10 Minute Rule

The nurse called back and told us to use bleach on anything we touch. I touched Carlos, my black glove leaving a wet smear on the hairs of his arm. I sprayed the spot playfully. He jumped back, almost hitting the edge of the sphere. He yelped. I giggled. I kept giggling, hearing the sound of my voice cascade off of the sphere.

I’ve never understood how echoes work. People say it has to do with space and curvatures. It probably has to do with dryness too. The large sphere at the center of the room probably wouldn’t force echoes if it were wet. I touched it with my gloved hand, imagining the hundreds of years and thousands of people who came to this place to watch the waters bubble up from the center of the sphere, cascading down the side like skin.

when I pulled my gloved hand away now it left an imprint in the dust. Carlos stood beside me, watching. His spray bottle hung limply in one hand, pointed at the rubble strewn floor of the cavern. The nurse was much further up ahead where Timothy had tripped over the loose stone and lost his balance. He’d scraped his hand badly on the side of a dusty wall. He’d hurt his head worse. Her tending to him meant she couldn’t watch me set my bottle down and place both hands on the sphere, moving my fingers through the thin layer of dust like an artist.

I wandered with my hands and wondered at how all things grow old and forgotten. In the dust the outline of a face took shape, emerging like an expression. Carlos watched me, quiet, his own hands opening and closing as if wanting to join me through a will of their own.

“paint with me.” I said.
he shook his head.
there is an invisible line between exploring a thing and defiling it. I don’t know when I crossed that line, when the face became a caricature of my own. I only noticed once I stepped back from the sphere, observing my work on the cold white marble. By then it was too late. The others were turning back, having reached as far into the cavernous temple as they dared, and now returning to collect the stragglers.

Carlos looked at me and giggled, the echoes of his voice breaking over the loops and twists I’d left in the dust of the sphere. I giggled too. Then I lifted my bottle and sprayed. I kept spraying until the bleach made a new skin on the marble and the trickle of it dashed away the echoes of the past.

This is the first time things with the airbnb have gone really badly. We’ve been building to it. Internet going down, water going out, but now we are one story below a teenage weed smoking party where the majority of the guests have already walked by our space and stared in the window like we’re on display.

Some things to know: The location is the first floor of the family home and has sub-basic screening. The family needs to walk by our space to get in and out of their space. There is a window looking in on us right in the path of their walk and it does not have a curtain. There is another window in the bathroom, unavoidable when entering the property and that too does not have a curtain. All of this has been manageable because the family is pretty good about not getting in our business. However, tonight there is a party for the young people–teenagers hovering around the age of 19. They are smoking and having fun and have little concern about our privacy. I want to close the blinds I can close and turn on the AC but that thing is pumping out heat. So, I’m trapped in a heat box with windows I still cannot cover.

To make matters even worse, they’ve activated lights that haven’t been on the entire time we’ve been here and those are shining in our one uncovered window. So, this is what it means to stay in a rental where the family is still there. The unpredictability and uncomfortability of the situation is absurd. Thankfully we’re in the section of our trip where we travel to other places (sidequesting) and stay elsewhere. So, once we make it through tonight we will be off this for a few nights.

I can use the reset.

I might want to live here.

There is the beach, there is the relaxed flow of life, there is the sun that doesn’t set till long past 9pm. I feel completely relaxed and refreshed in this space. I feel like I get everything I need here in Castelldefels. I don’t know the language, and this is of course a problem, but I would be willing to learn as a way to spend more time in the space. Its this or Italy thus far, and both present themselves as excellent options, though I’ve had far worse luck with Italian beaches–for one they are generally pay to play and crowded. Also, the beach culture here is more relaxed in every possible way.

Putting these male proclivities aside, the measure of these places thins a bit. Italy has its own magic. Pizza and magic. And pizza. That being said, the other contrast is that we’ve found ourselves in a small suburb that we can move about easily and is bustling with energy where we need it to be and always chill on the walk home. I like that, said the old New Yorker. I like being able to control what sort of pace I am getting into. That isn’t a New York option for the most part. It is more of a Italy option, but living in the margins in Italy is a harder sell. Perhaps the key is to have more experiences.

We spend our summers in exploration. I’ve considered and discussed the possibility of coming back to this place to see if we like life here. I know we like this city, but Barcelona doesn’t hold a candle to Italy. This is where the real separation occurs. I don’t know what we would do if we lived here. Perhaps the key is to live in Italy and discover what wonders lay coastally?

These are wonderful problems to have. First world problems I never thought I would measure my life by. Yet here I am on the first leg of an extended summer vacation which will bring me from Spain, to Tennessee, and eventually to wedlock in British Columbia. Sometimes it’s good to be the Talislegger.

