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Something about the school year just takes it out of me. Whatever sort of blockage or death-wish or simple laziness is in me prevents me from posting for much of the year. I’ve actually written a few short pieces, but I’ve never gotten around to putting them up. Some of them are done, some not. Few of them are all that high-quality, but that’s not what blogs are about, now, is it? As Easter Break is beginning soon for me, I will post some of these out-of-date musings. (Some are not so out-of-date; to quote one of my favorite lines from C. S. Lewis, provenance forgotten, “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date”; some of these are, if not eternal, at least applicable to any particular time). I’ll also, I hope, write a few originals. One thing to think about over the break includes the adoption process, which really we should have begun already. We’ve seen the lawyer, but done little else. Also, I’ve been watching the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips, the newer one with Peter O’Toole, which is really quite the odd long film (halfway through it, it’s a whole new movie), and I’ve been reading Waugh, specifically The Sword of Honor, a book that meanders along in a quiet, occasionally funny, occasionally mystifying way, and then comes together all in a satisfying rush in the final book (there’s some oddity of revision and re-revision alluded to but imperfectly explained in the intro that might be worth investigating). That’s launched me on a re-reading of Brideshead, a rapturously written book, one that the gay man who gave it to me said had such a sad ending, but which I found ended rather beautifully and happily, if with a touch of the true melancholy with which the world is, I think, suffused. I’ll have to decide if that opinion from my first and only reading of the novel (I was 22, or so, working my first job), is accurate. I’ve also been reading, a bit, from The Mary Book, an anthology by F. J. Sheed last published in the 1950’s, that offers some food for thought. I had to do a little grammatical sleuth-work myself in the past few weeks, having tried to teach phrasal verbs and having the “textbook” I am using (actually, a PowerPoint projection prepared by a professor-friend of a professor-friend) blow up in my face. The stuff’s of interest to me, so perhaps I’ll bore my legions of happy readers with some of my own formulations. Much to look forward to, you have.