Some links may be affiliate links. I may earn money if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these links on this site.
Rob Knowlan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
15 Days Til Christmas 2022
It’s almost time for 🎅🏻, people! Bake some cookies. 🍪 Wrap some presents. 🎁 Look busy, will ya?
🎄 Holiday 🎁
A holiday is an opportunity to journey within. It is also a chance to chill, to relax. It is when I switch on my rest mode. ~Prabhas
It’s the holiday season, so hoop-de-doo and hickory dock and don’t forget to hang up your sock…
But that’s still about two weeks away, so don’t forget to get your Christmas shopping done. As far as I know, mine actually is.
I’m easy to shop for. I don’t actually want anything.
I don’t know why.
When I was a kid, I eagerly anticipated the Sears catalog arriving so I could dog-ear the pages that had stuff I wanted.
Nowadays, I honestly don’t want anything.
Of course, people will get me stuff anyway and it will be fun to unwrap whatever it is.
In the meantime, what I really want is to kick back and unwind. Dang, what a week.
I thought I was going to lapse into a work-induced coma last night. It’s been a nonstop roller coaster of being unrelentingly busy.
Thank God it’s over. Thank God for the weekend. Thank God for my No Monday Policy, so the weekend can be extra-long and relaxing.
I’ve got some stuff I want to catch up on. I did manage to squeeze in some classic Christmas specials over lunch and dinner, but I just want to veg out and watch some holiday cheer.
⏳ As If I Had Time To Binge Anything… ⌛
Top 20 Best Christmas Movies of All Time
But, I don’t have time to veg out and watch stuff. I’ve got a story to write and the stuff I’ve already got posted is running out rather quickly.
This is why I wanted to already be done by the time Thanksgiving rolled around.
Things being hectic at work and what little mental bandwidth I have remaining in my off hours have left me mentally exhausted.
I knew it would be like this, which is one of the reasons I insist on a full quarter of long weekends.
It puts a bit of a squeeze on me at work, but I’d be harried and hurried and hammered whether I’m working Mondays or not. It just doesn’t stop.
Fortunately, I can squeeze in short content before work or during lunchtime. It helps me get little bursts of mindless relaxation while packing away story ideas for later.
🗽 As It Is Felt 🏙️
One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt. ~Georgia O’Keeffe
Y’know, the last couple of years have pretty much sucked.
Between the pandemic and the government’s overreaction to it and the government’s underreaction to some of the chaos that kicked off because of it and the economic backlash of all the above, things have changed in a lot of unpleasant ways.
Among them is the descent of New York City into a state that’s approaching the fictional New York that Snake Plissken had to rescue the President from. Seriously, the city is descending into absolute chaos.
More’s the pity, because I wanted to visit and get a feel for some of the places where The Sentinels take place.
It’s kind of funny. Even at its best, the city doesn’t live up the hype on TV or in the movies. No real place can ever live up to the idealized image depicted in romances and comedies or down to the grim representation in dramas or crime flicks. That’s a given.
Even so, it’s hard to imagine Friends or Seinfeld or Zack & Cody having to live in the crime-ridden wreck that New York has lapsed into lately.
Strangely, that would actually be ideal for a standard superhero scenario. A formerly great city lapsing into crime-induced despair is exactly the kind of set up a comic book hero is made for.
That’s great for Daredevil, Spider-Man or even Punisher, but it’s not the vibe I’m going for with The Sentinels.
I’m looking for the gleaming metropolis that the PR firms would have us believe it is. I’m looking for a basically normal city with an unfortunate underbelly rather than a seething hotbed of crime.
So, thanks Democrats. Your governmental ineptitude, your moral equivocation and your insidious desire to see everything burn to the ground is really wrecking my vibe.
This is part of the reason I shifted it to a fictionalized version of the city. As Empire City, it can be exactly however I need it to be. Thank goodness for a fertile imagination. I’ll need it to reskin the utter disaster that the Big Apple has become.
That’s all for now. I’ve got to get on with Merry 🔔 Bells and still have a bit of time to actually relax. I hope your weekend is every bit as mine might work out to be.