The universe is Weird, thats for sure!

Why People Who Endlessly Try to Quote 'Real World' Facts When Watching Fantasy Films Just Need To Let it Go

If there's one thing that annoys the hell out of me, it's someone who watches a film like Star Wars and can't wait to point out to you, how many plot details could simply "Never be real".

I'm sure my reader knows the type of person to whom I refer. They will cite things like how Star Wars does not obey the laws of physics, because explosions don't really happen in outer space, and no sound can be heard (as it is in the SW world). Then they'll you how scientists, in our world, would never really be able to create something like a lightsaber.

 They may insist on pointing out the way in which George Lucas, the creator of SW, merely plundered old stories about samurais and Buddhists and Greek heros, et cetera, to put together the story. Maybe, if they're particularly knowledgeable, they'll point out a major detail, like how George Lucas basically seems to have robbed the 100 plus year old story, John Carter, by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

And of course all of this is not just limited to SW. These jerks can and will enter into any fantasy construct and attempt to dismantle everything. They will see, for example, that a reader is enjoying a story about wizards and vampires, and they'll go on for hours and hours, about just how "not real" such concepts. Why, they ask, bother to read about things that could never be real? Why, why, why?

Personally, and this should come as no surprise to my reader, I have always seen such people as being imaginatively crippled in some way. Like, for some bizarre reason, their imagination shut down, and they have been stranded, in a very depressing way, here in this realm we know as "reality". And what I find most particular about these people is that they seem to think modern science protects their idea of "core reality" (where fantasy stories are simply absurd) when, for me, it has only been adding to the craziness with every passing year of new "real world" discovery.

Take, for example, that detail I pointed out earlier, about how real world scientists here start whining, when they hear sound and see explosions, in the outer space of the Star Wars universe. "What folly!" they scream, "how foolish! Oh I cannot watch it! Har har har. It is just so silly. I'm a real science lover....theres simply no sound in space...and those androids...stupid...and those lightsabers...stupid...and that spaceship isn't obeying the laws of our aerodynamics...stupid!"

Here's what I say to that: There is no sound in our space, and that spaceship is impossible by our laws of aerodynamics ---  but what about some othr version of space? For example, the version of space that might exist in some other universe. Another universe that we know literally nothing at all about -- just like we here on Earth hardly know anything about the galaxies outside of the Milky Way. Hell, even with the Milky Way, our own galaxy, we know very little. There are literally billions of planets in the Milky Way alone...and we don't even know if there could be life on Jupiter, which is relatively closeby.

So what makes these people so sure that there could never be sound in outer space?

The real ironic truth about someone who actually reads deeply into "real life space", for example, is that one immediately sees just how vast and limitless the story of our universe has become over the years. Look, for example, back to an imaginary story like War of the Worlds by HG Wells, released in the year 1898. People of that time period knew so little about the Red Planet --  Mars -- that HG Wells was able to easily sell a captivating fantasy story about space aliens living on Mars, who come to attack us. In a year like 1898, the planets of our solar system were known, but not very much "seen". Humanity pretty much had utterly no idea what was outside of our solar system in a year like 1898. We now know for sure that our Mars is desolate and not populated by anyone. In 1898, we had no idea. We saw it but we never saw its surface. For all we knew, somebody was hanging around up there.

So, basically, we knocked out the mystery of Mars ....but once we knocked that mystery out, the only thing that happened was that Jupiter became the next mystery, followed by the galaxy beyond that, et cetera, ad infinitum.

In a way, the entire known universe throughout the frst half othe 20th century, was just this one solar system and this one Milky Way galaxy. Then the 60s happened and we got smarter, and the next thing we know, we start understanding that not only are there more galaxies, but there are literally billions of them. And not only is the universe god damn massive -- but it's actually expanding endlessly at some unfathomable speed. Add to this, we have also now had the 'string theory' idea enter into our consciousness, and string theory (so far as I've read) is the first theory in all of time that proposes the idea that our universe isn't the only one. There are many universes. Hence the new term the "multi-verse". String theory is highly debated within the real science community. Many dignified men of science believe the idea completely.

Some readers might find it bewildering that I began this 'essay' talking about people who dismiss films like Star Wars , and have now commenced to discussing things like string theory. But the reason is simple: Ideas like string theory and the multi-verse theory , suggest to me something that, in truth, I quite like hearing. What it suggests is that the universe is a major mystery. It's like an endless series of bombs going off, every bomb being a mystery that just gets deeper and deeper.

