As you no doubt have noticed by now, I’ve been a bit scarce in the blogosphere.

Chalk it up to several things: one personal, one technical, one financial.

When I found out that L. had died, it hurt. Bad. Then, within twenty-four hours, I learned of the death of an ex-girlfriend. Finding about the two of them in such a brief span of time didn’t just knock the wind out of my blogging sails. It knocked the wind out of me. I barely functioned in meatspace, let alone in cyberspace for a couple of weeks.

By the time the sharp pain of grief began to mellow, I then underwent a somewhat minor (ahem!) problem with my computer. For some reason, all my files got mixed up in Windows 7's libraries. Word processing files were, inexplicably, showing up in my video folder, videos in the music folder, mp3s in the picture folder, and images....everywhere.

I shoulda known something was about to give. Still, I got the shock of my life when all my files (including the notes and text of the current series) simply vanished without a trace.

Fortunately, I backed up everything. Unfortunately, I backed up everything haphazardly. I had to scramble to find everything I lost, do my best to restore the shredded files, and so on. It took me a week to get back everything, but get it back I did. There don’t appear to be any problems with the hard drive, just Windows 7. And since the problem seemed only to affect the libraries, I am weaning myself off of them.

The major reason for my absence was a project I took on starting in mid-December last year. It’s gobbling all my time and my gray matter. Right now, I’m wondering how the $#@! Charles manages to read a hundred books a year, write a couple more, lecture at his university AND maintain his blog. Me, I have to focus on one thing at a time. And as a freelancer, I can’t pass up anything big. I really have to make hay while the sun shines. So, that’s where a huge chunk of my attention has gone for the past few weeks. I’ll hopefully finish this thing sometime in mid-late May with a couple of bucks in my pocket.

As slow as the writing process has gone this year, it nevertheless had some good moments. Researching and writing about Anne Sexton proved immensely fruitful in and of itself, but your comments were particularly insightful. By the end of this series on the FMSF, I would hope that everyone understands my GOOD reason for writing about her. As for the REAL reason (and this is why I was so grateful for your comments–beyond what you can know at this time), I’m not prepared to disclose that fully. But the long and the short of it is that I discovered that Sexton and I had something very important in common. Something personal.

The series on the Children of God/Family of Love/Family International also proved to be beneficial as I have gotten comments and e-mails from former members, most of them from the second-generation. I try to keep my heart out of my logic, but I have to admit that I respect them, I don’t envy the trials they underwent, and I actively root for their success. If any of you guys see this, thank you so much for the feedback.

As for what Year Seven will bring, only time will tell. As always, I enjoy your company out here in cyberspace. I’m hoping that I’ll make an appreciable dent in my workload sometime soon so I can enjoy your blogs as much as I always have.