Progress Report

 It’s been a while since I wrote one of these progress reports. I’ve been super busy writing books and making YouTube videos. Fighting to try to make a living. Working harder for myself than I’ve ever done for an employer.

Book sales have been slow since the end of 2022. And YouTube revenues have been declining from the pandemic days in spite of my best efforts. I thought I could work my way out of it with new books like John Haynes: A Thorne in my Side and Spinsterella: Goth Girl Summer. But as I pushed harder, all I was doing was working myself into an early grave.

Ever since I turned 50, I started having chest pains. What I thought were anxiety attacks over being 50 and still having no job were actually worsening heart issues. And those heart issues turned into a heart attack in the middle of July 2025.

I don’t know if the heart attack was the result of over working, worrying about my not having a job for seventeen years, not being able to achieve my dreams at this point, or my financial situation, or just years of unhealthy eating. It just coulda been all those things but doctors told me my heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen rich blood due to heart failure.

On top of that I was diagnosed as Type 2 diabetic.

The doctors put a stent in my heart and I’ve been recovering and doing rehab. I’ve changed my diet. I don’t know how much time I still have left in this world, but I thank God I’m still here. And I’m doing what I can to try to stay alive.

I was glad to see folks on YouTube and social media did look out for me when they noticed I was off YouTube. I sent them a message from the hospital from my cell phone to let them know what happened. And I thank them all for the support they gave me in cyberspace.

In the six months since my heart attack things are looking positive. My Echocardiogram in November came out with positive results and my A1c at the end of December was 5.4, below the 5.7 that is considered normal. Due to dietary changes, I’ve lost 30 pounds and have gone from 46” waist to a 40” inch waist.

As I’ve been recovering from my heart attack, I’ve managed to complete five books. Isis: Runway of Doom, John Haynes: An offer He Can’t Refuse, E’steem: A New Woman, E’steem: The Submitted Soul and Isis: No Goddess is an Island. However, as I’ve been recovering from my heart attack I’m not working as hard as I did in the past to get these books to the market place. I used to push to get my books out for the summer reading season, but these days I’m taking things slower. I can’t work myself back into a grave. I’ve accepted people ain’t interested in reading much these days. And most Black folks don’t want anything but Tyler Perry. So Books will come out when they come out.

In addition to cutting back on the publishing schedule, I’ve cut back on the number of videos I used to make. I used to make 14 videos a week and do a livestream once a week. Now I’m barely doing 5-7 videos a week and haven’t done a livestream in months. I was doing a lot of this work to show employers how hard a worker I would be and to get a gap off my resume since my last job was in 2008 when I lost my job at City College. I thought if I showed how hard I worked for myself it’d get me a job for someone else or some kind of break. However, none of that matters now.

Perspective changes when you come this close to dying. Publishing books and making videos really don’t matter much when you realize how little time you have left in the world. I read folks diagnosed with Heart failure have maybe 5-10 years at best. And I’m trying to make the most of the little time God has given me.