Going through my old blog

I (only sort of) wish I could say pure gold from 2011.

but holy crap, my seemingly inexhaustible rambles resulted in a couple gems in the rough:

I just read it for 3 hours (priviledges) only got three three months and will share a couple:
This is an entry I wrote on the last day I saw my grandmother.  I really treasure it because my recall of that day is a little different, and because of brains, I actually trust this write up more.

”

Those of you who haven’t had the joy of reading last private entry (Which’d be everyone, cause it’s private) have missed out on the news of why my gran (mom’s mom, the one who’s not recently put into rehab after a crippling stroke) was a little more difficult to put up with when I took her to the doctor.  Her second diagnosis (and I’m still pissed about the failure in the first) is acute leukemia.   On one hand, she’s a great lady who’spast 90 through the course a full life. She’s mastered her own life, raised a full fam, and enjoyed 56ish years of heavy smoking.  

On the other hand, she’s got acute leukemia now.
*face*

So there’s no decision to be made: we’re going to roll with it, in the most morbid sense that one can roll with punches.  Not to mention this’d be our choice anyway – when one of your larger late life pleasures is a full breakfast, as is my gran’s, a chemotherapy option might as well kiss your ass.  There’s that idea that your treatment can degrade a quality of life.

Mom’s being very good but told me realistically if I want to see her again to say goodbye I should do so within the next two weeks to a couple months.

I’m turning old and increasingly amazed at how fast time seems to fly.

Finally got her back to her home yesterday, her tight apartment on Park Avenue and I knew things’d be changed around.  Mom’s even hired a live-in helper so gran really has 24 hour care in between our visits.

Turns out one of her last requests have been – which I guess I’m kind of proud of considering I did the last two prior – was another lobster dinner.  She obviously enjoyed taking me to lobster dinners around her neighborhood when I was a kid and teen, when I got back to NYC that was obviously a lot of trouble for her, and for her last birthday and holidays, I came over with a couple live ones bought from across the street and cook the hell out of her kitchen.  So this was one of her latest requests.

But I was late, and stepfather-man Lucien wound up doing his best over the cooking, which was cool.  But I walk through the door and there’s my gran with a bed where her chair should be.   No table either – and these are legacy furniture to me, long-time fixtures at her place now – but these were apparently scrapped for easier live-in access for two in her apartment.

Gran’s now not been the same person for a little while.  Gone from tough old lady with badass new Yorker personality to more kitten-like, strong personality to a little more confused – these’ll never seem quite right to me.

We kind of throw down and even if it wasn’t a Fine Dining experience that I can now be super critical of, it’s nice.  Aid comes in and she’s very pleasant and bringing some peacefulness, complimenting and professional.  Reads a paper for a long while about Caribbean happenings and which organization bearing one acronym is warring or acting out against some other organization bearing another acronym for a while, but, she’s polite and wise enough to issue nice professional compliment.  Hey apparently I’m tall and handsome. Great, mm-hm.  I can tell she’s super qualified and pleasant to be around. She actually did decent, great things towards my grandmother too.  I guess that’s also important.

My family’s pretty down to earth and we’re amazingly capable of dealing with things like death.  We’re also strong willed people, and have so far been pretty cool about the idea of living ourselves out.

But it’s still new to me, eating around an elderly relative we’re treating as bed-ridden.  Who did ask the same well intentioned questions a couple of times, and who mentally, isn’t processing our information as much.  And giving her stuff away.  Which was always nice but weird, and it doesn’t help that mom’s explaining that this is so she can feel she has a sense of control over the future (I know.)  And while maybe not absolutely bed-ridden, who’s consumed and enjoyed so much dinner, that she dozed off for a catnap and then woke up right there.
Everyone’s cool with this – by my reckoning she’s kicked much more than 85 years of a calm, alert presence.

And we’re all pleasant enough.  But there’s only so much to talk about by a dozing lady before we’re ready to go home: Hey remember when. . .?  Hey I’m going to be bartending in a hotel near here as of Monday, yes it’s cool for all sorts of reasons!  Check that out- a lobster cleanly and completely demeated and consumed via bare hands.  Hey so, I upgraded my ram on my pc and since then have been #2 ranked in the world as a sniper in a video game, accidently.  Hey remember that time Gran ate the wrong batch of brownies at thanksgiving and thought that was just the greatest cup of tea ever? Hey, I can bake this Christmas.  Hey lets check stuff and joke around a little.  Yadda.

