It's a magical world....

Farewell, my friends -- farewell and hail!
I'm off to seek the Holy Grail.
   I cannot tell you why.
Remember, please, when I am gone,
   'Twas Aspiration led me on.
Tiddlely-widdley tootle-oo,
All I want is to stay with you,
But here I go. Good-bye.

-Clarence Day

UPDATE: OK, I probably owe my readers a little more context than this. The poem above was recited by Charles Kuralt on his last telecast on CBS Sunday Morning, back in 1994; and the title of this post will be recognized by fans of Calvin and Hobbes. That probably says it all.

I've been weighing this in my mind for a long time, and basically, aside from a few moments when my old blogging instincts try to rear their heads, my state of mind right now is that blogging has become that most horrible of things: a chore. I'm basically saying the same things over and over again, I don't feel that I'm bringing anything especially new to the blogging table these days. I figured that a few days off would solve the problem, as it's always done before; but this time, the few days off became a week without anything largely substantial, and then it became another week.

And the thing is: I didn't much miss the work of blogging. That seems to me a pretty major tell-tale sign: it's time for me to stop, at least for a good, long while. How long? I do not know.

If it sounds like I'm being cagey, maybe I am; after all, I'm not definitively stating my permanent exit from Blogistan. Well, Blogistan's a funny place; one can come and go at will, and for right now at least, Blogistan's a place where one doesn't need a passport or some kind of funky ID card with embedded RFID chip to enter. And while it can be an utterly maddening place, it can also be supportive and surprising and moving and fun. I suspect I'll return at some point, but I'm not going to choose a date. I thought about doing that, but that smacks of a deadline, and I don't want any of that for right now.

As ever, I thank all those who read this blog, link this blog, comment on this blog, or whatever. And I'm not going offline: I'll still maintain my e-mails, I'll still be putting photos on Flickr occasionally (one of these days I need to renew my Pro account, which expired a few weeks back), and I'll still be active on Facebook. (And yes, there's always MySpace, but that thing's just a kludgey mess and I just don't much like it.) Anyone who wishes to contact me is more than welcome to do so via any of those channels.

I suppose that's all. I'd say more, but why bother? Until next time, then.

Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning!

Something for Thursday

Last week's post here was a cover of a Beatles song, and here I have another one. It's the Beatles song I never thought I'd like -- I mean, for years, I've hated this song. But then I watched the movie Across the Universe (which, frankly, blew my mind in a lot of ways). This movie is a musical whose songs are all Beatles songs, almost all of them seamlessly worked into the story in logical ways, and this one comes toward the end, at one of those "movie romance" moments when all hope seems lost.

Here's "Hey Jude", from Across the Universe. (The dark-haired fellow is Jude; singing to him, from across the Atlantic, is his American friend Max.)

OK, John and Paul. You win. I give.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Nope, still not feelin' it. Sorry, folks. Maybe later in the week.

(Feel free to try to provoke me in comments, though. Or not.)