It’s Seriously Been Over A Year Since I Wrote A Blog Post

Posted on October 26, 2020

I had the opportunity today to load some of the blog posts I was able to recover from my former site. I lost more than I care to admit. Many, many more. But, the ones I recovered will be posted over the coming weeks. I added several today, then realized I haven’t written a new blog post in over a year. Is the absence of new material a reflection of a rather dull life now? Naa. Probably not. I honestly think it’s due to not wanting to put so much effort into writing them again when they could very well disappear. Still, I haven’t been at a loss for observations about life since October of 2019.

One of the problems with taking several steps back from…well, everything…is that one tends to lose contact with so many friends. I’ve barely seen or chatted with my friend Jeff, who freakin’ helped me move into the house after my hernia surgery! What the heck, right? T.C. Blue and I used to talk on the phone every couple of weeks. Nope. Kiernan Kelly and I would message often. Not so much these days. Patricia Logan and I would trade an impressive arsenal of barbs. Now we say “Hi” and are ridiculously polite. And my little sister? Trish Gillham? We’re both equally immersed in what’s going on in front of us, and I’ve become a poor communicator.

I’m sorry about that (if you’re one of the folks I mentioned above or who I also communicated fairly regularly with). I just haven’t been “me” enough to come across as anything other than distracted.

I think, perhaps, I’ve done a better job telling people about what I’m going through in life right now in my books than on social media or over the phone. Want to understand a writer? Read their work.

Hasn’t life thrown us all a massive curveball this year with COVID? I currently work in a hospital when I and my co-workers are accosted on a daily basis by people who call us names, scream at us that we’re infringing on their right to not wear a mask, and who otherwise give us their interpretation of the law and how things should be…in their mind. Believe me, they don’t pay us enough for this shit.

The second anniversary of my mother’s passing came and went. I’d found one of the shirts she used to wear to keep warm during the winter. It was in a plastic bag and, when I took it out, I discovered it still smelled like her. I put it on, Ralph walked by, stopped, and mentioned “You smell like your mother.” It was an unexpected find.

Ralph has looked at the scar on my back many times since he returned home in July. He usually shakes his head, touches the area gingerly, and remarks “You were very lucky.” He’s right. I literally walked away from something with 22 stitches and some discomfort as opposed to a severed spine or injured kidney. I look like I barely give it any notice, but it’s something I think about often.

Friends and family used to ask me and Ralph what would happen if we ended up living together in the same place for longer than a week or a weekend. Would we be able to handle each other? I’m happy to say that we dove straight into home projects that have taken the two of us to complete, and we’re ecstatic with the results. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve done it. And we’re fine. The year of hell we went through in 2017 is three years behind us now, and we’re better for it.

I’m writing a new book, and am about a third of the way through the first draft. I fully plan on getting back to more video blog posts, and, yes, a few of these as well while I go through and add the old ones.

In the meantime, I’m also going to be watching some good, old-fashioned horror movies. My best friend from college who passed earlier this year…well, he and I had our tried and true favorites, especially when we were in college. I miss him. I miss having someone to watch horror movies with since he and my father are both gone. Of course, if one wants a true horror movie, one need only turn on the news or listen to people discuss the upcoming election.

So, that’s it for now. For those of you still with me, what’s going on with you? What have I missed? I’d really like to know.

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.