April Newsletter

I just got a new website, courtesy of Novlr! It's very cool, but the "blog" section was embarrassingly empty. I've frankensteined together several of my email newsletters to make the post below. Hope you like it!

🥊 You know how friends tell you they've joined a gym, and they feel amazing?

It's never a very interesting story, is it? They're super excited, and you're happy for them, and you want to be supportive, but you're just kind of waiting for them to stop talking.

Anyway, I've joined a gym, and I feel amazing—but I've decided not to bore you with the details. Onward!

☕ Yes, my toes are warm! Thank you for noticing.

In my mid-twenties I worked at a discount electronics warehouse, selling TVs. I was surrounded by screens of various sizes, all playing the same movie on a loop (to this day, I still know the words to every song in The Lorax). The busiest period was always the week before the school holidays, when harried parents would show up, searching frantically for a way to keep their kids busy. I always wanted to tell them about their local library instead, but it was my job not to—and now I'm a parent myself, so I'm a bit more sympathetic.

In winter, I'd visit my co-workers upstairs, who sold heaters. I especially loved the ones which looked like fireplaces, with fake coals and fake flames. I found them way more fun to watch than any of the TVs.

Yesterday I finally bought one of those heaters. (Thirteen years is about how long it takes me to make my mind up about something.) I stacked some real firewood on top of it and put some real coals inside for authenticity. I even bought some fireplace sounds on Bandcamp, and set up a Bluetooth speaker next to the heater. Words cannot describe how cosy I am.

Anyway. Wherever you are today, whatever you're doing, I hope you find something or someone that brings you a bit of joy.

🗺️ On life as a tourist. 

Sure, it can be exhausting (and expensive). I need a map, and an itinerary, and mental energy for all the times reality doesn't seem to match the paperwork. Even with my phrasebook, I often can't follow conversations, and I struggle to make myself understood. I make a lot of embarrassing faux pas. Sometimes I feel like a burden on the locals, and I just want to pass out in my hotel room.

But travel isn't supposed to be easy—it's supposed to be eye-opening. On every day of my journey, my brain is bombarded with new information (sometimes more than it can handle). While many things are obvious to the locals and not to me, there's some stuff they don't even notice, because they've grown up with it and learned to tune it out. They don't realise how strange and fascinating their country is.

Some people make fun of tourists, or try to take advantage of them. I have to endure some inaccurate stereotypes about where I'm from. But most people make allowances rather than assumptions, so I've found it's best to be upfront about it. I've tried pretending to be a local, and it just doesn't work. For a long time I didn't even know I was a tourist—I thought I just wasn't very bright.

Wait, did I say "tourist"? I meant to say "autistic."

🎁 Speaking of "gifts"...

I've run out of time to write a proper review, but I absolutely devoured Three Reasons for Revenge by Dervla McTiernan over the last couple of days. Basically, three seemingly unconnected people receive beautifully wrapped packages, each containing a cryptic note and a mysterious object. Each package sets into motion a series of events that destroys the life of the recipient or someone close to them. While reading this book, I routinely forgot that Dervla had written it--the characters seemed too real to be anyone's creation. If you're a crime reader, you won't do better. Readings has a more detailed review.

📺 I have a meeting with some TV people tomorrow.

Probably nothing will come of it (I have a lot of meetings like this). But just in case, I've been refreshing my memory of the Hangman series. For me, the most fun part is summarising each character in couple of sentences, and trying to work out whether they'd be good on TV.

My short list is below. Am I forgetting anybody? Who's your favourite? Come to think of it, who's your least favourite? (Who should Blake eat in the first episode?)

Timothy “Hangman” Blake. Raised in group homes until he aged out. Now a civilian consultant for the FBI, specialising in missing persons cases. Brilliant, but psychologically disturbed. Tenuous grip on reality. Nihilistic and self-loathing, with a very dark sense of humour. Torn between his love for Reese Thistle, and his constant, gnawing hunger for human flesh. Imagine a trailer-trash Hannibal Lecter, or a more haunted Dexter Morgan.

Reese Thistle. Blake’s childhood friend, now an FBI special agent. Divorced, and a bit jaded. Incorruptible. No sympathy for the weak. She has a soft spot for Blake, though she would be horrified if she ever learned his secret.

Peter Luzhin. Former drug addict, now the Houston Field Office Director for the FBI. Ten years sober, but crooked as hell. Would do anything to close cases—including supplying cadavers to a cannibal.

Charlie Warner. Ruthless crime boss—cowgirl chic. Runs every sort of black market trade in Houston, and makes enough money doing it to bribe her way out of trouble every time. Anyone who crosses her ends up in pieces.

John Johnson. Almost certainly a fake name. Blake’s roommate is a ball of roid-rage and toxic masculinity, and a low-level dealer for Charlie Warner. 

Renee Diaz. Blake’s psychiatrist, who sincerely cares about him and wants to help him, but thinks he’s delusional, and doesn’t believe a word he says—which is the only reason he’s willing to tell her the truth.

Fred. A tech-bro who runs a site on the dark web, where he kidnaps bad people and tortures them for the amusement of subscribers.

Zara. A true psychopath, addicted to danger, eventually revealed as a [redacted].

Anyway, that's enough of that. I really should be editing.

Stay delicious safe, future victims beloved readers!

-Jack

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