I woke up late this morning with a headache and my eyes crusted shut. Sick again. Not Covid. My temperature is 37 C. I have no symptoms that correspond. I am suffering instead from allergies. And high blood pressure. And diabetes. And arthritis. As well as psoriasis and COPD. Six of them. Six incurable diseases on top of being a cancer survivor since 1983. Soon I may be facing diabetic depression. It is crucial that I constantly take stock of my health conditions. It is how I have stayed alive for 64 years.
Being unhealthy is really hard work.
The dog and I were talking about it during our limping walk this morning. She’s been suffering too since she found and gobbled my wife’s secret chocolate stash. She nearly destroyed her liver, kidneys, and digestive tract by doing that stupid, greedy act of theft. Now she’s on milk-thistle supplements to keep from dying. At ten years of age, she’s the equivalent of a seventy-year-old woman.
“We have to keep walking on our walks together. Our lives depend on the good effects the exercise has on out hearts,” she says.
“Okay. I agree as long as you don’t make me sniff bird poo the way you do.”
So, we finally have an understanding on that one point.
I need to keep laughing too.
I have been adding a lot of comedies to my Disney+ watchlist. My Netflix watchlist too.
I need to write more too. I haven’t really written anything beyond my daily 500 words more than three times in the last two weeks.
I have novel projects ready to start; The Boy Who Rose on a Golden Wing, There’s Music in the Forest, and Kingdoms Under the Earth.
I have projects still to finish; AeroQuest 4 : The Amazing Aero Brothers. and Hidden Kingdom.
I simply need to re-energize my daily writing habit. I need to write more things that make me laugh again. I need to write a lesser number of things that make me cry as well.
These things all represent my reasons to go on living.
So, I am sick and relegated to my bed again today. The sad thing is, that doesn’t vary much from any regular day during the pandemic. It is hard to stay well. I need to eat very carefully, noting the numbers of carbs and not getting too little of the right kinds of proteins. More peanut-butter sandwiches and chili with beans. Soup is good food. I need to stay warm and keep my psoriasis sores as clean as possible. I need to stay near the airflow of my electric fan to keep me breathing well. I have a new heating pad, inherited from my recently deceased father, and I need to apply heat wisely to my lower back for just the right amount of time. And I must keep fighting to stay alive. My eldest son has threatened to kill me if I die on him before he’s ready to lose me. (I never bothered to ask him how that consequence happens.)
Because I have glaucoma and am probably losing my eyesight during this pandemic, I am going to show you drawings of eyes today. These are Mickey’s boy-eyes.These are Davalon’s eyes, the alien star child of Catch a Falling Star.Dilsey’s eyes. I’ve always had a thing for brown-eyed girls.Dilby’s foolish cartoon eyesFirefang’s eyes. She claims to be a red dragon in human form.Fox eyesThe eyes of Gilchrist the BlacksmithGrampy eyes (Dilsey’s Grampy)Angry duck eyesBeast eyesIsland girl and shipwrecked boy eyesMike and Blueberry’s eyesRadasha’s faun eyes
Since I finished the essay collection project, Mickey’s Rememberries, I have been squandering my writing time. I have been working on the next AeroQuest novel, trying to finish book four. I have also been preparing other thingies and doing some artwork, all while being weather-crippled and basically non-Covid ill.
Yesterday’s post was merely the cover I worked on all day for the 5th novel in the AeroQuest saga.
I spent enough of all day yesterday working on that cover that I really didn’t get much other writing done.
And I am working on editing projects too. Here is the new cover for a reworking of the already-published novel Stardusters and Space Lizards. It is the very first novel I published on Amazon, which makes it a novel desperately in need of reformatting, revision, editing, and a new cover.
So, there is my list of excuses for why I didn’t write much yesterday and today. Make of it what you will. I hope to make these three books happen in the next few weeks.
Sometimes we all get a little tattered, a little weather-worn. Especially during this pandemic.
I rescued the little Valentine Bear from the pile of stuff from my mother-in-law’s house, the one that was sold this last spring. We still have all the rescued stuff on our patio, open to the weather, and the raccoons from the city park across the street.
I suspect he belonged to one of the two nieces that each lived for a time with Grandma. Sarooty Incaboody or Maroody Walladooty. One of them, though not both of them, and I haven’t given you their real names. Grandma had to move to San Antonio where there are more Filipino relatives to protect her from the virus. But less room for a lifetime of stuff that once belonged to her and my long-gone father-in-law.
You can see his right ear is damaged and needs to be resewn with red thread. His fur is a little crusty from the rain this last week and the dirt blown by the cold winds from this week. He’s a mess, and I thought I better bring him in and fix him up before the park fairies do the whole Velveteen Rabbit thing to him. After all, we don’t need a baby polar bear wandering around the Dallas suburbs, do we? And someone once loved him enough to keep him. He deserves to be cared for in retirement as much as I do.
