The following things have happened to me since my last post:

• I had a road trip as a kind of bachelor's party
• I got married
• I travelled through Italy with my new wife for two weeks
• I came home and got laid off (yep)
• I began an exhaustive search for a job
• I made a decision to search for a job-job that I would appreciate, to build a career, to stop this whole day-job nonsense and once-and-for-all forget the idea of writing for a living
• No one wanted to inerview me
• Out of the clear blue I was approached by a friend of a friend and wound up getting an incredibly bizarre, regular, freelance writing gig
• I decided I would still get a job and use the gig as a means to get extra money
• No one wanted to inerview me
• Out of the clear blue, a friend came to me with a proposal to pay me to write and direct something.
• I accepted.
  

It's a fact--one of which I'm not very proud--that I decided to stop doing my laundry until I was offered a job. This vexed my wife and left me wearing mismatched socks for weeks. Being a somewhat superstitious man (I'm a Boston Red Sox fan, afterall) I am prone to such behavior.

Although Genevra and I have had our share of bothersome financial snafoos transpire, and we are still in the thick of them, these two bizarre gigs, for the time being, have released me from my job search.

I therefore blog before you adorned in freshly washed attire.

It's also a fact, that I felt guilty blogging while I should be looking for work. This is true.

I submit the above list of events as an excuse for my long absense, as well as my guilt over blogging when I should be hunting for the perfect corporate rejection.

And before I tell you that none of these are good excuses, I should share one additional excuse of note:

I took extensive notes on my road trip. The next thing I was going to write about was my bachelor's road trip; however, after being laid off, I was unable to find my notes. Until yesterday, that is.

David Gergen was hiding them in his book, Eyewitness to Power, which I attempted to finish while my best friends and I wound our way along the northwest coast. (Yes, I like David Gergen, so what of it?)

So I begin this blog at the end of my sabbatical. I have done my laundry. I have cleaned my office. Yesterday, I walked through my neighborhood to look at the bungalows and discovered River Park. Though the temperature drops and there are four more weeks of winter, I no longer fear my own shadow.

It's good to be back. And I've got a lot of catching up to do.