Taking on writing is a rougher task than I expected. Sure, I knew the writing would be a tough slog, but what compounds it is that for each bit of writing there’s a ton of research. Like a boxer getting ready for a fight. HOWEVER the research can be fascinating whether you’re trying to learn about parallel universes (if they exist, how they exist, do only crackpots or do serious physicists think they exist), or how contemporary Iran is a direct result of US intervention (CIA deposed their talented secular leader Mosaddegh in 1953 in order to prop up BP oil interests) or taking an online class in Shakespeare to try to learn/remember what exactly is so amazing about his work. This morning’s goal was to look into the Nazi SS.
Memory: I’ll never, ever forget touring Auschwitz camp in 1988, where 3 million people (90% Jewish) were heinously assassinated (I can’t bring myself to use the word “exterminated” but that’s probably the right word) before and during WWII. (http://auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm) There’s nothing like walking through the actual death camp and being physically, mentally, spiritually present in the evil place. Poland was communist then, and traveling within a totalitarian state was intimidating, probably riskier than I realized (or than I shared with my Mom who allowed the trip), but fascinating as well. It took me/us out of the oblivion of Middle Class America forever and into a world where groups like the KGB or Gestapo had once reigned supreme. It also made me realize that any country, including our own, could spin out of control in a similar fashion, given the right/wrong circumstances.

Interesting link: http://www.historyplace.com/…/biogra…/heydrich-biography.htm