Forget the Hearse 'Cause I'll Never Die

Before today, there were four posts on this blog since Thanksgiving, which means, more or less, that the blog had died. In an effort to revive it, I’ve promised a friend of mine, who blogs at A New Career in a New Town, that I will post at least once for each of the next 30 days. It’s something he just did himself, and he’s going to continue his streak through the next month as well. (I’ve just now discovered that my friend “Dez” is also taking part in this motivational exercise.)

Why has the blog been so silent? I’ve had a full-time job since September, which wasn’t true for a significant chunk of time before that. And I spend a good portion of my free hours attending to The Second Pass. I recently participated as a judge in this year’s Tournament of Books at The Morning News. (Here’s my quarterfinal round decision. Here’s the final round, in which I was one of 17 judges on a panel.) I spend time thinking about (too much time thinking; not nearly enough doing) other writing projects.

But not much has changed. Some of the things I’ll write about over the next 30 days will be the usual: a vague to not-so-vague sense of dissatisfaction and/or restlessness; music I’ve been listening to; fantasy baseball concerns; what to read next, and how systematic to be about it. It’s thrilling, I know. I’m going to resuscitate a couple of old regular features, and might even get around to finishing my list of 100 favorite movies before we all die and the sun burns down to the size of a charcoal briquette.

For tonight, I’m just saying hi. I’m hoping to finish a piece for The Second Pass before I go to bed, about baseball pitcher Dock Ellis. If I excerpt it and link to it here once it’s up, I won’t count that against my post-a-day promise.

More soon: for real this time.