I have to tell you, although I have not gotten the Coronavirus yet, I firmly believe I only have about a ten percent chance of surviving this pandemic. I don’t expect to see any of 2021 with living eyes. And I don’t find that as bleak a prospect as living through it. Because the pandemic and economic crash it caused are not the end of the bad things coming. I am a pessimist.
That does not mean, however, that I would throw away all the goodness that is there to be had as it all comes to an end. I have no regrets. Life has been good. In spite of the pain and darkness I experienced along the way, I have seen wonderous things happen. I have come to believe there is goodness in everybody, even the really bad somebodies. And I can tell you with certainty based on experience, there are far more really good somebodies than there are really bad ones.
This oil painting is not by me. It was done by my daughter, the Princess.
If I do die in the next few weeks or months, I do have faith in the fact that my children have a better chance of surviving than I do. Not all of them have the passion for art and storytelling that I do. But my eldest son tells stories. And my daughter has a passion for drawing and painting… which you can see she does better than I do.
And even if there is a very limited future for life on planet Earth, amazing and enthralling parts of the story are still to be played out. They will still add more to the ultimate story of life on Earth in this solar system in this galaxy… in this universe. And that is the whole purpose for us being here to begin with.
I am vulnerable. I am in pain. But I have not given up. There is more to do. More to think about. More to feel. And I glory in it.
I did some house-cleaning today. The ceiling fan in the kitchen was filthy. It had grease from cooking on the nearby stove top all over the blades. And embedded in the grease was dirt and grime. So, it had to be scrubbed with Clorox. And I am allergic to Clorox. So, now I am done for the day. My lungs hurt. And it is hard to think. But I am not dying today from that. I am pretty sure the virus that has us shut up in the house has other plans for me.
But not everything is bad. Dust is bad. I am allergic to that too. Yet, I have now gotten 1,800 followers on WordPress. And somebody is using Amazon Prime to read more than one of my books. The pennies are rolling in on my Amazon author’s dashboard. Number one son has a serious girlfriend. Number two son has a work-at-home job that he is doing right now. And my daughter, the Princess, is helping her mother to finish cleaning the fan.
As part of my quest to rewrite AeroQuest as a comedy-science-fiction series, I am rereading the first book in the series.
Rereading your own work can be surprisingly rewarding in unusual ways. When I was working on that novel and reading and re-reading each section and Canto, I really began to hate the writing. It is my worst work so far. And yet, after plenty of time to forget how awful it seemed at the time, I find myself laughing at the jokes again. I know I am a notoriously un-critical critic. But I also am convinced I am a good writer, and even my bad books are better than I usually think. Now, if only somebody else would read them.
Work continues on AeroQuest 3.
So, even if I am a little bit down and blue, I am not out yet. The Dust wlll not win.
Canto 87 – The New Star League (the Multi-colored Thread)
Ged was still a bit stunned when he made his way the next morning to the meeting in Shen Ming’s Hall. But he knew it was going to be important as Shen Ming claimed to know nothing at all about it, which always turned out not to be true, and Tkriashav said it was about the direction the Prophecy would take next.
He entered the Masters’ Study to find Shen Ming sitting behind the desk, contemplating the desktop with his off-kilter stare. Tkriashav stood behind him with his arms crossed, looking disgustedly at the two guests standing before them. One was a clownish-looking fool in a scout uniform. The other was a young boy wearing tights that bore the insignia of Tron Blastarr’s Outpost.
“So, Liz was right. A scout ship has come to Gaijin.”
“You knew about the prophecy?” Tkriashav asked him.
“Not until she told me about it last night.”
“Did she tell you this little incident will require the founding of the New Star League?”
“No, she must’ve forgotten about that part.”
“We should kill her, Ged. She’s a spy for the Imperium. We don’t know who she’s meant to help in the working out of the prophecy.”
“But she’s the mother of my son.”
“Ah, gave you the egg, did she?” said Shen Ming with a grin that could kill a bear.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Shen-sensei!” swore Tkriashav with a very mild swear. “Why do you insist on never telling me about the things you read in the prophecy?”
“For one who can read minds, you really don’t understand much about thoughts and feelings, I fear.”
Tkriashav’s glare had shifted fully to the back of Shen Ming’s spotty old head.
“Ah, so you must be Ged Aero, the famous White Spider of Prophecy.” The clown in the scout uniform wiggled his thick, black eyebrows weirdly.
