A Drowning

The darkest places are in the light.

For some time, I've been mulling over what I should write about for today's blog. Today is the Summer Solstice, Twenty Seventeen. I try to update on the Equinoxes and Solstices, but as far as FLOLAS is concerned this year: I got nothin'.

I'm still on Hiatus. That project is starting to wrap up though. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I can share exactly what that's all about.

I've literally just been working for the past several months. I have a day job that keeps me busy, and when I'm not doing that I'm working on the Hiatus project. Otherwise I'm at the gym, playing with my kitten, or staring into the void contemplating the futility of modern existence.

It takes up all my time.

I have a lot of notes. I've been writing a lot actually, much of it about FLOLAS. There's also an older story I've had since I was a kid that I've been contributing to lately - oddly - have you ever heard of an Oktavist? I have a lot of notes for today's blog as well. I wanted it to be this grand and heavy hitting thing. I have all these theories about light and water, the One, the Zero, and the primal forces of the universe that create all life and weave the thread through the themes of this story. I could get personal, I suppose, and spin the yarn of my many failed romances and floundering friendships. Or I could rant about politics and society and how I think we might have all secretly descended into Hell, but ... meh. Who cares.

I'm trying to read The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, a book about a worldly guy who inexplicably becomes a monk; and, the origin of that book's namesake, The Divine Comedy. I've alluded to Dante's masterpiece before, but I've yet to read it despite having always wanted to. I keep seeing that image by Gustave Doré of Dante and Beatrice looking up at all the angels of Paradiso... There's something in the Zeitgeist I guess, and it lines right up with my theory about us being in Hell. As does the music I've been listening to: Pallbearer's new album Heartless, and Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. I'm hotly anticipating the new album by Ex-Eye, which comes out this Friday.

I've had this track by How To Destroy Angels stuck in my head: 

Undertow has come to take me
Guided by the blazing sun
Look at everything around us
Look at everything we've done
Please, anyone
I don't think I can
Save myself
I'm drowning here

I really can't wait to get back to making FLOLAS. I'm exactly at the same point I stopped at last summer: the paints for Page 29 - just as the story was starting to come together.

I have so many ideas / hopes / dreams for this little website.

Today is the Summer Solstice.

Year Four. Go.