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Crazy Guy Update

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Check out this story about the wacked-out 19-year-old who murdered a random couple who were puttering in their garage when he came upon them: stabbed them both to death and then proceeded to chew the flesh off the man’s face. They think the kid, who went into a decline and is now in intensive care, may have been high on a synthetic drug called flakka, which is related to the dangerous “bath salts” that were popular awhile back. It causes “causes users’ body temperatures to soar to 104 or 105 degrees, causing them to rip off their clothes,” says the Washington Post. “It also sends a surge of adrenaline through their bodies, giving them seemingly superhuman strength and a high pain tolerance.”

That would explain the crazy guy at the Costco‘s behavior. As a matter of fact, the guy had taken most of his clothes off. He had on a pair of pants, but that was it. I believe he was barefooted when he climbed into the tree. And since he’d just crossed two lanes of asphalt percolating, in 110-degree heat, at temperatures that will inflict second- and even third-degree burns, you’ve gotta figure he certainly was pain-tolerant. As for “superhuman strength”? He climbed up in a mature palo verde and was ripping off a whole limb (not just a branch) with his bare hands. The NIH says users can become quite violent (“hyperstimulation, paranoia, and hallucinations that can lead to violent aggression and self-injury”).

You know, this kid in Florida was neither disadvantaged nor, apparently, already mentally damaged. He appears to have come from an affluent, upper-middle-class family, was a good student, an athlete, and evidently on track for success at Florida State. Most recent report I can find in Google has him clinging to life.

Just what we need: yet another crazy-making drug to drive America’s dumb kids, criminals, and already sick homicidally berserk. What a terrible loss, to the boy’s family as well as the victims’ family and friends.

And who knows about our poor, demented crazy down at the Costco? The berserk killer probably was just as damaged as the black guy in the tree. The college kid’s family no doubt will sue the bejayzus out of Florida State and Alpha Delta Phi if it comes out he got into some toxic drug on the campus or in the frat house. Who is going to sue for whatever happened to our guy in the slums?

Life in the Big City: ‘Bye, Costco?

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Okay…that was interesting… Just got back from the planned Costco run we contemplated a couple of hours ago. And yea verily, I picked up a $25 cash card and tooled over to the gas pumps, there (I thought) to fill up the Dog Chariot.

Well. Not so much.

Miraculously, a line is empty so I drive right in and jump out of the car. Before I can stick the new cash card into the pump, I hear someone screaming.

Some guy is making a ruckus on the street that runs south of the Costco gas pumps, and he is completely, BATSH!T rabid. He’s yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs, in a total rage, flailing his fists in the air and jumping up and down. The guy defines Batsh!t. He’s either having a psychotic break or enjoying a bad trip on meth. Or maybe a little of both.

This Costco stands on the north side of Montebello Road, which borders, just to the south, a pretty bad neighborhood. Despite the deceptively inviting park, the neighborhood is a dangerous slum. A friend of SDXB’s and mine lived in one of the apartment buildings there. He was a retired reporter, an old man with a gimpy leg who needed a cane to walk. He was murdered in the apartment parking lot by a couple of sh!theads who beat him unconscious (we hope) and then drove their stolen car back and forth over him twice.

That’s the kind of place it is.

The crazed guy was on the other side of the street, but I tend to lean toward the better part of valor, especially when I’m not armed. I don’t carry a pistol in the car, because I think there’s too much risk of having it stolen. Maybe I should, though…

So I put the gas cap back on, jumped into the car, locked the door, and drove off.

And was glad I did: by the time I pulled away from the gas pump, he had crossed the street and was jumping the wall into the Costco parking lot.

Now he climbs a paloverde tree next to the wall and tries to wrench one of its limbs off. He’s wrestling and thrashing and yanking at it. What happened after that, I do not know, because I got away from him. Presumably he wanted a tree branch to use as a weapon. Lucky for all of us he didn’t have a gun or a knife.

