A Holiday Hiatus

Three things have happened over the last few days that led me to take a short hiatus from my blog.

First, I woke up Christmas morning and began to think about what I wanted to blog about on Boxing Day. This seemed a bit messed up to me. I didn’t think of baby Jesus, the Christmas tree, warm Christmas breakfast by the fire, friends, family, or anything else; I thought about my dumb blog.

The great things about blogs is that they force you to write every day or every week or whatever. They’re hungry little buggers that need to be constantly fed. The medium creates an expectation that the author ABC (borrowed from Michael Bérubé via Glengarry Glen Ross): Alway be composing. This is really quite a grind.

Next, I realized that I didn’t really have anything pressing to blog about. I’m an ancient historian and archaeologist, for heaven’s sake. If what I need to say hasn’t been said for 1500 years, then any sense of urgency is false.

Finally, I cut my finger the other night while doing dishes. I dropped a coffee mug and instinctive grabbed for it just as it was shattering. The cold white ceramic cut the tip of my warm, fleshy, finger instantly. As a four-fingered touch typer, my right middle finger is a vital contributor to my workflow. Without this finger, _ am hav_ng tr__ble wr_t_ng w_rds w_th the letters i, o, u, or p, and can barely operate my MacBook Pro’s touch pad.

I’ll be back after the holidays are over!

And if you’re really missing my Mediterranean musings, go and check out the second volume of my blog’s archive.