Dear Friends,
There is a lot of talk around our house today about getting organized. This is a good thing but a scary thing for me, too. I’m not super organized in the traditional sense. I have everything pretty well sorted out in my head, but when it comes to stuff…I don’t care so much. I kind of like things to be right where they are until that spot serves no purpose anymore. Then the “stuff” finds a new spot or goes away.
That system doesn’t work for my wife, though, and I know I need to do what I can to make sure she is as happy as she can be. I’m looking at my desk as I write and realizing that I’m just moving my “stuff” around like usual rather than putting it away. I need a new bookshelf, too.
This is my brain on organizing. Stop reading now if you don’t want to join me in my psychosis.
I’m kidding, of course.
*****
I woke up this morning thinking about where I am going with The Bet. It had finally surpassed The Trees in word count, I think, before I decided to add my Trees Christmas story. I’ve got to get it kind of organized.
Herein lies the rub, though. I usually just start typing and see where each new passage goes. This is fun for daily dose style writing, I think, but I’m not sure if it is pleasing to the reader or not. I appreciate you diehards so much and I don’t want to disappoint you. I do have an end in mind for The Bet, The Trees, and all the other stories I have started.
I will even revisit Fonzie on Acid, too. That came up in discussion over lunch yesterday with Mark, Mo, and James. I love how much my friends get my brain going.
I am procrastinating, though.
*****
Up to this point in The Bet:
We met Marcy, Paul, Billy, and Winny. They are a family in a southwestern city I haven’t named yet. They live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. We know Marcy is a nurse and she loves a movie called Jimmy’s Brain. She had a huge crush on the actor that played “Jimmy” whose name is Aidan Mann.
Marcy likes to show as many people Jimmy’s Brain as possible. She even bet Paul that she could get their friends, Greg and Jenny, to watch it. This bet allowed “Jimmy” to leave the movie somehow and make contact with Marcy.
At first, only Marcy could see him, but “Jimmy” also revealed himself to Winny (8), too, and maybe to Billy, as well. Only Paul has not seen “Jimmy” while awake. For some reason, “Jimmy” also told Marcy that he can feel (all the senses) what she feels.
We don’t know for sure what Paul does for a job, but he’s a good dad and good with his hands, too. He likes to work on cars and play guitar. He was very close with their neighbor, Jonathan, before Jonathan died in his sleep while in Aidan Mann’s presence.
“Jimmy” has passed on some ability to Marcy (maybe she always had it? We don’t know yet) to use the word “Bet” in a powerful way. She uses this word with her children, a patient at the hospital (Betsy), and Jonathan. Marcy starts to realize that the “Bet” power is not exactly benign.
Aidan Mann, now older but we don’t know how much, has been somehow drawn to Marcy’s neighborhood. He even goes to visit the school that Billy and Winny attend. He ends up meeting Jonathan and the two hit it off. Jonathan introduces Paul to Aidan and they hit it off, too. The irony of meeting Aidan is not lost on Paul as he knows that Marcy loves his Jimmy’s Brain film.
Marcy is skeptical when meeting Aidan because she thinks it is Jimmy. As I go back and edit, I need to discuss that fact that Aidan Mann has aged and/or changed somehow. That might help somehow.
Jonathan dies after spending an evening drinking with Aidan. Was it really Aidan or was it “Jimmy”? Also, did Marcy betting Jonathan innocently about whether or not his recycling can was full of beer bottles kill him? Has she doomed everyone she “Bets”?
We also get to meet Friday Vermillion as the story travels back in time to the making of Jimmy’s Brain. Friday is the daughter of two Hollywood power players, Freddy Adams and Janet Ryan. She also gets the role of “Nurse Dayna” in Jimmy’s Brain. “Nurse Dayna” is “Jimmy’s” love interest in the film.
Friday also has something going on with Aidan Mann in real life. She is skeptical of the film’s producers, Vince Trantella and Bobby Valencia. Trantella says “Bet” a lot, too. Friday picks up on this and is unnerved by it.
Friday has two friends who we have met, too. Melanie and Dirk.
The young actress finds out that she is not the first actress to have the “Nurse Dayna” part. Another girl, Jennifer Dunkirk, had the part before her but died unexpectedly under mysterious circumstances. Dirk spills this to Friday and Melanie seems to know something about it, too.
Dirk tells Friday and Melanie how Trantella and Valencia took him to this strange restaurant in Hollywood where a mysterious woman named Madeline seemed to be in charge or was the waitress. Dirk feels that they killed Dunkirk because she found out about “the bet.”
Jonathan has also apparently reanimated and is currently on some sort of rampage at the hospital that Marcy’s friend, a doctor named Greg, is trying to tell her about. Marcy watched this on the DVD of Jimmy’s Brain that she owns and it now changing to include Jonathan in the film. There is some sort of connection between Jonathan and Betsy, too.
Jonathan visited Winny and shared some information with her. They seem to know something more abot what is happening to them, too. Jonathan warns Winny to avoid using the word, “Bet” because it “Kills.”
I’m sure I am forgetting other things, but this is a good start towards organization.
*****
I can’t believe I’ve almost completed two straight years of daily blog posts.
I’m a glutton of some sort.
See you tomorrow.
Jimmy's Brain as imagined by AI.
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