{"id":7696,"date":"2014-02-06T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=7696"},"modified":"2014-02-06T08:17:19","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T12:17:19","slug":"no-better-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-better-time","title":{"rendered":"No better time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s the 11th anniversary of the first post of Virtual Memories. I usually forget my blogiversary, because my life’s gotten way too hectic. In recent years, it’s been a matter of work, reading, podcasting, and being a good husband and dogfather. Not much time to write, and not a lot of time to think.<\/p>\n

Last night, I confirmed a podcast session with D.G. Myers<\/a>, a professor, writer and critic who will be dead within 18 months from prostate cancer. We’re planning to get together in late March or early April, to talk about books, the academy, and mortality. I’ve interviewed guests in their mid-80s, but never someone who clearly sees the terminus up ahead. I don’t know why he’s consenting to do this; if I was in his boat, I’d be a gibbering wreck or I’d be bungee-jumping in New Zealand (again).<\/p>\n

Of course, we’re all<\/em> in his boat. I’m sure he’s making the best of the time he has left. (Myers just\u00a0tweeted<\/a>, “I don’t understand why people are so afraid of death. The day after, they won’t remember a thing.\u201d)<\/p>\n

I’m in the middle of trying to change my life. I’m about to leave the job I’ve had for almost 15 years \u2014 and the company where I’ve worked for nearly 17 years \u2014 so I can start a related business. I might be the only knucklehead who’s quitting a secure job for the great unknown in this job market, but there it is. This new gig might mean I spend a lot more time in D.C., so perhaps I’ll get to writing on train rides, even if I’m a lot older than David Gates<\/a> was when he wrote Jernigan<\/em> in legal pads on the LIRR.<\/p>\n

When the “farewell to Gil” issue of my magazine comes out next month, I imagine I’ll hear from readers who enjoyed my work, my editorials, our conversations at conferences over the years. E-mails to that effect have already trickled in as the news of my departure has started to spread.<\/p>\n

As gratifying as those notes are, it’s here at Virtual Memories that I’ve been trying to build something \u2014 in text and in my podcasts \u2014 that’ll outlast me. Thanks for sticking around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s the 11th anniversary of the first post of Virtual Memories. I usually forget my blogiversary, because my life’s gotten way too hectic. In recent years, it’s been a matter of work, reading, podcasting, and being a good husband and dogfather. Not much time to write, and not a lot of time to think. Last … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “No better time”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-208","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5479,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dirty-water-dog-2","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":0},"title":"Dirty Water Dog 2","author":"Gil","date":"July 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Another stay-at-home vacation day, another hike! Maybe it's another sign of whatever mid-life-ish thing I'm approaching, but when I thought about stuff I could do today, like go to the city, or see an art flick, or wander around a used bookstore, or even survey the retail landscapes of northern\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ghost-boat","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":1},"title":"Ghost boat","author":"Gil","date":"May 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Creepy story about a boat washing up in Barbados, filled with mummified corpses of African immigrants. Some of the passengers wrote goodbye notes which, as you'd expect, are the saddest things in the world: I would like to send to my family in Bassada [a town in the interior of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ghost-boat#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5029,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/crumbs","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":2},"title":"Crumbs","author":"Gil","date":"February 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's entirely possible that I have brain damage. In the main, I see virtually everything abstract in terms of geometry and\/or symbolic logic. Listening to a baseball game on the radio, I'm rarely visualize anything more than a standard scorecard diamond. Any hit to right or left field only travels\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1329,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/little-big","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":3},"title":"Little, Big","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Around 7:30 last night, I clicked around the channel guide and noticed that King Kong was going to be on HD at 8pm. I wasn't much interested in it as a movie, but figured it'd have some neat visuals. I hit the rest of the movie channels in the guide,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apes"","block_context":{"text":"Apes","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/apes"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1392,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/explain-that-to-st-peter-mon-general","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":4},"title":"Explain that to St. Peter, mon General","author":"Gil","date":"March 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's all a bit of a blur after I invented wine. --Bacchus Doing the Islands with Bacchus, a collection of comics by Eddie Campbell, is one of my all-time faves. Consisting of a travelogue of Bacchus and friends around the Greek islands, the comics relate the \"real\" stories behind some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":519,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/movin-on-up","url_meta":{"origin":7696,"position":5},"title":"Movin’ on up","author":"Gil","date":"April 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Dad got moved from the ICU upstairs to the regular cardiac ward today. The orderlies sorta dropped him into bed, which caused him immense amounts of pain, but he's doing okay. His throat's a mess, from the extended use of the breathing tube, so swallowing his pills has been tough.To\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7696"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}