That time again...

So it comes that time again when everyone must reflect upon the year past and look forward to the year yet to come. Personally, the demarcation of time from one year to the next seems to me an arbitrary and artificial boundary that is essentially meaningless. But when everyone around you accepts the illusion, it's hard to completely ignore it.

I do have some half-formed resolutions for the coming year, but like wishes, resolutions are best kept secret lest they lose their power. I will say one thing that I'm not going to do.

I'm not going out of my way to improve or otherwise draw in more readers to this blog, because it just isn't that important to me anymore. You can expect more of the same, at about the same frequency of posting as always. Maybe less. Maybe not.

Had some time to waste yesterday so I took my son to Bullfrog Books--our local used book store. He picked up a kid's art book on "How to Draw Pirates" and I found both volumes of the Robert R. McCammon's Speaks the Nightbird. I have not read everything he's ever written, but I have read several of his books, starting with Usher's Passing back in the 80s which made a huge impression on me--it is a sort of update on the modern-day heirs of the House of Usher and tells what "really" happened to the Ushers of Poe's original story. It falls firmly into the horror genre. Most of his books are horror or fiction with a strong horror element. Several years later I read his Boy's Life, which has only a little real horror involved but is mostly the tale of a boy growing up in a small town and it left me with tears in my eyes. A few years later when I read it again, the impact had not lessened. Let's see...I've also read his Mystery Walk which is a good book but not as strong as the other two. I also have The Wolf's Hour (a story about a "good" werewolf during WWII who hunts and kills Nazis) but have not read it yet--it was the only of his books I have that I had not yet read, and was loathe to read it because then I wouldn't have anything else "new" by him. I really need to just go ahead and order all of his stuff that I don't have, because I'm sure I'll enjoy them all. He is one of those writers who makes me wish I could write like him. I made a small start on Speaks the Nightbird last night, and here's one of those descriptions of atmospheres that really caught my eye.

It had been a joyful day for frogs and mudhens. For the human breed, however, the low gray clouds and chill rain coiled chains around the soul. By the calendar the month of May should by all rights and predictions be charitable if not merry, but this May had entered like a grim-lipped miser pinching out candles in church.