Long time, no blog

Well, I'm fairly ashamed to acknowledge that it's been over two months since I sat down, and put fingers to keyboard, to give everyone an update on our life in Cambridge 02139. For those of you who have been sitting at your keyboard, hitting the refresh key on your browser for months on end, I apologize. I know my silence potentially leaves you to assume any one of many things.

1. Geez, Chris must be ungodly busy.
2. Hmmm, maybe they've forgotten about the rest of us.
3. Chris must be one lazy bastard.

In fact, the correct answer is mostly number 1, sprinkled with a dash of number 3. But it's definitely not 2.

Following Labor Day, our lives did an 180 degree turn. During the summer, Liam, Kalian and I had seven days a week to fill on our own. We did it, survived, and managed to have fun without killing each other.

In September, we suddenly found our days overscheduled, as it were. Liam started preschool 5 days a week. Kalian and I started at a Day Care coop three days. Jen was in class or studying seven days a week. And I was doing a bit of freelancing for my paper back home. Throw in cooking, cleaning, shopping and, well, it was quite hectic. Somehow, the blog kept taking a back seat.

So now I find myself with a novel's worth of stories to tell and not sure where to begin. I guess I'll start with the most recent events and try to fill you in on the background through some upcoming (and more regular posts).

I just spent this weekend attending a three-day conference on narrative non-fiction writing. That's reporter lingo for writing true stories in the style of a novel, or short story. This marked for my first, and perhaps only, venture into doing something related to my professional life during my year in the 02139. So if nothing else, it was a kind of vacation because I've barely seen the kids for three days. And I feel not an ounce of guilt in saying of my time apart from thing 1 and thing 2...It Rocked!

Beyond that, the conference was incredibly inspiring. It reminded my why I got into the business, why I love it so, and what is truly possible in terms of high-impact, emotional storytelling. As such, I'm bubbling with ideas, some of which I'll share with you in the coming weeks to get your reactions and feedback. Of course, it may be months before I really have the opportunity to do meaningful reporting and writing. But in the meantime, I've vowed to try to get back to writing a bit every day, and that means tending a bit more to this blog and using it tell what for me is the most important of all stories: our family's.