Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Why Have I Forsaken You?

Oh, dear Blog, why have I forsaken you? This always happens to you, doesn’t it? They start with family photos or some pseudo-profound declaration and it just peters off until there’s nothing but blankness and you sit there by yourself day after day empty and void. And fewer and fewer people come to visit you until finally there’s nobody, no hits, and you feel a devastating aloneness.

Well, Blog, I’m back and I want to give you my excuses. On December 22, I received an email from James Burnett, editor of Boston Magazine, asking me to do a major article about how Boston has been affected by Bernie Madoff. Now dear Blog, you know that I was with my mother and brothers and was too busy enjoying Christmas to do any work. And you know too that the day after Christmas I took Amtrak to Washington to be with sick mother-in-law and wife before flying back to Palm Beach where 20/20 spent New Year’s Eve following me around.

And, beloved Blog, you wouldn’t have agreed to write this article. You’re too smart. But I’m ready for punishment. So I’ve been working twelve hours a day or more, calling sources, writing, thinking, and just a few minutes ago I zapped off my finished 6,200 word article. I’m tired, Blog, and kind of irritable. I just took my wife to the airport where she’s flying back to be with her mother. I don’t do well alone.

But now that I am alone in my solitude, I will have time to struggle to answer the one great philosophical question left in the world. Why does one only lose one sock? Why doesn’t one lose a pair? And why is my drawer full of twenty single socks. And as I puzzle over that I will attempt the one thing I must do before I can die happily. Once, just once, I would like to go into a men’s room and fully dry my hands on the hand blower and not come out as if I had just left the pool.

Dear Blog, I am alone now in a town where a heterosexual single man is a rare as a portfolio that hasn’t collapsed. And I will be going out now almost every night. And I won’t forsake you any longer. I’ll be watching for things that will make you happy and I’ll never never desert you again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well Larry, we think that good fortune is about to shine on you. Regis obviously loved the book. He wanted to share with others that which he had just read. Terrific!

Regarding socks, I figure there must be an S date or something out there whereby single socks meet via static cling in the dryer and just run off together. Or, you are out and about on the town, everyone seems to recognize you and you feel full of yourself. Just then, dear wife pulls a single sock off the back of your shirt. Voila, 2 plausible and completely rational possibilities.