Triumphant Return.

So it's been awhile. I'm back from my gig, and I'm $300 richer, which is really only $50, if I pay Catherine upfront. I'm not sweating it, though...

Prior to postage, I'm still holding at about $700 even if I pay Catherine, so I'm fine.

I expected to return with lots more pages of the Universal Almanac and cool Krmmstoppy shenanigans, but my mouse broke during one of my lunch-breaks and as such, I actually spent most of my free time at work writing letters to you guys, which you'll receive soon, Postal Service willing.

I'd write more but I'm so exhausted from my final day - I'll tell you about that later.

Breadwinner Extraordinaire.

I'm going to be out for awhile while I work out of home for a bit. I've seasonal employment for about two weeks, and expect to bring in about three-hundred dollars from the whole gig.

Once I have everything ironed-out, I'll see about setting up my laptop, but if I can't, expect mail, or something - I have some holiday cards that have been stuck on my desk for awhile now.

Last night was the first stick-around snow of New York for me. It's very cold, and the flakes were super thick and fluffy like the stuffing for pillows. It was like someone tore open a gigantic pillow in the sky, and it looked something like this:Also, I should've had a Sailing Passport added to that cover interior, but I've had a bit of a problem. I'm not the best with Photoshop, as much as I like working with it, and had gotten a bit layer-happy. I had typed-up the entirety of a license for travel aboard Danneskjold Shipworks' vessel, "The Gypsy Shadow", and then added Krmmstopp's signature, which I was rather pleased with. I had rasterized everything but had forgotten to merge it all so that I could paste it into the cover, and secure it with a fake black button when I closed the image (Which I hadn't saved - good thinking there, Zack.) and promptly went to plop it in the middle of my page only to get:

"FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN THE TERMINATION OF CONTRACT AS WELL AS A FEE NO LESS THAN THREE-HUNDRED MARKS OF ANY GOLD-BACKED CURRENCY.

I HEREBY STATE THAT I UNDERSTAND THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF DANNESKJOLD SHIPWORKS AND TRAVEL ABOARD ITS VESSELS.

X______"

Just words. No cool bill. No signature. I had only gotten the bottom layer of the contract.
Bluh.

Anyways, I'm off to go work my ass off. Winnin' that bread like a champ.
I've only two more seasonal gifts to arrange. I'm just about done.

I've got to buy one copy of Atlas Shrugged for John, and browse skirts with Hjalmar, because that Holiday Layaway shit is totally a gimmick.

...I guess technically, I still need to wire $250 to Catherine to pay off half a loan, but that's not really a gift, because if it were a gift, she wouldn't let me do it.

I'll miss you guys - you know who you are.

Imperial Priority Rail.

I plan to weather the edges a little, later, or at least texture them so that they look clipped. This is one of three little things that will be pinned into the Universal Almanac, just adjacent to the dedication-page, where there is simply a poem:

I chanced upon a winding road
As far as the eye could see
And danced upon its cobblestones
Charting all that could be.

Please glance upon these findings
Old and new and far in range
And advance the knowledge in these bindings
Should it and I become estranged.

I imagine she would like someone to continue the book in her stead, should her illness claim her life, which is a very real possibility for Krmmstopp, and I'd like the back of the cover with travel-tickets and the like, because I imagine her using a lot of travel cartels to get around without aggravating her symptoms, and often having to present them. It also makes the Almanac feel like a cross between a Diary and an Encyclopedia. While they're all tedious and informative, they're written in first person and I think that helps breathe some of Krmmstopp herself into the pages. And when I can't be subtle, small pieces like rail-passports reveal things about her that you wouldn't know without me having explained them, like her first name, or if you hadn't read the prior posts, her illness and its crippling affects.

I'm working on several other pages that will be in the Almanac, entitled "On Life Archaic", "Rudimentary Sigilcraft for the Discerning Magician" and a schematic listed as "Industrial Brewing Apparatus for Potion and Conventional Beverage." I also have a collection of aged maps that I'm working on incorporating into the Almanac as a part of its atlas. If I do, they will be folded but textured to look thick, and have keys printed on the pages that precede them.

