i woke up this morning and did my numbers like i always do on saturdays. a big fat cup of coffee, my little notebook, and my ratings for all 28 books that i now have on the market, USA only but both kindle and paperback. it's gotten so that i know what i'll find and usually i'm not all that surprised. but if a sale happens overnight or somehow i missed it, i might have a pleasant surprise. no pleasant surprises this morning.

my operation has healed slowly although there are still bandages on my skull and i press my glasses into one of them when i put them on. it's really more the hay fever that makes me want to retreat into my room and sit by the air-con, but going out has become somewwhat unpleasant with my almost total deafness and i frequently have to just tell people, hey, i don't hear much at all. at least i know how to say it, being part of the speaking world for sixty-nine years of my life. but it's no fun at all. and i'm a little impatient with them if they don't catch on and shout in my face when there's something they want to tell me. this is especially true on door-dash, which does require a little oral communication in the passing of food from their hands to mine. these are about the only people i talk to. my wife shouts in my face which is pretty much what you have to do.

activation day is next friday. that means i go in there, to iowa, and they turn on this cochlear implant that they inserted into my head. once they turn it on apparently i'll hear much better, at least after i get used to it. i may still have to do listening exercises or some such thing, all this makes me want to sit in my room with the air-con blowing in my face and avoid the world and all stress.

the biggest problem is hay fever season, to be frank. back in illinois, i got a break last year as my body just wasn't that familiar with it; i'd lived in the southwest for ten years. it used to torment me in iowa where i took to smoking a lot of pot in late august/early september, but i don't smoke pot anymore, and this constant coming and going, leaving the house, driving around, means i encounter quite a bit of it. it should be over soon, with the first frost if not sooner. but it couldn't be too soon for me. my sinuses are full; my head weighs too much. i have to hang close to the airconditioner, no walks out in the weeds for me.

there's a chance i'll start working on a quilt again. this actually cheers me up. i am on my fourth one, and it's been stalled for several years. but i have plenty of material, scissors, and even time, if i never leave this chair. as i retreat to my airconditioner (i will have another operation before long, for the other ear, i'll find that i can really do a lot more than play boggle and write my books. i've been somewhat obsessed with writing a book, but there's only so much i can do and pretty soon i'm going to want to do quilting or something i can do with my hands while i sit here.

i made a quilt for layla, and bayleigh, and kenna; now I'm stuck on maya's quilt as i never got back off the ground after i finished kenna's. it's barely started, in other words. and she's kenna's twin. but she knows it will be a while, and she's ok with it. they're coming over tomorrow, so i feel like having something ready. a plan, maybe, or some fabric that i intend to cut. i'm working on it. but i've had to hang around the garage finding this stuff and an afternoon working in the garage left me very sweaty and head full of sinus problems from the ragweed in the neighborhood. i retreated. more time in my chair.

and then i read the news and you have this raving maniac yelling about mass deportations. when they figure out what will happen when you deport every hotel worker in the country people are not going to be so crazy about it, as it will cause a labor shortage and prices will skyrocket. they'll have to. the people who would be affected would be much wider than just the population of illegal migrants, which is actually not that huge. But the illegal migrants are related to lots of people and are well established in the economy, which means that really forcing them out will cause all kinds of disruption. he doesn't care; disruption is his gain, as it keeps people off balance and allows his thugs to move in and take control.

fortunately people see this coming. he's a raving maniac and we have to do something about it.