*Stretch*

*Yawn*

Oh, hello there, friend. It’s been awhile. For awhile there, I seriously considered putting this blog out of its misery for good. I barely have time to do the writing that people pay me for these days, and the blog is a very decrepit (if not utterly deceased) art form, so why keep this motherfucker limping along, subjecting my beleaguered readership to the sight of the same sad post from months ago, going the way of so many bloggers when they are lucky enough to have their unpaid work lead to actual work? Why, why, why?

I still can’t think of a good reason, but since when did I need a good reason for anything? I’m back, bitches. I still can’t promise prolific updates, but I can promise the following:

• Unsolicited and sometimes unhinged thoughts on the upcoming presidential election, as has been my wont for three previous elections. (One of my greatest regrets ever was that on the urging of my job-market betters, I deleted the entirety of my Barack Obama YouTube Challenge, which included video of me doing some amazing shit in exchange for donations to Barack’s re-election campaign. Perhaps I’ll see if I can unearth it.)
• A return to MONTHLY updates on my ridiculous charge until such age as she ceases to change immeasurably with each month, with the next one forthcoming IMMEDIATELY after this post.
• THE ENTIRELY UNANTICIPATED RETURN OF RATE MY JIL, COMING THIS SEPTEMBER TO A MISERABLE JOB MARKET NEAR YOU. This year, I’ll be taking requests! If you are in a field that isn’t German (which, let’s face it, you probably are), and you see a completely redunk ad for a job, please screengrab and send it to me; if the reasons for redunkness are not readily manifest and field-specific, please also include comments, and let me know whether I can quote you (anonymously) in those comments.
• Various and sundry things that are not a good “fit” for my professional outlets, by which I mean they are poorly thought-out and contain way too many curse words.

I will also try to update my Professional Writer Site‘s Super Professional New Sub-Blog, Buchwurst(TM), a behind-the-scenes glance at what it’s really like to get a book published, from start to finish. (Or, at any rate, what it’s really like for me.)

Yesterday in an effort to make one of the insipid baby books in our midst slightly less insipid–Noodle Goes to the Beach, about a panda named Noodle who loves the beach–I changed it up a bit. Since the authors also saw fit to rhyme “peach” with “beach,” I thought I’d simply swap their insipidity out for the work of someone else who did the same:

Shall Noodle part his hair behind?
Does he dare to eat a peach?
He shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk along the beach.
He has heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
He does not think that they will sing to him.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Standing by…