Taking Family Leave Again

When I see a blog that hasn't been updated in months, maybe even years, I think "abandoned real estate."  I always try to announce when I'm going to be away and might be back.

I'm going to be away again, maybe until the end of the year. And if I go to the end of the year, that probably means until the middle of January.

We had a nearly twenty-year period when we were heavily into elder care for three family members. That ended three or four years ago. I can't even recall when. Now this year we have jumped a generation and are into care for a younger group in the family. For the second time in under five months, we have someone needing assistance. A second person. He may be looking at some recovery time I want to be available for.

Original Content is always where I can find some time and energy. Just don't do anything here for a while and Voila! Some time and energy! 

This time, though, I'm going further. Until the end of the year I don't expect to be attending writers' workshops, doing market research, making submissions, and following publications and authors. If and when I have some psychic energy, I will try to use it for writing. 

For the time being, my mind is other places, and you won't see much of me here. 

The Reading History Project: "Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Powers"

Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Powers by Nancy Isenberg will be published November 10th. I read a copy provided by NetGalley.

Historian Nancy Isenberg states her theme early on in Aristocracy, American Style: "The wealthiest Americans have always wanted more than the money that places them on the Forbes list." "...what the wealthiest Americans want...is to embody aristocracy." 

I'm not sure that Isenberg makes a good case for what, exactly, an American aristocracy is beyond a group that has a great deal of money and that doesn't care how it gets it. She includes so much under the aristocracy umbrella...sports and crime hierarchies, as well as the evolution of business hierarchies in the twentieth century, for instance...that it can become difficult to take everything in. While she follows a chronological timeline, the wealthy groups she covers are unique to each period, though they often share characteristics. Once she's in the twentieth century, she often loops back to the late nineteenth century's Gilded Age Robber Barons, for instance. Otherwise, she doesn't follow any "aristocratic" group down through generations or time, which is what "aristocracy" connotes for many of us.

She does make a good argument that 

• Americans to this day remain attracted to a feudal-type system, with subordinates serving a master and loyalty being demanded and rewarded. Isenberg comes back to feudalism over and over again. 
• The "self-made man" is a myth. The people who made it the farthest in America had mentors or connections to wealth.
• We've seen a lot of political nepotism in this country. Again, to this day. Nepotism exists within Ivy League college admissions, as well. Isenberg says the U.S. is the only country that still recognizes legacy admissions.
• Our press and popular culture are filled with aristocratic terminology: "King Cotton. "Hollywood royalty." "Robber Barons." "Kingmakers." 

What Aristocracy, American Style may leave many readers feeling is that the rich have always been with us in our so-called classless society, they've never particularly cared how they became rich, and the rest of us just watch it happen.

  

Friday Done List October 2, 2026

I'm going to have to hammer this thing out because it is the end of Friday, October 2. I missed last week's Done List because we were traveling the first few days of the week. Then we got home in time to prepare for a nor'easter that wasn't too grim, but lasted 3 days. 

I also prepared for this week. My birthday was on Monday, and my present to myself was additional working time for a week. But that meant I had to get life management work for this week wrapped up by Sunday morning of last weekend.

So what have I actually done for work these last two weeks?

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor 

• I made two submissions.
• I took two Zoom workshops.
• I registered to attend an author presentation, but it was cancelled. But I get credit for registering!
• I did some work both weeks on market research. 

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself and My Work

• I finished and published a blog post.
• I did some minimal promotion for that blog post.
• I wrote a third of another blog post.

Goal 4. Begin Some Writing on the 19th Century Novel Idea

• The trip we took had a connection to this project and resulted in a few ideas.
• I rewrote the first chapter of this book for maybe the third time. Could be fourth. Dramatically different from first draft. I think I've got it now.
• The first workshop I took was definitely related to this project. I used this project for the generative portions of the second workshop. That was helpful.
• And, you know what? The invasive species talk I went to at a library near here Wednesday may have connections to this project. I'm counting it.