Thoughts on Thor's Day

Hello, Rogues, Privateers, Roaring Girls, and Gentle Visitors:

Yes, it is your lax hostess of the blog. I apologize for long lapses in penning posts. It is not only due to your author's visits to the dark underworld of office work, but also to the fact that I have been living a somewhat dazed existence because of a flu that to all appearances was over after a week, but sapped yours truly out of all energy and, specifically, the grey matter needed to write anything more complicated than a series of gurgling noises. I do hope you will all forgive me. Thank you for your emails wondering if I was still alive, or had indeed turned into one of the zombies in the Office of the Living Dead.

I have a day off today, and only a few days left on the job. After a few unsuccessful attempts to find someone to replace me, we lucked out and got in a wonderful girl, who is not only smart, but also sweet, and who will make my departure from said job possible. I've been training her and think she will work out.

It has not all been a twilit existence these past weeks, either. I've been living vicariously through Madeline, who has had many celebrity encounters in New York, and together we've been watching Project Runway and cheering our favorites. A few weeks ago, my sister came for a weekend visit on her way to training in Chicago, and we had a lovely time doing sister-stuff. And in 10 days, my best friend Katja is coming here for her vacation, just in time for Halloween!!! I do think a lot of shopping, watching movies, drinking Starbucks, and eating cheesecake are on the agenda.

I've also been working every waking hour, when not in the OOLD, on improving and adding to Luminarium. The existing sites within are getting beefed up, and a host of new authors, literary works, and sections are being added. The newest sections are Renaissance English Drama and Religious Writers of the English Renaissance. The section I'm currently working on is "Restoration and Eighteenth Century," which is slow going because, to be frank, I lose interest after the Renaissance, until we get to the twentieth century, save for a few choice exceptions. The Age of Reason, the Romantics, and the Victorians, for the most part just aren't my cup of tea. Funny thing is, I feel that way not only in the field of literature, but art as well — after Michelangelo, Botticelli, and the seventeenth-century painters, such as Rembrandt and Vermeer, art doesn't tickle me until we get to the Impressionists. Something totally disinterests me in the "Long Eighteenth Century."

So, that is the long and short of it — I wish I had something interesting to record, such as "Well, the reason I haven't blogged, you know, is that I got captured by pirates who whisked me off to the Orient, where I visited a monastery in Tibet, after which I travelled by Yak on the old Silk Route, following the footsteps of Marco Polo, with a brief stop in Istanbul for a cup of Turkish coffee, all the while composing heroic verse." Alas, my life is on a much smaller scale.

So, what's everyone else been up to? I've missed you guys, though I've been silent.

~A