In less Universal Almanac news, I've grown just a bit disillusioned with a theory-board I've been posting on. Of the three posts I've made, they've all come into heavy fire, not for their merit or logic, but for their superficial contents, which bothers me a bit. Perhaps I'm growing too used to more scholarly company? All the same, I think I'll abandon my endeavors there, as they are largely unnecessary and not bearing any fruit in discussion.

I've largely settled my holiday purchases early.
I'm currently handling plans to visit a very glum friend of mine, as well.
I'm a little leery about that, and think I might try to make it a one-day trip. I'll cook for him and leave. He's had some sexual connotations that he's expressed and that I've shot down, but I think he needs the company of someone offline for a change. Someone to show up and say, "Hey, remember me? I'm that guy who looks out for you."

I don't know - it feels like a waste of time and effort, and it bothers me that the only "Me" purchase of the holiday is a trip to someone who's company unsettles me a little.

But he's a good kid, and strong for weathering all the garbage that he puts up with.

My seasonal work begins Friday, and will last for a little under two weeks.
When it is settled, I only need to attend a four hour seminar and finalize my college enrollment.

After this, I will be independent to the highest degree that one may ask, and I will be able to move into a college dormitory or apartment of my choosing. Depending on one's patience with me, I may be changing states as well. I don't mind this, and can do it for the paltry expense of a General Expense Stipend if I'm willing to be uncomfortable for three days.

I am.

I'll write more later, I have to get to the Gym, and then clean a bit. This place is a pigsty because everyone's sick and doesn't have the presumed stamina to pick up after themselves. Thankfully, I have some very great music to handle everything to.

D.B. Krmmstopp's Universal Almanac.

It's been a very long time since I've had time to do a proper update - since I made Amandine for Hjalmar, I believe. It's been a really messy few weeks. I'm a very good driver, but I'm nervous at night, and as it's Winter and "night" has come to mean "four o'clock", I'm perpetually out in the dark, spinning my wheels while people with their brights on blind me from behind in my side-mirrors. "Nervous" also means that I try to stop at every yellow light, which might mean slamming my foot down to break if I'm cruising along at forty miles an hour or so.

Operating machinery in the dark doesn't seem like the kind of thing to be intrepid about, but it's what I need to do if I hope to become a better driver. My apologies to any of you I maim on the way to the supermarket, I'm just trying to get better at something I'm not very smooth with. If I get a Yugo, I've got to be seamless, as to never risk breaking its tiny little obsolete body.

A lot of crap has transpired since my last entry, which is why it's been so long:
I've been trying to twist Alex's arm to try and get him to contact Turning Point, a local shelter, so that he and his mother will not be homeless, should his grandparents' patience with them as tenants slowly wear thing again. It never hurts to be prepared, even though he asserts that they've a home now that his Mother and grandmother have patched things up. Sometimes, truces are short-lived, you know?

Agustin and Patrick are slowly befriending each-other oncemore. It's a slow process, and it's just begun - I think it's largely their focus with this presumed status of "Boyfriend" and "Girlfriend". Frankly, I think if they were to offer the same care and interest they shared before their falling-out some time ago, and mutually disregarded the titles associated with those emotions, they would both be happier people. I'm also trying to keep their tempers in check - they're both very good and kind people, but when one gets angry, the other gets indignant, and angry in return. Instead of two calm people resolving their differences - which should be easy, as they know so much about each-other - they wind up with synchronized volcanic eruptions, and then head separate ways for a good while. I've already tried to stress what they have, and the disregard for title. Now I've just got to sow seeds, and hope they have the tools to recognize when they're close to a melt-down and need to take a moment to recompose.

Christmas is around the corner. I've been saving diligently. I was expecting to spend a whole lot more than I did. Which is just around one-hundred fifty dollars. I plan to pay half of Emily's loan from Catherine - we'll handle that expense together. That'll leave me with two-hundred fifty dollars to spare, which will become eight-hundred fifty if I don't get any scholarships in upon my entry to college. I feel like a fairly good budget-holder, but this is also all planning. Scheming, I suppose. Meddling.

