Whither Fred?

Sorry I've been around less than usual. The main cause of my absence has been a large project that engaged a lot of us freelancers for a publisher that needed research done. It's for an annual award that attracts a lot of buzz, and so there is an intense screening process to kick the bums out and keep the stars. It was a lot of work. Not enough to pay the mortgage this month, but a lot of work. 

It's discouraging to feel like you're in a race not to get ahead but to lose ground less quickly, but alas, that is where I and so many of us are running these days. 

If you're having a banner year in your business, good for you! I am not jealous. Besides, if the government confiscated all your dough and that of a dozen like you, it would not even pay for ten minutes of its spending. Years ago, when I was blogging on another platform, I ran the numbers for how long the United States government would be funded if it just up and stole every nickel from every billionaire in the country, all assets turned instantly into cash. I think it was about a week and half, if that. Feel free to do the figures yourself -- it's too depressing. 

So the nation at large is losing money at an enormous rate, and so are most of the nations on the planet. There's going to be a reckoning somewhere along the line, I imagine. The only thing I know for sure is that the people who caused the problem will not be the ones suffering from it. 

Meanwhile, the black bear situation remains unresolved. Twice since I reported it here last month, I saw the bear head down to the wooded area behind the house, passing through each neighbor's yard once. I was outside with the dog one afternoon when a guy walking by with his own dog yelled to me, "There's a bear up the block!" To which, like the man in the famous joke, I could reply, "Yes, I know." 

Here's the results of the informal bear poll I took around the neighborhood: 

It's a little nerve-racking that the bear is out and about when it's dark in the morning, because so am I with the dog, because I have insomnia and when I'm up the dog wants to be out. It's also nerve-racking that three times in the last month I have had to remove piles of bear poop from the backyard. It's enough to make Captain Poopy resign his commission. 

I guess that's a new skill I can add to my résumé: bear scat removal. Although considering a lot of the books I've worked on, trying to clean up clumsy language or poor research, I think that's a task I've been doing for years. 

All of this may sound like a lot of whining, unless you happen to be British, in which case it sounds like a lot of whingeing. And that's fine. One day I'm going to compile a book from my most popular blog entries as the Best of Fred, and the title will be Always Explain, Always Complain.