And personally, as someone who was always deeply interested in "mysticism", I find this idea rather comical and relieving. Mostly because I grew up very surrounded by lots of kids who desperately wanted to believe, it always seemed, that science had reached some Enlightenment age, where "all things had been solved and become known". I think this arrogance is/was especially popular in what I now call the "pre-wormhole generations".

Basically, lots of militant atheists types who grew up between, say, the 60s and 90s, before ideas like the multi-verse came into being, and before we realized that the universe is rapidly expanding and infinite, often seem to walk around with this chip on their shoulder, that its all been 'explained'. But again, it hasn't all been explained. If anything, what the most recent scientific discoveries suggest is that all of this is actually much more mysterious than even the mystery lovers previously imagined, decades ago! In the language of the barrio, this universe is fucking strange!

To me, the multi-verse theory in particular, argues in defense of all sorts of ideas that many "rational minds" would consider to be 'occult ideas'. The multi-verse theory can and should be used as a way to discuss all that weird phenomena that so many science freaks out there wouldn't let people enjoy with a straight face, for literally decades. Ghosts, vampires, lightsabers, magic portals, little green men, wizards, explosions in space, giants, even Heaven and Hell, can all fit---rather eerily--within this very expansive and mind boggling 'multi verse' idea.

For example, how can we really know for sure that the myths about ghosts aren't true? It could be the case that, when we die, our consciousness somehow slips off into some other part of the universe, and ghosts are some weird example of that alternatve universe accidentally (or purposely) 'flickering into our own'. And, beyond that, who is to say that a famous story like Star Wars or even that old film Willow, isn't just a story being beamed to our writers from elsewhere, in order to explain to us, all thse other universes, that actually exist somewhere?

You see, when I sit down to watch a fantasy film, I actively think of myself as watching something that, for all I know, actually happened somewhere, in some other galaxy, in some other random stop along the "multi-verse". And so long as the a theory like the multi-verse one exists, my personal opinion is that no one can stop me  from having that belief.

Some scientists fear this of course. They're angry, it would seem, about a theory like this one -- because they find it discomforting. They want it all solved , but the truth at this point is that...even if you take away the multi-verse theory, you still can't take away what is, for certain, already our new and incredibly expanded idea of reality. The fact that there are billions and billions of other planets and galaxies is already totally real science. The fact that the universe is endlessly expanding at a monstrous speed is already real science. And even within that "tinier" idea, scienntists have debates over topics like, for example, the sound in space idea that so many Star Wars haters love pointing out.

A quick search on Google will let the reader know that, as it turns out, some physicists just aren't too sure if the laws of physics in our MIlky Way galaxy, apply to every single one of the billion galaxies out there. I mean, we already know that the laws of gravity  on Earth don't apply on all the other planets (and certainly not in space) so why would that physics law about sound necessarily apply throughout every single galaxy? It could be that some galaxy very far away operates by a completely different set of physics laws.  Note the following from PBS...

"As far as physicists can tell, the cosmos has been playing by the same rulebook since the time of the Big Bang. But could the laws have been different in the past, and could they change in the future? Might different laws prevail in some distant corner of the cosmos?

“It’s not a completely crazy possibility,” says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech, who points out that, when we ask if the laws of physics are mutable, we’re actually asking two separate questions: First, do the equations of quantum mechanics and gravity change over time and space? And second, do the numerical constants that populate those equations vary?"

Some scientists, I've read, are frightened of the multi-verse theory, because they think it willl make the public "reject science....and lose faith in it..."

I don't really see how they've come to the conclusion. For example, if you take myself into account, its clear that I absolutely have tons of "mystic ideas" I like to believe in -- and yes, I am using the multi-verse theory in an attempt to support them 'scientifically --- but, that doesn't change the fact that I trust science, where science has already figured something out. I don't, for instance, have some wild idea about people living on the Moon or on Mars. I trust the science idea that we already know whats on the MOon and Mars, that being nothing. Of course, in some other universe, its quite possible that humans are living on both Mars and Earth, and they came into friendly contact years ago. In some other universe, maybe humans still have tails for some reason, and maybe Planet of the Apes is true, too!