“Who’s asking?” Ged asked.
“I am Captain Spaulding, the African Explorer.”
“No, you’re not,” said the boy. “You are going by the name of Bill the Postman.”
“Oh, right, right. It’s hard to forget sometimes. And easy to disremember.”
“Since when does the Imperium send messages and videos to Gaijin?” asked Tkriashav. “Gaijin is an unknown planet to the Imperial Scout Service.”
“The ISS don’t pay me enough to come here. Fortunately, the Star Nomads do.”
“Star Nomads?” Tkriashav asked.
“The Star Nomads? What are they?” Ged echoed the Psion.
“I thought you knew everything, old Zaranian spooky-dude. The boy can explain later. He’s a gift to Ged Aero from Tron Blastarr and the Magnificent Wanderer.”
“A boy is a gift to me?” Ged didn’t like the idea of people as property, let alone as gifts.
“Oh, not quite a boy. Take your head off and show them, Tiki.”
To Ged’s horror, the child peeled all the flesh and hair off his head, revealing a silver face that looked like Artran if it weren’t bald and made of metal.
“You are a Metaloid?”
“Yes,” said Tiki. “Your Metaloid from now on, Ged-sensei.”
“Even programmed with Gaijinese honorifics, he is.” Shen Ming smiled at the child as he put his head back on. “You will accept this boy, Ged, as a gift to the White Spider and an honor to own.”
Ged nodded consent, since he really had no other choice.
“Now we need to settle some details about the New Star League,” insisted Tkriashav.
“Like what, for instance?”
“Well, we have worlds to sign an alliance with to finally form the League.”
“What worlds?”
“Well, I was thinking of proposing Gaijin itself as the capitol world. Then there is the world you still own at Don’t Go Here.”
“I don’t really own that world. It’s a democracy now.”
“Yes, as is the world of Zarane which I have already secured in an alliance.”
“Three worlds against a thousand?”
“We also have treaties in our possession with the former Psion world of Phoebus IV. Tron Blastarr has pledged the forces and star system of Outpost, as Razor Conn has the system of Dancer. We may still take back the world of White Palm. And we have word that Duke Ferrari now reigns over Farwind.”
“So, seven worlds… maybe eight.”
“Yes.”
“Against a thousand.”
“Well, minus Dancer, Farwind, and White Palm, so more like 997.”
“Ah, comforting that sounds,” remarked Shen Ming.
“You will go with this Bill the Postman today as he leaves here?” Ged asked.
“Yes, as I seem to have no choice by the Prophecy,” answered Tkriashav. “Although it makes me worry to leave with this scout whose strange mind I cannot read.”
“Are you suggesting, sir, that I have no mind to read?” asked Bill who was really Scarpigo Snarcs but had first claimed to be Captain Spaulding.
“Certainly not. But you are not human. You are some sort of time-traveling being.”
“Ah, my mind is an open book, then,” said Bill Spaulding-Snarcs. “You just have to live with the fact that all the pages in it are blank.”
“You see what I mean about him not being human?”
“Yes. Where will you go?”
“What other choice is there? I must go back to Don’t Go Here. And when I go there, I must work out plans for the New Star League with Frieda. Ancient Technology has a large part to play in the Prophecy going forward.”
“At least you don’t have to go to Don’t Go Here alone,” offered Shen Ming with an inscrutable grin.
“Who is going with me?” Tkriashav seemed startled, an unusual state for one who reads minds so easily.
“Lizard Lady,” said Ged. “The Prophecy told her to leave too, just as it told you.”
“That’s a good sign,” said Shen Ming. “You are going to a planet called Don’t Go Here with a woman you would rather not go with in a space ship piloted by a man with a mind like a book with blank pages in it. Poetic to say the least.”
“And the least said, the better,” said Scarpigo-Bill Spaulding. “If you ask me, that is.”
On this Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) I am a little perturbed that practically everything, including Star Wars, is on the fritz. My computer is on the fritz. It starts all sorts of programs and actions within programs without being prompted by a keystroke or click command. The picture I posted at the start of this essay had to be downloaded from Google twice because it downloaded the wrong selection for no reason. And then it had to be pasted into the block editor twice also because the first attempt failed to finish the transition.
