I’m not good with social media so I’ll start with this

I'm not very good at blogging. There was a time when I had one and it worked out for a little while. I did a webcomic too. It was nice. Things have changed a little in the ten years since I started the webcomic and the seven or eight since I stopped making it. I could go into detail on it but I'd rather not for the time being, if that's okay.

To get my feet wet I'll start with this: I've had two book ideas bouncing around in my head lately.

One is a book about Ethan Couch, a teenage drunk driver who killed four people, injured several others and got away with it. The other is something I'm vaguely describing as a 'teddy bear novel'. Both books, in concept anyway, were a practice of a piece of advice given by Kurt Vonnegut which went "write about something you care about." This sentiment was what drew me to Ethan Couch as a potential for a book given that I cared about what and the reasons why it happened. It burned me up inside. It hurt to know that someone so cruel and ignorant would be raised and be allowed to roam free without punishment. It made me angry and annoyed.

I'm not accustomed to death, war, and injustice as other people are. When it happens my immediate instincts are to make it right, find a solution, not let it stand. When there is a natural disaster there is an instinct to help in most people. I work in the Gateway Commerce Center near Pontoon Beach and last year a tornado had touched down just south of my workplace. The tornado warnings went off and we all went to the designated tornado shelter areas, treating it like any other tornado warning. We took it seriously, but nonchalantly, calmly. Once the first warning was done the mood had shifted. There was sudden tension in the air. Talks of the tornado touching down nearby had surfaced. By the time there was a second warning, word of casualties in a nearby Amazon warehouse had been reported with people possibly trapped as well. In the break room, one of our designated shelters, the news played for the duration of the second tornado warning. Once the second warning passed and we were allowed back on the floor, several coworkers offered to go over and help get people out. Some of the people that I work with, including one of my supervisors, were first responders. By this point in the night police, medical, and fire were already on the scene. While it was understood that they wanted to help, there was the understanding that it would be detrimental to the act of helping if they were to go over there. Cooler heads prevailed, and we all let emergency services do their thing.

The company allowed us to go home for the night, the rest of our hours would be paid. Outside the various flashing lights of emergency vehicles colored the horizon along with the lights of the parking lot. It was the first time I'd seen something like it in person. It was like almost crashing into a brick wall you didn't see till it was right there in front of you.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, now known as ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’, which makes things like coping with a traumatic event such as this difficult. I can be and have been overly sensitive to the various feelings that one would have in a given situation. What would take someone with a stronger constitution to get over something like this, it would take me double that time. It was hard for me to get back to ‘business as usual’ in the months after the tornado.

I’ve realized in recent months that I have had very little control over my emotions and which in turn has pushed me towards bad habits that I am working to get rid of. For example, this website was changed back in the beginning of 2022, the first time in years, and it took me four months to write this post. I want to try and put my best foot forward and I want to try and have anything I write mean something. My hope for these recent changes to the site and my behavior is that I grow out of the habit of feeling the need to do something, to fix a problem that I can’t readily solve right then and there. Hopefully that’ll come sooner than later. To help in that endeavor I’m gonna shift focus to the Teddy Bear novel as my main novel project.

Who knows? I might write the Ethan Couch book at some point later down the road. Anything’s possible.

Till next time,
Jeff Rodgers (6/9/2022)

Image made with Chroma Lab on Android