September will be magic again... (I promise to try, anyway...)

Right, so...
I know, I'm not really on some tight, rigid schedule when it comes to blogging... I try to be on that train, but then life intervenes... And I push it back to the not-really-important-bucket-list-of-life-not-to-lead list of all lists...
Still with me?

However, things are looking swell... daughter is about to enter college, or whatever kind of form of education—and more importantly; whatever kind of name they attach to it—they want me to pay for, and Partner... well, Partner is Partner and will always be Partner, if you catch my drift...

Any-who... in quick succession... I will try (don't pin me down to anything; I got my lawyer on speed-dial if anyone tries to demand a weekly post from me) to put out—at most—something of interest every Sunday on this page. Whether it's about the rain, my age, fashion, music, family time—Lord, safe me!—or even about the weather—Lord, safe us!—or food. I will try...

So let's get re-acquainted to one another again... Again? Yes, again!

So, my name on this blog is Charlie. My real name is Jean—in case you wondered and more importantly: care—and if you're easily offended, you are so much in the wrong place, pall! I aim to please as easily as I aim to hurt! Be warned!
(And in case you care: the section above cost me at least 45 minutes to write, since I am also cooking applesauce in between touching keys on my computer, plus; I think my daughter has a stomach-flu, since she's constantly complaining about tummy-aches while I think of something to write next. Welcome to my life!)

Anyway:
Partner is my partner (and is deadly allergic to public exposure, hence the nickname),
Miss Q is my 12-year-old,
Miss Marple, (Gary) Jules, Duma, and Indiana "Indy" motherfucking Jones (yes, we make the names up as they come along) are our cats. We also have a Jurassic Rabbit (the motherfucker is truly old and refuses to die) called Föhn—which kind of translates to Blow-dryer. We are practically stoned most of the time when it comes to naming the pets.

I’ve been writing about my strange little life for over three decades—in poetry, song, and prose. It’s mainly dark humor mixed with brutally honest periods of self-inflicted mental illness.

In 2007 my first book (Visions, on America) debuted at #1 and my second book (Quotes And Thoughts) spent 3 months on the top 20 best seller list. I assure you, no one was more surprised about this than I was. I assume I was in a coma and all of you were fever-dreams. In 2017 my third book, Twelve Step Charlie was published and you should totally get a dozen copies.

I tweet sometimes. I’m on Facebook and Instagram.

You can email or app me, but I’m terrible at responding. It’s not you. It’s me. Unless you’re emailing to ask me to shill vodka for free. Then it’s you.

If you want to send me free junk, you can. But I probably won’t write about it unless it’s hilarious or hilariously awful. This sort of translates to: you offered a blogger/writer/author a photo of some random celebrity standing near some product that no one actually gives a shit about.

We all have seen your picture of Rihanna standing near disposable water. And we all praise the photo of Tommy Lee using a kleenex (and us men never knew a kleenex could be used for that too, before that photo!). You're free to insert-your-weird-pitch-here, but I am entitled to mock it!

Other reasons why you might get mocked are:

• You began your heartfelt email to me by “Hi John”. Midway through you call me “Jennifer”. I have no idea who either of those people are.
• You offered to pay me in coupons.
• You offered to pay me with the chance to win a coupon.
• You offered to pay me with the chance to win a coupon if I “like” you, tweet about you, blog about you and harass all my readers to do the same.
• You offered me the chance to blog about diapers right after I wrote about my girlfriend's miscarriage.
• You encouraged me to blog about your feminine products right after I wrote about having my testicle removed.
• Your pitch is so poorly-researched that I had to forward it to everyone I’ve ever met in my forty-something years on the planet because otherwise no one would believe it actually happened.
• You continually send me pitches in languages I don’t read. Or possibly they’re death threats. I don’t actually know because I can’t read them.
• You sent me a bad pitch that I deleted and then you sent me a follow-up email implying that I must be crazy and/or irresponsible for not personally replying to your first form letter email because how could I not want to write an advertisement about “the importance of kale” for free?
• You have the same name as the guy who had a one night stand with my best friend and broke her heart and if I find out where you live I will burn down your house, murder your future mother-in-law and kidnap your dog for desert.

Please, note that I do appreciate your hard work and I do realize that your dumb-ass boss probably made you send out that horrible pitch even though you tried to tell him that it was really awful. Please know that I agree with you completely and that I will be happy to accept a high-res picture of “Joseph Morgan holding yarn while in the nude (full frontal pic)” (since I haven't seen that yet, and my daughter will approve me gazing at it... plus, I can forward it to my pal Mr. George and Partner, so they can gaze as well, before we turn to the "let's gaze together" awkwardness phase anyone has to face in his/her/their lives) in return for publicizing your product just as soon as that becomes an acceptable form of currency anywhere in the entire goddamn world. 

Until then, please take me off the mailing list of bloggers-who-are-so-desperate-for-content-that-we-assume-they’ll-write-for-free-about-pretty-much-anything-we-hand-them. I would, however, be thrilled to be placed on your list of bloggers-whose-time-is-worth-real-compensation-and-whose-highly-reasonable-rate-sheets-are-available-upon-request.

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