and the table shook, followed by a soliloquy

I called Tag and told him I wanted to show him something, so he neded to meet me at BAM (Books A Million) last night...when he got there I told him to sit down at the table and close his eyes...then he heard a loud THUD.

I had taken a copy of my new book, THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES, and dropped it on the table. I think I blew his mind. He had not seen how well it came out. I had not seen the size and scale and beauty of the book until my copies arrived in the mail. I mean , this thing is 8-1/2 x 11 x 2 inches thick! I've been in houses where it would be the largest book in the house, bigger than the dictionary they use, thicker than the Holy Bible (which usually has more pages, but is printed on thinner paper)...I'm still kinda/sorta reeling from the size of the thing.

I've been meticulously going through it...I know my edits weren't perfect, and so I am picking through to see if there is anything I need to revise before too many copies get into circulation (and, of course, any sold at lulu.com or through my own store at Cityoflegends.com will be collectors items, worth many times more than the perfected edits (so far I have found one or two small typos in the annotations...not too bad for a novel-length collection of works!))

I am going to send Jillian Ann, the techno musician and model from New York, who was kind enough to agree to be the cover model (yum!) and internal illustration model her copy this week...I think her mind will explode. I do want to give a copy to the local public library, but I want it done with problem pomp and press, so we'll see what we can do for that.

Now all my other books look like minor works to me...you do know what this means...once you go black (cover and massive size) you can never go back...so from now on my books have to be this level. Imagine having done high school plays on shoestring budgets, then suddenly being turned loose to mount a full Broadway production with name stars and a full orchestra and laser effects. Tough to go back to Peoria, hm?

Peri and Brian head back to LA today. I got no acknolwedgement of my existence while they were in, pretty wounding, but perhaps I am supposed to just suck it up and live with it. I understand the psychology of it all, but I am still a father, cut off from his daughter, whom he loves, no matter how incompetent he may have been as a father over the years (I wasn't abusive, this is mostly just the secondary bs fallout of most divorces...but there is other baggage). Devastating loss, you know. Not sure how I will handle the sudden jolt of attending her wedding next year...it might just be too bizarre, too stressful, to be publicly treated that way.

But I believe in unconditional love. If nothing else, my devotion to her, her brothers, even Ann, and this book, all prove this. I am, on the whole, a good person, even if I have my failings and sometimes I to remind myself that I am not the antichrist a handful of broken people (not you, Peri, others...some of whom have fed your apathied rage towards me) would paint me as in order to feel better about themselves.

Ann considered my ability to love against indiference or hate was a weakness. I always marvelld at how many people can sit in a pew on Sunday morning for decades and never listen. If I belonged to a club that baked brownies for its main function and never baked nor ate the treats, I would be a hypocrite. I have met too many Christains in my life who had no concept of uncondtional love, charitable love. And, while I may sometimes rail to the heavens when wounded and struck down, I don't stop loving, not because I am a better person, but because I don't want to be a hypocrite.

It is too easy for people to ignore what truths you may be communicating when they discredit you, even more so when you discredit yourself. I believe in God. I believe in the model that presents of unconditonal love. I will continue, every day, to try and be someone capable of loving without relent, without halt, without making my very core beliefs and their associated actions, a lie.

If this means from time to time I will be taken advantage of, misinterpreted, or stabbed in the back. That's just part of the game, like skinned elbows in football. If you want to be on the field, you have to accept them.