My own AAP*

Annoying Autobiographical Pause, as our beloved Newcoma calls them, except hers are never annoying, and inevitably enlightening. I can only hope that this can come close to her gifts.

Some guy I never heard of hanged himself last week, and I am saddened because I never heard of him. He appears to have touched the lives of many with his writings, which I never got to because A) I didn't know who he was, and B) it was on paper, which I have abandoned in a fit of ADHD.

I write here, and read this wonderful yet confounding contraption called the computer and the associated intertubes, but when I get home I'm too tired to read a real book, which my friends torment me about on a consistent basis. Yet, it seems I am never too tired for these intertubes and the hyper-connection to the world which it provides.

Want to know when the last time I sat down to read a book cover-to-cover? It was several years ago, when I was in the hospital due to a cellulitis flare-up, and I read Richard Ben Cramer's magnificent bio of Joe DiMaggio, THE HERO'S LIFE. I truly enjoyed it, but I was only able to devote the time to do so because I couldn't freaking move without tremendous pain.

While I read 150-200 blog posts a day, thanks to Bloglines (Holt, this is YOUR fault! :), it seems I can't slow myself down enough to read a book and get lost in it, the way I could until a few years ago. It's not that I don't find things interesting, it's that if it takes more that a minute or three to digest, I blow right past it. I have, it seems, become too damned efficient for my own good.

Does this mean I am stopping these posts of rambling and crotchedy-ness for some time of contemplation? Well, not in the short term, there's too much going on.

However, if America doesn't commit suicide by electing a possibly dying John McCain and his Manchurian Governor, Sarah Palin, I may post a little more infrequently after November. Only time will tell.

As always, thanks for your readership, comments and support.