Look, I’ve been trying for days to come up with something a little better than what I’m about to post, a little more thoughtful and highbrow, but it’s not happening. Due to the ongoing ravages of intracranial hypotension and more generally being middle-aged, tired, and seasonally-affected, thinking hasn’t been my strong suit these last few days. So, instead, I’m going to give you a couple quick updates, and then — well, then I’m going tell you a little story about diarrhea and hope.
Set your expectations accordingly.
Resolutions for 2024
Since this is, ostensibly, a new year’s post, here are my resolutions for next year.
– Read more. I am a notoriously slow reader. If I push myself, I read about two books a month, which is, honestly, not that much. I’m going to try to increase that number, and also read more short stories. I’ve really fallen off the wagon of keeping up with some of my favorite magazines and I’d like to remedy that. Bare minimum, I would like to read every one of the books in my physical to-read pile, pictured below.
I’ve got at least twice as many indie and small press books on my e-reader that I’m also planning to get through, but it’s harder to take a picture of those and they’re not staring me in the face every day, taunting me.
I’d also like to talk about stories/novels/writers I like more, but, y’know, baby steps.
– Disentangle myself from evil corporations. Removing capitalism entirely from my life is a surefire way to die quickly and unpleasantly — hi, Walgreens! — but I’m going to at least try, in all the less detrimental ways, from all the worst offenders. To wit: as of this afternoon my Twitter and Substack are no more, thanks to their public, pro-Nazi stances. I’m in the process of moving all my Goodreads stats over to Storygraph because of the countless human rights abuses at Amazon. I also moved my mailing list from MailChimp to ConvertKit after finding out that MailChimp are a bunch of anti-union assholes.
The entirety of my social media presence is now Bluesky, and I’ll be cross-posting all my blog entries over to Patreon in lieu of a proper newsletter. At least until those platforms inevitably do something terrible, too.
– Redo the website. I don’t have any actual plans yet, but I’d like to give this place a facelift. New theme, new graphics, etc. It’s been, I don’t know, over a decade now, I think, since I did anything substantial here.
I’d also like to write more next year, but since writing is what I do all the time anyway, it hardly seems worth a bullet point.
Infernal Organs
I’ve got a new novella out! I talked a little bit about it here, but you can find a brief rundown below.
On Ingolstadt Island, the INFERNAL ORGANS harvest you!
There are, as Eliza Duran knows firsthand, any number of issues that can follow a lung transplant: surgical complications, infections, rejection. But having to confront all of her buried trauma and internalized isolation while attempting to escape a mad scientist’s mansion overrun by a horror horde of rampaging organs hellbent on humanity’s destruction? That’s a new one, even for her.
This brisk and brutal Frankenstein retelling, from the guy who ruined the end of the world in the Exponential Apocalypse series, is chock full of blood, guts, and the crippling existential terror that exists at the intersection of disability, capitalism, and societal ableism.
Infernal Organs is the only novella about vicious, revivified viscera you’ll ever need—and the only one written by someone who’s actually had an organ transplant. And we mean, like, ever, in all of recorded history. So that’s something it’s got going for it, too.
E-book only right now, but getting a physical copy out into the world is on my list. If you want a review copy, hit me up. Otherwise, if you’re of a digitally-literate sort, you can buy a copy from Atomic Carnival Books or, uh, Amazon.
Look, it’s a process, okay?
The New Year’s Shits (or, How COVID Was All My Fault)
I promised you a story about diarrhea, so here goes. Picture it: January 1, 2020, 1:00 a.m., Mountain Time. My wife and I, after a quiet night at home and a cursory welcoming of the new year, have retired to bed. I am asleep no more than half an hour when, suddenly, I’m awakened by an unpleasant convulsing of my guts. Racing from the bedroom, I make it to the toilet just in time. What proceeds is some of the most violent, virulent diarrhea of my entire life — and I’ve had some diarrhea, let me tell you. The entire incident, however, is short-lived. Which is frankly weird. Normally, If I get diarrhea, I get diarrhea, for at least a few days. One of the many perks of having a diseased digestive system.
Instead, though, I return to bed around 3:00 a.m., on empty and strangely refreshed, and the following morning all is well.
Except, obviously, it wasn’t. This was 2020, the Year Everything Went to Shit. COVID, Trump’s Big Lie, a summer of protests against police violence that didn’t really change anything. I mean, if anything, white supremacists have gained power since, Trump lackeys have a stranglehold on the lower courts, and former cop Eric Adams has found a way to make the NYPD even worse. Things got bad that year and never quite recovered.
I, personally, have been living beneath a shroud of depression, in a cave of isolation, ever since, emerging only briefly to shake my fist at the clouds and grumble about how unfair it all is. Paying a weekly disability tax to Instacart for the privilege of not catching COVID in a Sprouts. Doing speed-runs through the hospital because my doctors have all decided that telehealth isn’t an option anymore — have literally put into writing that if I don’t go in face-to-face I’ll forfeit all rights to medical care — while simultaneously giving up on all infection precautions. And so on. You get it; I won’t bore you. One of the other fun side effects of internalizing COVID into society is that no one wants to hear me gripe about it anymore.
But — are you ready? — because here comes the hope. It’s not going to sound like hope at first, but bear with me. Because, I, right now, have diarrhea. (Not, like, right right now, I’m not writing this on the toilet, I have some class.) I have diarrhea, tonight, on New Year’s Eve. And I’m fucking thrilled.
I’ve known, since those weird mystery shits an hour into 2020, that that particular bout of diarrhea was some kind of portent. An ominous omen of bad times to come. I’ve waited, for every New Year’s since, for another round of intestinal looseness to arrive and close the hell-dimension portal my butt inadvertently opened. And, finally, it’s here. I will be spending the first few hours of 2024 on the toilet and, frankly, it is about goddamned time.
To be clear, I don’t enjoy having diarrhea. I don’t like the stomach pain and the constantly bolting to the bathroom. I don’t want to subsist on nothing but saltines and cans of chicken soup. But I’m doing my part. I’m suffering right now for all of us. I am spending a full fifty-percent of tonight on the toilet for you.
So, my friends, as you chow down on crudités and charcuterie plates, as you toast your champagne and kiss your loved ones, think of me. Sitting, sweatpants around my ankles, on the toilet. Violently pooping to ensure that tomorrow will be a better, brighter day. Diarrhea-ing my way out of December, wiping myself clean of this winter of our collective discontent, and flushing us all into a glorious, golden future.
