This 1950 ad for the Rosicrucians (who I do not endorse in any way) serves as a very convenient shorthand for all the content you do not see on UltraSparky these days.
I’ll confess once and for all, to all my friends, loved ones, and fans out there: I took last year off. What started as a post-meltdown instinct for self-preservation slowly became a conscious policy of getting my personal crap in better shape once and for all. I siezed the inertia that came along with cozy domesticity and began turning down invitations, paring down my possessions, avoiding freelance work, eating in, and staying at home. Basically, I chose tranquility (a certain go-go New York tranquility, mind you) over distraction and obligation, the two monkeys usually found on my back.
It was the right thing to do, despite the periodic guilt and hand-wringing about whether or not I was actually making people feel neglected. I shaped up my ship in a lot of ways: saved a ton of money and paid off a significant chunk of debt, sorted out my goals about work and school, learned a little more about finding the sensible middle ground between loving someone a whole lot and losing yourself in someone else, and shed a lot of neurotic habits. I wish I could get my HMO to pay me back for that kind of therapy.
You may not have seen much of the evidence, but I’ve really become more introspective and relaxed. (And in those many, many moments when relaxation doesn’t really come, I at least manage to substitute it with focus.) For the most part, though, the blog hasn’t been the place to work it out, like it was during the meltdown. Slow and steady progress, it seems, doesn’t quite need the same kind of feedback and hand-holding.
But enough touchy-feely nonsense. Basically, it’s two-thousand-goddamn-four and I’m calling off the moratorium on interacting with the world at large. I’ll warn you all now, though, I’m not going to try and convince myself that I have the time or the energy to be the man about town I once strived to be. I’ve got a husband to look after, work to do, and sleep to get. But I miss a lot of people a lot, and I hope no one took my prolonged hiatus too personally. I’m officially making an effort again.
You know, as long as I can do it before bedtime, and without spending too much. I still have to keep my nose to the grindstone, after all.