Update: I lost

Well, "Game Show!" came and went. I took my shot, swung the hammer, threw the horseshoe, tossed the dart. But --- although I was in fact winning throughout the main part of the questioning --- it's not a show without its perils, and I lost it all at the end. Now, it was a fun experience and I'm glad I had it, but I must admit to a certain moroseness over the missed opportunity. Not over the money --- I'm lucky to have more money than I need at the moment --- but I'd just like to have chalked up a major win in something this time around.

Barring sudden inspiration, I think I will probably take the rest of the year off this blog (not simply because of the Game Show loss, but mainly from general ennui). But I'll plan to return in 2009 (if still alive and willing). And I'll continue to come around and leave my own inimitably supercilious/stupid comments on all your blogs, never fear.

Yes, I am aware of how emo and self-pitying this post comes across as, and don't care. In fact, let's crank the emo to 11 with some Emily D, circa 1924.

I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled
Some thousands --- on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's grief of want, and grief of cold,
A sort they call "despair";
There's banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,
Of those that stand alone,
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.

-Emily Dickinson