Folks, one of the reasons I’ve been cagey for months here at my blog is because I’ve been enduring hardship. I can’t go into that many details as most of them are not mine to tell; all I can tell you is that in seven days, I am going to lose my home. And I need immediate help to relocate, get set back up on my feet, and to continue to create — because my goodness, CHANGING FACES is due shortly.

All of this upheaval is not conducive to creativity, to put it mildly. But I need somehow to get it done anyway.

Of course, I don’t know how I get all this done. Right now, I feel overwhelmed, overmatched, and extremely frustrated. I have tried very hard in my current situation to make everything right, and yet I could not do it.

I’m hamstrung in many ways trying to…

Tax day, April 15, was looming when an elderly woman showed up at the IRS. She said she required a thick stack of tax forms. “Why so many?” the clerk asked. “My son is stationed overseas,” she said. “He asked me to pick up forms for the Marines on the base.” “You shouldn’t have to do this,” the clerk told her. “It’s the base commander’s job to make sure that his troops have access to the forms they need.” “I know,” said the woman. “I’m the base commander’s mother.”

A six year old comes crying to his Mother because his little sister pulled his hair. “Don’t be angry,” the Mother says, “Your little sister doesn’t realize that pulling hair hurts.” A short while later, there’s more crying, and the Mother goes to investigate. This time the sister is bawling and her brother says… “Now she knows.”

A little boy comes running Into the room and…

True story from a Tech Support Representative
Caller: “Hello, Is this tech support ? ”

Tech: “Yes, It is. How may I help you ?”

Caller: “The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed ?”

Tech: “Did you say a Cup holder ? ”

Caller: “Yes ! it is attached to the front of my computer”

Tech: “Please excuse me If I seem a bit stumped, It’s because I am. Did you received this as part of a promotional, at a trade show ?”

Caller: “It came with my computer, I don’t know anything about a promotion, It just has 4X on it.”

At this point the tech rep had to mute the caller because he couldn’t stand it He was laughing too high. The caller had been Using the load drawer of CD/DVD…

Poverty is a blight, a disease, a cancer, a kind of rust that never sleeps as it erodes dignity and injects anxiety into the host, slowly saturating the soul and taking the body for itself. Poverty is the manifestation of failure, sometimes deserved, sometimes not, but once marked the stain lasts forever. Recovery is slow, and the heart never fully heals.

It’s always the math. That math consumes the mind in feverish, compulsive ways. The math and the questions. How much is left? How many days til payday? Til there’s more? What bill to pay? What can I not pay? How much do I have per day? Can I make it? How many meals can I get from  a pound of hamburger? Count, count, count. Try to calculate the amount of pay and subtract the bills and do it over and over hoping I didn’t forget anything. Hoping the balance will be more. Wait…