To me, a truly preposterous idea, at this point in time, would be one like many ancestors used to have, when they thought that heaven was immediately above the clouds, or maybe even within the clouds, in our own universe here. This has been disproven and is, indeed, ridiculous. But other ideas haven't been disproven and, therefore, mysticism is still with us, when it comes to those ideas. Case in point: I know heaven ain't in the clouds now, but how the hell you gonna tell me, with a straight face, that you know, for sure, that my "soul" won't just be transferred to some other planet, light years away from here, that is heaven, once I'm gone from this place? The simulation theory, for instance, which cannot be disproven, completely supports the idea of an afterlife. Within simulation theory, my life could end here, and I could wake up lying down next to a massive computer in the year 3456, with my friend slipping a pair of virtual goggles off my head.

"How was the ancestor simulation?"

You see what I mean voyager?????

---notes

Star wars thoughts: Keep making movies

I've been reading a lot about Star Wars lately, and as a child born in 1989, I've got to say I never actually realized just how deeply many older people (Generation X) really hate the prequel films. Personally, it makes little to no sense to me, as the millenial that I am. The Star Wars prequel films are not just worthy of defending to me -- I actually think they are, in some regards, better than the originals. Essentially, I don't think that Star Wars would have really survived, if those 3 films hadn't come out when they did, all those years after the originals.

A lot of people might think I love the prequels just because of the generation I'm in. It's probably a bit true. However, I also think that the films themselves changed the Star Wars universe in ways that were really very necessary. The original films, for example, are almost endlessly focused on the story of Luke Skywalker, and background details about the SW universe are almost sort of sparse. The story is really just concerned with getting Luke from point A to point B. In many ways, the original films, in terms of background, just feel plain lonely, and this loneliness is reflected in the types of atmospheres we see as we watch. For example, just think of the opening of a New Hope. We are basically stranded on Tatooine , with the biggest background scene (in my memories) being the cantina scene. In thr second film, Empire Strikes Back, we start out on a truly desolate snow planet (Hoth), and then wind up in Cloud City. Was Cloud City memorable? Absolutrly. But we still don't see any real background. Cloud City exists as little more than a prop for the characters to walk through.

At the time the originals were released of course, this style of filmmaking was basically how it worked. In the late 70s and early 80s, video games that are obsessed with building enormous background details weren't around, and something like Dungeons and Dragons (a game also obsessed with background details) was really only just being born. The original Star Wars fans were being taken into a universe that was literally just forming, both inside the screen and out of it . Yes, it was and always will remain exciting to watch A New Hope and see the way that Luke Skywalker himsef learns about the rest of the Galaxy and the existence of the Jedis just like we do --- but there's also something beyond mesmerizing, as I say,  about the world building that the prequels were able to do, that the originals could not. The prequels didn't have to worry about explaining the Jedi to us. They didn't have to go over details that, in the first film, were full of mustery. The prequels were instead focused with expansion--- and I suppose that tis is why so many people from Gen X lost their heads over them.

One famous detail that everyone hates of the prequels is Jar Jar Binks, the comedic relief alien introduced in the first one. Generation X despises him. Why? It's simple: He is an alien, and ironically, as obsessed with space as the originals were, they never really granted any alien characters that much screen time. Most of them were secondary characters at best--- and we certainly never received anything like what Phantom Menace gives us, when it introduces us to the entire home world, under the sea , of where Jar Jar Binks alien species lives.

It's almost as if the original generation was genuinely disturbed to see just what tiny characters the original ones like Luke and Han and company were, in comparison to the rest of this massive universe that was now built. It was genuinely strange, for example, to suddenly see other Jedis popping up, and not just a few of them, but literally tons of them. In the Generation X mind, Luke Skywalker was supposed to be a sort of standalone story. That's all this universe was. It was Skywalker and Darth Vader and Han Solo. What the hell is all the rest of this crap?

For a kid in the late 90s and early 00s, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Stand alone stories are, in a very real sense, old hat for my generation. Fans now, especially fantasy and science fiction fans, are obsessed with endless back story and background details. Mostly because we want to be able to have the right to create our own characters in said universe. Consider the fact that I grew up with an online game like Star Wars Galaxies, where I was not only able to create a Jedi if I wanted --- my own--- but I was even able to just play as a dancer in a cantina on Tatooine , or a random droid mechanic. I used to spend countless hours in the Star Wars universe as a boy via that game --- and I didn't even own the films! Yet I once passed an entire summer between 8th grade and freehman year, living as a dsncer of some kind, on Naboo.

