There are still Arabian wolves--- a small and gracile breed. I do like the idea of small Arabian wolves coming down out of the hills of Oman and shyly asking me if I'd ever met Wilfred Thesiger.

The little non-extinct Sith Thylacines and I sometimes see small spectral Samoyeds herding ghost reindeer near the edge of the trees. We do wave to them. Once a few years ago I noted a brief conversation with one of our Samoyed friends:

Last night after midnight I saw a small, spectral Samoyed outside by the tree line.

"Hullo," I said. "What are you doing tonight?"

"I am helping herd ghostly reindeer," said the little Samoyed proudly.

"That is nice," I said. "Are you a ghost dog?"

"Oh, no," he said. "I am a subcontractor."

That seemed to make good economic sense.

Small spectral Samoyeds are quite fond of the Noggin Channel.

The Small Pika used to tell me that "Serial Experiments: Lain" was her vur' favourite aneem. I bought a set on her recommendation--- and, yes, "Lain" is vur', vur' good. I need to watch aneems again--- "Gilgamesh", "Tekhnolyze", "Last Exile". And I need to watch the old "Macross" and "Robotech" series. They were among the first aneems to develop multi-episode plot arcs, and they do have Yoko Kanno soundtracks. I used to tell the Small Pika that all literature and film would be better with Big Robots randomly added. That's certainly true of the Palliser novels, and vur' probably of "Emma".

Make a note: recommend Jan Blensdorf's "My Name is Sei Shonagon" to ginny_mccoo and winterbymorning and Lissy at emigree. It's one of those small books I always end up recommending to girls with a taste for things Japanese. And it's one of those books--- like Eberstadt's "Low Tide" and Dunn's "Failing Paris" and Cynthia Gralla's "The Floating World" ---I always hope to hear back about. There really are books I recommend because I hope lovely readers and correspondents will write me about them. I did love it when the Small Pika called me in the middle of the night to enthuse over Alan Booth's "Roads to Sata". The pettable little K-dot at citydress did the same with Wm. Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" and Italo Calvino's "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler". I need to talk about books--- that's something that does mean a lot.

There's a Dutch girl at Diaryland who calls herself PrettyTear. I just found her diary again today. I was surprised that she was still there--- surprised, but pleased. She's been at Diaryland since early in the Year One--- a year or so longer than I've been there. She was one of the vur' early diaries I read there, and she was one of the vur' first people ever to leave me a note. I left her a note saying that even six years later, she was still a charming read, and thanking her for that long-ago note.

One day I will go to my Diaryland notes and see how many of the first couple of dozen people to leave me notes are still out there. And I'll have to do the same thing at LJ--- even if only to see who it was who left me a first comment, and to write and thank them.

Notes and comments do matter. Voices matter. The past matters, too. I think I'll spend time this weekend reading through my vur' earliest notes and comments and entries and trying to remember the Year Two or the Year Three and wondering whatever became of voices from the Long Ago.

I'd like to hear comments and thoughts about books and lives here in the Year Eight, of course.

But this weekend will be a time for going back into the past and wondering about all the Missing...