2003-03-11 - 9:34 p.m.

Where'd He Go?

Well, that was a bit of a gap. What can I say? I've fallen behind and instead of writing a bunch of pre-dated entries like usual, I'm just cutting the Gordian Knot and skipping a bunch of days. Oops!

Why the long lag? Well, a couple of reasons. First, this is a busy time of year for me - the combination of processing the games from the Amateur Teams and doing my taxes usually conspire to make February and March all about big piles of paper and little else.

However, my taxes were mostly done by Feb. 20 and the games were close to finished by the first of March, so there's more to it than that.

I seem to be off my feed recently, in fact it might have started months ago. I've had the mopes. I don't know if I can even dignify it with the word "depression." I've been acting in strange ways, like I'm frantically trying to distract myself from something, but what? I dunno.

I also have to admit that I've been lacking enthusiasm for writing here recently. There's a couple of reasons for that, too. Part of it is the law of diminishing returns - in the early months of my diary I got a lot out of it. I found out a lot about myself and I met some wonderful people, and most importantly I met my darling Lily. It's no wonder that what came after seemed a little pale in comparison to that.

A few weeks ago I was trying to update the records I keep for my hamsters, and in order to find who was born when I had to look through my entire diary. I read a lot of my earlier stuff, and I thought (somewhat immodestly) Damn, this shit is GOOD. Did I really write that? Unfortunately what also occurred to me: Why don't I write like that any more?

I have not been happy with my writing recently. To my ear it's sounded forced, clumsy and tedious. It could be just part of my general malaise. Maybe it's the curse of anyone who does anything for a relatively long period of time: Your old stuff was better.

I would have thought that after writing here for nearly three years it would get easier, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'll spend hours playing with an entry, and still hate the way it sounds. Then, I'll try to push one out fast and it will be really wretched. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.

I really envy diarists who seem to have a direct connection between their brains (or spirits) and their typing hands. They can knock out something insightful and well-written and fun to read without even breaking a sweat. Obviously, I'm not like that. I wish I was.

And then there's the stuff I haven't been talking about. In the last few months there have been some unpleasant twists and turns in my life online, kind of the antithesis of what happened when I started this diary. I haven't talked about them here, because I felt they were trivial and also I felt that it was bad strategy to do so. I know that this space has been under the watchful eyes of unfriendly people, persons who live for nothing but the sound of their own name, and I felt it was better to not give them that satisfaction. A mistake? Maybe, and maybe not. Will I elucidate what I'm talking about? Maybe later.

At any rate, I feel like I've been suffering from a lack of genuineness here, and it's kind of cramped my style.

So what to do? I'm still not sure at this point. Maybe this diary has outlived its usefulness. Maybe I need to focus on other things.

Wow, lots of "maybes" in the last few sentences. Well, I've been feeling kind of tentative recently.

So, things are up in the air. In the meantime, I will be continuing this diary, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Life is a great perhaps, and in the meantime I will be soldiering on.