Giando Sigurani's Online Empire

So it was my birthday last week, and I was not feeling quite celebratory the time it came around. It was mostly because I was starting to come down with a case of "the depressions," as the kids call it these days, but partly because I was lacking in time and resources to make a decent celebration happen. I've been in a funk these last few months, partly due to my current situation, partly because it inevitably  flares up from time to time. It's much better now, because time and perserverance and friends and coffee  and Adventure Time have a tendency to cure such things. Besides, things aren't so bad. Yes, my job is draining and terrible, but I've finally got the first reliable bicycle I've ever owned- a kickin' (that's the only way to describe it) black Kona named Beatrice-, I'm in this great Northwestern state with loads of potential, and I'm not starving to death. I'm ahead of most of planet Earth. Things will get better.

When discussing my lack of willingness to celebrate my birthday with my pal Valerie, she suggested that I might have become a Jehovah's Witness. They don't celebrate birthdays, apparently, because it's a pagan and/or Jewish ritual.

And since I'd been binging on that most excellent show Adventure Time recently (mayhaps a post about that later), and I had recently watched my favorite episode, the Hug Wolf, I immediately came up with the idea for the following short story. Valerie suggested I write it, so I did. It's silly and ridiculous and totally unpublishable, and that's how I want it.

I tried not to be too offensive against religious people in this one, so you should be fine reading this. Unless you're a Jehovah's Witness, of course. Sorry, that can't really be helped.

One of the things I was working on recently is getting into a certain secret underground group of elite writers. This required my submitting of some of my previous work. Preferrably good work.

Well, damn, I just happened to have a previous short story- which fit the criteria exactly in length and genre- which was read and enjoyed by thousands of people across cyberspace!

But it needed to be perfect, before it was ready for submission to this elite group of covert writers, so I spent a month huddling over it with my good friend Valerie and my other good friend, Gmail chat.

That story is of course The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower.

It was a good story, according to many people, but it had a slow start. It began with two privileged white men talking about their lawn. Not exactly an attention-grabber. And not fit for submission for the aforementioned underground group of master writers.

So I slaved over it (probably not the same way those kids slaved over the chocolate that's in my coffee) nearly a year after its internet debut, and here it is. A revised The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower.

I didn't end up joining that group because apparently elite underground groups of writers don't actually want people who can do it well. But at least I have an updated story.

You are allowed to enjoy it now.

Go on.

I'm not stopping you.

Earlier when I posted that The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower & Other Tales of the Weird is now free, I wrote a post that did not exactly resemble what you see there today. I won't go into details, but it definitely did not contain the words "thank you" and certainly contained the words "people are jerks."

Upon further reflection-- and input from my special lady and the man who made the cover for it-- I decided to change it to a more light hearted and gracious tone. But the idea was still the same: My short story collection is now free, go get it!

Well, it's Friday the 13th, so obviously I should release a short story compilation about devils, space aliens, magic, and L.Ron Hubbard, right?

YES.

We can dispute a lot of things in this world, but not this: For every word I write, the world improves, just a little. Such is the power of my fiction. I would be more than a bit surprised if, at the end of my 2,500 year career (I plan on achieving immortality at some point), all of life's little ills will not have been solved, global warming hasn't reversed, the world's population doesn't stabilize, and Mars will not have become a teeming beacon of civilization. Oh, and Earth too, I guess.

Okay, so maybe we can dispute that, but one thing we definitely can't deny: My short stories are the most popular things on my site. The Devil Still Has My Lawnmower has raked in close to 5,000 readers and 8 Ball and Ouija Board has brought in close to 700.  People, it seem, like the cut of my jib.

I was at a poetry reading recently, when the hostess started handing out pads of papers and markers, telling us to write something, right there, on the spot, to be read that very night. Twenty minutes later this came out. I'm told it's good, but I just think it's silly.

I promised my girlfriend at the time that I couldn't go to her house and visit her until I finished a short story, so naturally this one is filled with eternal suffering, demons, the pits of hell, and other sources of maddening anguish (such as Homeowner's Associations).

You're welcome in advance.