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.”
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.
These are not my two sons. The picture was drawn fifteen and ninteen years before they were born. Yet they were my two sons in the cartoon story this picture was lifted from.
Am I literally able to fortell the future? Of course not. But as an overly-sensitive artistical type one could argue that there is evidence in my art and writings that my reality now was at least partially embedded in my consciousness many years ago.
Estellia the Demoness
And truthfully, looking at the truth of things based on empirical evidence is what this point-of-view post is all about. We cannot always rely on the traditional concepts of good and evil as they have been taught to us. Sometimes you have to look at how the evidence stacks up properly, and just plain intuit a new way of seeing the whole picture. Yes, this is a portrait of a fifteen-year-old former student of mine. And she was definitely evil and difficult to deal with. But she went into nursing after high school. She works in the ER where her decisive ways and ferocious insistence on having things work out in her favor because that’s the way the established rules say it must be done turn into positive qualities that are probably saving lives in a Texas hospital as we speak. It is all in how you perceive the truth of a situation and then apply it.
Comedy, of course, depends greatly on rearranging your point of view. If you are going to make a joke about something, you have to re-mix and un-match the details in ways that still make a sort of sense to the reader or the hearer of the joke. I have taught at schools like Dudwhittler’s. If you are a teacher, you recognize that that school bus carries not only that which is funny, but also that which is very true. The teacher driving the bus is a tin man who easily rusts and cries too much, thus rusting further, but you can see he has earned his heart, even if he has to drive the bus on top of teaching so he will have enough money to buy food.
But probably the most anticipated thing from a new perspective that you were expecting since reading the title is a new perspective on the Coronavirus shut-down and economic depression. That alternative take is simply this… the pandemic, though extremely hard and painful, is a good thing that happened at the right time.
I am willing to say this, even though the way the virus has been mishandled in this country is going to very likely be the death of me, because there are benefits that we simply don’t recognize without a thorough punch to the gut and another to loose teeth.
It is a good thing because it will make it harder for Herr Fuhrer Pumpkinhead to win the next election, and he will probably take a number of corrupt Republicans down to the bottom of the sea with him.
It is a good thing because it is proving to us that we can survive on less and still make our way out of the bad situation.
It is a good thing because kids get extra time off from school, and probably also the chance to spend more time with the people who really teach them things we need them to know… like parents, grandparents on Zoom, teachers who don’t fear distance-learning technology, and trolls on the internet (Yes, I know that last one is risky and mainly learning the hard way, but it is also true from before the virus hit).
It is a good thing because the air is cleaner. And we have proven that we can make radical adjustments when it is a matter of life and death. And the environmental crisis is actually a matter of life and death.
So, now I’ve had my twisted say about my pretzel-minded perspective. And so you can now trash it, or possibly learn to like pretzels.
Nocturne 7 – The Prophecy Fulfilled (the White Thread)
Ged returned to the Palace of 1,ooo Years with a lot on his mind. But, in truth, the last thing he was thinking of was becoming a biological father.
As he was entering the apartment that he shared with the Lizard Lady, he was surprised to see her sitting at the table with her feet folded under her and a large green egg on the tabletop in front of her.
“What is this, Liz?”
“You have been busy, my love.”
“I have, yes.”
“So have I.”
Ged suddenly had an eerie feeling about what this all meant.
“Is that…?”
“It is. You must say hello to your firstborn son.”
“But that is an egg.”
“One cannot fool the White Spider.”
“Galtorrian females lay eggs?”
“We do. Its gestation still has another six lunars to go.”
“Six Gaijinese lunars? Ten Earther months?”
“That is correct. You were in Galtorrian form when he was conceived. He will be as pure-blooded as any Galtorrian ever is.”
“How do you know it is a boy? Is he already formed in the egg that way?”
“That I do not know. But this is the child of the prophecy. This will be Lizardboy Aero, heir of the White Spider.”
“You will tend the egg like a bird? On a nest?”
