Shilling for a friend

Laura Anne Gilman needs less than $500 to make her Kickstarter happen, and there are three days left. C'mon, people. Two novellas for nine bucks, and the feeling of doing right by a fabulous writer.
And beating a path for others to follow, that too: I have Kickstarter projects of my own, that I'm still too shy to launch. Seeing people like Laura Anne get there is the best possible incentive for me, so go on, help her on her way...

The state of the Chaz

When I'm Really Angry about something, it's usually a cover for self-contempt; whatever it is that's gone wrong, it's usually my fault. Usually for being me.

As, f'rexample, I am spending most of today stewing over a stupid headbanging contest with my former insurers, MoreThan in the UK. (Please note, I did not sign up with a company called MoreThan, let alone MoreTh>n, which is what they prefer; I signed up with Sun Alliance and stayed put while the company was sold and absorbed and sold again and absorbed again.) In brief, my policy with them expired mere days before I left the country; I jubilated at this handy sense of timing, cancelled the direct debit and sent them an e-mail to say that I wouldn't be renewing. That seemed to be enough.

They replied that they don't accept cancellations by e-mail, and please would I call their call-centre.

No, of course I wouldn't. I felt I'd satisfied my obligations to them, in respect of an expired policy; they had the information they needed, and I owed them nothing further.

They're now sending letters threatening to tell credit agencies that I'm in default. I have sent them an e-mail, and will follow it up with a letter. A brief telephone conversation would have fixed this months ago; it would no doubt still be more effective; but I'm still not going to call them. Instead, I'll allow this to prey on my mind and sabotage my work all day. See what I mean about self-contempt?

In other considerations of the state of me, in between angsting that I'll never write anything again, what I'm actually intermittently writing is a piece about a man who departs his former life in a state of great angst about his own identity, whether he's trading life for art and will never write again. Hmm. I wonder where that came from?

[Here follow several incomplete and deleted paragraphs. Never mind.]

Some writers find that exile feeds their creativity; others need the tap-root of belonging. I've always asserted that I can write anywhere. Now would be the time to prove it.

[Edited for further fury]

Also, overnight something has eaten most of my onion seedlings. I feel ... helplessly angry, and incompetent with it. What eats baby green onions, in a vegetable bed allegedly protected from snails by copper tape? And what can I do about it?