I haven’t written anything for a long time and that is based on a combination of a couple of factors/excuses:

1. My personal laptop is dead.
2. Work is busy.
3. I’m lazy.
4. We have a 8 month old and an 8 year old (who acts like she’s 16).

I’ll unpack each of these, but want to put it out there at the outset that my lack of writing spring’s mostly from #4. I can appreciate that having children is a gift and I derive a ton of satisfaction, fun, and self-worth from them – but they are a tremendous time-suck. *** I just had to step away from this to change the 4th diaper of our baby today, who is home sick (day 3 of this) from daycare  ***

This poor guy has had pink eye, fever, cough, etc… from his first week at daycare. He’ll only sleep on one of us.

1. My personal laptop, a Mac, now will only boot up and stay on with a 15-20 minute process and some dos-related thingy. If you ever had a laptop from the early aughts, this is an experience you’ll remember from just after your laptop was out of warranty period. I really really wanted to cut the cord with Apple. This laptop was really expensive when my old company paid for it, and while it was fast and had a ton of storage, I don’t really need a Mac. Recently, I had to buy a new phone because *SURPRISE* my iPhone crapped out at just about 2 years in. Did I do what I threatened-to, and get that Motorola Droid Berry VI with the accordion keyboard and projector capabilities and 92 Gizzigabit Camera that can capture every blackhead??! Of course not, I bought another iPhone, because everyone I know does that. *** I just had to step away, because the baby had a massive combo blowout and barf *** I will now go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge because everyone else is doing it. Seriously thought, not having a personal laptop kills my motivation to write after work.

2. Work is busy. Not much explanation needed, and I’m not looking for sympathy. Although I was hoping that I had some secret great uncle with a trust fund setup for me. I envisioned this being revealed to me through some video tape delivered from one of his many attorneys. The video would share that I was entitled to his entire fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars as long as I could spend $1 million of it in 1 day, the day I turned 40. That day is rapidly approaching and I’m still holding out hope.

3. I’m Lazy. Yeah, but really, who isn’t? I work smart. Which is like working hard, except mostly not.

4. Our Children. I am in a near-constant fog created by lack of sleep and self-care that is necessary when rearing these things. I don’t think I fully appreciated what it was like when we only had 1 child, one-half of the time. It was amazing and it lead to a very productive period in my life. I remember conversations I’ve had with friends who were thinking about having another kid (either #2 or #3) and frequently hearing from them that they were worried about extra-familial pursuits. There is no denying that kids take precedent and they should. *** I just had to step away to prevent our baby from falling off the couch **** Oh well, I love them.