She sat in the center of the circle, where she would bathe in the blood of the victims and allow the spirit of Apophis to enter her. Twenty-four victims, one born in each time zone. The God of Chaos demanded the defiling of each section of the sun’s journey to prepare for his return.

And she would ascend to the right hand of earth’s new overlord.

###

Landing as planned, pick up at Terminal 2 Gate 22.

William sent off his last message to Silvia as she raced to meet their latest victim. Their team was efficient, Gretchen planning people’s trips, William keeping tabs on their arrival in the tower and Silvia meeting them upon arrival and taking them to their unplanned destination.

When Gretchen unveiled her plan, it seemed impossible. Moving victims from every time zone into New York without raising suspicion required absolute control. She created “contests” that placed every detail of the trips in her hands. Starting with the most isolated zones, she refined the process until the pace quickened and the victims began arriving from denser, more familiar routes.

His only question now was whether to officially quit his job or walk away and surprise his old coworkers when he becomes a leader in the kingdom to come.

###

“Bonjour, Silvia” Marcie smiled as she approached her host, waiting at baggage holding a sign with ‘Silvia Devereux’ neatly written in black marker.

“Bonjour, Marcie,” Silvia mimicked her smile. “Is this your first time in New York?”

“My first time in New York but not my first time in the States,” Marcie replied in flawless English.

“Well, I’ve seen the itinerary Gretchen has prepared for you and I must say, you are in for quite an experience,” Silvia chatted as they waited for Marcie’s baggage to arrive.

“I’m quite excited, I’ve been to Washington D.C. before, but that’s about it.”

“Well, I’m a little biased having lived here my entire life, but there is no city like New York.”

“I will say, Paris has its own magic,” Marcie laughed.

“Yes, perhaps I should say there is no city in the US like New York,” Silvia replied with a matching chuckle . “I must say, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody from Paris before.”

“Well, I hope I make a great impression, for all of France,” Marcie said as her baggage came around on the carousel.

After a short ride to long term parking Silvia popped open her trunk and started loading Marcie’s bags.

“I like to park further away, I never know how much a person is bringing and I like the space to get organized as I load the car,” Silvia smiled politely as she unlocked the back door for Marcie to get situated.

As Marcie turned to enter the car the world went black, a sickening ‘THUD’ was her last memory.

###

Silvia never had the stomach for exsanguination. Knocking people out and hauling their bodies, knowing full well the purpose, were all things that she could justify in her mind. They were steps in her ascension to glory, a higher purpose, she revered these people and held them in a place of honor.

But watching the blood being drained from their unconscious bodies always made her a little sick. The little twitches it made. The body wasn’t awake, but it knew it was dying. Her discontent faded as the sacrifice was completed– all of Silvia’s earthly trouble would soon be behind her.

William always handled the deed. He approached it from a place of curiosity, how all our lives fit together, how this life’s end was connected to what happened next. It was a view of life honed working in that tower. Everybody only envisions their plane going from point A to point B, not thinking about all the other planes, going to their own points on the globe, An entire world full of people, heading in their own directions, unaware of the unseen guiding their journey.

And last, Gretchen watched from the center of the room. She had no concern for the deaths and created no metaphor to justify her actions. The only focus was her goal, the twenty-four people who met their demise were merely obstacles on the way to her destination.

“Let’s get this finished,” Gretchen barked.

“I can’t make it happen any faster,” William replied, not looking up from his work. “We’ve waited this long, it’s not going to kill us to wait for things to finish properly.”

Silvia walked around the room, silently, looking at the sealed vessels set on simple pedestals circling the room. Occasionally she dragged a finger slowly across one of the containers, holding the blood of one of their victims. She sighed as the thought of their mission, and their upcoming reward, replaced the unsettling picture of the body being drained on the other end of the room.

“Thank you for including me,” she said quietly to no one in particular.

“This couldn’t have happened without you.” Gretchen answered, assuming the thanks were for her. “Your part has been instrumental and will continue to grow. I thank Apophis for bringing you to me.”

Silvia’s reply was cut off from a commotion in the corner. William had finished his task and was sealing the vessel and placing it on the last podium. He then took the body and placed it in an adjacent room. In the past they had planned on what to do with the bodies but after tonight, none of that would matter.

Each vessel had a small plug at the bottom that, when pulled, would allow the contents to drain into the top of the pedestal, each of which had a pipeline that would then drain the contents into a tub in the middle of the room. Gretchen waited there, her body prepared to become the physical vehicle for Apophis.

Neither William nor Silvia had asked any questions when they first saw the setup. Gretchen had been so full of fervor, so dedicated to the return of Apophis that they hadn’t questioned anything.

She was a true disciple and they were her acolytes.

They started the ceremony wordlessly. When Gretchen climbed into the tub the next steps were automatic. The hours they spent going over the details, there was no need to think about what to do, they were fulfilling the purpose they were created for.

Starting at the top of the circle, William opened the plug on their first victim, while Silvia uncorked their latest. In the tub, Gretchen chanted a prayer in a language neither of them could understand.

They would circle around, meeting at the other end where they would release the blood of victims twelve and thirteen. With the addition of each sacrifice to the tub, Gretchen’s voice became louder, bolder, rising from a quiet chant to a piercing scream as they made their way around the circle. The room became hotter, almost unbearable as an unseen primordial force filled the room. Darkness fell upon them, the room they had tediously prepared for this moment was gone. They were existing in a void where light was unknown.

The sound of Gretchen’s voice twisted, her inhuman wail becoming frightfully animalistic. The room shook and the blood-filled tub completely shrouded the group’s leader as the chant continued to fill the room, echoing off the walls and through the bodies of the overwhelmed disciples.

Overcome with fear, Silvia screamed out but no sound came from her mouth. She attempted to leave but found herself rooted in place, in the vast emptiness in which she currently existed. An intense pain emanated from inside her body. Looking down she watched as her body split open, a foul smell filled the air as maggots feasted on her.

“A feast fit for a god,” the voice boomed as it ceased chanting. “The flesh of the zealots will sustain me through the battles to come.”

Silvia’s mind burned as she waited for a death that never came. Next to her she saw the husk of William’s body. A giant, green-eyed snake slithered out of his mouth, his eyes replaced with a nest filled with eggs, his throat pulsating as he attempted to vocalize screams that would never be heard.

Completely covered in the blood of her sacrifices to Apophis, Gretchen’s moment of panic subsided at the realization that she wasn’t drowning, and she soon fell through the tub into a void. The noise and chaos of the ceremonial room was gone and she floated in darkness.

“Excellent work, my priestess. You have gone far beyond what I had expected.” A voice roared through the darkness.

“I only live to please you Lord. But I couldn’t have done it alone, your faithful servants, Silvia and William were invaluable in the execution of your plan.”

“They have already received their eternal reward.”

“Oh great and mighty Apophis, we only wish to help you rule!”

“Help?” Apophis’ sinister laugh caused tears to flow down Gretchen’s cheeks. “I don’t need help ruling. They will live forever, as food for me and a living incubator for my young.”

“I was… “

“You were and are nothing!”

Gretchen’s senses were overwhelmed with the planet’s future under Apophis. The stench of burning and decaying flesh filled her as hell arrived on Earth.

She held her hands up to her face, but felt nothing. In a panic she thrashed out but felt no part of her body.

“There is no you, Gretchen. You are a part of Apophis now. Your reward will be living through the chaos, darkness and horrors I will bring upon earth.”

Gretchen screamed, but she produced only an anguished silence.

“All the pain and suffering you have birthed into the universe, for the glory of Apophis.”

Entire cities burned, children born into the ashes of a dead world. The oceans and seas boiled. Rains fell that stripped the flesh from the living who cried out for death.

Gretchen attempted to look away, to close her eyes, but there was no escaping what they had awakened.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

It’s something I struggle with when it comes to writing. I’ll have a fresh idea or a story I’m coming back to and I’ll sit and stare at my computer screen.

And then the doubt starts to creep in.

This is stupid.

You’re not good enough.

Third joke to complete the pattern.

All the thoughts I didn’t have time to have on stage now have free rein to cavort around my brain when I’m trying to be creative.

Now, once I defeat the negative thoughts, I can get down to the business of writing, which I also approach with an improvisor’s mindset.

