Caution: rambling and unfocused post ahead, due to blogging rustiness.

Has anything happened while I was out?

No, I don't have an annual policy to take several months off from blogging, despite what it may seem like. Life just seems to work that way.

I've been wondering how to write this post for a while now, and have finally settled on the Sam Kinison approach: "SAY IT!!! JUST SAY IT!!!!"

So I'll say it. The initial extended blogging pause was due to a combination of work pressures & home-related issues (a renovation that caused us to move twice in 3 months, but has been completed), neither of which was bad. But in the meantime, our son has been diagnosed with autism. A bit ironic, given the series of posts that brought this site some of its greatest visibility some time ago. (And nothing has happened to change my mind about thimerosal, but that's for another time.) But rich irony is a poor substitute for the son we used to know.

This development obviously reduces time for blogging, but - more importantly - it's sapped the mental energy I need to blog. I've always found not blogging to be as addictive as blogging. Combine that with the usual feelings of guilt about spending time with anything not contributing to recovering our son, and the neglect to which I have subjected you all is the result.

Plenty of bloggers have opined that blogging should only be done for fun, and should stop as soon as it begins to feel like work. Well, blogging is fun. But it's also always been work as well; I can't do it any other way. That attitude contributes to the intermittent posting pattern that has always been a feature of this site, but I'd rather have that - even if it means a permanent consignment to the blogosphere's minor leagues - than not being able to look at myself in the monitor's mirror.

And that's why I'm not giving up the site just yet. I'm not going to surrender to the pressures of practicalities in dealing with the demands of my job and my son's condition, or to the voice of despair that tells me I shouldn't be spending time on things like this. I may need to surrender to rationality at some point, but not yet. Blogging is work, and has therefore become a life-affirming act. Blogito, ergo sum.

I hope my son will appreciate it some day.