I’m sliding into week two of a microfiction course that I thought would bring me endless blog energy. It has not. In truth it has inspired almost no writing thus far. I have to allow for the fact that my mind is locked into novel mode. This could be a reason why the writing is not flowing in all directions. Quite a lot of energy is being directed towards turning a bush into a bonsai.

At the end of that activity I expect there is going to be a flurry of writing in all directions as I move back into two other novel projects, a Shadowrun sourcebook, and perhaps another punk-esque project I can only hope still has wordcount by the time I am done with the novel. In the meanwhile the key appears to be pacing myself to write this at a regular rate while reading through a flurry of microfiction that will, eventually, trigger interest in operating in said genre.

I have written microfiction. Every chapter lead in I’ve written is a form of microfiction, though these haven’t been very good. I was hoping that understanding the bones of the system would teach me how to write them for the genre and for other genres–including smaller pieces as part of the thesis novel I am working on (or plan to be shortly). Micro is about creating a meaningful impression of a story, and I am learning exactly what that means through a multitude of examples. I intend to try more of it as the class goes on, and hopefully some of that will happen in these ten minute bursts.

It just hasn’t really happen yet.

walking through Barcelona today I realized how blessed and beautiful my life truly has become. I want to remain the sort of person who doesn’t forget these things and instead honors them by taking the opportunity to the limits of what it is. This is what has led me to what I like to call “side quest energy”. For me this means taking a trip within my trip that is entirely spontaneous and different from the adventure I’m presently on.

That’s a tough out on this one. We already have a beach adventure and Madrid lined up over the next week. We did most of our Gaudi tour and have rambled and Rambla’d through several areas of the city. So, what’s the side quest? The Lady Talis through out Valencia on a lark. I responded with yea, but Caddeques?

We are loaded with options but low on time so whatever we end up doing is going to be short and impactful. I’m excited to see what happens

I’m 82 days into this new iteration and a lot has changed. Most of these changes are the result of season. We get out of the desert in the summer, so I move more by defailt. I’m moving a lot more. 5 miles today and I really was trying to take a day off. Tomorrow is a huge one and most of it involving hills. So, I’m giving my body the work it needs to become better. I re-started the daily workouts, if slowly. I am trying to build to a level of activity that will keep me alive and healthy over the next thiry or more years. I want the years. I want to be able to enjoy them. You don’t remarry at 50 to live a handful of crappy years. You do it to start a new life and in that life be able to enjoy exploring the world with the person you.

At least, that’s my take on it.

I’m tired and the words are coming slower than natural. It’s been a tough word day. 4 hours on a single chapter today. I got it done, but it took a ton out of me. It also was not the chapter I envisioned. It takes the story in a better direction, I hope, but I didn’t see it coming. This tells me the remaining edits are going to be tougher than envisions. I intend to get through all of that in the next 30-45 days max. I need to get this done and to the publisher. It’s been too long since the last one.

the phone autocorrected to sore thoughts and it may have been prescient, because my feet are tired. We’ve spent the past few days walking the streets of Barcelona to the tune of 8 miles a day. It’s a dramatic shift from the average AZ miles of 1.5. I’ve grown accustomed to these shifts over the seasons. Between weather and activity, I tend to do better either in the AZ winter or when I’ve been granted the blessing of leaving the country. I’m in the latter zone now and loving it. I’m surrounded by beauty in every possible meaning of the word. Even the old dog and young cat who wander up to our door daily are beautiful and wonderful creatures.

No doubt the joy and wonder is inspired by being in a space alone with the Lady Talis and also not being anywhere near the USA at present. I can turn the flood of darkness off at will. I can also drink in the beauty of the land and the sand and the water. I can wake up when I want and go to sleep when the urge strikes. All of these point to a solid attitude. The only issue dragging me down is a failure to move at a reasonable speed with these novel revisions. It needs to happen faster. I need to do this not only for the publisher and editor but for myself. I’m not writing the kind of literary fiction an audience will wait for. I need to turn over novels every six months. I need to prove that I can reliably do so, and I have yet to this far. This book is beyond being that proof, but it is going to need to both get done soon and be killer good. My reputation is at stake here.

I’m convinced it’s going to be a good one. The rest I’m going to need to work out sooner than later. Tomorrow, actually. No beach for me until I manifest another chapter.

I’m officially worried about the future of my country.