Most of the time I don’t sit down and sketch out a full story. I don’t know the A to B to C of it before I start writing.

What I usually do is create a character with a belief system or a world that has rules. Then, inside those systems and rules I create the story. One of my favorite things to do in improv is ask, “if this is true, what else is true?”

If a person yells at their boss, “you never give me credit for anything,” in what way can we heighten that idea of never getting credit?

My first drafts are often improv on the page with me following those improv instincts to their conclusion. So, even though I’m not getting on stage like I used to, those improv skills are still helping me unlock the creative part of my brain.

Side note: Take an improv class. Let me know where you are in the comments and I might could maybe point you in the right direction.

I would say, for now, the thing I miss most when it comes to improv vs. writing is the feedback. When you’re on stage you’re getting immediate feedback on your work, good or bad. When you’re writing and submitting to publications you’re mostly getting no feedback.

But honestly, that’s a whole ‘nother thing to write about.

Anyway…

This week’s writing:
So I found out about three contests this week and have spent most of my time trying not to take my losses personally. The last one really stung as it came with feedback from the judges. All of them loved the story, but in their ‘needs improvement’ section each mentin something different they would have added. Which is nice but doesn’t really help me out. I will say, it is nice to not be getting feedback on technical writing and storytelling problems that I received in my first contests a few months ago.

I have to wait two weeks before I can drop it here, so keep an eye out for Situation Report, a story I found really funny…and so did the judges.

What I’m watching:
Lanterns- I’m not a huge comic book person, but when it comes to superheroes I really like the Green Lantern. First, how cool is it that the universe is protected by an army of green lantern guys? Second, how cool is it to have a ring that lets you create whatever you need to get out of a situation? The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘very’.

Green Lantern does have a few things working against him in these modern times. Nothing beats a great superhero game (the Batman Arkham games, Spider-Man) but Green Lantern’s power is nearly impossible to replicate in a video game. You can’t program a game to do “create whatever the user wants”.

Our hero also suffers from an absolute botch job by the goons at DC in regards to that move from page to screen. The Ryan Reynolds-led Green Lantern movie was dreadful, so much so that he wasn’t even allowed back into the fold for the Justice League movies.

Luckily, it seems they’ve finally done it right for this show. Kyle Chandler is great as a retiring (maybe) Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre is perfect as the ‘eager to take over the role’ John Stewart. The two have a great vibe to their relationship and the show’s pacing is doing a great job of letting it grow slowly.

And I know it’s ‘another superhero’ show but it comes off as fresher than Big Superhero Movie #157, not as overdone as “Hey More Dragon Stuff” and not as money grabby as “Hey, Remember Harry Potter” (coming to HBO this winter).

The Brewers went 4-2 this week, including winning two of three from the Braves who they are fighting, along with the Dodgers, for the top record in the league.

Amazingly, my fears about the pitching staff falling apart haven’t come true (yet) and their league best record is doing a lot to stifle my descent into madness. They are in the middle of 17 straight games without a day off (again) and next week start a stretch of 13 games against the Cubs (boo!) and Reds (yay!). We’ll know more about the fate of this team on September 11th, the day of their last game vs the Cubs.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

I’ve been reading a lot (see below) I’ve got a bunch of short stories I’m writing and looking to submit for publication and, quite frankly, I feel I’m finally making a break from the world’s bullshit at large (sorry, not sorry).

Things that have snuck through to me. Apparently the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is having a spat of some sort with Stephen A. Smith. Smith went on to Sean Hannity’s show and Hannity made a great observation- “Why is there a black association? How would people react to a white version called the WABJ?”

And all I can think is what does Sean think the ‘N’ stands for?

Secondly, two former NBA players say they are declaring for the WNBA draft. Republicans, who have filled their pants multiple times over about ‘biological men’ in women’s sports are cheering.

If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

Anyway…

This week’s writing:
I’m putting the finishing touches on a contest submission due on Monday. The genre is Dark Academia, which isn’t something I would normally gravitate towards, and I think I’ve got a pretty decent story put together. Not sure if it is what they’re particularly looking for, but I look forward to sharing it with everyone when I can.

What I’m reading:
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Animal Farm by George Orwell

I’m not going to write reviews for each of these. I am glad I read them all (glad I was able to jump back into solid reading this week) but I’m also not sure that it was the best group of books for my mental health, but they were all engaging, even the re-read of Animal Farm.

The takeaways? Facebook is awful. Jennette McCurdy’s mom is awful. Last, remember the sheep from Animal Farm every time you hear someone use the adjective ‘biological’. Authoritarians will never be at a loss for people to mindlessly bleat out their propaganda.

What I’m watching:
They Will Kill You- Is this movie going to win any awards? Probably not. It’s a solid 3 out of 5 stars and doesn’t really make much of an attempt to earn that fourth star.

However

If you like comedy with a bit of horror and swordplay with a hip-hop soundtrack then this movie was made for you. I don’t want to spoil anything but the fight scenes are amazing and over-the-top in the best possible way.

The Brewers went 5-2 last week, including taking 3 of 4 from the Dodgers (fuck the Dodgers), kept a nice sized cushion between themselves and the Cubs (fuck the Cubs) and still have a bit of a lead on the Tampa Bay Rays (nobody cares about the Rays) for the best record in baseball.

They also beat the Mariners 22-0 on Tuesday, significant for a few reasons. First, it is the most runs scored by the Brewers in one game ever. Second, it was the biggest shutout win in major league baseball since 1888. Third, late in the game the Brewers scored two runs when the Mariners centerfielder caught a fly-ball and, thinking it was the third out of the inning, threw the ball into the stands. Fourth, it was the first game this year where I felt confident the Brewers would win before the final out.

September is looming and loaded with games against the Cubs (again, fuck the Cubs) and the Reds (love the Reds, thanks for being there in last place) so we’ll either close this season out strong or slowly fall apart. The me who has watched the last 8 years of Brewers’ baseball thinks we’re going to close this out strong. The me who has watched Wisconsin sports since the late 70’s isn’t so sure.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

I enjoy Reddit, it still had a heinous algorithm but there is a little more control over what got placed in front of me. Eventually, the algorithm was too much to shake, I got overwhelmed with Trump, transphobic bullshit and Trump and I closed my account, a few days after Charlie Kirk got to meet Ronald Reagan.

Reddit, however, let you scroll even without being logged into an account. You couldn’t comment (damn) or ‘like’ posts (who cares) but you could just scroll through. And because I didn’t have an account it wasn’t keeping tabs on the things that I engaged with, good or bad. A marked decrease in transphobic bullshit (even if Trump is impossible to avoid).

Until recently, that is. Reddit has sent the last year or so trying to drive everybody to create an account and use their app. Part of that is finding those of us with accounts and freezing the website after a few minutes and requesting that we log in or create an account.

I left.

And I’m glad I did, thank you Reddit for giving the push that allowed me to toss you on the pile with Facebook. I realized I didn’t need to just avoid content that caused me to react negatively, I don’t need social media content at all.

Now, we’ll see if getting back the part of my brain that was stressed by social media leads to an increase in the quality of my writing.

Speaking of:
I found out this morning that another one of my stories has advanced in a contest! This contest runs a bracket style finale of all the stories that advance so I should know about it by the end of the month.

I shared the story- Grand Gestures- earlier this month. It is a very short story, 100 words, and got a lot of positive feedback on its pacing, prose and character. It made me laugh when I wrote it and it is kind of dark. Anyway BRING ON THE TOURNAMENT!

This is the follow up to my story- The King’s Playground- advancing in a different contest last month. I have written my second round story from that contest and will share it once I’m able to do so.

I should know the fate of both stories by the end of the month, so send all the positive vibes you can.

Also, I know I’m dumping a lot here but honestly, I feel dropping from five posts a week to one deserves a little explanation on my part. I know y’all are rooting for me to succeed and even though less posts here might be bad for my Substack it is a pretty good indication of my writing. I’m holding back more pieces to submit for publication and even a few that have been rejected were good enough to try again.

Currently, I have three short stories out there for publication, I’m not going to hold my breath but I am proud of the stories and definitely think there is a place for them somewhere in some publication.

