Hello, hello, hello…is there anybody in there?

Brian here….or rather, the Unqualified One…I’ve been on an unintentionally extended hiatus these last few, er, several months.  Why?  And where did I go?  From the beginning of this experiment, I vowed to do my best to not “turn this into some sort of pseudo-anonymous, slightly exhibitionist online psychiatrist’s couch”.  The rancor of the presidential election wore on me, as did my general unhappiness with my job.  It was no longer fun to simply spew vitriol onto the Web.

I haven’t been completely inactive.  I’m a fairly active Twitterer, and I contribute occasionally to MetroMusicScene (or at least occasionally enough to warrant a press pass to the Bloc Party/Longwave show).  I’m still actively seeking out new music or music that’s new to me, and I’m insanely jealous of the great coverage NPR provided from SXSW (the highlight of which, in my opinion, was calling Justin Hawkins’ new band Hot Lips “ridiculous preening jackassery”).

As those readers who know me well do know, my father passed away last month.  His health in general had been a huge draw on my energy, and his sudden passing sapped what little I had left.  I’ve been working my way through Megan O’Rourke’s excellent series on grief on Slate, and just generally working through things in my own time and at my own pace (which is to say not at all).  His passing was sudden, and it came on the heels of a weeklong trip to Costa Rica, so I didn’t even have much of a chance to interact with him in those final days.  After watching my mother spend the last 4+ months of her life in a hospital, I was grateful that he didn’t suffer the same fate, although I’m still in a bit of a state of shock at not having had a chance to say goodbye.

So where does that leave the blog?  Honestly, I don’t know.  Some days I feel like my old self, other days simply a shade of that person.  I feel like I still have a lot to say, but I’ve always found blogging to be time and effort-intensive.  I’ll be around, perhaps more like my old self, perhaps taking the blog in a new direction.  What I certainly won’t do is to turn this into my personal self-help journal.