post 16 september

Even as I begin to write this, I know it won't be enough.

I have this dream of getting caught up with you, my once and future reader, but how? I lost you somewhere in the second half of summer, and my efforts to wrap up the summer in simple statistics are just not quite sufficient.

Ah, but when will this magical clarification and enumeration of all things worthy of your fascination take place? Not now, as I'm heading to bed early tonight. I need to be up at 4 to catch the first bus to Lviv. There, I'll take part in a very small portion of a conference for Window on America librarians. Next, it's onto a train to Kyiv, where I'll arrive at midnight, sleep for a hopefully sufficient number of hours, jump up eagerly out of bed, and run in a the longest race of my life. There's a marathon, too, but to me, a 10K is marathon enough. Having survived the race, I'll spend the next day in Kyiv, getting the medical and dental exams that will make up the last step of my extension-of-service approval process.

Yes, extension. Can you believe it? We have so much to talk about.

Dear reader, you're very important to me, and I'm going to make an effort to get back on track. Therefore, while I'm on track tomorrow-- the 11 hours or so between Lviv and Kyiv-- I'm going to write to you. Maybe not the whole time, no, and you might not get this message directly, as I'll be writing IN A Real Notebook, not on my notebook (the Ukrainian term for a laptop). I'm working on getting back into the practice of Real Notebooks again, too, thanks to some shinyfine inspiration and the desire to spend more time doing the things I love, especially writing.

And I had a birthday! And there's a new school year! And I have to go to sleep right now!

:)