Fingers crossed

Carla slid the two pieces of Turkey-bacon off of her spatula and onto Cliff’s plate. He looked down at it and then to her. “You trying to kill me? I mean it’s the end of the goddamn world.”

She let the spatula slide into her pan as she put her hand upon her hip. “Yet we are still here.” She grabbed the spatula again and scooped out two pieces of pork bacon and slid them onto Michael’s plate.

Cliff’s eyes went wide, “What the hell woman?”

Carla stepped over to her own plate as she said in a mocking tone, “It’s the end of the world.” Her tone went stiff, “Might as well and live a little” and slid out two pieces of pork bacon onto her own plate. Cliff’s eyes went wide as she put the last two pieces of pork bacon onto the plate she was making for Eve. She then left the pan on the counter and sat herself down at the table and said dryly, “For some goddamn reason I have yet to understand I am trying to keep you alive.”

Cliff picked up a slice of his turkey-bacon and shook it at her. “This isn’t life, its torture.”

She grumbled, “Tell me about it” as she picked up her own piece of pork bacon and waived it, “But thankfully I get to dish it out as well.”

Cliff let his piece drop back onto the plate and looked over towards Michael. Michael only gave him a soft shrug as he didn’t want to end up crossing the wrong bacon line. Cliff asked, “So where’d you go last night?”

Michael took in a deep breath and then gave a quick rundown of their evening at Lobsterville. He elected to keep the parts on the way home to himself. When he finished Cliff shook his head and said, “He comped your meal and you still paid.”

Carla picked up her second piece of bacon and waived it at her husband, “And that’s why you get the turkey.”

Cliff scowled at her, “Now what is that supposed to mean?”

Carla chuckled, “He takes her to dinner, he spoils her-”

Cliff cut her off, “That’s because she isn’t old and overripe unlike you.” He picked up his sliver of meat and shook it at her again. ““I might take you out too if you didn’t try to kill me off with this facon stuff.”

Michael did his best to stifle his laugh. Carla looked at Michael and said, “You think that’s funny?” She then tossed her second uneaten piece of pork bacon at Cliff and moved to snatch the piece of turkey bacon he had been waving out from his hand. “Now shut up you big baby.” She faced Michael again and he diverted his eyes down to his plate.

Cliff picked up the piece of pork bacon and jammed it into his mouth. With his mouth chomping he said to Michael as he held his fingers half an inch apart. “I can’t tell you how many times I came this close to bugging out last night.”

Carla got in another verbal jab, “It’s only that big cause he’s excited.”

Cliff raised his hand as if he was going to strike her and she replied without even blinking, “Are you thinking you are going to want your nuts back? Cause they are in my nightstand.”

Cliff swung his arm out across the table which caused both Michael and Carla to glance at each other unexpectedly. Cliff grumbled, “There is a bug.”

Carla rolled her eyes, “Uh-huh…”

Cliff opened his hand again and looked in and then outstretched it again to show. “There, I got the sucker.”
Carla said with mockery in her voice, “Oh, my big strong man.”

The insect, only half crushed, managed to ply itself off of his palm and tumbled off of his hand. It fell off and landed onto Carla’s eggs.

Having watched the bug fall, Carla said, “Eeww disgusting.”

Cliff replied, “I’ve been telling you that about your eggs for years.”

She gave Cliff a questioning look and his face changed to one of innocence as he said softly, “Sorry.”

Carla looked down at her plate with disgust but before she did anything Cliff reached over and scooped up her plate and swapped it out with his own. She looked down at Cliff plate in front of her and said, “I don’t know how you did it but I now miss eating that bug.”

Cliff started to reach over to swap plates out again but Carla pushed her chair out and started to stand. “You boys enjoy. I’ve lost my appetite.”

Michael and Cliff watched as Carla left her plate behind and headed towards the sink. She turned on the water and started clearing things up.

Michael turned to look at Cliff again, who now had two plates before him. “So… what do you have planned for the day?”

