008: Here is where they all come back

So, it's 12:20 on a school night and I am sitting in my living room tapping away at my tablet. It's been a while since I've checked in, but mostly nothing has happened, only various ways we have staved off quarantine cabin fever. Re-reading my last post, I'm surprised to find I have mostly covered it and there is no news. May proceeded as it was going to. Work was dull and unstimulating button-pushing even as pressure is applied to try to develop myself professionally and I dream of doing anything else while still trying to convince myself and my managers that here is where I belong and intend to stay (they don't want to spoonfeed me new projects and I'm not a great self-starter so we're at a standstill but there are ideas in the air of what to give me.) The stores are set to re-open so that will change the workflow and bring a sense of normalcy, although whether any of that is a good idea, I don't know.

Being outside of an office setting just doesn't make me want to work hard at my professional development, it makes me want to come to my senses, quit, and write full time.

I put in a good night's work last week on my would-be novel that may amount to something. It felt good, partly because I was really thinking over what I was putting down, making sure it was quality and not just "get it on the page, whatever comes out" stuff. I could extemporize a version of that story at length all day long and have it be ~okay~ but the trick is I want it to be told in a way that is engaging and very much unlike anything else you have seen.

I noted on Twitter that my belief in my writing, my concept of myself as a good writer, is one thing that has never wavered. Even when I think what I have written is bad, I think "This is bad writing from a good writer." I know deep down that I have reached that point I always dreamed of in my twenties, where I am done baking and ready for the world. I just hope it's not too late.

The Uncanny X-Cerpts continues apace, largely aided by the fact that the pandemic has made it impossible to go back to Oakville and spend our weekends there. I'm not saying "Thank God, because I really wanted to be writing about old X-Men comics instead of spending time with the in-laws and Nonna." Not it at all. I just need something to do when I wake up before Mel on a weekend morning and am not feeling particularly creative. That blog has always been primarily something I fit into the existing rhythm of my life. No more no less. If I need to get it done, I stay up late on a work night and get ahead. Or I just don't do one for a week and try to catch up later. Since January 2018 I have not had a lengthy unplanned break, I always manage to find room for it, and I don't even work on it during work hours.

Recently I've begun promoting it more online. Previously I just posted about it to my regular Twitter to my general audience (of very few.) Got a decent amount of hits that way. Then I decided to revisit the idea of doing a dedicated Twitter account to promote it, follow X-Fans and really engage with it a little more.

The results have been... mixed. A definite uptick in hits, so that need has been fulfilled. But in the process of getting out of my vacuum, I've had to face, well, what other people think about comics. And all I can say is that the people I have found largely have different ways of thinking about comics than I do. They're so into it, and I'm glad, I'm glad it works for them, but man. They're so invested in these characters as entities. I don't begrudge any of them that, although there's a natural dislike that comes with being exposed to an excess of difference (a prejudice we all have to reckon with from time to time.) I'm glad they're out there and I'm glad they're having fun and getting a lot (a lot-a lot) of pleasure out of this experience, but man they are seeking a lot of different things from what I am. What it amounts to is, I feel like I'm at a party I wasn't invited to - that I desperately didn't want to miss and yet can't really have fun at because nobody knows me or wants to talk to me.

The truth is, as with everything, I have always wanted people just to come to me. Just to do what I was going to do anyway and have people find their way to me. And that is not really how it works. Not when you're too analytical for the people who just want to have fun, and honestly, not smart enough for the analytical people. And I'm fuckin' smart. And funny.

At least I can say I'm putting in an effort to expand, to grow and say "This is what I've been up to in my secret corner on the internet." And no matter what, I will continue to do it in my secret corner of the internet, perhaps for the best.

Speaking of...

I launched LS' website this month. I have been increasingly deliberately working toward it for a year, registered the domain back in September, and pinned down a few deliverables I wanted to have ready before I unveiled it to the world. I wanted to be able to offer something, I wanted to be able to provide on a regular basis, and I wanted to know where my content was going to come from. I perhaps jumped the gun a little bit, as there was only one story up when I posted the link and got dozens of visitors who had mostly not yet returned for the second one. A slight miscalculation on my part, but I was too excited, and I figured if I provide something on a regular basis, things will snowball.

So far, not yet. Honestly, I did sort of hope that I would be able to waltz into "the scene", wave my one credential around, and basically own the place, again on the strength of my writing. I have yet to determine if I have what they want. But intellectually, I don't see why not. It's just going to take some grinding, some establishing that yes, I have the goods - I have the talent and I have an ample supply of material. This is one where I refuse to be discouraged. They need me, they just don't know it yet.

Well, on that somewhat cryptic note...

It was my birthday today. Talk about a triple life, maybe even a quadruple one. Mel treated me to an omelette breakfast, cupcakes, Thai food, a homemade banner, a card signed by all my families, old game shows (my favourite thing to watch on a day off), Mario Party, and even indulged me by watching The Room with me (an experience I think she enjoyed.) It was a day fraught with mishaps - the eggs didn't cook right, the oven wasn't set right for the cupcakes, she budged the N64 and froze our game of Mario Party - but it was so enjoyable, and so fun, and so real. I could hardly have asked for a better day, or a better, more caring partner.

You know, I worry sometimes, about the future, about the dynamics at play between us sometimes, about everything. But I never doubt how much she loves me, how she loves me in a way I have never felt from another person before, and could never hope to. And I hope she knows how much that means to me and feels me returning that love.

Despite, you know, some recent dreams that I have cause to feel weird about.

Lastly, I have had a toothache for nearly a week now. It's frustrating because I obviously can't go to the dentist now, but I also haven't been to the dentist in nearly a decade. And in all that time I have never had a toothache as severe and persistent as this, which probably would have given me cause to go (at least since I've had coverage.) And I had really been working up the nerve to go, when the whole Covid thing came down! So frustrating. Admittedly, I should have gone two years ago when I mysteriously lost that chunk of one of my incisors. That was not a good sign.

Sigh. Hate to leave you on a down note, love to watch myself leave. Or something.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto