2024 is slipping away, like water through fingers. Proof again, that I like the tried and the true. I felt the same way in 2023, 2022 and 2021. Why not merge two years and see what happens?

I am despondent tonight. The world I inhabit does seem to be crashing around me. The consultant that we hired told Pete and me what we already knew; that money talks, and with us it is whispering because there are not enough voices.

She says we have to get going on fundraising. Of course, we have to figure out what exact property we are going for. The problem, of course, is in deliberating between the options, we’d be wasting time. We must make a decision, and make it now, then get going on fundraising. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

In the meantime, I’m attempting to keep things going here, and also work on getting books to villages. OH yeah, and there’s the literacy project. Tomorrow I will meet with two volunteers, and guess what? I’ll have ideas on paper.

Some things keep me going. Oddly enough, I think that if I were to bag this project now, I would have a hard time continuing to live in this community. This might not be such a bad thing because then the horses and I would head south. And somehow, somewhere, I’d get them onto more extensive pasturage.

I would also have an ending for Shelf Life: A Book about an Overabundance of Books. This ending would contain the image of two railroad tracks, as it has been said, intersecting in infinity. There would be a perceived end point, but I will have gone down not being able to deal with an overabundance of books.

So have I, as an essayist, created my own reality or has my own reality created me? The last chapter might end up being a series of questions.

I had a blast with my past today. I was walking through the DMV when I saw, sitting in a chair, Gregory. This was the fellow who owned and then sold Saddle Up Equestrian Center. I sat down next to him for a minute, and we attempted and did not succeed in getting caught up. We both have too many stories.

I would like to know, for example, what became of his horses. I did ask about Britt, his wife ,who when I was last in communication with her, she was in the beginning stages of dementia. It sounded to me like she is now worse. I did not go and say hello because I did not have the time. I had to get back to the hotel and tend to the needs of the afternoon shift.

I am not able to prioritize. But I am good with time management. This sounds like a contradiction. Well, it is.

Next: 344. 12/18/24: And here I sit