Welcome new readers?

I received a nice comment to a recent post from someone calling himself Maximus Doom -- exactly the sort of reader I'd expect given the kinds of posts I'm throwing up lately.

* Sigh. *

But it was a nice comment, so I thought I'd look the fellow up and see what he was selling. Maximus Doom, it turns out, is the proprietor of three websites, The Odd Normal, A Life's Pursuit, and Cranium Ink. And he is selling something... there was a t-shirt ad on each page with a link promising to show even more products by "maximusdoom." I don't have the time or energy or disposable income to follow up from there, but I can muster the energy to say, "Welcome, Max."

And I also recently received an old-fashioned "link exchange" request in my email from Jian Ping. She has a site called Smeared Type.

(I almost always go look when I get requests like this -- don't you?)

It turns out that Ms. Ping lives in Chicago and is the author of a memoir, Mulberry Child, about growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution. It is available on Amazon -- and at the Chicago Public Library. So, welcome, Ms. Ping; I have added your book to my reading list. (I must be going upscale....)

This would all be pretty heady stuff for me... if the mortgage and Younger Daughter's tuition payment weren't both overdue. So I will have to put my literary pretensions on hold yet again... and start working on timesheets.

* Sigh. *