“Not quite. Shen Ming has the necessary incubators to raise a Galtorrian cub. Lizardboy will not be the first eggborn delivered on this planet.”
Ged knelt on the opposite side of the table.
“May I hold it?”
“Certainly. You are his father.”
Ged carefully took the leathery but firm egg from her. He turned it over and over in his hands, examining it carefully.
“My mother on Questor would never have believed this of her son if she were still among the living.”
“May Zhan keep her soul, and may she be blessed by her grandson from another world.”
“Are all Galtorrian purebloods born by eggs?”
“Not all. There is much Earther DNA in Galtorrians. They have been intertwined for more than three thousand of your Earth years. Possibly from a time even before our two home-worlds were ever aware of each other.”
“I know fusions like Phoenix and Taffy King were born the way Earth humans are born.”
“Yes. All fusions are born the Earther way. That is why they are so much more human-looking than I am.”
“Ah, but you are beautiful too. I admit, I never felt it at the beginning, but I do love you now. And I will love this boy as well.”
“Now comes the hard part, my love.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it hadn’t been for the Prophecy of Zhan, I would never have met you. But my part in the prophecy is not yet ended. I am still a spy in the service of the Imperium, and I still have a destiny to fulfill.”
“So… what does that mean for the two of us?”
“We must part for now. I will leave in the morning, heading back into the Imperium.”
“In what ship? There is only the Dragon and the Rooster on this planet now.”
“The prophecy says a scout ship will arrive tomorrow. I must be on it when it leaves.”
“How will I raise our son without his mother?”
“You will be a wonderful father. And young Sara Smith is not the only lovely little lady that will happily play mother to our son.”
Ged’s head was swimming with emotion. This parting was completely unexpected and unwanted.
I finished a novel a week ago. I am almost ready to start a new writing project. But severe sinus headaches and the extreme pollen count outside are slowing me down. It is alarming how green and bloomy this Spring is turning out to be. It is almost like something has magically taken the pollution out of the air and kept humans from spoiling the environment for over a month. There isn’t something out there I wasn’t aware of, is there? Beyond the pandemic and other consequences of the warming climate crisis, I mean?
My book is about a boy forced to make a new life for himself, being forced to live with a stepmother and two twin stepsisters he never met before the tragedy, and in the unfamiliar world of the nudist park where his father now lives with his new family.
But that is over now. New projects are about to take over my life. I plan on finishing AeroQuest 3 : Juggling Planets, But that is not my new work-in-progress. That is a rewrite of the novel I wrote and published in 2007 with a scammy publishing company that no longer exists. I also plan on furthering my graphic novel, Hidden Kingdom. I have been working on that thing in one form or another since college in the 70’s.
My next original writing project will probably be the novel The Wizard in his Keep. As A Field Guide to Fauns was the novel that finishes the arc of the character Sherry Cobble, this new novel will do the same for the wizard character from Superchicken, Milt Morgan. It will be about Milt’s adulthood computer wizardry and how he uses it to rescue lost orphans through a fictional world inspired by The Lord of the Rings. By that I mean Milt’s virtual-reality world will be all sword and sorcery, and revolve around a Robin-Hood-like boy-hero named Hoodwink. The in-game story, lived by the rescued orphans will magically re-unite Daisy and her two younger brothers with their lost family, though not their lost parents.
But, the whole point of this post is that things are going slower for me on this new project. The turn-around time from one novel to the next will not happen as quickly as the last time. I don’t have writer’s block. But I do have health problems. And today’s massive headache is a reminder that I am getting older fast. And there’s also a little matter of a coronavirus stalking me, hoping to catch and kill me. Ah, life just keeps getting easier!
Here I am back to doing D&D and Traveller on Saturdays. All of the art in this post was once used in conjunction with RPGs played with former students, and my own kids. I was always the game master in the past, and I used drawings and illustrations to help the imaginary adventures come to life.
