Happy Black Friday, everyone!

    I hope you all got to go shopping today, and I hope you got me some gourmet food items. I did not buy anything today except for a coffee.  I forgot it was Black Friday.  That is a nice luxury for someone who used to work retail and felt some exhaustion during the holidays.  But I also had that built in participation with each holiday so I am thankful for that.         

    Today I went to the YMCA and finished the last half of a 5K that I signed up for as a virtual race.  It is a Cookie Monster themed race, and I will get a medal with Cookie Monster eating a cookie. That is so exciting to me. Some people probably think that when it says “Cookie Monster Race,” it is referring to a race of Cookie Monsters, like a category of muppets that will populate heaven. I do not think that is what it means, and I think there will probably only be one Cookie Monster. I do not know if it will be me or not.

    Anyway, that was good religion, wasn’t it?  

    Another thing that is happening right this second as I write this blog post is that I am completing the National Novel Writing Month challenge.  This post contains my last few hundred words to get to 50,000 words during the month of November. It was an awesome experience and I finished a new novel. But the novel was only 33,333 words because it was for kids or grownups who want to read a short novel about imaginary mice.  So I used journal entries and blog posts to get to 50,000 words, which is allowed but to me not totally the same as when someone finishes a novel of exactly that length.

     Some people wrote that much within the first week.  Can you believe that?  I can’t but I kind of can.  There are also people who got to over a hundred thousand words. I think that is so cool.

    I believe in NaNo and I believe it produces good books. I think the people who participate are true creatives who can do any kind of good work in that time span.  It is true that some people might do better with a different process.  But so much can happen once people just sit down and start writing.

    I published my novel already on Smashwords and am waiting to assign the ISBN once it gets accepted for “premium distribution” at other e-book retailers.  I love that process and feel happy about it, but have worried about whether I can succeed enough without being on Amazon yet. I am proud to not depend on Amazon, but feel that it is a real risk when people can so easily download e-books with just a click instead of having to do a whole online transaction. But I think it will be okay. 

     Now I am at 500 words and have completed NaNo. Thanks, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

   Well hi everyone, today is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for a lot of things, including current safety and a warm place to sleep and having enough food.

    Today I was by myself but was mostly okay and had some unexpected yummy coffee and made a gravy for rotisserie chicken that was even better than I expected.  Then I ate it with some bread. It was yummy and a surprise for it to be so good.

    People are still torturing me and the conspiracy still tries to hurt me every day but mostly I feel hopeful and productive, and I have a sense of meaning and purpose.

    I published a book today and feel happy about it. It is a children’s novel and I think it might turn out to be the second book in a trilogy. But I also wonder if I could end up writing a whole series with ten or twenty books.  That would be crazy.

    The books so far always have a people plot and an imaginary mice plot.  I have been shocked and happy to find that my true character and story ideas come out in the mice plots. I really thought I might have a disability in the area of fiction generation and appreciation, to the point of not being able to tell a normal story about anything that ever happens in a day or in my life.  But I have been thinking of cute little stories with very innocent mice, who have characteristics and conversations that reflect true human behavior, which I thought I did not understand.  

    This starts to sound like bragging but I think the main point is that I might have somehow gained access to a real world of cartoon mice, and that is currently where my social self is most realized. But I do not know. I talk to people and have a lot of friends who I do care about.  And I eat food and listen to music.  That is real living, too.

    Anyway, I think I am going to soon finish this National Novel Writing Month with the 50,000 words required to be a NaNo “winner.”  That makes me happy and is another surprise.

    It is times like these that it is good to look around and make sure other chores are done and to think about whether other people might need some prayer or support.
   I erased something here because it was kind of stupid.

National Novel Writing Month Blog Post

            Well everyone, today is Nov 22.  It has been an exciting month.  I got a late start but decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year with a novel, and I finished it today with 33,333 words including the introduction. It is the second novel in what will hopefully be a trilogy of children’s books. The first book was Donut Novel, and this novel features some of the same imaginary mice characters.  It is called Football Novel.  It turned out great and I am so excited. The odd thing is that I wrote it quickly and am not doing much revision. It is almost verbatim.  That is exciting to me but a little scary to think that I might not be capable of changing stuff I write now.  It is kind of cool to be happy with it and get it right the first time, though. 

            I worked hard but found that the word count that keeps pace with NaNo is very reasonable and often I could do twice as much.  But then I did need days off.  It also helped to be part of a couple of online Nano support groups. Now I am writing blog posts and working on a personal statement for an application. So I will add that word count to start a new project and try to get to the 50,000 words to win NaNo.

