Pondering...

So comes the question -- how much is too much and when is too much not enough?

I spent the day working on images for Missing, one of which is an addition to earlier in the series. Set between images 8 and 9, it's a sketch I hadn't intended to use because it felt a bit like overkill. But as I went through the ones I'd done -- 11, at that point -- I felt I was missing a step so added it back in. Now I have 13 with another roughed out.

Would that be 13.5 or does it count as 14? I'm not superstitious, though I see no reason to tempt the fates. They've smacked my ass around too many times for me to shrug them off. And the fact that my characters come knocking at my brain for me to tell their stories gives me a strong feeling there's a whole 'nother level of existence in this world that we haven't the ability to  see, understand or even know.

Thing is, I can't do any inking, right now, because the pen I was using is drying out and my backup suddenly exploded on me. I also got another set of notes on APoS, in an email. And my fingers want to do some walking over the keyboard and not paper. So maybe I'm being told to shift focus.

I don't know. Missing just a wicked little series dealing with how easy it would be to reinstall slavery, so long as it's geared towards fulfilling some rich jerk's sexual fantasies. Not everyone owned slaves, in the South before the Civil War. They were expensive and took a fair amount of upkeep. It was those already wealthy who had them. And it's still that way.

No question sexual slavery exists, still, and it's the wealthy who keep it going. I already played around with that in Hunter. Do I really need to repeat myself? The only difference this time is, the guy who gets grabbed is wearing a jacket with the stars & bars on it, indicating he's not nice. He's set up by a girl, and she flips him off as he's taken away.

But still...it's a bit on the repetitious side, for me. The only real difference is I'm doing my commentary in simplistic images that can be printed out and colored in, in place of words. So am I going overboard, here? Not sure.

But I do like how she's got his torn jacket as a souvenir, the way  a serial killer would...

Memories...

This photo is of me, taken 12 years ago at the California Int'l Antiquarian Book Fair, in San Francisco. I look half asleep -- or stoned, as someone was nice enough to point out -- and I think the people I'm talking to were from a book shop in Turin, Italy, but I can't swear to it.

It was when the fair was still at the Exposition Center, just south of the 80 as it fed onto the Bay Bridge. Everyone bitched about the venue because it was long and cold and the roof leaked when it rained, but I felt it fit the aura of the fair, perfectly. It was also easy to move into and out of.

I was there to pack and ship out books that had been sold at the fair. Both domestic and international, using FedEx. It wasn't a cheap service but it did fairly well, so we had it again in 2012, in LA, and 2013 back at the Exposition Center. But things sort of petered out and it was stopped. And I no longer traveled there, to help.

The first book fair I attended, with Heritage, was in 1999, when I flew up from LA with a book a client wanted to see. Worth $10,000. I wrapped it in tissue and bubble, shoved it into my backpack, flew into Oakland, caught Bart across to Civic Center and walked to the venue...about a mile and a half. Two of the sales people were horrified at how casual I'd been, going through Oakland, and said I should have grabbed a cab. I shrugged it off. I was already having my sense of value corrupted, by then.

I think it was at that fair that one of the owners, Lou Weinstein, met with a man who'd found a load of old books in the attic of a house he was buying in Kauai, Hawai'i. I'm not sure how they connected, but the man brought a box of them to the entrance, Lou met him, looked over a copy of Mark Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and offered the man $32,000 for all the books in the box. Said he'd write him a check, right then.

The man thought Lou was trying to scam him and spoke with Security. They knew Lou, laughed, and advised him to take the check. He did. Lou brought the box back to our booth, had one of the guys input that book straight into our system then let a fellow book dealer know he had a copy. Offered it for $65,000. They snapped it up. They had a client looking for that particular book, and I hear sold it to him for $100,000. It became the talk of the fair.

What made the book so valuable was, it was a first edition, its binding was nearly pristine, none of the pages were marked or foxed from age, and it had all of the original advertisements in the back. The other dealer's client needed this book to complete his collection of Mark Twain. So that book paid for our time at the fair, and the rest of the books in the box were gravy.

That uncorrupted my sense of value.

Casual...

Lovely day to laze away. End of the month so did a bit of financial nonsense to figure out where I am...and it's simply the land of Fucked.  Car insurance, apartment insurance, MRI co-pay, dermatology exam, all coming in this month. Nearly $1000. It's the usual nonsense. I think artists are usually born missing the gene that explains money management to them.

