Like falling off a blog

In another forum, Italo takes me to task for my silence.

What can I say? I got used to working in the bathtub environment. The desk and the 20-inch monitor now intimidate me a bit.

And, really, I've just been giving at the office -- way, way, too much time and energy.

Details obscured as always, but the gist is that my boss rather annoyingly put me in charge of a high-profile and complex project -- one for which success entails coordinating several unmotivated people around the globe -- and then promptly left on vacation. It is now, after many nights of my waking up at 2 AM and scribbling down self-reminder notes that proved maddeningly incomprehensible five hours later, winding down. Should be totally complete by Friday.

Unfortunately, I happened to remark to my future boss that a certain designated "Day of X" would be an apropos occasion to put out an op-ed. She agreed -- and asked me to write it. Which doesn't seem quite fair, seeing as how I'm not working for her just yet, but what could I do? So, come Friday, I'll be penning a piece in which I argue, essentially, that violence is bad. No, seriously.

It's harder than it sounds; these people are not of a familiar political persuasion, and I'm a little uncertain about the mind of the beast. I'd like to do well with my debut performance. But do I need to establish that violence is economically damaging? Or merely that it prevents women from becoming wives and mothers?

When I say "writing," incidentally, I of course mean ghostwriting. Which, frankly, I'm not thrilled about. On the other hand, this piece is going to have to be edited by no fewer than 31 people -- I counted; I'm really not exaggerating -- so I suspect I'll actually be pleased not to have my name on it when it comes out six weeks after the "Day of X," and says, essentially, "Actions which are outside the mainstream of what most people would consider to be nonviolent behavior, especially when they're directed against women, which we here define as comprising men, women, and persons under the age of 18, should not be considered to meet with the highest accepted standards of goodness. Unless they happen in a place with a lot of oil."

In any event, this is where all my time is going. Well, that, and my belated discovery that the current season of Mad Men is available on iTunes.

Deliberately burying the lede, let me also say, for those of you tuning in after a misleading Facebook proclamation: Look. K isn't living here, and I've exceeded the limit of drama that I can process. That's all I care to say about the matter right now. This is one chalk outline around which we're simply going to draw a curtain.