So – how do you come
back? Thomas Wolfe says you can’t. Maybe he’s right and you really can’t go
home again. But what if maybe you can? I think you can. I don’t know it for sure, but in a fair world (yeah like that’s
not an oxymoron) burned-out bloggers can and do revitalize. Of course the big question in revitalization is what do you say about having been absent for
almost a year. Should you adopt an attitude of insouciance as in, “Hi honey, I’m
home!” ” Or is it better to serve up an
apology wrapped in angst and sprinkled liberally with mea culpas in the original
Latin? I think I’ll skip both if you don’t mind.
It’s funny how I'm talking to “you”, because I’m pretty sure
that “you” aren’t even here anymore. This is not the first time I lost my audience
via silence. It’s actually the second, but who’s counting. Obviously, just me. All I can say is I never made a conscious decision
to stop writing the blog. I like to blame it on starting the new ephemera site –
and that WAS a big piece of it -- but it doesn’t deserve the whole rap
sheet either. The real reason I stopped is
that I was sick to death of listening to myself whine about the inevitable
changes in the book business. Of course
now that I’m back I know I’ll inevitably
whine some more, and occasionally even rail, because I’m a whiner at heart and
that’s what we do. One of those online quizzes even said as much last week.
The Yiddish word I most resemble is kvetch. I knew it even before they told me, but I will
try to temper it. Promise.
Okay then, now that that’s out of the way here’s what’s going
on over here. I am surrounded as always by leaning towers of books of excellent
to dubious distinction. The ephemera site is almost at 1000 listed items, I’m still at
the antiques mall with two booths, and I’m
also still volunteering for Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society (NOBS) which I
love except for one enormous thing. Okay, here’s the whine. Don’t say I didn’t warn
you. I took on the job of NOBS secretary
which proved immediately to be a huge mistake. I have no talent for it, no time to do it, no
interest in it, and am frustrated by its endless detail. Oh, how I hate details
– those damn pesky little things humming around me like a swarm of gnats.
The only really big
news is I have a new grandson. Our daughter Catie, who got married last June and moved
to Kansas City, delivered little Cameron Joseph Han a week ago. He was three
weeks early, but all is well as he’d
passed the danger mark and weighed in at an acceptable six and a half pounds. We’ll
be going out there next week, so I probably should have waited to start this
until I got back. But Eric is off to one of his many shows – really, not that much
has changed! – so today seemed like the day to tie up loose ends.
Which brings me now to
the final big question -- can I henceforth be counted on to be a dependable
blogger? I’d like to say yes – emphatically YES! -- but I better not, or the
next time I fail It WILL require mea culpas in the original Latin – maybe even
marinated. And who in their right mind wants THAT? So let’s leave it at this. I will
try very hard to write at least once a week, share what I know, and admit what
I don’t. I will try to be informative and maybe even amusing from time to time.
And I will always give an honest account of what’s going on.
So what do you think – shall we give it another spin?
