From late 2005 through late 2007, I maintained — pretty faithfully — a blog. Equal parts writing practice, reflection, and (least interestingly, I’m afraid) ranting, it turned out that forcing myself to write something regularly helped me get to the point that taking on journalism-type writing gigs these days feels like no big deal. I get letters printed in newspapers. I entered a short story in a little contest, and it won. With writing, as with most things, practice definitely makes…better. Another thing that happened, oddly, was that I got it out of my system. The “reflection” pieces were for me the most enjoyable, and often actually cathartic. Molding a particular episode from the past into a few brief paragraphs — with the intention of a stranger reading it and finding it interesting — turned out to be a terrific way to digest the past. It forced me to put things in perspective, get to the nut of the experience, what it meant to me, what impact it had, etc. After two years of doing this (at times nightly), it felt in many ways as if I’d completed a rather thorough, albeit piecemeal, autobiography. I felt done. So I stopped. It took me a little while to realize I had…well, not quite “nothing” to say, but certainly less as time went on. My writings turned mostly to “rants” of one kind or another, ultimately not very satisfying. Nor were they, I’d guess, anywhere near as potentially interesting. Anyone can rant, and many — all too many, I’m afraid — often do. Who really cares what pissed me off? Besides ME, of course. Then again, who cares what I’ve experienced, and how I feel about it? It really doesn’t matter. It does me good to write about it. So I will. It’s been a year or so, and now it feels like time to strike up the band again. So here we go.