Excellent question! I wish I had a simple answer. So I’ll treat it as a multiple choice question where every choice is a correct choice because even though I’ve been away it’s still my blog and that’s the way I want to do it.
Focusing on myself: I know, I know, the idea of me descending into a solipsistic revelry is so
totally not like me. But while I came back from my vacation feeling relaxed, I also came back feeling like...oh, how should I put this...a fat fucking cow. Not only did I demure from going to the beach with Cavin because I didn’t want to be the beached whale sunning itself next to his
Jack Sprat, I managed to gain about 10 pounds of weight and more than an inch on my waist -- all that despite the fact that I was playing at least two hours of tennis a day for the first week and a half.
Yes, that means the food in Provincetown is really, really good.
All that said, I hit 215 pounds and I can’t blame it all on two weeks of buttered lobster and scallop rolls. And since it’s nobody’s fault but mine, I realized I needed to fully commit to hitting the gym, doing some real work, and eating healthier. Which I’ve done, at least for the past five weeks, and that's gotten me back down to 195 pounds -- not exactly svelte, but certainly a very noticeable difference in a short period of time. I have a ways to go before I’m where I want to be, but I feel more like I’m going to get there than I have in the past couple of years.
Focusing on my book: I don’t want say too much about it yet, other than it’s coming very soon. I had mentioned through
Facebook or
Twitter or something a few months ago that I was thinking about self-publishing a collection of my columns from over the course of
Metro Weekly’s first 15 years of publication, and I got a surprising amount of positive response to the idea. I’ll have a lot more information on when, where and how on the book soon.
Reading other people’s books: As always, my reading pile is daunting and likely insurmountable, but I’ve been in a particularly good groove on novels lately -- credit, again, to free time in P’town. I’ve resisted the
siren call of re-reading Infinite Jest once again, and finished off some of the science fiction I’ve had waiting for me. One hearty and enthusiastic recommendation from me to you: go read
Iain M. Banks.
Consider Phlebas is actually a couple decades old but recently reissued in a very nice trade paperback; I wish I’d read it when it debuted, because it flat out blew me away. This morning I finished his more recent
Matter, which had the same effect on me, but more so. I’m not going to try to summarize them beyond saying that they’re extremely literary, densely complex and hugely entertaining.
That’s enough reason to go go, buy buy, isn’t it?
Refocusing by disconnecting: Not only have I been remiss in blogging, I’ve radically curtailed my Facebook and Twitter updates, as well as taking an unannounced hiatus from
Bilerico D.C. None of this was particularly planned out in advance, but the more I realized my attention span was being destroyed by a million small, constant tweets and beeps, the more I realized I needed some time away from it. Perhaps in the future I can see these things coming earlier and actually plan for them or something, but that wasn’t the case this time and I just tuned out. And while it’s cost me some blog traffic and friend requests and followers and so on, I’m glad I did. Now let’s see if I can get tuned back in....
That’s it, no more? Of course there’s more: family events, lots of tennis, video games to catch up on (another recommendation: go play
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, it’s a blast), recipes to try, and, oh, yeah, a husband who takes priority. In short, I really don’t have anything to complain about.
For the moment.
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