Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

can you believe

I'm having another period

so

that's three this year

maybe that's why

the bad sleep issues

I love you very much sweetheart

I hope you're well

Well I went to sleep watching a clip from Spalding Gray swimming to Cambodia

Where he's talking about being on the train and the guy telling him about working in the waterproof basement with the green button and how he's a swinger and he gets an erection thinking about launching nuclear missiles to destroy the Soviet Union

And I woke up thinking about the pina colada song

Oh there's a way in which the pina colada song represents a sort of '70s romanticism

I mean if you think about it

Here are these people that are presumably married to each other but perhaps not perhaps just living together and they're both kind of tired of each other and they want romance and you know this very kind of personal ad idealized version of what they like right

Pina coladas

Getting caught in the rain

Champagne over health food

Making love at midnight in the dunes by the cape

Just a very idea that you would write a personal ad like that and someone wouldn't answer it and then you would run off and have this romantic adventure right

So he goes to the bar to meet the woman who's answering his personal ad

And it turns out to be his old lady

So here they've been in this relationship and they never knew about each other that this was what they were both secretly longing for right

Well I mean inherent in that is that they were both actually with the right person all along they just didn't do enough to find out about the person they were with to know that they were perfect for each other

So it's all about communication and therapy and whatnot all of a sudden

But it's also about a couple who were trying to cheat on each other

And there's a complexity in that

That even though it's a super cheesy song

Actually contains

Like the possibility of actual

Something you know

As opposed to the idea you know don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me

Well that's you know romantic and all

But it posits the romance in a different way

There it's like calling back a nostalgia of you know we sat under the apple tree and had this beautiful picnic or make out session or whatever we did under the apple tree

And A) don't do that with anybody else cuz we're now the exclusive property of each other but also B) if you sat under the apple tree with somebody else even if you weren't doing it in the same capacity because with the exclusive property of each other you would be denigrating the memory of that experience so like don't sit under the apple tree with your sister or your best friend either because that's our special spot

So then suddenly that doesn't become so very romantic it becomes kind of gross

So it's like turning it on its head you know The piña colada song it starts off ostensibly kind of gross and anti-romantic but actually it has the potential of resolution in a way that is actually romantically humanly fulfilling you know and I'm saying we've acknowledged that we aren't the exclusive property of each other and in seeing that we could be with somebody else if we wanted to we find that the somebody else we want to be with is actually each other

And that's the kind of things I think about

Good morning sweetheart

I'm going to go make some coffee and see if the cat has any food left in his dish

I suspect he does

Because he hasn't been hassling me

My cat is very frustrated with me because I have been leaning across the bed kind of stretching my back while I've been dictating this stuff and he's laying right next to me going come on it's time for bed come on you're in the bed and while you're not doing anything you could pat me

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I had kind of an epiphany

I've been trying to wrap my head around this stuff I kind of want to write

It's all about America

And I kept wanting to make it a mystery

And I kept wanting to make it very complicated and you know postmodern and whatever

But you know when I pictured myself writing a novel when I was younger when I would actually try to write parts of a novel anything that I ever felt really good about was written as though I was talking to the reader it wasn't you know this complicated structure and plot and whatnot it was kind of a direct connection to the reader and whenever I start trying to write the way I think I want to write

I hate it and I hate doing it

So since I wanted it to be a mystery I was listening to all these mysteries

And I came to the realization that the thing I like about the mysteries isn't really the mystery it isn't really the structure it's really the getting inside of the character and you know I don't really know what to call it exactly but you know it doesn't have anything to do with the mystery I don't give a s*** who killed the person

And you know I heard a thing well I make it sound like it just appeared in front of me no I looked up a video and I don't remember what I was looking for but what I found was Stephen King and I'm pretty sure I was not looking up Stephen King because even though there are things about his writing that I really really like a lot of his stuff there are things I don't like about it

And although I recognize that he is a very successful American writer and maybe the fact that he has been so popularly successful is part of why I have this kind of block against him and I say things like oh Stephen King is a hack but it that isn't really true I don't really think he's a hack exactly and he's got talent

But I'm just saying this because I want you to know that I was not specifically looking for advice from Stephen King but in fact that was who gave me the piece of advice that after I shoot on it for several days or a week finally led to my epiphany

I'm going to tell you some other stuff that he said too people were asking him you know how do you write so many books and he's like well you know I get up and I write for about 3 hours a day and that gives me six pages and six pages is a book in too months

