My bank is closed

I am tired.
I am tired of joining causes that I want to support and believe in only to have the cause come back to me with their hand out as if the only thing I am good for is another donation.
I have given, and often, and now I have grown sick of it.
But I am not rich or well paid or even reasonably okay where money is concerned.
I have a patreon, I get about $60 a month for it. It's mostly from my family and friends that believe in me or at least wish to support me.

I support other patreons, in turn, as well. I believe in supporting them. None of them come at me with their hands out though. They're filled with gratitude for the little help I can give them and they are constantly giving back.
I want to save the wolves, stop the end of net neutrality, keep freedom of the press and free speech, save the bees, and the wild places, help consumer reports keep reporting, get some reasonable people in power and remove the unreasonable people. I want to stop hate crime, promote love, equality, protect women and the innocent, stop child abuse, defeat cancer, and the myriad of other causes.
I just don't want to have to do it in dollar amounts.
I have had to learn to ask for help and even now, knowing that I am going to have to ask for more, to ask people I personally support, to sell myself and my art to a new audience-
I am tired of every Tom, Jane and Larry showing up with a cause and then without so much as a la te dah holding out their hand for my money as if that is all I have to offer that they are interested in.

This is the sum of much of my emails. Someone wants my money.

In fact, it often seems like anyone or everyone.

It's crazy.

I am so tired, I am unsubscribing where I can, dumping the rest into spam and rejecting unknown callers. 

So, in conclusion, if you want my help.

Don't start off with asking for money.

You won't get it.

The bank is closed.

and that, as I am prone to state- is life according to Mike.

Now I am 48, still out of date....

Now I am 48.

People (they know who they are) ask me how it feels to be 48.
I tell them I haven't felt like I was 60 in a long time.
I get a nervous laugh, a chuckle and they shake their heads.
I don't get along with my brother.
I never did.
Even when I thought I was getting along with him, I wasn't.
Why bring this up now?
On your birthday, for Pete sakes!
Crikey.
It's obvious to me.
48 is a number like 50. I don't give it much credence. 
I am 48, I don't get along with my brother, I have a weird relationship with my father, I take care of my mother (more than I ever thought I would) and my best friend is also my niece.... also my other best friend is wonderful and doesn't get much credit as to how much I truly love her.
Okay, I admit it.
That's not my point.
I don't get along with my brother because despite all my intentions to be someone else where the world is concerned I don't get along with my brother, we are alike and utterly un-alike and it makes no sense to anyone...especially me. Sometimes I say:
"This explains everything!"
Then I am forced to admit it didn't explain anything but what I wanted it to explain.
I don't know my brother.
I have tried and quit and inevitably will most likely try again, except I am getting to old for this:

So, I am 48 and too old for- well you get the point of that, now.
Moving on.
Actually, I am doing swell.
Except that I am still alone.
Working out, eating healthy stuff, living in a perpetual daydream that is so self-congratulatory and self-pleasing- the ego massaging kind that I now call it my happy place.
Hi, I am Michael Wilder. 
I have three wives.
(I warned you)

I will stop there save to say I am on new meds.
I feel good most of the time.
I don't need Bob's tits anymore.

 If I need to explain this, you probably just wandered into my life and miss most of my movie references.
(fight club, bob (meatloaf) Deadpool, movie references) or just forget it.
pretend I am cooking and this is the food network.

So, I digress.
I am 48.
A poet, future tango dancer, hopeful romancer.
Likeliest to die alone in an empty cafe in Vienna full of figurative bullet-holes.
Now, you can be lost and give me that look.

and you won't be alone. Most of my family just shrug, make a nervous laugh and check their collective cell phones while silently wishing that the "old mike" would come back and then we could talk about that time I got kicked in the teeth.
Look, I tinker, I fix stuff, all that convenient lock picking, console hacking, raider shooting stuff 
just ain't for me....

and that is the first day of 48 according to Mike.