The Brewers went 2-4 last week and this stretch of 17 straight days without a day off is brutal. West Coast, back to Milwaukee, back to the West Coast. Day off? Fuck you.

Anyway, as I write this on Thursday afternoon the Brewers have a game tonight against the Dodgers in Los Angeles and I don’t think I’ll have the emotional energy to update their final totals this week when the game is over. We’ll just toss it on next week’s results or pretend it didn’t happen.

Lastly, all my worst fears about struggling pitching are coming true!

But don’t worry, it isn’t like all my mental health eggs are stuck in my Brewers’ basket.

-Chuckles nervously in doomed-

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Defense officials have reported that that the U.S. has depleted virtually all of its specific long-range precision missiles and heavily drained overall stockpiles.

Virtually.

So yeah, get over it. All the lying fake news media that has been normalizing what is happening in The U.S. for the last decade. We’re only virtually out of missiles.

And we definitely aren’t putting boots on the ground. Hell, we’re not even letting our ships back into port.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for nine months now and reporting shortages of supplies including hygiene products. And get this, it has caused morale to lower.

Well, once you’ve lost the guys you’ve locked in a metal tube for nine months, can a Blue Wave in November be far behind?

But seriously, everything is fine and anything you hear otherwise is the lying news media.

Lastly, turns out there was no vandalism at the Reflecting Pool in DC even though several arrests were made. I would say this was lying media fake news except this came right from Jennine Pirro, the handpicked-by-Trump US District Attorney for Washington DC.

Trump later said there was vandalism, essentially accusing her of lying, or being incompetent. Who can tell with this administration.

Anyway, I guess you can take the inept, wine-drunk attorney out of the fake news, but you can’t take the fake news out of the inept, wine-drunk attorney.

What I’m watching:
Dumb Movie Recap: Okay, calling these movies ‘dumb’ is a bit harsh but I think even the minds behind them would refrain from calling them high art. They’re farther from Citizen Kane and closer to an improv show where you laugh because a parent named all their kids Dave.*

*That was me, I was in a scene and accidentally used the name Dave for both the actors playing my kids. But don’t worry, until just now everyone thought I was some kind of improvisational genius.

So…Super Troopers. I’m going to be up front that this is one of my favorite comedies of all time. Part of the fun was the critiques from “professional” film critics. At one point it’s rating from pros on Rotten Tomatoes was in the single digits. And yeah, if you’re judging this based on film theory, it probably isn’t that great (I wouldn’t know, I don’t know film theory or more than one name for a man). If you approach it like a bunch of improv guys creating characters and letting them play on screen for 90 minutes it’s great.

I also watched Anchorman- The Legend of Ron Burgundy for the umpteenth time. I would say I’m not a huge fan of movies where afterward the cast was like- “we’d just make stuff up and if it made us laugh, we kept it in. Usually, it means the movie doesn’t really connect the dots and the story is nonsensical. One reason this works here is the story is very A to B to C, they know where they’re going and they get there. And they have fun in the places where having the fun doesn’t derail the story.

The Brewers went 5-2 last week a good start to a stretch of 17 straight days without a day off that includes trips from the west coast to Milwaukee and back to the west coast. Not sure what the schedule makers were thinking when they put this together, but I’m sure we’ll handle it.

Also, the trade deadline came and went without the Brewers making a ‘splashy’ move. However, the starting pitcher— Dustin May—that they picked up won on Thursday, giving up 2 runs in six innings. I guess the Brewers will have to continue proving ‘the experts’ wrong.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Every billionaire is becoming more billionairy.

Every worm mouthed piece of shit is getting placed in cherry government positions.

Every grifter is grifting their way up the grifting ladder to grifts unimagined by previous generations of grifters.

If you are an asshole, and you are not living your best life right now what are you even doing? Just being an asshole for the love of the game?

Pathetic.

This is the golden age for assholes- 2026 is for assholes what 1968 was for pitchers in baseball.

1968 was ridiculous.

• Bob Gibson had an era of 1.12

• Denny McClain won 31 games

• Pitchers tossed 339 shutouts

• Only 6 players hit over .300

It was obvious to all observers that something was wrong, the game was too imbalanced toward pitchers. So steps were taken- the mound was lowered 5 inches and balance was restored.

The issue with our asshole problem is: how do we ‘lower the mound’ for assholes. And the even bigger question is:

Who is going to lower it?

Anyway, here’s what you missed this week:
A Brief History of the American Presidency: This is another contest submission and another honorable mention. One thing I like about doing contests is that it forces me to write outside my comfort zone. I would never choose ‘historical fiction’ as genre for myself, so it was nice to prove to myself that I could do it.

Writing this story was fun as well. It was my first truly free-of-judgement first draft I had ever written— just sitting down and writing the story even if it was just notes to myself about what happened. Now, if I could just learn the lesson I should have learned from the experience and do all my writing like that.

Ugh…stupid internal editor.

What I’m watching:
The Bear: After watching King of the Hill last week I noticed that there were two full seasons of The Bear sitting in Hulu, unwatched by me.

Let me start by saying that I like this show. The characters are great— visceral, real— and there were multiple times each season where I was holding back tears.

I could probably do with all the extreme close ups of people’s faces during conversations- I have no interest in being able to count the number of blemishes on an actor’s face- but honestly, that’s a minor complaint.

As someone who escaped a similar family the main thing I find myself thinking is- can you all just talk to each other and listen to each other instead of turning up the volume… constantly? Like, wow, you mean if you don’t take everything personally and respond by yelling and swearing things can be accomplished without a headache.

Amazing.

The Brewers went 3-3 last week and I swear, right here, right now, that I will never complain about a 4-2 week again. My worst fears are coming true as the pitching staff always seems to have two guys who are injured and Brandon Sproat showing up every five days to implode. Somehow, they still lead the division and are tied for the best record in baseball, so I should probably get over it.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektraHelp me grow my audience!

Newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson stared at the two lizard men looming over him. The one who called himself Garzbor spoke first.

“It is imperative that the exchange of knowledge take place. We’d be done already if you’d stop asking us so many questions.”

“You boys know what happened today? The President has been killed.”

The two lizards exchanged looks. Garzbor smiled and the other burst out laughing.

“Oh, yeah, we might have heard about that now that you mention,” said the second lizard, Robzarg. “Look, there are things you don’t know that you really, really need to know now.”

“I just don’t see why it can’t wait.”

“Hey, we don’t want to be up all night either, so just do what you’re told,” Garzbor said sternly. “Or they’re gonna be painting an ‘X’ in the street for you in some city.”

“Paint an X? What the heck are you talking about?”

“They’ll do that for Kennedy. In the future.”

“The future?”

“Oh my god, can you just shut up and let us finish this?” Garzbor pleaded impatiently.

“This is just so confusing.”

“Of course it is confusing,” Robzarg explained calmly, hoping to defuse the situation. “We’re sentient lizards who live underground and control the planet.”

“The sooner you shut up, the sooner we can get back underground.”

“I hate the air up here.”

“Now, I’ve heard of lizard people…” LBJ said.

“Of course you’ve heard of us, we’re like ‘the guys’. But only presidents meet us,” Robzarg explained.

“We pick ‘em, mentor ‘em, control ‘em. But Kennedy… that guy was more scared of his dad than us.”

“So he had to go.”

“You guys are the ones…” LBJ’s voice faltered.

“Don’t worry my guy,” Garzbor said. “We’re making sure today never has to happen again.”

“And it starts with the knowledge transfer.”

“Knowledge transfer, what’s that?”

“It’s a transfer… of knowledge,” Robzarg sighed.

“Just shut up and get on this step ladder,” Garzbor ordered.

“Why do I need to be on a ladder?”

“Because I’m a foot taller than you,” Garzbor explained.

“Yeah, but you’re like the most powerful people on the planet.”

“And yet here we are,” Robzarg mumbled as LBJ climbed the short ladder.

Garzbor placed his hands on the side of the president’s head. A faint light came from the lizard’s eyes and penetrated LBJ’s brain.

“So, this will give me knowledge?”

“Sure pal, knowledge.”

The light from the lizard’s eyes became so bright the world became white. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived and the lizard’s body fell to the ground.

“Garzbor, are you in there?” Robzarg asked.

