I think it's about time to come back from my vacation. The first half of the interval was the good part, the rare visit of two members of Barry's family, here on separate but overlapping schedules.

The second half, not so good. I came down with a very bad intestinal flu the day after his mother-our-very-good-friend had left. A temperature which quickly rose to five degrees above normal meant that neither my energy nor my head was up to the simple mechanicals of a keyboard - actually, until just about this very moment.

Thank intelligent design for having the good sense to create antibiotics!

Barry writes:

I don't enjoy coming home to the level of discourse I get when my post on Jean Rohe's speech has such a high Google rank. From now on, all comments must be approved. I don't need to hear people calling for violence, or calling her a cunt, on my blog. Get your own damn site if you want to do that.

I've been seeing a certain amount of the same kind of violence and stupidity hurled onto my own site in the guise of "comments". From tonight I will no longer be entertaining this stuff either, but unfortunately I suppose I'm still going to have to read these droppings.

we get letters

I love comments, and I get really excited about comments about comments. I rush to open each of them when they are announced in my mailbox. Unfortunately I often have to wade through a flood of spam to get to the genuine article, and for this blogger the genuine does not include the unsigned rant with a fake address.

Yes I know there are disturbed people out there. I also know I'm unable to help them, and my hosting parasitic notes or essays simply won't help anyone.

This site is not anonymous and I simply do not expect to get anonymous comments, unless the writer has good reason to screen an identity and indicates as much.

Everyone else, please keep those cards and letters coming.

I've been much too neglectful lately in posting items about the art stuff we've seen. If I have an excuse it's that I've been distracted by construction and other projects inside the apartment. Hey, it's a large apartment, and sometimes it gets very needy.

But now there might be another impediment to good blogging, since today I finally sent my good camera off to be repaired. I have no idea how long it will be in the garage, but I'm placing my hopes with the good gay spirit of the shop's address, Walt Whitman Road.

I still have my little pocket box however, and a huge stash of older images I never uploaded, so the raw material is there; I'll just have to be more disciplined. Retirement is hard. How is it that I always had more time to get things done when I actually had a job?