’s campaign and rise to the highest office in the land was fueled by fake news. To watch Trump lose his shit trying to contain this dumpster fire like the ones he is known to create was beautiful. Like seeing an arsonist burst into flames, or a terrorist exploding on his way to his target and killing no one but himself. It filled my heart with glee to know that the King of Bullshit was being buried under what might be nothing but a fabricated pile of steaming leavings.

Yesterday was great, man. We learned Dylann Roof will one day be put to death for his crimes, and then we got to see our own orange buffoon spew all-caps rage over the same kinda shit that put him in power. Fucking. Glorious.

Even if this is one shining moment in a dark time, I think it makes it that much more special. Am I being petty? Yeah, I am. And I don’t care if you agree. I will cherish last night for years to come.

See you tomorrow,

E.

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My Semi-Fictional Life #100 (Dylann Roof is going to die. Good.)

Hello peeps. Usually I take the side of SJWs on the Twitters, but this time, I will be the outsider. I hear you saying Dylann Roof shouldn’t be put to death because he wants to die. I hear ya saying he wants to be a martyr. I hear ya screaming about how it won’t fix systemic racism and all that comes with it. And I agree with you. But keeping him alive won’t fix any of that either. Kill him dead. Kill him with fire and fucking televise it.

I don’t want him to sit in prison getting book deals and having penpal romances. I don’t want to pay for his compassion courses and free room and board. I don’t want to feed this monster like some rescue pet. He wouldn’t suffer in prison. He would be in solitary confinement, watching Duck Dynasty and beating off to Animal Planet. The dude’s been a loner all of his life. Being lonely in a cell would be paradise to him. YOU would be paying for that. It would be like someone came over, shot your mother in the face, and then you locked them in the basement and kept them like a pet. Fuck that. Kill him and make it hurt. Kill him and let the rest of us piss on his dead face.

 

I wish there was a hell for him to go to. But, since there isn’t, it’s best just to remove him from this one.

See you tomorrow,

E.

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My Semi-Fictional Life #99 (Let’s Play Flash Fiction Fridays, Round 8!)

Hello peeps. You know what time it is. Time to post your off-the-wall suggestions for this week’s Flash Fiction Friday.

If you don’t know the drill, today is when I ask people to post plot suggestions for this week’s story. I will then try and tie everyone’s suggestions together into one cogent thread equaling less than 1,000 words. Big fun. You should play, because next year, after I’ve collected 52 of these stories, I will be publishing a book of them and giving everyone who participated credit after each story. So get your name in a book. Holla!

See you tomorrow,

E.

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More The Last of Us DLC gameplay, featuring an ATM machine from 1992…

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My Semi-Fictional Life #98 (Sorry, I forgot…)

Hello peeps. Things happen. No, I am not dead. No, I’ve not been abducted by syphilitic ninjas and held ransom until I find the cure for STDs. No, Donald Trump did not shame me off the internet. I am alive and well and, well, I simply forgot to post yesterday. It happens. So here’s your post for yesterday. Ain’t she pretty?

See you in, like, five minutes, because I still have today’s blog to post…

E.

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Footage captured during The Last of Us DLC gameplay…

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My Semi-Fictional Life #97 (A Review for SETTING FREE THE BEARS, by John Irving)

Hello peeps. Today I have a review for my first read of the year.

A Review of Setting Free the Bears, by John Irving

Book #1 in my John Irving Challenge (2017), wherein I will attempt to read all of John Irving’s novels in order of publication within one year.

I think this sums up my experience with this novel nicely: A character dies on page 90 and I did not realize he was dead until page 212.

Suffice it to say, I did not enjoy reading this book. I dug the first 90 pages, with their wacky happenstance and quirky characters, but after that, everything went to shit. The narrative becomes disjointed and a cogent story devolves into part history lesson, part study in tedium. I never did come to give a single shit about Siggy. Graff was an okay dude, but Siggy was annoying. The middle hundred pages are pure torture to get through. At times, it took me an hour to read only twenty pages because I just didn’t give a shit.

The ending was fun in a chaotic way, but I do wonder how people who read this when it first came out felt, what with them not having the internet to look up all these animals Irving names. I say “names” because he only names them. One or two he might give a broader description, but I, for one, had no idea what an aoudad, anoa and addax were, nor did I have a fucking clue what a gerenuk, gemsbok, or gaur were. He goes on to describe a gaur as one of the tallest oxen in the world, but what the holy fuck are the other five he listed? Yes, person reading this review, I can very well hop over to Google and search for these things, and I did do just that. But how the hell did readers in 1968 do it? You’d have to be one of those rich kids with a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica to know what all he’s talking about. Or you can just imagine a zoo full of rampaging animals, I guess. Whatever. It got on my nerves, having to stop reading in order to Google animals so I knew what he was talking about. What made it even more annoying was having to stop reading IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION so I could clearly picture this crazy cast of animals.

