Apologia pro detoxificatione blogologico suo

Or: Why Nicholas will continue occasionally two take a tuthree weeks off blogging

As my readers—more loyal to me than I to them—have noted, I haven’t written here for a little while: since I was in the States, in fact. The reasons why are properly a matter for The Other Place, but I’ve had a conspiracy of

1. being down because I’m back from overseas—which is starting to be a pattern;
2. having a big project at my day job, which has spilled into after hours;
3. having a big project at the TLG, which spilled further into my after hours; and
4. the temerity of going out on a few social outings. That, and
5. my next two projected posts, while having nothing to do with each other (vowel contraction and language shift in Kız Dervent, ausgerechnet), are both intimidating me away from writing.

Btw, (1) is why I haven’t been replying to comments. And the chance to write two other posts instead (thank you Tipoukeitos and Tom) is why I can now circumvent (5).

But this too is becoming a pattern, which means there’s a reason for it. It may be a quaint holdover from my academic (and pre-blogging) past, but I won’t write the three-paragraph posts that allow people to put up five posts in a day. They’re long-form posts, because that’s how I write. Not just here, or The much-neglected Other Place: I inflict long-form posts on my day job group blog too, and they’re even less natural to that discipline.

If I was writing in a journal for linguists, they wouldn’t be long-form posts. Hellenisteukontos posts are “squibs”, as linguists call them in journals: a paragraph’s worth of linguistic content, not-a-paper. But by the time I put in my jokes and my background explanations and my cute digressions, and do my vulgarisation, they are a paper’s worth in length. (A short paper, admittedly; this is still a blog.) And with that and my obsessive hyperlinking, they’re three hours worth of work. So I do have to breathe in before I start a post.

Imagine if I actually read up on the literature as well. Good think I don’t bother to. 😐

I don’t tire of the three-hour posts or begrudge them; what I do here I find fulfilling, even if it is a consolation prize for not becoming an academic. But I am easily thrown off course from them; which means every few months, I will go offline a few weeks. The real worry is when I’m haven’t been answering comments. Which has been gnawing at me. Even the πανάθεμά σε comment, which is going to be difficult for me to give a proper answer to; but yes, I will go through and reply to what I can.

The fact that my new job will be 5 mins drive from my house, instead of a half hour train ride, will not help my blogging either. Something my new employers sound relieved about. That, I’ll deal with in July.

At any rate, I’m resuming transmission now, and I thank you for your ongoing patience.