There were so many events I promised to participate in in the years before COVID, so many promissory notes that are coming in now, that I am overwhelmed.  And I have a feeling that all these conferences won’t happen anyway, that we’ll have another wave very soon and it will all go back to zoom, or they’ll be postponed again.  Still, I find myself writing lectures and encyclopedia entries instead of enjoying myself with friends.  My old friend in Japan says hodahoda ni – take it easy, be an elderly citizen (and today is elderly citizens day in Japan) but I’ve promised too much, and all I can promise now is that I will try.

And I will try not to care that the smell of war is in the air.