The previous fiction-based affiliate blogs were written in the first person, where a fictional me crossed paths with Bella and Hancho. Truly, I have no idea where that storyline was going. It was an experiment.
This week, I’m starting fresh. A whole new storyline. New characters, new location, stronger clarity, and told with even greater inspiration.
My morning drink (and why I switched)
I don’t drink just any cacao. I reach for Cacao Laboratory (tiny commission may land in my account if you buy). For many people, ceremonial cacao is described as heart-opening, mood-boosting, and energy-enhancing. For me, it goes a step further. It grounds me, helps me drop into creativity, and brings me closer to who I am.
When I drank coffee, I felt frantic, then came the crash. Not with ceremonial cacao. The energy feels steady and clear.
If you want to try it, awaken your creative, heart-centered warrior and see how it lands for you.
Things have been eerily quiet in blogland. The last post was late September 2025. Here we are in early March 2026.
Since the last post, I left the dry heat of the DFW area and am now in the gorgeous, newly developed North Raleigh. It’s strange here, as so many people are from the northeast, donning that New York unfriendliness. Where a simple hello can give you that side-eye stare.
I truly cannot blame those muted or forced hellos coming from strangers passing me by. Life grabbed me by the throat and forced me to reassess everyone I’ve ever known. Family, mostly.
How I wish I could share tales of joy and being seen by the people who share my blood. I’d write endlessly about that, most likely drop to my knees in daily gratitude.
But no. It’s a devastating tale of ongoing emotional and narcissistic abuse by nearly every family member, along with their flying monkeys. Without going too deep into the trauma, this repeated abuse had a devastating cost: emotional, social, romantic, spiritual, and professional.
I couldn’t name the abuse until July 2024. Undoing decades of maltreatment is challenging. It’s almost like relearning to walk, talk, breathe, defecate, everything. What I thought for so long was up is, in fact, down. And vice versa.
I’ve held my tongue for too long and refuse to be silenced about this. This blog, although connected to my business website, will occasionally spill the truth on these matters. Not every day or week.
Here are the rules: if you come here for your own sick pleasure or business, you cannot be in my life. I’d rather be broke and drink the algae-filled waters of the duck pond in front of my apartment than be hypnotized by your false care.
However, if you wish to meet me in this messy space in a grounded, honest manner, let’s dine together. Let’s play. Let’s frolic in authentic joy.
My goal is to resume the fiction-based affiliate blog next week. Now and then, you’ll get the real talk, much like you’re reading here.
Until then, be well, and may you find inspiration in every step you take.
Regardless of how many mariachi bands Hancho might hire, Bella knew her time with him was nearing its end. In the days that followed, he returned to his grumpy self. The dinners were no longer heavy spreads of flautas, fried plantains, and sangria.
Hancho grilled chicken or steak without seasoning and served it with cold salsa. He cracked bottles of beer and burped between bites. Despite his ever-bulging biceps, the man had lost all attraction for her.
Bella felt like a kept woman. She gave him one last test by hopping on Etsy and buying this gorgeous silk slip dress in burgundy. She wore it at dinner, hoping Hancho’s eyes would finally turn toward her as tears slid down her cheeks.
Listening to Hancho’s endless exercise routines made her sick. What about gazing at her once in a while? Asking about her day?
Bella tried three solid nights to connect with him. She cleared her throat, yet he spoke over her. She let him fondle her nipples while she talked about a new piece of gym equipment, but she might as well have been cloaked in armor.
On her final testing night, Bella broke down in tears. Hancho kissed her on the cheek, skipped to the bedroom, and shut the door. He might as well have buried her in that silk dress, spit on the tomb, and cursed her name for the rest of his life.
Bella had no choice but to form a new plan. One that will be revealed in the next post.
There’s an alluring piece of wardrobe made purely of silk. Should you use that link, I will be offered a few coins strictly for my amusement.