            Something fun that I got to do last weekend at interestingly the perfect time was the Madeleine L’Engle Writers Conference and Retreat.  It was the first one of its kind, and the speakers and panelists were amazing.  I got to meet Katherine Paterson, who wrote Bridge to Teribithia and Jacob Have I Loved.  That is just ultimate, and I still can’t believe it.  It was so fun to think about the literature from her and Madeleine L’Engle, and all the writers from my childhood and middle school years. I have an interesting “reading biography,” and most of my best reading happened in middle school, before I started having attention span problems and depression and anxiety.  I read books for school, like A Wrinkle in Time, and some other great ones like Dollhouse Murders, Castle in the Attic, and more serious ones like Homecoming and Where the Lilies Bloom.  I am also remembering Where the Red Fern Grows, and many before that like books by Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. Some of my favorites were from Lois Duncan, who wrote teen crime novels, and William Sleator, who wrote science fiction, including Into the Dream and House of Stairs.  Wow, those were awesome books!!  I think many wonderful people still have those kinds of reading experiences now, but I don’t. I lost some reading ability so it is all mostly work now.

            That is what Katherine Paterson said about writing. She said it was all gift and all work. I agree wholeheartedly about that and other things in life. 

            Now I am having a nice night in my apartment and collecting my thoughts after a few tough days of feeling trauma feelings from some of my life problems. But I went to therapy yesterday, sadly missing a memorial service for Toni Morrison, who was another author with classics that I loved and have reading memories of that are beyond sacred. What is the word for that exactly?  It is not “holy,” and it seems more substantial than “sacred.” Maybe a food vocabulary is what captures it, like when you have a meal that you will always remember, or when something really hits the spot.  But it is really is as simple as what it is, which is when you are depressed, or have a slight lost feeling, and you read a book that will always be Beloved. 

a sketch for my next mice novel

recent laundromat poem

Salutations from the Justice Hopper

Scraggly.

Rufus.

Rover.

Punkin dog.

I’ve seen them all. They’re in New York City

On leashes in the park.

Walking down the street as if to say

“a tender morsel for everyone,

Or nothin for nothin.”

photo from nyu hospital

A New Poem

Intervention

Two birds got married today,

But instead of a wedding, 

They had a career fair.

The mouse accused of purporting is safe and happy,

And his family is friends with family of the mouse 

who should very much like to see such and such,

and who is married to the theology mouse who said,

Maybe it would profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul,

But then cried for his writing to be burned.

When everything seems to get even darker, 

it could be God coming up behind the other shadows.

Here are some other links to my writing:

E-books for sale at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/smefird5

A link to my website and poetry blog: refriedbean.com

my facebook page if you want to receive posts: https://www.facebook.com/Refriedbeanpoet/

a link to follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/Refriedbeanpoet

Thanks for visiting my blog, everyone!

Something Yommy

   Hi everyone, today is Yom Kippur. It is a good holiday to learn about. It has to do with atonement, which is an ancient Jewish practice and what Christ later did for anyone who wants forgiveness for anything. That is quite an awesome deal and it is sad when people turn it down, like how nbc news felt that their Yom Kippur news story today needed to have to do with atheism.  Honestly I feel kind of sorry for them and for other journalists who think we don't see their problem of thinking that salvation can be found in "not liking Trump." I think he will have to be pretty bad for that to work.  And maybe it will. But anyway, I should save that stuff for my theology blog or my mad blog.
     I think I might start a new blog soon about writing. This blog is my normal online journal where I just say whatever is on my mind.  Today I was about to share some links to my e-books, and was getting all my websites ready, and messed up the order of posts on this blog.  So now I am writing this post just as an intro for people who find these sites after I promote my e-books.
     If you are just discovering this blog, it could be because I have not shared it with very many people yet.  I have been waiting for the right time to share my e-books on facebook, and this week I suddenly decided to start an ad plan after realizing that homelessness was imminent and if I don't have an address, I can't maintain the websites with the e-books.
    So later I am going to invite people to like my facebook page, and then I am going to promote my books that are on Smashwords and the barnes and noble website.  I usually buy them from the Apple site, though.
    But anyway, I hope you all have a great day and enjoy reading some posts that might be kind of out-of-date now, but could still be fun to read.
 
