I write for surprise. I also cartoon for surprise. Sometimes I just start sketching and something materializes on the page. This happened tonight. There was a board meeting. I had the agenda in front of me. I didn’t have a pen, so I got up and got one.

I first drew an open book; then books holding this book upright. I then drew stick figures jumping off the book. I next wrote words on the spine, words that indicated that there was a situation of duress going on.

It was funny but also indicative of the fact that I am overwhelmed and anxious now, most of the time. My feelings also make themselves apparent when I draw faces, some of which at times appear to be quite tortured.

Tonight, all this in spite of the fact that the meeting went well, in that everyone got along and was congenial. However, more is needed. We need a concerted effort to get everyone on the fundraising bandwagon.

There, in those words, is yet another cartoon.

I do wonder at times if in working on this project, if I’m just practicing writing avoidance. I feel best when I’m writing, with the exception of dispatches. I don’t often go into the zone when writing dispatches. They are merely a writing exercise, and a way of writing down what I think should be remembered (by me) or recorded (by others).

Someone may someday read all these dispatches in their entirety, but I think not. All that’s on computers is ephemeral and won’t last into perpetuity. Writings on paper, that’s a different matter, although these works last, at best, 500 years.

And now we must deal with the fact that Amazon is going digital with print material and subsequently shredding the print material. I’ve heard about this from a variety of sources.

It is my hope (there’s that word again) that others will do as we are doing with the book project and save books by taking them in and then getting them out into the mainstream.

Today a woman from Nugent’s Ranch entered the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel and said that she was from Nugent’s Ranch, which is an drug and alcohol treatment facility. She requested and was given two boxes of dictionaries. Imagine that. Books that I thought would never go, and that in time I’d have to send on to the recycling center. And sad to say, in the past I have parted company with dictionaries.

Let this be a lesson to me. Save what I can because someone will eventually want it.

And hopefully (there’s that word again) others will do the same.

It’s late and I’m again feeling overwhelmed. I have a simple task, which tomorrow is to go to Sutton and get their fiction discards. Why does this, at this late hour, seem like such a difficult task? In the morning it will not. I know this from experience.

Too much to do. A big problem.

Next: 245. 9/15/26: I know you Ryder. .