Not Dead, Just Not Blogging Lately

It's been over two months since the last post here. I've been a little distracted, and a little depressed, by recent things. Primary among them my mother's death in January, and learning about the same time that the shoulder surgery in 2012 -- of which I've written so many posts -- will need to be redone in the fairly near future.

I'm not deeply depressed, just feeling sad and rather frustrated, along with a dose of Thoreau's "quiet desperation". I've started about a half-dozen posts for UF, but haven't felt able to write them with enough focus or conclusion to hit the "Publish" button. I've been able to do some degree of shorter stuff, such as occasional comments on other people's blogs like Mike Glyer's File 770, and I've been posting links on Twitter to occasional interesting stuff or leaving occasional brief replies to others' tweets (140 characters; yeah, that's about right for me right now). I still spend too much time on the Internet, but it's been in a more passive, rather than active role.

I expect I'll get back into a normal swing of things eventually. Besides finally writing this post, I've continued to work on some fiction (and even completed a short -- 1100 words -- story that's already been to several markets). I need to set aside some time to do some revisions and edits on other stories that are "completed", but not polished to the point where I feel okay to start submitting them to markets.

AND... I finally (it's been a couple of years) got the planters in the front courtyard cleaned up and replanted, the two smaller planters with a variety of flowering bulbs and the larger front planter with tomatoes, eggplant, patty pan squash, watermelon and basil. Some photos:

garden planter

first tomato setting

squash blossoms

And that's what I've been doing lately.