Me Talking About Typewriters

Although I got to bed around midnight, I woke exhausted, once again. I knew that trying to write 2026 words per day was going to be a grueling challenge for me, particularly in the first three months as I got used to a daily writing routine. I’m still adapting to the workload and now I have returning to work to deal with as well. The beginning of any show is always a bit hectic and stressful. Nonetheless, I am getting my writing in everyday somehow. Mostly by sheer will or stubbornness.

I was allowed to work from home today, thank goodness, and that meant I got an hour or two of extra sleep and a bit of rest when the workday was over. I skipped my afternoon walk once again, instead choosing to read ‘A Knight of the Realm’ for half and hour. I wanted to keep my lunch short so I could get back to my painting. It’s slow going at the moment, and again at the beginning of a show this is normal. We have to learn a new visual language and sometimes the rules change from day to day.

I felt a bit better when another colleague mentioned they felt it was going slow for them as well. Being in the trenches is easier when you have company.

As far as the reading, I am enjoying the story of Dunk and Egg. I’ll be studying the stories as part of my attempts to get better at writing.

The kiddo had three college friends over to shoot a documentary for their film course. A big pile of equipment in our living room was pulled out and set up. They had lights, a Rhode wireless microphone, a camera and tripods. All the gear looked very professional. The kids had to rent it out from the school, and it was all packaged in sturdy cases and bags. I think its great they are using modern equipment instead of hand-me-downs.

My wife was the topic of the documentary, and she hate being on camera. She was a real trooper for agreeing to help them out. The documentary was about what it was like and what was required for her to apply to the Sheridan Animation Program in the early nineties. The same school these kids are enrolled in. They shot from about 5pm to about 6:30 pm.

Afterwards, after I was allowed back downstairs, I was banished due to the filming, Robyn and I started dinner. She cut up some veg and I spiced some pork chops and chicken thighs with a homemade rub. Then Robyn drove one of the kids to the Go Bus station and took care of the cooking.

I bought one of those Bluetooth thermometers awhile ago, so cooking was pretty easy. I just have to set the desired internal temperature, and a handheld base gives me the outer and inner temperature. Pretty easy cooking since everything was cooking on a single sheet pan in the oven.

So, I sat at the kitchen table and continued to read about Dunk and Egg. It was a nice peaceful moment that I enjoyed.

After dinner I felt exhausted again.

Getting tired of hearing that?

Often when I start saying that a lot is usually is because I am not eating as good as I should and not getting enough exercise. You already know about the writing everyday and back to work stress.

However, the next few days will be even more challenging because we have some social events to attend. Tomorrow night, after I travel on the train home we head straight to our friends for Survivor Hot Tub Pizza night. I’ll write on the train while on the way home. I doubt I’ll write in the way to work as I ‘ll be too sleepy. And then while there I will get in some more words while they watch the show.

I’ll take a break to use the hot tub, because HOT TUB!

Then on Friday we have dinner plans with two couples at a restaurant we all enjoy. There won’t be any writing happening during this social engagement. On the plus side, I will be working from home on Friday and that will save me some time.

I may need to offset this lost time by getting up a bit earlier on Friday to get some words in. The other option is to write way more words tonight and tomorrow. Getting the 3100 words I need by the end of today is going to be tough enough.

I was looking at more of the illustrations in the A Knight of the Realm novella collection. As someone who works in the art, I am very impressed with the quality of the drawings. They have the qualities of some of the books from the 1920’s through the 50’s. Dynamic poses and lots of nice details in every picture. The amount of work involved must have been staggering. I was not surprised to learn that he was also a comic book artist. He would have to be to have such a high output of work. Those comic book artists can produce amazing amounts of high-quality work in such short periods of time. He’s drawn for Hellboy, The Shadow, Batman, and Indiana Jones to name a few.

Turning each page, I look forward to each new image as much as the story.

I’d like to see more books that incorporate interior illustrations. And then I think I should be careful what I wish for. I can see a future where books, written by artificial intelligences also illustrate the books too.

Uhm… no thanks.

I haven’t been using the BYOK at all the past few weeks. It could be because of work being busy. I can see having it beside me at my desk to get in some micro sprints.

While painting, I often have something playing in the background. It can be music, an audiobook or like today it was Netflix. I don’t necessarily need to look at while I am working, maybe just glance at it every once in a while.

