TO CONTINUE...

     Gandalf's description of how the One Ring grants its bearer immortality feels like such an apt description for much else in life.

Like the other Great Rings of Power, [the One Ring] would extend the lifespan of its owner indefinitely, but that person...would not grow or obtain more life, but would merely continue, until every minute was an unbearable weariness.

     The more I read about Tolkien's mythology, the more I find it such a remarkable way of looking at things. Although we are not Valar nor Maiar, I find the idea that we have within us a native strength (or power) which can be spent to our fortune or peril an interesting one.
     The great evil ones, Melkor and Sauron, spent their spirits in envy and hate in their respective attempts to dominate the very matter of Earth and its inhabitants, growing weaker over time. Once mighty and seemingly invincible, they would, over time, lose their ability to shapeshift, no longer be able to create new things to use against the existing order (instead being able to only make parodies and corruptions of works already made), and take on wounds which would no longer heal.
     The great maia, Sauron, would impart much of his remaining native strength into the One Ring so that it would be able to dominate the other nineteen rings of power. When he wore it, the One Ring made him even stronger than before but should the ring be destroyed, it would take with it that native strength Sauron had poured into it so there was a risk involved for any spirit who wished to go against the natural order of things.

     It makes me think of how we live our lives and the values and desires we place in things and in people. I feel like I have invested much of my native strength in the wrong girls and it has left me considerably weaker for my troubles. The last time I felt my native strength increasing was when I was in college back in late 1998/early 1999...but mostly in 1998.
     I had met many new friends (even girls who found me desirable) and for perhaps the only time in my life, had a near-daily exposure to love and acceptance. I felt a part of something bigger than me for the only time in my life.  If I were somehow able to quantify my native strength and add up the percentages of it placed into other people and things and that which is still left in me, the number would be greater than 100% mostly for that time but also for times in my past like it (such as when I started getting to know my Best Friend and other friends both remaining and lost in my life).
     My last happy New Year was the changeover from 1999 to 2000. So far, the 21st century has held little to no happiness for me and as I now find myself well into it. I am also less than ten years away from the pivot point whereby I become a 21st century man (that is, soon I will have existed longer in the 21st century than I did in the 20th...another of my weird thoughts/realizations).

     But I know I squandered a large part of myself in the First One. It felt only natural and I did so out of ignorance. While foolish in retrospect, how was I to know at the time she wasn't "the one"? First love is foolish love much as is all young love. Still...I miss her and the nervous energy she imparted on me that I was then able to transform into creative and artistic pursuits like drawing, poetry, and most proudly, a constructed language.
     The First One would come to be known to me as a personification of idealization. She is what attraction means to me and what it means to be in love. All those who have followed (and even those who preceded) are compared to her, being either greater or lesser. In a mythological sense, she would be the physical manifestation of a god, specifically of Aphrodite. In a different and more modern sense I would describe her as a "genetic attraction", which was most definitely eugenic in nature as I recall myself, even as a young teenager, wanting to merge my DNA with her own as if our respective DNAs would result in a more superior human than she already was. That's a strange thought I admit and to this day, while I would most certainly prefer to do so the, uh..."natural" or "fun" way, I would be happy to have her accept my DNA via artificial insemination just to bring about that genetic fulfillment.

     Smaller parts of me would be invested in nearly a dozen other girls and more still in lost friends, but the next great investment was in Digby, the source of many downer posts in this blog. I saw in her a salvation of sorts. She appeared to me as the actual "one" I had been spending my life looking for (and this time a human right from the start rather than the fleshy goddess that was the First One) as I now had many more years of experience and working knowledge of who I am and what I had wanted. I felt able to see our compatibility but ultimately, I had deceived myself...
     Don't get me wrong. I still believe with all my heart that Digby is right for me. It's just...what I never considered and what would thus be my downfall, was that it never occurred to me just how cruel nature is when it comes to love. I made the mistake of believing, because I had never properly had it contradicted prior, that compatibility is more of a scalar than what it truly is, a vector.
      You see, compatibility has a direction to it: it's not a universal number or quality. Digby is good enough (maybe even ideally so)...but only for me. But I am not perfect for her. It seems an impossible thought but it's sadly so very true.
      For the longest time I went through life believing that if you found a person you were compatible with that it was only natural that they too would be compatible with you. It might take some convincing, but I truly believed compatibility was like an equation. In this case, different sets of numbers that added up to the same result (a simplified example being 4+5 = 108÷12 ...seemingly different in all ways but nevertheless, their underlying nature, that they are both manifestations of 9, is the same). But no, compatibility is not a simple equation...it is a vector. The direction compatibility moves in matters (like how whether a targeted item in a supermarket will appear on the left side or right side of an aisle depends on the direction you enter said aisle) and resultant vectors cannot be found simply by adding two (or more) vectors together.
     The maddening result of all this grief is the knowledge that you can be great for someone but that you, in turn, are not necessarily great for them. It is a seeming defiance of logic but it is most assuredly true and a depressing truth at that. Perhaps if I had learned that lesson at an earlier age...