 

this is a photo from mascot camp a long time ago.

here is a link to my video for nationals with help from Garrett H:

http://cockythegamecock.blogspot.com

a great day after all

    Well everyone, I hope you all are having a nice day.  It is 8 o’clock on a Wednesday.  Today has been one of the least productive days I have ever had, until about an hour ago when I suddenly figured out a whole outline for my next writing project.  It is another imaginary mice novel, but the human plot for it is very exciting. I do not think I should say the idea until I finish the book and post it. I feel an urge to start the book right now, but I think I am going to brainstorm for a couple more days and then write it.  The discipline challenge this time could be a matter of trying to take my time and include all the ideas that I can instead of dashing it off to be done with it.  I think I will try to use the whole month of September and shoot for 200 pages.  I can do it. I can do it.

    This blog hasn’t been great lately, has it?  Well I have not shared any of my blog posts on facebook yet so maybe that doesn’t matter that much. 

   This week I had an epiphany about the legal intimidation I have been getting for several years, and the feeling I don't understand, which is my ongoing hesitation to share my writing on facebook.  I figured out that in addition to being related to censorship fears, it has to do with the danger of being accused of witness tampering.  People will say that if I knew there could be a court case about people who hurt me and then I interacted with various friends for seven years after the incidents in question, then it could count as witness tampering.  And then especially if I publicly share essays about bad things that happened to me, it could be seen as a way of knowingly influencing witnesses.

   I think these concerns are something to take seriously, but I think as far as my writing goes, the right action for me to take is obvious, which is to not be intimidated and to share anything I want to with any potential reader.  I worked fifteen years on these books and sharing the jokes and priceless knowledge inside them was the whole reason I stayed at my job and endured the abuse from people who for some reason wanted to hurt me and keep me from even being alive to share my writing.  It is like they already were hiding something and knew they had to silence me before I even wrote about them.  Does that mean they did bad stuff to me a long time ago and I didn’t even know it?  That is a tragedy so wrong that I do not have any mental space or capacity to understand it. Their abuse of me in the last years at my job was obvious, but I honestly can hardly believe that the even worse distress I was in for my first two or three years there could have been caused on purpose. If God asks me to forgive them, I will have to say, I do not believe they did that. I can’t believe that anyone would make me feel worse in the state of agony I was already in as a depressed and mentally ill person. Someone else will have to forgive them because I do not even believe in that kind of evil.

Mexican Corn Recipe

Hi everyone, today is Saturday. I am really having a nice day, aren't I? I mean I am.  I did my laundry, I drank some extra coffee, and I have just had nice peaceful thoughts and prayers in my mind all day. I am also going through a Mexican Corn phase based on a certain food from a restaurant in my neighborhood, and it is time for me to learn how to make the food myself so I do not become a problem customer. It is basically corn on the cob with mayo and finely grated parmesan, and some kind of cayenne or chili powder.  And it is very yummy.  I am going to learn how to make it myself, but I think I am going to use a can of corn so I can eat it with a fork or spoon.  And I will add just a little bit of mayo and grated cheese, maybe the con queso like it says online, and the spice mix, but then the out of the ordinary thing I am planning is to add a spoonful of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk. I will try to follow up in another blog post and let everyone know if that is a good recipe.  I honestly will go ahead and sincerely say, all jokes aside, that adding one tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk to literally every single recipe there might be for any savory dish might be a cooking secret that becomes as much a standard of world cuisine as the use of salt or even water or even the basic idea of bread.

happy birthday everyone

      Hi everyone, today is August 2.  It is the birthday of two of my friends from first grade, which was about 37 years ago. But I remember their birthday because I liked them so much. Their names are David A. and Alison H.

   It is 85 degrees outside, which honestly is fine with me, though I really like 50 or 60 degree weather.  The news on my twitter feed riled me up this morning, and I could barely stand it. Some people do not realize how obvious and especially how bad their agendas are.

    Anyway I am not volunteering today, and maybe not tomorrow. I can tell that I am on the verge of cleaning my apartment, and I do not want to mess it up because it is a miracle when I do any chore.  I think that a good job for me would be doing chores in a hospital so there would be more miracles in a place like that.  But maybe my neighborhood will get the miracles if I take the trash out later.

    Is this blog post already finished.  It doesn't seem like it but I thought a short blog post would be good.  

