Happy New Year!

One big status update at the end of the day (no, this does not count as a paid post; yes, four more "good" posts have been paid for and will be popping up in the next week or two)...

I spent ten days writing a 45000-word short book with the working title From Weepy Weed to Activist: The Celiac Journey of Priscilla King. It may or may not sell for enough to make that time seem well spent.

Regular readers may be interested in knowing that the idjit-in-law who sprayed Raid on my paper wasps in 2006...has been in and out of the hospital for about as long as rice, corn, and things like potatoes and peanuts, have been giving me celiac reactions. Though not a celiac, he inherited other weaknesses and has been reported to have little time left to live for years now. He will some day be missed, though not by me. I mention him because I've become interested in the increase in non-celiac-like symptoms reported by non-celiacs since 2014 or 2015, too.

I was interested in knowing that, once again, there seems to be some pattern in what people are reading at this web site (apart from following the newest posts). The pattern shows some interest in the question "Just what kind of feminist is this writer, anyway?" So that will be the topic of one of the "good" posts, but only one. If people will kindly use the comment space to propose other topics, I'll try to give youall more of an interesting hodgepodge.

I finally got enough glue between the lever and the button to keep the "S" key on this laptop in one piece. That's enough glue to cushion the lever against light taps on the button, so readers who enjoy looking for silly typos can expect to spot a few more in the coming year. Yes, I do know that in an English sentence either the noun or the verb, not both, normally ends in S. No, the computer does not know this.

The cafe from which I've been posting was closed all day. I've had severely limited, unsatisfactory connection to the Internet, in order to get the book manuscript in by the deadline, from "McDonald's Free Internet." Free, but not serviceable. While sitting in McDonald's I bought the kind of meal--hamburger, lettuce, tomato, and fries--that used to be safe for me to eat. The fries had an "off" taste that reminded me of the last few batches of Planters peanuts that made me sick. I expect to be sick again tomorrow. Over the holidays I'd seen some evidence of healing from last fall's damage. Oh well.

There is no Amazon link for this post because "McDonald's Free Internet" doesn't work with Amazon. Nor does it work with Yahoo, so I can't read e-mail yet.

The wonderful wizards of Compuworld have finally found the extra-memory drive for which my dear old desktop computer has been pining, and I've finally scraped up the money to pay them to transfer the documents and programs. Hurray and hurrah! If I'm not online as usual, Wednesday through Friday, that will be why.

Will this be the year when I can post happy #phenology stories again? Pray for me, Gentle Reader. Recent phenology news, and even mainstream TV broadcast news, has been about the terrible cold, the record-breaking low temperatures, the prospects of snow in places that don't normally get any while here in the Blue Ridge Mountains it's too cold for snow, etc., etc. I'm not sure why TV broadcasters think people watching the five and six o'clock news need to be told the most obvious thing they've probably been noticing, even from climate-controlled nursing home, if they've been conscious all day. "It's cold outside!" Single digits. I'll agree that it's been chilly. Residents of Michigan, Minnesota, upstate New York, Canada, Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, and other cold places from which this web site is frequently visited, may now enjoy a good laugh at the thought of Southerners truly suffering from what youall know as ordinary midwinter weather. In my home town we don't even have snow.

Nevertheless, those who can't bundle up in hand-knitted blankets and shawls at night (I've been sleeping under two or three of each), move briskly about if they still feel cold, and light a fire if they feel a need for one, are truly suffering. Mostly they're suffering from underpreparation and reliance on actuarial-thinking government agencies, but people have died from those things too...

According to the computer, about half the bloggers I follow (apart from The Blaze, which is a paying'zine not a blog, at this stage) have been online at some time since Christmas. I've read individual posts. I've not tried to open The Blaze. It's good to see that youall seem to have had reasonably happy holidays.

Apart from being unable to spend quality time with my mother, who I fear may be dying of late-in-life glyphosate poisoning, so have I.