     Digby would become the personification of desire in many, if not all, of its manifestations and especially representative of my desire to do right by and for a woman; to be her one and only; to be the father, and properly so, to her children; to give of myself that she and my progeny might experience a life most fitting for them. Digby was truly a dream given form...
     Now if only I might find that (as of yet unknown) Third One who is this time as compatible with me as I am with her.

     However, to get back to my opening statements, I feel I have been living a life without purpose and I have been living this way largely for the last three to seven years depending on your reckoning and arguably I have been this way since finding the First One back in 1992 as fulfillment is not something that would ever be known to me.
     Much of my native strength has been spent. It has left me feeling weak and my spirit fragile. It takes so much time now to find even the smallest amount of will to make a move and such strength is all too easily spent resulting in months of recovery from even the slightest of setbacks...time I really don't have anymore as my youth has been gone for some time now.
     For the time being, I find myself bound spiritually to my Best Friend but she is not enough. She is like family and family does not represent the future nor does family represent change, whether the family we're born into or the family we choose. Love must ultimately manifest either literally in the form of children or spiritually in the form of a legacy which will outlive our physical forms. Our genes demand from us immortality. For me personally, that satisfaction requires a yin for my yang to be the means, undeniably female, for manifesting that immortality. But I have been denied such satisfaction...
     And I feel that's what living with purposelessness is: it is merely survival, not life. The food I eat, the water I drink, and the air I breathe extend my life but mere acts of survival do not grow or obtain for me more life. They permit me only to continue and every day the burden of continuing makes me feel heavier and that heaviness is most certainly wearisome. It is not yet unbearable and while I have no intention of "doing" anything about it, it does leave me wondering just how much more my body can handle before it decides it has had enough or will I find my continuance, my merely surviving, to be corrupting like that of Sméagol as he became Gollum under the One Ring's influence and living on only as a shadow of my former, once hopeful, self,

     ...a living mockery of a man...

COMPETITIVE GOLD AND SILVER

     I should make it clear that I don't think the United States should return to the Gold Standard. I can't really articulate the argument why and it may seem surprising to hear such a thing from a coin collector. However, that doesn't mean I don't think gold coins shouldn't exist as money.

     Why not have competing currencies? Congress could use its authority to coin silver and gold and put them into the marketplace as money alongside the present day fiat coins and currency.

      Just don't give them the same name.

      Leave dollars and cents to the fiat currencies. Leave them as is.

      However, there was another denomination name in the past: the eagle. An "eagle" was another word for "ten dollars". The word never appeared on a coin. I think it was just an official name and nothing more.
      The next step up was the union. A "union" was supposed to be another way of expressing "one hundred dollars". I remember the term coming up when there were talks of making $50 gold coins in response to the massive gold find in California back in 1848. The proposed $50 coin, which was never made, was referred to as a "half union".

      We could run with those terms...

      The silver coins could be referred to as eagles and denominated as such but with no official conversion formula. There could be quarter-eagles, half-eagles, eagles, and double eagles: 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 ounce of silver respectively.
      The gold coins could be referred to as unions and denominated like the silver eagles with again, no conversion formula for the other currency types.
      Smaller (or larger) versions of both types of coins could also be authorized if needed.
      How many dollars one could get for these coins would vary based on market trends. Likewise, how many silver eagles one could get for a gold union would also vary.

      The point would be to let the currencies comingle and be used by the public as desired. Laws to prevent abuse of the powerless could require employers to pay employees in the currency of their choice without fear of penalty as well as for banks to pay out debts in the currency desired by the account holder. Stores could post prices in three units much like it was during the Civil War when pricing based on paper money, silver, and gold could be found.
      It might be a little confusing at first and it ultimately might mean nothing. Gold and silver money might prove unpopular with the public and limit its use in commerce. Or it could be very popular forcing Congress to make its dollars more attractive to the public.