Looking down at his new body, Garzbor opened and closed LBJ’s fist.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Holy shit, this dude’s cock is huge.”

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

But politics and that bullshit, I passed.

It felt good.

But then I checked back in this week and you’re not going to believe this.

There was a hearing on Capitol Hill that produced several videos of Democrats embarrassing members of the Trump administration. I think it was Hegseth this week, but I’m not sure you should get credit for embarrassing him.

A ‘prominent’ female athlete came out in favor of “protecting women” in sports by banning trans people. Sophie Cunningham, who you only know if you a) like the WNBA, b) are a racist who uses the WNBA to flavor your racism or c) you’re a meme fan (she’s the “pointing girl) dropped this knowledge this week.

No word if she has any plans of protecting girls in sports by getting rid of coaches and trainers who abuse girls and rarely receive harsh punishment. Also, no word if she agrees with the Heritage Foundation’s (the group behind a lot of anti-trans hysteria) plan to cut back on title IX which provides a lot of athletic opportunities for women.

But I guess, if you want to keep women from getting hurt in sports the best way to accomplish that is to cut those teams. Good job, ladies.

Anyway, here’s what you missed this week:
The King’s Playground: I’m not going to go over this too much as I wrote a lot about it last week. Anyway, it is a recent piece that advanced in a contest, I’m super proud of it and you should read it now, even if you’ve read it already!

Grand Gestures: Another contest submission. This one was only 100 words, so should only take 30 seconds to read, you should go read it again. There isn’t much to do with 100 words but I think I did some solid writing here.

What I’m watching:
King of the Hill: Okay, technically I’m not watching it yet because I said I would write my weekly wrap-up before I watched the season that just dropped this week. Let me also say, I’m not sure if I’m pro or against making all 10 episodes available at once because I will probably watch all 10 episodes at once.

If you don’t know King of the Hill was an animated sitcom that ran from 1997-2010 and was brought back last summer. They aged everyone appropriately when they brought it back so instead of protagonist Hank Hill raising his tween son Bobby he’s now retiring as Bobby starts his own career as a chef. But the engine is mostly the same— Bobby does something, Hank disagrees and of them learns a lesson. Meanwhile, one of the other characters is having a side adventure.

The show is created by Mike Judge (Office Space, Idiocracy, Beavis and Butthead) and with a gun to my head I can’t think of anything he’s produced or directed that I haven’t enjoyed. I think the popularity of this show comes from the fact that everyone can find the things they like and identify with in the characters. You can like Bobby and pull for him even when Hank is coming down on him (oftentimes justifiably) or you can identify with conservative values Hank, a real Texas man who loves his family, the Dallas Cowboys and Anne Richards (but would in no way vote for Ken Paxton).

In a world where animation aimed at adults is crude at worst and stupid at best King of the Hill a breath a fresh air. I give as many stars as you use on your personal rating system.

The Brewers went 5-1 since last week’s update, sweeping the Marlins and taking 2 of 3 from the Mets to start the second half of the season off with a bang. Coming up over the next week is 3 against the Rockies and another three in San Francisco against the Giants. Hopefully we can see a few more 5-1 weeks ahead.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Jessica kept saying she couldn’t date customers, but I knew if I could find the right thing to get her attention we’d have our happily ever after.

Flowers didn’t work. Neither did candy.

Jessica blocked me on social media.

Because those aren’t really grand gestures.

I’m not crazy. I know that renting Cedar Point for a private date was a step too far.

I thought drilling her controlling father between the eyes with a marble from my slingshot would prove my devotion.

Perhaps the guards will let me send an Edible Arrangement.

This was a recent submission for a 100 word story contest. My prompts were Confidently Wrong/Hopeless Romantic/Slingshot.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

But the king was greedy and selfish. The citizens didn’t benefit from the bounty. Taxes kept them from thriving and they grew tired of the king’s constant wars.

The king’s 50th birthday arrived and he planned a great party to be celebrated nationwide. He demanded gifts that would reflect his own greatness and the bounty of the country he was slowly decimating. All the lords would gather and present him with unique and valuable gifts worthy of a leader as visionary and powerful as himself.

On the day of the celebration, the lords of the kingdom gathered outside the gates of the castle, ready to fete their tyrant leader. Musicians played, entertaining the common folk in the castle courtyard and in the main hall the king had arranged an elegant feast, surrounded by his family, military leaders and most trusted advisors.

The lords brought chests filled with gold, rare spices, silks and animal skins. Some brought talented chefs and craftsmen to the king, giving them to his service. Beautiful women were brought to dance for him and songs from the country’s most talented musicians filled the air.

None of it pleased the king.

“I have all these things,” he yelled at the gathered throng. “You have brought me nothing unique, you have not taken my breath away.”

The hall grew quiet as the king’s words hung in the air.

“Is there not one person who can give me a gift that will match my glory?” The king bellowed as the lords stood in silence.

“Begging your pardon, your highness,” a small voice creaked from the back of the hall. An old man dressed in rags stepped forward as the crowd parted. “I have lived long and have seen all you have done for the kingdom. I am no lord, but it would be my honor to give you a gift worthy of your accomplishments.”

“You?” The king laughed. “What can you give me that I don’t already have?”

“Your highness, I am a humble man, but I am a great builder. Please allow me to build you a playground of delights! I will fill it with sights, sounds, smells and tastes that will be beyond anything you have ever experienced and only you shall have the key. I only ask for one week.”

“Beyond anything I’ve experienced?” The king’s eyes narrowed. “You have a week, but if my expectations aren’t met, I will claim your life as my gift.”

Over the next week, the king watched as the man and his crew began construction on the playground. A cylindrical tower gradually took shape. Large windows were filled with mosaics made of colored glass. Even if the inside didn’t meet his expectations, the king thought, the outside was a stunning piece of architecture.

On the last day, the king, his court, and lords met the old man at the tower. A golden padlock sealed the door and the man handed the king a gleaming, golden key.

“This is the only key that will unlock your playground, your majesty.”

“Well, you certainly have built something magnificent,” the king said as he took the key. “Hopefully the inside lives up to expectations.”

“The delights inside, sir, will take your breath away,” the old man said as he smiled.

The king slid the key into the lock and clicked it open, then handed the lock to the man as he opened the door. Inside a stairwell led up into the tower. The old man motioned for the king to follow him up the stairs.

The smell of flowers filled the air as they neared the top of the stairs. Flowers bloomed in garden beds on open balconies with grape and honeysuckle vines climbing the outer walls. A marble fountain featuring a statue of the king dominated the center of the room.

“Impressive…”

“This is just the start, your highness,” the old man said. “Upward!”

On the second level the old man had provided the king with a library.

“All the knowledge of the world’s wisest men, your highness.”

The king glanced at a nearby shelf and traced his fingers along leatherbound books with gold lettering on the spines. The books weren’t from his own collection, the old man must have paid a fortune for them.

“Your advisors have been told to stay diligent on updating your library with new volumes both educational and fanciful.”

“This is truly a magnificent collection. And while it is unique, it doesn’t necessarily…”

“... take your breath away, sir?” The old man smiled. “Let me follow you to the top of the tower for the true wonder of this playground. The pleasures of the flesh.”

The king smiled back at the man and headed up the stairs.

“Wait,” the old man said as they reached the door. He took out a strip of cloth and tied it around the king’s eyes. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

As the king stepped through the door, he took off his blindfold. The room was empty, cold and the only windowless room in the tower. He heard the door close and lock behind him. The room was dark and the air was thick. The king struggled to breathe as sweat started to soak his clothes.

“What…what is the meaning of this?”

“Your highness, you wanted a gift that would take your breath away,” the old man said, barely audible in the sealed room. “The only gift for a man who has everything… nothing.”

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Lindsey Graham’s sister was named as his replacement, which makes almost zero sense. I’m sure the historical among you will point out that in the past a Senator would be replaced by his wife (his sister is not his wife, at least, not in this Southern case) at least until a proper election could be had.

And yes, when it took 18 days to take a horse drawn carriage from South Carolina to DC it made perfect sense for the wife, and fellow resident of the Senator’s state, to take over until things can be done properly.