For Gen X, it sounds preposterous to follow the story of a simple droid mechanic or dancer on Naboo . For the millenials who grew up surrounded by video games and endless message board discussions about background lore, it's a literal way of life. Becoming an extra in the Star Wars universe is just as exciting to many a millenial mind, as being Luke Skywalker. Essentially, Luke Skywalker for me is just one mere character in Star Wars. To Gen X, he's like Christ. The real reason it was hard for them to stomach the prequels was because Luke wasn't there, and Obi wan--  as the wise old man---basically wasn't either. I also get the feeling that they didn't like how Darth Vaders background was being revealed to them. After all, in the old school movie making philosophy, it's always been said that mystery is better than detail. Generation X lived nearly 20 entire years not knowing Darth Vaders background story. So I can understand how weird it was to finally go to the theaters and see him presented as a child decades earlier--- and a particualely nice child , at that.

For example, in my own memories, it seems that I was acquainted with Darth Vader before ever seeing the prequels (which came out when I was 10) but, oddly enough, I can't really say how or why. I don't think I ever saw the originals until after I saw the prequels, so what I think happened was that I probably met Darth Vader dozens of times -- between the ages of 5 and 10 --- as an action figure, et cetera, and so, I did actually myself have a bit of the Gen X idea of him, even if just for a brief time as a child, completely outside of movies. For me, Darth Vader existed before Anakin. But consider the view of a child like my brother, born in 1999, the very year Phantom Menace came out. In my brothers universe, the story of Anakin Skywalker as a boy, has actually always existed. From day one in his mind, my brother was aware that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker years and years before. From day one, he was basically aware of all the major Star Wars plot details. In fact, that's the curios thing about a movie as popular as this: It's so popular now, that there's almost no real reason to watch any of them, save for just wanting to pass some time with your beloved characters. Essentially everyone who is even a marginal part of online nerd culture knows the biggest Star Wars details. I met a 14 year old boy (birth year 2004) on Discord one week who knew everything about it --- but also told me he'd literally never seen a single film. I also remember my old friend from high school sitting down to watch A new hope with me once, confessing he had never seen any of the originals. He'd watched all the prequels of course, probably dozens of times, and, again, knew the entire story anyways. I remember looking at him as he took in A New Hope, and then having him turn to me and explain how he couldn't believe this movie had ever become what it now is. “It looks ridiculous.” he said. Yet he continued watching, because it's almost like something everyone has to do at this point. Star Wars is simply one of those types of phenomenons now. Something becomes an insane craze; we all become curious to see what it was when it was born.

Of course, background details, as important as they are to millenials, aren't always necessarily a surefire way to success. Consider the recent movie that was released called Solo. They say now that it's actually the first Star Wars film to not be a triumphant success at the theater. Why has this happened, thry wonder...why isn't anyone as interested in Solos background story? I mean , haven't I been writing that all we millenials and the next generation after us want, are background details and origin stories? Well, yes , we do, but I don't think that we necessarily want background details on all the original characters. Rogue One, for example, which was a triumph and even beloved by critics , is the sort of background details that new and young fans want. The background of Han Solo wasn't important because it's basically already known and easy to imagine. At this point in the franchises life, the best bet is probably going to be creating altogether new characters, which it seems is basically what Rogue One did.

To me, what I would like to see Star Wars become now, is an alternate universe that our own world is able to look to, for endless inspiration, when we need it. I see the SW universe as a sort of strange reflection of our own. It’s like looking into a mirror where you see familiar things that are, for some reason,  always twisted in weird ways. Old men with grey beards who seem like what we know as Samurais .. but who fight with swords of lasers, instead of steel. Images of outer space that look like the space we know -- but, for some reason, is full of sound and explosion. Planets with little cantinas and mountains that, again, seem like our own, and yet remain populated by creatures we don’t recognize, dressed in clothes we do. It’s like this massive collective dream that we are all able to dream and reference together -- and I should hate to see something like this disappear from our culture. I think its important for a shared dream this massive to exist in a culture like the one in which we find ourselves.

Personally, I’m very in love with how ubiquitous the story is, within our real world here. I love the fact that the story pops up all over the place, no matter where you’re looking, like a hit song on the radio thats just been playing for years and years. I love how many actions figures have been created from it. I love how many comics exist of it. I love how many games have been made, even if I’ve only played 2 of them. And thats why, when I contemplate the future of this franchise, I would personally like to see 10 more Rogue One’s, instead of Episode IX’s. I want the background. I want the little details. It might sound crazy to some, but I would literally watch an entire trilogy of movies set in the SW universe, about that theoretical dancer at a dive bar on Naboo.

