A Hiatus Is Not A Medical Condition

For regular readers of the print version of the My Thoughts, Exactly column, you may have been wondering where I’ve been during the past two months. (And if you didn’t notice that my column wasn’t in the paper for the past eight weeks, please don’t tell me. In this economy, my professional ego is already on life support with family members gathered close by, voting on whether or not to pull the plug.)

Was I fired? Did I quit? Did I run out of thoughts? No, no and hell no. After writing a column every week for three years without missing a week, totaling over 150 essays, I just needed a break from deadlines and blank, mocking, nightmare-inducing computer screens. That’s all.

So I took a self-imposed hiatus. Teachers and preachers have sabbaticals (although the lucky so-and-sos usually get paid for their time off). Writers and other working folk take a hiatus to fix things around the house (my wife is laughing hysterically right now), talk long walks (stop laughing, already, honey) and generally recharge their creative mojo.

The funny thing is – it wasn’t quite as restful as I had hoped. I didn’t stop thinking. In fact, I COULDN’T stop thinking about topics that would make for interesting (or at least less-boring) reading.

So after two months and many inquiring emails from the CV Weekly’s editor as to whether and when I was going to return to writing My Thoughts, Exactly – I’ve decided that I need to get back to it. And so, without further procrastination on my part, I’ll be publishing an all new column in the upcoming April 7 edition of the newspaper. (cue trumpet fanfare!)

If you don’t run your car over it on your driveway next Thursday morning, you can read the entire essay right here next Friday.

Try to contain your excitement. 

Welcome

Welcome to the new My Thoughts, Exactly blog. Having written well over 150 weekly columns – first for the now-defunct Crescenta Valley Sun newspaper (owned and killed by its dysfunctional parent, the LA Times, which also owns the Glendale Newspress, and the ... oh, never mind), and then the CV Weekly newspaper (published with great pride and at equally impressive expense by Robin Goldsworthy, the former editor of the former CV Sun paper), I knew there had to be a way to keep these 650-word (give or take a few) musings “out there” for anyone who wanted to read them at any given time.

After all, I realize that not everyone has a CV Weekly paper thrown onto their driveway every Thursday morning. Heck, even I don’t have a CV Weekly paper thrown on my driveway every Thursday morning and I’ve written a column in the dang thing since its debut edition. To be fair, I live on what’s called a “flag lot” with four other homes that share a common driveway. One other neighbor actually has a paid subscription to the paper and the dear woman is well into her eighties. For some reason, the folks who deliver the paper in the wee hours of Thursday mornings are unable to throw more than one paper onto a single driveway – no matter how many times they’ve been admonished to do so by the powers-that-be at the worldwide headquarters of the publishing empire affectionately (and legally) known as the Crescenta Valley Weekly.

Anyway, back to my neighbor. I’ve watched her take the better part of a morning to shuffle from her front porch down the end of the driveway to retrieve her paper. So believe me, I’m not going to be the chuckle head who takes the lone copy of the CV Weekly that is delivered to our collective driveway. Beside which, the paper is available free of charge at many retail locations throughout our fair Foothills community – places such as Starbucks, Walgreen’s, all of our supermarkets and many other places. In other words, my neighbor’s paper is safe.

Where was I? Oh, right. I’ve long wanted an online place to archive the My Thoughts, Exactly columns that is easily accessible, searchable by key words, and managed by yours truly rather than a pimply-faced, I.T. mole web-master at the newspaper’s home office. (Not that I’ve ever even seen the aforementioned I.T. nerd, er … person at the paper – but you know what I’m getting at.)

And so … in addition to posting my latest column on the Friday after it has been published in the CV Weekly (if you want to read it the same day it’s published, you’ll just have to subscribe to the paper), I also have every intention to post lengthier versions of my columns as time and thinking permit – along with unpublished (at least in newsprint) columns or posts that may not be appropriate for my regular weekly column in the newspaper. I’ll also throw down the occasional odd or random thoughts and comments as they occur to me and as I think someone may be interested in reading.

Stay tuned. Check this space often. Tell a friend. Please.