Passing For Normal

 So, I'm back to work as a dispatcher.

Just part time, mind you. This still might come as a shock to some, because I've said the job was having an impact on my mental and emotional health. You know, that stuff you used to make fun of when you were younger. Well, I used to.

But this is part time, and I think as long as I limit working long shifts I should be okay. I did feel bad for anyone who didn't want me to come back, but not too bad. More importantly, I felt bad about all the fuss that was made over me leaving, and--here I am again! Seriously, the other dispatchers threw me a party and sent me off with a lot of swag.

They get me.

No.

I've never understood people who go to work just because they can't seem to think of anything else to do. I have hundreds of books to read, and dozens to write, and that by itself  is more than enough to keep me busy. Bored? I'll admit, the first month I mostly just slept, but I have trails to hike, podcasts to hear, museums to visit, and I'm nowhere near caught up on Marvel movies and TV. (Do better, DC.) And grandkids!

 Bored? What, do you live at the BMV?

About, I'd estimate, $12,000 a year short.

I'd have to sell 25,000 books to make up that difference. Okay, I don't really know how many--a lot of factors are involved. But last year we sold around 750, and that's way too few zeroes.

(*NOTE* The royalty statement arrived from Arcadia Publishing: They moved 405 copies of Haunted Noble County and 9 copies of Images of America: Albion and Noble County. So the grand total of books sold in 2025: 979. So close to my 1,000 book goal!)

Anyone who follows the publishing business can tell you being an author is getting harder, not easier. Even if I did sell that many books this year, I wouldn't know for sure until the royalty statements started arriving a few months into 2027.

Not that I won't try selling more. But part of the time I planned to spend writing will have to go toward paying the bills, at least until that three book, six figure deal comes in.

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

·        Audible:  https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: If you stay home reading, you might not have to call 911.

Posted by exy

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/charlotte-cornfield-hurts-like-hell-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324120

Following the two-person effort Could Have Done Anything (2023), Charlotte Cornfield‘s sixth album, Hurts Like Hell, is a much more collaborative outing as well as her first for Merge and her first since becoming a mother. Not coincidentally (and despite its title), it’s a warm, touching set of songs that is still packed with her often profoundly intimate observations, but this time there’s a subtle shift toward gratitude and perseverance. The collaborators include producer Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Lonnie Holley) and a backing band consisting of Palehound’s El Kempner (guitar, vocals), Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney (bass, vocals), and Wilder Maker’s Adam Brisbin (guitar, pedal steel) and Sean Mullins (drums). The album was recorded at Weinrobe’s…

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…Sugar Mountain studio in Brooklyn.

Big Thief’s Buck Meek is Cornfield’s featured singing partner on “Hurts Like Hell,” with his tender tenor lending just the right bittersweetness and light twang to a song about how hard it can be to put yourself out there and simply try. It includes a verse where a man apologizes for “leaving you wonderin'” about his interest being mutual: “When you got home from work/He was standing on your porch/Hands in his pockets/Lean and looking honest.” Cornfield met fellow Canadian Feist through a group chat for mothers who are touring musicians, and Feist sings harmony on “Living with It,” whose light electronics and plaintive, lilting melody remember all the small details of the end of a relationship, including “Telling you to go when I want you to stay.” Maia Friedman (Dirty Projectors, Coco) joins her on the piano-led “Kitchen,” another song about almost blowing a big chance due to fear and awkwardness, and Christian Lee Hutson can be heard on “Lost Leader” and “Number.”

The quite funny “Lost Leader” is one of several songs here about life as a musician; others include the ambling love song “Squiddd,” whose chorus consists of an affectionately delivered “I want to share files with you,” and “Long Game,” a sweet highlight full of specific memories, ambitions, and musicians’ musician sentiments such as “It’s a long, long game to play/When you’re living the hard way/Greyhounds and trains/Memorizing people’s names.” Seeming to take stock of making it this far and finding love against the odds (“Maybe lightning doesn’t strike twice/In the same life/But I feel lucky”), Hurts Like Hell is a lovely, poignant record that may not be explicitly about motherhood but is ready to take it on. — AMG

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/charlotte-cornfield-hurts-like-hell-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324120

Posted by Melody Heald

https://www.themarysue.com/tj-maxx-return-hack-boston/

https://www.themarysue.com/?p=918426

Everyone loves a good money-saving hack. Any dollar saved adds up in this economy. But when do lines the tricks become morally blurred? One woman shares ‘scammiest’ trick she used for three years at T.J. Maxx to score the items she wanted for a lower cost by using the return stystem to her benefit.