It’s enjoyable for me to imagine a world in which so many Star Wars films have been released that watching all of them becomes next to impossible. I want it to get confusing.  Many people, i can tell, fear that world. They think its wrong, that its “ruining” the magic, and making the originals “not special”. Their fears are in vain…. the originals will always be special for the first people who saw them...which is all that counts. The thing thats important now is making new stoties that are special to new people. The latest villain in Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is incredibly special to the younger generation in a way that I personally can’t see at all. But as I keep stressing, Kylo Ren being special to me is largely irrelevant. He’s just one character in a universe that I find mesmerizing. I don’t watch the films for him. I watch them to get a window into this weird dream-like place.

So, ya. Star Wars.

--- notes on a summer morning with too much Sun.

METI signals and Extraterrestrials

I've been reading a lot about aliens lately, and getting myself all sorts of terrified.

I think I sort of knew this was going to happen, the instant that the kid Robin on my Discord channel insisted we create a "science fiction" section for the server.  I did not want to create the sci-fi section, because I'm terrified of sci-fi. But Robin was only 13 years old a big fan of my roleplaying server. So I let him have his way and create it....

I had wanted the server to stay strictly fantasy. No aliens! Just elves, half elves, pirates, and some weird monsters. But not alien monsters. Just regular ones, like medieval giants and strange little gremlins who slash at things with swords. 

I lost, as I say. The 13 year old boy Robin won. The sci-fi channel was created, sci-fi roleplay began, and from there, this week long obsession with aliens --- the real ones, not the kind we see in movies like Predator or Star Wars -- quickly began. And now of course, I've learned weird real life things that I wish I had never learned.  The universe apparently insisted I learn these things. Why? God damn this universe! I am too small and poor to be knowing this stuff. I'm too... scared...

What did I learn? I'm too simple to completely explain it, but basically i've been learning about some signals they're calling "METI" signals now. So far as I understand the tale, some particularly rich & intelligent humans have recently commenced to sending out signals -- "active signals" -- across the universe. The signals are aimed at certain star systems and planets very far from here. You know, trillions of light years away and all that shit. Like i say, I don't understand all of it, but I did quickly come to understand the reason its terrifying and controversial, and basically what seems to be happening is that certain notable people (like Elon Musk and the now late Stephen Hawking) are actually opposed to these signals being sent out.

They're opposed because they think its going to get us all KILLED. By lunatic aliens who will get the message, realize we exist, and immediately come zooming over to our humble Planet Earth and slaughter us.

I must admit that I (and my friend Maria from Spain) were particularly mortified, when we found out that people like Hawking and Musk were opposed to this. That made it all sound that much worse, you know? Like, Musk and Hawking are intelligent. Certainly Hawking was extremely intelligent. Michio Kaku is also intelligent and, though i don't think he signed documents against this METI shit (Musk did), he still seems opposed to it too. That sort of means everybody is, in a way. So who the hell is sending the signals? Random rich Earthlings, more or less. And they're going to get us KILLED!!!!! As I said before.

The past few days have been a mental terror for me. I have laid up day and night reading endless articles on aliens, on the Fermi Paradox (i had never heard of it before) and other such things. I have been watching Star Wars and praying, yes praying, that we will somehow turn into Jedi Masters and be able to fight the aliens when they come. I have been hoping... hoping that the aliens will either not receive the signals these lunatics sent into deep space or that...they will get them and...be benevolent. I don't want to see Earth destroyed! I want to live a decently long while here. I don't want to be dragged off the planet by extraterrestrials!

Oh my lord I'm so scared.

At the same time tho, some deep part of me finds this all funny and I'll tell my reader why. Basically, i feel like everything has come full circle for this world all over again. For example, centuries ago, it's well known that superstitious humans, totally unaware of the cosmos, were usually terrified of things like demons and all-powerful Gods and other stuff like this. Then of course, we suddenly had this enlightenment period where all the intellectuals became atheists overnight, and once they were atheists, they essentially lost this fear of all-powerful Gods and demons sucking them into Hell, etcetera. They lived, in a very real way, without a fear that had seriously tortured the minds of humans for all of time previously.