Hell, we could get the soldiers who are helicoptering JD Vance’s kids around and have them shuttle someone up to DC from the low country.

But also, at the end of the day, we know that Congress doesn’t matter at all anymore so who cares? Put the first AI Senator in Graham’s place and get a head start on the descent of man.

Anyway, here’s what’s coming next week:
The King’s Playground: I mentioned this piece in last week’s wrap up. It is the short story that got me (finally) into the second round of one of these contests I’m always writing for. Not to build up too much hype, but here are some highlights from the feedback I received:"

• “I loved the classic and timeless feel of this piece”

• “I thought this story was pretty much perfect!”

• “This is a wonderfully structured, well-paced, and creative story.”

One thing I like about contests is they force me to actually write— I can’t just ‘have writers block’ or feel like I have no inspiration. They also force me out of my comfort zone, this piece in particular being a fairy tale, something I would never ordinarily write unprompted.

The work on this piece, especially the narrative perspective, has spurred me on to write more fairy tale/mythic pieces.

I was hoping to share the results of a second contest, this one a 500 word story, but the results have been pushed back a day. It is another genre I ordinarily don’t write (Historical Fiction) but hopefully I get a group of judges that get my sense of humor (you’ll be able to read the story near the end of the month).

What I’m reading:
Ball Four: Jim Bouton’s Ball Four is many things. A masterpiece, a game changer, a menace… it is also the exact book I needed to read (for the umpteenth time) this year.

For those who don’t know Ball Four is a daily diary of Jim Bouton’s season with the Seattle Pilots as well as a recollection of his baseball career.

What are the Seattle Pilots? might be your first question. They are a team whose first, and only year (1969), of existence coincided with Jim Bouton attempting to keep his career going. They went broke in that one year and in 1970 started life anew as the Milwaukee Brewers, sans Mr. Bouton. They are one of only two teams to exist for one year in one city before moving on.

Ball Four is the first ‘behind the scenes’ book about sports. It gave all the clubhouse stories, the conflicts between players and management, the way teams tried to screw players when it came to contracts.

The book made Bouton very unpopular with many in the league.

When I first read the book as a kid the appeal was obvious. An unvarnished look at baseball players and how they can be stupid and vulgar— a look into how the hell do these grown men live day to day when they’re constantly traveling from city to city. Also, there is another grown man who hangs out in the lobby of their hotel to make sure they’re in bed on time.

What hit me this time is how all those baseball weirdos are just a microcosm of The U.S. at large. We’re vulgar but we don’t want anybody to know. As a society, more and more, we shun those who are smart, are experts, or try to make more of themselves. And, of course, we do things because it is the way it is always done. There is nothing we hate more than freethinkers who are trying to change the way things are done.

I know you’re going to bristle at that, but I don’t care. We’ve all been stuck in inefficient workplaces that do things ‘because that’s the way we’ve always done them’. We like innovation, we hate change.

Anyway, is the book good? Yes, it’s amazing. However, it was written in 1969 so there are lots of things that hit weird now as you read them— lots of boys being boys stories referring to black people as negroes and talk of the ghetto problem. Not surprising, baseball clubhouses of the late 60’s were not a breeding ground for progressive civil rights policy.

At the end of the day, it is less a baseball book and more an anthropological study. A Gorillas in the Mist tale, an inside look at a world that we’ll never inhabit, yet is somehow strangely familiar.

Also, Jim Bouton invented Big League Chew. Not an important detail, but one that always amuses me.

Oh, and that other ‘one year one city’ team? The 1901 Milwaukee Brewers who moved to St. Louis in 1902 and spent half a century of futility there as the St. Louis Browns before moving to Baltimore and becoming the Orioles.

Things I noticed just now was I was typing all of this. Baltimore’s baseball team used to be the St. Louis Browns and their football team, the Ravens, used to be the Cleveland Browns. Life lesson- don’t get too attached to a team named the Browns.

The Brewers went 0-3 since last week’s update, getting swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates right before the all-star break. I’ll be real, the last month or so leading up to the break was brutal, few days off, and the five games in four days in St. Louis directly before the trip to Pittsburgh. The boys are still comfortably in first, have nine straight games at home right after the break (and some off days). I’m excited to see what the second half has in store!

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Well, when you don’t know where to start, just lead off with the good news. I found out this week that one of my short stories was good enough to get me to the second round.

After a year of honorable mentions (each one feels less honorable) I turned in a story that one judge said was “pretty much perfect!”. I’ll allow myself some time to smile before I get my prompts for round two… in about 12 hours.

For me, the most important part of these contests is getting feedback. Without a doubt the judges for the New York City Midnight contests have helped me grow as a writer. Early contests gave me great notes highlighting where my stories would lose the reader or tend to meander and overexplain.

Those early contests also did a great job of helping me recognize my strength as a writer and storyteller. Characters, tension, dialogue… thank you 20 years of improv.

Around this time last year I got my first honorable mention and, of course, I hated it. Because I wanted to advance, I wanted to win. I didn’t need a slap on the back. But over the next year of near misses the notes became tighter, they were less about problems and more about tweaks.

There was even the infamous “I didn’t like the title” feedback (that I’ve finally gotten over).

Anyway, my point, this week’s success was a reminder of that thing I know but constantly need to be reminded of— life is about getting better every time. Do your best and when you’re better, do better.

So… what’s been going on? Where has The Pink Sparrow gone? Etcetera and so forth.

The fact is, writing, and getting published, is weird. I love writing and sharing my stories. I’d also like to get published. The problem is, publishers don’t want to publish a story that has already been seen by my vast network of readers here at Wisconsin Laugh Trip.

Over the last few weeks I’ve jumped into some stories that I’m very excited about, am taking some time to craft, and I’m hoping to get published.

So you don’t get to read about the Waushara County Radish Festival, the statue of Wilbur Ross or any of the stories I’m piecing together from various Wisconsin small towns (WST for short).

I have a deep love and curiosity about my home state and I’m excited about exploring not only my experiences, the history, and the people of this… interesting state. Did You Know? The name Wisconsin Laugh Trip is an homage to the book Wisconsin Death Trip, a photographic history of life in Wisconsin from 1890-1910 (Spoiler: it was bleak).

The Pink Sparrow gets to take a well-deserved break while I dive into the world of Hodags, serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Edward Edwards (yes, Edward Edwards) and the weird mythology of a state where, to this day, your first DUI is still a mulligan.

Wisconsin is a pretty magical state where you can tell you’re close to the family cottage because you just passed the giant cow statue, you can visit The House on the Rock and see a 200-foot statue of a whale battling a Kraken, among other oddities. And, of course, if you order a rum and coke the bartender will ask if you want a double… the first DUI is free after all.

In summation, my writing is getting better (thankfully) and weirder (improbably) and I can’t wait to see what stories I can spin in what remains of 2026. I haven’t forgotten my readers and if you’ve been here from the start you know there will be a week or a month later this year where I absolutely bomb your inbox with new stories.

Brewers update! Our boys went 6-2 since last Friday and seem really locked in but in a way where they aren’t locked in at all. A few of the starting pitchers are immaculate, others are struggling or injured. The offense doesn’t hit home runs, but they get the runs they need, somehow. The bullpen is starting to round into shape for the dog days of summer and if you’re going to win games 4-3 a group of shutdown relievers is exactly what you need.

Till next week!

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

What? You’ve never heard of Bobby Bonilla Day?

It’s a magical day full of bad financial decisions and bad baseball decisions celebrated every July 1st from 2011 until 2035.

Who is Bobby Bonilla?

Bobby Bonilla is a baseball player. In 1992 he signed a contract with the New York Mets for 5 years and $29 million dollars (this was a lot back then, lol). The previous two years he had finished 2nd and 3rd in the National League MVP voting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was a huge signing and a signal that the Mets were ready to return to the top of the National League.

Spoiler alert for non-Mets’ fans: they were not ready to return to the top of the national league. Midway through his fourth season he was traded to the Orioles.

Never one to learn their lesson, the Mets traded for Bonilla in 1999, getting him from the Dodgers, the sixth of eight teams he would eventually play for over his career.

Now, I’m going to need you to sit down for this one, but in 1999 Bobby Bonilla was not very good for the Mets. He was so bad, in fact, that ownership wanted to pay him the $5.9 million he was owed on his contract to just be done with him.

