Frustrated

29^th of September, 2010

Dear Cassi,

Well, today was the first time someone referred to one of my comments on YouTube. They asked what their viewers were going to be for Halloween and I said "I'm going to be a fat security guard, because I'm a security guard, and I work that night." It's not a big thing, but it's the first time it happened to me. He did get my handle wrong "ice 9 rln o" as opposed to rln Zero, but you can’t have everything. I'm making the rounds if nothing else.

On the bad end, my webcomic is for some reason not updating. This is three steps away from more trouble than it’s worth. I know that I'll get it ironed out eventually, but this is taking a long time and there are many bumps along the way. I tried to get into my account to see if there was a problem and I couldn't, then I looked at the file names I had uploaded on my flash drive and found nothing wrong. This tells me that there is a problem on their end. I can't get upset over it, this is free, but I'm frustrated.

The worst case scenario is that I would need to move my webcomic to another site again. That's not fun, but I do have a few options. Having the comics cross sites will be one more pain in a jumbo box of minor aches. Nothing ever comes easy to me. I wrap my wounds, put on my business face, and get back into the fight. It really shouldn't be so much of a production to get this off the ground, but the bumps and jitters of modern crud production hem us into the fabric of problems.

In my relationships class we talked about arguments, and one of the things that jumped out at me was a random interjection. That's when you're arguing with someone and you yell something like "big bloody bookworms" to take the tension out of the argument. The idea is that once the progression of anger has been broken you and your partner are more able to deal with the problem. Funny that I used to do something like that when my sister, Amber, and her husband fought. I'd make cornbread, and they would stop fighting to eat it. It got to the point where I was making cornbread every day, but it was all I could do to get some sleep. I slept during the day as I do now, and they fought when I was sleeping. There was never a dull moment at the Neal house.

That hasn't changed much, Thursday morning Paul told me I had left the front door open and I could tell he wanted to blow his stack over it. As if he has never done that. This is a man I can't trust to put the dishes away without them having food stuck to them. He does stupid things left and right. Today I found that he had put the blender together wrong and it was stuck like that. I had to use a hammer to get it unstuck. Did I get mad at him for it? Nope, because getting mad doesn't unstick blenders.

Paul is the type of person who waits until both sides of the sink are full to do the dishes, then leaves one half full when he's done. He won't wash what doesn’t go in the dishwasher, and leaves the things that need the worst washing in the sink to get putrid. Every now and again, I get tired of dealing with it and go wash the sink myself. I always find slime and scum on the bottom, and then I bleach out the sink. The nasty never stops. I know I need to just do the dishes on my own, but I don't have the energy.

It's kind of like the dream I had before work. I was in a dark cavern under a blanket, and these things that looked like humans made of dripped off candle wax kept coming after me trying to eat my hands. It was a strange dream to say the least. I would swat at them, and like flies, they would whisk away only to come back. Finally I found a sharpened broom handle and that was some better defense against the ghouls. I fought them off until I woke up by falling out of bed. I sat there on the floor for a few minutes until I had collected myself then got up and went about my daily business. The dream was so much like reality I may as well have been awake.

Get well, Cassi

Richard Leland Neal

Greedy Candymongers

1^st of November in 2010

Dear Cassi,

First of the month and yesterday I did something I haven't done in years: give out Halloween candy. This is a practice I don't care for because of what the house looks like. As the kids came by I grew more and more self conscious. I hadn't combed my hair or showered since the night before. Worse off, the bushes hadn’t been cut just as Paul has long neglected the lawn. The front shrubbery was so bad off that the children had to walk around the bushes to get to the door.

I gave out candy for about an hour as I mopped up the kitchen some. My home is a place where garbage comes up like weeds and rot flourishes in every spot just out a view. I figure that if I spent two hours a day cleaning I'd probably just keep up with the mess Paul leaves let alone my own. I was a mess in a mess catering to a bunch of candy goobers.