A blog post inspired by cookies

   Hi everyone, how are you doing.  Today is Thursday. I have been writing some blog posts and trying to get through some spells of mental illness and seizures.  I think some of my recent problems were partially triggered by the heat wave in New York City. But I am okay and have air conditioning.  I have an idea for people without air conditioning, which was my situation for a few years and very difficult.  Something I did not think of then was to put my sleeping bag in the refrigerator for a while and then take it out to sleep on it in some way. I think that is a great idea that not many people have thought of. The other thing that helped me was freezing bottled cokes, like in the plastic bottles, and then drinking them while also using them as ice packs for your face.

   That is actually not all I have to say. Really I have a bunch of crazy religious stuff to say, and what triggered this episode was not just the heat but legal intimidation. The legal threats and monitoring problems have been happening to me for several years and scared me recently when a bad person came and sat right across from me at the YMCA and tilted his ear to indicate that he was listening to my muttering from disorganized schizophrenia and trauma.

    But I am doing okay and am going to try to eat some food and maybe take more medicine. But it is not fair for me to have to take extra medicine because people hurt me. That is simply not fair. They did it with Depakote, they tried it with Trileptal, and now they want me to have to take more Risperdal and be a disgruntled zombie. But the good people and God are not going to let them get away with it. That is why I am going to just keep living like normal and read some poetry and take care of my pet guinea pigs that know exactly what is going on.

 a theme song of my medicine:  bad wolves- zombie

Soccer Goal Post

     Well everyone, I hope you are having a nice day.  Today I went to the mall and got tired and came home. While I was there, I learned on my phone that the US women’s soccer team won the world cup and destroyed every other nation on earth, leaving demolished wastelands with nothing left but steam and fire, kind of like the CD covers from middle school. I am happy for them and proud. It is something for our country to feel good about.  I think it should count as an election and we could have a new surge of problem solving.

    Anyway this reminds me to say a little idea which is that I thought of an interesting name for a church which would be something like Apocolyptic Nightmare Baptist Church.  I really think that some people could not resist finding out what it is all about.

    Today I read an article about a Holocaust survivor who died and had shared a quote that said “forgiveness is the best revenge.”  I find that quote to be very inspirational.  I do not really need to go into it but I am finding myself very capable of praying for people’s forgiveness for major violations but still am having trouble in the moment when people show disrespect from powerful positions, like if there is inappropriate music in a store.  When that happens, I get mad and see no redemptive quality about them whatsoever, though in my free time I am able to pray for very bad people sometimes who have really ruined my life multiple times over.  It can be confusing, but in a way it is not.  It confirms the teaching that I learned early on which is that no one should think of themselves as being too innocent.  Everyone needs forgiveness, and we do not always know the extent of how our faults and failures hurt other people.

    But we also do not know the full impact of just our participation and staying alive, either.  That is why I am about to eat some peach cobbler.

   Hi everyone, it is June 22. The last post I posted on this blog was at Christmas. That is a long time, but did y’all see my comedy video on my new video blog?  It is from the stand up comedy class I took. I am going to try to start going to comedy open mics.

   Right now as I write this, there is a crisis at the border, but also hundreds and thousands of people to help all around us every day. I will probably write a few posts on my mad blog soon, in case some people don’t see the obvious actions everyone should take to welcome all the immigrants, pour in money and people to strengthen public schools and hospitals, and use all of our resources to help anyone in need, using all the free market left and all the government service available to offer everything we know and have to the rest of the world. 

   Instant citizenship for just about anyone here and immediately applying regular laws to provide welfare and law enforcement that protects people from rapists and murderers is the policy solution that I think would most benefit everyone.  

   The jails are clogged up with a lot of drug crimes, some of which actually are very bad, and some of which are from just a bunch of potheads wasting everyone’s money.  We should let them go and let them waste their own lives instead. And some of the people in jail should have been killed for their crimes, so as people try to punish them more because the law and courts didn’t do enough, then everyone is being tortured.  That just gives the international people a reason to meddle in U.S. affairs.

   I sound like a know-it-all because I am having an easy day in an air conditioned apartment, but really I am sad and lonely from my own problems and would like to do more for people than just pray, volunteer, and send squadrons of imaginary mice and angel animals to try to influence American politics.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

    Well everyone, it is about 4:30 pm on Christmas Day.  I have had a great Christmas this year, and have been celebrating for about a month.  I visited my mom and dad and sister's family in Greenville, SC, and it was a great visit.  The mall there just got a new store with a bunch of cool polished rocks, so I gave my nieces each a box full of cool stones and I gave their whole family a Nintendo Switch with some games.  I would say I did pretty well, except I might do one more winter gift with a refill for their "suitcase full of money" from last year. 