But now it seems that fear is back, don't it? Now we have managed to look out not just beyond our planet, but also beyond the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, et cetera, and we realize how grandiose this all really is. And it seems that the "big dogs" of our planet are scared again, just like they used to be, befre atheism got in vogue. Elon Musk, in some sense, is like some English king from the year 1450. The English King used to fear judgement from the Lord msot high. Elon, with his billions, now fears this apocalyptic alien invasion.

I fear it too of course, but in a way, maybe I'm more accustomed to fear. For me its almost normal to feel small and insigificant, and so the appearance of yet another "big dog boss" -- in this case an alien who will destroy us all -- is almst not that surprising. But its still terrifying....

Proper use of Writing Time --

I'm trying to figure out what happened to my writing time since I first logged into Google Docs back in late December 2017, and stopped writing in my “old folder”, where it seems I have such an impressive amount of work stored.

In the old folder, it always felt like I was getting a ton of work done, because I was working on short stories, often writing new ones every single day. I was also constsntly writing on my iPhone, and then uploading the shorts I'd write on the iPhone, to the old folder.

When I switched to Google Docs, I was finally able to keep myself in the same story, whether I was on mobile or my computer. As a result, it seems the passion I had for short stories throughout 2016 and 2017 has sort of died. I keep thinking I'm writing thrm still--- but then I look out over my archives dating back to January 2018, as I say, and I never really find any.

So what the hell have I been writing exactly, since January? It's now nearly July. That's 6 months of writing time. Half a year. Eek. Don't tell me I've wasted an entire half a year and got NOTHING done!

Well, it depends how you look at it.

Here's what I remember writing:

The very first documents I wrote once switching to Google were, I vividly remember, a few fantasy short stories, followed by a rather intense amount of poems, most of which were dedicated to my now ex Jennifer. I'm pretty sure I lost some of the poems but saved most. So they should be back there somewher on the earliest part of my Google Docs. I'm pretty sure I saved most of them. Oh--- I'm also remembering that, in January, I was still occasionally scribbling things on my laptops hard drive in this cool word processor I have there. So some work I'm not seeing is definitely on the laptops hard drive. And then of course, towards January's end, I split with Jennifer and started frantically writing all those journals.

The journals went on for a long while, and as it currently stands, seem to account for, like, an embarrassingly large portion of my Google Docs files. But fear not scribbler! For the truth is that I did maintain a fairly steady train of fiction writing, but as I wrote above, I concentrated it all across just a few stories.

In early February, I began work on a fantasy story about a boy named Aldwind. I achieved 40.000 words on this tale before dropping out of it in mid February. I then began work on a tale set in reality (heavily referenced in journals from the same period) about a girl named Franny. It was a tale of interracial “ghetto” romance that I perhaps find a bit embarassing to have actually written. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the first person narrative and this Franny story reached 65,000 words plus, and took me, I think, to some time in March. In March I'm not quite sure what happened exactly. It's possible I was still briefly adding to the Franny and Aldwind stories. I don't think Franny was just a February enterprise. But I can't really tell. I was definitely writing tons of diary entries throughout March , and i have located a few sporadic short stories, but nothing much seems to have gotten done. Nothing new was started. For the most part I think I was doing the Franny story and diary entries. So it sort of seems like a nothing month.

Oh then of course, before I forget, I did start the “Space Drifter” sci fi tale (which I've now leapt back into!) at some point in February too , immediately after splitting from Jennifer. I reached 12,000 words on it. That's a fair bit of writing.

What about April and early May though? Well, April is a bit like March, sadly. I'm not too sure what I was doing, but I think it was mostly very frantic diary entries, which then of course started to turn into a blend of realism and fiction. I was now making a conscious effort to get away from the endless whining I was doing about jen in the diaries cause I realized it was eating up tons of writing time. But I had gone through a major trauma and it wasn't easy. So I had to switch gears gradually. The result was that I put together this weird fictional diary mix thing….I don't know what else to call it. Personally I almost like it . It kind of has a Bob Dylan Tarantula feel to it. It's all very confessional style stuff , I guess, which I always kind of regret writing after the fact, and feel was a waste of time. It was still writing thoigh so I shouldn't whip myself that hard for It. Honestly it wasn't half bad. Who says confessional real life scribbling is a sin anyways?

