A still-here post

-I have a book contract! I'd say WOOHOOO, but I don't think that covers it. What I had before was a book deal, which is not the same thing, but which is still a publicly-announced thing, which... if you're not me, you almost certainly don't care, but if you're writing a book or thinking about it, this is maybe useful information?

-I wrote about friendship for TNR. Could have written endlessly more on the topic. An alternate, probably unpublishable version would have gone into my various middle-school neuroses (specifically, anxieties centering on not having 'guy friends' or friends from other schools).

-If you spend the day hearing and using only French, and are in a partially Francophone country, it seems very, very odd that people are speaking English on the street. Old news, I suppose, for my many Canadian and Belgian relatives, but a new one for me. Also: It takes only a couple months in Canada (at least for this part-Canadian) for the English here to start sounding default and the US variety, all regions, to start sounding vaguely like a Texas accent.