Readers!

Please enjoy these blogposts, written between 2011 and 2015. Another blog is on the way.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Stepping into 2012

Our new kitten, Arthur
I've been gone, obviously. Teaching is hard; writing while teaching is harder; but not writing is hardest of all, and I vow to give it up. In 2012, I'm going to write while I teach, no matter how complicated my life becomes, how tired I get, how behind on laundry, no matter if both the teaching and writing go downhill as a result.

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act today, meaning that American citizens accused of domestic terrorism can be detained, interrogated, and tried by military as well as civilian officials.  The tricky thing will be how how broadly domestic terrorism is defined.  (A scary example is the prosecution as terrorists of Earth Liberation Front activists, for property damage alone. Watch If a Tree Falls, now streaming on Netflix.) What has looked like a popular uprising in Syria turns out to be some kind of proxy war against Iran, with our fingerprints all over it.  Los Angeles is on fire, and it isn't even fire season. My children struggle to make ends meet, and we struggle to help them.

Yet whether it's 1984 or 2012, on whatever morning in whatever year we wake up, we get in the shower, get dressed, and do the things we can't help doing.  Not writing is harder on my health than fatigue will ever be.  I hope that whatever it is you can't help doing, your most important occupation, thrives next year, and you along with it.

P. S. I plan to post a book review now and then on this blog since I'm not reviewing for Trachodon's Cheek Teeth site anymore...and I never stop reading.