I woke up with a crick in my neck yesterday; today it is getting worse and worse. That laundry’s not going to sort itself, nor are the weeds going to wack themselves, but I’m not going to be doing the laudrying or the wacking today. I’m having to lay back against pillows and carry myself — when I walk — as though I’ve just barely survived a zombie throttling. My neck’s held stiffly and canted oddly to the right. (It may that in my movements today I resemble a zombie.)

So I had this epiphany the other day, reinforced today, as I’m not good for much but reading right now. I have a pile of single-author collections nearby. It is more fun to dip back and forth between them than it is to read them one after the other, that way I don’t get tired of one author’s tone and style. Well, yeah, you’re probably thinking, doesn’t everyone know that? Probably. I wish Captain Obvious had visited me with this and other lessons many years ago. I used to sit down with Leiber or Robert E. Howard and read them straight through and not mind at all. Now I prefer to mix things up. My current selections are a Matt Hughes book, Gist Stories, Brian McNaughton’s Throne of Bones, and William King’s Trollslayer.  

Howard