The Other Side of Summer Burnout

Ah, the Dog Days of Summer are upon us as July wears into August.

The Summer lovers are out grabbing whatever last bits they can before the monster called school reclaims their children and the sun moves further away from constant to infrequent company and the leaves lose their luster of green and get ready to explode into the colors of fall.
Here I sit, underground in my studio and ask myself why I never really feel like writing during the summer?

Is it that the heat is so oppressive that each morning I think to stay in my somewhat cool bed and forget that I really do not write well at night plus the distractions of marathon watching Glee and playing xBox until the early hours?
Is it that I drink too much water and not enough alcohol? Since "everybody" knows you got to be like Hemingway when you approach such ambitions.
I hate trying to walk and think about writing when all I can focus on is being blinded by sunlight, buzzed by wasps, pestered by flies and sweating like mulled ox until I stumble into some hive of inactivity looked for the blessings of AC.

Too hot to think, I think as I reach out for a cold bottle of water and wonder why I couldn't just man up and have a beer instead.
Right, I forget, I kind of hate beer. 
-Mostly because after 3-4 sips of ice cold beer, I lose the taste and the desire to drink it. 
There is a reason why a beer shandy is more appealing. 

I cannot even muster up the desire to go to a movie.

I live in the worst place for seeing movies. It's an hour at best to a good movie theater and 30 minutes to an adequate one. I am dog-lazy when it comes to this kind of effort, also, no one to get me to go and that just lets me tell myself things like, I will wait until I can stream it.
I am a hermit. I am a walrus. I am a hippopotamus.
I am hopeless and still I spend more time fooling around on facebook then getting anything productive down.

I have read a bit at least. No where as near as my nieces or mother but some, unless you count blog research, webpage browsing, trade mags and such as reading.
I want to buy an XBox One or a PS4 but can't justify the expense even though I can probably afford it. I realize that most of that stems for the same lack of motive to go swimming or walking or anything.
I want to be bored, however, I never have time for boredom anymore and I do feel really guilty unless I am out accomplishing things.
So you know that I will now have to go forth and accomplish since I have just admitted to being a 40 something couch potato (minus the couch).

And that is life according to Mike. 

Life as it is According to Mike

I have decided to do a regular blog and leave the larger blog stories that are actually taking much longer to write to be special posts, like the bullying, abuse stuff that has been really hard to research and write about.
Watching Glee has brought a lot of what High School was like for me.

 

 Save that I had no Glee Club to run to.
The only clubs I could get into were either one's I made up or found a way to take over (school mag Junior year, newspaper senior year) 
The only social group I was ever really allowed into was the Dirt Hill Gang (which was great albeit late)
I actually looked back on High School as being the most unpopular or infamous kid there.
It wasn't true.
but it was close.
one day I will revisit them in this blog.
like many people who have been bullied I did bully back from time to time. It did not happen much since when you are at the bottom of the social pyramid it's hard to find someone who ends up lower than you.

anyway, I digress.

So as you can see I am still working on the Bullying/abuse stuff- more to come on that.

Also, I am about to plunge back into writing my novel so there may be more writing or less. 
Got a Title(s) I am calling it The Rose Thorn Cycle.
I am amazed at how hard it was for me to reach this title (yes we are talking years- pretty much from the time I started the book 5 years ago). I knew that I could not and thus would not start writing again on it until I had a title and could stop referring to it as "the beauty and beast book"

I have in mind to do some more blogs on books - Babylon Confidential by Claudia Christian is still being read. I got sidetracked by life events around my own abuse and lost my way here for the last 6 months or so. But things are better or at least I am dealing with them better.

I also read The Fault in our Stars and I am planning to talk about it.

I might even get in another rant about some current event. After all this is life according to Mike.
see you soon.

awesome stuff and videos

It's time once again for me to share some of the things that appealed to me this week.

Weird Al is by far one of my favorite musicians - mostly because I identify with him so much.

As with Weird Al, humor is the penultimate way to survive this great thing we call life with no modicum of this thing we call dignity.

But I can laugh along with Yankovic.

Mandatory Fun is well funny.

and hits close to home even with the subliminal subtext songs aside.

Weird Al

Here are my 2 favorites (so far) from the Album.

While we are talking music and video, Colbie Caillat has caught me by surprise with the 

deep and sincerity of her on music and commentary on Society Norms as they are.

What this says about beauty and makeup just shows me that even I, the great lover of natural beauty  can be so very easily duped by clever makeup and photoshopping.

My hat's off to you, my dear.

Use the Force Tech (<<< that's a link to the site)

You know that I probably won't get one unless they come down in price and prove to be really effective. I had the first mobile mouse that ran on RF. The concept is just so cool, especially the gesturing. Most likely will turn out to be a dud or worse like the bluetooth writing tablet, far too late by the time it gets accessible 

Now this is just incredibly poignant and creative. What a way to make art out of nothing but water and cleanliness. I got pretty creative on my deck last year with the pressure washer.

My boss had me pull this ad from the web. There are a string of them out there like this one. 

Anything that makes me hope that humans are redeemable is awesome in my book 

Even one moderately poor man can make such a big difference in the face of such incredible indifference.

and that is Life according to Mike

Seeya next time!