As you can see, I have not yet attained comfort within the form of the "blog". I had envisioned this working as a sort of series of essays but even a short essay seems to be too long for the form. Besides the "Game of Art" there was to be in the original set of essays a piece on literary tourism, something about the phenomenom (at least with me) on not discovering any favorite films after the age of 27 or so, as opposed to books and music and art, in which I still discover new favorites occasionally, something on the cult of Picasso among a certain type of educated American, something on why Salinger remains a popular author in 2006 (I didn't think it was because kids today love/identify with Holden Caulfield), something on the devolution of baseball into just another obnoxious/pushy parent sport, periodic essays on particular works of art, as well as a series called "Diary of a Born Tourist" in which I rehash the various degrees of failure I have experienced in tourist destinations, especially the great hero-cities and iconic spots of our culture. I had also planned after establishing my persona to write a series of critiques of my education and my school, which I thought might be of interest to any general readers who may, like me, have become discouraged regarding these matters in recent years and allowed themselves to think in dark moments that any schooling that does not elevate one to the level of PhD studies under the personal tutelage of a Nobel-level mentor is effectively a waste of time anymore.

However, I have found that the form of the blog requires more brevity and spontaneity than these topics, as I had foreseen addressing them, allow for. Also as the title of my blog implies, I have allowed myself to become caught in a life that allows very little time for writing of any kind, none of it without distractions, except for a few days around midnight, at which time I have already been awake for 15 hours, and am reduced to writing more in desperation than inspiration. I know respectable manhood, and that includes all those areas of life I longed to take part in but never was able to do, do not tolerate whining, and I have tried to bear up and acknowledge my failures and inferior qualities and improve myself to some tolerable condition. But the fact remains that I only grow ever more desperate and lost, my intellectual capacities, once reasonable, appear to be deteriorating at a truly alarming rate, my artistic sensibilities have deserted me entirely, and every day I lose more and more contact with the world of the educated, articulate and capable, and am more and more enveloped within the horrifying "prole drift" (Fussell) the tide of which is decidedly biting at the heels of those of us who were formerly middle class but were unable to keep up with the demands of history. And yes, it is my fault, entirely my own fault, but good God, I never thought it would come to this.