Manic depressive

I'm up late after "Back-to-school-night" at our little Astor Elementary. The usual hyperkinetic crowd of kids, kidlets, and megakids with their adults in tow variously entertained, bemused, doting, baffled, or bored.Followed by an evening of homework (for the Boy) and "art projects" (for the Girl) topped off with a screening of the Disney Classic "Beverly Hills Chihuahua".

Surely you remember "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"?

Yep, that "Beverly Hills Chihuahua";Dear God, my eyes.

Anyway, after getting the littles to bed I spent a while reading through the usual blogs and trying to think up a worthwhile post here.

No luck.

I checked a look at my sidebar and noticed what a strangely cyclic year this has been for me. January and February? Huge - a post a day or almost. Then after the winter rain the drought of Spring. March barely a post every two days, April even less, May found me parched for ideas; 12 posts all month.

And, suddenly, the creative juices flow again. June and July the old fire direction center was processing missions and cranking rounds downrange like a bunch of Vietnam redlegs with eight woodcutters and a whole troop of monkeys in the free-fire zone and a truckload of projos to fire up before the end of the fiscal year.

And then?

August, the worst so far. September, too, has been a wash. In these bleak months I just don't seem to find anything interesting to say.

What the hell? Is this some sort of symptom of some sort of odd manic-depression? The hallmark of wild swings from euphoria to lumpish inertia?

I have no idea.

Part of the problem, of course, is part of the solution that is MilPub. I have another outlet for my political and military ranting, so that part of this blog has pretty much gone. I haven't done much politicking here, and, frankly, even my sense of military outrage has just been ground down to a nub.

There seems to be no point in reminding the people who visit here - a small and self-selecting group who largely share my view - that the notion of sending armed GIs to swan about the rocky deserts of central Asia in hopes that while they're waiting some turbaned Paine or chitrali-capped Jefferson will turn up (or, perhaps, someone will put a round in the center-of-mass of the Evil Taliban Emperor and secure victory for Luke, Leia, and the Rebel Alliance) is about as sensible as my donning purple Speedos and a tank top and hanging around the Seven-Eleven on the corner of North Lombard and Wall in hopes that I will catch the eye of

Jamie Lee Curtis as she drives past on the way to Fred Meyer and she will stop to pick me up and take me home for a evening of spontaneous, uninhibited wild monkey sex. While entertaining as fantasy, as bases for long-term policy both are poor substitutes for actual reasoning regarding probabilities, costs, and benefits.

And what remains is pure personal maundering; kid stuff, family tales, storytelling, army tales, local news, personal opinion, or "...battles long ago."

It seems to me as if I'm reaching a point where I still have things to say, but that on the great issues others say them better. While on the small ones...well, those, perhaps, are what is left to me.The picture in the center in the snapshot above is my son's self-portrait, BTW. If you look closely you will see he has given himself glowing red and green eyes like a fictional sorcerer. I'm intrigued, yet he will explain nothing.

But in the interim, perhaps a bit of Wordsworth:

"Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?"

(from "The Solitary Reaper", 1803)