I started writing my weekly column “Snide Remarks” for my college paper way back in 1997, took it with me to the small daily paper I worked for after I graduated, and subsequently made it an online-only feature after that paper fired me. There have been a few gaps and hiatuses here and there, but basically the column has run nearly every week for 11 1/2 years.
In recent months, however, you may have noticed a decline in regularity. New columns have appeared on only 36 of the last 52 Mondays. It’s become like a TV show: a few weeks of new episodes, then a week or two off, then back again for a few weeks, and so forth. The difference is that writing the column was once part of my salary (at the newspapers, and subsequently when we charged a subscription fee to read it here), which meant I was motivated to write it AND had time allotted in which to do so. Now that’s no longer the case, and I have to focus my word-piling energies toward the things that pay the bills. My extravagant lifestyle of Hot Pockets and library books doesn’t come free!
But then I start to feel guilty. I know there are many of you who look forward to reading “Snide Remarks” every Monday, and you have no idea how grateful I am for that. Some of you have been around since the beginning, which is weird, because you’d think you’d have grown out of me by now. And I feel bad having to so frequently say, “Sorry, no column this week.” But I would also feel bad crankin’ out something mediocre just to avoid missing a week.
So we come to this:
As of now, “Snide Remarks” is no longer a weekly column.
It is now a quasi-weekly column. (That’s the best term I can think of. “Occasional” sounds too infrequent.)
When it runs, it will run on Mondays, as usual, and my goal is still to write it every week — the only difference is that you shouldn’t EXPECT it every week.
All that’s required here is an adjustment of perspective. Don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t appear; instead, be delighted when it does.
To be notified when a new “Snide Remarks” is published, you can use the RSS feed or, if you don’t know what “RSS feed” means, you can just get on the e-mailing list. Or you can visit the site every day anyway to read the blog and the movie reviews and stuff.
I appreciate your readership, and I hope you understand my position here. As a special gift to you, here is a picture of me at 17, taken from a video one of my high school classmates posted on Facebook.
