Here are a few things I have done this morning.

• Bought shuttle tickets to get me to and from Chicago for my flight home to Connecticut for Christmas.
• Paid the gas bill.
• Paid my cellphone bill.
• Salted down my credit card.
• Bought Christmas presents for my nieces.
• Enjoyed a nice seasonal IPA.

I also have set aside the exorbitant fee for boarding my dog for a week. (Seriously: I adore my dog; I can’t imagine my life without my dog; don’t get a dog.) I also am just in far better financial shape, and feeling much less stressed and more secure, than I was a week ago. All thanks to you. The response to my Christmas funding drive has been overwhelming, in both the practical and emotional sense. My awkward attempts to express that gratitude would be lame for us both so please take my word for it that I am incredibly grateful and deeply moved. I have a lot of individual thanks to give out in the near future.

In the meantime — after a great deal of negative reaction, I have unpinned two posts that previously were stickied to the top of the blog. Pinning those there was my small attempt to highlight particular kinds of intellectual work that I do here to prospective employers and job search committees, but the response from regular readers has been so negative that I’ve gone ahead and removed them. And yes, I’m still contemplating going back to allowing comments, at least some of the time, in the new year.

Thanks, so much, to all of you.