Eye strain

At the Kennett Giant this afternoon a loyal "Unionville in the News" reader spotted me buying a soft pretzel (no mustard, please) in the lobby and asked if this was going to be part of my next column. I confessed to her that I've been so busy with work that going to the supermarket just might be a highlight of the week.
I'm a freelance book editor, and the past few weeks I have bitten off way more than I can chew (workwise, not the soft pretzel). Right now I'm working on a textbook on Integrative Dermatology and a treatise on Victorian literature, with a book on "Young Catholic America" to arrive any day.
I recently finished a book on the changing nature of protests in America (fascinating), a teacher's manual for a Communications course, and a history of the Muslim Brotherhood (talk about "ripped from the headlines").
But the project that has taken the lion's share of my time is proofreading a first edition of a 700-page ethics reader, an old-fashioned paper-and-pencil project that is heavy going to put it mildly. The typesetters consistently typed "modem" instead of "modern" and "die" instead of "the." Other mistakes I've found include "the cult of nacho" instead of "the cult of macho" and "lolled" instead of "killed." Yeah, there's a difference.
My deadline for this project is so tight that I couldn't even go out this morning and check out the flooding in Springdell. Ouch!