Every day is like survival.

  I let time slip up on me. It's twenty after eleven and I'm not going to bust my ass about making the deadline. We'll see how it goes.

  I finished Jonathan Howard's After The End of the World, the second book in the Lovecraft & Carter series. Long story short, an ancestor of H.P. Lovecraft and one of Randolph Carter team up to deal with the gibbering horrors from the dawn of time. He's a detective and she owns a bookstore. Together, they fight Deep Ones.

 It's not bad. Actually, it's pretty good. First time in a while that I've dealt with an actual page-turner. It does some decent stuff with Lovecraftian horror but the characters and pacing make it worth the effort. Howard also writes the Johannes Cabal: Necromancer books and they're fun, too. Anything where the main character is introduced by storming Hell and demanding the Devil quit screwing with him can't be bad. In any event, check 'em both out.

 I still don't care for multi-book stories, but I read the first book and got hooked before I knew what was what. I don't know what I've going to read next, though. I'm in one of those moods where my brain feels damp and nothing brings joy. I wish I knew what to do about that.

 Ain't going to lie, I sort of hoped that access to regular smoke would make things fall into place, but that ain't how life works. Especially my life. I don't think people really appreciate how untethered from reality I feel, even the people that know me well enough to know that my wiring's all messed up.

 But what are you going to do, and anyway, no one wants to hear all of that nonsense. I haven't even been able to nail down a movie worth watching, so I'm making my way through the Cinematic Titanic to-dos on the Shout Factory website. I think they're my favorite of the MST3K offshoots. They're not as condescending as Rifftrax can be, there's just more fun to it. I say it's due to Trace Beaulieu. He strikes me as a guy that always has a good time.

 Beyond that, I don't know. I need to figure out another 140 words or so. Gavin Newsome won his recall, but not being tied into California politics more than I absolutely need to be, I think that probably has more to do with Larry Elder's crazy ass more than anything. People forget the last time they tried this goofy shit, it was to put Arnold Schwarzenegger in the statehouse. Never underestimate the desire for Americans to give celebrities political power. We will climb a tree to do that, and frankly, a B-lister radio nutcase ain't quite it.

 Okay, then. By the time I finish this nonsense, I should be able to get the forty words I need. I may watch another Cinematic Titantic or read a bit or hell, I don't know. Most of the time it feels like all I do is pass the time, but it's even worse these days.

 Ah, well. Nothing lasts forever.