Random Ramblings CCCXXXIV · 7:14am Nov 13th, 2018
IN WHICH SNOW
Today was a cold day for many reasons. That's why y'all get some Kansas.
RIP Stan "The Man" Lee. Excelsior! Okay, now on with the show...
So yeah. Today we had the first snow of the season here in the Ozarks. Much earlier than normal; usually we don't get first snow until late-December or (more often) after the new year. The past couple years we got little to no snow at all. In honour of the snow, I restarted the tradition my ex and I had of getting a pizza whenever there's winter weather. Only this time it was with my mother.
I learned that Japanese technopop trio Perfume -- who I already knew would be touring the USA next year -- are making a stop in Dallas, which is only about 5-6hrs from my home, in April. Were they not playing so close to me, I would have gladly gone to their show in Chicago two days earlier. I've never driven to Chicago, but I think it's more like a 10-12hr trip since I'd have to go all the way through Missouri and most of Illinois. Anywho, I bought a ticket. They actually went on sale a week ago, but international Perfume shows don't sell out in minutes like their "little sister" group Babymetal (same management company, same choreographer, same origin for lead singers).
I also learned that Weird Al will be playing a show not too far from me just a week and a half before my birthday. Those tickets haven't gone on sale yet, but you'd better believe I'm gonna go. In fact I intend to try for a VIP pass -- something I've never done before. Hopefully it won't be too absurdly expensive.
I guess this means I'll have to keep on living for the next ten months. Damn it.
As a holder of a BA in Political Science, I couldn't help but watch the election returns come in last Tuesday. I didn't want to, but this is like crack to politicos. At first I felt the same sinking feeling I did two years ago when that thing stole the election apparently won -- the party my family has long supported looked it would fall just short of retaking the House and lose up to five Senate seats. As the counting continued into the night and throughout the week, things began to look much better, with an apparent net loss of only two seats (in the face of literally the worst map either party has faced since direct election of Senators) and a House gain of nearly 40 seats, which is the best my party has done since 1974 -- this in the face of state maps intentionally designed to keep us in permanent minority status (in the USA, we call this "gerrymandering" after Federalist-era politician Elbridge Gerry, whose district was said to resemble a salamander).
Compared to Canadian ridings and British constituencies, American districts are MUCH larger -- most House members represent ~750,000 people, which is one of the worst ratios in the world. Someone had a suggestion that House size should be a function of the cube root of the US population (~320M), which would yield around 591 House seats. I say bump that up to 599 so that a majority would be an even 300. And let the territories have full representation in the House (and statehood for DC -- it has a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont). As for Puerto Rico, I'll only support statehood for them if they're willing to accept they must know English for official business -- despite having been a US territory for 120 years, English fluency amongst the natives is absurdly low except for those who attend one of the island's universities and/or spend time on the mainland.
Scuttlebutt says the real-life Orangeglow is scared, acting like a cornered rat. Good. I look forward to seeing him unravel. I voted against ol' G.W. when I had the chance, but I never thought he was stupid (intellectually incurious, a terrible speaker, too willing to delegate to evil men, and too concerned about his rich buddies -- yes). Orangeglow is stupid. No one who's actually intelligent will admit it, because they know what they don't know.
I know I'm a total fucking moron. Still smarter than the Manchurian Candidate squatting in the White House though. I may not have an MBA, but I've read the Constitution in its entirety, which is more than I can say for him.
Every time I open Her Shimmering Sunset and look at that final chapter, I wonder how to tackle it. I'm simply stuck. I'm not happy with what I wrote over a year ago, but I don't know how to make it not suck. I think I've written myself into a corner. That's why I wrote an extra story to try and make Sunset less dense on the love front, but she keeps telling me she doesn't want to do this. As a result, anything I do feels forced and inorganic. I'm still going to try as best I can.
Then Sunset will murder me. THAT is the plot of my delayed Halloween story, by the way. It's not a spoiler since I spell it out in the goddamn title.
Sometimes I like titles with multiple meanings -- as I mentioned before, Shitty Rainbow Dash Story referred both to the smutty self-insert fic Dashie wrote as well as to the broader story I wrote about her smutty self-insert fic. Naturally, despite my near total lack of effort, it has one of the highest like ratios of any of my stories. What the fuck.
At this point, I almost don't care -- my Sunset stories are going to have effort even if no one reads them or likes them anymore. She is my muse, and I'm not through with her yet.
Anywho, it's late and I'm sleepy.
Peace out!
My first concert was a Weird Al one. :D Good luck! :)
If you really think the character's telling you not to do it, then don't do it. Don't force yourself. There are other ways to have happy endings than with romance.
4967818
I must do it. I promised. Many of my readers have been looking forward to me wrapping this up.
However, I could try a different approach than what I did in my original draft (which IIRC you read).
4967852
That would work. :D If things don't work the way they're currently going, then twist it around and find how it will work.