I’d been thinking about this for a while, and I finally decided it’s time. Actually, decided isn’t really the appropriate word. My gut is telling me this. It just feels right.

I’m leaving the world of blogging. This is my final entry.

I started this thing on a whim about 13 months ago. I got into it, and I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it.

It’s been a great tool for me. It’s taught me a lot. But it’s served its purpose. I’ve taken it about as far as it can go, gotten everything out of it that I can. It’s no longer where I’m at. It’s time to move on.

The other morning I woke up from a dream that I was having group sex with the gang from “Buffy.” We were all huddled together in this tight group, all writhing in mutual pleasure. I was on my knees, sucking Giles’s cock. I could see his thighs and his pelvis, and his penis was bouncing right there in front of my face, and I put my mouth around it. And next to me was Jenny Calendar, on her knees, trying to get in on the action too. Her face was way up close to mine, seductively close, and she looked hot, with her dark eyes and her chipmunk cheeks and full lips. And — although I wasn’t looking up at them — Xander and Willow and Oz and Buffy were in on the action too. We were all organically connected.

I started off my blog with that common blogging dream: I’ll start doing this, and maybe people will start reading it, and maybe my audience will grow and grow and I’ll catch on and maybe someday I’ll be as big and as popular as Kottke.

Well — my readership grew, and it grew more, and it grew even more, but a long time ago I realized that I was never going to be Kottke, and that that was totally okay because that’s not really a very exciting goal anyway. I don’t even know if Kottke finds it all that exciting.

Anyway, they’ve heard of me by now. They don’t read me, but they know the name. That one linked to my September 11th account on his big list of September 11th accounts. And that one posted a link to one of my entries on the Blogger front page once.

I’m never going to be them. But that’s not necessary. Who moved my cheese? I found my niche in the blogging world, my identity in it, and lots of people came to appreciate my blog for what it was.

And now I’m making it out to seem like this was all about achieving popularity, but it wasn’t. It was more about feeling less alone. Living in a commune, sharing my day with you, implicitly asking you if I was doing it right.

This can trap you into a certain way of thinking. Hell, it can trap you into thinking, period. I have to update! What’s the best way to describe this? What exactly am I feeling right now and why am I feeling this way and what does it make me think of and what does this mean and how will this play out and how can I put this into declarative prose?

That part of my brain is sore now. It needs a rest. It needs to do other things.

You start to live like there’s this Greek chorus around you. Slave to the blog, slave to the readers. They’re going to be pissed because I haven’t updated in a while. They’re going to make fun of me for thinking this, get pissed at me for doing that, get on my case about that other thing. But I have to tell them, I have to update, because if I don’t, they’ll leave, and I need them.

I needed it. I wanted to prove that I exist. But I know I exist. And I don’t need this anymore — or want this anymore. I’m just a person living my life, and I want it to be mine again. I want to stop swimming around in a fishbowl.

I’ve felt so liberated since last week. I’ve remembered that I don’t have to tell anyone else what I’m doing. I don’t have to worry about whether I should write about such-and-such. It feels so refreshingly normal.

A blog gives you instant gratification. It’s like anonymous sex — it’s quick and it’s cheap and it depletes you and it’s never quite satisfying enough but you keep doing it anyway, trying to get there, you don’t know where but there, and meanwhile you could be making things that are deeper, more intricate, but instead you keep draining the well every day, and you never have anything left over.

I want to put my creative energies into something that doesn’t give me instant gratification. I want to work on something more long-term, something deeper. I’m not necessarily talking about a book. I’m not necessarily not talking about one, but I’m not necessarily talking about one.

I won’t say that I’m never coming back. Maybe I’ll return in a different form. I’m keeping the URL (including the e-mail address), and perhaps I’ll do something else with this site. But my angsty what-should-I-do-now please-help-me online diary days are over.

I’ve met so many great people since I began this little experiment. There are some of you I’d still like to meet. But I don’t need a blog in order to do that.

(And if you’ve been afraid to write me, I’d love to hear from you. Now you know I won’t be sharing your words with a mass audience.)

Anyway: it’s been real. It’s been swell. And it’s been very educational. And if you’ve gotten something out of it, too, well, then, all the better.

Thanks for reading.
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