Just when you think you’re about to move in one direction, life has a funny way of asking, “Are you sure?”
Bella was almost certain she was going to leave Hancho. Her bags were packed. The costume was tucked neatly at the bottom. She even bought this gorgeous canteen, thinking she’d be living in the woods for months.
Lo and behold, Hancho came home one evening with a dozen balloons, a Mexican meal from Bella’s favorite restaurant, and a mariachi band. One of Bella’s favorite servers showed up to help. Hancho lit candles, dressed like he was going to a job interview, and waited for Bella to return.
At 7:30 p.m., Bella walked through the door and froze, wondering if she had entered the wrong apartment.
“Come in, come in,” Hancho shouted over the mariachi band.
“What’s this for?” Bella blushed.
“You’ve done so much for me, baby. You took a job so I could spend time at the gym. It’s time I pay you back. Sit down. I have wonderful news.”
Those three-plus hours he spent at the gym every day had caught the owners’ attention. They decided Hancho could be more than a patron. They hired him as a full-time trainer.
“So does that mean you’ll be spending more time at the gym?”
“Not necessarily.” Hancho took a sip of sangria. “I’ll be training with clients. You and I will get home from work around the same time.”
They toasted to Hancho’s new job. They ate, laughed, and giggled as if they were just meeting for the first time. The sangria kept flowing. Four pitchers later, everyone, including the mariachi band, was drunk.
Their server crashed on the couch. The band stumbled out of the apartment and nearly fell down the stairs.
As Bella’s vision spun in circles, she lay in bed listening to Hancho next to her and the server on the couch, both snoring like an entire forest being leveled. Before drifting off to sleep, Bella mumbled, “What the fuck am I doing?”
By the way, if that leather-wrapped canteen I mentioned earlier caught your eye, there’s a link above. If you pick one up, it throws a little change my way. Just promise me you’ll fill it with water, not sangria.
If you run a bakery, wouldn’t it make sense that your customers support you by buying pastries, breads, and other baked goods? If your answer is “no,” then I can’t help you. Not sure who can.
When it came to Bella and her romantic life, she expected Hancho to meet her partway. Not just by offering his gorgeous physique, but at the very least checking in on her.
Here’s a fantasy that often crossed her mind: she’s on her way home from work. Every passerby reeks like rotten eggs. Maybe she smells that way too.
The stairs up to her apartment feel like thirteen miles. She opens the door, and a woman Bella has never seen before has a massage table propped open in the living room.
“Bella, dear,” the woman says. “Hancho will be back any minute, but please hop in the bath.”
She locks fingers with Bella and leads her to the bathtub. The room is dimly lit with lavender-scented candles. Rose petals are tossed here and there. The bathwater is the perfect temperature.
The woman offers Bella a glass of champagne and tells her to take her time. When she’s done with her bath, she should wrap herself in this gorgeous pink robe.
Instrumental flute music plays in the background. Bella’s muscles ease. She almost falls asleep, but then remembers the massage.
She lifts herself out of the bath, dries off, and slips into that wildly soft pink robe. She shuffles to the massage table, lies down, and this time does fall asleep.
Each time she woke from this fantasy, she knew something had to be done. Either Hancho had to step it up, or she’d have to leave.
Above is a link. If you click it and buy that stunning robe, I’ll earn a teeny tiny profit.
Bella dreamed she had morphed into a butterfly. She flitted among the daisies, sipping their nectar. With her butterfly friends, she drifted up to a branch high in the trees. They shared their day’s collection of nectar, getting slightly intoxicated, until…
Bam!
Hancho slammed the bedroom door. Bella jolted awake, half-expecting him to fling her across the room.
“Damn cats,” Hancho muttered.
“What cats?” Bella’s eyes stung. She needed at least three more hours of sleep.
“Outside. You didn’t hear the commotion?”
Bella shook her head.
Hancho groaned as he undressed. His once-appealing muscular body now reminded her of a medieval knight, except instead of armor, he wore freckled flesh.
