I meant to send this out at the beginning of the month. Things have been…well, complicated. So, first order of business: I finally switched from WordPress dot Com to a shared hosting service, which means I have a lot more control over the site. I’ve updated some things, so it’s all fully functional (or should be), complete with an actual newsletter sign up in the sidebar that will only notify you when I send out a newsletter post. Eventually, I’ll be updating the site layout and theme as well.

I know most folks are very used to me talking about my mental and physical health and this is just more of that but with an added twist. I finally found a psych med that’s helped me and the resulting effects have been positive, though not quite in the way I thought they would be. My anxiety is finally under control so I had two weeks where I felt on top of the fucking world back in June. And then I just crumpled. Severe apathy. Motivation gone. It was distressing at first. I talked to my psych and my therapist both about it, trying to figure it out. Psych said that from the sounds of it, my body realized, oh shit, the anxiety’s gone, break time!

And I sat on that for a week, because I managed to book an extra appointment with her out of frustration and worry, ahead of the one we had scheduled. And the more I thought about it, the more I started to agree. The lack of anxiety also meant that some other issues that had been plaguing me could no longer be ignored. I couldn’t just blame them on the anxiety anymore. My therapy session last week basically confirmed that. It was heavy and productive and wore me the fuck out but I pushed me to address the issue. So I did. Now I’m dealing with the fact that my entire being only wants to do a very few things, mostly eat, sleep, and game. It’s sort of like burn-out recovery, I guess. I’m trying to do a little bit here or there, as I’m able, trying not to kick up the exhaustion, and trying to make sure I eat and sleep enough, but some days it feels like my bones are trying to dissolve.

And none of that even touches the fact that my blood pressure is still too damn high but at least my kidneys are healthy. CT scans are a weird but interesting process, by the way.

Unfortunately, this means I’ve gotten basically zero work done since those two weeks in June. The work on the 2nd draft of Bloodhenge has stopped. That worries me less at this point than when this would happen with the 1st draft, but it still sucks. But it’s hard to argue with your nervous system resetting so you can be a person again instead of a bundle of frayed nerves. I genuinely wish I had more news to report. The personal news is mostly good, at least. Life is still too damn hard. The times are still too interesting and that shit needs to STOP. It’s supposed to get up to 104 next week and god only knows what the heat index will be. So, I will continue to wish you well. I will continue to remind you to take care of yourselves. To drink and eat enough. To rest. To find the little joys to combat the overwhelming sense of doom that permeates existence right now. To keep hope in whatever ways you can.

Hopefully by the fall newsletter, I’ll have some shiny new graphics and a lot more news to share. Or hopefully I can just say “the book is underway again.” So stay weird, be excellent to each other, and party on, y’all.