Short Notice

2^nd April 2012

Dear Cassi,

Over the weekend I had my cook top replaced. The old one was so covered in grease that my neighbor would not even take it for scrap. He even left the gloves behind that he used to remove it from my counter. That is how dirty my home has become and I work alone to clean it because Paul is too lazy.

       

I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well trying to crawl out and slipping a bit every day. I find it hard to get out of bed and face these problems day in and day out. Everything I do just seems to make the problems worse.

       

As an added insult, I asked Paul to have a talk with my other neighbor about replacing the hood over the cook top. The old one was so bad off that I could not leave it in place as it would just get grease over the new device. Paul fulfilled my request only as the new cook top was being installed.

       

I jumped in my car and ran down to Home Depot to get a hood and learned that they will not stock hoods so it had to be ordered. Once more the man that helped me had little experience with the computer and I just opted to return home and use the website.

       

My new range hood should be here in a week or two. For this reason I have to hold off using the cook top as much as possible. Richard groans and hangs his head.

Stay safe, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Webcomic WTF

At one time it was my practice to send as much in one envelope as I possibly could, and so every letter I sent out had two sided pages. I got away from that at some time in the depths of my depression.

So that can fall will also rise, and I have rekindled the practice. Now if I sent one envelope every day I’d be back on track in one week.

15^th November 2011

Dear Cassi,

   

If there is one thing I have an affinity for it is projects, and today I’m introducing you to the latest of these. In an effort to get things in order I have been putting my webcomics together in a book. As I have no record of what comics I sent out to you I have no real alternative but to send you the whole thing page by page. If nothing else this should be an easy read for you, and it will get me motivated to get the thing squared away.

   

I want to send a nice letter to the old website designer asking him to remove my work from his site. I want to have all the original post dates well logged in by then, but with over two hundred comics to go now I have my work cut out for me.

   

If there is one thing I should do it is set the story strait to that fellow. I imagine your ex-husband/my ex-friend had words with him. It had to have gone something like “he won’t talk to me so don’t talk to him,” but the web geek was in the room when I told your ex that I wouldn’t come see him again unless he called first and left me a voice mail. A ten second call was too much to ask.

   

In any case, I need to cut ties with this fellow and anyone that thinks that I was so wrong in making those small requests. Honestly, I sat over your ex-husband’s bed side when he was in the hospital, sent him two letters a week when he was deployed in Iraq, and even let him move in with me, but none of that was enough for him to simply be polite.

   

You will see comics on the back of my letters once again. I hope you and Scott gets a kick out of them.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal

Running at a Canyon

Ah, I remember this, just as it became time for me to get that computer fixed I lost my job and it didn’t happen. Here it is some nine months later and I still haven’t worked much out. Life toddles about in the bad economy and it moves on only slowly.

23rd of September 2010

Dear Cassi,

A funny thing, I brought up the topic of anger management with Pickles and he said "no wonder you're easier to live with." I suppose this is what can be called selective memory. When I think of all the times I came home to a beating or to him having smashed something of mine I just shrug. He thinks for some reason I've accepted the idea that I will live with him for the rest of my life. One way or another, that's just not going to happen.

In other news I'm trying to put videos on YouTube, but my computer is not cooperating. It keeps cutting out when I try to send a video from my camera to my computer. I'm saving the files to my computer out right instead of working on them from the camera now hoping that will work, but the big issue appears to be that the camera saves in something called an MP4. Technology sucks. I'm doing all kinds of things to get the video to work better, but it just doesn't want to. I don't know. The last resort is to reduce the quality of the video to something like VGA or normal screen standards. Let's hope that does it.

On the one hand, in December an old friend of mine will be coming down to visit his father, and I'll be able to have him work on my computer and get it up to a more modern model. On the other hand, that means that I have until December to make my internet projects sustainable. Can't go pouring money into a project that isn't going to work out. The webcomic should be supported by the YouTube channel and so if one gets going the other should get stronger.

They say the top YouTubers have a six figure income, and that the top webcomic artists still only make five and there are some reasons for that, I'd be happy with either if it meant that I didn't have to be a guard any longer. This could work, that could work, but what will? It's the problem we are having in the bad economy, and yet it feels so close to my chest it's making it hard to breathe.

I guess you can understand that feeling, or am I just rambling to the void? I don't know if I'm making much sense. Webcomic writing did something for me though, it told me who my friends were, and that sad truth is most of my friends are like you. Most of the people who would be there for me couldn't because of the hard nature of the world they live in, but there is a list in my head of the people I would help if I got things to work out for me.

For the last year my life has been like running at a canyon edge hoping to jump across. I keep running, but the distance is increasing. I don't know if I'd rather fall to my death or keep running. I just keep running, because I've gotten this far and I would rather die than go back. The edge looms, but still I wonder if I will ever reach it, or stumble and be left on the dry ground.

I feel as if I can taste the dust of this lonely slope and see the gray of the rocks. A world so desolate has engulfed me that I feel as if life has drained away and is nearly lost. This is a place where my body would be left mummified forever trapped and frozen in my last moments. This is the world of my reality, dark, tragic, and cold. I do so wish you were doing better than I though I know it is not true.

Best,

Richard Leland Neal