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This is one of those posts that after I've written and posted it, many of the kind and forgiving bloggers of the world will assure me was totally unnecessary. I've decided that it is necessary, if only for my mental health, but if, for your mental health, you elect to pass it on by in favor of bloggers actually writing about books and reading and things, I can't say that I'd blame you. There, you've been duly warned.

I don't know if my absence around the blogosphere and maybe even especially right here on my own blog has been as glaring as I tend to think it is when I'm getting down on myself about not being a consistent enough blogger, but I feel very absent from all things blogging. I feel like I keep either phoning in posts or not writing them at all, and when I do write them, I end up not replying to my commenters despite my best intentions. Usually, it would be easy enough to blame these sorts of things on my own personal failings, of which I have plenty, but this summer, I'm just struggling with so many stupid things that it's making it hard to keep up with the things that I love.

I love reading and I love blogging, and I promise you this is not one of those, "I'm about to scrap my blog - please talk me back from this dangerous precipice!" sort of posts either. Ever since returning from BEA, I've been excited about the prospect of being a better blogger as that sort of thing always does to me, just one of the many reasons why I go. Unfortunately, since then, I have been really sick not once but twice (the worst of which has been just this past week - nothing serious though), had family members who have been really sick that I've been trying to help out where I can, I've injured my back badly and aggravated my previously injured wrist, applied for and interviewed for a new, hotly contested, position within my company that ended with me still in my current position but not before turning into an ugly mess resulting in a department where the morale is now worse than ever. It seems like it took summer so long to get here this year, and now that it's here it's an incomparable suck-a-ganza that just won't stop. It's gotten to the point where my mounting frustration over not being able to blog the way I want, and the ever-growing list of posts I want to write is overwhelming me so much, that when I do have the time to write, I can't seem to find my voice.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I love this blog. I've come to terms with the amount of time I can give to it regularly, which, though it is not the amount of time I'd like to give to it, is still some of the best time I have to give. It makes me feel like what I have to say is worth something. It gives me a part of my life that I'm still passionate about, and it connects me to people who understand what it is to find life in books. If I'm not here because I'm giving time to my family or my friends, I can deal with it, but it eats away at me when the reason I'm nowhere to be found here is because I'm giving all my good time to my thankless job or to housework or running errands or, even better, to seeing doctors, laying on a heating pad, or picking up other people's prescriptions. So, to everybody who has commented lately and been disappointed by my lack of response, to everybody who thinks I must have given up reviewing books completely (since it's been so long), and to everyone whose e-mail has gone unreplied to while I've been trying reset the bowling pins of my life (and failing) thanks for your patience. I am beyond frustrated that the crummy stuff of life has kept me from doing things here like they ought to be done, and I apologize.

Thanks for bearing with me through this message and through my very flaky blogging behavior, of late. I feel like I've been lumbering along laboring under a weird, amorphous burden of guilt that nobody's forcing me to carry, and I'm hoping that the simple act of posting this post will clean the slate for me, and I'll be able get up, dust myself off, and get myself back to the blogging at hand.

Okay, back to your normal programming. Thanks, everybody!

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