David R. Michael's Blog, page 2

I Miss My Friend

It’s been 9 days since I learned she died.

Just over a week ago, I thought of her and looked her up and discovered she had died 4 years ago.

I found her memorial page. At first I thought it had to be someone else (it had to be someone else, just a coincidence of names), but there was her middle name (a family name, usually only an initial in her signature), and there was her photo. Her smile.

We met the first week of college, two freshmen stuck in a mandatory class. I remember commenting on her handwriting (it really did remind me of my father’s, the extended scrawl of ink across the page). I think she came in late that first day of class and sat next to me because there I was near the back and near the aisle. I could have that backward.

We became somewhat unlikely best friends. Buddies even. We spent so much time together, but we never dated. We had very different majors, so our schedules only overlapped in the mandatory classes. Of course I had a crush on her, off and on, but she didn’t hold that against me or use it against me. I had my girlfriends (who sometimes resented her) and she had her boyfriends (usually older, but always of a specific type; I never knew anyone so consistent in what she wanted a man to look like).

For nearly a decade, we were confidantes, discussing our relationships, our faiths (or lack of it in my case), life, the world–everything. We’d hang out on campus, or go to cheap restaurants, or walk around parks, or whatever. We were friends. She came to my wedding. She visited us at the hospital when my first child was born.

I don’t remember the last time I saw her, face to face, or even the last time I heard her voice (which was probably via telephone). We both moved away at about the same time. I had taken a new job and moved my family across country, and she had gone back home, trying once again to put distance between her and a relationship that wasn’t working but she couldn’t let go (she had done that several times over the years).

I do remember the last time we swapped emails. It had been five or six years since we had moved apart. I had come back, but she had not. I reached out, she responded. I was excited about my second child and my first publishing contract. She was excited about having gotten married (to a man who 100% represented her type). But then the conversation stopped.

We were still friends. I want to think so. But … I never reached out again. And neither did she. College was long past and we both had our families and careers. Almost 20 years passed between that short exchange and her death.

I only learned she had a daughter when I read her obituary. I wish I could have met that little girl, even once.

There was no mention of her husband in her obituary. And the memorial page had her maiden name. (Oddly enough, it doesn’t bug me that I never met her husband, maybe because I had met him three times before?) That made me sad. She had sounded so excited about getting married.

Her obituary didn’t say what she died of, and none of the included photos seemed current. It doesn’t matter.

She’s gone, and I’ll never get to see her smile again, eyes sparkling with wit. Or hear her voice.

I miss her.

I try not to beat myself up about letting more than two decades pass like that. And I try not to get angry when I think that phones and email work both ways. People grow up. People change. We all get busy living our lives. It’s easy (too easy) for people out of sight to slip out of mind, even if we don’t forget them.

She was one of the best things in my life, and now she’s gone, taken decades too soon.

I miss you, Ali, and I will never forget you.

-David

Knocking Off the Rust

Yesterday’s Bauxy sequence was the last one I did back in 2024. I posted it to Instagram back then, because I still had my Instagram account. That has since changed.

I never liked posting to Instagram. I only created my account there so I could click “Like” on my wife’s posts. But it was easy to post there, and I was trying out the daily comic thing, so there it went.

I don’t mind posting free stuff (that will likely never be seen/read) on the Web at large (e.g., this blog), but I loathe doing so for the benefit of some billionaire who thinks I should accept exposure and thumbs as payment. I’m not grist for their fucking algorithmic mill.

But I wanted to draw and post more Bauxys. I’ve had a sequence I’ve been sketching for over a year, but hadn’t really tried to finish for a couple of reasons–including not being sure where I would post them. Now that I’ve restarted my Guns & Magic blog, tho, I have a place where I can post at my leisure without an algorithm breathing down my neck.

BUT…I had been using ClipStudio before, and that’s not currently available. For some of the same reasons I didn’t elucidate before. So I’m learning how to use Procreate, and get it set up in a way I can work with it. On top of being damn rusty with my Apple Pencil and line work.

My process, such as it is, begins in GoodNotes, where I sketch the panel.

Then I pull it into the *real* art proggy, in this case Procreate, set it as a background layer and start “inking.”

I was really struggling last night. The final result didn’t come out *too* bad, but I will be inking it from scratch before it gets posted for reals.

Last night also reminded me that I need to create a template in Procreate, with the borders and text boxes–and notes about the brush and sizes I want. So I got a first draft of that done.

