Snapping out of it

I am aghast realizing that it's been exactly a month since my last blog post. I'm not sure, but this very well may be the longest dry spell my blog has gone through.

I offer no excuses. There was certainly no dearth of material: I could have reviewed one of several movies I saw in the past month (Shrek 4, Prince of Persia, Sex and the City 2, The A Team, and most recently, Karate Kid). I could have written about being at SMX last June 8 to see and listen to Al Gore deliver "An Inconvenient Truth". I could have gone on a ranting rampage about the Boston Celtics losing the NBA championship to the Los Angeles Lakers, or the US drawing with England in their World Cup match, or those now-notorious instruments of international irritation, the vuvuzelas. I could have rhapsodized about the day of shopping and stuffing-ourselves-silly I spent with my siblings (sans the 'rents) in Hong Kong last June 12 (Independence Day indeed!). I could have given an update on my progress and ongoing love affair with hatha yoga, the current (and just concluded) season of Glee, and a certain individual with a proclivity for the color gray.

Granted, I was insanely busy at work the past month. Some of our managers went on leave, forcing me to shoulder their workloads while they were away. At one point I was doing the work of 3 people for a couple of days, and the stress got to an almost unbearable level. But whereas before I would find catharsis in blogging, I now find my solace elsewhere, which is both good and bad, I suppose-- good that I have healthier alternatives to destress, bad that I am not exercising my writing muscles beyond churning out work emails and business letters.

Worse, my blog hasn't been the only thing I've been ignoring of late. I haven't finished a single book all year, and we're already midway through 2010. Reading and writing are things I enjoy dearly, yet I now seem to be unable to accommodate them. I'd like to think it's because my priorities have shifted (damn, I AM growing old), but I'd also like to think that I can still find some time to indulge in my once favorite pastimes. Perhaps I simply need to realign all the stuff I've got going on in my life to make room for them.

In the meantime, I do know what I shall be blogging about next, and I'm determined to publish it within the week, in spite of a pretty full work and social calendar. For the nth time, I am exhorted by that passage from The Little Prince that goes, "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." And I am determined to keep tending the roses that are my books and my blog, no matter how busy I get.