Except, hold on, the owners of the New York Mets had a financial advisor who could get them a 12% return on their investment. What if, instead of giving Bobby Bonilla $5.9 million they invested that money, getting a 12% return

For 10 years.

Then in 2011 they could start paying Bonilla the money they owed him, with a piddling 8% in interest taxed on.

I know you’re probably not some big time, wealthy baseball team owner but that gap between the 12% they’re earning and the 8% they’re paying is called ‘profit’.

So starting in 2011 and running to 2035 the Mets would pay Bonilla $1,193,248.20 a year on July 1st but it isn’t a big deal because their financial advisor was going to make them so much more with that initial $5.9 million dollar investment.

Oh yeah, last part of the story.

Their financial advisor was Bernie Madoff.

So, yes, they were not going to be getting a 12% yearly return on the investment.

I don’t know if they asked Bobby Bonilla to change this deferred payment deal, but I’m glad Bobby didn’t. This is a victory for the union worker (at least the one union worker) while the greedy millionaire takes it in the pants.

Just for an idea of how much that is compared to today’s salaries… Bonilla currently makes about $400,000 more per year than Jacob Misiorowski, a name familiar to baseball fans and long time readers of this column.

The contract is a team obligation so when the team gets sold the new owner not only gets to own the New York Mets (Hooray?) they also pick up the rest of the tab for future Bobby Bonilla days. Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen purchased the team for $2.4 billion in 2020, I’m sure he’ll manage.

Also, I was in college when the Mets originally signed Bonilla in 1992. I’ll be retirement age when the last payment is finally made.

Anyway here is what you missed this week… I didn’t post anything this week and I apologize to my loyal readers, but also, I’m sure we’ll all survive. I did have a new micro fiction contest that I submitted to, so I wasn’t doing anything.

I also received a rejection letter for a piece that I was really proud of and was hoping to get published. The feedback I received let me know I was right to be proud of it and now, I just need to decide how much I want to change it.

The main criticism of the piece was the ending, I went with a life-goes-on ending and the editor wanted a ‘something happens’ ending. Knowing me, I’m going to stick to my guns (if you know any publications looking for Midwest/rural stories send them my way), but I’ve also grown enough to reread and consider alternate ways to tie everything up.

Okay, the Brewers are currently playing their seventh game since the last update and are losing, with Miz pitching. I’m not sure if my psyche can handle this. (Update- they lost, I’m fine).

However, before today they went, you guessed it, 4-2 for the week and continued on their path towards having the best record in team history for the second year in the row. There are no days off until the all-star break on the 13th and next week they play five games in four days against the Cardinals in St. Louis. I’ll definitely have a better idea of how I feel about this season in two weeks.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

Like, me and you, sure, blast your complaints out on social media, even if you’re not heard it feels good to scream into the void. I get it.

But when sitting Senators and House members are posting, "Oof. This is bad. Somebody should really do something," it might be time to admit that the people whose job it is to do something...aren't.

And I know, I know, you’re out there crossing your fingers and using your birthday wishes waiting for ‘the midterms’ and yeah, it is great to have hope but what happens when that doesn’t come through?

What’s the plan?

The plan doesn’t seem to extend past ‘the midterms’ and that should have you super worried.

The administration is already arresting people for vandalizing the reflecting pool (‘How do you vandalize a pool?’ - Tony Soprano RIP) and just gave out 50 year sentences for protesting because they were tied to Antifa, the non-existent far left organization that wants you to have health insurance and housing and is against fascism. I guess their mistake was being Anti-fa in a Pro-fa world

But don’t worry… ‘the midterms’….

Anyway, here’s what you missed this week:
Cultoholics Anonymous: This is another one of my ‘first draft pieces’. I really like this idea, but let’s be honest. I don’t even know if it is Cultoholics or Cultaholics. All joking aside, I feel this is a funny premise and a good start to something that could be a bit bigger if I decide to go back to it.

What I’m watching:
House of the Dragon: I’m going to be super honest with y’all. I’m Game of Thrones’d out. Who cares? How long are we going to drag this out for? Why is everybody mad at everybody else? Okay, the people playing the game of thrones I get, I mean the stakes are so high- you win, or you die. But everybody else? Y’all are so mad all the time. Maybe I’m just living in a world where everybody seems mad all the time and I don’t need to watch it in my downtime. Even if the dragon CGI is a little better.

The same thing is happening with superhero and Star Wars movies. My interest has waned. I don’t need to have TV shows assigned like homework so I can understand the new Marvel movie. I don’t care how Han Solo got his name or what Chewbacca got his wife for Life Day.

Every movie, book or show doesn’t have to expand into an extended universe or go on forever. But that’s not the world we live in…we live in the world where as long as money is to be squeezed out of something you’ll be getting a new Harry Potter TV show this Christmas.

The Brewers went 4-2 since last week’s update- their third straight 4-2 week. Okay, so, I get it. I should be super happy that they’re winning two out of every three games. If you’re a life-long Brewer fan like myself and have been through most of the team’s history that is pretty amazing. They made the playoffs when I was 9 and again when I was 10 years old. They next made it when I was 37. In the last 8 years they have made it 7 times. And it looks like they’ll make it again this year. I should be happy, enjoy the ride. But dang, they really blew the two games they lost to Atlanta (even worse since they stole their team from Milwaukee to begin with).

They lost two of three to Atlanta, but somehow still passed them in the standings and are now the second-best team in baseball. Baseball is weird. See you next week.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

“Hi, I’m Dave,” he said quickly, more out of habit than a desire to introduce himself.

“Hi Dave,” the group chanted back in an ironically cultish manner.

“It’s been six months since the last time. I don’t know, I’ve mostly been staying in the house, avoiding people. I feel like everything is out of control.”

“Now Dave, we know that’s a lie we tell ourselves,” Simon, the group leader, said patiently. “We have ultimate control over our actions and decisions.”

Simon attempted to speak from a place of authority but Dave, and most of the group, could see through him. He was just some volunteer who was free the same night as the room in the church.

The man never led a cult in his life.

“Yea, well, that’s a nice thing to say but it isn’t exactly true now, is it,” Dave snapped.

“Dave’s right, you get these weak minded people around you and suddenly they look to you for everything,” Deanna said. Deanna was an old head in cultoholic circles. Over the last thirty years she had lead to sex cults, a suicide cult and started a religion that went bankrupt trying to build a temple/farm/creamery in northern Wisconsin.

“Okay Deanna, let’s respect the circle,” Simon admonished. “I know it seems easy to blame others for our mistakes, but we have to take responsibility.”

“Look, I hear you Simon, honestly, I do,” Dave said as he calmed down. “But honestly, what about these followers, when do they take responsibility?”

“Yeah, you never have an answer for that, do you Simon?” Kenny, crypto, suicide and sex cults, asked. Kenny was always quick to blame the followers.”

“You have a point, but let’s be honest,” Simon said as he shifted in his chair. “I’m not here with a group of cult followers. I’m here with a roomful of cult leaders, and that’s where I’m going to focus my energies.”

“So like my last sex cult,” Kenny continued, ignoring Simon. “I’m just at a bar and I’m drunk off my ass and I start joking about dropping out of society and fucking for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, I know where this is going,” Maggie, mlm, sex cult. “Where it always goes.”

“Exactly, I wake up the next morning with three people in my bed and about 30 people throughout my apartment all in various stages of sleep, sex or breakfast.”

“Well you have to…”

“Have to what, Simon? He made a joke about fucking and a bunch of weak minded simpletons followed him home,” Dave said angrily. “You keep saying to take responsibility, but what should we do? Never talk to anyone?”

“Well, you could recognize your own… personal charms. Maybe tamp it down a bit in public,” Simon stammered out a response.

“Bullshit!” Rex yelled. He had been sitting quietly, as usual, but this set him off. “I tried that. I tried being rude to people, put up boundaries. Suddenly I’m leading a cult of outcasts. They wanted to get this, they wanted to buy a warehouse and then fill it with cubicles so we could all be alone together in our private spaces.”

“Well sure but…” Simon said trying to get a handle on the meeting.