Cliff replied through a mouthful of eggs, “Goung to catsup on the newds and putz around da house.”

Carla quipped, “So even with aliens landing on our planet, your day isn’t going to be any different?”

“Shuddup woman.”

“You first trying to talk with your mouth full of-” She paused to look over at Cliff and then shook her head in disgust. “Damn fool is eating my buggy eggs.” She faced him again, “Hope you choke.”

Cliff swallowed hard, “Wouldn’t givth you the pleasure” and then swallowed again to clear the rest of his eggs from his mouth.

Michael put his own fork down and Cliff pointed at his uneaten bacon. “You going to eat that?” Michael shook his head to say no and Cliff reached over to grab it off of his plate.

Carla said, “Looks like today is your lucky day.”

Michael gave a heavy sigh as his thoughts went lingered on what today might bring all of them. Aliens landing on your world can cause things to move from routine into unexpected.

Cliff shoved one of Michael’s pieces of bacon into his mouth and said, “Whafts with the sigh?”

Michael started to stand, “Kennedy is down in Houston and is safe enough for the time being. I just don’t know what to make of it all. I mean everything has a weird normal feel to it. Just yesterday I was-” He held up his thumb and index fingers with just a minimal amount of space between them “-this close to bugging out to our cabin.”

Cliff coughed but managed to get out, “We- almost- with ya.”

Michael smiled, “I know and you would have been welcome.” He nodded towards Carla, “Some more than others.”

Carla cut in, “And that’s why he got the good bacon.” Michael laughed as Carla reached for a hand towel and started walking back over to the two of them. “Today is a new day for all of us.” She looked at her husband who was stuffing his face with another large portion of egg and shook her head.

Cliff, seeing the two of them watching him, asked as he started flinging little bits of egg from his mouth, “Whaft?”

=========================================================

This like chapter 10 or something. I honestly don’t have a real number for it as so far, thanks to my stupid job, has been a rambling mess. It is, as far as my notes are concerned, the ending of part 5. I know none of that makes sense but who says unsuccessful writers have to make sense? I mean I can understand the need for clairity for a person having some measure of success but so far that isn’t me.
So suck it.

Now to start part 6. I have one more(maybe muse me more??) segment/chapter to do and then I will fling my story out of the normalicy and fully embrace the new strange world they find themselves in. Hello ‘The begining of the end’ part.

Okay after writing the prior I just realized I do have more to write for the begining. Damn you Terry Roche! You have infected my mind! Here is a hint…
“Hello caller, whose this?”
Terry Roche you are a monster in my mind.

you’re welcome

A short while ago I left a job interview I had with the California Department of Public Health.

I knew going into this thing I wasn’t a strong candidate but what I did at the end pretty much sealed the deal that I wasn’t going to get hired.

Wait… what?

Yep, my big mouth got the better of me.

At the start of the interview, they presented me a listing of seven questions which they said I could go over by myself for a few minutes.

Well… of those seven I knew four well enough. Two were kinda weak and the last one, it was Hiroshima all over again.

They came back in and together we all went over their questions. I did my best to answer as best as I could which, required some fudging on my part. Hey, who doesn’t fudge a little right? Isn’t that the name of the game when it comes to self-promotion?

We get through all seven questions and they ask is there anything else you would like to discuss or cover?

[This is the part I’m leading up to if you haven’t figured that out already]

I say, “I am not your best candidate for the job. I’m not saying I don’t want the job but rather I don’t have what you are looking for right out of the gates. I’m not saying I can’t learn or that I can’t do it so much as I’m letting you know that I know I’m not what you are looking for.”

Oh, the looks on their faces.

They thanked me for my honesty and did the expected, “Well you never know” BS.

The sad part is I really do hate where I’m at but at the same time, I don’t want to be put into a place where there is some false expectation that would only make a different situation worse. Know what I mean?

Yeah, I’m the kind of guy that has two cents or morality and isn’t afraid to play in traffic.

Now, who wants to pull my finger?