At any rate, by May, I was basically back in the saddle. Indeed once May began, it seems I had probably started looking back over my Google Docs files and realizing that not as many random short stories as I liked were there, so I immediately commenced to trying to focus , keep my mind off jen, and write some. Sadly I was still a bit trapped in the diary form, but I managed to put together two bizarre “short story collections “ --- entitled the Western Realms 1 and 2 --- each of which has about 45-50,000 words in it. Each collection features a weird mix of short stories, diaries, and the occasional essay. Again, I wasn't pitching perfect games still, due to jen trauma, but I was always still writing. A perfect game for me just means I'm writing pure straight fiction. No diaries. No essays. Not even poems really. I almost see that all as weeds I need to get rid of .

May of course was a pretty good month, and seems to have been the month when Jen really died kff and stopped haunting me and my writings. I started diving into Spanish again quite heavily, talking to all the South Americans and the girls from Spain, which is always a sure fire way to keep my writing inspired (since English learners love to be sent huge paragraphs of prose).

So, for the most part in May, I kept adding to those Western Realms files, and then by May’s end, I started work on that vampire story, which I wrote a journal entry saying I’d work on “all summer” -- but of ocurse where I crapped out at  (let me look) 36,000 words. Oh and what is this! Why do I keep forgetting about this collection? Strange the way it keeps slipping my mind, as though it never happened -- but yes, the Reginald stories! These were a collection of pirate tales that were 100% born out of the weird dream like diary entires I had been doing. 20,000 words on this as well! Google Docs tells me these pirate stories were started on April 4th. So thats what I was doing during April. Yes, I remember it all now: I was working on these pirate stories in a mad frenzy of inspiration, leading up to Easter Sunday. Then on Easter I had to go out with the family, get degraded and yelled at, and all inspiration was lost, so I stopped continuing them. But they did happen! 20,000 words, as I say. They can and, I’m certain, will be returned to. Eventually.

And so far as June is concerned now, who and what ate June? Well, admittedly, I was doing a lot of roleplaying throughout June, so i definitely didn’t technically write as much as I should have, but , again, i was still always writing -- it’s just a question of how much of that writing was saved. For the most part, not much was, but hey, come on, look at all those stories you got sitting there now, ready to be taken to further heights. For starters, thanks to Maria from Spain, you’ve now entered back into the “Space Drifter” story, and taken it nearly to 30,000 words, and also don’t forget that weird story about the girl going off to be a porn star, either (which is kind of similar to the Franny story ad quite entertaining).

So hey...what the hell… you haven’t been pitching totally perfect games, and a lot of the past 6 motnhs did sadly get eaten up by horrible grief over that asshole Jennifer, but you did still write. A fair bit, even. Certainly some would say a lot. Not as much as you could have, no, you failed in many respects, and certain windows of time and days in each month were totally wasted - but you still spit out quite a bit to show and take into the heart of the summer with you now.

At this point, my advice to you would be to try and spread your summer writing time between all the longer stories already begun. If you add a bit here and there to “Space Drifter”, “Aldwind”, “the Pirate Stories”, and then the “Vampire Stuff”, you could possibly come out, at summers end, with four decently sized “books” of a sort on your hands.

The best triumph was probably the “Space Drifter” story of course, because I never ever jump back into stories that stall -- but for some reason, I did jump back into that one, and kept the narrative going.

So there we have it. 6 months of writing time. You didn’t really do that bad. Stop stressing over it. Keep writing. Whats done is done. Whats past is past.

----- June’s End, 2018

Space traveling

Okokokok, I haven't been in here awhile. But here I am again!

I got carried away with Discord for pretty much the entire month. I guess, after what seemed like 15 years of chat rooms being totally dead (and me always doin' a lot of reminiscing about IRC) my mind was a bit blown with the experience. I was elated to find all those internet travelers again--especially once i realized many of them were interested in roleplaying.

Like all things however, i have now lost a bit of interest. I have my own server and i log in occasionally but, for the most part, I'm back to jsut trying to write normal prose now, instead of roleplay prose. I'm also feeling a rather big obsession with planets, moons, stars, suns, and wormholes coming on lately. Been watching Michio Kaku a bit...talking with this girl in Spain....and she seems to be just as interested in the planets and moons et cetera, as me. We discussed aliens and she tried to draw some. We drew an alien that changes sex constantly and lives in a jungle of blue plants.