But then we’re getting ready to leave and I kiss her on her forehead goodbye she wakes up and time’s slower again and she thanks me for being able to make it over and we even wink at each other and shiyat (my gran taught me how to wink at people around when I was 8, and this ability has been one one of the sources of my power) and in addition to “love you” I realize most of my casual statements of “be well” and “take care” suck.  I want to be light, but now there’s tension in me because I want to not say goodbye with such a negative drama but feel some dumbass human cracking in my dumbass presentation, so I say “I’ll see you soon” but realize I need to arrange that shortly if I’m going to mean that statement and I actually might have cracked a little.

I’m not even used to trying not to crack.  I wasn’t even aware that I have a desire to not crack, but apparently it’s the case. 

I don’t want to make crying noises.  Ever.   Especially not in front of others – I don’t even like sniffling.  But getting that this very affectionate hand squeeze from a lady who’s always to demanded a bear-hug on a departure, and seeing god-knows-what’s going through her mind as she then kind of stares straight ahead as I’m standing to her right, kind of just breaks my heart.

About to crack and for reasons more about how this woman’s helped bring me up than wanting to be too cool, don’t really want to as a closing note.

So in a puss I fake doing a final check in the kitchen, grab a sneaky paper towel, and actually avoid eye contact on my way out.  Babble babble lolsy things which may seem too open but is also actually quite inane distracting banter on the walk to the subways with my mother and the stepfather man.  

Get control of the affect back and ended up sifting over detaching rationalizations.  I mean hey, while it’s amazing how humans have evolved to cry to show disturbance and grief, I’ve also evolved to not want to secrete extra tears and mucus in the presence of others.   And a tall dude walking around the streets bawling seems strange from my perspective.  So I try and retain coolness in my actions, but what’s this stupid expression in a hallway and eyeball leaking? Running against a cold wind after a steady high water + sodium diet maybe? Oh, no, I just really love my kickass gran. 

Fak.”

Onto something lighter:

This is less golden, but typical of my non-normalcy.

Apparently, this is how I point out that clingy voicemails will not lead to the perfect date?

“They could offer you a marijuana coated gourmet steak with lemon zest terriyaki spinach with a side of dumplings and penne al vodka miso sour with the greatest lime gimlet that’s ever cooled your jets that transforms into a 3am aphrodite-whispered blowjob followed by athenian intercourse chock full of ambrosia brimmed joint sweat in front of an air conditioner next to a table topped with pitchers of water hand delivered and spit into by naked baby cupid himself and you know what? You’re STILL NOT TURNED ON to this great outing because it was communicated within 6 missed messages 22 minutes before you even got home”

I put another website together yesterday.  It feels like I spent hours to cook a tiny plate.  Eaters know that isn’t my style, as goddamn fine food is still fantastic in unfine amounts – but i think it was necessary and/or helpful.  We live in a world where you’re best off having an author status before being an author maybe, so, fine.

I have some draft blog entries but will (ALWAYS) need to double think about what’s good to post “professionally” if at all.  I think those implication-quotes speak volumes enough.

I’m going through another round of reading on Disjuncture. Then I’m going for another round of queries. I’m actually grateful it’s thanksgiving tomorrow (ha.) because it makes me think waiting on querying is a-ok.  Agents and book professionals should be with their families, reading other manuscripts they’ve already queried.

Anyway, happy thanksgiving.

Welp,

I think I’m a loser, and you can’t stop me!

I think my author results are currently kind of pathetic, and that I haven’t won or earned the results I want: this makes me a loser. It even stings a little to declare, because after another rejection I realize: I’m very strange, and so much of my sense of self is wound up in this thing that I so so so want results for.

But after thinking should I give up on this, the answer is really no.

Sure, I considered giving up.  Cause I AM silly, the question is just how.  Well, I imagine this latest non-form might be like your kid getting the worst report card and it looking like they’ll never do well in school, when it’s the only job you gave them.

