Falling behind, and partially catching up

When I went to work Friday, I had my suitcase and old cowboy hat with me. This is because I made my road trip to Nevada to visit Mom and my brother.

I had to load episodes of a podcast to my phone for the drive, because there is no signal out in the high desert. I can get Sirius-XM, but you can’t exactly tune the truck radio to various podcasts. This will work through their app, but you need a signal.

I tried a comedy science fiction tale for the drive down and it was godawful. 100% dialog with no narrative at all. Their humor fell flat, and it was pretty bad. It felt like first draft, or even stream of consciousness material.

This led me to delete all those episodes and try a different one for the drive home. This one started out with wonderful epistolary style story telling, had good actors, music, and even foley enhancements. They failed to stick the landing, but I was back in Boise as the last episode ended.

Honestly, I would like to try my own podcast but don’t know anyone who could help with voices and such. It would be a fun project to bring one of my stories to life this way.

I recently test drove a couple of apps geared toward making a graphic novel, but various forms of AI are not good enough today. I even have a story I’d like to tell: Dash Goodman and the Last of the Mudmen.

I missed all the blogs, so this morning I surfed through everything, read them, liked them, shared them. I left very few comments, and I apologize for that.

This was supposed to be one of my writing days, but that is not going to happen. I have several other chores to attend to, and intend to dedicate today to clearing the decks. Maybe I can manage some writing tomorrow. I took tomorrow off to stitch to the holiday.

Mom doesn’t talk a whole lot anymore. She has hearing aids, but refuses to wear them. She is present in the moment, but we all know she’s missing a lot of the conversations.

My brother and I talked a bunch. We solved all of the world’s problems, and if various world leaders would like the Cliff’s Notes, just reach out.

One of our conversations was kind of funny. At the end, I decided it might make a good story, or just characters to include in a story. It involves being newly old. (He is my younger brother, for some perspective.)

This is where those scars aren’t for picking up girls, or rehashing past glory with your bros. Newly old involves a couple of lifetime medicines. Discovering a new supplement that mellows out that constant pain in your back/shoulder/hip/whatever. There is probably a lament about what you can’t do anymore. I remember we talked about ladders as an example.

I will let this ferment in the back of my mind for a while. There could be a one-last-hurrah tale worth telling here. Throw in a couple of “get off my lawn” moments and it might be a decent story.

I’m going to bounce for now. I still have a Story Empire chore that I promised my collaborators I would get to. I’ll have that done by quitting time today.

See, ya.