Hurricane Sandy had many repercussions, not just in the loss of a place so important to 
bunny_hugger and me. A novel one just mailed me back.
This person my brother knows decided to put together a book intended to raise money for Sandy relief. The purpose was to gather humorous writings inspired or informed by the storm. He nudged me to write something for it, even though I really couldn't have been much less directly involved if I'd tried, and even though I was stuck thinking of any humorous angle to take on it. But I did finally find something --- the frustration of trying to follow an intensely local story in the riot of news and rumor that couldn't offer the precision that I needed --- and set about writing as much as I could about that.
Well, they accepted it, for publication in the book proper.
This is, I believe, the first time I've written something of any substance that was taken for publication in a normal-channels sort of book. I've had little blurbs printed, and had academic books published, but those are inherently weird circumstances and nothing like normal book-writing. Here, though ... they want a short biographical blurb so they can explain to readers who I am alongside getting into my piece.
(Of course, I can't help thinking how the piece is flawed, most severely by how it just ends rather than coming to a thematically satisfying conclusion; and I realize that one joke got muddled as I edited the piece before submission, missing part of the setup. But the editors seem satisfied.)
More news to come, as it comes.
Trivia: Percival Lowell charged about seven hundred canals on Mars. Source: The Quest For Alien Planets: Exploring Worlds Outside The Solar System, Paul Halpern.
Currently Reading: Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America, James T Patterson.
PS: Reading the Comics, January 21, 2013, because there's just that many mathematics comics these days.