Friday, December 13, 2024   

     I have been reading the New Yorker since I was in college in 1959.  A long time. The weekly magazine arrives relentlessly. I now mostly read the cartoons during the day but at night when I can’t sleep, I tackle the long articles. They have been my salvation.

    Several months ago, I agreed to give a short talk for the Brown Bag Zen group. The meditation group meets weekly at noon. So now my mind is full of random thoughts and ideas. The talk is to be authentic about some issue in my life. It is the kind of talk that is hard to plan for.

     The eleven international detective novels for holiday gifts are ready to be wrapped. I am very excited about the choices. I am not confident that my family will actually read them.

     I am now reading VOICES, an Icelandic detective story by Arnaldur Indridason. The third book in his series.  The hardest part of these foreign books is the unfamiliar names. The names refuse to stick in my memory.