ccra woes

It's my brother's birthday today. He would have been 36. Here's what I wrote about him a year ago.

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Yesterday was Marketing/Admin day. I did catch up on admin and finances, but otherwise it was a generally crappy day. I wasn't feeling that great to begin with. Woke up with a sore throat today. Both Annie and Sara have colds, so it's possible that I picked up the bug from them on the weekend.

I also am going through still more post-Inkspot hassles with the CCRA (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency). Apparently Xlibris is trying to shut down the Inkspot Company of Canada (the corporate entity they set up for Inkspot). I heartily approve of this, of course, because it means an end to the phonecalls and snailmail that keep coming to me instead of to them.

However, two people from different areas of the CCRA have been calling me about this, apparently directed to me by Xlibris. One is nice, one quite nasty (the latter seems to believe that I still have something to do with Inkspot despite my claims that I don't). I've re-hired Adam, the corporate tax lawyer who helped me sort out the earlier post-Inkspot mess to help me sort out this new one.

Even just minimal interaction with the CCRA, however, has stirred up bad memories I've been trying to forget since Xlibris shut down Inkspot. It's pretty clear that I still have many unresolved issues re: the demise of Inkspot; there's a lot of suppressed grief and anger I've been trying not to acknowledge. The sabbatical and my return to my own writing have helped a great deal, but the bad karma's still there, simmering just below the surface, like a pot of tainted soup bones about to boil over.

Though it will cost me more money, it helps a ton to be able to offload a lot of the hassles to Adam. Now Adam's the one who deals with the CCRA and Xlibris; he's my stress buffer. Adam's wonderful. I worship Adam. He told me I should worship Jeff instead, but I've told him that Jeff worships him too :-).

I've told close friends that if I ever talk about selling a company ever again, they have express permission to stomp on my head with rusty cleat boots.



Many thanks to Bill Sutton for sending us the Spirit of the Dorsai excerpt we needed in order to sing our song Amanda. Many thanks also to Janet Croft for finding her copy of the book as well. Allison, Jodi and I are grateful to you both as well as to Andrea and Amanda.

I've been having trouble with my e-mail lately (should be okay now, Bryan's tweaked things on the server); I only found out when Jeff Bohnhoff called to let me know that he hadn't able to get e-mail to me in a couple of days.

It also looks like some of my e-mails didn't reach Judith and Dave Hayman, who are in charge of filk programming at Ad Astra. Dave sent us a list of the songs he believes we're supposed to be performing at Ad Astra at various panels, but the playlists don't match the ones we sent him earlier. :-( Hopefully we'll get things straightened out by the weekend. Hopefully my cold will be gone by then, too!

Blatherpics

	Nailpainting session with Sara at Deerhurst, using a set of nail polish that Annie and Sara gave to me while I was living in Philly.
	Skating rink at Deerhurst Inn.