Zoran-Viktor was a Mirin Ice Wizard from the Talislanta D&D campaign. The player of this character was Victor, a gifted dancer and actor from the school’s theater department. The Lawgiver was a powerful Non-Player Character in both D&D and Talislanta. The character design came from a metal figure I painted myself. Zoric was a Talislantan Thaumaturge, the player character of a weird kid who told x-rated jokes better than any other high-school boy I ever met.
Harun the Charmer was only ever used as a player-character once. The boy whose character it was provided the face I modeled it after. He was an absolutely arresting boy that had such a winning personality that people fell in love with him almost instantly.
He spent way more time helping another teacher grade papers than he did playing Talislanta games with goofy old Mr. B.
And I promise, only one of the facts presented here about Harun is a lie, in attempt to protect this young gentleman’s identity. We unfortunately lost him back in the 1990’s.
Crane the Sorcerer was an NPC trapped inside his own crystal ball by his own evil familiar well before my kids met him in the D&D adventure.
Viktor, the Snow Wizard of Ice Keep, was the father of Zoran Viktor. Victor loved playing Talislanta.
Ironically, after a week of posting about black humor and how fast the Coronavirus is going to kill me, I received the SunshineBlogger Award. You know what “ironically” means, right? It’s when a humorist makes a joke about you by throwing a flatiron at your head.
But an award like this comes with a price. So, here are the rules;
Thank the blogger who nominated you in the blog post and link back to their blog.
Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you.
Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.
List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog.
So, now that I have answered rules #1 and #4, let me begin answering questions about Mickey to fulfill #2.
Moyatori’s questions:
One; In a situation where you must initiate small talk, what’s your go-to topic?
I have more than 3o years experience in public school classrooms teaching every grade level from 6th through 12th. So, when I am in need of a small-talk topic, I naturally pull out the subject of what it is like to be a nudist, or how to be a clown, or what it takes to make a good joke for a comic strip (including a willingness to draw comic characters on napkins to illustrate the point.) I know you probably think at this point that you must have missed a transition in my answer somewhere. But every teacher knows you have to stand metaphorically naked in front of a group of 30+ kids six times a day for 50 minutes a shot. And if you can’t put on an entertaining show for the denizens of the classroom monkey house, they will eat you. And if you can get them to laugh about what they are learning, they will actually remember it.
Two; If there are 25 hours in a day, what would you do with the extra hour?
I would work hard to change it back to a twenty-four-hour day. After all, adding an hour to 365 days a year, 366 on leap year, would massively screw up the calendar and throw the seasons completely out of kilter. Who knows what environmental impacts such an astronomical change would have?
Three; Would you prefer to commute to work/school by flying carpet, pumpkin carriage, or ventilated glass coffin carried by coffin dancers?
Flying carpet! Are you kidding me? Of the three, that one is the most versatile and magical choice. You could go practically anywhere at any time. A pumpkin carriage is restricted to roads, and it turns into a pumpkin at midnight. Besides, you couldn’t use it the second day because the mice that pulled it would eat it during the night. And coffin dancers? That fellow Murphy the professional coffin dancer has one leg longer than the other. You would get bounced and bruised the whole way. And the glass might break. And a flying carpet often means there’s a geni flying around somewhere near. Could I ever use two more wishes!
Four; How many hours of sleep do you need each night to feel rested?
How can I possibly answer this? A human being normally needs about eight hours of sleep. A teacher only gets five hours maximum, because of grading papers, worrying about the next day’s bomb threats and/or pep rallies, and the possibility that cheerleaders will want to shave your head or throw pies at you to motivate your classes. Once the teacher becomes a parent, then only three hours if you are lucky. And once retired, arthritis pains keep you awake. Rested? What’s that?
Five; What’s the best food to eat when stressed? (Don’t tell me I’m the only stress eater here…)
Mmmm! Pie!!! Unfortunately, also diabetic. Hmmm… green beans?