I also looked into my problem with the IRS to find nothing has changed and they still have my old address listed even though I sent them a form to update it. I can't find any letter they might have sent me to explain this; according to them, the last one I got was from two years ago.

So I just shrugged and started reading Trust. Hernan Diaz has a nice style in giving background about the Rask family. It may be fun to see where this goes. I like Grant Atherton's style, but his is more basic grammar, spare and focused on forward movement.

While at B&N in Omaha, I almost got a copy of a fancy edition of Madam Bovary, by Flaubert. The opening pages caught me, but it was $24 and had a rather gaudy hardback binding, so figured I'd get a copy at Talking Leaves, here in Buffalo. I'll look into it, tomorrow. I'll need to go out for some things, anyway. Milk, toothpaste, olives, that kind of stuff.

I got lazy and didn't make my enchiladas. I'm feeling kind of grumpy, so it's better I not do anything that makes a mess...and that does. I like reading, but I'm ready to get back to writing.

Paperwork day...

Worked up expenses and an invoice for my time, went to the office and it was a birthday celebration for one of the women there so had cake. Did a bit of grocery shopping but wasn't really up for it so got only some essentials. Like for making my own enchilada dinner. But then blew it off and just made spaghetti. I'll do enchiladas tomorrow.

I almost talked myself into trying to make biscuits from scratch, but found a recipe online and it was a lot more work than I thought it'd be so just puttered. I'm kind of lost, at the moment; unsure of what to do next. I think I'm going to read another Grant Atherton...maybe...but I also bought a copy of Trust at that B&N in Omaha. It won the Pulitzer, last year, for fiction. I just don't know if I'm interested enough in it to start it.

Found out my auto insurance is going up by a third, thanks to my rear-ending that car in San Francisco. And I have an MRI set up for the third week of September, for my kidneys. And my right shoulder and neck are bugging me, because they're tighter than usual. But I also found out friends of mine in Orlando and outside Tallahassee are okay after Hurricane Idalia, and other friends who were in Malibu are okay after that storm. That was good.

I'm ready to just stay in bed all day and read. It wouldn't hurt me any...so long as I had plenty of pillows to lie on. I do wonder how it was possible for Marcel Proust to have written so much while lying in bed. I start getting stiff and my legs grow cranky if I don't keep them moving.

I'm thinking more and more about the Houston portion of APoS. How all I may really need to do through it is make sure everything is consistent with the first part of the book. It's part three, The Return, that will need a lot of work. Adding Brendan's visit to the University in Coleraine to hear tapes made of his father telling his stories. I don't know if I can work out a way for him to visit Eamonn in prison...but we'll see.

You never know how it'll go until you dig into it.

Back from the bland...

I spent a day in Lincoln and then a day in Omaha, in Nebraska, and Oh, My, God, are those places shabby as hell. Chunks of concrete missing from overpasses. Ragged streets. Weeds everywhere. Some of the most insane street layouts. And even a couple of places where I'd have sworn I was driving through Newark, NJ, the way one-way lanes fronted by old buildings were crushed against a lower-level freeway.

The only place I found that might be interesting, once I was done with the job, was the Gerald R Ford Home and Gardens...and it was closed and the garden was minimal. It's more like a monument to the state's governors and all the presidents of the US, ending with Obama. I tried to find a book store using Google Maps, and all that came up were one in a university near downtown Omaha and a Barnes & Noble out in a suburb.

I went to the B&N, and at least it was workable. I needed a book to read on the trip home because I'd finished the Grant Atherton while flying there. Found an Agatha Christi mystery I hadn't heard of and was supposed to be the inspiration for Kenneth Branagh's latest Hercule Poirot film, A Haunting in Venice.

Christi's book is titled Hallowe'en Party and is set in a village north of London. A thirteen year-old girl claims she saw a murder, then she is murdered during a Hallowe'en party, soon after. Branagh's movie is set in Venice and looks like a horror/ghost story. Absurd.

I truly disliked his take with Murder on the Orient Express and ignored his redo of Death on the Nile. Guess I'm ignoring this one, too.

I'm feeling better and better about returning to A Place of Safety. It won't be great literature; I don't have that fine a command of the English language. That said, I think I'm telling Brendan's story the way he wants it, and will continue to do so in parts 2 and 3. Having a bit of distance from it and reading other people's work is helping me settle down.

