Took a monthlong break from the blog to focus on the podcast because the money situation is getting pretty dire and I have to start looking for sponsors; before I could look for sponsors, though, I had to boost the audience, which meant lots and lots of work—fun work, for sure, but it takes about 20 hours to produce an episode.

            But I’m back now to blogging and grateful indeed because I’ve noticed over the past month how, without the emotional and intellectual outlet of a diary, I get this…yearning quality in my conversations. I hear my own voice and it sounds kinda shrill. I’m compressing a million little things into every exchange. I become less man and more monologue—which I guess suggests this weird Performer’s Mindset where it almost feels like I haven’t learned or properly experienced something unless I relay it to somebody through writing. Like the way a dog needs to physically gnaw on something in order to Know it.

            By coming here and writing every day about random shit, I also feel like I’m scraping some accumulation of sludge from the walls of my head and flinging it off. Over the weekend, for instance, I was dogsitting for Bob and Lynda and I ate half of a family-sized bag of—as the label put it—Pitless Plums, which are apparently more colloquially referred to as “prunes.” When Bob relayed this to me, I checked the bag and saw that a suggested serving is ¼ cup. I had probably four full cups’ worth.

            That was two days ago. I feel now, in my stomach, what I normally feel in my mind after a week of solid blogging: empty. Light. Spry.

            So let’s get back to that.

            (Also, after a month of writing monologues with the intention of reading them aloud into a mic, I definitely noticed a change in my writing. Mostly the syntax. I’d put a period somewhere because I knew that I should have a kind of dramatic pause in that place. Lots of…ellipses. M-dashes. I’m wondering if writing for the blog and podcast concurrently, intensively, is gonna forge some weird new bi-medial writing style—or will I come to the blog for a more wily kind of chaotic discursive writing style and then resort to the podcast for a more performative, structured, audience-friendly and -focused platform.)

            Time’ll tell.

            I also wanna say that it’s been nice to hear from some of you who were concerned about my silence. It’s nice to think that, like a good tavern, I’ve attracted a cast of regulars. I appreciate your interest, your career, your general selves.

            The floodgates are now open.