      I think it would be a fun experiment. I certainly don't see the harm in doing so.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE...I GUESS

     It really bugs me because I wanted to punish my store and union for not even considering that I was only doing what I thought was right (even if they ultimately disagreed). I wanted to punish my store for those suspensions by no longer shopping there.

      I've been going to another supermarket to buy my foodstuffs but damn, that store is just poorly run and making a mockery of my barely-there protest. It's like they don't even believe in stocking. The gaps on the shelves cannot possibly be due to customers since I'm there shortly after opening. Y'know, when the Night Crew has had all night to restock the shelves. It's ridiculous. The store is already smaller than mine so this just only makes it more annoying. It's like this supermarket doesn't even care. The shelves are poorly blocked with items frequently not corresponding to their shelf tags or products mixed within forcing you to not take for granted what you're putting into the cart. They must have one of the highest raincheck numbers in the franchise.

      I'm thinking I'm going to have to break it off. I'll have to rationalize it though. I figure I've lost about $500 to various suspensions over the years so maybe when I've spent $500 at this other store I can call it even.

      Maybe...

THE SEEKER MUST NOW BE SOUGHT...

     Last month I destroyed my dating site profiles. I'm giving up. Whether for the time-being or for good remains to be seen. I'm tired of the routine. It's a lot of wasted time and effort for practically no results. I'll admit I'm already feeling a little better since I'm able to devote what little energy I can self-generate to other tasks, even some old-school stuff like listening (and sometimes singing along) to music. In that sense it's been fun. Maybe I can finally tackle some projects I've let wither on the vine like my language. Hell, I'm already writing more entries to the stupid blog than I have for quite a while. Let's see where it goes...

     I'll take from the experience what I got out of it. I got a taste of normalcy from Winwood. I got to have the title of boyfriend from Costello. And even afterward I managed to get a date (albeit only one) from a girl I asked out in real life. In a sense I've accomplished several major lifetime goals (albeit very late in life). The only thing I've never managed to do was get to date one of my crushes. There hasn't been another one since Number Twelve, which evaporated quickly and there hasn't been a strong, lingering one since Digby and I first started crushing on her over seven years ago. It makes me think my heart is out of it. It's had enough...I've had enough.

     Strangely I'm not sad about it. If something happens, I'll let it happen but I'm not seeking it. I should focus what's left of my life on things I enjoy and might enjoy doing. I certainly need something. The sad truth is I can't say for certain that I have anything to look forward to after the New Horizons spacecraft passes Pluto next year in July (and to a lesser extent, the Dawn spacecraft will also be put into orbit around the largest main belt asteroid Ceres that year too). I still look forward to The Simpsons but I don't know how much longer that show has. I don't think this season is the last because the media would be all over that. It might be next season. We'll see.

      I need something to grab on to but nothing's been coming my way. This all sounds way sadder than I mean it. It's just nice to have things to look forward to...

SEVEN DEADLY SINS (play-at-home version)

(click to enlarge)

     I saw this image floating around online and thought it interesting enough to give it a try. Which one would you choose? They each have ups and downs. The only trouble I have is that what is promised is light on details, making me wonder if participation in this game would find you the victim of a Jerk Genie. But let's consider, shall we?

ENVY, option A: I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "aspect of your life" and while it certainly could be used for good, trading a good quality of one's own for a bad quality in another to give that person a shot at a better life, the evil implication is that you're basically fucking over one of your friends with something about yourself you don't like, trading it for something desirable in the other friend. Is this limited to mental aspects or conceptual things like "luck", or are you able to trade for, say, a full head of hair if you were balding or increased height if you felt yourself too short? It doesn't say and it would certainly suck to find out it had to be nonphysical when you wanted something physical, wouldn't it?
     Definitely wouldn't take this option.

ENVY, option B: Trading lives. Does this mean I continue having my own body but people react to me like I were the other person or does it mean body-swapping? Either way, what is to stop the forcibly traded person from coming after me for having stolen his/her life? Sounds dangerous to accept, no?
     I'm gonna have to say no to this one as well.

