Month: February 2024

Not Drinking Sucks

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

They say there’s nothing worse than a dry drunk. And, here I am…a dry drunk. It’s very annoying. And, yet, at the same time, sobering up needed to be done. I was kind of in a drunken haze for most of the day and there were bound to be physical implications to doing such a thing eventually.

I just hate being one of THOSE people who blather on about how long they’ve been sober. I’m sober against my will and I don’t want anyone’s support or praise.

I only even talk about it because I’m 100% extroverted and I talk about whatever is on my mind — hence how much I talk and write about the state of my novel.

Anyway, this is a New Era in my life and it’s a bit jarring. But I just don’t see how there’s any other option. I probably should have cut this particular problem off at the pass a long time ago, but I was having fun.

No more fun.

If Trump’s Presidency Proved Anything, It’s That A Kamala Harris Presidency Would Be Fine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump staggered through four years of a horrible, chaotic presidency. I’ve heard at least one person say that they will vote for Trump because they’re afraid of a Kamala Harris presidency.

The more I think about that fear, the more racist it sounds.

Harris is not great for various reasons, including her youth an inexperience. But if she did become POTUS, she would rise to the occasion — something that Trump did not and could not do.

So, I will vote for Joe Biden in 2024 confident that if — God forbid — something happens to him that President Harris will grow into the role. She’s got far more experience — and is far more stable — than Trump was when he came into office in 2017.

It Definitely Seems As Though The United States Is Careening Towards Autocracy or Civil War / Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re just not going to make it safely through the 2024 presidential cycle. It definitely seems as though either the United States turns all Red (autocracy) or we collapse into revolution and civil war and (hopefully) the Blue “good guys” win and we turn all Blue because of a Second Reconstruction.

And, yet, it could be this is just more of my “hysterical doom shit.” It could be that lulz, we’ll just muddle through like we always do.

But it seems like it could go either way.

Yet negative polarization is so absolute, so white hot at the moment that I’m very alarmed about our future in late 2024, early 2025. But I can’t predict the future.

Who knows what will happen.

What Am I Noticing?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The only reason why I am willing to give the idea that Tik-Tok (and Big Tech in general) can read our minds is my Tik-Tok feed SEEMS to go haywire when someone else thinks hard near my phone.

But what might it be that I’m noticing if it’s not Digital Telepathy?

The most obvious answer is some sort of AI making logical assumptions because of location based tracking. But the most recent instance of this happening is difficult to square with that idea because the person who visited me has no social media of note.

And, yet, the idea that something has profound as Digital Telepathy could secretly exist is such a Black Mirror-type concept that I struggle to believe that I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing.

I suppose the key thing is — isn’t anyone else noticing this strange things I’m noticing with the videos being pushed by Tik-Tok? To date, I’ve seen nothing that would indicate that is the case.

So, I guess I’m wrong. Something is happening that I just don’t understand.

A Ping From My Successful Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For health reasons, I’ve decided to stop drinking full stop immediately. It seems this is example of a ping from my successful future — something is going to happen to make me a success just as I’m both too old to party with 24-year-olds AND I can’t even drink.

So, if that’s not a sign that I’m going to break out with my DJ (novel) money soon enough, I don’t know what is. I won’t be able to get wasted and go home with some smoking hot babe.

Any dating with be done sober and with women who are too old to have babies. Sigh.

It’s all very deep. I have to accept that I’m going to be 20 to 30 years too old to have the type of success I feel I should have. Any “success” I have will be that of a very late bloomer who is frantically doing everything in his power to cram in as many colorful and cool things into the twilight of his life.

It’s going to both suck and be great (if surreal.)

So, that fits the way my life has been to date so obviously it’s going to happen. Barring my becoming a Blue Revolution leader in late 2024, early 2025, even if I stick the landing with my novel, I’m not going to be published author until I’m in my mid-50s.

As such, I will have a very limited amount of time to do all the cool shit I feel I deserve to do. And, even then, it won’t be in the way I always dream it would be.

Ugh.

The State Of My Writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In general, things are going well with my first novel. The biggest thing I’m worried about at the moment is word count. That is really at the forefront of my mind. I’m really worried that instead of about 100,000 words, I could be somewhere in the 140,000 to 160,000 range.