I myself am a bit tattered and weather-worn by this pandemic. Being trapped in the house all day every day deprives me of the physical activity that keeps my heart healthy and my diabetes under control. My mental health is a little ragged around the edges as well. In this house we tend to get kinda snippy about money woes and unpaid bills. My wife and I now have separated finances. I am bankrupt and she is counting on Armageddon to overcome her credit-card-debt monsters.
My answer to the crisis continues to revolve around books and writing and movies and documentaries. I retreat into stories and ideas, both in the form of fiction and well-researched nonfiction. I throw myself whole-souled into the promotion of my books by earning the necessary points from Pubby by reading and reviewing the books of others and spending the points on honest reviews from other writers reading my books. I have never reviewed so many books before. Especially new is the number of badly written books that I have to slog through and then review honestly in a way that doesn’t crush the spirit of the slow-learning writing masses. I think so far I have only driven one writer to quit the review exchange. And I have only received two cruel and unfair reviews on my work. Which is, of course, less than expected.
The least mind-bending activity I use to repair my psyche is fixing up and playing with dolls, as indicated by the photos I have used in this post.
In these pictures you see five bargain-bin dolls and toys, two dolls bought at Goodwill and cleaned and dressed in a reclamation project. One repurposed aquarium decoration (the skull) and one Pinkie Pie that I bought with Christmas money at the full six-dollar price.
By doing these things, I have managed to avoid getting Covid 19 and generally avoid depression and mental illness.
Rocket Rogers, Phoenix, and Friashqazatla, better known as “Freddy,” were gathered in Shen Ming’s office when Tempi, the messenger boy, came in breathlessly explaining what had happened to Alec and Jackie in front of the palace courtyard. Shen Ming nodded seriously.
“What did Alec do?” asked Phoenix angrily.
“It seems, my young friends, that he put the Avenger helmet on his own head. And then he made young Jackie strip naked and run away with him to the Black Spider Palace. Tempi says the people in the courtyard could not stop him.”
“I always knew that Alec’s conversion to the White Spider’s service was the least likely to hold,” growled Phoenix.
“Gosh darn it! Now I need three brave caballeros to go attack the Black Spider Palace and bring them back. Especially the naked, pretty one.”
“We will do it, Shen Ming-sama. We’ll burn them out of there.” Rocket’s enthusiasm was almost too much.
“But we won’t burn our two classmates,” amended Phoenix a little more darkly. “At least, not the pretty naked one.”
“Good, good, young ones. If you make an oopsie and burn down the Black Spider Palace accidentally, don’t be too upset about it.”
A wide grin split Shen Ming-sensei’s face as the three boys left the office.
Phoenix was a little bit anxious about this test. Going back to the Black Spider Palace would not be an easy thing. He would be going back to a place where terrible things happened. But it was also the place where he would probably have to face Bone Daddy once again. And this time it would be different because he had betrayed his master, the wraith assassin from the planet Darkworld. And facing up to that betrayal was going to hurt.
Phoenix looked at his two companions. He was entirely confident of Rocket’s loyalty and friendship. But Freddy? Rocket had an arm around the younger Zaranian. He would be loyal to Rocket, but there were things Phoenix wouldn’t be able to order Freddy to do if the need arose.
“So, if we are going to track Alec and Jackie, we are going to need a good tracker,” Phoenix said. He and Rocket both looked at Freddy.
“The Black Wolf, huh?”
Freddy sniffed the air and immediately transformed into the small black wolf form his Psion power allowed him to become.
From the time I could first remember, I was always surrounded by stories. I had significantly gifted story-tellers in my life. My Grandpa Aldrich (Mom’s Dad) could spin a yarn about Dolly O’Rourke and her husband, Shorty the Dwarf, that would leave everybody in stitches. (Metaphorical, not Literal)
And my Grandma Beyer (Dad’s Mom) taught me about family history. She told me the story of how my Great Uncle, her brother, died in a Navy training accident during World War II. He was in gun turret aboard a destroyer when something went wrong, killing three in the explosion.
Words have power. They can connect you to people who died before you were ever born. They have the power to make you laugh, or make you cry.
Are you reading my words now? After you have read them, they will be “read.” Take away the “a” and they will change color. They will be “red.” Did you see that trick coming? Especially since I telegraphed it with the colored picture that, if you are a normal reader, you read the “red” right before I connected it to “reading.”
Comedy, the writing of things that can be (can bee, can dee, candee, candy) funny, is a magical sort of word wrangling that is neither fattening nor a threat to diabetes if you consume it. How many word tricks are in the previous sentence? I count 8. But that wholly depends on which “previous sentence” I meant. I didn’t say, “the sentence previous to this one.” There were thirteen sentences previous to that one (including the one in the picture) and “previous” simply means “coming before.” Of course, if it doesn’t simply mean that, remember, lying is also a word trick.
Here’s a magic word I created myself. It was a made-up word. But do a Google picture search on that word and see if you can avoid artwork by Mickey. And you should always pay attention to the small print.
