Tag: blogging

This Is A Criminal Post

I’ve just sat down on the couch at the coffee shop.

It’s extremely hot out. And humid. Yesterday it was so humid that it was hurting my head. I was sitting outside, at this very same coffee shop, working from a small metal table, and generally enjoying being outside. Except for the fact that it was so humid that my head felt like it was swelling.

I wasn’t even overheating. It has to be really hot for me to overheat, and I have to be thirsty too. But it can get so hot that I feel like I’m wilting. That was happening to me at the Alamo. I was just wilting. I couldn’t keep going. I couldn’t be in the sun.

Yesterday it wasn’t that bad with the heat. But the humidity PLUS the heat, it was doing me in. I couldn’t concentrate. My head felt like it was swelling.

When you are really overheating and sweltering, walking into a cool, air conditioned room is like a dream. It’s a wonderful thing. That’s how I felt just now getting off the phone and going inside of the coffee shop. I was ready to come in here.

Now feeling great, drinking a green iced tea and sitting on the couch. What a wonderful life.

I am trying to do shorter, more consistent posts. It’s an experiment. And it’s just what you’re supposed to do, when you have a blog. I also don’t want to overwhelm everyone all the time, including myself, with “mega-posts”. That’s what I have been calling my beastly writings that take twenty or thirty minutes to read, that are thousands of words long. And you know what’s funny?

Yesterday, when I was thinking about how long a post could/should be, for regular posting, Chat GPT told me to shoot for 500 words in a post. That I could even set a cap, and just stop myself from writing at 500 words. So I thought, let me look at the post I just typed up, which I felt like was still too short. I had actually just finished adding more to that post, the post I had just posted yesterday, about my writing update. That was 1900 words, and Chat GPT said that a “mega-post” was 1000-2000 words. And I still thought that was a short post! Not long enough!

Chat GPT and I have a different definition of “mega-post”. But the point was that, I can get away with writing posts that are much shorter. That are so short that they feel criminal. It really does feel that way.

For example, already I can sense that we are almost at 500 words. Right now, here is the word count: 453 words. That means I only have 47 left! And look at how short this is!

It’s criminally short. This is a criminal post.

Now 478 words.

And this took me all of 5 minutes to write.

But I guess you will read the entire post.

A Nice Bit Of Diary Writing From Starbucks

*This is some old writing I was just rereading, I wrote on the day of December 15th, 2025.*

Context: I’m sitting at the Starbucks I work at (now worked at) 4pm on a Monday.

It’s time.

To do some writing.

I planned to type but this wifi is terrible. This Starbucks wifi. That is, my Starbucks wifi.

I’m sitting here at my Starbucks writing and hanging out. I’ve already been here and done my duty, and I’m back because I got home, threw my feet up on the bed, got comfy, and discovered that I had brought the magic building keys home with me. My first time doing this. And it’s funny because when I had been given the key, I looked at it and intentionally said, “I have to give this back.” And still that didn’t work. It was fated.

There are Japanese people sitting next to me speaking Japanese. That’s kind of rare.. The wacky guy has shown up again, this time telling KB all about his identity being stolen. He went through the line and is now going back to ask for his receipt. What a pain. I’m looking down so that he doesn’t notice me. I really don’t want him to talk to me. Not looking for new friends right now, no thank you.

He probably won’t recognize me because I’m in civilian garb. I’m not taking chances.

Katarina just coughed. That deep, double cough she’s had for three weeks now. Andrew was here ranting and raving about it last weekend, as we were all trapped behind the bar together. Now this weekend, he’s out sick. “He thinks he has covid.” Look at that. I probably already had it. Rachel has it now. Stacy has something now, again, because she already had something about a month ago that made her so sick she had to leave work early. That tells you it was something serious. She is a tank. Not much can stop her.

As you can probably imagine, Starbucks is a fountain of content. A deluge. I have probably 50 notes from the first weeks when I had started and everything was particularly new and exciting. But even now, 4 months in, as the novelty has faded, the developments don’t cease. Nothing is static, here. Always new faces, new characters, new situations. I was told today that my promotion date was now going to be after Christmas. I had already heard this yesterday from Queen, and now heard it from the big boss today. This is the fourth time –

Cori just scared me. I smelled her. Then I looked up and she was sitting right across from me.

Money just asked me, “What are you writing about?”

Apparently I’m colorblind because my hat is “green” and my pants are “grey”. I thought my hat was brown and my pants were blue. Money said, “Yeah if you were trying to color coordinate today it ain’t working.” I totally thought I was color coordinating.

It’s like being told you’re seeing ghosts. You can’t trust your eyes anymore.

Cori said I have a mental illness. I can’t remember why she felt the need to say that, maybe about the color blindness. I said, “But what is it? Many people have said that but no one can diagnose me.”

That’s right, she said it because I was writing. Money asked me why I was writing. Cori said, “He has a mental illness.”

Oh no. Crazy guy is talking to the customers and making them uncomfortable.

I’m uncomfortable.

He’s still talking to them.

Just plunged the toilet.

Cori tried to give me $20. Not necessary. Took me 30 seconds to plunge. 30 seconds to plunge. Like 30 Seconds To Mars.

My pen is dying!!!!

Went and grabbed a new one. (The color of the ink has now changed from blue to black, as proof.)

My phone. Left in the car? Definitely left in the car. Called sis.

Nice time talking with Money. She showed me photos of her family. I was wondering why she wanted to do that. I tried to show her a photo of somebody on my flip phone, and then discovered the no phone. Just like the old days.

It’s a gloomy winter day. We are approaching the longest day of the year. Then it’s only uphill.