I’m glad I know Irving gets better over the course of his career. Because, had I first read this book in 1968, I likely never would have read this author again.

In summation: Nowadays, every debut novel that comes out has someone barking “ERMAGERD I CAN’T BEREAVE DIS A FURST NOVELS!!! Well, this is one of the rare first novels that feels like a first novel. Only recommended for Irving completionists.

Final Judgment: Requires masters degree in biology or complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica to fully enjoy.

See you tomorrow,

E.

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My Semi-Fictional Life #96 (Flash Fiction Friday, Round 7!)

Hello peeps. This one was… well, it was fucking weird. See what you think.

“ISIS… Isis… whatever”

by Edward Lorn

“What’s happened to all the orange chicken!” the fat dude in the halter top and ninja mask roars. Spittle spatters her face. “We know you had something to do with the Panda Express shortage, so cough up the information!”

“I… I don’t know,” she stammers, weak with pain and drained by confusion. How she even ended up here is a blur. Where here is isn’t even clear: cinder block walls, Bruce Jenner before/Caitlyn Jenner after posters, sais and katanas and bo staffs anchored to the concrete.

Voice deeply male, yet light and feminine pop up all around her; some distant, some close.

“Waif!”

“Yeah, Bonnie?”

“Get Laura out here.”

“Right.” Pause. “Laura!”

“Yeah, Bonnie?”

“Call Mickey and tell him to hurry back with the pizzas. She’s not talking.”

“Who… who are you people?” she manages.

“TMNT,” says the one she’s identified as Bonnie.

“The ninja turtles?”

“Hell, no.” Someone clears their throat. “Transgender Monotheistic Ninja Team.”

“Do what?”

“Shut it. We know you work for ISIS.”

“Why… why would you think that?”

“It says right here…” Silence. Then. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” she asks.

The fat man in the halter whispers to another fat man in a sundress and heels. The second man is also wearing a ninja mask, but this one is pink to match his dress.

“She works in prosthetics and not polythestics?”

“Yeah. I read it wrong. My bad.”

“I would say this is your bad.”

“Sorry.”

“Accepted.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?” she demands.

“Um…” Halter Top smiles the worst fake smile she’s ever seen. “We kinda fucked up.”

“How so?” She tugs at her bindings, but the duct tape doesn’t move.

“See, we kinda thought that you were behind the orange chicken shortage at Panda Express. We saw an article—Mickey, get me the article.”

A tubby man in neon yellow spanx, a lime green tube top, and Ugg boots brings Halter Top a newspaper. Front cover is of a fire-gutted Panda Express. Spray painted on what’s left of the building is

 

ISIS RULES

ORANGE CHICKEN DROOLS

 

Before Halter Top can flip to the article, she realizes she knows this paper. She was in this issue. The Texan Rectum did a piece on her research and advancement in the field of prehensile prosthetic limbs. She was up for a Golden Anus Award from The Texan Rectum for Biggest Innovation in Plastic Peters.

“But how does ISIS play into you kidnapping me? ISIS are Muslim extremists. They’re monotheistic, just like you.”

Halter Top and Sundress look unbearably confused.

Halter Top finally say, “But Isis is an Egyptian god and Egyptians are polytheistic. They believe in Isis and Osiris and that jackal-headed fuckstick…”

“You fucking morons!” she screams and struggles with her bindings. “ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria!”

“I think I might have heard something about that, Bonnie.”

“Fuck,” says Halter. “So you ain’t got shit to do with the missing orange chicken?”

“NO!”

“All right, all right. Calm down. Shit. Cut her loose, Waif.”

Waif bent over her to undo the tape and she got a good long look down the top of Waif’s sundress.

“Nice tits,” she said, even if she said it a bit begrudgingly. “They yours?”

“Sure are. I bought ‘em.” Waif said with a laugh. “For real though, my doctor is good.” Waif squeezes her tits together and says, “You like ‘em?”

“Yeah I been thinking about getting mine done but—”

“I’M BACK!”

Bonnie rushes out of sight just as Waif finishes undoing her.

“That’s Mickey,” Waif says, “he must be back with the pizzas.”

There’s an explosion and Bonnie, out of sight, screams. His death throes echo throughout the room.

