The Vacation is Over, Boyo

Sweet Jesus, did I really say I was aiming for "regular postings of interesting, compelling, provocative material" while I was on vacation? Yep, there it is. What on earth was I thinking?

Turns out that instead of immortalizing my thoughts on the World Wide Web, I actually spent my vacation doing, well, not much of anything. And as Peter Gibbons says in Office Space, it was everything I hoped it would be. Ballgames, stints in downtown New York and Boston, quality time with the missus and daughter. Reading, for crying out loud, and not just Goodnight Moon and Are You My Mother? (though there was plenty of that).

I mean, for the first time in ages, I finished two books in a week -- Richard Russo's excellent, insightful novel Empire Falls and Michael Lewis's provocative look at the Oakland A's, Moneyball. More on those titles later.

Anyway, the down side is that Shallow Center stayed very static -- so static that I heard about it from two people, which represents a whopping percentage of this site's total readership. As my wife put it a few minutes ago, I'm in danger of alienating what it is already a small enough (but loyal -- right?) following.

So, please, as always, bear with me while I try to get back in the zone of those heady early days of Shallow Center. I remember it like it was last month. Probably because it was last month. . . .