It’s not that I haven’t thought of things to write about.

Rather, I learned a bit more about what a blog is supposed to be. Whatever that is, it ain’t this. And this is more along the lines of what I wanted to do: spew. Tweet without followers.

I became derailed by the negative response to my writing by colleagues and higher ups. And other excuses good and bad. One writer, a near contemporary, complained that Dickens (Dickens mind you) never reached a certain distance from pathos after ‘Pickwick.’ That’s Dickens, mind you. I got something more or less like “what is this pathos and what does it have to do with me?” Still better than “what is this shit?” But Dylan is releasing more of that shit forty years later. (Or is it sixty. God! It could be sixty.)

One dreams of not having to answer to higher ups. Having colleagues is nice as long as they are collegial. How you perceive collegiality might be a matter of personality. The late Lou Reed had a very sensitive bullshit filter, we’ve learned — since we weren’t paying any attention to late career Lou.  Even Lou had higher ups, though. He’s rejoined them. And no, Richard Dawkins, we don’t believe that for a minute, even less than we do believe in Sanity Klaus, but its a trope that fills a certain void. We can find meaning in static.

Still, I wanted to keep a toe in.

So much has happened.

Also: nothing has happened.

The more things remain the same, the more they change. You can call that Beck’s corollary.

So I find myself in two shows and constrained against saying anything meaningful about either. Freedom being just another word. Period. Round dot. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to hang out in the Krannert theaters. An odd routine — if possible, get home in the afternoon for some housework and downtime, then it’s back down to town to put in a night of “it.”

Last night, as I prepped for the trip downtown, I saw flashing lights at the restaurant next door. Police action? Nope. An ambulance had pulled up, and I looked out to see a stretcher being flirted with by medical types. Outside the restaurant the stricken persons homies were looking on at a safe distance. Others were gathering. They were looking at their plastic takeout plates with puzzlement.

This would segue into a piece in the trouble with dining in Rantoul. Except that the feathers that might get ruffled would be mine. It’s one thing to try to monetize a blog; another to defend one from charges of poor taste.