I mentioned the other day that F&SF is where my passion lies in writing.  It's true, and it's where my passion lies in reading.  Don't get me wrong.  I've read plenty of other areas, but rereading for the love of the story seems to be limited to that body of stories that ignites something intrinsic within me.  Sitting at my desk, I'm looking at a shelf with Clifford Simak's City, Wilbur Smith's Men of Men, Leon Uris's Topaz, Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife, nine Silverbergs, ten Rick Shelleys, half a dozen Kim Stanley Robinsons, three of my five John Scalzis, and etc.  ninety percent or more are F&SF, the majority of those are science fiction. 

Teri and I have been married for over thirty years, together since September of 1978.  Some of those old paperbacks have been with me for far longer.  I bought City in a used book store in Albuquerque.  The store opened to the back of a strip mall fairly near my local library.  I paid a dime and an even older paperback, or perhaps $0.50 and didn't have to give up anything.  It sold new for $0.60. 

Does this mean that I have passion, or that I'm a pack-rat?  I think, yes.  Do other people love their books more?  Probably so.  If you want to get into a competition about who wants to stroke their paperback's spine and mutter "Precious," then I will grant you the victory.   I've never made a direct inventory of all my literary possessions, and I have a stack of two hundred or so books to read, so I'm not compulsive in either of those directions.  I don't have the newest  David Weber, or all of anybody at all.  I've read all of Robert Heinlein's fiction, as far as I know, but about thirty years ago I stumbled on The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, and then The Puppet Masters in quick succession, so I'm ripe and ready to be surprised again.  I had a moment of excitement this evening when I looked up _All You Zombies_, but then I read about it and wrote that as brand new fiction only a few months ago.  I don't know where he got it.

Anyway, I love my books, I love reading and writing speculative fiction, and I'd love to read and write a lot more.  But tonight, I'm going to bed, so that I can get up in the morning and hurry off to file many records at my day job.  I did type 3000 words of fiction today, which has made my left hand hurt. There may be something significant about that.