Hoopla! - Episode 7: Where have all the Hooplas gone...?

Dearest Hoopla! reader...

You are, perhaps, wondering of late, "Where's my Hoopla!? Is there nothing in this frackin' world that I can depend on?"

Well, I'll tell ya...

The problem, as I see it, is that someone recently turned up the speed on the day-making machine. Used to be that I'd wake up, have some leisurely breakfast and coffee, putz around my apartment for an hour or two, shower, then head off to school to work on my dissertation or to teach or whatever... I'd work from around 1pm to maybe 5 or 6pm, come home for a quick dinner, go back to school and work some more until around 10 or 11pm, at which time I'd come home, watch a Netflix movie or show, and go to bed.

That gave me almost 10 hours of "sitting in the office" time, which made it relatively feasible to put out a regular column...

Now, however, things have changed...

Now, my days look like this...

Wake up, drink some coffee and, until about a week ago, eat some breakfast (I've got some wacky stomach virus that makes eating a very non-rewarding act... good news, I'm losing weight... bad news, there are maybe three food items I can actually digest: potatoes, white rice, and bread... and I"m getting pretty darn tired of all of 'em...)

But I digress.

Wake up, drink coffee, go to the office around noon or 1pm, then turn around and realize the day is over.

What's up with that???

A part of it, certainly, is teaching classes... it's very fun and very rewarding, but it does take up a bit of time...

Also, there's the ever-looming dissertation... I'm trying to have it finished by the end of the summer, which is a pretty ambitious schedule... particularly since I had a two-month case of Writer's Block which set me back substantially... I'm finally getting back on track, but I've got a LOT of catching up to do...

But DO bear with me, oh sweetest of all Hoopla! readers... I have not forgotten you... nor have I forgotten the way your hair smells or the sparkle in your eye... that little noise you make when you're chewing food... the one hair that dangles from within your nostril, oh so coyly...

I have not forgotten you and I shall not forsake you.

Hoopla! will be back... and - Lo! - it shall be like a mighty river... pouring through your living room and dampening your carpets... extinguishing the comic-book-review-craving fire that burns within you like a ... like a thing that burns... ferociously... yet which is not in any way related to any sort of sexual disease...

Hoopla! shall return, full of reviews and good humor... and once more we shall laugh and cry together as we ponder the imponderables together...

Don't lose hope, Dear Reader! The best is yet to come...


- Paul, 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, hungry for a potato