I’m here now. I kept my promise to myself first. I did read a lot of New York Times. The basket’s still full, but I made a dent. I also watered everything, including me—I swam. I also filled the two new humidifiers, tended my ancient Christmas cactus and—well, you know what it’s like. It’s puttering, all the things you do that aren’t work, aren’t on a list, but have to be done to keep the place functioning.

I’m here now.

And the question was, why did they ask me? The answer takes me back to an earlier question: why did they invite me to write a guest column for radio? Subject? Topic? Theme? A Day in the Life? Whatever.

Anyway, they liked it and it became a daily (five-days-a-week) report. I guess you could say it was my first blog. They called it Betty Jane’s Diary. I called it a word from your Big Sponsor in the Sky. I wrote three or four week’s worth, one and a half minutes each, and recorded a package, which ended up being broadcast by independent radio stations across Canada (and Australia, I later learned). I developed a ninety-second mind, which is probably why most of my blogs are so short. Not that short. I’ve been fighting a demon lately, as you may have noticed.

So they commissioned me to do an interview, one-on-one, with each of 20 people, two from each province, to be assembled in a book to be published as a corollary of the Big Show. aka A BOOK.

Problem solved. Mine was just beginning.

This has taken me over an hour. It’s five a.m. now and I have to go back to bed.

Hang in there.