And Whither Then? I Cannot Say

It is the last day of 2022 and (quite by coincidence) the 999^th post of the Niche of Time. I spent some time going over this blog last night, checking up on what had been done here and what I had recorded over the months, hoping to put together some kind of ‘end of the year’ assessments.

I finished re-organizing the Shadow Library and recorded more biographical memories. I posted some of my old poems and short stories. I did some work on ‘Bob’s Book 2’ and wrote one whole new short story (Kren) online. I emptied my Wish List on Amazon (at one time over 200 items!), both by getting stuff I had long wanted and by deciding what things I could really do without and deleting them. I accomplished a decades-long desire to have every Walt Disney Comics Digest ever printed. I go into the New Year only wanting one book that I know of: The Homecoming of Beorthnoth, by J. R. R. Tolkien, to be published at the end of March. Somehow I lived through the travesty that was The Rings of Power (how long ago that seems now!).

I had a couple of stents put in my legs and a steroid injection in my knee. I heard the joyous news that my niece Kaitlyn and her husband Ryan are expecting a baby boy. I went to the 100^th birthday party of my Aunt Doris. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died, Benedict just this morning. Contrary to news that I heard and believed for months, my bus-driving friend Mr. Wade turned out to be alive. Dark Tidings Press returned to me the files and publication rights of A Grave on Deacon’s Peak; I could handle my own production arrangements if I want to, either by myself or with another company.

I head into the New Year with very little on my plate and with the decks mostly cleared. If I live long enough, I’ll turn sixty in July. What will be my driving impetus and what will be my goals? It’s a whole new world.