Three years less a week ago, I was enjoying the company of arrius at the Islamic Society of North America conference at Chicago; three years ago today, I had finished looking over the voluminous catalogs and literature I'd accumulated at the conference, a pleasant distraction from working on my thesis. Three years ago tomorrow, I began my day having coffee with piscis, clearing the floor for legal pads and notetaking on Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians; I flipped on the TV to see the weather and flipped the channels, stopping for what looked like an unusual major fire in an New York office building being shown on the normally inane morning shows...

Ten days from now, piscis and I will leave Pittsburgh, and cross half the continent to settle within sight of the mountains, and serve Japan and Asia as The Missionary Sysadmin (which is sort of like the Happy Phantom, but not really) for ACME International ("$WESENDMISSIONARIES").

Nine years ago, less ten days, I have the first record of yaga e-mailing me about Violence Engine. Which, as the man once said, has a different plot and different characters, but is still the same story...

Two evenings ago, my godson and his dad came over so he could see Star Wars for the very first time, with us! (We have the analog version, you see.)

Two ages ago, roughly, the Love that Moves the Sun and other Stars was two-thirds ready to be born into this world -- tiny and helpless, like HRZ's little girl, born a week ago. The mystery of time is part of this plan, for death and life when the time has fully come, an intention to unite all things in heaven and on earth in that Love.

September is a funny month, it's the end of the year, it's the beginning of the end, it's here for the last two years: 2002 A.D. ; 2003 A.D.

And as long as you're here, you may as well savor the delectable filet o' Chesterton out front there -- it's a beauty!