The last time I was updating this blog really regularly, I was a freelancer, and single, and people actually read blogs. A lot has changed since then. I spent a lot of the last decade living my online life on social media, and as I toy with the idea of revitalizing this blog — for my own amusement, if nobody else’s — I thought I might do a little “you are here” post.
Let’s start with the most important update: You may recall that back in 2009 I went on a date with D., to see John Kelly perform the entirety of Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark” in his own inimitable style. That all turned out pretty well: He turned out to be the great love of my life. We married in 2017. We consider our selves very, very fortunate men.
About a year after that Dad passed on. He was a sweet, soft-spoken, smart, complicated guy and I miss him. I wish Don had had the opportunity to meet him at his best.
The other major transition is that in 2012 I managed, through hard work and good fortune and an accept-no-substitutes fixity of purpose that I think alarmed a lot of people who loved me, to turn the intermittent freelance work at Major Publication into an actual staff position as a New York Times copy editor. After a two-year rotation through the newsroom, I’m back where I started, at the Sunday Magazine. Most months I spend one week assigned not to the magazine proper but to The New York Times for Kids, which is an utter joy. I love it. If you want to see a copy, you’ll find it only in the print edition, on the last Sunday of every month. We’re extremely proud of it.
I’m not really writing fiction these days. After years and years with the Secret Cabal, a local spec-fic writers’ group, I couldn’t help but notice that every time I was due to turn something in for our monthly meeting I would start to go out of my mind. (I’m sure Don was observing this long before I was ready to say it out loud.) I eventually realized that I’d hung the sign that said WRITER around my neck at 17 and never since allowed myself to consider whether it was still making me happy. And it wasn’t: Much as I love having a story to tell people, the pressure that I put on myself to get from blank page to something I was prepared to share had drained the fun out of it. I’m working on that. I’d love to find my way back in. But for now, I’m on a break.
As things go, though, I can’t really complain. I’m a lucky guy.
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