Let's just face it: I'm pretty bad at whatever this is, News. I had kept you around for a while because I couldn't resist tossing up random little bits every once in a while in my more teenyboppery moments, treating you like the full-force blog that you never really pretended to be, but the problem is that I would always look back at you the next morning and cringe a little. In broad daylight, your face smeary on the pillow, you were neither as clever nor as interesting as I had dreamed when I posted you the night before. I thought of you with a constant, low-burning level of shame, which was totally justified, because a lot of the time you were pretty dang embarrassing. I could blame my change of heart on oh so many things: the oilspill growing bloblike toward us only ninety miles away, causing a feeling of dread in me like a low-level migraine; my way overextended life; my real writing, which is (I'm sorry--I know this will cause you pain) extremely serious to me, and which I treat very soberly (not as in "dourly"; as in "not drunkenly"). But, really, News, it's not me; it's you. True, I couldn't give you the time you needed, but the real truth is that you sure didn't reflect well on me, at all. I'm sorry. It had to be said. This isn't to say that I don't love you. I do. Well--a little. But that's something!

Let's just stay friends, shall we? The next time we meet, we will talk with grave restraint that may manifest itself as stiffness, and I will inform you, with cleanness and precision, what is going on in my writing life.

Let's smooch (whoa! cheeks only!).
Thank you for understanding.
It's not "goodbye," you know.
It's "adieu."