The T.J. Maxx Hack In Question

“The smartest and also scammiest thing I ever did at a T.J. Maxx was when I would bring things from other T.J. Maxxes in the state and consolidate them to my T.J. Maxx,” Massachusetts TikTok creator Jackie Reinhart (@jackrein316) tells over 95,000 viewers before clarifying.

https://www.themarysue.com/tj-maxx-return-hack-boston/

https://www.themarysue.com/?p=918426

Posted by driX

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/dr-john-live-at-rockpalast-1999-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324131

Dr. John – Live at Rockpalast 1999 is a powerful live document capturing one of New Orleans’ most iconic musical voices in full command of his craft. Recorded on July 9, 1999, at the legendary Loreley open-air stage in Germany.
Known worldwide as The Nighttripper, Dr. John—born Malcolm “Mac” John Rebennack Jr.—was far more than a performer. He was a musical high priest of New Orleans culture, blending blues, funk, R&B, Creole traditions, and voodoo mysticism into a sound that was entirely his own. A six-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, his influence reaches far beyond genre boundaries.
Dr. John’s recording career began in 1968 with the haunting debut album Gris-Gris, a spellbinding…

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…mix of psychedelic rock, blues, and ritualistic rhythms. While his stage persona became iconic, his deepest musical roots always lay in the blues and grooves of his hometown. Over the decades, he collaborated with artists across blues, jazz, and rock, leaving an unmistakable mark on American music history.
For this Rockpalast appearance, Dr. John was joined by an outstanding trio of musicians: David Barard on bass, Bobby Broom on guitar, and Herman Ernest on drums. Together, they delivered a set steeped in New Orleans spirit, featuring timeless songs such as “Iko Iko,” “Right Place, Wrong Time,” and “I Walk On Gilded Splinters.”
The latter, originally released by Dr. John in 1968, gained global recognition through later interpretations and has since become a cornerstone of modern blues-rock repertoire. In this live setting, the song unfolds with hypnotic intensity, perfectly capturing the Nighttripper’s ceremonial approach to performance.
Live at Rockpalast 1999 stands as a moving legacy of an extraordinary artist and human being. Dr. John passed away in the summer of 2019 in his beloved New Orleans, but recordings like this ensure his spirit, groove, and musical wisdom continue to resonate.

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/dr-john-live-at-rockpalast-1999-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324131

Posted by exy

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/the-puppini-sisters-the-birthday-party-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324171

In this most challenging of times, we need music to lift our spirits and relieve the gloom. Step forward, in all their retro-chic, cabaret-burlesque splendour The Puppini Sisters, with their perfect harmonies and songs that cheer and distract.
Their style, and sometimes the songs themselves, are drawn from the dark days of the 1940s, when The Andrews Sisters filled the crackling airwaves with songs such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, their style heavily influenced by an earlier close-harmony sister act, The Boswell Sisters, who came out of the Jazz Age and enlivened the years of the Great Depression.
The Puppinis aren’t in fact sisters and there have been changes of line-up during their 20-year career, but for The Birthday Party,…

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…the trio’s seventh studio album, and their birthday tour, founder Marcella Puppini and original band member Kate Mullins have reunited with Rosanna Schura, a very early Puppini Sister who returned briefly in 2016. Along the way, they’ve been categorised as “swingpunk” and “the Spice Girls of jazz” and they have amassed a legion of fans, among them Michael Bublé, with whom they have worked, and King Charles.

The 12 songs selected for their very own birthday party include the Puppinis’ unique reworking of some much-loved classics, among them the Ellington-Strayhorn signature number “Take The A Train”, Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose” and Paul Desmond’s “Take Five”, the biggest-selling jazz single ever, with Desmond’s iconic sax solo, Joe Morello’s nifty drum work, and of course that distinctive 5/4 time signature that gave it its name. “Dream a Little Dream of Me” was in fact written in 1930, but the version best remembered is that by The Mamas and the Papas, Cass Elliot taking the solo, which version seems to have been the inspiration here. Jim Steinman’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was a career-defining hit for Bonnie Tyler. From The Beach Boys’ songbook comes “Kokomo”, while Piero Umiliani’s “Mah Nà Mah Nà” is these days best known from The Muppets and that bastion of political incorrectness The Benny Hill Show. “Happy Birthday” slyly references Marilyn Monroe singing for JFK and Stevie Wonder. To all of them, The Puppini Sisters add their own unique stamp. Two self-penned songs need no explanation: “Hey Sister” and “Postcards from the Road”.

The Puppinis are deftly supported by guitarist, Martin Kolarides, double bassist Henrik Jensen, and drummer Peter Ibbetson.Well-crafted easy listening, and just what the doctor ordered. — theartsdesk.com

https://exystence.net/blog/2026/03/28/the-puppini-sisters-the-birthday-party-2026/

https://exystence.net/?p=324171

Things happen over a long term.

Things that look at the time like a failure or even a disaster may be sowing seeds or releasing spores and having an impact that will go on.

Or even have a counter-intuitive impact at the time: okay, The Well of Loneliness got convicted for obscenity in 1928 but 1000s of women realised they were not alone just from reading the reports in the newspapers, and 1000s of them wrote to Radclyffe Hall.

Just because something does not endure does not endure does not mean it had no influence.

Am currently reading book by a friend which makes quite a thing of long-term impact of small obscure organisations of early C20th I worked on.

Was a piece in Guardian Saturday today which doesn't appear to be yet online which was doing the ever-recurrent WO about 'I see no feminists' and I wonder what they expect them to look like and perhaps they are supposing something flashy and dramatic, which can be appropriate at times. But the work is not necessarily drawing attention to itself.

Further thought: I was a bit irked to see this: Lifeline is both a musical following Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the first antibiotic and a warning about the threat of superbugs in the present day, because the Fleming narrative erases the immense amount of work that Florey, Chain and Heatley had to put in to make pencillin actually viable.