I'm not so sure about my son Matt. He said he was fine while I was away for so long and I was glad of that. I said it made me feel relieved that he would be fine after I died. But he is lonely. At that, he has made "friends". The people he works with (he is a buggy-gopher at a grocery store, part-time) all like him. He knows most of the people in his (subsidized) apartment by name. He has an on-and-off girlfriend. But he is lonely. So am I.

His working schedule is capricious, changing from week to week, so we have to adjust to it to make our plans, for entertainment or meals or shopping, or for me to check his room and clothes and so on. We were going to make a day of it yesterday but he had to work. Now he has the weekend off. He's going to come for a swim and dinner tomorrow but he called today and guess what? We'll have today, too, and I am happy with that. He has just arrived to spend the rest of the afternoon with me and we will walk to a Swiss Chalet for dinner - they have a two-for-one dinner special until the 14th of September. We like chicken. I'm just working, gradually - too gradually- catching up with all I have to do: letters that nobody answers; pitches, ditto; attempts to break the sound barrier between me and new potential producers/publishers of my work. Plus personal letters. I have to write all the people I'm not going to see at the birthday party I'm not having.

So here I am, here we are. I'm writing my blog before we go out. We should go swimming (second time today, for me). Maybe.

Well, lots to do.

I still miss the ship.

News item from the NYT today: "For the first time, a billion people used Facebook in a single day last Monday - that's one out of seven people on Earth logged in....Facebook had 968 million daily active users in June. Most people on Facebook live outside the United States and Canada."

Elsewhere on the Earth, people were leaving their homes seeking survival in a safer place, being shot at or shooting, starving or being starved, all those things people do when they're not online. It's scary, isn't it? I have never bothered with Facebook. I thought it would be time-consuming and invasive so I didn't try. My favourite news channel gives me little shots of Facebook, human interest stories that go "viral".

VIRAL: relating to or involving an image, video, piece of information, etc., that is circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another: a viral video ad | the video went viral and was seen by millions. (online Dictionary)

Not knowing what happens on Facebook, I sort of assume that the appealing things that go viral are the essence or perhaps the above average items of interest, like funny cats; jaunty dogs; monkeys in sheepskin jackets; bears peeking through the viewfinder of a camera; nice fathers telling their teeny little kids they can be gay if they want to be; or whatever. I would never be considered viral, not in my wildest aka mediocre dreams.

Someone put me on Facebook, I don't know who or how. But I am told that my blog is on and do you know what? I am told that I have 19 hangers-on or - what do you call themFans? Friends? Likes?

HITS!

It's not a billion, of course, but it's a beginning.