A Journal of the Pandemic #31

I originally began composing this back in February.  Part of why I paused it was because I've been getting back into the swing of things, going out a lot more, and that's in large part because the pandemic is receding ever more gradually into the past.  I think there's little doubt about that at this point.  There are new surges happening, of course, and time will only tell how those develop, but the pandemic as it was for its first two years is effectively over.

Yeah!

At work, as of a few weeks ago, masks are no longer mandatory.  When the pandemic began I ended up working at a new building with a lot of new people who didn't know what my face looked like under the mask (I had a bunch I cycled through, although I had a whole set of ones with various fancy mustaches on them; I don't remember if I mentioned them here previously), and so it has been a different kind of introduction.  As it turns out, it's not easy to interpret what people actually look like just by their eyes!  I think all those superheroes have it backwards.  Keep the eyes!  Hide the mouth!  And I think everyone is getting used to this now.  Probably! 

I'm booking trips!  I've already booked one to attend my oldest nephew's high school graduation.  His birth back in 2004 was kind of the beginning of a whole journey for me, the first major event to occur post-college graduation for me, the first time I flew on a plane, the first time I visited the South (the first time I had Krispy Kreme! White Castle!), sort of the beginning of an extended new association with my other sister.  Whom I intend to visit a little later, after she's given birth to her third child.  And I will get to meet her second one, in person, for the first time!  And reunite with the Burrito. Just waiting for approval of the days off, then book the flights...

It's still astonishing that the pandemic swallowed two whole years.  Two years!  And of course there are people who will continue to argue that we shouldn't believe it's over, and it's not, but it is.  I'm plotting out what will probably be the last of the pandemic money, in conjunction with these trips.  Some people have talked about money for the high gas prices, but that's not gonna happen.  Yeah, Russia is busy trying desperately to start another world war, just as everyone else is trying desperately to avoid it, and that's caused gas prices to soar.  When I began this in February the invasion of Ukraine had just begun, and I worried about how it would proceed, and of course that's yet another thing to monitor, and nobody can really guess about that.

Two years ago I had a month off of work, was greatly irritated that my previous plans to visit family had been cancelled, and here on the other side, during two years of watching other people continue to travel, and enduring a previous surge at the end of 2021 that made it look like 2022 would be exactly like the previous two years, and now this, booking trips, and these are definitely going to happen, I really believe that.  I mean, Spider-Man: No Way Home made crazy money at the box office.  It's still making money, and here it's April, and movies are being blockbusters again, not just in China, but around the world, and right here in the US.  Those pesky gas prices have been making packages take longer than usual, but on the whole, things're lookin' pretty gooood.

I want to believe this is the last time I write about the pandemic while it's an active thing here.  Is that reasonable?  I think it's reasonable.  I hope things are looking good for you, too.

Nine Panel Grid, World Famous released, Event Fatigue

 I've added Event Fatigue to the list of my Kindle Vella projects on the right.  Apparently I skipped a month between chapters, but will be digging back in.  Two additional will be populating today, and, well, there are plenty more to come. 

Happily I can announce the release of a book from the second Kindle Vella project, Nine Panel Grid!

Keeping my present preferences, there is only a paperback release, which you can find here.  This is something of a metafiction, a story about a comic book that doesn't exist, detailing what happens in its final issue, including descriptions of art that does not exist, and a history that is equally fictional.  It involves characters I began working on nearly two decades ago, including one I created nearly three decades ago.  So it's got a lot of real history behind it, too, plus a bonus comic book script that's a version of Batman relevant to the story.  It's very much a project that's very interesting to me, and I will be peddling copies to a comic book shop that recently opened down the road from me, and I will keep you informed about that as things develope.

A few weeks before this one I also released World Famous, a story I worked on occasionally throughout 2021 (and finished earlier this year).

Likewise this is only a paperback release, which you can find here.  As the cover heavily implies, this one is about professional wrestling, and draws on stuff I've been dabbling with for the same general three decade period, so this has certainly been a good time to be writing stories on old material for me.  

Later I will be releasing my first Kindle Vella project, Aronnax, when I decide what (if anything) to add in order to bulk up the page count a little.  I have a timeline I put together for the abortive project that led to Aronnax, and I could certainly include the associated essay as well.  Who knows what else.