“You got work tomorrow,” Hancho hissed. “In the bed now.”
Bella crawled under the covers, but she lay awake. As Hancho’s snores filled the room, she thought about that wool sweater, how it disguised her, but didn’t necessarily keep her safe.
She carried a can of mace, but it didn’t feel like enough. Guns were bulky, and illegal in New York.
Knives though. Or better yet, one simple pocket knife. Perfect. Bella grabbed her phone, searched the internet, and stumbled across this gorgeous one. She didn’t think twice. She made the purchase.
As she drifted back to sleep, she reminded herself that the knife was just in case. Hopefully, she’d never need to use it, other than to open packages, cut twigs (if she ever went camping, which she knew she eventually would), or slice a hunk of bread from a loaf.
There’s an affiliate link above. Should you purchase it, earnings will come my way. More importantly, may you use that knife in the most ethical way possible.
If you ever met Bella on the street, you might have a hard time seeing her. It has nothing to do with her physique. She’s gorgeous, slender, with brown eyes that spark a mix of excitement and just a hint of naughtiness.
It’s her clothing that makes her disappear. She leans on black, gray, and white. Sometimes those colors overlap, sometimes they stand alone, but compared to the women in brighter outfits, Bella fades into the background.
She isn’t clueless about fashion. She dresses this way on purpose. Bella hates standing out, and muted colors let her slip by unnoticed.
That choice became her shield. If Hancho came looking, he’d scan the crowds for the blacks, grays, and whites he knew she wore. To test her theory, Bella decided to experiment.
She went on Etsy and found this hand-knit turtleneck in blue and white. Autumn was creeping in, and her lace dresses were useless against the cold. The sweater promised warmth and a new kind of disguise.
When it arrived, she tried it on, pulled her hair into a bun, layered on rouge and mascara, and glued on long lashes. Then she staked out Hancho’s gym.
He walked in and out several times, never once recognizing her. Bella grinned. Success.
She hurried home, washed off the makeup, folded the turtleneck, and slipped back into her old clothes. To Hancho, she was still the muted Bella he knew. But now she carried a secret.
Above is the very turtleneck she wore. If you pick one up, I’ll receive a small token of financial appreciation in return.
There are some days when I just want to disappear. Close off the world to every entry to me. I’d retreat to an area with little to no cell reception. Toss all my belongings into a bag just like this.
There would be only two people who would lay eyes on me: the corner store clerk and the librarian. They would see me as the quiet, bearded man. Yes, in this fantasy, I happily threw away all my razors.
“He just shrugs, grunts, and occasionally grins,” they’d say about me.
I’d read so much that the librarian would be forced to update their collection. Eventually, all the wisdom would mount that I’d feel a need to share it with others.
But since I’m not there, I’ve got Bella to share her stories. It often feels like the universe has handed me a living, breathing, yet slightly needy book. One that’s warm and a damn good cuddler. One that needs food. Shelter. Protection from Hancho.
The DIY entity removal process didn’t work in Bella’s favor. She still awoke in the middle of the night with panic. Trembled hours before Hancho returned home. Fell asleep in a work meeting — can’t blame her for that one.
New York City is outnumbered by shaman types. Lots of them are frauds. Bella researched fifty of them and found one that most resonated with her. It was a grown Jewish man who called himself Shadowfeather. He listened to Bella, tuned into her energy, and then suffered a violent three-minute coughing fit.
Upon regaining composure, Shadowfeather said, “You have zero entities, darling. Whatever work must have cleared you. However, the issue is this Hancho person. Run. He wishes to enmesh himself with you. Weaken you. Hide his manipulative tactics by calling it love.”
Shadowfeather proceeded to list domestic violence shelters, but Bella assured him she didn’t need it. She’d get out fast. He almost didn’t let her leave, then remembered his role: shaman, not Bella’s poppa.
