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At 79 I am superannuated. Sounds like a Wells Fargo APR. I walk into a gas station and ask for directions. “Don’t you have a map on your cell?” I don’t answer, why bother to explain that I have a Jitterbug flip phone for seniors with large numerals. I really bought it because it is 5 star enabled which means I can get help immediately. Such is one concern at 79. Sometimes I am asked if I text. No, and this is met with bewilderment. I feel like responding alliteratively with I do matriculate, masturbate and masticate. An eharmony woman…

I just scanned Sunless, published in 2007 and reread “Echo,” a story about attachment and loss as well as love. It is strange for me to look back upon what I’ve written. Often the sense is who wrote these thoughts. At times I am pleased with the way they have been written. When you add up the amount of stories I’ve written, it amounts to 42, 27 in a book about the Holocaust, the other 15 in Sunless. I began writing short stories because I found them a good way to tell a story with concision. The i Tetralogy was my first novel…

In a few weeks I will submit my final edit of the above book which is an elegy and homage to my deceased wife, Nina. It is a moment of loose ends, checking the cover of the book as well as the back cover spiel by editor, David Herrle, who was also the consulting editor to what is now my eighth book. When all is completed it will go to the publisher’s editor for her final input and then back again to me to read once more and end tinkering with words and punctuation. Hopefully it goes to the printer…