A SHORT SABBATICAL
Readers of this site know from time to time I take a few days off to recharge the batteries, and catch up on some reading. I had a long list of articles and blog posts that I bookmarked for later reading, and I figured it was about time for another mini-vacation anyway.
The last 5 days have been blessedly free of pressure in producing anything (except a couple of posts at AT), and I almost feel like a new man. When you write 4-5,000 words a day (often more), day in and day out (plus email responses and the occasional comment left on a blog site) there eventually comes a morning when you dread the thought of writing anything and end up staring blankly at the monitor for an hour before you realize you have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say.
I can always tell when I need a break when even good subject matter elicits nothing in the way of ideas of how to write about it. Or you realize that the ideas that come to you would require extensive research. Or you are seized with a feeling of ennui so profound that you wish you had never gotten out of bed.
So for those of you hoping that the negative response to my piece on Senator Bennett might have driven me forever from the battleground, I am sorry to disappoint you. No such luck. Tomorrow, I will be back at it, trying my best to upset you with my singular ability to get under the skin of both liberals and conservatives as I continue to explore the intellectual and cultural conceits from both ideologies that drive me up a wall.
There’s that to look forward to. And then there’s my coverage of the Blackhawks and White Sox - one team on the way up, the other going down for the count. I want to write about both teams because sports writing is really my first love. It’s the one thing I regret about the last 35 years - that I didn’t try to follow that dream as a young man.
Back to our regularly scheduled postings tomorrow.