This has been one of the hardest things as a teacher. One of my former students was a cop in Memphis; he is responsible for Tyre’s death.

No. I could not watch the video. My sister Twyla (who taught him for 7th grade) did and she told me not to. I always heed her advice.

I feel like one of the folks on the “IamtheMainCharacter” subreddit. This event has absolutelyl nothing to do with me and no one should pay attention to me at this time. I am emotionally involved and nothing good can come from discussion.

What I can tell everyone on this planet is that he was a good kid when I taught hin in the 8th grade. He was my class clown, but he was also one of those kids that if you give them a job, they will rise and perform. If memory serves me, he was my “emergency” line leader. Every month at the middle school, we would have a fire drill. They planned them so that every period and every time slot was covered (since kids are all throughout the school during the day, they need to know for each location they go).

My emergency bag was HEAVY. It had a gallon of water, puzzles, clipboards, pens, games, and rolls. Each period had a designatied “emergency” line leader. That person’s job was to get the emergency bag and then get to the head of the line and lead everyone in class to our safe zone in the parking lot.

He was that kind of kid; he was a helper. He also made me smile and laugh. I have not been able to watch the nightly news since I discovered he was involved as one of the cops. My only question is what happened to change him?

I have a funny feeling Memphis happened. Memphis is a rough place to live, and without the right resources, I can see how Memphis would actually be hell on Earth for a lot of folks. It is one of the most violent places I have ever worked and lived (well, next to Newport News).

I’m sorry, former student; I failed you. You were a good kid, but that city took it out of you and made you hard. It was the only way for you to survive; I get it. I still love you for that beautiful child that was in my classroom and who I know is still living deep down inside. Make peace, baby. Make your peace.
​

Last week is going to stay in the books as weird.  

The writing business is starting to take off.  I'm seeing some twenty-dollar days, and it's a terrifying ball of excitement and trepidation.  I want to be a writer and do my writing thing full time.  Right now, it won't pay the bills so I'm still building my business and my business model. 

I reached out to some folks who specialize in short story publication and they have told me that with this recent success (two number-one books in a sub-genre) I should:

• Start a newsletter
• Keep up the weekly publication of stories
• Redesign my covers
• Redesign my blurbs
• Advertise more (social media links and all)

That's a heck of a list.  It's so massive work-wise, I'm seriously wondering when I will fit in these changes, but I can really tell that all of them need to get done.  My covers are pretty crappy and my blurbs are inexperienced.  I'm smart enough to see the advice is correct.  

Now to figure out if I'm smart enough to execute the advice and continue to grow this business.  Since I'm booked for the Spring with Olli, I will have time this spring to hopefully work on writing and publishing a dark sub-genre romance.  That's the big leagues and I wanna be there.  

I wanted to have a number one story in my subgenre by the end of the year.  Looks like that goal will was attained last Saturday around 10 am.  

The other main goal was to make 100 dollars before July.  I'm on track to fulfill that in January as well.  

The main question is what to do next?  I feel like I did what I said I would do and all, but I also feel like 100 dollars a month is nothing to sneeze at in terms of being unemployed right now.  

I'm not sure what is beyond the goals I made earlier, so I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best. ​

ITime again for resolutions and goals.  

I usually do these in August along with my job cycle.  This August was so vastly different, I never got around to it.  I did, however, embark on a journey last year and am ready to continue that journey to whatever end I might find.  Like Douglas Adams famously claimed: "I may not have gone where I intended, but I think I ended up where I needed to be."
​
The publishing is going well.  
My most recent efforts ended the day at number #32.  It started dropping again after that, but I'm hoping that this means my story may have some staying power.  I'm also super happy I'm getting reviewed now.  No one has left any comments, but I really like the stars, especially since the other series was only evaluated twice and one was at 3 stars and the other was 1 star.

I’m averaging about a dollar a day, but hey, that’s money I didn’t have before.  I actually was able to withdraw 20 dollars from my publishing account and buy myself some breakfast while in New Orleans. Weird that I ran into a collared submissive while at the cafe.  O_o.

As far as professional work, I am looking toward to teaching again at the University of Southern Mississippi with their OLLI program.  It should be a hoot to work in a conventional classroom setting again.  I’ll be posting those lesson plans as I create them here.  It’s an exciting layout because I was able to convince the leadership to give us one hour of lecture and follow it with one hour of lab.  

The idea being, folks can come to class and get some basic information lecture style, and then for the next hour we can work together to solve any issues they are specifically having all the while using the time as a springboard for discussion topics and future lessons.  It’s a big idea, and one that will require me to organize lessons on the fly, but I’m hoping it can give us a better “service” nature to the classes.  

I’d love to start teaching remotely (or on campus) for the University, but I know they have a list of applicants a mile long.  To that end, I have my Mississippi teaching license in hand now, so hopefully some more lucrative work will be coming up in the near future.  

The old body is hanging tough.  Still experiencing some pain from the surgery.  And I was lucky enough to avoid Covid during the holiday travels, but exchanged all that luck for a head cold that is sapping my strength for the moment.  The good news is that if I keep the fluids up, this thing is just a head cold.  I should be able to kick it by this weekend (famous last words). 

Doug has been doing okay.  We are still wrestling with his diagnosis.  Had super big struggles this holiday with moods and regulation.  I really need to focus on meditation and nutrition to keep myself strong for when the family needs me. 

That brings me to my goals for this year!  

Writing: 2K a day.  That’s it.  Hell or high water.  2K a day
Money: Sub at least five days before June—stomp the next OLLI class with the best curriculum they've ever seen. 
Love: Work to strengthen my marriage by framing Doug’s mood swings in his diagnosis and giving myself the space I need to find my caregiving balance with him.
Publishing: At least one short a week for Kindle Unlimited.  Gotta get those page reads!

​Until next time :-)