The kids themselves were a lot cruder then I had thought they would be. Six-year-olds cursing like sailors in the dark of the warm California night. The first kids of the night were my neighbor Mickie’s children. The only thing about that was that his daughter had the smallest candy sack I had ever seen for Halloween. As she walked away she told her father that she needed a new sack because hers was half full. Then came the foul mouthed kids with pillow cases as candy sacks instead of pumpkins, and a few girls dressed too adult for Halloween trick or treating.

I was handing out candy to mothers and children alike. There was one kid, and he came by twice, who was using his backpack from school as a candy sack. Halloween appeared to be about greed in my neighbor hood instead of the fun it had been in my day. What happened to the holidays? I used to get into costumes because that was part of the fun, but these kids didn't do much more then put on a mask. One kid had a piece of paper that said "this is my costume," as if she had gotten up that morning and remembered it was Halloween. I don't think I saw a single handmade costume like the ones I had when I was a kid. I remember my mother making me a robot costume. I grant it was one of the least involved she had ever made, and it chafed the shoulders, but at least that was original.

Shortly after eight I turned the porch lights out. I left the house in darkness to discourage the more greedy candymongers. Some kids roamed the neighborhood even as late as after nine looking for houses with the lights still on hoping to get a few more pieces of candy for the year. I don't know if I can blame them because the candy has gotten smaller and smaller. If they could come up with a candy flavored breath spray in individual size I think they'd give those out for Halloween next year. That's why I gave out candy by the handful. At least I didn't feel bad about giving the kids a jolly rancher.

On the bright side, I finished the 'about the author' section for my novel, so now I just have to sit back and wait. I could spend the rest of my life working on a document that size, but now it's time for me to move on to another project. With so many demands on my time getting the job done right takes forever, but I've ironed out most of my problems so the next project should be accomplished in half the time.

I'm hoping to turn one of my novel into a movie script. It seems like it's just easier that way, because the primary editing can be done on the script in the space of four hours when the editing for a novel takes four months. Again, in my last novel I changed format, or word processor programs, three times. It was a debacle to remember, but not one to repeat. Like many things, the first novel is the hardest. As it was with my first comic and my first play I had to grow to get the job done. Now it's just time to put my back into it and push until it comes.

Stay safe, Cassi

Richard Leland Neal

Kitten Poop

20th October 2015

Dear Cassi,



The kittens have had problems with constipation and, once I get them going, diarrhea. I woke yesterday morning to find them covered in excrement and trying to crawl out of their box. I set them in a new box which, quickly became soiled, and got an hour or so more sleep.

As I wakened I fed the kittens, but found I needed to mix more formula and, in thinking, decided I would risk giving the things a wash. Well, the sink was full. A result of my poor sleeping and hard work. I closed my eyes and squared my shoulders. There was nothing for it but to get the dishes done.

I must have set a record for loading and offloading a dishwasher. The mason jars I used to mix cat formula were a priority, and the blender I had used the day before had a few tomato stains. I mixed for the kittens a special formula with a small amount of plain yogurt to help them evacuate. 

I first washed rusty and wrapped him in rayon shammy. The orange felt caught the fleas and trapped them but they ran from the wet feline. His near twin Gizmo followed, and the two waterlogged animals huddled together in my arms until I was satisfied that they were dry.


Stripe and Bob Denver were the nest kittens to get the treatment, and so I washed them and held them repeating what I had done before. Bob was the hardest being as he has the worst of the bowel problems. I wiped his end bits over and over getting more out of him until I was sure he was clear.

With the four kittens huddling together and rather dry I washed Nimbus and Nimh then took to watching videos while keeping the cats warm by holding them.

Pickle came home and nearly fellow over dead when he saw only four kittens in the box, but when he came to tell me I showed him the two still in my arms. I packed all six together and set them on my bed trying to get some more sleep.

They woke me again some hours later with cries for food and kitten farts leaving the pet pad in their box brown again. I set at the feeding and cleaning but once again Pickle had stacked the kitchen table with so much that I could hardly put the pet pad down and the thrashing of kittens knocked it off the table from time to time.