Of course, for something “to be on the fritz” and be well understood, it would help if we knew the origin of the phrase. Unhelpfully, no one really knows how it was initially used. Was it a reference to something about Germans? “Fritz” was a common nickname for German soldiers in two world wars. But probably not. Germans are not always haywire.
I think it far more likely that the word is an onomatopoeia for the sound a radio makes when there is a short, it sparks, and then malfunctions, if not catches fire. That seems to me to be a much more fitting image to use for the way my computer works today with its faulty keyboard, and/or mouse pad. It also is a fitting definition for the condition our economy is in due to the pandemic.
But on this Star Wars Day, it is the most apt phrase to describe what has been done to the Star Wars Saga. Don’t get me wrong. I am an uncritical critic. I loved the Rise of Skywalker in the movie theater. The images and the action were great. But the writer in me did not appreciate how wires were crossed in the making of the latest trilogy. The resulting dumpster fire, while colorful and visually entertaining, caused the power of the story to be definitely “on the fritz”.
Character arcs were ruined. Kylo Ren went from evil secondary antagonist to big bad to heroic turn-around to… what? His character dies and disappears at the end. Why? How did he complete his arc?
Rey went from child of nobody to Jedi to possible Sith Lord to…? Where does she end up? Palpatine tells her if she kills him, his spirit will infuse her with Super Dark Side Power. She kills him anyway? Will she now try to destroy the universe in the next trilogy?
And what did Finn do besides ride a horse-thing in space?
But I’m not complaining. Even if the pandemic is going to kill me shortly, I have had a good life. I have seen all the Marvel movies so far. I taught English to well over 2,000 kids in a thirty-year teaching career. I wrote fifteen novels that I published. And no amount of sparks, fire, or fritzing is capable of changing all of that.
Farmer, truck driver, registered nurse, school teacher, and many more are professionals who deserve more respect and compensation than they ever get. The pandemic has in many ways underlined and reintroduced us to the truth of their value. Jobs like these are not often recognized as being life-or-death in nature the way fireman, policeman, doctor, and paramedic obviously are, but we are in a situation now that proves that they are.
Teachers are much more than mere babysitters. You can tell by figuring out how much you would actually owe them if you paid them the same amount per child and per hour as you do a babysitter. Some teachers have to supervise thirty children per hour for six hours per day. That works out to 180 kids per day. If you paid them only two dollars an hour for each kid, a price no competent babysitter would ever work for, they would still bring home $66,000 per year, a wage that would top any yearly wage I ever brought home by more than $10,000. And a teacher does a lot more than manage classrooms for six hours a day. I would list all those other things in this essay, but it would come out far too long for the purpose of this one paragraph.
As a teacher working with kids under the age of 18, and as a writer of YA novels for kids under 18, I have come to see the hard truth of one stark and horrifying fact. All kids face hard things in their life. Some have divorced parents. Some are abused, sexually, emotionally, psychologically, physically, or any combination, including all of those. Many kids have substance- abuse problems. Many kids battle crippling depression. Depression even kills far too many of them. Most kids live in fear of school shooters, gang shootings, bullying, beatings, and other kinds of violence that specifically targets them. I remember one boy who attended my classes while living out of a paper bag under a bridge. And despite all these terrible things, most kids turn out good and kind and capable of loving others. In fact, the hard truth is, they turn out good BECAUSE of what they have lived through. You will find this same correlation throughout human history. In truth, most of the heinous and evil villains in history come from families where they were mostly protected from hardships. They often turn to evil because the first time they face these things after having been coddled, spoiled, and protected, they are not prepared to deal with them and see themselves only as a victim, no matter how badly they react.
In this essay I have probably not told you anything you don’t already know. In fact, you probably ;agree with most of it. But times like these make you think about what hard lessons you have learned because you have endured hard things.
Again I go back to artwork done for Saturday role-playing games, a thing which I started doing in 1981. It filled my life for a time. And it also taught me to be a teacher. After all, the DM (Dungeon Master, or Game Master) has to be a story-teller and a master explainer… just like a school teacher.
A Dungeons and Dragons picture from 1981. A Shaitan Rider, a villain from 1982.The Giant Sorcerer’s Hand, a monster from the 2011 family game.A heroine-ally and her pet werewolf.The father of mys son’s player character was found at the end of an adventure. He is apparently me with fewer legs.An enemy necromancerTwo versions of the same weretigerThis unused non-player character would become a novel character in 2019.Some characters are borrowed directly from TVSome characters are kept around as potential instant player characters.
