Thus begins my second year of writing this blog.  I wasn't supposed to be around to write for so long; the beginning entries were about death and atheism, and I thought I would do a post a day.  Now, a year later, the topics range more freely, and sometimes I panic a bit the night before my once-every-three-days entry is scheduled for the next morning.  Several friends have suggested that I should try to publish the blog as a book, a flattering comment and one I've considered, though so far I haven't actually approached any presses.  By now, there are so many entries that the blog would need editing, and, not to be morbid, a book would need an arc, a conclusion as well as a beginning, and I'm not ready to write a final entry.

Excerpts from the blog are going to be published in Oklahoma Humanities, the journal of the Oklahoma Humanities Council, one of the few such publications in the country that does serious writing, not just fluff pieces.  The editor, an old student, sent me several questions for her introduction, so I'll attempt some preliminary answers here.  The first was what prompted the blog.  One answer is that once I was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted to re-establish contact with old friends, but it seemed monotonous to tell the same story over and over again.  I thought about Facebook, which I had resisted, but decided a blog might be just as effective and less addictive than the temptation to spend hours a day on a new Facebook account.  In May of 2011, I had given a "Last Lecture" at Washburn as part of a long series there.  When I agreed to do the lecture, I had no idea that the title held a certain irony.  By the time I gave the talk, everything had changed: I knew my diagnosis and the prognosis.  On the way to the Friday afternoon talk, a colleague had asked where I was going, dressed up and carrying notes, and after I told him that I was giving a last lecture, he joked, "What? Are you dying?"  I answered with my oft-used Eliot quote: "We're all dying with a little patience."  But I don't think he got the allusion.  I decided to give the speech I had already considered on the happy role of serendipity in my career, not a speech focused on cancer.  By a year later, however, I debated whether I should ask to give a second last lecture from a different perspective.  I decided not to.  But I did think that I had something to say rather than the usual clichés about living every day to its fullest.  I hadn't had any epiphanies, and I hadn't suddenly become a different, more thoughtful person.  "Follow your bliss" seemed rather hollow.  Rather I planned on a day-by-day report on what it's like to live a "diminished" life.

I've always loved to write, and a blog seemed a good way to fulfill that desire.  I tend to write quickly, and I wanted the blog to be--and feel--spontaneous.  I rarely have more than a general idea when I begin to write, and although I reread what I've written before I hit "publish" to get rid of typos, I've never edited a post, nor do I go back and re-read what I've written once it's been published.   I do worry that I'm going to inadvertently repeat stories, but I want to preserve what I hope is a sense of immediacy in the blogs.  Obviously, too, I miss teaching, and the blog, as it's diverged from the original focus, provides the opportunity for talking about literature (and politics).  I hope the blog isn't too preachy; I'm more worried that it risks becoming too "teachy."

I searched for a title and am embarrassed to admit that I thought that kidney punched and rabbit punched were synonymous.  I wanted to suggest the sudden, prolonged, and "illegal" blow which had struck at my left kidney.  The atheist in the subtitle was a reaction to a specific comment from a liberal columnist on a television show, someone whose opinions seemed to coincide with mine until the host mentioned the death of the atheist Christopher Hitchens and my supposed soulmate launched into a tirade about how atheists should shut up about their non-belief and leave the good Christians in peace.  So much for imagined shared values. 

One limitation of blogging is the (self-imposed) length of the entries.  I want them to be long enough to have substance, but not so long that reading them becomes an imposition.  The other stricture is a consideration of audience.  Most of my readers are people I know, so I don't want to retell stories that they've heard or detail feelings that I've already described on the phone or in e-mails.  But, as I look at the audience statistics, there are clearly readers whom I don't know, and I don't want to seem unclear or enigmatic.  I regret the lack of humor in the blog.  I just watched Dave Barry on "Morning Joe," and his columns were always something I aspired to emulate.  In e-mails, a lot of my humor arises from comments on the foibles of people I know, but those aren't possible in blogs read by those same people.  Despite the main subject of the blog, I'd like for it to be, at least sometimes, less sober and more humorous, but so far I haven't found a way of solving that problem.

When I started today, I planned on answering several of the editor's questions.  I think, though, I've written long enough on just one of them.  I may worry that I won't have anything to say on a given day, but at least that doesn't seem to be a problem.  I may have a moment of panic Thursday evening, but I'll be back Friday morning, hammering away at the keys.