An Assessment

Where am I at today? I feel like it's another glass-half-empty day, though there's no real reason to feel that way (other than, perhaps, a bit of a hangover). My objectives of the day were: do my taxes (complete), go to Cooperage (complete), bring my laundry up from the basement (to be completed), and podcast (failed). I'm in a weird place emotionally; I feel like my insides are being squeezed. I'm a mess - and unwarranted stress and the feeling of not having accomplished anything twist me up inside.

The doodle on this particular document.

I must produce something soon something soon. It feels like every obligation - from eating to laundry to friends to work - is a fishhook ripping at my skin as I try to walk forward. I am impatient for success but lazy in pursuit. This impatience, however, has not bred haste; rather it's only fed frustration, planting a seed around which other stresses have grown. Around which my waistline has grown.

The Squire

I was sweating so much even shifting my weight produced an audible squish as the soaked padding squeezed between iron and flesh. It was at this point I realized I just wanted him to kill me.

Him, of course, referring to Sir Kim. A master swordsman from the orient, he had come to our little section of the world to challenge the best fighters we had to offer. A tripartite pursuit of knowledge, fame, and wealth had thus far earned him a reputation in hundreds of taverns, scores of courts, and dozens of languages. He was undefeated and, I suspected, would remain so after this particular fight.

Entropy

Entropy, amusingly, creates crystal and chaos. It takes all matter and reduces it slowly to its most stable form. This is often called its "ground state".

Tom was feeling his ground state this morning. He strained to open one eye to survey his surrounds - he knew he was on a carpeted floor, but wasn't entirely sure whose floor it was. The lanky man did his best to push through his half-dream haze to recall what had happened the previous evening. For every certain memory, however, a half dozen false memories had to be flushed out - he was certain, for example, that he hadn't done shots with his ninth-grade biology teacher, but he was certain shots had been involved.

Curiosity Rover

[Third of three. Written Round Robin style on 16 Feb '17. JM & WW coauthors. Some small corrections, but mostly untouched.]

Few enthusiasts remembered the original Curiosity Rover, one of the earliest unmanned missions to Mars. It had been nearly a century since its last transmission - or, at least, since we had received a transmission. That is why the lab was in a frenzy - we had received a transmission!

The frequency was ancient, as far as anyone knew, but NASA didn't receive this one - it came from SETI.

"Sir! We've finally decoded the signal!"

Inspiration art by me.

Butts. Buttholes

Butts. Buttholes. Fucky shitwits. Groaning gut guzzlers. Fucking five finger flowmax furbies. Suck monsters. Major dickwad. Duncan dipshit. Double dick Derek decides dumb drumroll - PLEASE! Hunkajunk funky bunch in the trunk. Farts.

---

Might have a bit of writer's block. Wrote this instead of writing. Now I'm posting this instead of writing.

Keith's Shame

[Second of three. Written Round Robin style on 16 Feb '17. JM & WW coauthors. Some small corrections, but mostly untouched.]

Keith was never very good at dealing with shame.

"I can't fucking believe she'd share that," he groaned. His secret life as a cult leader had crept into his normal, ordinary life in this suburban town. It seemed everywhere he went, all eyes were on him.

Inspiration Art by WW

Portal Crotch

[First of three. Written Round Robin style on 16 Feb '17. JM & WW coauthors. Some small corrections, but mostly untouched.]

I stared my crotch right in the face, knowing damn well what it was up to. The knocking told my crotch that it was to start the ceremony. The guests were the best Craigslist had to offer, but really, you get what you pay for. Let's face it though, my crotch didn't have much money. The door swung open slowly, revealing two men and a woman.

"Are you Keith? Your girlfriend promised discretion..."

Inspiration Art by JM

On Gerrymandering

I used to have a political blog, but now I don't, so I'll post this here:

I've been seeing a lot of talk about redistricting and gerrymandering recently. To my reform-minded friends of all stripes, might I suggest that redistricting is only a small part of the puzzle and arguably both the least important and least likely to succeed.

The easiest and most likely to succeed reform we can make for our single-member district system is to require a MAJORITY of the vote. Right now, in every election, we have a system called "First Past The Post" - you get the most votes and you win. This creates the spoiler problem we're all familiar with - if you vote for the candidate you want to win, it's possible that you draw votes away from your second choice (see: the rhetoric against Stein and Johnson this past election). This shouldn't happen and it's easily fixed. Contact your State representatives (NOT Federal - I really mean the people who are in your State capital) and ask for legislation to require a majority of votes in single-member district elections.

Much harder but much more important is to push for some form of PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. Go ahead and look at election results in your area by party. Now look at the makeup of Congress. Look at the makeup of your State legislature. Look at the makeup of your city/county legislative body. It's weird that none of them match the votes, right? If citizens vote for 40% Pizza Party, 35% Birthday Party, and 25% Bachelor Party, we would expect the legislature to match the preference of the citizens, not gamed so that, say, Birthday Party has 55% of the seats. I hesitate to dwell on recommendations for proportional representation, but I did want to bring it to your attention - it would, after all, make gerrymandering obsolete.

*** Philadelphia Friends, we could institute a system called "Mixed Member Proportional Representation" in Philadelphia City Council which would open the door to better and more diverse representation with ease. Our Council and our voting machines are already set up for it - with 10 districts and 7 at-large members, it's as easy as flipping a switch. ***

Reformist friends, you have my apologies for the length of this post. I'm also sorry I don't have cool graphics or a catchy "the second way to improve democracy will SHOCK you!" headline that might make you "Like & Share!". But I felt it was important to get this out there.

I'll gladly talk your ear off about voting systems at any time - that's what I have my degree in, after all - but assuming you want to hear it from someone who's not me, I do highly recommend checking out CGP Grey's YouTube series on "Politics in the Animal Kingdom".

So, fight your fight against Gerrymandering - it's important to do so! But make sure to add Majority (easier) and Proportional Representation (more important) to your list of "fightin' words".

"Costis' Room"

He returned to his room, crestfallen, the day's events weighing heavily on his heart. He was the King's man, but he took no pleasure in today's particular duties.

The muscular man eased himself onto his bed, wincing with each small movement. He rubbed some salve onto the scrapes and smaller wounds not already bandaged by the temple's healer a short time earlier. He squeezed away the shill in his hands and lit two more candles at his beside, vowing to light his small fireplace in a moment or two.

"Ben's House"

Her hands trembled uncontrollably and she felt moments away from being sick. Still though, she approached the door, scuffing closer as only a nine-year-old can. She promised Ben she'd come visit, but she never expected his house to be so spooky! Spooky or not, she had walked all the way here from town, through the woods, and over the old stone bridge, and she didn't want to make the whole trip without at least saying hello.

"H-hello?" she squeaked at the door, standing eight feet back. She waited a moment for a response before making her next move.