I used to work for a principal who would come on the morning announcements every day to welcome us to school with another anomalous and annoying alliteration. We had numerous Magnificent Mondays, Terrific Tuesdays, and Wonderful Wednesdays. Thursdays were harder. And Friday was usually Fun. See, I think I ironically proved I can do it too, if not better.
Meet Orion Slave-girl Barbie, waving to you from the Slave Markets of Dantooine.
It has been my goal to set Friday posts aside as days to either be funny or to tell stories about being a school teacher… or, quite naturally, both at once.
But ironically, Trump and Pence have made it extra difficult not to talk about politics. One has been so blatantly idiotic in his quasi-fourth-grade-intellectual pumpkinheaded blathering. While the other has been robotically ignorant, heartless, and unmindful. Not wearing masks in hospital visits? Recommending injecting cleaning fluid? I can’t even be ironically funny by throwing flat irons and curling irons at them, since those would just bounce off the walls of the house I am confined to.
Princess Leia says hello from the slave markets of the United Federation of Planets.
But, even though the Bughead Boys are making original humorous thinking difficult, there are things that make me happy. I qualified and signed up to be a substitute teacher again if a new school year ever happens. They are pleased enough with my performance to make that a reality for me today. And I do love teaching, though each year of it is increasingly difficult physically. I just have to eat more spinach, keep talkin’ loik Popeye, and try not to die of Coronavirus.
And I have not yet gotten any kind of stimulus check from the gubbermint even though I know people who have. But I am happy that, for this month at least, the State of Texas is not yet bankrupt and ready, with Mitch McConnell’s permission, to cancel all future pension payments.
The Green Orion Slave Girl now has a new master, General Urk-Me, who will take her back to the Planet of the Apes to pick bananas.
So, if I can’t be all that funny today, at least I got a chance to complain. And I didn’t even manage to squeeze out any jokes about slave-girls, even though there is a definite slave-girl thing going on in the illustrations today.
Twi’lek Barbie is not a slave anymore. In fact, she’s free to use my library as often as she likes.
Catch a Falling Star 
On the Fritz
On this Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) I am a little perturbed that practically everything, including Star Wars, is on the fritz. My computer is on the fritz. It starts all sorts of programs and actions within programs without being prompted by a keystroke or click command. The picture I posted at the start of this essay had to be downloaded from Google twice because it downloaded the wrong selection for no reason. And then it had to be pasted into the block editor twice also because the first attempt failed to finish the transition.
Of course, for something “to be on the fritz” and be well understood, it would help if we knew the origin of the phrase. Unhelpfully, no one really knows how it was initially used. Was it a reference to something about Germans? “Fritz” was a common nickname for German soldiers in two world wars. But probably not. Germans are not always haywire.
I think it far more likely that the word is an onomatopoeia for the sound a radio makes when there is a short, it sparks, and then malfunctions, if not catches fire. That seems to me to be a much more fitting image to use for the way my computer works today with its faulty keyboard, and/or mouse pad. It also is a fitting definition for the condition our economy is in due to the pandemic.
But on this Star Wars Day, it is the most apt phrase to describe what has been done to the Star Wars Saga. Don’t get me wrong. I am an uncritical critic. I loved the Rise of Skywalker in the movie theater. The images and the action were great. But the writer in me did not appreciate how wires were crossed in the making of the latest trilogy. The resulting dumpster fire, while colorful and visually entertaining, caused the power of the story to be definitely “on the fritz”.
Character arcs were ruined. Kylo Ren went from evil secondary antagonist to big bad to heroic turn-around to… what? His character dies and disappears at the end. Why? How did he complete his arc?
Rey went from child of nobody to Jedi to possible Sith Lord to…? Where does she end up? Palpatine tells her if she kills him, his spirit will infuse her with Super Dark Side Power. She kills him anyway? Will she now try to destroy the universe in the next trilogy?
And what did Finn do besides ride a horse-thing in space?
But I’m not complaining. Even if the pandemic is going to kill me shortly, I have had a good life. I have seen all the Marvel movies so far. I taught English to well over 2,000 kids in a thirty-year teaching career. I wrote fifteen novels that I published. And no amount of sparks, fire, or fritzing is capable of changing all of that.
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