Kids

It is incredible how difficult it is to raise kids.

I have slogged through 4+ years of blogging, through living at 4-5 different addresses, through two different jobs -- one of them (my current) 24-hour rotating shift -- 60 to 80 hour weeks, and about a year and a half of that time with my in-laws living with me in my own house.

Yet 'settled' as I am, I have never found it so difficult to get blog posts up.  Or to get just about anything else done, for that matter.

Part of the reason for the 80 hour weeks is, basically, what the hell?  I'm not going to get anything done anyway.  Or any sleep.  Might as well get paid while I'm (not) doing it and feeling like crap.

I hope and pray that all of this is worth it someday, because right now, it's all on faith.  God only knows why I want another one...

Anyway, this is not one of those 'screw it all, I'm quitting blogging' sorts of posts.  Because that would be a lie.  Writers are compelled to write.  If they're not, they aren't writers.  If you ever hear me utter such nonsense -- or any other once-prolific writer, for that matter -- you can know it for what it is.  Writers are like crackheads.  If they aren't posting their crap publicly, they are scribbling it on napkins and paper towels with crayons and stuffing it away somewhere. 

But I won't be writing much (as if I were already, anyway), and even of what I do, unfortunately you won't be seeing much of it.  I actually have something of a backlog of (very) lengthy posts which will likely never see the light of day.  The demands on me are much too high right now.

For the life of me, I will never understand the apparently near-universal compulsion to demand the attention of others for the purpose of completely wasting it.  In general, I tend to avoid the attention of others, even when I probably should speak up.  But that is the way it is.  And no, I'm not really talking that much about my kids at the moment.  'The job' has ratcheted itself up along these lines as well.  But I'm afraid that until I can achieve some modicum of isolation, I'm just not going to be able to get anything done.

My hope is that someday I'll be able to arrange some sort of life-hibernation, so that if I can erect enough barriers between myself and these people, I might actually be able to get something done.  In the meantime, I have finally entered into the 21st century and gotten myself a shiny new smartphone.  I hope that I can at least get up those little 'blurby' type posts ever now and then.

Just to remind people that I'm alive.