This is the fourth leap year since I’ve started the blog; since it doesn’t come around often, I once again looked back at the last one for guidance and was reminded that in that column, I answered some questions I’d asked in 2016 and wrote, “Will I be around to answer these same questions on February 29th, 2024? Only time will tell.” Well, obviously I am around to answer them, so let’s look at them again, shall we?
Will I still be posting every day, or will I have wound down somewhat? How many new books will I have written? Will I still be living in Seattle? What will my income be like? What new experiences will I have had? How well-known will I be? Will the “sex trafficking” hysteria be over, as I predicted just before th[e 2012] Leap Day? Will I even be alive?
I’m still posting every day, but making it easier to decide what to write by now featuring a much larger number of regular weekly or monthly features than in the past, and by re-using older content which long-time readers may have missed or forgotten, and newer readers haven’t seen. I’m at six books now; I have several more in the works, but I haven’t had the energy to finish them and get them ready for publication; here’s hoping I can find that energy in the near future. I’m now living full-time at Sunset, and let my Seattle apatment go last year; it was rather sad, but it was the right thing to do. My income is much lower than it has been for many years, but so are my bills; thanks to a large donation from a generous reader, earlier this month I was able to eliminate an annoying standing debt incurred from finishing the annex project, so now I’m back to the blissful state of “no standing debt” and will do my best to stay there. I’m probably less well-known now than I was 8 years ago, partly due to blogs being largely replaced by podcasts and YouTube series and partly because everyone has there 15 minutes and it has to end sometime. The “sex trafficking” hysteria is at last over, though of course the terrible laws it spawned won’t go away for decades, if ever; though politicians and profiteers still use “sex trafficking” as a handy excuse for tyranny, other excuses have become more fashionable and at least the endless stories about idiots with taped mouths parading around to “raise awareness” of cops’ wanking fantasies have largely dried up. And as for new experiences, I’ve finally had the best one of all: after so many years of sturm und drang, I’ve at last found peace and a measure of contentment. And if I’m still writing this blog in another four years, that will be very difficult to top.
