When I started my ambitious (at times nauseatingly so) experiment in blogging a new flash fiction story every week for a couple of years*, I promised I would come back to this space every couple of weeks to catch up with some old-school blogging, and maybe give my feeble, narratively exhausted brain a break for a week.
I lied.
Four and a half months later, I still haven’t checked in, but you know what that means? I’ve got lots of thoughts to share about my various adventures—sure, they’re adventures, deal with it—in the past few months. Spoilers for Infinity War and Roseanne follow.
- I had a religious epiphany lately. I think I’m a converted Dan Connerist. Think about it. He rose from the dead. He (clearly) has infinite patience. His ire can be swift, matched only by his forgiveness. He is played by John Goodman. What could anyone else want from a deity?
- I re-watched all of Friends recently. Don’t look at me like that. I like to have things on in the background while I write. Also, don’t judge me! I used to like the show. I think I kind of hate it now. I definitely hate Ross. That feels like some kind of growth. Anyway, don’t judge me.
- I’ve also taken a sudden interest in coding, of all things. My python is about as good as my Spanish—that is to say, poquito or [let myKnowledgeOfCoding = ‘not very much.’; console.log(‘My coding knowledge is ‘ + myKnowledgeOfCoding);]—but it’s kind of nice trying to exercise some other party of my brain. One might say its distracting me from some of the work at hand. I think it’s letting the parts of my brain that feel tired work through some stuff while I try to make pig latin translators in BASIC.
- Oh, yes. Those other pesky projects. Life’s gotten in the way a bit. The Once and Future Orson Welles si proceeding. Just as I am out of the business of predicting Presidential elections as of late, I think I’ll refrain from predicting a publication date. Focusing a little more on the flash fiction stories mentioned above and the second season of The Fourth Wall. But ,it feels like life might get a little bit more time back here soon, so I am hopeful for the future.
- Speaking of hopeful for the future, Infinity War. I thought it was great, by and large, and rather miraculously balanced all of the Dickens-sized cast of characters. Every time I started to get impatient and wondered what some of the other characters are doing, the film seemed to sense my embryonic impatience and change tracks. Could’ve used more Hulk, but you could say that about every movie**. The one thing that does strike me as a misstep is the ultimate (or is it semi-ultimate?) fate of Black Panther. With any amount of scrutiny post-screening, it becomes pretty clear that Untitled Avengers Sequel (2019) will undo most (if not all) of the film’s brutal last real. They’re going to make more Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s pretty certain. They’re going to make more Spider-man movies with Tom Holland, although that may be more about my feeling that I’m too young for there to have been four Spider-men on the big screen in my lifetime. But Black Panther? Even as I watched the movie, I didn’t imagine that I lived in a world where the Walt Disney Company takes a look at the receipts from Black Panther and says to Marvel, “Fine. Kill him off. Forever. It’s totally fine.”
- I’ve just decided that, no matter what anyone says, no matter what Lucasfilm does to possibly make the film worse, I am going to be excited for Solo: A Star Wars Story. There. I’m going to be there opening weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it. So there. Deal with it.
So those are some thoughts I’ve had. Maybe I’ll check back in a few months with some more. But in the meantime, keep checking in with the new blog. Next week, we’ll be continuing the story of the man who’s afraid of balloons, and slowly turning into them.
It’s hard coming up with a new story every week, folks.
*Yes, years. I want to see if I can make a book out of it. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, either.
** Except, of course, Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003). Which, incidentally, after I wrote the first sentence in this footnote about a week ago and before posting this entry tonight, I went ahead and bought a copy of Ang Lee’s Hulk. I’m a complex lasagna of contradictions.