The car didn’t have enough gas to make it to tomorrow’s art lesson, which is on the near side of Scottsdale. So I drove up to the QT in our area — also not at all in what you’d call a “good neighborhood” — where I bought six gallons at $1.88. Didn’t notice how much Costco was charging, but I’ll betcha it wasn’t any less than that.

One reason I prefer Costco’s gas pumps to QT’s is that there’s always an attendant outside — a big, husky male attendant. At QT, the employees huddle inside an air-conditioned building with bullet-proof plastic between them and the hoi polloi. I didn’t see a Costco guy today, but didn’t look — he may have been inside his kiosk calling the cops. Who knows?

Today’s junket may turn out to be my last Costco trip. Trying to buy there without a credit card is just too, too damn much hassle.

I’d written out a check before I entered the store, so as to speed checkout. But just as I wrote in the amount, I realized damn! I forgot to buy the cash card. So I tell the cashier I’ll need to buy a cash card.

He now insists on adding the cash card into the amount already entered in his register, meaning I have to void the check I’ve already written and write a whole new check. This entails a lot of figuring out about how much $25 + the purchase + the cash back I’ve asked for will come to. I’m now getting flustered, because I don’t understand why he can’t just enter a second transaction and because the bitch standing in line behind me is clucking her tongue and tsking and groaning out loud, so this slows me down even more.

Can’t blame the bitch: Costco only has three lines open, so even though there aren’t many people in the store, the lines still go halfway back to the meat counter. This is a particularly infuriating trick that Costco likes to pull on Monday mornings. So I don’t fault her for being pissed. But she could, at least, keep her yap shut.

So that was my Costco adventure. It was discouraging enough that I believe I don’t want to shop there any more. I’m sure my son will pick up the packages of meat I need for the dogs. Otherwise…really, everything else I buy there can be had, in far less cost-inducing volume, somewhere else.

Costco dudes and dudettes: listen up! If you make it aversive to shop in your stores, it won’t be long before your stores go the way of Macy’s.

Costco Day!

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So this morning the plan is to make a very fast, very low-end Costco run: the first trip to Costco in a month!

The $50 cash card I bought to pay for gas fueled the car for a month and a half (!!). And I still have enough pork in the freezer to feed Cassie and Ruby almost to the end of the month. The visit from Borderlands — the outfit that hands out 60 pounds of produce for $10, grâce á local grocery stores donating fruits and veggies that come to the end of their shelf life — has stocked the freezer generously, meaning the only food I’ll need to buy between now and the end of the month will be incidentals like salad greens and the like.

Today Costco is going to sell me another cash card so I can refill the Dog Chariot, and while there I figure to pick up a package of paper towels and a bag of mixed veggies for the dog food. That’s it.

The difference this is making in the budget has been a life-saver. The utility bills, which the bastards have been slowly hiking up a little at a time, are more astronomical than I realized, having stopped keeping track of every penny over the past couple of years. This month’s water bill is $218 and the power bill is $248. They’ve jacked up the gas bill, too: $19, a little much when you consider that in the summertime I hardly use the hot water at all.

But the big budget-busters this month have been a $250 bill from the flicking dentist, who inflicted that gouge just to clean my teeth, and the $293 for the countertop oven.

Every time I go in for a routine cleaning, the dentist’s assistant wants to X-ray my jaws. I’ve been able to put her off for quite a while, claiming (truthfully) that I’ve been exposed to more than enough radiation thanks to the Adventures in Medical Science and do not want any further exposure. This time, though, I have a sore tooth — an old, failed root canal that has been neglected since I gave up on the former dentist after three root canals in the same goddamn tooth — and thought it had better be looked at. But nay: nothing shows up on the X-ray. The pain is prob’ly caused by my tooth-clenching habit.

So that was about $100 for naught.

I probably should have bought the $99 Kitchenaid toaster oven that JestJack found at Macy’s. The prospect of dealing with Macy’s, though…ugh! I dislike shopping there so much, it was worth paying twice as much at Williams-Sonoma to get a comparable item, just to not have to deal with the place. It’s no wonder they’re having to close 100 stores. Their customer service sucks.

