In our last post, which was really more of an explaination for an ensuing period of silence than a blog-suidcide note, honest, I suggested that I was uncertain whether I should continue to maintain this space. As you might guess from the title of this post, I’ve deciced that, yes, I’ll be sticking around a little while longer.

What I was hoping to learn from my time off was this: Why should I bother writing a blog when there are so many reasons not to? After having done this for so long (since 2002 in some form or another), and spending the end of each day facing down a headache and a dozen abortive blog posts, I’ve managed to collect a lot of those reasons not to.

Not blogging — not writing, in fact — has shown me some reasons for staying. One thing I discovered was that writing, for me, has become something like a biological imperitive. Now, there are many great artists who put pen to paper (or whatever) out of some broken psychological well-spring — but that in itself is no reason to think that the need to create is in any way related with the ability to, or skill required for meaningful personal expression. In abstinenence I found desire. But desire does not necessarily lend itself to skill.

The most important thing my mini-vacation taught me was how I’ve been looking at this whole thing all wrong. I know that my lack of skill will forever keep me out of writing as a profession. I’ll never be published in a magazine, or sell anything to a publishing company, I thought, so why bother self-publishing on the web. Obviously I’m not good enough to get paid, so obviously no one would want to read me at all.

It was this post over at Booksquare that changed my mind on this subject. (Also: It would be dishonest if I were to omit the fact that the most important factor in my decision to stick around awhile longer had to do with a very kind comment that someone left on my previous post. But more on that anon.) Kassia Krozser is talking about good authors who have trouble blogging well (“In fact, after long consideration, I believe that most authors should not blog, especially if they’re accepting the messy diarist definition of blogging.”), but I think it’s applicable to me because it’s just possible that the reverse is true. Some bloggers just should not write anything but blogs.

Actually, that’s a little too strong; I wouldn’t dream of telling anybody else what they should or should not write. So, let me rephrase that: This blogger, if he’s going to write at all, should stick to blogging. What’s more, I’ve been doing it for long enough already that maybe I should actually invest some effort in doing it better.

Of course, much of my decision-making process might have been influenced by that comment I mentioned earlier. It meant a lot to me — made my year, really. Thank you very much.

Are there still some doubts? Of course there are. Can I ever be good at blogging? Can I continue to afford to maintain this website? Will I be struck down by some horrible illness? Who knows? We’ll just have to go forward as long as we can, and try to figure this thing out. That’s what the future is all about, isn’t it?

Join us, won’t you?

Warning: This post is long, and doesn’t have much of a point. Am I being self-indulgent? perhaps — but then, the only person reading this is me.

The domain registration for this website is set to expire in about a week or so. Its renewal is a yearly ritual for me, like tax season or seasonal affective disorder*. Normally, I just get hung up on the money, but this year I started thinking about a different question. Why?

Why spend what little money I have on maintaining a website? I did have reasons, way back when. The main one is this: I used to talk a lot. I remember standing in the parking lot at work for up to an hour after my shift was over, just talking to whatever co-workers happened to be hanging around. There were lots of late nights at friends’ houses, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and mulling the imponderables of the universe until our throats were raw. Without the assistance of recreational pharmacology, even.

Talking is one of the great pleasures in my life. And I had a lot of things to say. So much so that it overflowed into a thousand little text files that wound up scattered on my hard drive. Eventually, it occurred to me  that I could publish them all on a website, and maybe have a conversation there.

Well, time passed, and after a continual series of personal and professional setbacks, wandering the badlands of the soul, and just generally being crushed and sickened by life, I’ve lost my loquacious streak. Now, I mostly crave peace and quiet. When I do talk, I have a tendency to complain, to be negative, to be highly critical. It’s not how I want to be. Cynical hipsters might be thick as flies in other parts of the world, but c’mon — I’m in Northern California, people. Here, I’m not considered funny or entertaining — guys like me are just assholes.

Is that what I want this site to represent? Asshole-ery? No.

I used to be very passionate about a great many things. Books, music, adventure, excitement, and really wild things. But all of those things take time, which I don’t have, and money, which I really don’t have. When I come home from work, I don’t want to spend my evening reading about the history of shoegazer music or Kantian philosophy — I just want the world to leave me alone, so I can get some rest and try to shake off the after-effects of another damn day.

Oh, but this blog. It’s always on my mind. Anything and everything that happens is, potentially, material for it. I’ve started a million posts, and have erased 99 percent of them, because nobody cares, for one, and, what’s more, a lot of that stuff is just none of your business.

I used to comment on culture quite a bit, but frankly, I don’t care about Brittany, or Lindsey, or Cloverfield, or the Man-Booker, or the writer’s strike. Or, okay, I might care a little, but I certainly don’t have an opinion that I feel compelled to share.

I still write every day, whether it’s a blog post, or a journal entry, or something for my commonplace book. And I do like the actual writing part — and it’s free, which helps — but I’ll never get paid for it. That’s alright, I know I’m not good enough at it to ever scrape together any pocket change for my worthless meanderings. But all of this output is like having a tap on my imagination and, man oh man, has that keg been dry for awhile.

The point is this: I’m tired. So very, very tired. And, not having a goal, or a reason to work so hard to maintain a site that my webhost seems barely able to keep online for an entire day is just a hell of a lot of work. I don’t want to give up my only out-going thread of communication — the one thing in my life that’s not wrapped up in the smothering blanket of work and family obligations. But I do need a break.

Let’s just call this a little vacation, hmm? A break for my wrung-out brain. The practical upshot is this: I’m giving up writing — all writing — for a little while. Perhaps I’ll return to this space fresh as a daisy, raring to go. Or, perhaps I’ll call my webhost and tell them to kill this tender little monster, and refund my last payment. I don’t know what will happen. I’ll let you know either way.

Let’s see. The last vacation that I took was back in … oh, say 2002. A buddy of mine and I went up to Oregon to visit a mutual friend. It was not the most relaxing trip I’ve ever been on. Let’s just say that, in rural Oregon, it’s not always a good idea for a pair of guys with California license plates on the car to hang out at the only waffle-house on the only street in a podunk, one-horse town. People make … assumptions.