Saturday Slowed Down

I had trouble getting started on Saturday morning, and it seemed to get harder as I went on. I finally rose at nearly 8:30 and found my way to some liberal coffee, Equal Exchange, in my French Press. I only had one cup. I added a yogurt and a banana to go with the coffee while I was writing the blog for Friday. With the surprising bleeding from my incision in my belly, I had left the bandage on from the Urgent Care in place instead of showering at night. I try to prevent exposure to pollen in my sleeping by showering at night and then getting into bed. Today, I was reducing intervention on my incision by leaving everything alone overnight.

Everything was fine, and I was able to shower without issue. The bandages had only a little blood, and the blood from the night before was dry. I washed, trying to keep the area dry, but I still got it a little wet. It had no problem, and I was able to cover it, and there were no more issues.

But I was tired, and everything hurt. I had not fallen and bruised myself, but I felt like I had. My legs were sore, and my head ached. Yikes! I wish I had been at the party and dancing my body was reflecting back to me. It must have been a good time!

I made a beef and cheddar sandwich with Thousand Island dressing, cole slaw, and a big dill pickle. My mouth is still too dry from the loss of nerve control (little saliva), and it is a chore to eat. I still enjoyed the sandwich. I think the nerve problem is getting better but improving very slowly.

I am tired of being tired and decided to actually do some work. I started editing and assembling one of my Howard stories, “Howard’s Lockdown.” I plan to publish them in DriveThruRPG Fiction, something Matt V suggested while we traveled together. I have generated AI-based art to decorate the 7,000+ word short story. I am both excited and scared, as this is releasing something I wrote, and I would be disappointed if it was not well received. I start doing the final work and start looking at what else I need. I need a cover, descriptions, and even images of the cover. I look at what others have published, and I am not able to do that. However, I noticed one group of fiction that closely aligns with mine, Delta-Green, uses a template with just some changes. That I might do. I use, of all things, MS Word to generate a cover, and I am able to revise it to fit what I think is a good look for Howard’s stories.

I spent hours adding art, creating a cover, and writing descriptive texts. I also captured an image of the cover. I used all of this after creating an account for publishing. It took me three tries to get everything good, but soon, I had my first publication. I then set it to be visible to the public. I received a response to expect approval or corrections in the next three days! Yipe!

My emotions swing from happy to terrified. What if nobody ever buys it (20 cents a page)? What if people hate it? And then I am so happy to have it out there. Publish, go forward, and write more. That is what I do. I will do this!

I decided not to head to Richard’s today to play board games. Even with the easy tasks I am doing, I am tired, and I am unsure that a 10 p.m. drive back from Portland is a good idea. Also, I would like the bleeding issue to be another day in the past before I put the seatbelt on for more than a few minutes.

I stopped all the exercises, too. I did bleed after the first day of using the stationary bike. I will pick them up slowly again starting on Sunday. There is no reason to make another visit to Urgent Care if only to learn that my pants rub my incision while I peddle!

I began preparing the longest Howard story, the 11,000+ word “Howard in Florida,” the same way. I kept the cover art and updated the text to match the new story. I generated some art using Davinci AI to make images that matched a few moments in the story. Soon, I have a new 21-page document ready to add to my publications. When the first one is approved, I will quickly add to the Howard stories.

I make a veggie and sausage Jambalaya from a box mix. No seafood, as I forgot to get some last time. I followed my usual process, cut up a pepper (an orange one I got just for the color) with an equal amount of onion and celery (known as The Trinity), and added garlic (The Pope). This I let cook while I slice up various smoked and spicy sausages and add them. I add 14 oz crushed tomatoes and a matching amount of diced from a can. I let that cook for a while on a fast simmer. I add fresh green beans as I always like rice dishes with fresh green beans. I pour the spices and rice from a box, add hot water, and cover it. I wash bok choy and add this in the last ten minutes just to add even more greens. I need to raise my potassium level, so I am adding greens to everything.

I might have had three bowls, but at least there were lots of veggies! After the thrush, I still had trouble tasting the food, and it tasted mostly like sharp spices to me. But it was still good.  I rested after cooking for an hour.

Corwin and I decided we needed ice cream and headed to Salt and Straw in Beaverton. I had no trouble driving there, and parking was the usual insanity. Soon, we were in a line outside the door. While waiting, I met Jatin from my last group at Nike, MDG Engineering. He took a picture of us and sent it to everyone on MDG. We chatted and then talked more after we had our ice cream. I had the chocolate stout flavor.

Jatin introduced us to his wife and family. It was nice to chat. I promised to be available when the MDG team wants to meet somewhere or just to say hello. It is always good to see the excellent software engineers at Nike; Jatin is one of the best.

After that, Corwin and I took Air Volvo home. There, I started the blog early as church is at 10:30 on Sunday, which makes it difficult to be ready on time and write the blog. I was also excited to show my publication work. Another adventure and thing for me to learn: DriveThroughRPG Fiction!

Thanks for reading.