It was only a week away from posting new material, although it seemed longer except when it felt shorter. I wrote daily; I didn’t post daily.
So, where is the flood of new material, Michael?
There is nothing I am willing to post here or elsewhere (i.e., discord) at this time, if ever.
So, what was the point?
(more…)I will be taking a break from posting new material on-site for an indeterminate period of time. For the most part, anyway — if something tickles my fancy and I feel it inflicts maximum torture on you, the reader, I may post it.
But the fun (sic) doesn’t end just because I am taking a break.
I’ll be scheduling some repost of older pieces from the earlier iteration of the site over the coming days. You can marvel and be amazed at just how far I have or have not come in my writing skills (again, sic) since 2020 and onward. Some pieces might even be found in my book (now in hardcover and larger format!), which I have shamefully not promoted in the recent past.
[You should know that I’m terrible at self-promotion, if you haven’t guessed that already.]
I may also pop on by your lovely sites less often than I have as I try to limit my Pavlovian dopamine hits via interaction. Lucky you! Fewer undesirable and silly comments from me.
Why? I am recalibrating.
Self. Writing style and approach. Spiritual and emotional state. General burnout. Other things that I likely forgot to include in this short paragraph.
I am tempted to set up a Discord to talk to myself and for anyone daring to peek behind the curtain during this time. But probably not. That seems like more torture than most people are willing to endure. And I never listen to myself anyways.
Other side -> Seeing you
Kindly recall the following guidance:
These are just a few examples of things I expect out of the folks who visit Ravensweald. It does boil down to a simple, single rule:
Don’t be stupid.
If you are receiving daily or multiple daily comment attempts from money-scam types of spambots, one of the patterns I noticed is that they seem to target older posts with open comments threads.
Since my closing comments after three weeks (most real folks don’t comment much here beyond that freshness period anyway), the multiple attempts to necro my comment threads with silly, obviously bot-generated comments for illusionary money and get rich quick via virtual playing cards has evaporated. Poof!
While Akismet has done a good job filtering those kinds of spam comments out of my comment stream, it was annoying to have to check for false positives and review those comments every day. A full 20% of comments on this site received to-date have been spam comments from the same two or three scambots.
It’s only been a few weeks, so they might adjust their algorithm. Until then, I am enjoying not having to deal with them on a daily basis. You may want to adjust your settings for comments if you have a similar comment lice issue.
I’m tired of opinions presenting themselves as, “I have an opinion, and because it’s my opinion, it is the Truth or the only correct opinion one should have.”
Or opinions in search of a problem.
I’m tired of problems too. I’d like to hear more solutions.
Okay, grab something heavy and lend me an ear.
No.
We will not be losing gravity for seven seconds within just over 30 minutes as of the time of this post.
I almost wish we were.
But we’re not.
Stop it. You’re making damned fools of yourself. It makes me sad.
The friend I met up with had converted the video of our first gig at an (im)famous bar , Fernandos. It had a reputation for basically letting anyone play at the bar on Sunday nights, so take that as you will. Two local goth bands, Shadowspawn (mine) and Saint Cry (the headliners).
The hicks at the bar hated us and made it known; both loudly and drunkenly.
I’ve decided against sharing any of the actual footage from the show. It would be cruel to show anything more than the above still.
(more…)
An old roommate, bandmate and friend came to town today. I’m still not sure what prompted him flying up here from Phoenix, Arizona, but he wanted to spend some time together before meeting up with some other former bandmates and friends at a local pub/open restaurant market.
We went out for breakfast and caught up after 20 or so years of not talking much at all. When someone ups and moves without telling you his plans, it can be hard to keep a friendship up. There was also a matter of religion, or so I think, as he had found his way and I was not interested in walking his way.
(more…)You are walking down a trail that you walk all of the time between this place and that place and you are quite fixated on minding your own business when a artery branches off from the trail that you could have sworn had not business being there, or that had failed to exist before (whichever came first).
So you stop and have a Little Chat with yourself.
“I don’t recall there being a Mysterious Trail leading away from this much Bigger Trail before in this particular spot, do you?” you ask the air.
“I am quite certain there was not a Mysterious Trail leading off from this one. I would have noticed if there had been,” you reply.
And, being the Observant Type of person that you are, you nod in agreement with yourself — surely you would have noticed a Mysterious Trail before now, had it existed.
Also being the Adventuresome Sort (oh do be an Adventuresome Sort for today — you might like it), you decide to see where the Mysterious Trail takes you.
The Mysterious Trail narrows and closes in on you until you are not quite sure if the Mysterious Trail still exists and you are just about ready to return to the Bigger Trail when you find yourself stepping into a Forest Clearing.
In the center of the Forest Clearing is an Ancient Well — or it looks rather Ancient anyway, though you admit you’ve put off getting new glasses for longer than recommended and it might just be the Ancient Glasses and not the Well having that Ancient effect.
“Well. That’s not at all what I would have expected,” you say to yourself.
Before you can reply, a Something sitting at the Well responds instead.
What is the Something at the potentially Ancient Well and what is their response that interrupts you from answering yourself?
Tell me in the comments.
The older I get, the less I feel I have something to say in a world that increasingly has a counterpoint, even when there is no need to counter anything. Why bother when it just opens the door for someone who feels they might need to school you on whatever you write or say?
Not that I’m opposed to hearing different takes on something. It it their need to be right that makes me scratch my head and want to throw both hands in their direction and say, “Oh! Bother!”.
Work. Play. Here. There. Family. Everyone needs to have an opinion and their opinion cannot be swayed. It is vital that it is not swayed. And, if you don’t try to sway theirs, you have people poking at you to get you to sway your opinion, even if you would rather not have an opinion at all some of the times.
Even this post is an opinion I’d rather not have.
So, perhaps, I’ll dig a hole under the oak tree and bury this post with a handful of other opinions I carry around inside, tied up in a burlap bag to give the tree some manure to break down into useful nutrients for growth and find a use for the more toxic of the thoughts I carry within.