Another week. Certainly didn't anticipate this stretch to reach into April, though it's much to be preferred to January. When the editing revenues crashed without warning, I was thankfully able to get a cheap flight back from Bucharest, after a final stint in the Pirin mountains, but without reserves, the times have been lean and threadbare. And immensely difficult.
Coming back after a few years in these circumstances had the unintended effect of reintroducing myself to the American mindset from a position of extreme difficulty, and my prosperity-boosting country has proved to be a bit difficult to take at times. Not the extremes, the basic mindset. And to be the evidently un-prosperous one is to hoe a tough row here. The contempt of the craven is a peculiar thing.
Fortunately, I still have the spiritual grounding in the church, however alienated from the local homiletics and pew-chatter I might be at the moment. And the library work, now almost exclusively centering on philosophy. After the last few years of eavesdropped courses online and reading focused by Oxford Bibliographies, I'm inclined to claim a bit of a competence, especially given the scattered graduate coursework in philosophy departments. And the physical discipline, despite the difficulties of the inexpensive gym: "When the water is muddy, I wash my cloak. When the water is clear, I wash my head covering."
Onward.