Since the sequence I’m working on (the panel of Bauxy sleeping above is #1 out of … 13?) it could be a while before I have finished panels to post. But they’re coming!

I’m happy to be drawing again.

-David

Bauxy Meets Gator

Old Man Sits on Porch, Watches Rain

My garden is in that state that has become popular to call “liminal.” Entire beds are now “closed,” except for the flowers I planted to (a) attract pollinators and (b) make my wife happy. The cucumbers, the cabbage cultivars (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts), radishes, and beets have been either been chopped off at the roots or pulled up and tossed into the compost bin. The okra and peppers are still doing well. The eggplants too. I’ve left the tomato vines in place (most of them) because the cooler temps and increased rainfall at the end of the season should generate some nice fruit.

This year didn’t set a record for produce harvested, but it did beat the previous 2 years combined. So there’s that. The cucumbers were still producing when I ended them. I had already turned 11 lbs into bread & butter pickles. If I was going to do more, I would have to can them. And this year I just don’t have the mental/emotional bandwidth to mess with canning. Hell, if the garden hadn’t already been underway by the end of April, it might not have happened this year.

I’m already planning for next year. How I’ll rearrange plantings in the bed (like swapping okra and peppers to get better mid-summer shading for the peppers) and how I’ll change the automated watering. And deciding which plants I won’t try again (e.g., eggplants; we don’t like them enough; which is too bad since they are steady producers) and which ones I’ll do more of or try to apply what I learned this year.

I wasn’t intending to give a full garden report, so I’ll stop. But, yes, I can and will go on and on about the garden. =)

-David

Uninvited

Uninvited by David R. MichaelHeidi Sees – Book #3

In most ways, Heidi Crolley is your typical remote IT worker. Single. Nerdy. Shy. Barely gets along with her mother. But she also sees ghosts. Which 100% makes the rest worse.

After nine years away, Heidi moves back to her home town. She and Doris, her live-in ghost friend, have barely settled into their new apartment when other ghosts show up. Adjusting the thermostat. Opening the blinds. Eating diner food at her table. And refusing to leave when asked. When Heidi knocks on the door of her neighbor, Brooke, to borrow a can opener, she discovers Brooke is also haunted, by the ghost of her estranged father. And since his daughter isn’t listening, he decides to haunt Heidi.

Published by Four Crows Landing.

Available from Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold!

Tag Along

TAG ALONG by David R. MichaelHeidi Sees Book #2

Heidi Crolley can see ghosts. She even has one living with her—in a manner of speaking. She met teenage ghost Doris on her first trip home in nine years. Now she and Doris are headed back for July the 4th.

It’s supposed to be a vacation, but Doris doesn’t want to go—and won’t say why. And as soon as they arrive, Heidi’s mother insists she helps a friend haunted by the ghost of a dead husband. Her mother—finally—believes Heidi about the ghosts, but there are still lies between them, and her mother seems oblivious to the trauma she’s asking Heidi to revisit. Still, Heidi agrees to help—because her mother asked.

Published by Four Crows Landing.

Available from Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold!

Heidi Sees

Heidi Sees by David R. MichaelHeidi Sees – Book 1

Heidi Crolley sees ghosts. She doesn’t know why, but it probably has something to do with her father, who died when she was eight. Her mother never believed her, which is 100% why Heidi lives half a continent away.

After a childhood of emotional trauma, Heidi has created a quiet life where she can avoid the most demanding of the local ghosts—and any contact with her mother. But on a Sunday afternoon in May, Heidi discovers there is one ghost that can make her go home again…

Published by Four Crows Landing.

Available from Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold!

”Tiny Corrosions”

”Tiny Corrosions” by David R. MichaelShort Story (9000 words)

Damon Simpson, corporate negotiator, has ordered his life to the smallest detail. But when a face from Damon’s hidden past appears, those haunting eyes threaten to shatter his concentration—and maybe destroy his career and marriage. Can he get back on script? Or will his life fall apart?

Published by Four Crows Landing.

Available from Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold!

”A Long Route Home, and Busy”

”A Long Route Home, and Busy” by David R. MichaelShort Story (6700 words)

It’s a rainy night on the commuter bus. “One at a time,” the bus driver says. “We’re all in a hurry.” Office drone Kent Fleming, who rides this bus home every evening, is in no rush. He will be on the bus to the end of the line. But someone new is on the bus tonight, and the trip will be anything but peaceful.

Published by Four Crows Landing.

Available from Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold!

Bauxy

Added a page for my Bauxy webcomic.

Bauxy, Roxy & Adeline