GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #971: THE PLAN

 I got bad news about my foot last week on Thursday. Things had been going really well. The surgery was a success. All infection has been killed or removed. I was healing pretty well. My new podiatrist (she has yet to cut any of my body parts off, unlike the other guy) told me that if things keep going well, then we'll be able to reconstruct my foot.

But when I saw her Thursday, she said, immediately after she greeted me, "You scare me." Meaning, she's afraid that my foot won't heal and she'll have to cut it off. This was news to me, but when she unwrapped the bandage, her fears were confirmed. She told me I'd popped every single one of my stitches. There were pieces of dead skin everywhere, some flapping around the edges of my heel like pieces of paper (with the same consistency). She cut all of that off, then got to the dead white skin around the clot of stitches. There was an open wound in my foot.

I didn't see it until I changed the bandage on Friday, and it looked like a piece of my foot was ripped out. You know how, if a golfer misses their target, there's a divot knocked out of the ground? It looks like someone knocked a divot out of my foot. I have to pack it and the hole on the blind side of my foot (so I have to pack that by touch), and then I have to put these surgical dressings around it, although now I've added very thick pads of gauze over the packed wounds, then the dressings over those. Then I wrap it in a gauze band and put an Ace bandage around it. It's not a lot of fun, especially shoving stuff into the wounds.

But once again I am faced with the possibility of losing my bad foot this year, which means I'm also facing the return of booze to my life.

There are two options. One sucks, and one sucks really, really badly. The latter is putting a cage around my foot that will have to be held in place with screws attached to my lower leg. It would be weight bearing, which must hurt like fucking crazy. There will be a wound vac attached to my foot, too. Not fun.

The other option is the one I'm going to try. I have to stay off my foot completely for a while. This is unfortunate because I enjoy taking showers, which I will not be able to do. It's back to sponge baths in the bathroom sink. I fucking hate to do that, but I'm stuck with it.

So here's the plan. I need to get a knee scooter. A while back I learned that fire stations lend out things like that and wheelchairs, etc., for free. I know because I borrowed a wheelchair back when I first broke this foot. I got responses from my VMs over the weekend today. Fire stations no longer provide this service. Motherfucking fuck.

I also put out word on social media, but no one responded except for my hetero lifemate, Rob Tannahill, who recommended a knee scooter from Costco. I still wanted it for free, as I have next to no money, but now that I know I can't get one for free, I had no choice but to buy one. It's not the same one from Costco, but I found one even cheaper from them, so I just ordered it.

I can't use a knee scooter in the house. I can only use it outside and at work. In the house (and other places a knee scooter might not fit), I will get around on crutches. The podiatrist told me that I can use the tip of the boot I wear on my bad foot now for leverage. Meaning, I can't put weight on the foot, but if I use the toe, I won't fall over. I have terrible balance, probably from the years I spent drinking as hard as possible without actually dying. I hoped my balance would return, but it has not.

But I can't use the crutches on stairs, so I can't use them to get up to my bedroom. I have also bought kneepads. If I can't get around with the other stuff, I'll crawl like a toddler. My knees are fragile in my old age, though, so the pads are necessary.

If I can do this, I desperately hope my foot will finally heal so I can get it reconstructed. That would be nice. I've been told this will take forever to heal, so I'm guessing I'll still be living like this at least until Christmas.

I'll begin when my knee scooter arrives. Wish me luck.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #596: THE PLAN

At the beginning of every year I come up with a plan for my career as an author. What I want to do. What I want to work on. Etc. I thought I'd tanked 2022 in that regard, but over the weekend I took a look at that plan and saw I didn't do half bad.

There were two anthologies I knew I'd be in, so I didn't worry too much about those. There were two other anthologies that were in the works at the time, but I had high faith in them, and sure enough all four came to pass with very little effort from me outside of writing the stories.

I got IT CHANGES A MAN out there, which I'm very glad for. I also got DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN AND OTHER PORNOS YOU CAN'T JERK IT TO published, too. It was originally supposed to be something silly like BRUNI'S BIG BOOK OF SEX, but I'm glad a better title occurred to me.

Also, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HIERONYMUS ALOYSIS ZIEGE came out just in time for Printers Row, which I was a little worried about. I'd written it specifically for Printers Row, and I had a lot of copies of that one. Too bad we got rained out the second day. I still have copies of that and Shit Poems Number Two, if anyone is interested.

But here's where my plan fucked up. I wanted to get my splatter western, TRAIL OF BLOOD, out there. I even had a cover by Luke Spooner for it, but I ran into a lot of problems and had to delay it.  I have almost everything worked out, and I hope to have it out by February. I also wanted my splatter SF book, EYE CUTTER, out at the end of last year. TRAIL OF BLOOD was supposed to be spring, EYE CUTTER winter. Whoops! Now I expect to have EYE CUTTER out no later than Halloween. If you enjoyed IT CHANGES A MAN, then you'll be glad to see Stork is still around.

But that was my big fuck up of 2022. I missed a few other things on my list. There were stories and other things I wanted to work on but never got around to it. I don't consider that too much of a loss. These were mere suggestions to myself if I somehow found myself with a surplus of time on my hands, which did not happen, by the way.

And then I came up with a list of things I'd like to think about for 2023. One of those things I actually got to before the end of 2022. I don't know how that happened, but there you go.

So I came up with my plan for this year. It's not nearly as ambitious as the one for 2022, but here's what it looks like so far, aside from TRAIL OF BLOOD and EYE CUTTER. I want to write another sex book for Kindle only. I have it narrowed down to two ideas. I also want to write another Kindle only splatter SF novella following the adventures of someone we'll meet in EYE CUTTER. I also have an idea for putting together the collection of my Slate stories with a brand new story as an incentive to buy. And then I'm thinking about maybe a chapbook of true life stories of getting drunk and doing crazy shit. It would be a bit more professionally put together than the two volumes of Shit Poems. Those were meant to look more like 'zines than chapbooks. This one would be more along the lines of what that term entails.

I'd originally planned for two other novels, but those will have to be delayed until 2024 for now. So yeah, hopefully this plan works out better than last year's. Also, since 2020 I noticed a horrible trend. With each new year, I should be making more money writing books, yes? That was the case until the Year of the Plague. Understandable, especially since the Plague meant no Printers Row, which is where I make most of my money in one go. Since 2020, though, I've been making less and less each year. This is a horrible situation that absolutely cannot be allowed to continue. So I'll be brainstorming a few things.

Like Patreon, for example. If I did one of those, what kinds of things would you want from me each month? Just putting some feelers out there. Let me know in the comments or on social media or email, etc.