Much has changed lately. Most significantly, after a year of enjoying each other’s company, Jaime and I have moved in together. We have a nice apartment near the Half Price Books and Goodwill shopping center. It’s in a complex of several buildings, crisscrossed by sidewalks. The downstairs part is a combined living room and dining room, with sliding glass doors to our tiny yard off the dining room, and a nice kitchen. Upstairs, there’s a bedroom with four big closets and a bathroom right off the bedroom. This is the first time I’ve lived with a girlfriend (and hopefully the last!), and it’s great. We have one large plant and two smaller plants, and we hope to get more.

Also, I got a new job! A full-time, permanent, regular job. For about a year now, I’ve been working part-time, seasonal, temp, or contract jobs. That was stressful for me, as I could never know for certain when a job would end, or where I’d work next. But now I’m the assistant project manager at a company called eBook Architects, and I’m relieved to have a little more stability. It’s a small company, with just eleven employees, but we have a lot of clients, and we’re known for doing excellent work. Our founder and CEO, Joshua Tallent, is kind of a big name in the eBook industry. It’s been great working there; everybody has been welcoming and patient and helpful.

Since I am working for an eBook company, and since I wanted one anyway, I bought a Kindle Fire. It’s a pretty snappy little machine, for sure. Right now, I am reading a free version of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, which is really wonderful, and You are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. Reading Les Miserables on a Kindle is great, because there are so many references to historical figures and events and if I don’t know what Hugo is referencing, I can highlight the word/name/place and look it up quite easily.

I thought I’d have more to write, but I guess I don’t! Good luck out there…

“I want to live among people who are conscious that we live in a war. A war against life, against the spirit. I want to live among people who don’t look down at their feet, or won’t look you in the eyes when you speak of struggle or insurrection, because In their heart they know they have surrendered, and because maybe, just maybe they never really hated the system. Among people who have not been bought, who did not take the pills they were offered, because they preferred to struggle with their feeling of pathologized anxiety than to live in the dead zone. People who don’t pretend to be struggling when it is obvious that what they are doing is turning a battlefield into a garden. I want to be in a place where the war is admissible,” (Anonymous Spanish poet).