I think anyone who blogs regularly, but not for a living, struggles with many conflicting forces. Should I write this? I really need to go do this other thing. Oh, look, traffic is up, I should get something fresh up there. Fuck! Look at this stupid thing! I need to blog about that! Oh, no. He didn't do that! Listen to these asshats! I have something to day about that! Arrrgggg! Okay, just one more post. This one doesn't count, it's so short. What's that? Jon Stewart is on already?

Agi T. Prop is leaving his blog. His sentiments I think many of us can understand.

For a while (maybe a month or two) I’ve been considering ditching this blog. It’s taking up way too much of my time—time I should be spending with my wife, playing guitar, writing music, reading books, learning new things, exploring the physical world, exercising, living, etc. There’s so much I want and need to do in my life, and I feel that this blog is somehow preventing me from achieving those goals. When I started this blog a year ago, it was just for fun. But then I got a regular audience and I felt the pressure of daily posting.

When I started the media girl site on Blogspot, it was all a lark. I'd dropped all previous websites and blogs. Nobody knew me. I had no traffic. And I was free. It didn't matter what I wrote, because nobody read it. I didn't even think about traffic. All these big shots knew each other. I was totally beneath their notice -- everyone's notice.

Now I feel that same kind of pressure Agi did -- not that we here have any kind of significant traffic -- compared to the various progressive and feminist blogs out there, what we see here is just a blip -- which makes you, dearest reader, quite exceptional (that's a good thing, isn't it?) -- but I do feel a little bit like a hamster on a squeaky wheel, racing in place in my cage here. Going nowhere, but with full intention. Many people would love to have the traffic we enjoy here, and don't think I don't know it. In fact, I love that my words are being read. But now I feel like I must continue to feed the beast, or it will die.

Agi writes:

It’s time for me to move on to new pursuits. I’ve grown rather cynical about our political situation these days and it’s become a tiresome exercise documenting the daily crimes of the Bush junta. Therefore, I have decided to downgrade this hobby back into the closet where it belongs.

I don't think I've reached that place yet. But sometimes I feel like I'm in a Beckett novel. I can't go on. I'll go on.

And so here I am, tonight, heartened by the encouragement of some dear online friends. I'll go to sleep tonight and dream beautiful dreams and wake up to a lovely day ... and I'll get online and read the latest idiocy or learn of the latest outrage or see the latest catastrophe. And I'll feel that tug in my tummy that is the loss of any sense of well-being I had. And I'll fight back on the keys here.

I'm sure it'd be much healthier for me if I didn't fight so much. But this is a political blog. Whatever it was when it started, that's what it became very quickly. And all too often it seems there's nothing to do but fight. If only I were good at jokes.

Agi is gone. Me, I'll probably be back here tomorrow. If not then, the next day.

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media girl also blogs at other places.