Anyway, $486 in utility bills plus another $541 in surprise! bills has done in this month’s budget. I have $163 to live on for the next two weeks. The $25 needed to partly refill the gas tank will cut that to $138.

So I’m going to end up in the red again.

I wonder why it is that every freaking time the utility bills are through the roof, there’s some outrageous extraordinary bill? It never, ever fails.

Looks like I’m going to have to budget $500 for the summertime utilities. I wish I dared get one of those solar rooftop plans. But the utility companies here are trying to drive the solar companies out of business, and they’re about to succeed. The Corporation Commission, which regulates power rates (heh! after a fashion) is in the utility companies’ pocket — that’s not an exaggeration. Arizona Public Service, the most rapacious of our suppliers, buys these guys by underwriting their election campaigns, so anyone who’s likely to resist the endless demands for higher rates hasn’t got a chance.

So I’m afraid that doing one of those leases will be too risky. Some people are already complaining that because of APS’s machinations, their solar systems will not pay for themselves over the lifetime of the house. And in Las Vegas, the companies that were selling those installations just gave up and left town, thanks to the machinations of the local power companies and corrupt officials. So…forget that.

If it’s going to cost me $500 just to air condition the house at 82 degrees & water the plants, we’re reaching the point where it may be worth renting someplace where it’s cooler. I could go up to the Flagstaff area and rent a condo or a cabin. The smoke from the forest fires isn’t very pleasant, but most of the time the weather is a great deal more tolerable. I’d have to shut down this house, though…and am not sure what to do about the pool. You can’t drain it in the summer, because the plaster won’t hold up if it’s allowed to dry out in the heat. Plus of course if the irrigation system goes on the fritz unnoticed, half the landscape plants will shrivel up and die within a week. Not even “xeriscapic” plants can survive 115 degrees without water.

Well, onward. Want to get to Costco before it gets crowded. Have an economically cool day, wherever you are!

Spring II y’cumin’ in!

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What a beautiful morning. About 80 when the dogs turned me out of the sack, and it’s still lovely and cool outside.

Arizona has two springs: one about March & April and another come September. Plants are reviving and springing back into bloom already, in anticipation of the second spring. We’ll have one or two more blasts of heat, and then it will be gorgeous for the rest of the fall and winter.

The Texas sage by the pool is in an ecstasy. So are the wild honeybees that feed on it.

TexasSagePoolsideThis is the plant that used to arch over the water, which I love because when the helicopter bastards fly over while I’m in the pool, I can swim in underneath it so they can’t eyeball me. One of the workmen decided NOTHING would do but what it had to be cut back, though, so he hacked off the sprays that bent over the edge and sometimes dipped into the water.

Men. You simply can NOT make them listen to the female voice.

TexasSageUnderneathOh well. It’ll grow back. It still makes a little bit of a grotto: very beautiful from the deep end.

Meanwhile, the orange-variety of yellowbell (I forget what the thing is called) is also blooming, which is kind of a surprise.

YellowBellOrangeSo it goes.

Two large projects came in the door yesterday — as usual, it never rains but it pours. One is due in seven days — 100 pages of academic Chinglish, fortunately on a pretty interesting topic. So there won’t be much time for blogging.

Forget me not!

 

Try This Yummy Soup

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This is too, too good: cream of pepper soup. I dreamed the recipe up after this month’s Borderlands visit, whence (among other treasures) I staggered away with a whole cardboard box full of pretty little red, yellow, and orange sweet peppers.

PepperSoup Ridiculously delicious. It’s extremely tasty cold, too.

New Book: Major Progress!

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So now all but one chapter of the new book is done. It’s starting to look pretty good. IMHO, of course.

A friend who agreed to read a draft asked who is this book written for? And that was a great question! It not only pointed the way toward what to delete and what to keep, it also told me what to put in the introduction and it suggested a title: The Compleat Writer: A Scribbler’s Guide to Writing, Publishing, and Living the Writer’s Life.

How about that?

Here’s a draft of the intro, pleasingly short & sweet:

Who is this book for?