(Please note I have never actually bombed Hiroshima nor do I advocate the actual act of bombing anywhere. It was a weak attempt at humor)

#SFFpit

Sadly I won’t be participating due to the rules which state…

What to Pitch

This contest is for completed, unpublished novels of fantasy or science fiction. Complete means that it’s proofed, polished, and ready for submission. Unpublished means you haven’t self-published it online, on Amazon, or in print. Fantasy or science fiction means speculative fiction: epic fantasy, urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic, space opera.

Genre mashups, such as sci-fi romance, are welcome, as long as you’re not just trying to pass off your non-SFF book as something that it’s not. The agents and editors we’ve invited are primarily interested in fantasy and/or science fiction.

I need a friggin writing buddy :/

So… I woke up on Sunday and snuck out of the house to do some rewriting on Chp 4 of my latest work. What I had before bugged me as being a bit too… looking for the right word… (thanks Ben Haskett) … GLOATING. I had my fictional President of the United States sounding too gloat-ish and wanted to rework it. Of course my squirrel mind kept trying to derail myself, and succeeded in getting me to ponder different domain names, but I still got a good start on reworking it.

Yesterday (Monday) I got through the bulk of the chapter and got into new territory. I also got notice that I have a job interview for this Thursday. YIPPIE!

As of this morning I got into the realm of new material again for my current WIP(work in progress). Alas I also need to put it on hold now and focus on reviewing the material for the interview on Thursday.

I like cheese.

Purchased & hopefully Coming Soon…

😉

I am going to create a separate WordPress install in a subdirectory and use this Wiki theme

Who here knows who first coined the phrase “It is far easier to destroy than to create”?

I will admit to first hearing it from Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. I never knew the origination of the saying and I never cared enough to look it up.

Well, today I have decided to break how that law applies to my writing.

What?

What I mean to say is that over these nine or so months I have been confining myself into refining my previous works instead of creating new stuff. In other words, I have been trying to break down my already written stuff and clean it up. Now I know that I just admitted to breaking it down and putting it back together but it is the very act of doing this break/recombine that is so taxing. I have to put a good deal of my mental focus into editing and right now, the past 2+ months I haven’t been able to do this (thanks to my job).

I didn’t try and participate in NaNoWriMo 2016 knowing my time was already being taxed enough. I have been however fidgeting with an old story idea and have finally started putting some grease on the old mental spork. In other words, I started writing again. This time I’ve been diving into my universe of SplinterStar.com (I’m still not sure I like that name). I’ve been just freehand putting together a story about a space battle in the long distant future and merging it with a family that is somehow responsible for having an effect on that battle in our near future. I’ve already posted a chapter of the near future story thread here in all its ugly glory. The story has been flowing out of me at an incredible pace and I can’t seem to find the time to keep up with my thoughts to type it out.

So… with me…. here and now… it is by far much easier to create (something new) than it is to destroy an older story (and put it back together again).

So while I’m still working on finding a new job, I will postpone (temporarily) any kind of editing and just stick to doing new stuff in a whimsical nature.

Yes I realize how pathetic that sounds 🙁

***

I NEED A WRITING BUDDY!

Somebody I can beta read my crap and point out things that suck.

All the more reason to love Netflix

I walk into work. I find my boss already here. She is hidden away in her cubicle and “working” which I know to mean she is trying to catch people showing up to work late after a long holiday weekend.

What else…

I’m fiddling with chapter 3 of my latest works which takes place in my SplinterStar(iverse). I’m luke warm on that name. I’m still trying to find something “gooder”. This chapter deals with Ma & Pa Kent (not their real names) sitting in their truck in their driveway listening to the radio. Can it get any more exciting?

…

(later in the day)

…

I haven’t purchased a thing for cyber Monday. I’ve been kinda work busy. Too busy to goof off much. How dare work get in the way of my personal time. I mean get real. It also means I haven’t done any searching for other jobs today. Guess what I’m going to be doing next?

Tootles(aka Resu-mutles)