I guess that’s strange or something, but that’s how it felt.

The deal is just another form rejection. It sucks because a *hopeful* question in response to that update (it’s an update) is did that rejection come with any feedback or reason why. The answer is no — it’s a form rejection. The entire point is to be devoid of direct feedback and disengage politely. And form rejections can mean many things. They can mean you have mistakes you’re making again and again. They can mean you’re querying the wrong agent. They can mean the agent is absolutely disappointed in you and that you’re submitting shitty drivel. They can mean that you just missed the mark and should tidy it up and if you have A DAMNED GOOD REASON that your work should be revisited and the balls to do so, that maybe you can go back (but probably not.)

For people like me, they can be a little crazy making because you can see all these things at once. It’s like you can adjust that part of your brain to tune into that portion of the spectrum of that the rejection letter reveals – because those things are as helpful at letting you see the quality of your own writing as a prism, I think.

I considered sending a polite reply asking for any feedback after that careful read.  Part of me still does. But I woke up today and figured I’d want to make it more bulletproof.

I think I’m more willing to shift gears, because my m.s. isn’t a baby. It’s not a living thinking thing of growing sentience that needs guidance rather than skillful, near-magic engineering.  I think a better analogy is, it’s like building a battlebot.

Yeah, humans don’t just expel battlebots.

And you know, it’s really tempting when you’re an ambitious tryhard to give it all these cool extra things.  My battlebot is definitely ed209ish, which means there are situations where being beefy is a hazard. Like, for example, a debut author on a bookshelf. (You have to wonder about that. If you think the reason 300k word tombs from debut authors don’t exist on basic bookstore shelves is because new writers don’t write them, you’re very mistaken.) Like characters with middle eastern names. Characters who’re former pornstars. Characters who show they’re depressed by laying around a lot. Basically, characters who are characters. I think in the process of publishing, extra bells and whistles can easily make for environmental hazards. These are merely things to reconsider, maybe cut, and if not, definitely do best.

Yeah, if publishing is a refining vehicle, you’re better off treating your ms as a battlebot I think. Not your baby.

A parent is rarely willing to detach parts from their baby.  I think if a baby is born with 11 digits, a parent might often think: “Do I REALLY need to get rid of that abnormality I mean look my baby is so beautiful!” which makes that abnormality more of a question instead of a feature that could be normalized, and a parent might forget more easily to ignore that subjective beauty, because every part is supposed to serve a function.

So, I don’t know. I have a little (but seriously, at this point just a little) time to see about these bells and whistles.

Yesterday, feeling like a loser made me reconsider and re-evaluate a little more. Today it makes me want to bring out the angle grinder and sandpaper and re-evaluate these eccentricities, and it was the first thing I did.

I seriously thought about moving forward with my life and minimizing the amount of energy I’ve put into making this project really become a something.

The answer is still hell no.

What if instead of asking people “should we keep confederate statues” we asked, “What should be done to resolve the tension between those who want to keep these monuments and those who don’t?”

I just wanted to play with that title.  A.M. was the Alliance Mastercomputer. A.I. is AI.  But as I’m not a mastercomputer (or am I?) the title just doesn’t make sense.  It’s just wordplay.  Sorry.  I’m actually a h00mon. We can all deal with this and move on.

^This song is the exact opposite of depression. I mean it, Nathan Fielder’s inner “ZIP-ZOP” contrasted with his face, and I think that’s about as opposite to how depression affects people as I can figure.

(ZEPOOBEDY BOOPITY ZOOPITY BOOPITY–!)

Anyway, humility time from me, Ericthebest

I remind myself that I am probably not the best at anything. I know, this isn’t very believable considering lots of things, and people like to assume that those who act confidently, or try their best, have their eyes on the pay-off.

But this is the difference between a performance-orientation and a mastery-orientation that I think’s so crucial.  Any game you play on a wide enough scale will teach: there’s ALWAYS someone out there better.  ALWAYS.  They might be hidden, they might be undertrained or unrecognized for whatever reason, but in zero-sums, you don’t look out for #1, you push yourself as hard as you can.