Today, I had on the Netflix documentary about Chef Gordan Ramsey. It gets into his home life, his wife and kids as well as his robust business dealings. The thing that I thought was interesting was his new project at the top of a massive building overlooking London.

The space is 26,000 square feet and has stunning views. Planes were flying level with his windows it was that high up. And 26, 000 square feet is a huge space for a restaurant. In fact, I think he is planning two have maybe three restaurants and a cooking institute as well. I can only imagine what the prices will be. He mentioned he had loans of twenty million pounds invested in the project. Each day the construction goes over it costs one-hundred thousand dollars. Gives you an idea that the prices must be if it’s that much to keep the lights on per day.

He had a cool thing going on with F1 Racing in Las Vegas where his team made a dining experience in Pitt Row. I hope the reservation comes with earplugs because that has to be hella noisy. It wouldn’t be my cup of tea, bit I guess if you have money to burn, are a foodie and love watching cars go round and round it would be a cool experience.

In another scene he made one of his up-and-coming chefs fly to Florida so Ramsey could try the new menu ideas. Ramsey liked most of them but had some of his patented no-holds-barred remarks about the rest. You could see the chef’s heart sink. He has spent months coming up with that menu.

What did surprise me is how vast Ramsey’s little empire is and how many countries he has restaurants in. He’s certainly done very well for himself.

The star of the show though, has to be his wife. Her pithy and honest remarks are hilarious and so on the mark. Ramsey often says things only to have her correct him and set the record straight. Yet at the same time they seem to be a happy couple. I didn’t realize he had so many children as well and with such a large gap in the ages.

He seems to enjoy being a father and that is nice to see in a celebrity. I have a good friend that served Ramsey when he visited a winery in Niagara on the Lake. My friend said he was very amiable and this was back when all we knew about his was that he liked to yell at people who where trying to cook or run restaurants that could turn a profit.

Apparently, he was glad that when he asked for a salad the chef din;t send him out all kinds of other things in an attempt to impress him. Allegedly, asked to speak to the chef and thanked him saying, “… sometimes a chef just wants a salad and not everything on the menu.” He supposedly left a generous tip.

To combat my lack of lunch time walks, I need to get back on the treadmill any time I start watching television or YouTube. Need to kill two birds with one stone whenever I can. I am definitely feeling the lack of exercise. I haven’t been drinking my AG1 as well. We do eat a good amount of vegetable throughout the week but this week it has been less than the usual servings.

I still have to make a batch of those wonderful parsnips from my friend’s recipe. The number of social engagements is complicating this a bit as well. There is less time and opportunity for us to cook our own meals. I made enough dinner tonight for us both to have a healthy lunch tomorrow. I’ll carry mine to work tomorrow to save myself some money. It will increase the chances of being able to write a little a lunch as well. But I don’t have high hopes that I will be able to do that.

At least the temperature is supposed to warm up tomorrow. I won’t be freezing my buttock off while waiting to catch the train. I’m looking forward to the days when I don’t need to wear a bulky coat and carry gloves or hats. It will give me more room to write on my laptop while sitting on the train.

We watched the Daily Show tonight and they had a segment on Kid Rock’s and RFK Jr’s workout video which was creepy and hilarious at the same time. It played over a Kid Rock song, but the imagery didn’t match the vibe of the song. RFK worked out shirtless in his jeans. Two douche bags working out. I think it was meant to inspire people, but I think they may have missed the mark by a wide margin.

There was another segment with Peter Kosta who was investigating engineers and scientists researching having sex in space. They created a special suit that opens in the front and allows you to Velcro it to the other participant.

Of Course, Kosta had to put it on and show how it might be used. He had a blow doll in a space sex suit while being craned into the air. He had to put a condom on a banana while strapped into a human gimbal rig, spinning in all directions

It was a hilarious segment, and the straight, no-nonsense expressions of the researchers made it even more funny.

I imagine after Trump’s State of the Union there are going to be some funny comedic impressions of him. I haven’t seen an episode of SNL since we cancelled our satellite TV. I do miss watching that on a Sunday morning as a fun way to start the day. James Austin Johnson, who plays Trump does an amazing impression of him. What a way to make sure they need to keep you on the SNL cast! But good for him. He deserves it.

