This is my last post for Looky, Daddy!
I've written this post many times over the past few months. I've written it like a guy composing a breakup speech to his girlfriend for no real defensible reason except that when he's not with her, he finds himself composing breakup speeches to her. Which is not a good sign, no matter how hot she is.
Blogs are incredibly time-consuming. Or at least they are if you spend thirty minutes writing a post and then two days obsessing over it: Reading the comments, rereading the comments, reading the post, wondering if you're still funny anymore, calling your mom to ask her what she thought of the post, scanning the Internet for blogs that say the post changed their life. It's the very definition of irony: Letting your kids watch TV so they won't bother you as you search the web for references of what a good dad you are. And don't even get me started about Twitter.
I've had more fun that possibly imaginable writing this blog. True fun. And most of that fun is because of you guys. Some of you I know, others of you I've met, but most of you I only know by your email addresses or the names you use to comment or your IP addresses because I copy those down and keep them in a database and why doesn't 70.111.15.13 visit the site anymore? Is she okay? Someone should drive by her house and make sure. You guys are the reason this site continued past its 30-day free trial, and I will, in all seriousness, miss the connection I have made with all of you, especially the ones who sent me all the coffee.
When I was a kid, I had a dog that ate crayons. He ate crayons and then pooped them out as rainbows, and that, to a large extent, is what I've tried to do here. I've tried to take the raw ingredients of childhood, digest them, and turn them into something colorful and shit-filled. In fact, if there were better words to carve onto Looky, Daddy!'s tombstone than "Colorful and Shit-Filled," I don't know what they would be. But this month marks my third year to do this, and to me, three years is a long time to fill the Internet with shit.
Not that I'm done pooping on the Interwebs. Not by a long shot. Probably. It's just that I'm done being a parenting blogger. I'm done being Looky, Daddy! which was a really poor choice for a blog name anyway, because while it looks fine in a header, it makes me sound like a pedophile during party introductions.
"So you're Looky Daddy?"
"Well, I write a blog, and that blog is called 'Looky, Daddy!'"
"Everyone, this is Looky Daddy."
I may as well have called the site "Windowless-Van Daddy."
Anyway, I don't do goodbyes well, and really this isn't a goodbye at all, except it really is. I will miss this. I will miss you.
Until we meet again.
Edited to Add: I would be lying if I did not say that your responses have not made me doubt my decision about 250 times since I posted this Monday. I mean, I've changed lives! I've healed the sick! I've made the lame walk again! Or at least I've made people laugh and cry, which, c'mon people, most of you have kids, and friggin' Hallmark commercials make people with kids laugh and cry. It's the hormones. Theirs, not yours.
I will be leaving the site up, untouched, for a while at least, though I'll warn anyone who goes too far into the archives, it gets pretty amateurish after a while. At some point, I'll probably break the blog down into a few "best of" posts (happy to take recommendations) and migrate it off to a host that won't charge me money for it. And I'll post here if and when I can be found elsewhere.
Again, and a thousand times again, thanks. This has been a lot of fun, and it wouldn't have been without you. Cheers,
Brian