And they're like no it's not That's enough pages to be a book but surely you don't just sit down and write it in its finished form

And he's like yes I do

I think it all out in my head I don't keep a journal I don't take notes people are always asking me why I don't do that I don't do that he's like the good stuff sticks around and this stuff that falls away wasn't that good anyway now I don't know if I 100% agree with him on that but that is the way I have always written

Even when I was going to write like a paper for school I would think about it I would run it all through my head and I would think about what I was going to say and all the angles and everything and then I would sit down and just write it I didn't write a first draft and a second draft I mean I would write a draft and then I would go through and proofread it and change you know spelling and grammar and anything I screwed up on but it was you know 99% the same

And I'm not saying that you know I could write a novel that way I don't know if I could write a novel that way because I haven't done it but that does match the way I've always written and it was interesting to me that that's how Stephen King writes because he would not have been my role model

He would be someone my mother would have liked to have be my role model and she was the one that was always making me not want to write

But the thing that he said that actually led to my epiphany was you know that people don't care about plot and structure they care about your characters and you shouldn't let he didn't say it exactly like that he it was a lot more of an off-handed comment but it was like you shouldn't let that plot stuff get in the way

He's like you know I didn't think that the shining was going to end the way it was going to end That's just where it took me

And he didn't think Salem's lot was going to end where it was going to end either

So I mean

I guess you'd say that he's a pantser

Rather than a outliner

But I probably still have made the epiphany clear The epiphany was that what is important is the connection with the character not all that structure and complicated literary stuff I like the complicated literary stuff but that isn't enough for me You know I'll start reading something and I might love the way it's written but if I don't connect with the character then it doesn't matter

And just now I had an epiphany this is the epiphany

I'm all trying to be Thomas Pynchon

When who I am is a lot closer to Sarah Vowell

And what I'm trying to write is not a mystery mean it is a mystery but it isn't a mystery like who done it it's a mystery like what the f*** happened to America but then maybe it isn't even a question of what the f*** happened to America maybe America's always been like this and I was just diluted and I didn't think I was diluted I thought I was super jaded

So what I decided over the course of the last few days that I've been working on it I mean it's gone through a bunch of iterations and I've got stuff but it doesn't need to be a big complicated convoluted structured thing that's horrible

Would it needs to be is individual pieces that are connected to the theme but are individual pieces and they need to be something that is kind of an essay kind of a short story kind of a monologue kind of a stand-up routine

Where I'm using metaphors to talk about what I'm talking about and I'm talking directly to the reader it seems to me that that essentially is what I do well if I do that well but it doesn't make sense to say hey I have this thing to express and so in the expressing of it what I'm going to do is make it into a thing that I don't know how to do

That I have to completely learn a new way of being to execute

I will grant you that is the kind of way that I think but you know I mean how s***** is that to myself I mean what in essence I'm saying is that everything I've ever done is crap

Or maybe that's not what I'm saying but it feels like that's what I'm saying like I have to write some great American novel and it has to be some sort of literary standard and so it has to be this complicated thing that I have to create the wheel for

But why does it have to be that

Nobody wants to read that anyway

I mean am I such a pretentious little turd

Did I have to write the kind of book that only a very small percentage of the people would want to read

So no

Not going to do that

If I'm playing to my strong suit which I don't see any reason not to I mean how does it make sense to not play to my strong suit

Then what I need to do is you know what I do

And yeah it's kind of crazy and magical realism me because my life is like that that isn't like some s*** I'm going to have to make up That's how I see the world

How I see the world is weird

And that's the thing that has value

So I don't need to make it weirder it can just be the normal amount of weird

Life in the time of grackles

Golden America

Night kitchen

The future: reality TV

Then I don't really know about the one with the people in the desert I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say with that yet

And then there's another thing that's like how come nobody wants to buy the world a coke anymore oh my God what decade are you from

And there's more it's bits and pieces it's not connected yet what I need to do is figure out what all of the things are that I want to say and then say them

I always find it a little frustrating when it takes a really long time to come to a very obvious realization

Hey I'm having a coke

I ordered Chinese food

Because suddenly I had to have broccoli

And the plate that I ordered apparently came with a Coke well I could have had a 7 up or a Dr pepper or something else but I was like I haven't had a Coke in years in fact I couldn't tell you in the last time I had a Coke was the last time I had a Coke it was a diet Coke probably the last three times I had Cokes were diet Cokes and I haven't had any kind of Coke for years