People aren't-

Shit, I actually forgot to account for someone I was buying for. Maybe two, even.
I haven't bought them gifts as I've been a bit clueless as to what to buy them. I'll work on that later, and then crunch the numbers. Kindly disregard that "I feel like a fairly good budget-holder" bit, because I'm woefully premature. Son of a bitch.
Alright. That's a little stressful, but I'll just list it all out and see what I can do.
Composure regained. Shazam.

In recent news, my Uncle - that is, Charles, the drunken one - has tried to kill himself. He's been a hot mess as of recent, because he was out racing his truck like a moron and blew out his engine. It was a loaned vehicle and not really his, but he had no way to get to work, so instead of hitching with a friend or something, he goes out and gets shitfaced in his despair, and then gets fired for sleeping-in with a hang-over. Getting fired causes him to get into a fight with this girl he's dating - who's frankly a good candidate for appearing of Jerry Springer - and he promptly says he's not going to marry her, and they part ways. No car, no job, no girl. He decided he'd off himself, and ran to the hospital claiming to have ingested an entire bottle of sleep-aids. As it would turn, he was just really boozed-up and talking nonsense.

If you can't be a good example, I suppose that makes you a terrible warning. I'd better stay well enough alone from intoxication. Perhaps a drink here and there, but no getting drunk for me.

In closing, I've rolled-up all my character designing as of late into one character, "Krmmstopp". She's a very Jean Marat kind of character. She's got a mess of shoulder-length curls and is confined to a gas-mask style respirator, but as I don't see myself hop-stepping to any RPG in particular, I've not begun fleshing her home or family out much.
She suffers from a condition that I've decided will be affectionately dubbed "Rustlung", where in her blood has trouble both picking up and parting with Oxygen, which leaves some of it oxidizing and some of it stagnating. Her muscles have begun to atrophy, her immune system is weak. Dull bruises and discolored splotches. You get the gist of it.

Well, basically, instead of just accepting the hand she's dealt, and confining herself to her wax-cloth overcoat and respirator, she decides that the adventurous life she wanted is still very much possible, if only through a flexible perspective. She begins writing the "Universal Almanac". I imagine it to be this kind of...First-person Wikipedia. This sickly woman's efforts to compile all the knowledge, understanding, and information she possibly can before her death. Culture, Religion, Dance, Combat, Schematics, Recipes, Language, Alphabets, Magic, Chemistry, Alchemy, Maps, Politics, Etiquette, Medicine, Science, Physiology, Psychology, Anatomy, Dialogues from Famous People...

All sorts of stuff. Anything she can get ahold of. Stuff sometimes she doesn't understand or can't explain. Just compiling it in the Universal Almanac, tediously and meticulously from her bathtub, where she spends her evenings without her respirator at a typewriter, processing insane loads of information at a time, and sometimes sketching charts and diagrams.

I wanted her to be from a sea-side town, which is the sole reason there's a boat and ship-wheel on the cover. In addition, I've decided she will occasionally contact people who are experts in fields she does not understand, hoping to gain information with regard to it. If the person complies, she lists them in the bibliography as members of the Atelier Maiden's Plot.

I like that title, as it just means something akin to "Scheming Girl's Workshop". I figured it was very apt, and that she would initially be the sole member, but also pass out small cards of membership, telling people that they've just contributed to the written collective of the world's knowledge, and should hold onto that slip of paper, as it will one-day recognize them as a face in history.

Tragic, Ambitious, Ugly, Beautiful, Intellectual, but Dreamy...

There's a lot of duality with Krmmstopp, and I think that will make her very versatile.
I want to begin making fake "pages" for the almanac, fervently documenting mundane or at times, outright fantastic and outlandish things.

But here is the cover.

It's a Very Special Day.

Happy Birthday, you.