[sylvaticus]

Thank you, everyone, for the great responses! I'm embarrassed at how long it's taken me to get back to responding.

My head was completely awash in all things Apple and Mac, and I completely lost touch with any semblance of GTD. Now, I'm finally getting back into the thick of it.

I'm still in love with my computer (how could I not be), and a little blue to see that the Mac Pro line is about to be refreshed, and there will go my "bragging rights." Ha! Still plenty to brag about, I know! :-)

I did indeed end up using Mail, iCal, and Address Book, exactly for the reasons suggested. I like them, but there are some serious flaws in them, eg, iCal has no appointment conflict detection! I ended up with two events overlapping. I called Apple because I thought surely a feature like this that has been around for over ten years (on Windows) must be present, but nope! The person who answered the phone told me the tech thought that was a good idea and they would think about adding it. WTH(eck)? There are some other issues like that, but on the whole they're still OK. And, as you all have observed, it's the hooks.

@Brian:
You're welcome; you've earned them!!

@Word Processing:
I actually haven't done much writing of late, and oddly, TextEdit is filling what writing needs I currently do have. I think Pages will work well for more advanced processing, and since I have been learning more about InDesign, that might be be final, do-anything-and-everything word processor when I need all the muscle I can get.

Of course, I will miss the ability to format on the fly for Chicago, MLA, etc. That might be one reason to consider getting something other than TextEdit, Pages, and InDesign. Perhaps there is a plug-in for Pages or InDesign that doesn't cost a fortune?

@pvonk:
I'd be interested to hear why, with Pages, you use Scrivener for your book. I did end up getting Circus Pony Notebook, but haven't really used it. I wanted to set up some formatting and was completely defeated. I'm sure I'll come back to it; I miss MS OneNote and so appreciate what Notebook offers!

@Richard:
Salve, Tu Bone Vir! Tu valde dixisti! I guess I'm more an "aspiring classicist." Thank you for the tip on setting my keyboard to type polytonic Greek! I'm still working with Latin currently, but I've now added the Greek, Hebrew and Devanagari (Sanskrit). Thank you!!

I'd love to chat over email or IM sometime about Macs for scholarly use if that's not too weird or nerdy. :-)

Thank you again, all. I'm thinking about OmniGraffle and OmniPlan as well. I'm not sure how often I'll need them, but when you need them, you need them!