I've been struggling for a good long time on whether or not I cared to blog anymore. Odd as it may seem this blog sitting on a server somewhere, written from anywhere, read - if at all - from anywhere, represents a very personal connection to a very specific place. And I'm not in that place anymore. I haven't been for over five years.
That place, of course, is the District of Columbia. I love DC. Most of the best things in my life happened in the District. I met my wife in DC. I bought my first house in DC. Our children were born in DC. I got my PhD in DC. I saw the most amazing shows in DC.
I take the city seriously, even if the city at times decided it wasn't serious ("reformer" Michelle Rhee, anyone?).
It is with a large measure of guilt that I abandoned the city, because I didn't want to leave. Nothing about the battles with DCPS, the ANC, or dirtbag developers drove me from this city. However, my wife got a job elsewhere and we decided even before that offer that if either of us received a tenure track offer we would go wherever that was, within reason (English professorships are not handed out like corporate swag on Adams-Morgan Day).
From that moment in August 2008, I've had a tough time connecting with this blog. I tried for a while. I was in denial for a while, writing as if I still lived in the District. However, the energy of daily life that was sustaining this blog -- the little encounters on the street, the buzz of political conversation in cafeterias and coffee shops -- wasn't there.
And so I come to the point that if I continue blogging, I don't think it will be on this blog.
This blog is always and ever the District for me, and I miss it so so much.
