Having wondered aloud if something has infected the blogosphere lately, I discover that the affliction has a name:
"Beal," for those who may not be aware, is an illness characterized by having it. It's named after the character Howard Beal in Network, and was discovered by one of my college English Lit professors.
Thus:
Susie: "I can't go to class, I have beal."
Helpful questioner: "What's beal?"
Susie: "It's the reason I can't go to class."
In this case, though, I think beal has struck the blogosphere with a vengeance. I know I have been unable to comment on others' blogs because of it, and I suspect that there was a particularly bad outbreak this past weekend--only a few hardy souls were able to post at all. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for beal. It strikes without warning, usually in winter time, and has no set duration. Research into its cause and treatment are sadly underfunded. In fact, very few people are even aware it exists!
Over on Ripples, David St. Lawrence posts some thoughts on combating beal.
I'm suffering not so much from a lack of inspiration as I am from an excess of information; there's just so damn much of it out there, and I've got too few fingers for too many pies.
(Not coincidentally, I seem to have hit a fork in the road known as my so-called "career". I need to decide what I'm going to focus on.)
Anyway, enough whingeing. Thanks to those of you who've bothered to stick around.
(BTW, a long time ago, Richard coined a term of his own -- "blangst" -- which strikes me as being more readily compreshensible than "beal". But maybe that's just me.)
[Addendum: 'Twould appear that extrasonic and lactose incompetent are both taking tentative steps back into the world of living blogs. Let's hope recovery is also contagious.]