Think of it this way: Even most prisoners get to go outside once in a while.

Eagle-eyed readers will not be shocked to be reminded of my lack of postings over the last month, but let me walk you through it all, even though I know more than anyone that writing about writing is the worst and most boring kind of meta. But in doing so, I also cheat my way into a sliver of production to get the boulder rolling again.

It’s hard to remember a time in New York City when the sun would shine on two consecutive days, but this actually happened, and it only two weeks ago. The weather was nice for the first lengthy stretch of time in half a year or so. I’ve travelled nowhere warm of late so I was eager to get outside and, once there, to stay out there and let my neighborhood, in its homestretch as being exactly that, begin to pay for itself a little bit for the first time since last summer. In short, the weather was nice, so I didn’t feel like writing. Then the weather became terrible, and I still didn’t feel like writing.

This downturn in creativity might be needed, or welcome, or natural, but since it’s what I’ve been devoting the bulk of my days towards, it simply can’t be the thing that gives out. At this narrowing of the Downward Spiral, at the very tail end of my Year of Scraping By, my Gap Year, my Sabbatical, I have almost nothing and no one left to confront, except for the now painfully obvious truth that I am now what I am now, and for now that’s no longer a movie reviewer as such.

I love movies and always will but I don’t see enough nowadays to review them, the ones I see, usually the really good ones I choose to see, in anything but the gushing terms they deserve. I’m as tired of picking the nits of movies I enjoy as I am frustrated by the fact that I want to see a lot more new movies. But they’re damned expensive, more and more, and it’s become impossible to justify the expense if I’m not enjoying them as much as I should, or to bear both the pressure of having to see them and the regret of not seeing others. Plus, there’s the issue of these filmmaker folks being more creative than I am, having actually made feature films that it’s up to me to tear apart? I like offering my take but have trouble with being entirely, honestly, objectively critical of someone who’s been there. I’m happy to finally have a little nest egg of reviews that demonstrate some of my work, if not all of my potential. If anyone reads that stuff and wants to me do that full-time in exchange for money or players to be named later, I’d be singing a different tune, if I could sing. Any way we look at it, we’re through the looking glass here.

The kicker, after all this afterbirth: I’ll still write about movies every week. Brief reviews though, put out all together, once a week, just enough to soothe the urge.

So each week we’ll have that one and two more posts, published Mondays and Fridays, I’d say. And all of a sudden we’re off to the races. I’ve got a backlog of material to flesh out and put out this week. Starting in June, things will be slower and steadier. And this is not to mention the unwritten, unpublished stuff that I’ll hope to find homes in other venues, or to pile together into some book or book-like contraption, some day, one day.

Stay tuned also for the post where I rescind all of this. Until then!