The Meerkat Muse: 8th of October, 2025

We have moved into October, where autumn has well-and-truly taken hold. The warmth of summer is but a memory now. What’s been happening?

Vampire Hunters!

A couple of weeks back, I had an epic dream which came out of nowhere. I was a young woman(!) going about my daily business, whereupon I ended up being confronted and threatened by a gang of vampires (think of their depiction in the movie Blade for an idea as to the setting). Somehow, I worked up my courage, got hold of weapons, and carved through them in a relentless mission of bloodshed and gore. In the wake of this epic display of lethal athletic prowess, the vampires aimed to exact revenge, albeit not before torturing one of their own with sunlight, due to their failure to defend their clan.

It was an exhilarating experience, the sort of dream that for all of its gore, felt fun. Dicing up vampires in showers of blood and guts isn’t my idea of a career, but in dreamland it was great! It was certainly a better dream than some other ones I’ve had. More of the same please!

‘Do you sell sofas?’

Where I work, we share a building with a retailer of home furnishings, such as wardrobes and beds, among other things. People often get our two businesses confused, because we share the physical building even though it’s partitioned. Both showrooms have clear signage, but that doesn’t stop the confusion, because human beings generally show no awareness. One such person strolled into the showroom the other day, asking if we sell sofas.

I can understand the confusion, up to a point, but the store is clearly signed as a bathroom showroom, and looking in through our large front windows, all you will see are bathroom products. Once you step inside, this becomes even more apparent. I can honestly say that at this point I do not understand, or comprehend, the behaviour of the British public.

A Phishing Attempt?

I received a message via my Ancestry account, asking for information about a particular family. This message came out of the blue, and the messenger did not appear to have any connection to the people they were enquiring about. They also wanted me to send any replies not via the Ancestry site, but via email. In emailing them, I would of course be revealing my email address, and I would certainly not be willing to pass on details of people on Ancestry to someone who doesn’t appear connected to them.

It certainly looks a bit dodgy to me. They seem to be working for a company to do with unclaimed assets, and they seek to contact people about their unclaimed assets, which in theory sounds good, but I guess this meerkat is too used to phishing efforts to be immediately trusting. If there is someone out there who is trying to recover money and/or goods for others, great! I just need a bit more assurance of this before I even think about passing on information, and it’s not like I have info that can be used to contact people anyway. That isn’t how Ancestry works.

Phantoms

At the risk of causing consternation among some of my readers, I do not particularly care for The Phantom of the Opera. I’ve watched a special DVD recording of it to coincide with an anniversary performance, and I have seen it on stage. I can appreciate the technical qualities of it, and yes, the voices are quite amazing, but I simply do not enjoy it. I do not generally enjoy musicals, full-stop. They are not my thing. Consequently, I was not massively enthusiastic about going to my local theatre to watch a performance by two former Phantoms (and one former Joseph) sing various songs from musicals. I cannot deny they had brilliant voices, and nor will I deny that some of the songs are quite memorable, but are there several other things I would rather do with a Saturday night? You bet. It was something for my daughter to enjoy, and that is the main thing.

A Frustrated Meerkat

I continue to patiently wait for the opportunity to work in one particular workplace of great interest to me, and in the meantime, I continue to scratch around the jobs market, but nothing is leaping out as being of particular note. My dream workplace has not yet yielded a full-time role, and there isn’t anything else out there that I feel would be an improvement on my current circumstances. What I really, really want to see transpire is a miracle scenario where I either start selling loads more books, or I win the lottery. I don’t know which scenario is more likely.

I am also aggravated in more general terms. Sport is annoying me. Video games are annoying me. Little things are bugging me. I guess I’m just a stressed, irritable meerkat of late. On the other hand, I’m slowly getting better at my little drawings, as opposed to relying on AI for art.

A New Set of Tattoo Ideas

I am some way off being able to get a new tattoo, but I have had a bunch of ideas about what to do next. My aim is to get tattoos that represent my loved ones. I already have tattoos representing my daughter, and my wife and I have a matching tattoo that is also a Star Trek term of endearment, but what of my mother, father, and brother? I’m seriously considering what I can get that best honours them.

‘Name Your Price… no seriously, just tell me the price!’