I’m worried that I’m going to suffer from the worst elements of Stieg Larsson’s writing where, specifically, in the case of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo the first about 135 pages are dull as hell because it’s all exposition and not a lot goes on.

But if you do a direct comparison between those first 135 pages of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and my novel’s first act, things are not one-to-one because I have a lot sex going on that should — hopefully — cause people to at least be willing to read until the murder that sets off the second act.

In that respect, my novel is structured a lot like The Girl Who Played With Fire. That book sold a lot of copies, so it’s at least possible I might follow suit.

Meanwhile, I have three or four “backup” stories I want to buckle down and start to develop. I just really struggle to implement the type of personal structure necessary to get such things done.

And that doesn’t begin to address how I need to actually consume media sometimes instead of just always only produce it.

I hope to start to do just that sooner rather than later because I know I’m not going to live forever and I need to have some balance in my life.

The United States Has a Severe Problem With Corrosive ‘Vibes’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America is growing more and more unstable. The sad thing about it is, that instability boils down to something a nebulous and vacuous as “vibes.” Both Red and Blue have reason to resent the union that we find ourselves in. I will note, of course, that Reds are far bigger crybabies than Blues when they don’t get their way or if they feel slighted.

What’s the most surreal element to all of this is Reds are ascendant politically on a macro basis. But they are totally oblivious to this fact. They are so shortsighted and angry at any perceived slight — even though all the political momentum is on their side — that they’re chomping at the bit to start a civil war.

That’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made when trying to game out potential civil war scenarios — Reds are acting irrationally. They have no political patience and they could very well shoot themselves in the foot and start a civil war even though they are well on their way to getting everything they want if they’re just take a long-term approach to their goals.

It’s interesting when talking to my center-Right relatives how they perceive the center-Left. They seem to think that center-Left people hate Apple Pie and motherhood. They believe that all center-Left people are gay or trans people who hate want to commit infanticide then crow about it on social media.

It’s deeply weird and based almost exclusively on vibes generated within the Right-wing echo chamber of podcasts and Fox News. (Even though a lot of Right wing people like to poo-poo Fox News, the network still sets, a general way, the agenda of the Right wing echo chamber.)

Anyway, I really, really hope that we just muddle through things like we always do (at least have in the past.) But I’m starting to have my doubts.

What Can’t Be Said

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A sign that the United States is growing more and more unstable is it’s growing more and more difficult for people who disagree on policy to talk to each other. It’s difficult to say what is obviously true when talking to some conservatives, which is, “Hey, you’re a bigot.”

You just can’t do it. If you mention racism or bigotry being the core reason why this or that thing is generating so much fear and hate within someone who should know better, it would instantly end the conversation.

But, here we are — sexism, bigotry and racism are now generating a huge amount of political power within conservative ranks. That’s one of the reasons why the two sides are receding from each other at such an alarming rate — conservatives are very touchy — maybe even a bit delusional — whenever the issue of why, exactly they’re so upset about the “crisis at the border” or abortion.

I don’t know what to tell you — either we collectively dodge a bullet and just muddle through another four years….or we don’t.

Tik-Tok Did It Yet Again

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had a relative visit me this weekend and, wouldn’t you know, it definitely seems as though what he had on his mind may have influenced my Tik-Tok feed.

How do you explain that I would suddenly start to see all these videos about woodworking and cutting down trees when that is totally not related to anything I might otherwise be interested in?

But whenever I bring up this as real technology that may be floating around, people think I’m nuts. So the thing I want to do — which is to ask my relative if they’ve been doing any shit with wood of late….would be meaningless. It’s not like they would believe my theory that Tik-Tok (and other Big Tech companies) have developed some sort of practical use for Digital Telepathy.

NOW Biden Can Federalize The Texas National Guard

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the Senate immigration deal is dead in the House, Biden can go ahead and Federalize the Texas National Guard.

The question, of course, is will he?

Talking to my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — it definitely seems as though if Biden does something so obvious and justified, that on a political basis we may be going to the show.

Only time will tell, I suppose.