“Well sure, nothing.” Dave said. “Look, why don’t you admit that you’re just here because this church, just another kind of cult by the way, is paying you to sit here with us.”

“That’s false, I do care.”

“You’re just trying to do Alcoholic Anonymous but with us for being, what, popular?” Deanna yelled. “There are no 12 steps for this, just admit that.”

“Well I…”

“You know what? Fuck this shit,” Rex said as he stood from his chair. “How about this, I go start my own group, and we’ll have meetings and we’ll do things our way.”

“Oh, I would be super interested in that,” Maggie said as she stood next to Rex.

“No, this is exactly what we shouldn’t do,” Simon pleaded.

“I’ve got some land upstate, we could use it as a camp,” Deanna added. “We can live up there, in a utopia, and then work on ourselves.”

“Exactly,” Dave said, as he stood and started walking out the door with the others. “We don’t need society to tell us how to live. We have our own way to go.”

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

But now, it appears it is over! Or, at least, we have entered the negotiation phase.

So, right off the bat, Iran gets $300 billion to rebuild. Will all of that come from the US? Who knows, we can’t even afford to fix our roads and bridges. Will all of that money go to a firm that has ties to the Trump family for a little kick back? Of course it will, everything Trump does involves a kick back.

Trump also announced that Iran deserves to have a nuclear program. His reasoning, and trust me, it is sound, is that if everyone in the region has a nuclear program and all the biggest world powers have a nuclear program why should Iran be left out?

The logic is fucking flawless.

Oh and we’ll be releasing $24 billion in funds that have been kept from Iran for who knows how long. This is truly a masterclass in negotiation.

Stupid Obama kept Iran from having a nuclear program and didn’t even unfreeze $2 billion in funds for Iran. It is clear to see why Republicans were so mad when that deal was announced.

The second Trump administration is also dealing with trouble here at home as the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial is filling up with algae, even after Trump paid his pool guy from Mar-o-Lardo $14 million to fix it. Conspiracy theorists say the radical leftists, led by Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama, are behind the algae blooms.

I guess everything is a conspiracy theory when you don’t know how biology works beyond “Penis is boys and bagina is girls”.

The truth of the matter is, the bottom of the pool was sealed so nothing filters out the marble bottom and then painted a dark blue to…I have no idea why they painted it a dark color.

Anyway, dark colors absorb heat, warm water helps algae grow and so anyone with a blip of logic can tell you what happened- Joe Biden dropped a bunch of algae seeds in the pool.

But never fear, workers were seen around the pool this week pouring bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool (wonder what the final cost per bottle was on that operation) and now the pool is a bright health green… at least it is around the edges where they poured the bottles. The rest of the pool is algae. Also, the hydrogen peroxide is causing the paint job to peel and float to the top in chunks.

Thanks Obama.

Anyway, here’s what you missed this week:
Everything I posted this week was a first draft. Not polished first drafts. Not “I'll clean it up later" first drafts. First first drafts. My reason for posting these extremely rough pieces was twofold. First, I just wanted to get over that internal editor who tells me everything I do sucks and isn’t even worth the power it takes to save it to my google drive. Second, I’m spending so much time on stuff that I’m trying to submit for publication or contests that Wisconsin Laugh Trip feels neglected. If you give these a read, please click the like button or leave a nice comment. Or leave a nasty comment, you do you.

Jacob Misiorowski, G Keys and The Importance of Being Earnest

What Will Become of Them?

Lost Children

Mach Schnell

The Brewers went 4-2 since last week’s update- their second straight 4-2 week. I know I should be happy, playing the whole season at that pace would result in 108 wins, shattering the record for best season in team history. But, when you’re 4-1 for the week and you miss out on that 5th win that was right there…well, it sucks. They face the Atlanta (formerly Milwaukee) Braves this weekend with Les Miz (see above) going on Friday night. This team is exciting to watch now, has the best minor league system in baseball and I’m just going to enjoy having a fun team to watch.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

For years I treated first drafts like evidence of incompetence when they’re really evidence of process. The first draft’s job isn’t to be good. Its job is to find the story. The second draft can be judgmental. The second draft can be ruthless. My first draft doesn’t have to be.

So this week I’m sharing a few pieces exactly as they arrived: messy, unfinished, and alive.

Two transformations were guaranteed when dad got really drunk. He would become very religious and he would start speaking German. Not fluent German, he didn’t really know the language, but he knew enough to throw out his memorized phrases when the situation presented itself.

The religious discussions were unsettling because his grasp of religion was about as strong as his fluency in German. He spouted nonsense, but cryptic religious phrases are such a firm breeding ground for horror stories that they tend to stick in your brain.

Picture dad, big guy, factory worker, drunk off his ass, eyes half closed while he’s sitting in his favorite chair.

“You fear anything, boy?”

Now, when a giant, drunk man who is prone to violence says something like that what’s the answer? Is there even a right answer? Luckily for me it was, apparently, a rhetorical question.

“I fear nothing but the Lord.”

Fuck, this might be a horror movie.

The German phrases were easier to dismiss as goofy drunk guy stuff because his vocabulary was limited and the German language has never been associated with people who do horrible things.

“Get me a beer, mach schnell.”

Now, this might surprise you but middle school me did not know what that meant in German. I didn’t even know it was German.

I assumed it was some magical drunk language that required the ingestion of 7 cans of Schlitz to understand.

“It means make fast,” he said with the same intonation that informed us of his fear of nothing but the Lord.

The most troubling part of all of this was how easily, as a child, one is able to accept that this is normal. The idea was probably reinforced by the fact that it wasn’t just my dad, but all the guys he worked with as well. They all drink, all the time. On nights where the families would get together none of the men would be sober by night’s end.

Even those childhood moments most associated with safety are tainted upon reflection. Who doesn’t have a memory of going on a day trip with their family- for us it was the two hour drive to visit my mom’s siblings- and then falling asleep on the ride, waking up as the car pulls into the garage, the younger siblings getting carried inside.

Looking back there is the realization that during those visits dad was drinking all day with my aunts and uncles and for the most part would drive us home drunk.

Completely normal.

And then one night a friend hanging out after school and my drunk-off-his-ass dad suggests going to get sub sandwiches for dinner. This is, of course, before anything and everything was available for delivery so we’ll all pile into the car and dad will drive us.

My friend, of course, absolutely declines the offer. What kind of lunatic gets completely hammered then gets behind the wheel to drive children around? Shortly afterwards my friend left and we had something completely unmemorable for dinner. I just remember it wasn’t subs.

Even at that young age, the exchange was a revelation. My life was full of fighting and yelling and violence. I had mastered walking on eggshells, disappearing into the background when it was dangerous to be seen but now I started to realize that life wasn’t supposed to be like that.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

For years I treated first drafts like evidence of incompetence when they’re really evidence of process. The first draft’s job isn’t to be good. Its job is to find the story. The second draft can be judgmental. The second draft can be ruthless. My first draft doesn’t have to be.

So this week I’m sharing a few pieces exactly as they arrived: messy, unfinished, and alive.

“I’m hungry,” Dahlia said quietly as she pulled on Becka’s sleeves.

“I know baby, but I can’t get food until after dark, you know what,” Becka said, peering out the window for patrols.

“Benny’s hungry too.” Dahlia got up in her older sister’s face, causing Becka to take notice and look around the room. Benny was curled up in the corner.

“Benny’s sleeping. You should sleep too.”

“I can’t sleep, I’m hungry.”

“Just try, for me.”

Acknowledging defeat, Dahlia went to the corner to sit by her brother Benny. On the way she grabbed an old children’s book that had been left behind. “Mr. Whiskers Goes To The Fair”- she’d read it at least twice a day since they found this place. It was dirty, but there was enough roof to keep them warm and out of any rain.

It was nearly nine by the time Becka decided it was dark enough for her to go out and try to make it to the store. She’d drop down to the spot in the alley where the lights didn’t reach and hopefully there’d be someone to go on a run with her.

Safety in numbers.

“Stay hidden, I won’t be gone long.”

“Are you getting something to eat?”

“Yes Dahlia. Now watch your brother and stay quiet.”

Becka peaked out the backdoor and, once she was satisfied it was clear, she quietly stepped out and made her way through the back yard to the alley. Luckily Michelle was waiting there for her.

