Gadzooks!

It just fully dawned on me that I have to pay April rent next week. Egad! I'm pretty close to broke, nowhere near enough to pay rent, for pity's sake. It's only $800, which is incredibly cheap for Los Angeles, especially these days, but it might as well be a million to me. My deepest thanks, as always, to those who answered my unfortunately regular plea a little over a month ago, thus allowing me to get through March, and to those who have made donations in the last few weeks. But as I say, the rent money just isn't there. (For those readers comparatively new to these parts, the whole, sad saga was set out over a year ago. Basically, nothing has changed. Bad health prevents me from doing anything else, so blogging is it for me these days, don't have a large audience and probably never will, donations are my sole source of income, yada yada. Details in the earlier entry.)

In addition to rent, my oldest cat, who will be 15 in July, seriously needs to go to the vet again. (It's all right, sweetheart. That was just a figure of speech. I didn't mean it literally. Ssshh, whispering is best about this, and typing with my special invisible font. The cats, three of 'em, frequently take turns sitting on my lap while I write. And I'm telling you, they read the essays and talk to each other about them. Sometimes they edit them. Usually they're better then. Some days, I think I'll let them do the whole thing. Posts about playing, and sleeping, and eating, and then some more about playing, and sleeping, and eating...and every once in a great while, a post about catching a cockroach! Which they then present to Dad as a great trophy. It's very touching.) In any event, my oldest girl, Fidele (that's French, she's extremely well-bred and cultured), went to...um, figure of speech inserted here...a few months ago, several thankfully minor things were attended to, but she's not quite herself. Again. Well, she's getting up there (another figure of speech, darling), so it's to be expected. I've been through these last few years (figure of speech again...I dearly wish) several times during my life with other beloved companions, and I'm all too familiar with how it goes. But she seems to be in some discomfort, and it causes me considerable anguish to see her unhappy. While I will never be able to afford to get my rotten teeth fixed, among many other problems, I suffer enormous guilt when my poverty inflicts itself on my little companions.

In other news, I think the writing is going well at the moment. I hope you agree. And even though my health was terrible for a couple of months just recently, it's somewhat improved now, enough for me to write regularly. My health is never good, but it's not too debilitating at the moment, which pleases me considerably. Here's hoping the current state of affairs continues for quite a while. Oh, Antiwar.com has very generously noticed my efforts three times this week. I think three times in one week is a first for me. Monday it was this essay, today it's this one, and this article from yesterday is now listed on the Viewpoints page. I hope that last one, "Enabling Evil," will be highlighted tomorrow or over the weekend. I compressed a lot into that short piece, but I'll be expanding it in the near future. Those are some of the most critical issues to discuss in my view, especially given the general direction in which we're headed. I have much more to say on that subject.

I had hoped to have a bit of a financial cushion before starting my series on contemporary political tribalism, but I guess that's not to be. I'll begin it anyway, and I hope to have the first installments posted in the next several days, perhaps beginning tomorrow. Those issues, too, are among the most important from my perspective. I don't see others discussing them from the particular vantage point I will be employing, and I think the sources and operation of certain dynamics need to be much better understood. So I'll do it.

Okay. Very sorry to have to bend your ear on this subject still another time, but we gotta do what we gotta do. Yes, indeed, I am full of original insights like that, expressed in just that distinctive and unique style. I have tons more.

Many thanks for your consideration. PayPal and Amazon donation links are located at the upper right; PayPal is preferable for me, since I get the funds more quickly, and Amazon has not always been entirely reliable in my experience, although it's been fine recently. Once more, I am deeply grateful to you all. (Well, perhaps not all. Five or six of you should feel completely free to stop sending me those charming emails, telling me what a sickening idiot I am, how much I hate America and Everything Good in the Universe, how disgusting my personal, ah, practices are -- I bet you're the same people who were so upset about a book about gay penguins a couple of years ago, which is remarkably mean-spirited of you -- and similar stuff. And you express yourselves so colorfully! But the rest of you are wonderful.)

No, darlings, we're not going to edit this anymore. How about a snack? (That gets them every time. Almost every time.)