The hiatus is so the regular writers and I can have lives, those who do, bask in family reverie and angst, and do all the silly sentimental things you all do during this time of year.

The magazine you are reading is my favorite mistake.

You can't imagine how many well-meaning friends have argued that I should drop the whole thing. "Write fiction!" they said. "Do what you love!" And then there are all the other "well-meaning" people who have said, "Hey, you've been doing this for ten years. Let somebody else take over"

And every now and then, in unexpected ways, somebody comes along and says, "Good job, Old Son." That happened Friday morning. It was a bolt from the blue and a special act of holiday kindness. Thanks, DARHL STULTZ. The leopard will not change his spots. G21 seems like part of my destiny, while I attempt to continue my so-called life. Hehehe!

So after that epiphany, you must surely expect knowing Life of Rod, I was hit by "these things come in threes."

1. I called California at 7 (Eastern Standard Time) on Friday evening to track down an important news story I'd been hyping for months on our COMING ATTRACTIONS page, and which I'd been repeatedly promised I'd have on my desktop no later than Friday at 5:00 p.m. This story had gone through three writers, various assurances. And it wasn't there. A series of phonecalls back and forth followed and by 8:30 p.m. I knew I was ass out. It happens.
   
   
2. The mail-server at my new Web Host/Partner goes down at approximately 8:45. Eudora, my mail program, alerts me that I have lost the connection. I know by Saturday afternoon it will be down all weekend. Wonderful.
   
   
3. I check the merchandising links other than the one on this site and discover that Partner doesn't supply a direct link to our "online store." (That place where you can pick up our promotional swag.) With friends like these....

So I wake up this morning and I only have three stories to edit before writing this article. Normally, I would feel triumphant, ahead of the game. But my frustration with the new arrangement hangs over me like a dark cloud.

Oh well. Get to work!

This is It!

Also new to these pages is a submission by Louisiana attorney DAVID TYSON SMITH in AMERICAN DREAMS. It's a parable that I found especially in keeping with this time of year.

The third of this triumphate is a sadly touching piece by ED CANTARELLA on family responsibilities in RDR. It's not what you'd expect...

As you can see on the cover, we have a lot more going on this week. So take your time with this edition. Savor it. And we'll still have RDR's up during this hiatus to tease your brain.

My Glass House

Seems like the perfect time to slow the pace a little, work on some design changes, and offer sacrifices to all the household spirits. Candles are in order, too.

My sister-in-law writes me that my mother is disappointed I shall not be able to make it for the holidays. I find that one of the writers here has lost a person close to him and that another is suffering a more vivid, though no less wrenching, type of loss. My telephone calls are always the same: I listen, I question, I console, I elicit laughter. Even when I call my closest friends, it seems that I demur from talking about myself. I press to hear about The Other and then, out of compassion, determine that there is no need to burden them about myself. "You know me. More of the same. I'm hanging in." Then cut to a joke. I begin to tell them about the magazine. Some new writer I've found. I act as if talking about G21 is the same as talking about me. The smart ones know it's a lie, of course, but they let me get away with it.

Right now I'm happy to see a lot of the world around me go into "Shutdown" mode. It will give me breathing room to handle a few problems, keep a couple of threats at bay. It will also allow me the space to be creative for a week or so. To play.

THINGS THAT I'M PONDERING THIS WEEK

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He is now a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appears both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others.

Rod lives in Baltimore, MD, at the moment (though it seems to most people he *actually* lives on the Web,) edits the writing of people from six continents for The World's Magazine, and wonders who The Last Woman will be in his "spare time." Rumor has it he is considering moving to Tahiti and writing about what The World was like before he left.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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