I may not be able to do better than them, but I know I'm just as good.

Quickie...

Have to get up at 6am to catch a flight to Omaha, tomorrow. I HATE early flights like this, so will be cranky. BUT...there's a Panda Express near the airport so I'm doing them for lunch...which would be about 3pm, by my body clock. That's my go-to for happy food.

Then comes an hour's drive down to Lincoln for my hotel and a collection on Monday at 9am...which is better because it's 11am by my body clock. That, I can live with. I'll be back to Buffalo on Tuesday afternoon, so then's my next post on this blog.

I'm not bringing my MacBook with me. It's become too temperamental. I've got the company pc for anything that needs serious emailing, and my phone has my personal email on it. I'm just going to read a gay murder mystery by Grant Atherton, on the plane. I bumped myself up to Business Select on Southwest so I can get a good seat. I'm also wearing a mask. And when the new Covid vaccine is available, getting that.

Today I worked up another frame for Missing and posted it on bdsmlr.com. It's got 11 frames, now, and I have an idea for the next half-dozen. Should prove interesting, to me. Once I'm done I may work it up into another coloring book...but not completely sure. I've got time to think about that.

I don't know that I'd be able to do it through Ingram or Amazon, to be honest. It's very NSFW and they've become so fucking persnickety about such things. I guess I could try. What can they do but freak out and call me a pervert? I've had that happen before and I'm still here, doing my thing. And I'm finally at the age where if my thing makes you crazy, there's a door over there and you can leave through it.

I guess that's the best you can hope for, these days.

MORE whining...

Had some tests done, this morning. Cat scan with the dye stuff in me, and a look inside my bladder with a camera. I'd had all this done maybe 7-8 years ago, and it wasn't bad, but this time was rough.

The person who set up the IV had trouble finding a vein in my arm so went into my right hand...and I did some bleeding. Hand is not happy. 

The dye did its usual thing of making me feel warm and needing to pee, but it also threw me off my rhythm for the day since I couldn't eat or drink anything till after it was done, and the bladder camera appointment was next. Same building. And it was late by over an hour. 

That thing went up through my urethra and I don't think the doctor used a catheter. It didn't so much hurt as it was very uncomfortable, even with a numbing gel fired up in me. Mainly because the doctor was in a bit of a rush so no ease taken. 

I still have a little blood in my urine and light pain when I pee. I've had catheters before so I know it's not unusual, so long as it doesn't persist. It's just, I'll be in Nebraska Monday and Tuesday and don't want to have to deal with any health issues, while there. 

I finally got my lunch at 12:30. Treated myself to an okay enchilada plate; not as good as you'd find in San Antonio or LA, but I'm not there and it did well enough. I could've gotten some Amy's frozen ones, I guess, but they're too healthy.

So I went home to find my laptop decided to stop talking to my wireless mouse. And then found out my CPA didn't update my mailing address with the IRS when they filed my 2022 federal tax return. And a PDF of the return is not posted on my client portal, like it should be, and I can't get hold of them to get one. You can't update your address online but only by filling in a form and sending it to them, so I ran out to get that off in today's mail. By that point, I was growling, snapping, snarling and ready to go on a tear. 

Then it turned out that while everything else looked fine, the CAT scan showed a growth on my right kidney that may be just a cyst. I'm being slated for an MRI, to be sure. It all depends on when the insurance company agrees. Not Medicare; the gap insurance. I pay into fucking medicare for 55 years and I still have to pay $215 a month for full coverage. Fucking Republicans and the Democrats who let them get away with their shit.

I fucking hate growing old.

Whining...

I always dreamed of having a cabin up in the woods. Nothing big or fancy, just a couple rooms, on a hillside overlooking a brook that's racing down to a nearby lake, trees thick and green around me. Still connected to the power grid, of course; can't live on just dry goods and food out of a can. Critters about. Maybe a dog, but that wasn't a given.

A front porch, for sure, that I could sit on and see moments like this. Almost dreamlike. Total solitude. I've always been a loner. Never liked having roommates. Never had a lover for long enough to live together, nor did I want to. I can't sleep if someone else is in my room, man or beast.

The love of solitude is growing stronger as I get older. I can stay off to myself for days at a time. Talk myself out of going off into the world for anything unless I have no other choice. "Gotta have milk and bread, Kyle, so out you go." Then I make it as short a trip as possible.