Six; If you must immigrate to another country, where would you go?
The Merry Old Land of Oz. I would have no problem with wetting a couple of witches with cold water, and you can make yourself ruler there with a few lies and balloon tricks.
Seven; What kind of songs do you listen to at the end of a frustrating day?
Classical music. I would never joke about Debussy, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.
Eight; What’s the best dish you’ve made recently? Mind sharing your recipe with me?
Goofy Gumbo is made with 8 beef hot dogs cut into numerous nickel-sized pieces, fried on both sides, mixed in a bowl with hash browns, red and green peppers, and a can of chili with no beans. Microwave for six minutes. Serves a family of five, or two teenage boys… not both at the same time or there will be portion fights and poop jokes.
Nine; My mom wants to learn more English by watching more TV shows. She enjoyed Grey’s Anatomy and The Handmaid’s Tale, and likes “deep” stories with diverse casts. What TV show would you recommend my mom? (Totally not asking because I don’t watch enough TV.)
Forget about TV. Go to Netflix. Find Scooby Doo; Mystery Incorporated. Try hard not to die laughing.
Ten; What’s your favourite fairy tale, and why?
I prefer any or all of the Fractured Fairy Tales from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, the 60’s cartoon show. I like them because they always end with a moral to the story that is always punny.
Eleven; On a scale of cotton candy to razor blade dripping with your enemy’s blood, are you more wholesome or edgy?
I am almost precisely in the middle. I would rate myself at the clown in face paint that you don’t quite know if it’s funny or scary holding a lollipop in the right hand, but the left behind the back, potentially holding a chainsaw. The edginess is in my subtext.
I will have to add the list of eleven bloggers later, since most of the best ones I know don’t really like doing blogging awards. I need to get some permissions first, and I have to check my calendar to determne if I know what day I am dying from Covid 19.
So, if I can find eleven willing victims, here are the questions I will ask them;
Have you ever written a humorous post that doesn’t involve jokes about sex, poop, Donald Trump, or your tax accountant?
What is the strangest blog topic you have ever written an entire essay about?
Do you like kids? And if so, do you like them to be sweet… or do you have an alternative recipe? (Keep in mind I use a lot of metaphors and am probably not a cannibal.)
As a writer, do you like to use… long pauses? Sentence fragments? Or do you eschew writing like people actually talk, like using long, drawn-out, and adjectivelly over-filled run-on sentences that seem to go on and on as if the writer doesn’t have any idea where the brakes are?
What book has had the most influence over your writing? And was it a fiction book? Non-fiction book? Instructional manual about writing?
Briefly describe the person you can blame most vehemently for turning you into a writer. This counts as a question doesn’t it?
If you had to accurately describe your writing style with a single color, what color would it be, and why?
What writer, living or not, would be the be the best choice to write your life story? J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Dr. Suess, or somebody even better?
If you were imprisoned by Nazis at the South Pole, what penguin-related escape plot would you plan first?
Which, in your view, is the stupidest question Mickey has asked so far?
Who is your favorite comedian? (Discounting Mickey, of course, because he can’t retaliate anyway, and nobody actually reads his books or his blog.)
Catch a Falling Star 
Stepping Out of My Skin
Who exactly am I?
I know who I wish to be.
And I have a pretty clear idea
Of who I have actually been.
Bur do I have a notion of who I am now?
Have I finally awakened after watching…
The bowling of little green men?
I live inside the heads of characters,
And walk around in their imaginary lives.
I pretend to be someone I don’t want to be.
And then I try to break out again.
But the problems I have
Are not quite my own,
Though once they were
In the long-ago way back when.
I look into mirrors that are shattered,
And see myself twisted and grim.
And I complain about just what I see there,
And the poetry just does not rhyme.
Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I?
How?
Mostly I think
I’m that thing from the circus.
You know the one.
That thing that rhymes with brown.
But mostly also I think,
I am something entirely else.
A writer.
Yes, that’s the one.
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