SLOTH, option A: This is most certainly the safest option I would think. By far the best default in the event you find you cannot forfeit choosing one of these options. Median household income for the year 2012, according to the OECD, was $30,932. Another chart shows the median 2011 income from the U.S. Census Bureau at $50,054, a considerable difference. The former isn't much more than I make now while the latter would make me feel solidly Middle Class.
     Of course, the country whose median income your sloth check would be based on is never stated nor whether the amount would be indexed for inflation or fixed at the present year's value making this option potentially risky, especially given that you would never work a day (which could also mean you're in a coma). I want to take this one, but what if I end up receiving Mexico's median annual income ($4,493 in U.S. dollars)? That would certainly suck and you know there are worse countries than that...
     Now I'm thinking this wouldn't be such a safe bet after all.

SLOTH, option B: Same shitty life I have now except that I always feel rested after I sleep. Again, I'm assuming this reduced sleep is still enough to keep healthy and not like a drug. Assuming this genie isn't totally a jerkass, this option could prove a bit ironic to the sin as you could now being WAY more productive than would otherwise be possible for a human being. If a five minute nap counts as a full day's rest, what's to stop you from always pulling all-nighters, tinkering with all sorts of hobbies, partying 'til dawn on worknights, having your cake and eating it too when it comes to business and pleasure, etc.?
     Even though I'd still have to work, this one could be a good "if I have to" option even if the health risks do exist. It would mean simply be careful not to abuse your power, like one must be careful not to abuse pain medications lest their effectiveness dwindle. I mean I hope it would be that simple and not some other horrible side-effect...

WRATH, option A: Certainly a very tempting option. Both options come with the same potential drawback: are you able to get away with these crimes? I would like to believe proving it in court would be impossible but then being tied up in court having to defend oneself could prove costly and as the O.J. Simpson civil trial showed, being acquitted of murder doesn't mean one cannot still be found liable financially.
     Also, must you inflict this annual fate or can you be merciful and skip a year? Can you bank fates (I'll assume not). Must the fates be terrible or can they be used to slowly grant lottery victories or spontaneous remissions of cancer?
     Of course the wording states that the target must be "of my wrath" making me presumably less likely to wish to be civil about it...

WRATH, option B: You get a monthly option provided the fate be non-lethal - though it can be delayed - but like the above, it must be visited upon an object of rage making this power decidedly useless to pervert in order to help family and friends out.
     Still...I can be pretty creative in my non-lethal horrors but again I wonder, do I have to do this once-a-month or just once-a-month maximum? It makes a difference because I'm just not that angry of a man. I'd run out of justifiable (to myself anyway) targets pretty quickly and my remaining lifetime could still be quite long...

LUST, option A: This really sounds like a roundabout description of rape, doesn't it? Speaking as someone unlucky in both love and hooking up, this is a very tempting option as it would allow me to fulfill a number of fantasies...from my perspective at least. As the nightmare of my prowess is visited upon my targets, what becomes of them afterward? Do they remember hooking up with me but unsure why they weren't able to resist? Are they happy for having done so? Do they regret it? How much time afterward do I have before their free will kicks back in? Like it has been said allegedly of the Devil, would I have no power over true love, meaning I could only hook up with single girls (which would more than suck as I've lusted after a few boyfriended/married girls in my life)? Will it be reported as a rape, tying up my time in courtrooms like with the wrath options?
     Lots of questions with no help offered from the option's description. Still...a tempting option regardless of the potential problems. Yeah, I'm a terrible human being...

LUST, option B: While this sounds like a safer option, I need reality for my fantasies to work. It's like asking for a hug. It's not the same as a hug given freely. Having a shapeshifter who could turn into a crush I could then fuck is not the same as being able to fuck the crush herself.

PRIDE, option A: Fame and popularity. Again, for what is not made clear nor is it in any way certain that I would have a choice over as to why I'm famous and popular. Serial killers tend to be both (except with their victims' families I would imagine). Not exactly something I would like to be prideful of, especially since it would likely mean a lifetime of imprisonment...or pending execution depending on the state. One might also be famous and popular for having exposed national secrets à la Snowden but then stuck in a life of exile for it, always looking over one's shoulder. Many good results and many bad results can come from this...

PRIDE, option B: I like this option, a powerful and commanding aura. I get to be automatically respected and feared by those around me. However, is this a power I have control over or am I always that way? While it could be useful, even when always on, it would make it hard to have friends and those friends you already do have would treat you differently, denying you their honesty.
     If I could turn this power on and off at will or if I could grant exceptions to certain people (even if such exceptions were irreversible), that might be better but still...without clarification, I think this option too risky to assume...

