I got paid from Patreon today. Combined with a 20% off coupon for an entire order, and 50% off the most expensive item in my cart, I was able to nab only $16 out of my bank account to finish the Michael's order. There wouldn't have been such a rush, but I ordered half of the wrong shit last time. Nothing I ordered went together. I used what I could, but most of the things I planned had to wait on one more thing. Those one more things are now on their way. Okay, materials taken care of. The only stuff I need now is the stuff on the dollar store list. And that is up to Doc.
Speaking of up to Doc. Remember my trepidation regarding having to rely on him to talk to newegg about replacing my dead laptop? Yeah, he blew it off yesterday, and just blew it off again and is now snoring. I'm going to call them and call myself by his last name and see if I can't get somewhere by being the wifey. Lord.
I realized, sitting here, waiting for Doc to finish with the laptop, that I have been wasting my time doing all of these Photoshop special effects tutorials on photographs of me (see http://facebook.com/fabulousdisaster). I've got hundreds of pictures of the animals! I could be doing all of this incredible stuff with pictures of the cats and Chewbacca! Fuck this working on self-portraits and still lifes. I'm going to be doing some wicked pet picture effects from here on out. Cutting out fur from a background can't be any harder than cutting out my curly hair or bizarre chin wrinkles. I have a houseful of beautiful models, and a plethora of photographs of them in every conceivable mood and pose and light and exposure. Self-derp-ability is me.
Okay. Fun Fact: Scout is still under the Manufacturer's Warranty, though she is refurbished. So says the extended warranty people. So I just filed a return claim with ASUS, who tried to dispute it, so I uploaded a screen cap of the invoice/proof of purchase. The extended warranty doesn't kick in until the beginning of November. I will be quite put out if I have to wait that long to get the thing replaced because they and ASUS have to have a pissing contest with newegg playing referee. Best of all? I did it myself. No Doc involved. The people at newegg customer service were really nice. They did everything but call ASUS for me. Gave me all the phone numbers and websites I needed and asked if they could do more. Very cool. I will definitely keep doing business with newegg.com. Now we wait to see who is going to jump first.
The only thing I don't like, and newegg is not responsible for this, the vendor is, I didn't receive any paperwork through this whole thing. I'm just lucky I keep every official email that deals with money. Come to think of it, Michael's didn't send me an invoice, either. Online companies are getting sloppy. Punk Rock Handicrafts will always send an invoice.
So, my lease states I cannot run a business out of this residence. If I get a PO Box, will that get me around it? I'm not going to register as a business, yet. I'm going to get an accountant, with Doc, to sort out how to keep track of expenses/deductions and taxable income. I guess they can explain to me the various benefits and detractions of making PRH a "real" business.
Look, Ma, I finally found my way in life, and I'm not even 50 yet. You still lookin'? Jesus, she's 67 this year. She's an old woman now. I wonder if that is what prompted her to message me about those Xmas ornaments. But what did my dad message me for? Frankly, I'm gobsmacked that he is even still alive. They have their luxury trailer and rescue dogs and 30-something son that lives at home, when he's not in jail. They live in a giant, now empty house that my Nana bought for them for nearly half a million dollars. What must their lives be like? Adopting four kids, having two fosters, and raising five (I was the lone biological one), only to end up alone but for the drug addict who won't leave home because he knows he's got it easy? All the other kids, dead or missing. After devoting their lives to a religion that promised them if they had tons of kids, they would be specially blessed. To end up with a big, empty house that echoes with lies. I can't even imagine. Maybe if they had been capable of love, things might have turned out differently. Mormon ideology was created by a sociopath, yet it doesn't take into account the spiritual well being of sociopaths. You live as a hypocrite, and you die surrounded by love. Yeah. That didn't work out so well for ol' Joe Smith. He got a lot of pussy, though. Thanks to the big family, so did my dad. I hope, for their sakes they tally that shit up in heaven and give them points for creativity in using what you have available.
/SUBJECT CHANGE/
About a year ago, I took "Go Ahead, Eat the Daisies", my second full length book of poetry, out of print, with the idea of editing it and releasing a second edition. Last night I scrapped that plan. Right now, that title exists as an album title for a collection of my most recently recorded poetry (also over a year old, and never remastered). I've decided to finally take "Stop Poking Me Lady" out of print, and not bring it back. If you want a copy, go to the support page on fabulousdisaster.com and there is a link to pick one up. I won't announce when I'm taking it down, consider this your only warning. I am also taking Kasey's chapbook offline. Don't buy that. It's not worth it. It was thrown together in a time of grief, I can't testify as to the quality of the editing or the poetry.
Instead . . . drum roll please . . . I have put a new book of poetry together in my head that will pull from the entirety of the last 30 years, be edited for content as well as punctuation, and for the first time in one of my publications, will be sorted into chapters of like pieces. Only pieces that fit in with the chapter headings I have come up with will be in the book. It will be a true and professional job, not very punk rock. But in ten years, "Poking" has sold one copy aside from the one I bought. I'm just going to remove that bit of rejection from my life. I'm just bummed I used two of my best titles on projects that have to be scrapped. I don't know if I can be that clever again.
What am I saying? Of course I can. As long as there is pot to smoke and words to play with, I will always be clever.
So, now I have all this shit to do . . . compile and edit the new book; do some pictures of the cats; work on inventory for PRH, create documents for PRH. For that last thing, I think I'll look for some software that helps you track that shit. I have NO head for business. But I want to do this right, from the start. I don't want to get buried in loose printouts and reciepts. I want complete organization from go. I also have to start measuring my products and box shopping for them. Packing materials are very reasonable on ebay. You just have to know exactly what it is you want.