Issue #2 of THRICE is now available for free download to your iPad, your Kindle, or just as a PDF. You can also get hard copies if you're willing to pay for it.Of all the people we've gathered together for this issue I am most personally proud of adding Ann Bogle to the mix. In the first place we are badly under-represented by women voices and in the second place she's really good. So I hope we see more of her as time goes on.The next issue comes in November and will be themed "TIME." We already have a couple things for it. I think you'll like.But no, I haven't been to your blogs much and for that I'm truly sorry. I miss it, but I simply have little time. If I scan you in my Reader it's lately the best I can do. I'm ashamed I've missed your radio shows, your troubles, your happies, things you've found, things you're letting go of. In the blogging world it has always been true - if you want visitors you have to visit. And I don't have enough Earth-shattering ground-breaking stuff to attract a wide audience, nor did I ever really seek one out. I will get back to your stories and incidents as soon as I can. For one thing my new schedule - pushing 40 work hours into three days from Tuesday through Thursday - changes everything. My own personal writing is stalled, and I've taken on a few more responsibilities with groups and organizations that somehow keep asking for me to volunteer. I am amazed at those requests, seeing as how if I were given three weeks of totally free time I would probably spend 95% of it alone. But I WILL get out and about to see all your great stuff soon, I promise.In case I hadn't said anything to you I am going to be a grandfather again this December, God willing. We all know it is a girl and we all know her name is going to be Sophie. I may have made some mistakes with granddaughter #1 here and there or something... I guess?... because I am somewhere 22nd or 35th on her list for some reason, but Sophie will be my redemption for whatever crimes I committed... whatever the hell they were.My eyes are going weird. I had cataract surgery on both a month and a half ago and I can't stand bright light and sometimes I can see for miles. In fact the farther away something is the better I can see it - which is the total opposite of what I've had the whole rest of my life before now. I need the darkest possible sunglasses but the stuff at the local drug store only goes so dark. Anybody have a lead on really REALLY dark sunglasses? I need them bad. Apparently I am not producing enough tears so they have me on these tear=producing drops. I mean wtf, I can't sit there watching Schindler's List (which is a movie it is officially "OK" for guys to cry at) everyday just to get my eyes wet y'know.I am continuing to struggle between this spiritual ideal I have had in my head since forever and the complete nihilism that seems like so much truth anymore.I am very much looking forward to Ken Burns' latest effort at PBS to be shown this Fall called "Prohibition" despite the fact that he basically gave my White Sox the Finger in his last episode of "Baseball" called the 10th Inning (he gave more time to the asshole Cubs' continued failure as an idea than the 3 FARCO seconds he gave the White Sox for winning it all in '05) and his nagging, bothersome apologetics for the South's destructive and heinous passion for State's Rights (which has caused more death, misery and anger in this country than any other single failed concept) in his Civil War. I find his overblown pandering nonsense comforting somehow.I'm going to watch the Sox play the Tigers on TV in a second. have a nice night.
