I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of the recent posts, going back over the past month now, have not been newly written by me. Looking back through what appeared here in August, there were 34 posts, and only about a third of them consisted of new stuff from me. (Some of the reviews came from my “archives,” of course, and for the reviews written by others I’ve continued to add cover images, bibliographic data and so on, so it wasn’t as though I wasn’t doing anything.)

   I watched and reported on six movies, which isn’t bad, but what’s really frustrating is that I read only five books all month. You can go back, read the reviews and count them for yourself.

   This is an abysmal record. Even on a slow day I can go to Borders and buy twice that many without half trying. And I go maybe three times a week. (Not to mention books I order online from ABE, Amazon and Biblio.com.)

   What’s even worse, and so far I still haven’t been able to do anything about it, is the stack of unanswered email that stacking up on my computer. My apologies to everyone who’s still waiting patiently for a reply to something that you’ve sent me this month — a question, a piece of information, a comment about a blog post — if I answer immediately, you hear from me. Otherwise maybe you haven’t.

   But believe me, it’s just as frustrating on this end as I assume it is on yours.

   After I returned from Pulpcon at the beginning of August, my new endocrinologist started me on a new regime of medications, and to put it frankly, it just isn’t working. Worse, it’s hard to put any confidence in doctors who look at the blood tests and suggest doing new things without first asking how you’re feeling, even when they’re meeting you for the first time.

   It’s all trial and error, and so far, it’s mostly error.

   I hope I don’t have cut back on my own participation on this blog any further, but just in case, as I hope you have noticed, I have a lot of friends and other sources to help cover for me.

   And if you are waiting to hear back from me about something, I hope you can be patient a while longer. (I mentioned sharp pointed objects a while ago, in case I could use a nudge. They’re not needed yet, but maybe you should keep them handy, just in case.)