The “angel oak” is a 400-year-old tree in Charleston. If you’re in town, it’s worth seeing. It’s fricking huge.
Here’s me and my siblings posing with the tree.
That’s not a fallen limb — the branches stretch across the park, with some help from humankind propping it up.
Thanks to whichever sibling thought of visiting here. Oh, here’s the tree’s baby for a final parting shot.
Filed under Personal
After my long, arduous Amtrak ride, my bro picked me up and we arrived at our AirBnB in the Isle of Palms, a small coastal tourist town that reminded me so much of Destin.
The kettle was one I brought, a collapsible kettle TYG bought me for con trips. Good thing I brought it as I didn’t find one in the kitchen. Here’s a look at the outside of the building, with bonus bunny.
The Destin resemblance is that the Isle of Palms on the water, very touristy and many of the rental properties are much in the same style. There’s also a familiar style of tourist shop selling the usual tchotchkes.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a good place to stay. Harris Teeter and some restaurants within walking distance. And the beach. Black-headed gulls seemed to be the dominant gull species, unlike back in the Florida panhandle. Though it was surprisingly hard compared to Durham to find a place with vegetarian meals, let alone vegan for my bro.
Along with the black-headed gulls, they also had flamingos.
Sunday and Monday mornings I visited the beach in the early morning which was cool.
More photos next week!
Filed under Personal
I came back from my Charleston trip refreshed and rested, ready to write. Only of course getting in at 7 Monday night, I limited Tuesday to blogging and attending to bills and such — I knew I wouldn’t be on top of anything more challenging
(Photos are from a visit to the Charleston Tea Garden, which was very cool).
Wednesday and Thursday I got back into the swing of things. I sent off two stories, “All Happy Families” and “Mage’s Masquerade,” the first submissions since a year ago. I started work on the Local Reporter story due at the end of the month. And I reread the 40 percent of Let No Man Put Asunder that I haven’t worked on yet. I wanted to refresh my mind about what came next so I could structure the story better.
As I thought, there are several characters, including the mercenaries Peacock and Mountebank, who drop out of the story. I’ll have to work them back in. I still need to strengthen Mandy’s character arc (also a problem I was aware of). The climax needs a massive reworking; fortunately I have the new climax already in mind. I’m also unsure whether to set this up as a duology, my original concept, or leave it reasonably standalone with options for a sequel.
I’d intended to start the next bit of rewriting today; didn’t happen. After several nights of rough sleep, I made up for it by oversleeping, which threw me off. A bigger problem is that while I’ve diagnosed the problems with the story, I haven’t figured out the remedy. I think my mind needs to process a little more. So today wasn’t as productive as I expected. Next week maybe — but I have a lot of Local Reporter work to do, and some household IRL duties. We’ll see.
Over at Atomic Junk Shop I wrote about what supervillains think about their portrayal in comic books, And songs that make me wonder what happened after the last lyric.
(The warning sign is because the tea fields include cottonmouth, rattlers and coral snakes).
In other news, the dogs are over their digestive issues and in great shape. Trixie missed me while I was gone and was happy to have me back. Here’s a photo of my little angel and one of her toys to wrap up the week with.
Filed under Miscellanea, Personal, Short Stories, Time management and goals, Writing
Earlier this year, my sister Tracy proposed she, me and my brother Craig have a vacation somewhere. Craig and I agreed. After some discussion, we settled on Charleston SC for the destination. I didn’t want to drive — four hours when I don’t know where I’m going or what sort of traffic/intersections/merging I might be facing didn’t suit me at all. Flying would be at least $500 and that’s with 30 to 45 minutes to change planes in Charlotte NC. TYG suggested Amtrak, I said hmmm. Sure enough it would only be $160 round trip, leave around 10 AM, get in at 5PM.
Well before I boarded the train last Thursday, Amtrak had extended my stopover when I change trains to five hours, so I was now getting in around 10PM. Still better than flying, particularly with all the chaos lately. I showed up at the Raleigh station —
— where we learned the train would be delayed by a half-hour. Annoying but not a huge disaster; I’d still make my connection and what difference did it make which station I delayed at? The same held true as the delay grew and grew before we finally left a little before 1 PM. However the delays did make me frustrated.
We finally pulled in at Wilson NC, a sleepy little Southern town with a small, old-fashioned station.
According to a sign by the train tracks, Wilson is NC’s “first gigabit city.” Sleepy though it looks, it launched a city owned broadband network to provide residents with Internet access. Which is cool. That part of Wilson, though, was not that exciting to sit in for several hours. The drug store across the street was literally selling nothing but prescription and OTC drugs; the cafe was closed. I’d eaten a large breakfast and brought some snacks but by that point in the day, I wouldn’t have minded a small cafeteria. No such luck.
And then my second train got delayed too. And delayed. And delayed. Until finally we left 90 minutes late, with a corresponding impact on my arrival time. And riding a largely empty train in the pitch-black night is not much fun.
The ride back was smooth so I don’t think Amtrak’s become enshittified — perhaps I just caught them on a bad day? I did make it Charleston, regardless, and had a wonderful time. More photos to come.
Filed under Personal
Last weekend I went down to Greenville SC for their annual Mensa gathering. TYG, who would usually drive, stayed behind because after Plushie’s last injury she can’t bear the thought of him getting hurt when he’s with a dog-sitter who might not take care of him as well as we do (I miss traveling with her but I can’t say she doesn’t have a point). As she has no faith in my driving she convinced me to fly rather than drive the four hours. Much as I hate spending the money to fly, the trip down went smoothly, though I wound up traveling in the dark before dawn.