“What was that?” Waif looks terrified.

Another explosion and half of Waif’s face disappears into red mist. His body flops back and away from her, but not before painting her front with brains and blood.

Wet footsteps sound behind her. She twists out of the chair and backs away from the approaching footfalls.

“When these damn queers gonna learn that they ain’t welcome in Texas,” says a cowboy with a lazy eye as he steps into the light of the room. He’s holding a smoking shotgun and wearing coveralls with the knees worn through. His straw hat is shoved way down on his head, making his ears stick out comically. A broken toothpick is clamped in his teeth, as if someone has check-marked his face.

“Who the fuck are you?” She backs into the corner. No where left to go.

“Just some farmer who don’t like sissy boys living in his state. These boys thought they could fool ol’ Rock Steadman with a little surgery, but theys was wrong. I seent through past their fake titties and hair extensions.”

“I that was their real ha—”

“Shut the fuck up! You prolly a dude, too, ain’tcha.”

“No. I’m a woman. I swear!”

“Well I don’t—”

A loud GONG! and the farmer’s lazy eye corrected itself even as his good eye went lazy before both rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the floor.

A pretty young lady with and adam’s apple and tits to her chin wiped a tear away from her eyes with a Panda Express napkin.

The woman she assumed was Mickey didn’t answer, only dropped down and grabbed the psycho farmer’s shotgun. She came back up, racking the slide and chambering a round.

“You must Mickey.”

Mickey point the shotgun at her and sniffled.

“You’re gonna pay for the orange chicken shortage.”

“NO! It was all a mis—”

 

Nrlymrtl says: A scientist works hard at creating prosthetic limbs. Her studies are focused on prehensility in the animal kingdom (gecko tails, octopus arms, tapir penises, etc.) in order to make useful, if odd looking, limbs for humans. Some experiments, starting with dogs and cats that have suffered limb loss, have led to unexpected results.

Bill says: Severely overweight transgender ninjas on a mission to save the world from a horrible orange chicken shortage brought about by the ISIS attacks on Panda restaurants across the country. (Everybody knows ISIS hates orange chicken almost as much as they hate everything else and what better way to destroy America that fuck with its fast food chains.)

H. Casper says: A man is abducted and tortured for information that he actually knows nothing about but the thugs are taking none of that.

Reanna says: Ok so I saw a legit job listing on Craigslist the other day, some guy who lives on a farm around here (Oklahoma most likely somewhere remote) looking for a cute ranch hand to do every thing on the farm including some cooking and cleaning and his books too for a cool $350 a week. So let’s incorporate some sleazy, psycho farmer in this flash fiction.

See you tomorrow,

E.

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If I’m honest, I don’t much care for today’s story, but it’s my third try and I had to post something. I hope you guys at least get a chuckle out of how bad it was. Like I’ve said before, they can’t all be winners. *high fives*

My Semi-Fictional Life #95 (Rearranging Stuffs)

Hello peeps. Today Chelle and I, with the help of the kiddos, rearranged our bedroom. I’m trying to make the room more studio-ish because Chelle’s getting quite popular on YouTube. She needed more space and a door she can lock to keep wild-ass Chris from barging in. The rearranging went well, but I forgot how much work moving bookshelves could be. I be exhausted, yo!

I have three bookshelves in my bedroom: two store bought and one I made myself. The one I made myself is now the headboard for our bed, and the other two are on either side of the room’s only window. Looks pretty okay. On Tuesday, when the new couch gets here, I’ll be putting the matching chairs we have in the living room in the bedroom, which will make the wall with the window look like the stage of a talk show. Might be cool. I’ll take pictures to show everyone when we’re done. If it works out how I want it to, that is.

I moved over four hundred books today and I haz all de soreness! After I get done with this post, I’m crashing, and nobody better wake me up for a good week. I kid, I kid, I have a story to write tomorrow for Flash Fiction Friday, and for the first time in a long time, I have no idea what I’m going to do. The three suggestions aren’t any stranger than they have been. I’m simply drawing a complete blank. Usually I at least know what genre I’m going to write in, but not this time. Should be interesting, to say the least.

Oh, and for those of you who like this kinda thing, I’m doing a short daily vlog on Instagram. If you want to see daily video updates from yours truly, follow me on The Gram by clicking HERE. I also post bookish pics almost every day. And songs! I play covers and originals all the time. We have big fun. You should join us.

Anyfloop, time for bed. Take care of each other.

See you tomorrow,

E.

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Upcoming buddy read with the incomparable Thomas Strömquist…

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