I want to add to Misty’s post below, but first I have to make a quick detour:

Where the fuck has Mike Jasper (aka Jasper aka The Jasperino) been?

My wife starts blogging and out he suddenly pops from whatever rinky-dink woodshed he’s been hiding in writing his man-eats-trout, trout-swims-in-man, the-two-become-friends-and-go-fishing-together magnum opus to make a comment about car washes? (And, for the record, if there were a car wash called Free Will Car Wash, I would avoid it at all costs. There’s no telling what those machines will do to your car if we give them free will. Look at what we do to our vehicles.)

Before I move on, I should note that (a) Jasper named this blog and (b) I still use his line, “Ireland is the Mexico of Europe.”

Now that the acknowledgments are out of the way, I thought I’d talk just briefly about my own lack of inspiration — as if such hasn’t been neon-obvious to everyone who (still) reads this journal. (I’m going to refuse to call this a “blog” because it was started before the word “blog” even came into existence. Call me French.)

I can easily blame my lack of inspiration — let’s be honest, it’s a lack of making the effort to find time to work (write) — on my job, but so can Misty, and everyone else who does this for personal satisfaction rather than money. (“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” wrote Samuel Johnson, likely for free. Unless he spoke it instead; that’s another matter entirely. Only Bill Clinton won’t speak for free.)

Beyond being “busy,” I suppose I just completely lack the creative drive I once had. (Thank God I have Misty to fill that void in my life.) And, probably more important, I now have the nagging — nay, suffocating — requirement of self-censorship. It’s gotten to the point in our culture where everything is up for grabs and everything is up for critique and all the lines are blurred. You write a post on your “blog” one day and the next your boss is breathing down your neck for something that really doesn’t concern him or her.

If you ask me, it should be illegal for employers to look up potential employees’ personal information on Facebook and the Web as a determiner of employment. Let the resume speak for itself — just like in those Golden Days the Republicans want to get back to. (But they do love the Interwebs when it comes to ensuring no one with a brain works for them.)

So, as my final excuse, I will use that feeling of self-censorship. The inability to be honest with my readers (ha!) as I once was. I’ve discovered I’m no good at one of those subject-specific blogs focusing solely on military issues or politics or pop culture or hating/loving cute animals. The one thing I ever had was a brutal honesty (and a willingness to sometimes be a little circumspect), and that’s been beaten out of me by . . . growing up some?

I’ll try to regress. Devolve. Like the Texas State Board of Education.

– William

P.S. There. I’ve written an entire entry using Jasper and excuses. And Jasper once said that the only way to stay young is to stay immature.