The trip back left me stuck for four or five hours in the Greensville-Spartansburg Airport as we waited for the plane. And waited. And waited. Below is the gate just minutes before one of the supposed boarding times.
That the plane wasn’t anywhere near the gate was a clear sign we’d been denied, yet again. And the airport has a piss-poor selection of places to eat and no Starbucks — not that I drink coffee but at least they have decent tea. This place? The best I could find was Constant Comment.
Instead of getting at 3:30-4 in the afternoon and unwinding I got in 10:30. I spent a lot of Monday catching up on odds and ends and getting unwound which cost me most of the day. That threw off the rest of the week.
I did get the rewrite on the first chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder finished and started Ch.2. I did a lot of work for The Local Reporter — more time than I wanted to spend, due to feeling so off. But I did get in a story on new development and got an interview for my story for next week.
The rest of time I spent primarily on research reading. It was the right move, but disappointing. And next week I’m taking Monday off for my birthday so I lose another day.
Oh well. I intend to have a fun birthday, then apply myself with vigor. We’ll see how it goes. More photos from Mensa will go up soon.
I thought I’d wrap up with this 2019 photo of Wisp, when she was still an outside cat.
#SFWApro.
Another week without much accomplished, but I can’t blame myself. After learning a week ago that Dad was dying, I booked a flight and headed down Sunday. I came back yesterday.
It was an odd sort of farewell trip. Dad had most of his affairs wrapped up and for whatever reason he didn’t want a funeral or any equivalent ceremony. That meant a much lower key time than when Mom passed. My brother and I went with Tracy (Dad’s executor) to get some papers signed, mail off some packages. And we and several of Dad’s friends went out to dinner Tuesday. Otherwise it was mostly hanging around the house, chatting with each other, playing gin rummy, that sort of thing. And I did write an online obit for the website of the funeral home that cremated him. We also watched The Shermans, the compilation of old home movies my brother got digitized, then posted online.
One project my brother came up with was to duplicate an old photo of us as kids. Here’s the original—
I think this would have been 1966 or 1967. That’s my sister Tracy, my brother Craig and then me, left to right. Here’s the sequel —
It took a lot of posing and double-checking before Craig was satisfied with the second one, but it paid off.
I must admit, being with my family again felt better than Dad’s death hurt. I think that’s a good thing.
I did get one article finished for The Local Reporter, on local towns Carrboro and Chapel Hill and their commitment to LGBTQ+ rights. I got two posts up at Atomic Junk Shop, one about Marvel in 1967 and one on how L. Frank Baum created Oz.
Con-Tinual posted a couple of panels to YouTube with me in them, one on comic-book villains and one on Magnus, Robot Fighter.
And that’s about it. Hopefully nothing will derail me from work next week.
#SFWApro. Cover by Russ Manning, all rights to images remain with current holders.
Filed under Nonfiction, Personal, Writing
During my recent Florida visit, my sister Trace suggested I stop by Stagecrafters during one of their evening meetings to see a few people. I did, and it was cool to see several people I normally only interact with on Facebook. And to see that while the details of the props and sets in our warehouse have changed, it still feels very much the same.
Like a lot of theater groups, they’re having a struggle at times to keep going but they are still going. Makes me glad. I spent a lot of my life there and it’s still very much a part of me.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
As always, my trip to Florida earlier this month was great fun. I stayed with my sister and our mutual best friend Cindy, attended Dad’s birthday party and unlike 2022 when I chauffeured Dad around, managed to spend time with some of my other friends. Here’s my departure —
Then, a couple of hours later, I saw the water.
It was colder than expected so I didn’t spend as much time in the early morning outside as I usually do. But I did get this cool shot.
I took a walk down to the Books a Million (about three miles) and along the way saw a sign store with this lovely wall.
Thursday, Cindy and I hit the beach and looked at the waves. A lot more pigeons out than usual.
Saturday I went home. And Durham is home now, fond though my memories of Ft. Walton Beach are. But I look forward to visiting again in 2024.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
The week before this, I traveled down to Florida for my father’s 95th birthday. I astonished TYG by paring everything I needed down to one single piece of luggage.
I love this backpack. It’s got more cubic space than much more expensive offerings. I had toiletries, clothes, a couple of books, my tea mug and I came back with extra books and two pounds of apples.
Plus photos. This one from RDU is a favorite.
I’ll post more photos from the trip soon.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
By a fluke, my birthday last weekend coincided with the Greenville Mensa gathering this year. It’s the first time since 2019 they’ve been able to hold it. We went and it turned out to be a lot of fun. More than I expected actually: the turnout was good (better than the Atlanta gathering last September), multiple friends attended, I gave a talk about pirate movies (hence several of them turning up in my Saturday reviews lately) and we went out for great Indian food. The food in hospitality wasn’t as good as usual, alas, due to covid making them more restrictive about what can be served or left lying around.
Overall, though, an awesome weekend. And snuggling with TYG in the morning without dogs getting in-between was nice. The dogs had a great time in daycare, Wisp and Snowdrop got over having us absent for a couple of days (a neighbor put out food).
And I took photos. Here’s me in my pirate shirt.
The mirror closet door often swung so that I’d see it when I came in, creating a weird optical illusion.
There were pirates, of course—
And more pirates.
And general silliness.
Traffic was miserable both ways and we kept wondering why one law firm had a half-dozen billboards, one after the other, in just a few miles. But there’s always the Gaffney peach.
Best birthday I’ve had in a while.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
