Update - March 2008: As I said in my October note, I miss you and writing J1B. Truly and often. Not often enough to remember to check e-mail or Facebook regularly, mind you. I'm still as irresponsible about that sort of thing as ever. Things are still going very well. Crush is terrific and The Boy is better than I should reasonably expect a teenaged boy to be. I'm jobless by choice but that doesn't seem to have freed up any time; I have a long list of projects that are too low in priority to worry about, yet lurk in the back of my brain waiting for me to feel inspired. Not contributing directly to the household income pokes at the back of my psyche in an uncomfortable way. I know I save us money in many ways, but I find myself dreaming up entrepreneurial ventures as quickly as I remind myself that I don't have time or motivation to bring them to life. My domestic lifestyle can be a drag and it certainly wouldn't make an interesting blog. To quote Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, "...stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand." I miss writing, though. Occasionally I'll write a comment on someone else's site or start a thread in some forum, and I feel a wave of pleasure in putting together evocative, persuasive, and sometimes provocative sentences. I've tried to start a non-fiction writing project with Crush, but somehow it keeps falling to the bottom of my list; it's not that I don't want to do it, but that the type of writing I love so much is intimate and personal. That project has the aroma of a chore, albeit a profitable one. Hope you're all well. Thanks for peeking in again. I'm trying to remember to check my mail at eden_j1b (at) yahoo.com more often. Best always, Eden