Quality, Not Quantity

Because you're smart, you may have noticed a steady decline in the quality of posts on this here blog, beginning on the downward slope on Christmas Day.

Or, you may not have noticed anything amiss at all, which says to me that the quality of this blog has been toilet doo-dooworthy for some time-- which is also possible, I have to admit. Hopefully, you've observed a difference. If not, well, I'll try to step up my game.

The reason for the deterioration of bloggy goodness is that, since Friday afternoon, my wife and I have been on vacation in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and environs. Ever the procrastinator, and ever-stricken as I am with my own quaint version of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I sat down on Thursday evening, the night before Christmas Eve Day, and hammered out blog posts for December 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th and, yeah, today. (It's funny, because I'm writing this on the 23rd, and calling the 28th "today." Maybe it just sounds funny to me because I have turned my brain into something resembling eight-day-old French Onion Soup.)

Why do I do it to myself? I don't know. Because I kid myself into thinking that you expect it of me, and that there is a "you" to begin with. Because, since I don't know when, I've done this every day, and I would feel terrible and naked and sad if one day rolled around and I didn't do this anymore. Of course, there was a me before blogging, and there will be a me after blogging, and one day I know I will stop for good, because that's what bloggers do (we're very good at stopping, at one point or another-- just ask any of us) but I'm just not ready to do that yet.

And, yeah, I could (and have) blog from my super-snappy, four-year-old smartphone with its QWERTY keyboard, but my thumbs aren't eighteen anymore. Back when my thumbs were eighteen, texting didn't exist, as hard as that is to believe. The most significant thing I ever did with my thumb before texting was shove it up my butt during thirteen years worth of mathematics instruction.

I've now officially been blogging for so long that I don't even remember what I like so much about it. It's changed, I know that. I remember why I started-- to get back at the oppressors who censured me and maligned my good name after finding something I had written online that bore my name. My real name. The one I keep hidden. So who am I getting back at, really? In the shadows, under the covers. Ridiculous. What am I afraid of, still? Well, the fact of the matter is that, if you're employed by anyone other than yourself, and you write like I write, you just can't use your name.

You just can't.

I can't.

But the tradeoff is that I can pretty much say whatever I want, at 7:18am, Eastern Standard Time.

And I think I really, really like that.