eBay auctions of the tenth-anniversary edition of Lost Souls, my handmade traycased The Value of X, and a pretty blank journal are ending later today. Copies of The Lazarus Heart in my Big Testosterone Sale are still available too. For those readers who aren't eBay customers, thanks for your patience with these millions of announcements.

Three new eBay auctions posted: a tenth-anniversary deluxe edition of Lost Souls, a blank journal I think came out especially pretty, and, in a twist on the book covers I've been making, a traycased copy of The Value of X with my own artwork. There's still a little time left to bid on the book auctions, too, and some good deals there.

Stayed up all night making collages. Gotta get with Grey and figure out how to photograph these things so people can see them. Crafty eBay auctions ending this evening: the homoerotic botanic treasure box, the copy of Exquisite Corpse with my handmade cover, and two blank books. This turns out to be the Make the Mortgage Payment Sale, so please bid if you can!

The mail continues to bring treats, including a signed copy of Caitlín's The Drowning Girl. Very much looking forward to reading this one. Thank you, greygirlbeast! In your honor, I shall try to write something resembling a real entry. With, you know, thoughts and stuff. Not just random observations and eBay listings (though I do have some of those).

Life is ... sticky. I guess that's the best way to describe it. Not precisely bad, but difficult. Literally so, because the air conditioning in my house is broken and we're heading into another long, sweaty, tyrannical New Orleans summer. Most luxuries have fallen by the wayside, and necessities are starting to do so. Yet I live in interesting times, both personally, by being in a relationship that brings me joy and creative inspiration, and globally, by feeling -- as I seldom did growing up -- that we are living on the right side of history. The other day I sent Grey a text saying, basically, we may be old by the time it comes, but I think we'll live to see a day when today's last-gasp homophobes look as benighted as the news footage of rabid bigots screaming at black children integrating the public schools. (I didn't want to be a Negative Nancy, so I didn't add that I don't expect to live to see a day when transgender people are anywhere near as accepted.) Meanwhile, there are still "religious" nutjobs who want to put us all behind electric fences and courts that give evil little shitweasels thirty damn days in prison for hounding us to death, but society no longer seems to be in tacit agreement with those people as it did when I was younger.

One more paragraph for Caitlín. Christ, when you get out of the habit of writing, forcing yourself to do it starts to feel like weightlifting. I have little puny stringy 98-pound-weakling writing muscles. If I do any more reps, I'll make them sore. Clang.

So about those eBay auctions ... they are all crafty things, two more blank journals, a copy of Exquisite Corpse with a redesigned cover by me, and a "homoerotic botanic" treasure box. Please check 'em out.

I'm sorry I haven't made a real entry in a while. There are things I want to talk about, but I've been feeling mostly non-verbal. I am making a lot of stuff, though. Images seem to rule my world right now.

When people send me things from my wish list, I like to send them actual, physical thank-you notes. Unfortunately, Amazon no longer includes the gift-giver's mailing address, so I can't do that anymore. Instead, I offer a big public thank-you to Carl Kesner, Lisa Warner, Ed Stites, Jeremy Karass, and Kelly Wright for the lovely birthday gifts. Hope y'all see this. And not to drop hints, but HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE LONGEST I'VE EVER GONE WITHOUT READING A STEPHEN KING BOOK AFTER ITS RELEASE.

eBay auctions ending this evening: two of my handmade blank books and the copy of Drawing Blood for which I made a new cover. Check 'em out!

Also: blank book auctions ending this evening (the last two listings in the store).

So back when I was making blank books a couple of years ago, one of my biggest problems was that I wanted to use photographic images in my collages, but didn't want to steal them from their creators or mess with getting dozens of permissions. Clearly the only solution was to start dating a photographer with a vast and gorgeous repository of images, especially if said images are homoerotic and/or set in New Orleans. When we met, I didn't even know Grey Cross was a photographer, let alone that he would inspire me to be creative again after years of lying fallow. But there was an immediate, definite, and loud click when we met, and I'm not surprised that I have found myself moved to collaborate with him.

Here are our collaborations (the three newest listings). I spent most of last week either making them or sleeping, and now they are on eBay. As well as two blank journals/sketchbooks, there's also a hardcover of Drawing Blood for which I have made a new cover out of Grey's work and other materials. I'm excited about these projects and hope you'll check out the pictures even if you can't bid.

I don't like to admit it, but I have sometimes wished for the option of a cheap, occasional pill that would sate hunger and provide all nutrients. In the future, even cannibals will be able to just take a pill. And the future is now.

Though I haven't been writing here, I've been productive, editing manuscripts and making some of my favorite blank books ever. More about those soon. For now, here's me, age 2.

I made a couple of new blank books and put them up on eBay. My store's being wonky and not showing me the listings, so in case it's doing the same to you, here are the direct links:

Write/Read-Themed Journal

Cat/Skull/Eyeball-Themed Journal/Sketchbook

Thanks for looking!

Well, hell, I feel positively perky. I'm ready to make a commercial for Wellbutrin. Tonight I started, yet again, the Sisyphean and never-ending task of cleaning out and organizing my office. Compare this with my sad self-portrait from eleven days ago (with my thoughts purposely cropped out due to being far too embarrassing for public consumption, even by my numerous new spouses):



(There are TWO cats in this picture. Can you find the other one?)

And I'm itching to replace the frozen dead flowers in my front planters, but I have a feeling we might get one more freeze, and I don't want any more petunias or pansies (the only flowers that seem to bloom through anything a New Orleans winter can throw at them) as I have loads of them already. I'm tired of looking at those shriveled-up marigolds, though.

Going out today (even with Chris) was a little difficult, but I hope that's improving too. We had lunch at Mandina's on Canal, where Dick Hallorann (lately of the Overlook Hotel) is apparently cooking now; at any rate I reread The Shining last night and the ending made me hungry for shrimp Creole, and when we went in, there it was on the Saturday specials menu, and just as good as he promised. They even had the little green peas to go with it.

Having been more or less here before, I know I need to be careful not to wear myself out physically just because I feel like doing something besides lying in bed. But damn, does that office ever need a good filing swoop. I don't even know what I need an office for these days, but Chris sometimes uses the printer, and it's a beautiful big-windowed room that brightens up the whole front part of the house when we can have it open (i.e. when there aren't giant piles of loose paper for the cats to knock down/pee on/nest in), and maybe I'll start doing eBay auctions again one of these days. Maybe even making blank books and other objects again; I really enjoyed that.

None of the crazy-vivid Wellbutrin dreams people have warned me about yet. I'm kind of looking forward to them and kind of dreading them, if they come at all. I didn't have those horrible brain-zaps people talk about when I went off Cymbalta, so maybe I won't get these dreams either. I could use some different dreams as long as they aren't horrible. I'm sick of school/packing/transporting cats/moving/being-unwelcome dreams, and I don't really need to go to Amsterdam every night, especially since my mind seldom lets me have any actual fun there.