WE OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION

“Ryan Clark is a selfish asshole”

Indeed. This graffiti, which now adorns the downstairs women’s restroom at Rudyard’s, is correct. I have been a selfish asshole. I can’t say that I have any idea (and I certainly don’t care, being a selfish asshole and all) which woman-done-wrong may have written this about me (indeed, there is another Ryan Clark that haunts the ‘trose, and so it may actually be him). But in another part of my life I have certainly been very selfish.

And you’re reading it.

It’s been over a month now since I last wrote something for The Skyline. It's also been about three months since my day job has begun to severely extend itself beyond its once fairly steady occupation of 40 hours of my time each week. The lesson for me has been do not every do anything too well, for often you will be rewarded only with more of it to do. The secondary lesson has been a realization of just how much of my time was being wrapped up in writing for this site, and how it really was work. In spite of the obvious errors and occasional illegibility of what I write, they are more than just streams of my consciousness, factory direct to you with a truckload of savings. There is research involved. There is listening involved. There is going to see shows. There is deciding if something outside my personal taste is meritous.

In the final analysis, it takes time. And, rather selfishly, when my day job afforded me some moments, I found myself increasingly drawn to spending time with friends, to decompressing, rather than open a new Word document at my desk and plunge forward with an activity that felt very much like the work I had just finished. I also, rather foolishly, believed that going out to places like Rudyards might help me find that someone to share my life with. This, of course, is the very height of lunacy, since we all know that most single women at Rudyards are gross (EXCEPTION: BRACELYN).

But back to being a selfish asshole: I am not sorry that I have chose to spend my time the way I have. Indeed, even now, I could be using this time to tell you about how insanely whips the next Westheimer Block Party will be, or who’s going to be playing SXSW this week or that The Elaine Greer Band changed their name. Instead, though, I just wanted to drop in, say thank you to everyone who has written or told me in person that they miss the postings and fear the route of Humidity, and offer a bit of an explanation. It’s a dangerous thing to claim to know that you’re ‘back’, and so I won’t make that here. But the work I do to stack the paper is ebbing away somewhat, and I can’t think of a better way to selfishly spend my time than this.