UPDATE (09.27.07)LEAVING ASHEVILLE, but not my Swan Song, not my Goodbye

I WILL BE BACK... Okay, I don't want to start this "update" with, "I am leaving Asheville..." because I am just taking a much-needed, very important break. No departures, no goodbyes. I will be back-I need to be back. The 55th issue of The Indie's 5th year and 3 months has just come out, but there is no "This is the last issue..." epilogue. Not the last issue-I am expecting the next Indie to be out by Dec or Jan 2008 (with or without me in Asheville yet).
Me and Marta The Nicer will be embarking on a long road trip to Las Vegas starting October 15. (We may have stopovers in Memphis, Tulsa, Albuquerque, Almarillo, and Phoenix.) Why Las Vegas? My elder brother, Alberto, lives there-as well as most of my relatives. This is the time that I mostly need their support. In the past few weeks following my son Duane's near-fatal hospitalization, I have been deeply reflecting and deliberating a number of personal concerns: My legal immigrant status in America, the physical wisdom of my life's journey, the practicality of my struggles and their relevance in the near future. I feel and believe that I just have to take care of unfinished and stalled "business" in the West Coast - eg immigration papers, financial focus, future plans. I don't know how long will these "obligatory" SOPs will be taken cared of though - the sure thing is, I don't see myself as a Las Vegas resident at all (although I have set up stay in other relatives' and longtime friends' houses, as well, in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco). Meantime, certain state laws and provisions in Nevada, at this point in time-run in consonance with my situation as a foreigner, so I gotta be there... I already have a Nevada-based lawyer that I've started conferring with via the telephone in the past two weeks.
The little break (and the long road journey) will also allow me to ponder and rewrite/reread three of my books that I've stalled finalizing-"Red is the Color of my Night" (poetry), "My Life as Greyhound" (memoir as travelogues and letters), "Waiting for Winter" (novel). I hope to meet up with an agent in LA by mid-December.

APART FROM the personal aspects of this temporary move, I have been thinking a lot lately about the future of The Indie and the "publishing brainstorm" of Loved by the Buffalo Publications. There is no way that I could improve the financial life of these projects in Asheville, unless I have enough capitalization to back them up. It makes me so worried that my struggle/s in the past four years mostly have been focused on basic things-primarily rent and monthly bills. I can't live a life just to pay my basic bills-that's NOT the reason and wisdom why I left my home-country and my people. I need to stoke more Bonfires and improve my indie publishing efforts--I feel that I haven't done much, or I haven't really accomplished enough that serves a mission that I set to pursue in America.
The Indie continues to gasp-each issue's printing budget is such painstaking goal. I wish that we could also print more copies than we usually print, stabilize a marketing force and prop up editorial staffing and distribution. More than anything else, I'd like to fix kinks in my visa so I could fully "function" as a normal human being in America, apart from the fact that I really need to visit the Pbilippines very soon without having to worry about my return trip. Seven years in Asheville has given me the "spiritual stability" to see a more concrete future. This is the time to strengthen that.
Meantime, I am so glad that Marta The Nicer will be going with me. Our friendship is the best thing that ever happened to my personal life in the last four years.

WE WILL BE OUT OF our West Asheville house effective Sept 30. The following two weeks, we will be selling most of our stuff and things to help beef up our travel budget. So we are having an Open House/Moving Sale at 61 Dunwell Avenue from now until Sept 30, and the next two weekends at Smiley's Flea Market in Fletcher. You might want to check out whatever we have here and buy some... Bookshelves, sidetables, new hardbound books / old books, little knick knacks.
Meanwhile, if you are interested to be The Indie's distribution/circulation person while we are gone, let me know. There will be a little honorarium - the job consists of picking up The Indie copies at Iwanna each month, then dropping them off in our usual outlets. I will be sending the final proofs either via electronic transfer or One-day US Mail to Iwanna's production department, and pay them from Nevada. But as I mentioned above, that'd be around Dec or Jan.
I don't intend to throw a sort of "Departure Party," but we can hang out sometime...

--Pasckie
2:47am. Sept 27 2007
Asheville NC