I wrote the below intermittently in the latter half of August, which is now firmly in the past as I got overtaken with, well, much of the work described below. Rather than chuck it, though, I'm just sending it the way one would a half-written letter by hand, underscored with a dividing line beneath which the present catches up to the past.

Dear Friends,

We are more than halfway through August, and I'm struck by feeling something opposite to what I felt this time last year, when I was wrestling wit...