In the next episode, we’ll see how long it took Bella to follow Shadowfeather’s advice.
Above is an affiliate link. Click on it, purchase the lovely bag, and I will earn a few purchasing tokens, otherwise known as money.
“I was getting these icky feelings,” Bella said over coffee. “Where once I couldn’t keep my eyes off Hancho, suddenly he became… repulsive.”
She’d wake in the middle of the night with racing thoughts, chills, and a pounding heart.
Luckily, she had PTO. She couldn’t let Hancho know she was using it, so she’d get dressed for work, head to a coffee shop, and stay there for hours. Hancho’s gym visits stretched from two hours to six. He might as well have worked there. The man loved mingling, pretending to coach innocent patrons.
By the time she returned home, she could fit in a nap on the couch.
On her third day off in a row, she thought about seeing a doctor, until she remembered a New Age magazine article she’d read months before she met Hancho. It was about entity attachments.
Bella went online to dig deeper. Every symptom on the page matched hers.
“There are two routes to find out if you have an entity attachment,” the article said. “One, hire a shaman, healer, or expert. Two, get a solid pendulum, learn to use it, and follow DIY removal protocols.”
Bella wasn’t ready to spend money on a healer, so she searched for a handcrafted pendulum. She skipped the cheap, mass-made ones and found this beautiful piece instead. While it shipped, she studied how to use it.
When it arrived, her suspicions were confirmed she had more than a few entities attached.
Tune in next week to find out how Bella dealt with them…or maybe they dealt with her.
There is an affiliate link above that will help you detect entities, answer your most pressing questions, and, full disclosure, earn me a few nickels. I’d say pennies, but they’ve stopped printing those.
Shortly after publishing my last post, I got a call from the New York State Troopers. Doug had collapsed in his front yard and was unresponsive.
He was taken by ambulance to the Ellenville Regional Hospital, where he passed a few hours later. The police couldn’t locate any of Doug’s relatives, but my contact information was scattered all over his house.
“Just in case I forgot your number when I go into the next room,” Doug would have said.
Bella and I were in New York City, sifting through her storage unit when I got the call. Luckily, there was a rolled-up futon behind me as I fell backward in shock. Once I regained composure, we hopped on an Amtrak to Poughkeepsie and headed back to my place.
Doug had written a last will and testament that could put the entire Brandon Sanderson catalog to shame. The last three hundred pages were one long letter to me, detailing every step for his memorial.
“Not a funeral,” Doug wrote. “Those are disgusting. A memorial service.”
The event was to be held on his property. All attendees were required to wear a flannel button-down shirt, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a wide-brimmed rodeo hat. “Special bonus for those touting a lasso,” he added. He never did specify what the bonus was.
No prayers were to be said. Only happy songs. Crying was allowed, if done in private.
His body was to be placed on a wool mattress, naked, under a single linen sheet. Once the celebration wrapped, the food was eaten, and nothing left unsaid, everyone had to leave… except me. I was to douse the place in liquor, especially Doug’s body, and set the house on fire.
Took some convincing for the High Falls Fire Department. Eventually, the chief agreed, showing up in his truck dressed like a wild Texan, ready to extinguish the flame if necessary.
“Those metal urns,” Doug wrote, “total shit. Once the house collapses, you’re to collect my ashes and put them in a teak vase.” This exact teak vase I’ve linked is the one Doug wanted. “If the seller’s out of stock, contact them. See if they’ll make an exception.”
There were plenty in stock. I ordered one. It arrived in perfect time.
Had Doug made it just three more weeks, he would’ve turned 83. I can’t say I’ll miss those 2 a.m. phone calls, but man, he was a character. May he rest in peace.
Not to be a disgusting pig, but there’s an affiliate link in here. If the vase speaks to you, I might make a wee bit of money. So will the seller. But most importantly, Doug would want you to have it.
Please don’t put ashes in there. Use it for flowers. Doug would want beauty, not bones.
