Which blog shall live and which shall die

Dear friends, fellow travelers, and accidental readers, I don’t want to beat around the bush. It’s Thursday, the first day of Sukkot, with the annual Torah cycle drawing to a close, and I’m up to my eyeballs in contemplation: Should I re-up Awkward Offerings for a third year?The High Holy Days have that (intended) effect on me – what do I leave behind and what do I take up? What needs to be unlearned and undone, and what embraced and expanded? It’s a heady transition, one underscored by this harvest holiday of temporary structures. It’s a good time to consider both the trap & the illusion of permanence. (See Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s beautiful take here.) I don’t know exactly what I thought would come of this blog beyond some vague notion of mild fame and fortune. I’d muse on things important to me and dang… If I built it, they would come. Think me deep and witty. Read my poetry. Tell their friends. (And so on and so on and so on.) Let’s be honest. Why else would any writer put their words out into the universe if not to be read? I did all the things one is supposed to do: advertise on Facebook, respond to other people’s blogs, implore my friends to pass the word. I had a brief mention in Reform Judaism magazine and the honor of being included in Rabbi Rachel Barenblat’s Passover Haggadah. Bloggers who I respect 150% added me to their “Links” list. And yet. A blog about shoes or chocolate pudding gets thousands of hit per day, while I’ve never broken out into the high double digits. I’ve received wonderful, heartfelt feedback (often, it should be said, from my friends) and spent far too much time worrying about the numbers. What does this mean about me? I’m not whining, folks. Just doing some existential and creative calculation. Would I rather continue on with these themes of Torah, etc., or re-launch my other blog (long abandoned for lack of time) on work, Chop Wood Carry Water? It is certainly calling me. Or should I follow my instinct to create WTF Is Wrong With You? I’ve been imagining this rant platform for months. Rick Perry’s Niggerhead Ranch?  The idiot who parked their car in front of my driveway despite it being a… DRIVEWAY? With this sort of approach, I wouldn’t have to be so damn serious all the time. Or perhaps I should give up blogging altogether, focus on other pursuits equally injurious to my ego, but less obviously so. All of which is to say: I am likely to go off-line for a little bit to consider my options as well as the temporary nature of things. The illusion that there is one right choice. The truth that I may never be famous. Thanks for sticking with me this far into the game. Let’s see what happens next.