Things I haven’t done keep popping into my head as I am writing this blog post. I aven’t made any homemade malt bread in a few weeks, and it’s been months since I made my healthy bran muffins. Even my pickled egg production has come to a complete stop. These are all staple snacks for when I am eating healthy, so it is no wonder that I am feeling sluggish all the time. Food is really a determining, if not the determining factor of my energy levels.

This weekend I need to get some baking and pickling done. None of these tasks bey itself is time consuming, but to do all three will take over an hour. The pickled eggs take the longest of all three. I still have some sitting in the outdoor fridge so maybe I’ll just makethe bread and the muffins.

As I am commuting to work two to three times a day, having premade healthy snacks becomes more and more critical. My coffee consumption has increased as well and in the past I have found that too much coffee in a week starts to make me tired and then irritable. In fact, my caffeine consumption is what has increased as I find myself reaching for can of Dr. Pepper Zero when things are getting stressful.

And an increase in caffeine will lead to increased hunger levels meaning I’ll be reaching for a fatty and sugary snack. I do love a pastry mid afternoon with a warm beverage like a tea or coffee. Having my bran muffins at hand satisfies that craving.

I have started gaining weight again as well, which if you’ve read this far should be no surprise. I definitely need to get my healthy habits back on track  and making sure I have all the snacks and goo foods will make that easier.

I may have menationed it before, but I love grapes. They are healthy and delicious. But I am les likey to reach for them if they are still on the vine.

If I pluck them off and give them a rinse then put them back n the fridge in a bowl I will eat them like they are bag of Skittles.

Removing the small barriers is key because we only have so much will power to use in a day and I am currently using all mine for writing and work.

I have been avoiding writing more on my Knight story. Partly because I am not happy with it and partly because I am comparing it to ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”. This is not likely a good idea. There is an easiness to Martin’s storytelling that is missing from my own. And sure, I plan to study the Dunk and Egg stories to learn from them, but I think I should shelve what I have written I and try for it again. There are moments of the story I like, but nothing is really happening. If it’s boring me then it’s probably going to bore you as well. Tomorrow, I will read it over while I’m on the train and see if it is worth continuing or scrapping all together.

My writing instructor tells me that we are not good judges of our own writing. But I find if I let it sit for awhile and the re-read it, I can often be surprised and wonder, did I really write this?

Of course, there is the flip side of when I wish I wasn’t the one who wrote that something.

Other items I haven’t touched in a while are my typewriter collection. I used it to write letters, one to a friend in B.C. and another to an American Reverend who was my penpal for a while. Is it still called pen pal if you are using typewriters? Not sure.

But as time went on the reverend stopped sending letters and then I eventually stopped as well. That left my friend in BC and I stopped writing him because he made it less fun that it was supposed to be. I don’t think he really liked writing me that much anyways.

I always meant to use it to write a couple hundred words a day. Just leave it out and type on it for ten to fifteen minutes a day when I passed it and remembered. Maybe I will try that again. The idea was to have a short story that took months and months two write because I would only add a couple of lines a day.

My favorite typewriter is the Smith Corona Skyriter. It has the best snappy action, and you can really pound on the keys. It makes you feel like an authentic writer in the 40’s or fifties. It still amazes me that these mechanical marvels still function after all of these years.

I have an Olivetti Lettra 22 that is also nice to use and has the same form factor.

My prized typewriter is my ’69 Hermes 3000. It has a beautiful, curved body and has a nice typing experience. It’s not as portable as the other two and for that reason it is better for long sessions of writing. It’s closer to being a full desk top model, while the other two were meant to be carried around and often were used by newspaper correspondents and military units in WWII.

I own a larger typewriter gifted to me by a friend. It was his father’s typewriter from when he worked at our local newspaper. When his father passed, I took possession of it, cleaned it up and got it back into working condition. It had years of coffee stains, nicotine and blood and sweat on those keys. It cleaned up beautifully. It’s a heavy beast though so its not one I tend to pull of the shelf very often.

I also own two Olympia SM9s, and although they are very collectible, I didn’t enjoy using them as much. The typing experience wasn’t as nice as the other three.

I’ll add this to my Sunday list of things to catch up on. Sunday is a good day because it is the first of the month and that means the word count timer resets for the month and get a bit of breathing room. I don’t want to get behind this month on my word counts so I am going to endeavour to meet the minimum word count every evening.

I think I declare this at the start of ever month!

But this time I mean it.

Really, I do.

It’s been another long day, and I am up early to catch a train.

Time for bed.

Good night!