I thought, at first, that it would be a blip. A handful of bad actors had finally gathered enough power and momentum to wreck some of the fundamental systems of the nation. They were doing it for financial and ideological purposes. They wanted to increase their wealth and power while restoring their idea of a nation that was fundamentally white first. Then I watched how quickly they moved and how quickly the rest of the country capitulated to the actions. That is when I got really scared.

Let me be clear: The America I saw being created over the last 50 years is dead. What we are witnessing now is a dramatic shift in nature that can nor will be undone in my lifetime. This new America is one where I don’t know I will have a place in as a first class citizen. The very idea of citizenship with different classes is one first put in my psyche by the Lady Talis, and based on what I’ve read and observed, she is right. We are letting the worst of us lead and as they are doing so at a nearly 50% approval rating, the hits will keep on coming. We will not survive this as a recognizable nation. This is not hyperbole. This is a trending fact.

The Justice Department just cut half a billion dollars, practically all of their funding allotment to Public Safety Grants. Why? To save money, though for what purpose they have not explained. The sad reality behind these cuts is that they will make the streets more dangerous. They will help push us towards that level of violence in the streets that Fox news has long betrayed as reality but has always been false and at the most, exaggerated.

My opinion on these things is straight forward: This is a power group that maintains control through fear, so they must create the conditions to instill fear. The media is not enough. They need real incidents to use to bolster their agenda.

I’m out of time, so I’ll say more moving forward, but the key is that I will say more. Things need to be said publicly. People need to see what is happening if we are to have any shot of stopping it.

It is almost too late.

I was trying to layout content for my class. This is easy work–low hanging fruit I do when the mind is not able to process story in a relevant way. I could not make it happen. I don’t know what that shift is or when it occurred, but I am no longer in that teacher mindset. I’m writing before I’m developing teaching content. That’s dope. That makes teaching work again, which isn’t dope, but it is super nice to have that sensation that the writing is what matters and be able to mild stories first and foremost.

Over the last few days we’ve been traveling around the city and I’ve been able to use the transit time effectively, making notes in the google doc to sort out later. Now is going to be that imagined later as I feel like that is the one and most important thing on my agenda. Do I have to prepare and release my classes for the 27th? Yes, but it is only the 24th! I have days to get there and the story is full on my mind. There are three separate chapters that I have a handle on, and getting those right will trigger the next domino, all the way down to where I know there is story I have to build from scratch. Heck, I knew I should’ve built it in the first place. It just did not go that way.

I love that I am excited about writing. I love that it holds the pole position in my brain. So, I need to do it.

Some Thoughts:

1. Well, that came out a lot faster than I thought. I have several minutes left in the blog, which means some thoughts will follow. These are going to be dark, because my head has some darkness to release.
2. The latest round of reports about the atrocities taking place in Gaza are out. They’ll go away quietly and quickly, so let me sum it up here: The people of Gaza are being used as human shields by the Isreali military. To make matters worse, few care. Why? Because Muslim lives DO NOT MATTER. The faith is inextricably tied to terrorism in most 1st world countries, which makes the Palenstinians a less-than population. They aren’t oil rich in a way where they can protect their oil like the Saudi’s and their ilk. They are the pawns in this greater wargame and they are being brutally sacrificed.
3. Gaza is going to be taken over by someone and it is going to happen over the next few years. The Isrealis already said they’re doing it, and the news coverage on it was minimal at best. As I said, NOBODY CARES. For whatever reason the population is viewed as less than. The terrible thing that happened due to Hamas is being used as further evidence that nobody from that region deserves to be treated as a person. So they are not being treated as people. They are being treated as baggage and as a problem in need of a solution. This is actual sanctioned genocide at work and we are not only watching it happen, but letting it happen.

I’m listening to Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Zafon. The language and the idea of the story brings to mind a particular mindset born of an idea I had long ago. Once, I believed that books—story—was an ocean. I believed that the type of stories I read became the water I drank and felt against my skin. In that way I became acclimated to a particular way of being. I learned that I wrote, and on occasion, spoke in the diction of the language I consumed. It occurred to me that writers were always adding stories to the oceans they consume. Few started their own bodies of water and the ones who did we knew, even moreso than the one that made great waves on these established oceans with frothing white crests of acknowledgement.

Reading Zafon is very different from other reading I do so very often. I read him and feel my words impacted by the reading, shifting from the style and character of the stories I often tell. These diversions are always a plus.

ideally I will be able to merge these waters into a new style, a new body of thought and imagination that washes over my readers. I’m hopeful that I can do so, and that it sounds authentic as opposed to borrowed and unreal. Reading is writing. Writing is imitation in its most flattering form. Ones voice is an echo of their experience both in consuming and experiencing. Therefore to expand the boundaries of both is the most useful pathway to understanding and creating good things.