So back to that paid global agenda tourney ez example: there’s something I never expected to win. I expected to do my best.  And when shit hit the fan and crunch time came, that was all we needed to trigger us to fight like honeybadgers. One could argue stuff like best person in that position at that time, but best is irrelevant.  Rather than THE best, a person’s best and what is sufficient are the two factors that come together to be relevant. Sometimes that’s enough, and I feel like we got lucky because, in our case, it was enough.

I constantly find things to idealize from that tournament because it’s about as positive a result to draw from trying your best while accepting you may not win as any.

So on that note: I’m still in talks about getting my big baby of an m.s. published.  I do have a feeling of, it’s soon or never, and this is largely because what’s futuristic is so….fluid right now.  Like the actuality of self-driving cars.  Or like how Saudi Arabia recently declared a robot as the world’s first AI citizen.  (Although, Saudi Arabia has also been historically spotty about its equity of human rights, and there’s something to be said for that.) It’s interview is surreal.  So, we’ll see if my story is enough to be sufficient.

But I’ve given, and still giving my best.  The publishing side of story making is a business that’s different from the actual book writing itself, so we’ll see if my gifts and shortcomings are sufficient. Along with a bit of luck, That’s how it works. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m doing this for what I know are the right reasons.  Whether or not I crack some ceiling is not always question of should I have thrown my head at it, or done what it takes to do that.

And still, of course I’m pretty proud. I suppose I’m usually one of those dicks who knows when they should be. And again, the actual point there should be no letting that lull me into complacency.  I even got one of the shittest rejection letters of all time last week, and I mean: I can take rejection, can take criticism, and can take both of these happenings then use them to strengthen or drive my stuff better, but wow, what an unprofessional shitty rejection. I’m gonna keep that.

The point is, success from jobs performed hard – where I learn it’s sufficient – stimulate a lot of serotonin and not dopamine for me, and by that I mean just knowing what I’ve done doesn’t just make me crave more, or the reward.  It makes me feel comfortable in knowing even if I’ve wasted so much time and money, I got farther than I knew I might already.

I’m not always driven, and when I am, I’m not always comfortable with the results.  (Actually, I suppose I’m usually not if I’m tweaking a thing.) In this case though, I’ve learned a lot to take with me and maybe even teach.  It makes me content still in a way cheesy way in between zip-zops that’s perfect for heated rooms.

#ZipZop

The whole reason I saw my first book published was to investigate if people were reading. I wanted Disjuncture to be “my book” even if I had other books, but it needed work and wanted to learn.

I really wanted to learn if and how much people are reading.

I got the idea from Neil Gaiman.  I took Jaidree to BAM to see him talk with David Handler, and he said it there again: put yourself out there early, because you’ll get feedback and it will prove people are reading.

Except, times are different than when Gaiman got his start.

Come on, it’s common cynical knowledge that Americans are reading facebook and shitty netflix blurbs far more than books.  From my small-time small book experience, I did not get the honest impression that we have many readers out there.  Self-publishing has created a very much flooded market.

(Which of course won’t stop me.)

But reaching out, and touching base to find actual GREAT fiction pro wanting to give the biggest ms yet a good read…..

Man, what a driver.

I don’t have anything more to say than I’m going to keep on keeping on.  But I stayed up all night just reading because now I know there’s someone – people out there – who’ll see its head on the chopping block, and wondering if and where that ax will slip.

There’s someone out there reading with a yes in the brain.  I believe they have the power to open the doors harder.

So in the end, Mr. Gaiman was correct.  You DEFINITELY need to put yourself out there if that knowledge, that feedback, or even that naked idea drives you, as it drives me.  But you don’t want to do it into the void.  Don’t do it on a blog that you keep mostly hidden called Ericisthebest, unless it’s just your play-zone.

Do it at the right people.  Do it to yourself and when you yourself whittle down in motivation, push it and move on.

Even if I get rejected, even if it’s for good reason (if I get rejected – I sure hope it’s for a good reason) man, it’s always really nice to be read seriously by a real serious reader. It’s beyond sharing, and quite an honor.

Submitting to real writing contests.

I’ll share the shorts in a couple of months. I think it might cause complications if they’re posted or published in any medium, but this is something I wished I did earlier.