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So, you may have noticed that the comment box has gone away. I made a vague remark a few days ago suggesting it was a technical issue, but in fact, I took the comments box off myself, because I was the one having issues.

This blog has evolved a lot since I started writing it. It’s gone from being a little add-on to my professional site to taking on a life of it’s own. A big life, too. Writing this blog is almost like having another partner – it’s a whole separate relationship that needs care and attention. And truthfully, the relationship it reminds me of is the one Seymour had with his blood-sucking plant in Little Shop Of Horrors. Like Seymour’s plant, this blog has connected me with awesome people and made a lot of really amazing things happen for me. I would never choose to un-do all that. But some days, I feel like the constant cry of “Feed me!” is making me a little anemic.

Of course, as long as I have this blog, that voice is going to be in my head. One of my rules for life is that I don’t take myself too seriously - but I take what I do very seriously. If I’m going to blog – and I am, this is not a farewell speech – then I am going to blog well.

However, I have become aware, lately, that my writing here has gotten really…careful. Almost defensive. When I considered it, I realized that it was due to my thinking too much about what people were going to post in the comments. When I first started blogging, I loved getting comments. At some point, that changed. Naturally it’s always been nice to have people say how much they liked this or that. I’m human, I like praise. But getting strokes can’t be the entire goal of the blog. Monk told me how Pete Townsend once remarked that people always talk about how musicians influence their listeners, but that the reverse was also true: fan feedback influences musicians. That’s true for me as well, and I feel it’s been detrimental to my writing here. When I took the comments off ten days ago, it was an experiment to see how I felt. And what I felt was an immediate sense of being freed from a constraint. Thus, I will not be having comments here anymore.

Even as I write this, I’m feeling the urge to bring up and pro-actively address all the various protests and arguments that I think you, the reader, might make. Defensive. But as with everything in my life – and in yours too – my choice to remove comments is influenced by a number of factors, both large and small. Some of my reasons I have shared with you here, but there are others I’m not going into, either because they are too complex or too personal. Without the comments box hanging over my head, I feel freer to write what I want, without lengthy justification.

I suppose it’s possible the silence will get to me after a while and I’ll put them back up, but not any time in the foreseeable future. You can, of course, email me with your comments, and I will probably post and publicly respond to selected ones.

To all the people who said pleasant and/or thought-provoking things here, I thank you. Your input was appropriate, and it was appreciated. But I’m going to take it alone now.