Both of Michelle’s parents had died shortly after the new regime took over and with no known family she was on her own at fifteen. Michelle preferred to be on her own, turning down several offers to live with Becka.

“I was worried I was going to have to go alone,” Michelle smiled as she saw Becka.

“I was worried about it too, glad you’re here.”

“What are you thinking tonight?”

“I think we should hit the corner market on 38th, we’ll be there and back in no time.”

“They don’t have real food.”

“Real food has real security. Plus, Dahlia’s been down lately, they have the best snacks there. I promise you, we get a group of us together and make a plan we’ll go on a real food run.”

“Fine, but we need to make that happen soon,” Michelle said as she creeped down the alley, making her way over to the corner market.

Their movement had a rehearsed, almost military flow to it. Slinking in the shadows, pausing at the street crossings, dashing to the shadow across the street and then up the next alley. Every kid that the state had deemed homeless knew the drill.

Maybe that’s survivorship bias. Every homeless kid Becka met knew the drill because the ones that didn’t were around long.

“So how do you want to do this?” Michelle asked as the two peeked out from the windows of an abandoned house across the street from the market.

“Let’s just give the backdoor a try. If we’re lucky it opens up and we can snatch some stuff from the backroom without anybody noticing.”

“If we’re lucky?”

“We’ve been lucky, you know, so far,” Becka paused to look around the dilapidated house around them. “For the most part.”

“And if we’re not lucky?”

“We run straight in the front door, grab anything we can as we go through the store and then go the storeroom door and barrel through the locked door that started it all.”

“Poetic.”

“And we don’t stop running until we’re clear.”

“So…don’t stop and get caught?”

“Shut up. You ready to do this, or what?”

Becka bolted across the street, leaving Michelle behind. She reached the door and stopped, leaned against and smiled as Michelle arrived.

“You know, you’re the one always telling people not to do things like that,” Michelle said.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a good feeling about this. I’ll just pop open this door and we’ll be gone before we’re noticed,” Becka said as she turned the knob on the door. “Dammit.”

“Locked, huh?” Michelle laughed.

“Sure, but we have a killer plan B.”

“Charging through a store, grabbing whatever you can and hoping to make it out the back before you get tackled or shot doesn’t seem like much of a plan, kid.”

“Just try to keep up.”

The pieces I’m posting this week aren’t polished. They aren’t revised. Some of them wander, some of them end abruptly, and some of them discover halfway through that they’re actually about something else entirely.

For years I treated first drafts like evidence of incompetence when they’re really evidence of process. The first draft’s job isn’t to be good. Its job is to find the story. The second draft can be judgmental. The second draft can be ruthless. My first draft doesn’t have to be.

So this week I’m sharing a few pieces exactly as they arrived: messy, unfinished, and alive.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

For years I treated first drafts like evidence of incompetence when they’re really evidence of process. The first draft’s job isn’t to be good. Its job is to find the story. The second draft can be judgmental. The second draft can be ruthless. My first draft doesn’t have to be.

So this week I’m sharing a few pieces exactly as they arrived: messy, unfinished, and alive.

I would never kill anyone. That was the one thing I had promised myself. No matter how bad things got, no matter how desperate I was, I would never take another person’s life.

Frankly, I don’t believe in not having a choice. People say ‘it was him or me’ after the fact to justify the awful things they’ve done. Not me. I refused to put myself ahead of anyone else.

It would never come down to ‘him or me’ because I knew that I could find a way, I could build an alliance, and find the mutual benefits. Make them see that we could work together, survival wasn’t a zero sum game.

But that’s the thing. You can change the way you view the world. You can vow to do the best for everyone. What you can’t change is how other people see the world.

Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Regardless of what you think that other guy thinks it’s him or me and so…

In the back of my mind it was something I was going to have to do eventually, it wasn’t like society slowly eased itself into chaos. My main concern was that, once I did it, it would be easier to do the second time.

And the third time.

And eventually killing someone for their water would be as easy as going to the store and buying water used to be.

I don’t know how other people do it. I try to tell myself it is for survival, that I’m trying to help those around me, the people who trusted me. But there is no noble spin to this.

I’m a murderer.

Humans have an amazing ability to justify their horrible actions and I’m sure the people killing their way across the country have some doozies whipped up.

But right now, it is just a burden. One I refuse to let anyone else take on. When we have a moment, when one of those ‘you or me’ types show up, I’m the one who handles it. I won’t let anyone else take on the burden.

I won’t allow them to be marked.

David says I’m playing a dangerous game. That I’m taking this all on, but what happens when I lose? What happens if I win them all but die, eventually, of natural causes.

What will become of them then?

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra

For years I treated first drafts like evidence of incompetence when they’re really evidence of process. The first draft’s job isn’t to be good. Its job is to find the story. The second draft can be judgmental. The second draft can be ruthless. My first draft doesn’t have to be.

So this week I’m sharing a few pieces exactly as they arrived: messy, unfinished, and alive.

Jacob Misiorowski pitched one of the greatest games in baseball history Friday and I can’t believe how in love I am with baseball again. Unfortunately the pirate site I used to watch sports from the US has gone down (temporarily, I hope) and I didn’t get to watch the game.

Anyway, the kid is brilliant, beyond brilliant, he’s fuckin magical. He pitched a complete game shut out, which almost never happens anywhere, much less in Milwaukee for the Brewers. On top of that he faced the minimum number of batters- gave up one hit and got out of that inning on a double play. On top of that he struck out 15 batters and, this is the crazy part, he did it all in 95 pitches. He not only didn’t walk anybody, he didn’t reach a three ball count on any batters.

This shit is fucking crazy. He’s averaging almost 14 strikeouts per 9 innings. This is his second game this month and he hasn’t allowed a run so far. Last month he only gave up 1 run in five starts.

Also, I saw someone refer to Misiorowski as Les Miz and I thought it was a great nickname. My husband, Bunny, wondered if there was a deeper meaning (Had Miz been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, or had a daughter he didn’t know about...) I don’t know if a) he was just being a pedantic asshole or b) he doesn’t get nicknames. He has a pretty solid nickname so I think he was just giving me shit.

Then he said “What about Miz Saigon” and I was like, what the fuck does that have to do with anything but also, I guess he has a point. But he’s wrong, so wrong.

My g key is sticking and it is super annoying and I hate it. It is driving me super crazy and I’m noticing how many times I type a g. Now I’m going to have to change how I write just to avoid typin g’s.

I assume that is how I will have to write now since the dreaded letter can’t be trusted..

Actually it isn’t that hard, I just need to stay a little bit ahead of my hands as I type. My brain can stay ahead of my typin and I can take out those g words before they even arrive at my fingers.

Fuck, I missed typing and then I said fingers but the only other word I could think of also had the accursed letter... digits.

Well now, this is going to make becoming a famous writer incredibly difficult. I mean, I assume this means I can never use words that end with ing, as if I didn’t have enough problems with verb tenses now I have to write around one tense completely.

This hardly seems fair.

But we know that life isn’t fair.

If life was fair my g key wouldn’t stick and I could just go back to being a normal failure at the written word.

Ugh, it makes me sound like a stuck up asshole when I write around the g issue.

UGH! UGH! UGH is like my favorite thing to type! How am I to continue the creation of sublime stories if I have to avoid the use of UGH!

IT CANNOT BE DONE!

Lilith without her UGH is like Superman without his cape. Or Batman without his crippling depression. It’s like Jacob Misiorowski without 10 Cubs fans mentioning that he could hurt his arm throwing like that.

Also the program puts a red line under Misiorowski like it is spelled wrong but just gives suggestions for other equally wrong looking Polish names. Fuck you word processor program.

If I can’t clean out this keyboard I will have to give up my writing dreams. This is stupid.

Fucking G key.

Share

Subscribe now

Help me grow my audience!

❤️ Like this post.
💬 Leave a comment.
🔄 Restack or share this post with friends and enemies.
✉️ If you enjoyed this post, become a free subscriber to get updates on new posts!
💰If you REALLY liked reading this post, become a paid subscriber for as little as $10/month!
💵Don’t want to commit monthly? Feel free to buy me a coffee with a one time Venmo donation @lilithelektra