like whiskey and melted cheese

I realized something: Blogging wasn't helping me write; it was keeping me from it.

When I needed to pretend that people were reading, I could. When I needed to pretend that nobody was reading, I could. (For this reason, I never checked the reader stats on my blog, unlike most of my friends, who check it as regularly as their e-mail.)

but it had also become a major distraction. [I interrupt this excerpt to tell a final joke: Some reporter once asked Woody Allen, “Do you believe in the power of God.” Because he’d been blogging, he didn’t bat an eye: “No,” Allen retorted. “I believe in the power of distraction.”]

I suspect I'll come back to blogging eventually. It will be something I quit on occasion, like whiskey and melted cheese, when the negative effects outweigh the benefits. Practically every blogger I know has taken their site down at some point—for personal reasons, for business reasons, for boredom reasons. It's no different from the way we have to turn off our cell phones or stop checking e-mail so that we can actually focus on something.

[thanks MM. I needed that]