Come Tenderness

Long before I ever write anything solid regarding the resurrection of Faust as Kallum McCreary, I'm trying to get the perfect picture of him in my mind, how he will behave toward those who brought him back and make him crave the Blood, and especially how he'll handle working closely with Cadmus in retrieving the Augury of Gideon. The song that seems to be working for me right now is "Come Tenderness' by Lisa Gerrard. Kallum will have the memories not only of his extended murder as Faust, but also as the Sainted Confessor, brought to his singular heaven by his angel Roesetta, who also allowed him to see the Face of God, the one thing Faust wanted above all.

All this bit on Cadmus is far far down the road. I'm looking forward to November to hopefully get the gumption to finish The Blood Crown and continue work on The Augury of Gideon. In the meantime, my focus on Kallum will continue to develop so that, when I'm ready to write him the way he wants me to write him, everything shall be in place. In the meantime, here's pictorial progress on the character first known as Faust and later called by his peers Kallum the Confessor. Enjoy!**

( cut for mucho pictorial content )

**Thanks go out to James McAvoy and Scott for helping to anchor Kallum/Faust down and flesh him out in the strangest and most unusual ways.

She Died with no Boots on

miintikwa wanted me to write about Aunt Tudi, so I've decided to relay her courageous battle for a pair of diabetic shoes.

You see, Aunt Tudi's feet are essentially square, being almost as wide as they are long. A Chinese foot-binder would take one look at Tudi's tootsies and hang himself with a shoe lace. I'm serious. Now they're swelling a lot, which gives them a cube sort of shape. It's like living with Frankenstein's monster's older brother's second cousin.

Last year, she got a new pair of diabetic shoes, which she never wore because after about 20 times of trying to fit her last year before the swelling, the man who was doing the fitting just didn't seem to get the special needs Aunt Tudi has regarding her feet. As a result, Aunt Tudi has now been wearing the same pair of shoes for two years.

A different company is having a go with trying to fit Aunt Tudi for shoes. A gentleman came out to the house and fitted her while I babysat the dogs in the bedroom. About a week later he came with her shoes, which turned out to be too narrow. We're now waiting for the new, wider pair to come in. Hopefully, that'll be the end of it. Something tells me that it won't go as smoothly as we all hope and pray.

After the dude left the second time, Aunt Tudi bemoaned her woes to me. "Sometimes, I think I'm just gonna die and not have even one pair of shoes to my name."

Before I thought, I blurted out, "Sort of like that old Errol Flynn movie except your movie would be She Died with no Boots on!"

Well that got her tickled and now she's not so down in the dumps about it. She's keeping her chin up about the matter and sending positive energy out to the Mighties that the pair of shoes heading her way will be The Pair and she'll stop having to wear house shoes or diabetic shoes so old they have holes in them. So all you peoples out there do the same thing, eh? Let's make sure Aunt Tudi doesn't die with no boots on!

In the meantime, check out her swollen tootsies...