Which is what I did, today. Actually did need milk and bread, so worked up a group of things to do -- prepare an application to renew my passport, go get photos done, take everything to the PO to set it up, buy that milk and bread, stop at a DVD resale place to see what they had, have lunch somewhere, get paperwork from Caladex for Nebraska, then come home. All I did was the paperwork, the photos and the groceries. Put off the application till after Labor Day and en route home had to make myself stop to have a quickie burrito at a Mighty Taco. No DVD stuff, either. I just wanted it all done.

I know one day I'll die alone, and I don't mind. So many people think you'd want to have family and friends around you. It's a staple in most stories about death and dying. But it won't be for me. And I don't really know why I'm okay with that.

I mean, I have a feeling. It may have something to do with being shown, over and over, that I don't really matter to those I know. It's been proven to me in so many times in so many ways. Maybe that's why all I've ever done is just enough to get by. I don't think I'm worth anything more than that. Not even a solitary cabin in the woods.

BA is up and running...

I finished the files to upload for Smashwords so went ahead and did it. Playing it safe, in case there was an issue. And there was, but with the cover instead of the file, itself. Seems their secondary team didn't like the tan-line in the initial version, or the hint of a nipple. So I redid it like this, and they were fine with that.

So Blood Angel-Book Two-The Prussian is now available in ebook on Smashwords. $0.99 and doable in any number of formats, including Kindle Reader. They say it's 22,600+ words, which is close to what I thought it was. It also has the opening chapter of Bobby Carapisi at the end, if anyone wants to read that.

Glad it's done with. If anyone's interested in reading Book One beforehand, there's the link.

I got some books written by Grant Atherton to read -- gay murder mysteries that look like they were shifted from Kindle ebooks into paperbacks. Not at all professional-looking, but it's the story that counts. Not my pickiness in formatting. And I liked his first book, Slow Road to Hell. So I'm taking Dead Feint on the plane to read.

It's also time to renew my passport so I'm getting that ready to send off, tomorrow. I still need to get photos made for the application, at Walgreens. I'm going to feel a bit naked without it. I've got a Nexus Card so can get into Canada and Mexico, if I want. But having that little blue book just made me feel better. Like I could hop over to the UK or Ireland at a moment's notice, if I wanted. Hopefully, they'll get it back to me in less than the six months they're saying it will take.

I also have to get paperwork from Caladex for the job in Nebraska and some milk and bread, so tomorrow's going to be on the busy side. Then Friday is a CAT scan of my gut and a camera going up my dick to check out my bladder. Been through that, before, and not happy about it.

I wanna be 23, again, and not be falling apart.

Panic time

So I'm rocking along to finish this proofing of BA-The Prussian when I got a message some books I'd ordered had been delivered. I went downstairs to get them from the building office and picked up my mail...and in it was a notice that I owed nearly $380 in back taxes, including late fees and interest!

At first I thought it was a scam, but I went into my account page with the IRS, and there it was, claiming I hadn't paid my taxes for 2020. I freaked. Called the IRS, who hung up on me after following a few voice prompts. And there was nothing in the IRS system to let me contact them by email to ask about this. It was infuriating.

I knew I'd paid everything off, so dug up my receipt from June of last year and it showed my account was down to zero for 2019, 2020 and 2021. I'd received no letters from the IRS claiming this was an issue. Nothing. So I wrote them back and told them I'd paid it, here's a copy of my receipt, so update your records. Then mailed it, certified, so I can prove I sent it. This should prove interesting.

What's really irritating about this is, I use a CPA to do my taxes. So they should be perfect, when submitted. But this is the second problem I've had with a recent return thanks to that office. I may need to find a new CPA. 

That took most of the afternoon. And since I had to go to the PO, I also got a couple things at Tops grocery store and planned to have a chili dog and onion rings at Ted's, a local chain...but there was a line and I wasn't in the mood to stand around so came home and made Gnocchi, instead. It was good...but I still want a chili dog.

Then I focused on BA and got through it. I'll do the linking for table of contents, tomorrow, and maybe even upload it tomorrow evening to see if it's okay. Smashwords is pretty picky about things being just so, as I've found out the hard way a few times. It's now 22,750 words. For all the cutting I did, I added more.

But now it's done and soon to be available, and I'll worry about Book 3 -- Franz later.