Like tears and blood.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

Woodbine in October, a cascade of red like tears and blood. Fitting metaphor for today.

Yeah. It's that day. And the day has been so brutally awful entirely apart from that that I have had precious little time for grief. Instead, I find myself indescribably angry.

The winds today have battered my body into a ball of pure pain. Don't even let anyone tell you weather doesn't affect your body; it does, and this is the absolute worst. I'll take anything else, any amount of cold or heat or humidity or rain or snow, but wind is absolutely murderous. Right iff the bat this morning, my hands failed, and I dropped my Kindle on my left foot . . . right on the spot where the stress fractures are. And fucking Indian Killer Utility had another goddamned outage today, because they spend money right and left, but apparently can't be bothered to trim dying trees near power poles, and the wind took care of that.

I'm mostly angry, though, because I've spent the last thirty years without someone I loved unconditionally, the one and only person in my early life who loved me unconditionally, too. Angry because someone who was truly innocent, who of all people in this world did not deserve what happened to her, had to endure that kind of terror in her final moments. Evil lives in every corner and shadow, and also right out in the broad fucking sunlight, and thrives and prospers and spreads, while one of the few truly good people I've ever known? I hate this culture that created it.

Yeah, that's grief. It's easier to deal with if I let the fury come in and take over, and I don't lose hours to tears that way. And I'm not going to apologize for a single iota of it. Thirty years. And it still flays my soul.

And of course, I'm even further behind now, and the pain means everything takes me so much longer. I mean, everybody already knows that this year has been terrible on virtually every front, so much so that we're really up against it now. This year has been so slow that we're way behind on everything, including prepaying next year's taxes [that's a zero; a big fat zero]. The rapid progression of my autoimmune disease this year isn't helping, especially not these last few weeks. With my dominant-hand dislocations, and those in my knees and feet, it's meant that I can't DO anything, for weeks now. It's also meant that Wings has had to take over all the stuff I would normally do, and so he hasn't been able to get much studio time. And I'm so much farther behind on everything, even more than I usually am: pushing sales, paperwork, housework, you name it. 

We have to make up a LOT of ground financially over the next three+ months. A LOT. And it's clear that, even if my dominant hand and wrist weren't functionally unuseable, I cannot maintain the pace or workload I have in years past. Half the time I can hardly walk, because my hips, knees, and feet are the same situation. That means that we need help with shares, and with testimonials, too. If you have some of Wings's work and are willing to have a testimonial published on the site, send it to me via the Contact form (we will list you however you wish, by name, name and initial, initials only, some other way that doesn't identify you; you can see an example in our newest, here). All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (apparently the sponges are unavailable, but the other two things I need that I can't get here are the Bar Keeper's Friend coffeemaker cleaner and descaler; we're entirely out of both [or Amazon cards, and I can order them myself]); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, and there wll be much, much more in the weeks to come (and potentially those two new pieces yet tonight, IF I can get to them after the mess this day has been). The way this year has gone, things will still be grim for a good while and the holidays will be here before you know it, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.