How to Overcome Writer's Block by Not Writing.

Lo and begorrah. I haven't posted to this consarn log in nary a fortnight!

Sorry, sometimes I enjoy talking like Pa Ingalls—the real one, not the dashing yet sappy actor who left us far too soon.

It's been ten days. Jeez.

Don’t think it hasn't been bothering me, though. For the past week-and-a-half, I've stood here at the literary urinal with the worst case of stage fright ever, and not even visualizations of babbling brooks and waterfalls have primed the prose from my creative renal system.

Apparently, my muse needs Meuslix.

When I've not been able to summon a topic in the past, I've turned to the pages of the newspaper for inspiration, where I can typically extract a nugget or two of lampoonable material from the day's headlines. But with the Boston tragedy still so raw, the atmosphere is not unlike the aftermath of September 11, where the premature use of humor seems almost ignorant  and patronizing to the human suffering.

In the days leading up to Monday's horrific events, North Korea's newly anointed divine psychopath, Kim Jun Eun, had been dominating the media's face time. I'd decided to learn more about the struggles of the North Korean people and read a book entitled, Escape From Camp 14. It's the story of a man who, after having spent his first twenty-three years in a North Korean labor camp, escaped to China, then on to South Korea and the United States. 

While I endorse this account co-authored by Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden, I wouldn't recommend reading it if you aren't prepared to encounter gruesome stories of a nation's institutionalized brutality on its own people over the past sixty years. Truly chilling.

So, yeah, like many of the world's with even a light dusting of compassion, I've been in a downright funk. And when you pen a blog that attempts to keep things buoyant, you tend to feel as if there are some pretty heavy issues that supersede your airy blatherings.

This morning, however, a new hypothesis needled its way into my medulla oblongata:

What if I'm done? Tapped? Sapped of my pedantical chi? Perhaps I've failed to acknowledge that my mental pantry holds only finite supply of ideas, much like the earth's helium stores which are slated to expire sometime around 2043.

Maybe it's time to come to terms with it. After all, who wants to make Shake 'n' Bake with pork chops that expired last Tuesday?

Think of all the ill-advised artistic follow-up works which litter the pop culture cemetery:

After recording the classic Frampton Comes Alive, Peter Frampton probably should have named the next album, Sorry, Dead Again. Or how about all the ill-fated spin-off shows, like  Joanie Loves Chachi?  Let's just say it's a good thing she loved him, because every one else wanted to strangle him with his own freaking mullet.

I don't want to be end up like Jack Tripper in Three's a Crowd or Joey in, well, Joey. Hey, if the tank is dry, there's no shame, which is why I tearfully bid you farewell, loyal readers.

Just kidding. I've got a prostate exam coming up. Who else can I tell about it?