it's late at night, cool and dark, eli's puppy is waiting for him; maybe he's in the shower. some cicadas have arrived to southeast new mexico, maybe, but it's already gotten cooler, with the rainy season, and they won't have much of a run way up here where it's 7300 feet. nevertheless they make us, me and eli's puppy, feel like we're not alone. it's a busy night out there in all kinds of ways.

one is just that it's saturday night. around here that means i can stay up late working on my writing, but now i'm tired, as often happens late at night when i finally have time, and that means i will more likely not be able to do serious writing but rather do this, or stats, or some such thing. i keep working on it even when i'm tired but i don't force myself to do something when i'm too tired. i'm also almost done with my autobiography, so in a sense i'm dying to get it finished and get it out there, but still late at night, like now (after eleven), for me to try to work on it will just be too much. so i don't.

speaking of that autobiography, though, it's based partly on this blog and even has this blog in the title. "Just Passing Through: Autobiography and true stories from out there, is its title, and it should be out this week sometime. i am right now deciding whether to put pictures in it; i've never been vain, but what's an autobiography without pictures? not sure what i'll do about that.

i am rewriting the japan chapter now - that means i am at 37 out of 99, almost halfway through the stories. the end is near. i will have a book soon.

some people say you shouldn't write an autobiography unless you're famous. but i've redefined famous in several ways. one is that nobody knows what will happen after you die, so you should write one anyway. but another is that your relative fame over time is really going to depend on your descendants, if you have any, who will always be interested in your life, or to be more accurate at some point might be interested in your life. None of my kids or grandkids are interested at the moment, or at least, maybe i will find out if they are, because if they are, they will ask for my book. but for the most part, they aren't reading too many of my books. they just aren't into reading about ancestors, or old times, that much. you have to have a proclivity to read that kind of thing.

my autobiography is actually kind of lively, like the novel; it has some wild things that i did that most people don't get to do. it's not like the historical books about the family that i've been cranking out - still, i've run up against this problem that a lot of people simply aren't reading much at all. it's not that they like other stuff better than they like my stuff. it's more that they don't read any stuff, and may never again. it's not a reading-rich environment. modern america, and people are finding it harder to read, not easier. schools are losing their grip. kids are going off into reality with fewer skills and no enjoyment of it. that's a gradual decline really - not true for everyone - but for the nation as a whole, our collective reading skill is slipping a lot these days, with the pandemic and people just not doing as much of it as they used to.

i myself worry about getting too absorbed in reading. i check this one site fanatically and then make a deal - you read my book (x pages), i'll read yours (x +/- y pages) I end up reading like crazy and hoping to see someone giving my ratings a boost by reading mine. i slavishly check the ratings - sometimes every hour - to see if any of their work has shown up. i work on getting better ratings - they'd slumped for a while as i'd virtually given up.

the problem is, i have over thirty books - i can't keep all of their ratings up. it's overwhelming, and i give up sometimes for weeks at a time. they slip by the thousands every day. fortunately my standards are low - ratings under a couple million, i still consider good, and all of them look better than they used to, so i feel like i'm getting somewhere. people are reading my books, slowly, and my star is rising. but the question is what is it doing to my life? am i not going for walks, working on the yard, being outside as much? definitely, i'm not. i'm hoping to maintain a healthy balance even with this active addiction/obsession going on - not easy.

the autobiography is wild - i'll warn you right now. it starts out right here at this blog (check template) where, if you've been checking in, i'm sure you know a few of my stories. i'll tell more. i'll have a party. i'll celebrate the release of this autobiography. it'll all happen soon, and it'll happen here. stay posted!