We got our first store report. We sold items for an average of $24 with 5 bids each. We have a 79% sell rate and have sold 30 of the 38 auctions we’ve had. Also, 14 store items.

I’m just glad my family can’t get a hold of our store address. They wouldn’t think to look it up, and if they did, they wouldn’t know it was us. As for his family giving them the address, I doubt it. I don’t think they would divulge phone numbers or addresses, just general info. It probably is just at Christmastime too, and I doubt it’s more than a few sentences. I always figured she wrote brief updates on the holiday cards she sends, so this Christmas she’ll write something like: Tom and Jodi are well. Moved to Oregon. Thought they might like it better there with the cooler weather and forest.

Anyway, the reason I’m glad they don’t know about our store is that they’re the type, especially Tammy and Larry, to buy something from us just so they could turn around and leave negative feedback.

I’m now done with Angel Eyes and am proofreading it. I rarely proofread my journals all that thoroughly so they must be riddled with typos. You’d be amazed at just how many errors the reader picks up as opposed to silent proofreading. Especially missing words, words close to what you really meant to type, and words with endings other than what you meant. The journals, though, I just quickly skim those with my eyes, and since I use swears as much as I use the word the, and racial slurs as much as I use the word and, and we’re living in such oh so sensitive times when everyone wants you to have a bleeding heart for others no matter how much they shit on you, I edit it when I send parts to jail. Mary can handle it. It’s the others there I’m cautious with. If Mary was anything like Little Miss Be Like Me (Doe) we’d never have been friends.

Meanwhile, given the off chance that I may sell a book or two, I’m trying to be more correct, so to speak. Not just with spelling, grammar, punctuation, structure and paragraphs, but I’m now using chapters and trying to use the current lingo, though in a decade I’m sure the blacks will find African-American an offensive term. It’s hard to keep up with what they expect to be called. I’m also going to try to add popular subjects, even if I myself may be sick to death of them. What sells is what sells, though, so if they want cows, you can’t give them horses. I just try to find a good balance between writing what I want to write while considering any potential readers as well. I still can’t imagine selling my books, but I’m going to act like I will and not just throw out a pile of words.