Work in progress.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Work in progress in multiple ways right now. That up there is a collection of some of the constituent parts of the famous butterfly concha belt, so long in the making. [The stones are just resting atop the bezels right now; not set. With any luck, it'll actually be complete sometime tomorrow, in which case it'll appear on the site then. It's going to be spectacular (and spectacularly expensive), and the image above in bad light doesn't begin to do justice to the detail work, or to the whole.] Wings lost several weeks' worth of studio time to his shoulder injury, but he's been rocking again the last couple of weeks. When, that is, we haven't been on the road for the next in this seemingly endless series of tests for me. 

"The next" being today. I don't know how long it will take for the results; hopefully faster than last time, given that it's all in-house, so to speak. The surgeon has promised to call me personally. Regardless, it's going to be a day of high stress, no small amount of physical pain and discomfort, significant expense, and more teetering between wild hope and . . . something decidedly not that. As I said, depending on what it shows (and that may not be settled for a while, depending on how much drilling down they need to do on the cell samples), there is still very much the prospect of a lot more of all of those things to come, particularly the expense. [As I also said, there's also the prospect of increased risk and, shall we say, a less than optimal outcome, but I'm not letting my brain go there now. I have a sliver of hope here that it is literally nothing to worry about, and I'm letting a little of that filter in to keep myself sane.]

And it all comes down, as always, to money. We're still paying off last year's taxes even as I'm spending this weekend buried in this year's. I'll have another bill coming next week for the second biopsy, and then another bill (or maybe two) for the reading of it. We have no answers yet, including no answers as to what almost killed me twice 16+ months ago. And whatever the outcome with this, I still have more testing to undergo related to that. Next goal is paying off the hospitals from that mess, which comes to more than $30K just between the two of them, and they dun me daily, so here are the links:

• My Patreon, The Interstices (Writing Between Worlds) (and if you subscribe today you won't be billed until April 1st for March);
• Wings's site, for sales, with lots of new items posted;
• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• A way to buy me coffee (which actually goes to all of our medical bills, which continue to mount);
• Amazon wishlist, which mostly consists of animal and household stuff, with the kibble back on it; we gave several of our existing bags to a local disabled vet with a starving rescue dog who needed the help;
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I've added two or three new kitchen-y things on it now, stuff that I didn't realize we'd need.

All we want, to be able to have some confidence in making it through the whole year with whatever they're going to find going wrong in my body, is to make some sales. That's it: sales; nothing else. The stress is constant, and it's telling. Good vibes for Raven are needed today especially (he's still hanging with us, and I need him to be safe while we're out). But we all could use some, too, me most of all. We all could also use some help with sharing Wings's site (and testimonials, if you got 'em). Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.