On net

Wednesday 5/15/24

I have some kind of something. Bug, cold, I don't know. COVID? I don't really believe in COVID as more than a bug or cold. I wonder how many other people in this country have never had a COVID test. I'm off subject. The point is, I'm not tip-top Zulu, physically. In other regards, yes. Lighting up will recommence apace.

My multi-year nightmare with the government at the federal and state levels created entirely by the incompetence of The Wall Street Journal--where someone there mocked me about the situation they had created for me--is not, as it turns out, over. I received a letter from the Department of Revenue yesterday, saying I still owe them twenty grand and they are about to take action. Someone in editorial, where the real fuckery is taking place, at The Wall Street Journal is about to get a warning. I may tell you how it's going to be. As in, either, this stops, now, or you force my hand, and I will do this. I'll expose your ass.

When that happens, it's not good for you. This venue is a circus of infantilism, incompetence, bullying, and all-out asshole behavior. Along with the guy who asks me for naked pictures of myself and to call him uncle. Like I'm not going to name him? Right. Look, I need the money. And I don't like putting people up on here. So I'd prefer not to do this. But yeah, we've come to the end, one way or the other, and either I get what I have coming to me and shit gets knocked off, or things are going to happen that will cause a number of people to wish they could go back in time and make different choices so that they wouldn't have happened. It's so easy to avoid. Simply don't be an evil fuck to me.

Just for a tease regarding the uncle person: This is someone who yelled at me for using his name. You know how you start an email, "Dear James." Well this guy was like how dare you use my first name, and proceeded to browbeat me in email about this. For using his name.

Then shortly thereafter: Send me naked photos of yourself and call me uncle!

And you know what, this guy is nothing compared to a couple other guys at The Wall Street Journal. You don't want this. You really don't want this. Me, I just want to do my work, not be discriminated against, get paid. That's it. That's all I'm looking to do with you. Give you the best work there is and not deal with any bullshit. I'm not some other writer. You can't dismiss the work or say that other work by someone else is better, because that's easily disproven by a quick juxtaposition. You could fall back on that with some other writer, but this isn't any other writer. That's before we get into the shit in these emails.

Imagine, though, if your company, who keeps the shoddiest of books, created a multi-year nightmare for someone--seriously, think of how stressful it would be being told for four years, no matter what you did, that you owed the government well north of a hundred thousand dollars, and you're always sending forms, running down forms, you're on the phone, you're on hold, you're calling here, calling there, you're tangled up in red tape like you're in some incarnadined spider's web--and then you, at the company that had created this issue, mocked that person about the issue.

Got a haircut yesterday. It's an old school barbershop but you book in advance. Someone must have cancelled because they were booked through like five earlier in the day and I happened to look and there was an opening in four minutes hence, so I hustled to the ATM, got money to pay for the haircut, and was in and out of the place in twelve minutes. I like a brisk pace.

At the barbershop you're just staring at yourself in the mirror. I could see Vanity Smurf enjoying getting haircuts. (Query: Do the Smurfs, besides Smurfette, really have much, if anything, in the way of hair? Those hats of theirs seem to be a sort of hair stand-in.) Anyway, I could see that my face looked thinner again.

I'll write about the Beach Boys for someone.

Did fifty circuits at the Connecticut gate stairs yesterday, as well 100 push-ups, and walked three miles.

Bruins won. I was glad. Having been wrong about the Hurricanes extending their series against the Rangers, I hoped I'd be wrong be wrong with the Bruins, too, in getting to a Game 6. McAvoy's goal was the difference. Finally something from this player. You're not going anywhere if the guy you're counting on to be your top defenseman isn't giving you something. In the first period, the Bruins put the puck on net. That helps.

There are a few truths to hockey that will serve you well, which you can always count on. Put the puck on net. Go to the net. Play a full sixty minutes. That doesn't mean you win, but when you do these things, you have a much better chance.