Last week I received an email, purporting to be from a private book club whose members were interested in one of my books. The first odd note from all this is that this club was apparently interested in The Schism, which is great, except The Schism is the sequel to The Awakening, and this club did not express any interest in the first part of the story. I don’t know about you, but starting a story at the start usually makes the story flow more naturally! The second peculiarity could be found in the complete absence of any information on this club. They don’t have an online presence (which to be fair, isn’t an automatic red flag), and therefore very little information exists about them.

Thirdly, whilst they eagerly spoke of putting my book into their club for free, they did reference a ‘modest booking fee’. When I pressed them for specifics as to this fee, they kept replying with ‘it’s a modest booking fee’. Their refusal to pin this down with an actual value did nothing for my confidence in this ‘club’. A quick search revealed that there is an organisation with a similar name, but it’s not based in the same location, and there’s no one by the name of the emailer working for them. The whole thing smelled like a scam, and I did not reply to their last email.

I am pretty cautious where all these marketing and promotional services are concerned. A lot of the emails I get are from gmail or yahoo email addresses, and whilst these should not automatically be disregarded as legitimate business contacts, you can usually count on a genuine marketing firm having their own unique email addresses, and they won’t usually shirk from letting you know their prices and policies. As with all fields of life, it is always worth checking to see if the contact is above board. Wherever possible, do a search online, and if you find a business matching the email’s info, contact them independently to verify the contact is legit. If they are coy about what they can offer, or what they will charge for it, then disregard them.

The Tattoo Dream

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of tattoos. I love the process of getting them, I love having them, and I appreciate their beauty on other people. My admiration of this particularly personal art form led to a dream on the very subject, where me, my wife, and some old friends were at some kind of convention, where we would all be getting tattoos and talking about our tattoos.

I recall getting a small heart tattoo, in the style of the hearts from A Link to the Past, only I got this on my stomach. I got something on my arm as well, but I can’t remember what that was. The Zelda heart tattoo is an idea I’ve floated in my head before, but I’m not sold on it. A Link to the Past is my all-time favourite game, so a tattoo honouring it is still a possibility.

An Unexpected Request

Over on Deviant Art, I had someone message me, asking if they could commission me to do some artwork. I am deeply flattered, but my art skills are decidedly ropey. Much of the ‘art’ on Meerkat Musings is AI-generated, and whilst I am trying to move away from that, I could never ever charge for it, whilst my actual drawings are nowhere near a standard I could put a price on. I believe my hand-drawn stuff has improved, but to the extent it’s actually commission-worthy? No way.

Mind you, I’m quite proud of this developing number:

Finicky Folk

My job requires an element of precision, particular as I have to calculate tile quantities, but also because I have to make sure that vanity units, toilets and other bathroom items will fit in a functional way into any given space. You would think that bathroom fitters would understand this, and to be fair most of them do. Accurately measuring a room, and working out what’s necessary for pipework, tiling etc, is an absolute must. Therefore, the somewhat slapdash approach by one fitter left me a bit perplexed, and quite resistant to some of their proposals. They wished for me to put together a design and quote, but they did not provide me with a plan! Instead, they sent me photos of the room, then asked me to plan the room as though it was bigger than it looked.

Well, that is a hard pass from me.

My name will go against this design and quote, as will the store’s, and the company’s. It is hardly in my interests to ignore the evidence of my own eyes and artificially inflate the room! I made it quite clear that I had designed the room in accordance to what he told me was currently there, and what his clients wanted, which does not equate to the room size he suggested. There is no point in quoting for goods that the client cannot possibly have, and if it got to the stage where we were delivering goods that were inappropriate for the room… well, it becomes a ‘he said, he said’ scenario, except I’ve kept the receipts, as it were. I am not risking a serious miscalculation because the fitter isn’t offering me specifics.

Pushing Foward on Creative Fronts

I’m gradually moving ahead with my writing. I’m trying to build up some steam with the story I’m jointly developing with my brother-in-law, I’ve dabbled in the follow-up to the as-yet-unreleased story The Forest, and the final part of the Chon’ith Saga has broken 50,000 words. I am also continuing to draw, which may traumatic for some! Here are some of my latest offerings:

Coffee and bacon, two absolutely wonderful gifts humanity has given itself… what might the third part of this particular trinity be?

What else but a beautiful beer?! I suspect I am traumatising so many people with my drawings.

So, with those vivid images of hand-drawn meerkats seared into your brain, it is time to bid you adieu for this particular Muse. As to what comes next… well, we’ll discover that together!

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