    A great highlight of my Christmas was getting to go to a high church Christmas eve service at St. Bart's church with two great friends in downtown NYC, and I finally ate communion after several years of not knowing what to do about trying to be a church member somewhere.  I could not decide between Catholicism and just joining a Presbyterian Church, but I easily scarfed down some Episcopalian Eucharist last night and it was great. 

   Today I have been playing video games and am excited about a cheap mall plug and play that has 76 THOUSAND video games on it, including Arkanoid, Tetris, and Pinball!!! I can't believe it! I also have been playing some new Nintendo games, including a carnival game, which is a category of entertainment that I have always loved.  So that is a great Christmas, and I am surrounded by yummy snacks as well.  For some reason, yesterday I stopped by a gas station and got some pork rinds, beef jerky, salted peanuts, and lottery tickets, and it added a little something to my Christmas that I did not expect.

   I have not blogged as much in recent months, but I might try to continue adding to my blogs a little bit more as I promote my e-books, including two new collections of poems and theology blurbs.

   I hope if anyone is having a tough time this Christmas or ever does, some combination of Christmas lights, a trip to Starbucks or Waffle House, or even some outpatient hospital treatment for depression will help until there are better days!

Christmas Cookies

      Well everyone, I am currently taking an online certificate class from a seminary, which is a certain great seminary that makes me feel very proud. I actually think I am the proudest student they have ever had.  But anyway today I got shaken up a little because we started studying the gospel of Luke, and I had to write a discussion response about what I thought about the introduction.  Well my main thought was that it made me think about Christmas. I could say something like that, but if you read the beginning of Luke, it is even more special than that and there is quite a theme of supernatural intervention all throughout the book as Jesus drives out demons and rises from the dead.  Luke also wrote Acts, which is where the Holy Spirit came to the apostles.  Well it is exciting in the same way and I think a key word is Holy.  So anyway I was trying to describe this feeling of supernatural intervention at the beginning of the book, and I said it was magical in a Christmas way.  Honestly, that does kind of capture it for me, and I have been thinking about what it is exactly that God offers instead of magic.  Because he did say to avoid sorcery and some of us find that Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragon stuff very appealing.  Well, in revelation it turns out that there was a dragon hovering over Mary when she had Jesus.  That is not a fun delivery situation.  And I have a theory that the animals in the stable helped her be okay.

     Anyway, I posted my post and then freaked out in my usual OCD way and felt that I might have imposed a certain association with magic onto the Christmas scene, when all of it involves Mary, Jesus, and the arch angel Gabriel who the Bible said stands in the very presence of God. Well you don't casually cast them into a Lord of the Rings sequel, but the point I was trying to make was that the stuff that happens in Luke and Acts actually is the stuff that beats sorcery, like it is the reason why you obey God and don't read horoscopes.  Which reminds me that the wise men found the baby Jesus by following stars, which most people do think was astrology. 

       But anyway I felt just terrible and felt like I might have hurt Mary in some way, but I think that the point of Christmas is that now you can make mistakes like that, or they might not even be mistakes anymore, and that if I said the wrong thing it is not the same thing as rummaging through Jesus Christ's cabinets and taking the devil's food cookies that Mary was hiding behind the peanut butter.

some great news everyone

Ok everyone, today is Sunday. It is now September. I have been cleaning my apartment just a little bit and am going to try to keep working on it.  I got great news this week, which is that I can renew the lease if I want to.  That is amazing and I am going to renew the lease.  Also this week I am going to start a new job which is an awesome bakery job.  I will be helping make croissants, muffins, and donuts.  I am very excited and I hope to keep the job for a long time.  When I go there Thursday they will tell me the code of conduct, which I think does not allow licking bowls of muffin batter. But I believe that I can step up to that kind of behavior challenge and bring home some cash.  It is going to be direct deposit but I will probably cash out the total in one dollar bills for a while so I can feel the true impact of having a job. Some of the bakery items we will make there will be almond croissants.  I ate an almond croissant like that at a restaurant in my neighborhood, and it only cost about three dollars.  Well I find that a little insulting and I think that people should have to pay about twenty dollars for one of the croissants.  Anyway, maybe I will post some posts about my job once I get started but don't expect to know the secret recipes although I will tell everyone the main secret ingredients right now which is sugar, butter, and flour.  I mean that is mostly the secret behind baked goods. Ok that is all for now, everyone. I hope you all have a great labor day weekend!