Hair and fingernails continue to grow...

...but blog hits taper off. (With, of course, apologies.)

Thanks for coming back, everyone. It's been an eventful few weeks.

First, the blog disposition: we will be continuing the blog, but doing what I should've when I got back from India -- namely, starting a new location; an Esquivalience, Vol. II, if you will, to mark the shift in topics.

We're also likely to start yet another location that's purely a feminist commentary blog. I can't yet articulate why I want to do this -- indeed, it's the opposite of the sort of mainstreaming of issues that I advocate -- but it just feels right.

Neither new site is yet up and running -- did I mention it's been an eventful few weeks? -- but I hope to relaunch by Monday. Check back here for the new URLs.

I'm anticipating that the new site will be more or less like this one. I'm still committed to utter frankness, but may aim for something slightly less diarylike. I should mention that one of my primary motivations for taking a blogpause was the awkwardness of wanting to write about my dating, combined with the ardent desire to shield K (who, yes, does visit the site) from reading about my dating. That motivation was sufficiently strong that I didn't even cite it as a motivation. Well, that ship's now sailed -- K, who knows me better than anyone in the universe, was able to read between the lines of my quasicryptic Facebook updates as if I'd been sending out telegrams (insert a "PLEASE DON'T STOP" joke here). Still, we'd like to exercise a bit more discretion. So: just as honest, in the future, but perhaps a bit less personal. That's the goal, anyway.

The other reason for wanting a move is practical. As the hits pick up -- part of the pattern of my "bulimic readership," as young David puts it, presumably not meaning to imply that my blog induces nausea -- I get squeamish about some of my earlier and more friends-and-family writing getting so much exposure and being taken out of context. We don't plan to disown the old blog, and will probably even link back to it. But we'd just feel more comfortable if people were linking to the new, clean-slate one. And the new feminist site -- notionally, "The Daily Downer," though that may change...I mean, "daily"? Really? -- will have even less personal content.

But -- we're not there yet. This is still the old site.

So here's what's been going down:

I've been going out. A lot. I mean, a completely ridiculous amount, and not just ridiculous for a hermit. And it's actually been fun. Who knew, all this time, that it was the need to come home and blog that was, well, keeping me home?

And no, I don't really mean that. (Though I can't help wondering whether it's easier to live one's life when one isn't writing about it.)

And yes, there's been a lot of dating, though little of consequence. My first reaction was that it's great fun; terrific; how did I ever go so long without so much flirtation; and didn't it feel fantastic to feel so desirable and attractive again? My reaction now? Mm-m, I've had enough for the time being, thank you, and can I have some emotional intimacy back in my life, please?

Speaking of which, K and I are talking again, after a turbulent period of trying out email-but-not-talking, talking-through-our-poor-friend-A, and definitely-NOT-talking. We're emphatically not together, but we're still trying to find a new equilibrium. I've gone through periods of feeling like my life was on a different and better trajectory, to frantically rereading this blog to gird myself against calling him and begging him to come back, to feeling sad about but utterly justified in the breakup, often in 15-minute cycles. What makes it so difficult is that K and I really excelled in the micro stuff -- the weekend breakfasts, the waiting for the bus -- but failed so miserably on a lot of the macro items; it meant our days were wonderful but our weeks were terrible. And also that I now feel an absolutely equal mixture of regret and relief, which is a bit of a tricky emotional state to inhabit over the long-term. I suspect that, if necessary, I'll eventually be able to get past him without ever really getting over him.

I wrote on my Facebook page today that I feel grateful. And I do. Things are not going badly. The new job has started and doesn't yet suck (though they do tend to announce "and Esquiver will show us how to do X!" and I reply "of course!" and then go run and wiki what the heck X is). Friends and people around me are being surprisingly good to me. The laws of karmic conservation dictate that the balance has to eventually swing back, but I'm content with, and appreciative for, having the moment.