I made it out of the house today just in time to get to work but without my water bottle or work ID. Life kicked me in the teeth and reminded me to stay on top of things. Well, I should know that by now.


Stay strong, little sister,


Richard Leland Neal

In a Name

A litter of kittens just over three weeks old huddling together.

16th October 2015

Dear Cassi,

Yesterday I was wakened by a disturbing text message telling me to bring my cat carriers to work as a litter of kittens had been discovered on property.

Now I can’t talk about the rigors of cats at work, but it is enough to say that I got a group of six, three week old, kittens home at the end of my work day and had to break out the formula. The bottle I had proved useless as the cats would not suckle at it and no matter how many holes I made in the nipple it would not give enough milk.

I fed the kittens with a syringe and then with an eye dropper. Both

Gizmo sits on his brother, Rusty's, back.

were a messy affair, but the animals would not take food from the bowl. One of my coworkers had laid claim to a kitten which she dubbed Rusty.

This fellow was a ginger cat with a brother who we named Gismo. Rather Pickle named him Gizmo as Pickle had never the opportunity to name an animal and was keen to do so this day.

There was a third male that Pickle wanted to name ‘Adversity’ but as we have no intent on keeping this animal I rejected this off hand as being too long and too sad. So he then tried ‘Denver’ in the honor of Bob Denver who played Gilligan on ‘Gilligan’s Island’. I took to calling this animal

Stripe plays as Bob Denver contemplates his existence.

Bob and so he is Bob Denver.

Now the first sister, a sad looking dark tortoise shell colored cat, has an orange stripe down her forehead. For this sister to Gizmo I found the name stripe to be right fitting. Stripe is a sad looking thing with pleading eyes that cut into your soul.

In this there was a gray kitten I called Nimbus for her cloud like appearance and her darker sister I called Nimh. Nimbus is fluffy and gray with a lighter voice then her sister Nimh. Now, Nimh, the darkest cat, has stripes that get lost in the dark of her pelt, and I feel she keeps secrets. This is why I call her Nimh as “The Secrets of Nimh” was a beloved story of my youth.

Know what is in a name, little sister,


Richard Leland Neal

Nimbus floats over her sister Nimh.

Moonchildren By Michael Weller: Review

Moonchildren is a coming of age story for a group of college grad students who are facing the possibility of a draft and getting shipped off to fight in Vietnam. 

It accurately depicts the gravity tension and of that time in American life. The story elements are second to character building and skit like comedy. There are running jokes and odd little notions.

The major down side of this play is that it would be hard to produce. There is a working refrigerator, a wall of milk bottles that needs to be real, and a living cat all part of this script. Thus it is more of a script for a film than one for a play.

Moonchildren was a fun read and I'm glad I read it but it still works better and literature than as production.

Who should read this book: Hippies and theater geeks.

Total Books Read: 10 of 5,000

Pages: 85

Total pages read for 'The 5,000 Project':1,975

Venus Candy Corn

Buff Candy Corn

Candy Corn Bat

Sophie the Daredevil by Lara Bergen: Book Review

The most disappointing thing about this book is that the cat on the cover is not anywhere in the story. I mean, that cat knows this is a bad thing from point one.

Come to think of it Sophie never hangs upside down so the whole Daredevil thing is lost with more dare and less devil. Unless you see the devil as being in the hearts of other children.

Well, this is a story for young girls and so I felt a little odd reading it but not so that I did not finish and enjoy the book.

I also feel the end is just too happy for a story for ten year old. The moral of the story is that you should never betray trust but a little honesty can't undo that in a pinch.

All in all, this was a fun read and I'm glad I did the reading. 

Who should read this book: Ten year old girls and people who are ten year old girls at heart.

Total Books read: 9 of 5,000

Pages: 93

Total pages read for 'The 5,000 Project': 1890

Candy Corn Gets Green

Candy Corn and Fly Trap

Candy Corn Gets Extra Eyes

Candy Corn Chemistry

Candy Corn Exploration

Candy Corn Comes to Life