I really want to leave behind something of myself that’s profound and memorable.

To those of you who don’t know me very well, I’ve been writing for a long, long time. I started in grammar school with short stories and my own series of comic strips with crappy illustrations. (I was never very good at illustrations.) Later I moved on to poetry, longer stories, an autobiography titled Memoir of an Escaped Dental Patient (1999) and a cookbook called The Anorexic Gourmet (2002). I’ve also published countless screwy newsletters — anybody remember Popular Manure? — and the Howdygram made its debut when Sam and I moved to Texas in 2007.

The point is, I really want to leave behind something of myself that’s profound and memorable, because for the last few weeks I can actually feel my life winding down. I frequently have diminished enthusiasm now for my usual creative projects — such as products for The Howdygram Store — or answering email from family and friends, and sometimes I don’t even enjoy most of my favorite classic movies any more. (I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m clinically depressed.) On top of all that, I’ve also been experiencing severely low blood pressure (this morning it was 80/44) and severely low blood sugar as well. (Obviously, both of these can be fatal.) So as I come to grips with an abbreviated life, keep your eye on the Howdygram for occasional prose with a serious twist.

Incidentally, Sam and I always thought we’d die together of old age … happy, toothless, holding hands, eating applesauce and watching William Powell movies. I guess we can’t have everything, right?

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My mood would be lousy tonight if not for one positive bit of news today … we’re getting a monster of a tax refund! I found out about this a couple of hours ago, shortly before I passed out for another nap. No kidding … this is probably our second-biggest refund EVER.

And in addition to the yooge refund, I received a juicy royalty check today from Zazzle.com for sales generated by The Howdygram Store. Woo-hoo! To celebrate my good fortune (and stimulate my creative juices) I decided to splurge on a some new digital artwork — all of it on sale! — from my favorite sellers on Etsy.com: Digital Curio, Things by Lary and Julie Campbell Designs. All three of these shops sell truly beautiful high resolution digital backgrounds and textures, most of them seamless. I’m still waiting for everything to finish downloading as I write this post. I’ll put together some samples for you as soon as the files are available. Thank you.

As long as I’m discussing The Howdygram Store, I thought you might enjoy three of my latest greeting card designs.

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Here we go with my new digital background textures from Etsy, okay? First, I’ve got four inspiring collections of seamless patterns, each in the same 100 colors, so I can mix-and-match them in my design work … first, a Victorian damask, a fabulous swirly floral, a splotchy grunge and painted photorealistic wood planks. These are all so damn versatile! And I’ve already got a variety of other collections from this seller — Things by Lary — all in the same coordinating colors … glitter marble, vivid foils, photorealistic leather, burlap, linen, diagonal candy cane stripes, denim, kraft paper and tartan plaid!

Next I snagged a collection of 18 pink linens from Things by Lary and three collections from Digital Curio that were only 97¢ each: 18 distressed grays, 18 vivid purple foils and 16 antique Victorian gold foils.

And finally, a huge collection of bokeh and string light overlays, also from Things by Lary, including four dark backgrounds at no extra charge. You just layer the lights on top of each other to get different special effects. I love these!

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It’s 3:15 a.m., and I’m getting ready to ask Sam to heat up my leftover hot and sour soup from yesterday and the rest of my steamed dumplings with hot sauce so I can watch Andy Hardy’s Double Life (1942) starring Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone and Esther Williams. This is really so fucking perfect … Chinese food and Andy Hardy! And afterwards I’ll finish uploading the rest of my new greeting card designs to The Howdygram Store’s marketplace on Zazzle.com. (I’ve got about 15 to go.)

Thank you for reading this, and please don’t forget to shut the lights when you’re done here. Shalom, y’all … and moo!