So I mean it could have been like 5 7 I don't know a long time since I've had like a regular Coke

But it kind of takes like Pepsi to me

I mean I guess it's still got that tang that a coke has but it tastes more like a Pepsi than it should

I never liked Pepsi cuz it was too sweet and it didn't have that kind of bitter almond edge

I guess this still has the bitter almond edge but it's too sweet

Although I think the last time I had a real coke I said wow that's too sweet also

I want more of that bitter almond

I have some bubble water I could dilute it but I don't think I will like it better diluted although maybe maybe I will I don't know I don't know

Did they change the formula

Hey

You know I've given you floss recommendations but now I have a toothpaste recommendation

I have used fluoride free toothpaste

Most of my life

And every once in awhile I throw in some fluoride just in case

Like hedging my bets you know is it toxic is it not toxic or your teeth not okay if they don't have fluoride you know who knows

Plenty of indigenous people with beautiful teeth who never used fluoride

Plenty of people who've used fluoride toothpaste that have bad teeth

I don't think fluoride is like the answer

It does harden teeth I mean that's been scientifically proven

But it's fluoride good for your body

To be honest with you I just kind of believed the health foodie people and assumed it was not and maybe that wasn't right but whatever you know

But recently I have been all into Japanese stuff and somehow in the course of that I can't remember why or where or for what reason I found out that Japanese people in Japan mostly don't use fluoride toothpaste it's not recommended by their doctors what is recommended instead is nano hydroxyapatite

Which is allegedly the stuffed teeth are made of so if you brush with that it like fills in all your little holes and you know builds up your teeth and remineralizes them blah blah blah

And I haven't vetted that either like I haven't looked up all the scientific research and whatnot I just believed people

The toothpaste I've been using for years that I really like was out of stock and I needed something different and so I thought well I'll try this but I got a brand called Roswell no not Roswell risewell thank you except that should have been capitalized too but whatever and it's kind of a selfie product it looks really pretty but it's expensive and as I started using it I realized it's got some things that aren't the best about it like it's in a plastic tube so it doesn't squeeze down so it's really hard to tell how much you have left in there and it didn't seem to have that much I mean I went through it a lot faster at least I think I'm almost out of it I'm not really sure but it's not wanting to come out now so I don't know not really any way to squeeze the tube down and get the last little bit out

And it's kind of a gel-like texture but not like a thick gel like a kind of a thin gel and it's got a very delicate mint flavor it's okay I mean I don't hate it I like it but I was like well it seems to be almost empty so let's try something different because this has some issues so I don't think it's the winner so I found this one

and I really really like it

It's got a paste texture that's not exactly the same texture is like your crest or pepcid or whatever but it's a nice texture I like it I like it better in fact than traditional toothpaste texture and it's got a more assertive flavor it's got it's got some baking soda in it it's got peppermint oil spearmint oil anise seed extract and wintergreen oil as well as some stevia and it's got xylitol which birches really good for your teeth as well it's ant i-cavity really anti-cavity oh now you'll say anti-cavity okay and it's got calcium carbonate and silica plus the baking soda so it's it's a little bit whitening it says for sensitive and whitening but you know I find that my teeth are not naturally white they're naturally kind of translucent and so then when they get stained they have a tendency to look not the most beautiful so when something whitens my teeth I notice it pretty much right away and I've been using this for about I don't know 3 days and my teeth already look really good to me so obviously it's not the only nanohydroxy appetite toothpaste but it's a big too tube tube and it's good it's enjoyable oh and it comes with a tube key for you to roll down on the end of it which I haven't had to do yet because I've only been using it for 3 days but that is cool thing

But if you're going to buy it just be careful cuz there are a bunch of different kinds of David toothpaste most of them aren't nanohydroxy appetite but there is another one that's hydroxyapatite that's got charcoal in it

And if you can brush with charcoal toothpaste then you win

Because I could not do that I tried it's supposed to be whitening and so good for you and whatever but it just I cannot The flavor the texture the mess all of those things are just a big uhuh for me

Hope you're having a good day sweetheart 💋

I slept really badly last night

And I had been feeling bad all day

So I went to bed at like 6:30 or so

But I guess I didn't tell you I thought I did but I guess I didn't so I'm up now to pee

