Last time I made an update to my journal, I made a mention that my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma. That was about 18 months ago; he had a 16 month battle with it, and fortunately he stayed pretty okay until the last few months, and then fell off a cliff, so he didn't really suffer very long. I'm thankful for that.
Anyway, a few months ago, I decided that one way to keep my mind from thinking about what I didn't want to be thinking about was to get back to part two of "I've Been Everywhere". As with the last version, there will probably be 24 chapters, each corresponding to the words of the second verse of the song.
I have changed the title of the first story to "IBE: The Days Of Wandering", because I really don't like the idea of numbered stories. The second verse will be called something along the lines of "IBE: The Ghosts of Rachel", which is not to say its a super natural story, or really about ghosts. I have made the decision that posting a story as I write it is bad idea, and I am not doing it this time. I am going to finish the story before editing, making sure all the chapters align with each other (these days it feels like I have no memory, and I have to constantly reference my supporting data on character biographies, events, time lines, and so on- drives me nuts).
God willing I will finish this story. The pandemic has sucked for a lot of people, but I managed to use the lockdown as a mechanism to go for a lot of very long walks, and also used the excuse of it to cut my eating habits... long story short, I read that people have gained a lot of weight the past year. Since November '19 I have lost 89 lbs. And my diabetes and hypertension are fully under control, and with minimal medication. And my average per mile time for a 5 mile walk has gone down by 5 minutes in that time. So maybe I'll make it past my mid-50s after all. Yay.
God willing, there will be four parts to the ultimate story, corresponding to the four verses of the song. Also there are a few characters I created I intend to explore more. In the meantime, though, yeah, I'm almost done with chapter 10.