"Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a thousand masks,
masks that I am afraid to take off and none of them are me." —Unknown

29 March, 2005 - 9:48 a.m. - Endings
Okay, so i've always said i wouldn't do this, but i'm doing it now.

I'm ending this blog.

I've really enjoyed keeping it, but i'm finding my energy is being drawn into other things, spreading more and more thinly between here and elsewhere so that i just don't feel like i can give this blog the attention it deserves.

I'm a bit sad about doing this. I've had this blog since, what, November-ish of 2001...about three and a half years. I've had this blog longer than i've been with my partner--something, in fact, i first reported here.

I haven't run out of ideas. This is, i think, the hardest thing about ending this blog. I haven't run out of ideas and in fact can think of about three or four entries offhand that i've been wanting to write (one on globalization, one on some more thoughts from Marvin Harris' book Our Kind, and at least one that would be a bunch of short reviews of books i've been reading, not to mention about three other entries i've made notes about but never typed up--these all come immediately to mind, and i know there are others that i've forgotten about that will eventually resurface).

A while back i started reposting my favorite (and hopefully best) entries from this blog over on Blogger. I think i'll continue to do that until i've exhausted that list (and here's the link to that site)--and maybe, if the muse really strikes me, i'll post new entries there, after i've posted my favorites from here.

My life has changed considerably since i started this blog, and it is spring now, a new spring in a new life that promises to continue to improve. But my lenses, my filters, have changed. My interests haven't changed, but the way i approach them has. My time has changed. The things that keep me going have changed.

Those are a lot of changes to keep up with in a place that is so well established in my own psyche as a repository for the parts of me (or at least of my history) that i want to capture.

A new spring, a new life coming soon, new adventures. I have hopes. They're pretty basic: i hope to finish my thesis very soon (funny; i started this blog while i was in my masters program, and now i'm ending it with the final few pushes to finish the thesis i started in that program). I hope to go back to school in September. I hope to get at least one major work of fiction finished before then. I hope to start a career (not just a job!) in a couple of years. I hope to produce a radio story or two. I hope my partner and i can finally legalize our commitment to one another, maybe next year.

And it's odd, because the function that this blog eventually took on--this sort of cultural commentary from the front lines--is something that hasn't faded, but grown. I don't think it's outgrown this medium, but it has outgrown this blog. There was a time when i'd look at these pages and feel that they were home; now i look at them and they feel like a very low-res hole of loneliness. That's not a feeling i want to carry, nor is it one i want to project. Although the feelings come and go, i'm just not that sad these days. And maybe that's why it feels like things have changed to the point of outgrowing...

...or maybe it's that the blogosphere is oversaturated with this kind of thing already. I'm not sure which. Maybe both.

Anyway, thank you, all of you who have been dedicated and thoughtful enough to click here every so often to see what's going on in my mind. For those of you who have read but never commented, those of you i've never met--literally or figuratively, or both--it's been a pleasure knowing that you're out there despite the anonymity. Should any of you (the anonymous and nonanonymous alike) wish to reach me, you can email me here.

Take care, all of you. See you 'round the 'net.