So, now you see how it is. Words have magic. Real magic. If you know how to use them. And it is not always a matter of morphological prestidigitation like this post is full of. It can be the ordinary magic of a good sentence, or a well-crafted paragraph. But it is a wizardry because it takes practice, and reading, and more practice, and arcane theories spoken in the backs of old book shops, and more practice. But anyone can do it. At least… anyone literate. Because the magic doesn’t exist without a reader. So, thank you for being gullible enough for me to enchant you today.
There are magical flowers in Mrs. Pennywhistle’s garden.
And what do I mean by that?
She grows snapdragons, pansies, and nasturtiums like any good granny-gardener would.
But amongst the children of our little town, the rumor is that she’s actually a witch.
A good witch.
Not a bad witch.
Her spells only fascinate, never glammer, never take over your little-boy or little-girl mind.
This is the magical blossom she got from old Dr. Mirabilis. He’s a wizard from Peru that she found in the nursing home in Belle City. He gave it to her as a gift when his arthritic hands could no longer keep it alive on the hospital window sill. She cares for it like it was her own baby.
It’s magical power is as an aid to contemplation. It’s gentle purplish-pink color is calming when you stare at it. Its odor is mesmerizing. She uses it to talk to the doctor now that he is gone, and she can no longer visit him to talk about her flower garden.
These pretty posies are planted all around the edges of the garden.
Especially around the carrots and cabbage.
Do not stick your little noses between the pink and white petals.
They have an awful smell.
But their magic is keeping the rabbits out.
Especially from the cabbages and carrots.
And the pansies are the clowns and punchinellos of the flower bed.
See their angry eyes under bushy-black eyebrows? And their too-serious little broomlike moustaches?
How can you do anything but laugh?
And the White Rose…
That’s the avatar of Mrs. Pennywhistle herself.
When she can no longer keep that one growing, it means the gardener has gone.
And the garden will soon be gone for good as well.
It is normal for the world we live in to inspire us to draw pictures of it. But architects do the opposite. They imagine a world we could live in, and then build it.
David and Me in Cotulla
Sometimes, like in the picture above, I draw real people in imaginary places. Other times I draw imaginary people and put them in real places.
Gyro and Billy on the planet Pan Galactica A
Sometimes I put imaginary people in imaginary places. (I photo-shopped this planet myself.)
Superchicken and Sherry before school
In fiction, I am re-casting my real past as something fictional, so the places I draw with words in descriptions need to be as real as my amber-colored memory can manage.
Valerie and her skateboard in front of the Congregational Church
When I use photos, though, I have to deal with the fact that over time, places change. The church does not look exactly like it did in the 1980s when this drawing is set.
Drawing things I once saw, and by “drawing” I mean “making pictures,” is how I recreate myself to give my own life meaning.
Catch a Falling Star 
Sick of Being Sick
I woke up late this morning with a headache and my eyes crusted shut. Sick again. Not Covid. My temperature is 37 C. I have no symptoms that correspond. I am suffering instead from allergies. And high blood pressure. And diabetes. And arthritis. As well as psoriasis and COPD. Six of them. Six incurable diseases on top of being a cancer survivor since 1983. Soon I may be facing diabetic depression. It is crucial that I constantly take stock of my health conditions. It is how I have stayed alive for 64 years.
Being unhealthy is really hard work.
The dog and I were talking about it during our limping walk this morning. She’s been suffering too since she found and gobbled my wife’s secret chocolate stash. She nearly destroyed her liver, kidneys, and digestive tract by doing that stupid, greedy act of theft. Now she’s on milk-thistle supplements to keep from dying. At ten years of age, she’s the equivalent of a seventy-year-old woman.
“We have to keep walking on our walks together. Our lives depend on the good effects the exercise has on out hearts,” she says.
“Okay. I agree as long as you don’t make me sniff bird poo the way you do.”
So, we finally have an understanding on that one point.
I need to keep laughing too.
I have been adding a lot of comedies to my Disney+ watchlist. My Netflix watchlist too.
I need to write more too. I haven’t really written anything beyond my daily 500 words more than three times in the last two weeks.
I have novel projects ready to start; The Boy Who Rose on a Golden Wing, There’s Music in the Forest, and Kingdoms Under the Earth.
I have projects still to finish; AeroQuest 4 : The Amazing Aero Brothers. and Hidden Kingdom.
I simply need to re-energize my daily writing habit. I need to write more things that make me laugh again. I need to write a lesser number of things that make me cry as well.
These things all represent my reasons to go on living.
So, I am sick and relegated to my bed again today. The sad thing is, that doesn’t vary much from any regular day during the pandemic. It is hard to stay well. I need to eat very carefully, noting the numbers of carbs and not getting too little of the right kinds of proteins. More peanut-butter sandwiches and chili with beans. Soup is good food. I need to stay warm and keep my psoriasis sores as clean as possible. I need to stay near the airflow of my electric fan to keep me breathing well. I have a new heating pad, inherited from my recently deceased father, and I need to apply heat wisely to my lower back for just the right amount of time. And I must keep fighting to stay alive. My eldest son has threatened to kill me if I die on him before he’s ready to lose me. (I never bothered to ask him how that consequence happens.)
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