Enjoying the first day of my blogging retirement

Brett Favre, here.

First, let me offer a sincere thanks to those readers who were nice enough to comment on the Monday post announcing my “retirement” from blogging. Kym, Valerie, Paul and someone or something called “deyank,” I assure you that your kind words mean a lot. Your offer to commandeer a small plane and fly down to my Mississippi farm to physically drag me back to cyberspace was most appreciated.

Having had a full day now to think about my decision, I’m not quite ready to rescind it. It was very relaxing last night to attend to the routine details of everyday life — going to the dentist, taking a brief jog around the neighborhood, suffering a gut-wrenching session in the john thanks to some disgusting sealant hygienists are putting on people’s teeth these days — without having the pressure of producing a post hanging over my head.

Now, it’s Tuesday morning, and I’m sitting at work, getting tired of playing Scrabble and reading online stories like “Hillary Duff debuts new bangs on Twitter” and “Woman goes to court with monkey in bra.” (Sadly, no details on the monkey’s hairstyle). So rather than do any actual work, I’d like to try and explain further about my retirement decision.

One of the “undisclosed personal matters” I referenced yesterday has to do with a very ill member of my family. I got to thinking how counterproductive it must be to my karma to be constantly sniping snarkily at every subject under the sun. I’ve long prided myself on being a cynical curmudgeon, but that just seems like the wrong attitude to have when you’d give anything to see a close relative return to health. Doctors, friends and associates are much more willing to help and sympathize with a normal human being than with an anti-social a-hole.

My feelings began to crystallize when I was watching the NCAA basketball tournament over the weekend. I was griping to my son about not just the quantity of commercial interruptions, but also the lack of variety in the ads. With some of the games broadcast on small-time cable outlets like TNT and TruTV, there are only so many advertisers they’re able to round up. So the viewing audience is left to either watch for the twentieth time as the president of Sprint tells us how he looked up the word “unlimited” the other day, or blow their brains out.

However there was one commercial that, despite its incessant repetition, genuinely pulled at my heartstrings. It was the one of the dad offering safe-driving advice to his five-year-old daughter sitting behind the steering wheel of the family sedan. As he runs through the usual cautions, the fidgety little girl stops him cold with two words: “Daddy, okay.”  The interruption is so sincere, so true-to-life, and so touching, that I couldn’t help but tear up briefly at the thought of how fast our children grow up. In the next scene, the pre-schooler has evolved into a sexy hot teenage blonde beautiful young woman, and the voiceover notes how time passes so quickly where our kids are involved.

Then, to top it all off, Knut died. Knut was the zoo-born polar bear rejected by his mother at birth, slated for euthanasia, then saved by attendants who hand-raised the youngster while the world fell in love with the doe-eyed cub, forgetting that he’d grow up to be more than happy to sever your carotid with a single swipe of his paw. We all remember where we were the moment we heard that Knut had passed away. I was driving down a highway near my home, and had to pull over into the breakdown lane so I could break down.

Now, I’m trying to be a kinder, gentler Davis. And I’m trying to figure out how I can do that and at the same time write scathing, topical satire. As I work through this minefield, I anticipate I’ll be producing two or three new posts a week, published at no particular time of day, whenever the mood and the muse move me. If you’ve been a regular reader in the past, please continue to watch for me. And the occasional kind comment will be a thrill for someone in such a fragile, needy place right now.

So, like Brett Favre, I still want to play. I still think I can make an amusing contribution to someone’s day, I’m just not sure when and where it’s going to be. Brett is limited in how he can display his talents — scrambling away from adoring shoppers at the local Bi-Lo or throwing a quick down-and-in to a puzzled mailman surely give him some satisfaction. I hope to get the same feeling with my occasional posts.

And in a final homage to Brett, please enjoy the following photo of my lower torso. Sorry it’s draped in pants, but the New Davis doesn’t show his junk.

Tags: blogging, comedy, culture, family, funny, health, humor, humour, life, sports