Joseph R Cooper

As with many writers, I started writing when I was kid. Jr. High in my case, though all that has disappeared for reasons unknown. My odyssey (I prefer Oddysey, but I digress) to this point in my life has lead me through many occupations, including inventory taker/supervisor, store clerk, computer sales supervisor, Corporate HR, security control center, medical transcriptionist, photo lab field technician and Uber driver. The field tech job was the longest and most fun. It's not often to have a job where you're happy. I wasn't happy so to speak, as I also had some very serious health problems that nearly took my life on four occasions. One of these before the field work. After a bad car accident ended my Uber "career" in 2019, I decided to work full time as a writer, without any pay. If I had known a pandemic was coming, I might have made a different decision. Though that could be a bunch of bollocks.

I met my wife, and sometimes cowriter, in 2002. She's from Japan. I'm from Northern California. I'm such a nomad, that I don't really have a "hometown." Since we got married in Kyoto in 2007, we lived in Portland, Dallas, Houston, LA and now in a small town called Sonora in foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It's a pretty place around lots of “nature.” The positive energy from being around nature helps when you create.

When I started writing fulltime, I pictured myself a Comedy writer, but my brain was pulled more and more towards Science Fiction. Often my writing has both elements. Being a fan of Joe. R. Lansdale, I tend to ignore genres and just write stories. This annoys some, others have called me, "brilliant." Psh. Whatever. None of those folks are in the industry, so it's like winning a bowl of flavorless gelatin. What in the world are you going to do with that?

As for music, due to severe performance anxiety, I've never been in a band, though I feel I have a pretty alright voice. Maybe I'll get around to doing that sometime. I do a mean impersonation of Frank Sinatra, Sade, Nat King Cole, Bill Withers, Stevie Nicks and Chris Cornell, to name a few. But, not around other people, except a choice few. So, maybe talking about it doesn't matter. Maybe it does. Maybe talking about it will help me get to the next step of that part of my life too.

A little made-up tale follows. Read at your discretion.

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I recently made a nice curry. I make curries often, so it’s kind of like saying I recently took a breath. My wife likes curry. I do too. I told her about a dream where…

I once flew by Jupiter and stopped off at some moons, Telesto, Calypso and Titan. Though I’d hardly call those first two “moons,” more like big rocks floating around a planet. When I was at Titan, I didn’t see any Sirens, nor did I hear any. Then, when I looked at the rings, I was pretty annoyed. I was at Saturn. I guess that’s what I get for buying my space map from a big box store clearance bin.

When I did get to Jupiter, and I got a good look at “the big red spot.” Reminded me of the Japanese flag and of when I married my wife in Kyoto, not that far from her home town. Then I left for Mars, where I met a nice merperson with the fish part on the top and the fish part on the bottom. I suspect they were just a talking fish, but whatever. The merperson gave me a device to stick in my nose so I could breathe. We had a nice stroll and said farewell.

When I woke up, I realized it was a problematic pretense perfectly perfunctorily pictured prominently inside the mind’s eye’s eye eyeing insidiously introverted illustriously inert objects objectively orchestrated outside of everything. I found I was asleep while awake, all the way to gannet island, wondering about forever, and what happens after forever?

P.S. I'm a poet too. Fortunately, I do have most of the poetry I have written in my life. Too bad you can't get rich writing poetry.