Excuses.

It seems Fafblog is back after a two-year hiatus (see below). And the marvelously droll Jon Swift has returned after several months of non-postings ("I started this modest blog more than two years ago for the same reason everyone starts a blog: to become fabulously wealthy"). He even apologized despite, he said, the longstanding conservative tradition against admitting anything.

Now Scott McLemee has returned after many desultory posts and has written a follow-up explanation of his lack of productivity, assuring we happy few, we loyal band of hypocrite lecteurs, that he actually didn't need cheering up, thanks much, because, you see, his new post was about how his midlife crisis (or as book/daddy prefers to think of it, "the expense of spirit in a waste of online blogging") had already passed, more or less, so no need for the sympathy cards. (A new Hallmark line -- the "ROFL Series" -- that book/daddy has already pitched: "Sorry your blogging is sagging" (open card) "But you never were any good anwyay, get off the internets, I pwn you, you miseralbe accuse for a ciritc.")

Sooo ... the fact that book/daddy is welcoming back these prodigal bloggers with happy expressions a week or two late should indicate his own persistently low blood sugar level, blogging-wise. Ah, yes, book/daddy recalls very well back when he was a young book blogger, full of piss and vinegar (a cocktail, he has always thought, not likely to induce any later fits of nostalgic reflection -- just simply fits). Ah, when he used to crank out a Monday literary round-up after midnight on Sunday -- that was, what? Less than a year ago? An eternity in blogtime. It's a cold, ruthless, speedy little goddess, this digital muse.

Essentially, I have of late, wherefore I know not, lost all my desire to write about books. book/daddy can barely even read about them. And mostly, the books that book/daddy has been reading haven't been worth blogging about. A decent thriller here, a good history that's already old news over there.

But hey, in the past three weeks, book/daddy put up a new wooden gate on his driveway, tiled the kitchen and graduated a daughter. In the midst of all that work, it struck book/daddy how little he missed all the "keeping up" -- what did so-and-so write about such-and-such? Everything that happened online had so little, so incredibly little relevance, to a delightful dinner with friends and family.

Large parts of life really do exist elsewhere, it seems. In our case, that elsewhere was Hector's on Henderson. Highly recommended.