AND SO IT GOES

Reading is sometimes thought of as a form of escapism, and it's a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book. But a book can also be where one finds oneself; and when a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself. There are books that seem to comprehend us just as much as we understand them, even more. There are books that grow with the reader as the reader grows, like a graft to a tree.

This kind of book becomes part of our own experience, and part of our endurance. It might lead us back to the library in midlife, looking for something that eluded us before.

— Rebecca Mead, My Life in Middlemarch, New York, Crown, 2014

Gosh, it has been a bit of awhile. I had friends visiting another friend nearby and I had to take advantage of their proximity to hang out. More on that anon.

In the midst of this, or actually, at the outset, we acquired another kitten. Enough with the cats already. His current name is Idris, but we shall see about that. More on this, too.

I need to try to get some sleep and get a fresh start.