Home For the Holidays

     ...but after that?
     In his wonderful dramatic monologue. "The Death of the Hired Man," Robert Frost famously defined home as, "...the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."
     It's a wonderful sentiment, provided you have that option. Of course, Frost never mentioned rent, sociopathic landlords who are impatient about that rent, not to mention debt collection agencies, utility companies, insurance brokerages, internet and phone companies or the constant burden of topping up cell phone minutes. He also never mentioned in his dramatic monologue annual expenses such as excise taxes, inspection stickers and the things not payable through an EBT card that have to come out of pocket.
     Some of you may have already heard from me and about five of you chipped in with some welcome donations. If you're among that tiny number you can clock out now or continue reading with no sense of further obligation (not that anyone should feel that).
     But if you're among the much, much greater number to which I'd sent out a mass email (and I apologize for the impersonal mass email- There are so many of you who have contributed to Pottersville in the past. And Yahoo, in its very finite wisdom, automatically designates any email beyond an unspoken threshold of the number of recipients as spam and won't send off the email, which is why I have to send them through my Gmail address).
     At any rate, if my email got caught in your bozo filter, that may be why you had not responded or perhaps you've gotten sick of my fund raising drives. If that's the case, who the hell can blame you? I know what that feels like- If I send a small check to one charity or another (and I've sent off plenty in the last seven or so years), I find my junk mail exponentially increases. Pretty soon, every damned animal rights or environmental group is begging me for money because these charities make more money off you by selling your contact information to the highest bidder, especially if you contribute to their cause.
     So, yeah, I get it.
     However, if you never got my email, this is to renew my plea from earlier this month in case it fell on deaf ears. This is my first appeal for assistance since late summer and I held out for as long as I could. What very few people have been making regular disbursements to us are a godsend but they can only do so much. The fact is most months we take in about $300-500 less than we need just to keep all my creditors paid.
     Even though I take out next month's $650 rent at the beginning of each month, I wind up having to put as much as $400 of it back in the bank just to keep the bills paid. I'm essentially rolling a deficit from month to month and, without a shot in the arm from time to time, it'll get to the point where I won't be able to take out next month's rent at the start of the month.  Ergo if there's any time to kick in to keep the home fires burning here at Casa del Pottersville, what better time than Christmas, the season of giving?
     Now, in my email, I'd made an offer and here it is again:
     As well as trying to keep this blog updated with actual political content (and the Fifth Column known as the Trump administration is giving me a ton to write about, believe you me), I've also been feverishly working on a pair of short stories featuring Scott Carson, the hero of Tatterdemalion and a new series character I'd created even before him, Joe Roman. Both are Christmas tales that take place in New York City (in fact, one thing they have in common is that important plot elements are revealed on the Brooklyn Bridge, though separated by 129 years in time).
     To anyone contributing $25 or more, you will receive on request a free copy of these Christmas stories that I'm publishing, hopefully, by Xmas Eve under the same cover.  I'll pay for the envelope, the postage, the cost of the book, the whole nine yards, just to show my appreciation for your help.
     So, as always, anything you could do to alleviate our situation would be greatly appreciated. And whether or not you can or will, please have a safe and happy holiday season from our home to yours.

(Addendum: As much as I hate to sully this post with any mention of my Honorary Zionist stalker, Google's comment section has arbitrarily decided on a limit of 4096 characters, thereby necessitating I post this as an addendum:

     Oh, you got me there, Jailbird Joe. Boy, one really has to get up before the chickens to get one past you, eh? Because your stubborn pride would never allow you to ask your poor, deluded readership for a penny…

     …except for here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

     And I’m only going back to last spring, or just before you signed that six figure deal at Masada in Tel Aviv that you never told your readers about. You know, the one giving you free housing near Tiberias and Galilee and couriers to do your bidding while you get paid tons of money to work on your own pet projects and enjoying a far lighter workload than the rest of the graphic design department.

     Aside from that, no, you’re not a moocher. 
     Perish the thought.