As I type this, I have a ten-pound creature suspended, in the device with the absurd but undeniably catchy name, from my torso. (The marsupial overtones of this arrangement have not escaped me, incidentally.)

My regard for her has, quite naturally, become the predominate fact of my existence. Her need for comfort, consolation, aid-in-getting-to-sleep, and a general hey-quit-talking-to-her-while-you’re-holding-me-you-inconsiderate-bastard level of undivided attention has become the corresponding predominate condition with regard to the question of getting anything written, in any context, to or for anyone at all.

This is evidenced by the fact that although the twelve-week-old empress of my affections is currently snuggled up to me in that state reminiscent of bugs in rugs, and although my hands are marvelously free to clickety-clack away, composing these few dozen words is taking the better part of an hour, as every few moments I receive, nonverbally yet with a surpassing clarity, instructions to the effect that I had better bestir myself in the direction of walking, rocking, bouncing, jogging in place, or any other activity which might constitute soothing.

I offer this meta-meditation not as an excuse for not bringing you more of my patented blend of sentence fragments, uncorrected typos, pointless digressions, irritating examples of litotes, and questions nobody else wants answered. Indeed, in the coming year I hope to return to some semblance of regular output, as the Wombat File approaches, god save the mark, its third anniversary. (This increase in the number of posts here should, if early calculations are correct, be accompanied by a decrease in quality.)

I bring this laboriously constructed moment of self-regard to life with only one purpose: to suggest that, if your expectations, when browsing in these environs, aren’t set at the lowest level possible -- one you reserve, for example, for the anticipation of the 22nd Pringle in the can, or the waiting-room flip-through of an Esquire “Women We Love” feature – you should consider recalibrating downward. Because, appalling as it may sound, this brief interval (when Helena fitfully dozes as she sweats into my t-shirt, and the building sense that a pair of pliers is being applied to one of my vertebrae has not yet peaked) is, from the standpoint of opportunities to contribute to the blogosphere, probably as good as it gets.