Hey there. Long time no see.

You're probably wondering what's happened since I left Earth. Or maybe you're reading this for the first time and wondering what this blog is all about?

Well, for those of you who just got here, let me give you a slightly abridged version of the past year of my life.

On October 28 2021, my son-in-law, a brilliant poet and filmmaker, lost his life to COVID complications. He was 33 years old and his life at the time he died read a little like a death flag plot. He had a stable job that he enjoyed, he was in the process of making his first horror film (based off a story written by Yours Truly) and he was expecting his first born son.

It's been a year and I still feel the loss as succinctly as I did on the night that he left us. The pain, for me, hasn't lessened. He was my son and my friend and I honestly feel like the world is darker without him.

When he died, my daughter was eight months pregnant. I had two choices. Either convince her to come back to Earth, or leave everything I know and travel to Mars. Since you probably saw the sign on the way in, you can guess which choice I made.

Since then, a lot has happened.

First, the money I had from the sale of my home is gone. I would have liked to have saved it, but that just wasn't an option. I needed to stay home with Little Prince so that my daughter could return to work and return to some sense of normalcy in her life. I sacrificed my chance at building wealth for my grandson. As much as I miss that money, I have no regrets. The way I see it, it was the only way.

Second, for those of you wondering why I didn't just get a remote job, here's a fun fact about that. Now that COVID is supposedly over (at least according to certain politicians) it's nearly impossible to find remote work that pays enough to feed you. Even harder to find it if you can't be on the phone because there's a screaming baby in the background.

Third, because work has been scarce, I've taken the only jobs that I can do under these conditions. Ghostwriting. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy the work. It doesn't pay enough at the moment to sustain me, however. So, at the moment, I have a broken laptop and any day they're going to be coming for my car and rent? What's that?

Four, Dali is due to head back to Earth for school soon. She's been here since the summer. She'd decided not to go back to Art school. She's changed her major and is now heading to Wayne State...which I have to admit, I'm kind of proud of. It's my alma mater and I think she'll have a better time there. Poor things has been feeling stagnant here on Mars. She's eager to get her life going. I'm not mad at it.

Fifth, the other entries to this blog are going to be added slowly...or at least the ones I can add. In the process of transferring my files to a flash drive, a bunch got corrupted. It'll take some time, but I'll be adding what I can find so stay tuned.

And lastly...

Lastly, I'm tired. This has been a hard year emotionally, financially, and...well, whatever else you want to throw in there. In addition, the people in charge seem pretty intent on taking everyone's rights away. There are days that I feel like I'm smack in the middle of ground zero.

But...I'm here. I'm here for my grandson, my daughters, and for myself. However this whole thing shakes out, I'm not going anywhere.