Checking in...

Kate and I have spent most of the last couple of weeks in Lakeside, Michigan, sunning our writing-ravaged bodies in the last rays of summer. And there's no internet at my parents' house, so blogging has been forced to a back seat. I LOVE it up there. It's pretty, quiet, full of good, fresh food, and there's nothing to do but read cheap paperbacks and cavort in the Lake. The beaches are almost deserted. The water is warmish and there is no salt to sting your eyes. I'm constantly agitating for a house there someday. Thank God life has been pleasant, because the GOP convention certainly wasn't. I was forbidden to watch it by a respected medical professional, so I had to be content with reading the morning-after wrapup in the Times. Even that meant several hours of quiet vomiting. In the midst of digging out from under several hundred emails, I answered a few questions for a regular comment-er on this website, Chris Jordan. You might enjoy it. Recently read "Acid Dreams," a history of LSD which has been out-of-print for many years. Fascinating story--though a grim one, especially the aspects of government control and manipulation. An even better book on a related subject is "The Search for the 'Manichurian Candidate'" by John Marks. Anybody interested in the story of the Cold War--as well as a glimpse of how the US government (and probably every other government) really works--should read it. And now, back to Michigan for a day or two. There are more crynoids and beach glass to collect. And Drier's baloney to eat. And burgers to grill...Remind me again why I ever leave?