"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings." - Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass
Well, actually, no. The time has most certainly come, but not to talk of many things. The time has come, instead, to talk of fewer things. It is time for me to bid you a fond farewell.
[*waits a beat, for you to regain your breath*]
Yes, I'm serial. This blog is history (or, at least, will be after you've read this.) The race is run, the book is read, the play has reached the final curtain. This blog is an ex-parrot.
I've been coming here and writing nonsense for the better part of six years.
(Or, at least, they would have been the better part of six years had I not been filling them up with twaddle.)
(Actually, I like twaddle. Some of my best friends are twaddlers. I don't mean to unduly denigrate twaddle. The descriptive fits, however, so I've used it, much the same as I've used you.)
(No, I haven't really used you. At least, not consciously. I have, it's true, acquired a few fruitcakes along the way - and I'm mighty grateful for them, too - but they weren't acquired via subterfuge. It was overterfuge.)
(One thing you can be glad about is that you'll never again have to navigate through a sea of unnecessary parentheses only to find, by the end, that you'll need to consult a Neptunian dictionary in order to translate what you've just read.)
So, like a dog under the dinner table on liver night, the question begs: Why?
The truth of the matter...
(Isn't that a hell of a thing for me to say? As though I haven't told you the truth before. Saint Peter on a pogo stick! If there's one thing I've done here, it's tell you the truth. As a matter of fact, here's the one time I did!)
The truth of the matter is I'm tired of embarrassing my mother. When did I do that? Three sentences ago, if you clicked onto that link. And I'm sick of it. Also, MY WIFE.
(No, no, no. I'm not sick of MY WIFE. I'm also tired of embarrassing her. Although it was her idea for me to begin blogging in the first place, so she's hardly without blame in this affair, I'm going to stop writing stuff like THIS. And THAT.)
Mostly, I'm just plain tired of writing. If I was making some money from this thing, maybe it would be different. I'm not, though. I've gotten lots of fruitcake, and that's a good thing, but money? No. There's been a decided lack of that. And, really, money isn't what it's about in the end, either. What it is, is that I don't have anything useful left to say. I've pretty much gotten out of my system everything I felt an overwhelming need to say, so why stick around? It can only go downhill from here. I mean, just look at this pile of crap you're reading right now, if you want proof.
Before I go, I want to make sure you know I'm not leaving because of anything you said. It's quite the opposite. I love the stuff you guys say. That's why I've stayed with it for so long. Seeing your comments made my day. And, as a matter of fact, I'll probably be visiting you on a regular basis ("haunting you" might be a more apt way of putting it, when one considers how often I hijack other people's comments sections) so it's certainly not that I don't like you. I LOVE YOU! You've given me four years of joy!
(Of course, I've been blogging for 5 and 2/3 years, so...)
(*BARUMP-BUMP*)
Enough. I'm done, at least for the present.
(Ah, what the hell. I'm done for the past, too. However, I regress.)
What will the future bring? Who knows? Something could stick in my craw and I'd be back here tomorrow to rant about it.
(Or later today, for that matter. I'm looking forward to seeing how we do without a government. Won't happen, of course. Governments always threaten to shut down, but then all sorts of hideous malcontents like me come out of the woodwork, saying, "Who gives a shit?", then they somehow find the funds to continue.)
Or I might decide to come back in May and bore you to tears with thirty or forty posts about mens fast-pitch softball. Perhaps, if the Celtics win the NBA Championship in June, I'll not be able to resist crowing about it. Whatever the case, if I return it will be because I truly want to say something new. It won't be because I feel a need to fill space via the expedient of posting a re-run, something of which I'm sure you've had more than enough during the previous five or six months.
Before I go, I'd like to leave you with some words of wisdom: De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum. That's what my grandfather kept shouting when they carted him off after he had performed an unrequested circumcision on the neighbor's poodle, so it's good enough for me, too.
(Lovely. If that doesn't convince you I've got nothing but fumes left in the tank, there's not much that will.)
As a going away present, here's something I wrote once when I was feeling underappreciated, and you can read it whenever you feel like you might be missing me. It should cure you.
(Here comes a lie...)
Soon, with more better stuff.