GREED, option A: Actually this seems like the safest option now, unless this hundredfold increase in salary is the result of a bank robbery (I think that's how a genie got wished-for money in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon once: I watched too many cartoons as a kid). Also, is this an annual - but now fixed - 100x salary or just a one-time thing and future years are my present salary with no possibility of a raise and/or promotion ever after? Something perhaps that should've been cleared up in the text. I'm assuming it's a one-time thing since there are no restrictions on how I may spend my new found wealth. 100x my present salary would be plenty for the rest of my life barring a serious illness.
     Maybe I shouldn't give this genie ideas...

GREED, option B: This is actually an interesting option but what would I so covet that I would wish simply to have it with no ability to do anything with it except possess or sell it at a loss/give away freely since I cannot make money off it?
     A double-edged sword indeed...

GLUTTONY, option A: Sounds nice though I would suspect hedonic adaptation would ultimately apply, ruining the joy of this choice...

GLUTTONY, option B: None of the negative side-effects of eating? Does this mean I could eat poisons and be unaffected by them? Are all my poops now perfect, no-wipe-needed wonders? This power could be an interesting way to make money from bets...

     Overall, I'm not sure which one I would take. If I could forfeit the game, I would to play it safe. As mentioned, I've seen too many cartoons and TV shows with jerk genies, literal genies, etc. I don't think any of them ever got the job by choice which might explain why they delight in creating misfortune with their power.
      But if I had to choose, despite the unclear wording, the life of leisure that would (presumably) be afforded me with an annual median income and not having to work for a living. Option A Lust would certainly have its uses but I can't see how I wouldn't feel guilty, at least eventually, for having exercised it. Same with either Wrath option...


"Seven Deadly Sins" by The Traveling Wilburys
     Perhaps a differently worded version might be composed by someone more lawyerly? Internet, I'm waiting...

THAT'S THE END OF THAT CHAPTER...

     Back around Christmastime in 2004, I bought a Whitman coin collecting board for Lincoln Cents. It is the second book in what is probably now a four book series covering the years 1941-1974.

     I started filling it with cents found from circulation wondering just how long it would take me to do. I was primarily interested in the 51 varieties of Wheat Cents of this book (1941-1958) over the later-date Memorial Cents (1959-2008), the latter of which I held to a higher collecting standard (they still had to have some mint luster).
     For the Wheat Cents, any find would do though I was not above replacing those found with better examples when they came along. For most of these coins, I did find at least two over the course of this experiment.

     My first coin was, found on December 26, 2004, was dated 1942 and on November 20, 2014, I was able to fill the last hole in that book with a 1955-S.

     Its condition was surprisingly new but then, perhaps I ought not have been so surprised. Reading over the years has told me that many people hoarded this particular cent as a memento of the closing San Francisco mint (a cost-cutting move back in 1955). The only other coin minted in San Francisco that year was the dime but cents are cheaper so they were the coin of choice for hoarding. Also there was a speculative craze going on at the time that manifested in collectors/dealers/speculators holding rolls of newly released coins in the hopes that their value would appreciate. I believe it got kicked off with the low-mintage 1950-D nickel of which about half the total production was believed to be hoarded in uncirculated condition.
     Authors of articles who lived during the time of this coin's release anecdotally relayed that they had never received one of these coins in their change, being forced to buy one at a substantial mark-up from a local dealer to fill the hole in their childhood collections.
     Now I am the holder of this recently "liberated" coin. I can only hope this find was more the result of an ungrateful heir/grandchild than that of a robbery because that happens too.

     I'm not used to seeing Wheat Cents with any, let alone all, of their original luster intact. I guess because they were never new for me. I always saw them toned. Indian Head Cents look weird to me too when uncirculated. I'm surprised I haven't seen more over the years since luster bearing Memorial Cents from even 1959 can still be found infrequently and commonly from the 1970s and '80s. Wheat Cents have just always been brown, even the mid-1980s when I first started collecting.