Naturally, once i start digging into all the outer space stuff, I'm only a hop and a skip from the great Star Wars universe! Aye i've been a fan of Luke Skywalker and especialyl Yoda for years. Shockingly tho, i never bothered to watch the new films released in the late 2010s now.  So the other day I sat down and beamed up The Last Jedi. The first half made me want to scream with disappointment.  Too slow, no action, and I find many scenes hard to stomach. The second half was just like old memories: BLOODY EPIC. Very good. Kylo Ren isn't the best villain (i dont like him i'll admit) but everyone else is good. The scene with Princess Leia floating thru space was absurd...but then i watched a video of that famous director Kevin Smith crying as he watched it and... meh...it seems better now. So even that scene is good. The whole thing is good! FUCK IT! I like it! The Last Jedi scores a 10/10 for me. I'm not an old curmudgeonly asshole. I take it all in stride...the imagination of a foolish child ....

Tomorrow if i'm lucky little Spanish Maria might be around to watch the very first SW film with me... a New Hope. I haven't seen it in years but it is memorized.  When Obi Wan is still just Old Ben.

Spanish Maria is funny cause she really finds wormholes fascinating. In Spanish the wormholes have a name that is a bit weird (and not as famous). Agujeros de gusano. Literally: holes of worm. When talking in Spanish about it, you can tell instantly that the topic isn't nearly as famous as it seems to be in the English language. Which is kind of weird to think about. I wonder how many people, for example, in the Arabic languages, know of the wormhole concept? Or the Afrikaans language? Or Vietnamese? Who knows. I'll be accused of wild racism within minutes typing this way!

This reminds me of a funny argument i got into on Discord the other day, however. I was trying to talk about how a countrys culture is so effected by her climate. I made the point about how people in Siberia have never given the Earth a huge art movement (like Paris), and immediately I was accused of being a racist, classist evil overlord. Basically the people arguing against me seemed to want to believe that literally every single location on Earth is exactly the same as the other. No matter where you are born, you have just as much chance to become the next  Leonardo Davinci, or Pablo Picasso, as anyone else. So DaVinci didn't need to be born near to Florence, Italy, a major trading center at the time, not far from Venice and Rome, et cetera .He could have been born alone in the Alaskan wilderness, i was strictly told, wrestling bears, and wound up the same Renaissance genius. If I don't subscrive to this idea, I'm a racist/classist piece of shit!

Wow. No wonder the liberals keep losing.

Lets switch topics though shall we?  Lets go back to Michio Kaku, my favorite TV physicist. He was on Fox the other day (kind of weird) talking about Trumps 'Space Force'. A lot of liberals, in fact, were making great fun of Trump for saying he will create a Space Force. Aren't y'all supposed to be the science ones? Confused. Now, I dont like Trumpie for nothin' but i'll admit...even i thought it was pretty cool. I just liked seeing the phrase, i suppose, in the newspaper! SPACE FORCE! I've been imagining it for years. Now, there it is, finally in print, starting to show face. How much longer do we have to wait to meet Yoda now? Or to fly a Millennium Falcon like Han Solo! And where are my droids and lightsabers!

I'll sign off now.... i want to go heat up this Chinese food...but i'll leave you with this cool picture of Jupiter and her moons....

smooth soakign wet 19 year old boy gliding along on the side of the swimming pool

laying under a crystal sky smoking a glass pipe filled with rainbow myrr

he sticks his hands down his swimming pants and he feels around for his creature he pulls out a long green lizard the reptile slips from his hands and grows in diameter and width

he rolls over on the marble leaning his head over dipping it into the pool gettng his hair soaked his face changes from vaguely English and Arabian to Chinese

smooth 19 year old boy starts coughing he spits out a frog the frog hops and spits out a frog himself

She opens the chest and looks at the gold picking up some pieces for examination. Seems to be mostly gold pieces in Spanish currency and some in currency of England

A few spare coins clearly come from the Arabian countries

Some others in currency she just doesn't know. Probably some country that now exists far off only inside the dream/...

She sits at the bar counter now making herself some guanabana juice to drink for the morning. Sipping calmly she remembers the dream she had as she slept. She was running in heavy rains with an old friend who used to know John silver ....

A short haired elf with a bruised face steps in...Bambina points him to a table and he sits....he's smoking a briar pipe and he places an extremely radiant glimmering shield down beside him leaning it up against the table

The elf starts talking to all the bar explaining a long winded story of how he just came from Mordor before slipping inside the dream