And I'm going back to bed

I think I should have slept well for the time I've been asleep

But I still don't feel very well I had hurt

I'm congested

Which could quite easily be allergies

The idea of food seems pretty unappealing

I'm going back to bed now

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

 well i finished   A Midsummer's Experiment

it was completely different than the Mas books

and

i think keigo higashino is like a best-selling type author in japan

the detective doesn't have as much personal importance in the novel

[it's the third, not the first, but still]

but

the mystery is very well constructed

and the world of the mystery is also

it's not like my favorite book ever or anything

but it was solid

highly recommend

i'm about half way through  snow country

by yasunai kawabata

which is beautifully written

but

a real downer

don't really recommend

i love you sweetheart

hope all is well 

💋💋💋💋💋

💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

💋💋💋💋💋

Oh and Venus Williams has a sunscreen well actually she's got two of them One is a sunscreen serum which I think just means it's very thin and absorbs into your skin very quickly and the other one I think is more of a normal cream texture

Their physical sunscreens made with zinc oxide and they are transparent which usually zinc is not transparent usually it leaves a white cast to some degree or another but this I've watched multiple people on videos applying it and it just absorbs right in and there's no white cast it looks amazing

But her sunscreen brand is called Eleven

And I don't know why

Seems like they would be a story with that

I did try to do a search on it

But as I said I'm exhausted and not very coherent so possibly I didn't do a very good search but I couldn't find a reason

And I'm super curious

Cuz for some reason I think it's really cool that it's called Eleven

So I like need the backstory

And when I was asleep I had these really involved dreams in locations I've had dreams in before

And it's just on the edge of my brain but I cannot remember

Okay so when I said good night last night I went and gotten to bed but I could not fall asleep so I just lay in bed for like 4 or 5 hours and then I said f*** it I'll just get up

And I had a couple things I needed to do so I did those and then I fell asleep in the chair but leaning back and made my neck very stiff and sore so that's fun

And then I woke up and said oh I fell asleep in the chair

And then I proceeded to fall asleep in the chair again

It gets dark too early now I don't like that

Anyway I think since I've well I mean I guess I can't say I've been up for more than 24 hours cuz I was just asleep for some amount of time but prior to being asleep for some amount of time I was up for 24 hours a little more than 24 hours I think but I'm disoriented and exhausted so so much for my oh I can totally stay up for 24 hours thing

I think sometimes I can but I think the fact that I went and laid down for 4 or 5 hours made my body think I was supposed to be asleep but then I wasn't so I don't know I'm all turned around

I'm going to go to sleep I'm probably not going to do it right this second but I'm going to go ahead and say good night because I don't trust myself to realize that I didn't do what already

I love you very much sweetheart 💋

Goodnight sweetheart I love you very much 💋

I fell asleep

I didn't say goodnight

sorry

I'm not sure I'm up yet

I love you very much

Good morning sweetheart

💋💋💋💋💋

💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

💋💋💋💋💋

 

Love you

Love you

Sleeping now

💋💋💋💋💋

So in addition to the seven books I read last month

I read parts of like I don't know four or five more books that I just couldn't get into

So I don't know this month I think I'm going to set my goal for eight books

But I think some of them I'm going to actually read read instead of just listen to

But I've started on a Japanese another Japanese mystery audible was having a sale and so I got

It's called midsummer's equation

By keigo higashino

And this is actually not the first book in the series it's like the third book in a series

But with mysteries a lot of times you can pick up a book that's in the middle of the series and still enjoy it he has a bunch of books so if I like his writing there are I don't know 15 books or something

Not all in the same series

Just for clarification

Sometimes I need clarification

This is my telling you about my reading stuff might not be interesting to you but it's kind of a big deal to me because I used to read all the time constantly and then somehow I got out of it

I think maybe it was when I was working so much

Did I just got to be reading less

And I had a hard time finding things that I wanted to read

You know because like last month I read seven books but they were five I started that I didn't read and some of those I'll go back and read later but some of them I probably won't

And I'm kind of trying to analyze what it is about a book that makes it something I want to continue to read

And there is like a minimum requirement of a certain amount of writing style

But that isn't the only thing that's like a necessary but not sufficient kind of thing

So I'm telling you about this stuff for its own sake not to be trying to tell you something else

I love you very much sweetheart

Yes Please

 i'm going to sleep now

i love you very much sweetheart  *kiss*

i finished 7 books this month

i had to quit the moonstone for a while

i was enjoying it

but

i wasn't really connecting with it

and

i needed another naomi hirahara

iced in paradise

i just really connect with her characters for some reason