     But with that find, I can say now that it took just short of 9 years and 11 months to complete that set from circulation. From the outset I thought I would never see any of the 1943 steel cents; I was actually planning to overlook them and consider the set complete without them but then I found one in another person's till (1943-D) and so added them to the list. I thought they'd be the last ones I'd ever find but the steel cent set was finished in 2011 when I received a 1943-S in payment, and not from somebody who knew I was looking.
     I also discovered that if you check the magnet trap in a bank's coin counting machine, you can sometimes score a steel cent or two there as well but I didn't need to depend on this trick to get all three of the steel cents. Each one actually came from different customers over the years.

     Naturally the first full year, 2005, had the most finds. It broke down for the 51 date and mintmark combinations as follows and as you can see, it's the San Francisco dates overall which are the hardest to come by.
     San Francisco made coins have a certain allure with collectors as they were often the lowest mintage of any particular year:

2004: 4 [4, 47] - started off with 1942 on 12/26/04; 1944; 1953; and 1957-D
2005: 32 [36, 15] - highlight of this mess: got the 1943-D on 8/20/05
2006: 4 [40, 11] - 1941-D; 1942-D; 1944-D; 1944-S
2007: 3 [43, 8] - 1945-D; 1945-S; 1951-S
2008: 2 [45, 6] - got the 1943 on 2/28/08; the other find was 1952-S
2009: 0
2010: 3 [48, 3] - 1942-S; 1947-S; 1949-S
2011: 1 [49, 2] - got the 1943-S on 3/26/11
2012: 1 [50, 1] - this year's lone find was 1941-S
2013: 0
2014: 1 [51] - set completed with 1955-S on 11/20/14

     As of now, I have found every date and mintmark of the Lincoln Cent series from 1940 to present in circulation. I need only an example from 1915, 1931, and 1922-D to have completed a date set from circulation (i.e. one example from every year from any mint). That attempt has been ongoing since 2002.
     A twenty coin subset, 1934-1940 PDS, is what I am hoping to complete from circulation next. I need only seven more date and mintmark combinations to do so.
     The 1909-1933 subset I would say is impossible to complete from circulation anymore though I feel year representation is still achievable with enough time and coins to sort through. This is why it helps that I am a cashier...

     For other series, I need only two more coins to complete a set of Jefferson Nickels from circulation (1938-present), the 1939-D and 1944-S, and I have more than half the total set of silver Roosevelt Dimes (1946-1964) and Franklin Half-Dollars (1948-1963) as well.

      I wish me luck :-)

AM I DOING BOOK REVIEWS NOW?

     There are spoilers in this kinda-sorta review so if you don't want to know, you only have yourself to blame for continuing...

     I finally finished reading a novel by Samuel Delaney called Dhalgren and when I say finally, I mean from start to finish, this read took over fifteen years.

     When I was still in college I had gotten into the habit of speaking with my adjunct after class. He would talk about literature, storytelling, and whatnot. One day he recommended to me, based on things I was saying, a novel called Dhalgren. He convinced me of its interesting nature by recalling events like their being an enormous sun and two moons in the sky and some other details which could be gleaned from reading the book's jacket. However, I never asked him how to spell it (or even if it were one word or two) and I quickly forgot who the author was.
     It took me about a year to track the novel down because I had never thought to spell it with a D-H. But I found it and serendipitously at that, and by using a card catalog too...way to date myself! I put in an order at the local bookstore and it soon came into my possession.

     I noticed the first page started in the middle of a sentence and my impatience got the better of me so I checked out the novel's last page to see if it ended on the start of that sentence. I found that it did and that I soon regretted having spoiled myself of what I thought the novel's twist was. I decided that I would not like to read this novel until I had forgotten this detail but as it is with memory, telling yourself to forget something is how you burn it permanently into the fabric of the Gilligan's Island Theme region of the brain.
      Every time afterward I would look at and consider beginning that novel, the memory of my impulsiveness would return.

     Six moves later, I unceremoniously plucked it from my shelf and made it my newest laundry read. A confession: I'm not much of a reader (by my definition anyway**) so I only read when doing my laundry. I'm stuck in that room for about an hour so it gives me something to do as well as an excuse to finally read these books that've been decorating my various residences all these years.
     And so began my long journey to complete this novel, thirty or forty pages at a time once or twice monthly depending on my laundry needs. I avoided looking up anything about it online, even fan artwork, because I wanted to get as much out of it as I could without being influenced from the outside. I'll admit I had grown impatient by the end. When I hit that final chapter (and these are long chapters...it's an 800 page novel with seven chapters), I wanted this over so I actually read on my own time over a couple of days to finish it up and so here I am.