  • Anyone who wants to write articles, books, or blogs at a professional level
  • Writers of nonfiction
  • Writers of fiction
  • Business owners who need to create books or blogs for marketing or personal purposes.
  • Book authors deciding whether to self-publish or to seek a traditional publisher
  • Individuals who hope to make a living as freelance writers or independent publishers

When I came up with the idea for The Compleat Writer, my plan was to create a book that I could give (maybe even sell?) to my editorial clients at The Copyeditor’s Desk. At the outset, most of my clientele consisted of academics, nonprofits, and small businesses. Over time, though, more people have asked me to help prepare books, fiction and nonfiction, for independent publication on Amazon and waypoints.

Many of my clients secretly dream of making a living at writing. I’ve lived that dream myself, and I can assure you: it’s not wise to quit your day job. For most people it’s not the path to a middle-class lifestyle, especially if you don’t live in one of the big coastal cities that are publishing centers.

Other clients have more salient reasons to launch self-publishing enterprises, ranging from a simple ego boost to marketing strategies for their businesses.

Whatever you crave to do with your writing and publishing dreams, you must be able to write clearly. You need to understand what makes a publishable document, and you need to know how to edit and revise your work to make it publishable. Maybe even more than that, you need to understand that the only person who will market your product is you. This is true whether you write a blog or newspaper and magazine features or books or copy for some other business. I say “other” because all publishing activity is a business.

Over the years, I’ve published in many venues—magazines, newspapers, websites, academic journals, websites, and books. I’ve helped innumerable authors and small businesses perfect websites, journal articles, and books. I’ve published my own and clients’ books through mainline publishers,[1] and out of curiosity, I’ve also self-published a number of my own squibs through Amazon and waypoints, under the Plain & Simple Press imprint.[2] I also have operated one of the top 100 personal finance blogs in the English language,[3] plus a few others.

The Compleat Writer brings brings 25 years of writing, publishing, and academic experience to bear on issues that most concern people who want to be writers:

  • How to write better
  • How to write articles, websites, and books
  • How to write nonfiction
  • How to write fiction
  • What to do about writer’s block
  • Whether to self-publish or to seek a traditional publisher
  • How to prepare a book for publication
  • How to market books
  • How to manage a freelance writing business

Obviously, no book can answer all the questions or solve all the challenges that arise for every writer. But I hope this one will give you some insight into what you can expect if you decide to dive into the writing life, and how to go about it. If you have any specific questions, I invite you to visit Plain & Simple Press[4] or The Copyeditor’s Desk[5] and send them to me through either site’s Contacts page.

[1] The Life of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, Folger Shakespeare Library; The Essential Feature, Columbia University Press; Math Magic, with Scott Flansburg, William Morrow.

[2] Slave Labor: The New Story of American Higher Education; FireRider, a saga in three volumes; 30 Pounds/4 Months, a diet plan and cookbook for people who love to eat.

[3] Funny about Money (https://funny-about-money.com)

[4] http://plainandsimplepress.com

[5] http://thecopyeditorsdesk.com

Hee! Lookee there, WordPress can now engross Wyrd’s code for footnotes! Who would ever imagine?

Beyond tired. After the usual four hours of sleep, the day began with a system crash.

Took 45 minutes or so to bring the computer back online and recover all the files.

Cleaned the pool. Washed three weeks’ worth of neglected laundry. Scrubbed more pans than the human mind can comprehend, all left to soak after the weekend’s cook-fest. Repaired the computer, more or less. Responded to new prospective client. Arranged repair (or at least disguise) of cracked kitchen tiles. Organized a new box to hold collected colored pencils for the drawing class. Failed to practice drawing. Paid a bill. Engineered breakfast locale for tomorrow’s meeting; made reservation. Moved on to the book. Wrote until I was blue in the face. Cooked and packaged dog food. Wrote some more. Purchased new layout template in 7 x 10 trim size. Discovered sources of crowd-funding for wannabe publishers. Sent word of that to novelizing client. Fed self and dog. Found self unable to work another minute.

And so…to bed!