Not much has been pub­lished on this site in the last year. Short­ly after my return from a trip to France, a series of events start­ed to mod­i­fy my per­son­al cir­cum­stances, begin­ning with my moth­er’s death. New per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ties appeared, and changes of plan. For quite awhile, I remained in no mood for per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions. But while I have not had much time to write casu­al­ly for the site, I have been in fact research­ing and writ­ing a great deal. Now I’m begin­ning a new phase, since I have stopped out­side work and expect to sur­vive entire­ly by writ­ing. This will mean some sac­ri­fices — liv­ing fru­gal­ly being one of them. But there are ben­e­fits. For years, now, I could rarely indulge in one of my great­est plea­sures — walk­ing the ravines and dis­tant cor­ners of my city. I sim­ply did not have the spare time, and out­side work that kept me on my feet ten hours every day left me too tired to do it. But now I will be sit­ting at a com­put­er for most of every day, and some walk­ing will be nec­es­sary to stave off a clas­sic writer’s per­il: over­weight. So, no longer walk­ing to make a liv­ing, I am free to walk for plea­sure again. Read more »