If all goes according to tentatively-scheduled plan, my summer sabbatical blog break will begin about a week from today, and run for two months. While some of you have been on summer vacation for a few weeks now, I’m only just about to begin. Next year, it may be longer. Or shorter. We’ll see how this one goes. For all I know, I may return for a day and close the book on this website in one fell swoop. I’ve done less surprising things time and time again, and one of the greatest thrills I get out of life is the ability to surprise people even this late in my career. Send in the clowns.

How shall I occupy my time away from this place? I’ll tell you later. We will have so much to discuss come September. For now, I invite you to float. Just float. On a pink flamingo. On the wings of desire. On a screeching hawk. On a stick of cotton candy. It’s summer. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s make the most of it. It will end all too quickly.

I never knew that sperm whales snuck out a few power naps to recharge and re-energize, but I’m tickled to learn such. Check out some video and photos here. This is the sort of natural scene that thrills me, and when this blog returns in the fall, I may post more of our underwater frontier.

As we near the summer sabbatical I’m about to embark upon, there’s only one more Monday morning recap on the way after this, so enjoy it! I’m super-excited for this break, but we’ve got a couple of weeks left before this page goes silent, so let me get some small talk out of the way.

America celebrated its independence, with some shirtless help from Chris Evans.

A simple summer dish.

Still waiting to hear back from Amsterdam officials on why my parents house, and other homes on their street, got flooded with sewage. Until we do, Google will direct anyone looking up George Amedore, Jr., Angelo Santabarbara, and Mayor Michael Villa will find this shitty entry.

“Not everything… not yet.“

Friendship, always.

A very naked Gus Kenworthy.

Big news, and a big break.

A hawk cries.

Classic clematis.

Speak easy.

Shower shadows.

Hunks of the Day included Denevin Miranda, Cristian Romero, Renaud Lavillenie, Nathan Hopkinson, and Javier Báez.

In the corner of the Monkey Bar, we sat and ordered cocktails.

An old evening in old New York.

The room was practically empty.

The two other tables would be gone before we finished.

‘What’s become of the world?’

All around us, the monkeys smiled and played, but not a single one uttered a word.

They’d seen it all before.

The blush of youth.

The dance to adulthood.

The walk home.

The wee small hours of the morning.

The hawks have been causing quite the commotion in the neighborhood this year, with a ready food source thanks to the proliferation of chipmunks, squirrels and other woodland creatures in the vicinity. They are bold, noble, somewhat terrifying creatures, and their cries cut through the sunniest summer day. (Sometimes in the winter too.)

Though they make a ruckus, I’m coming to find comfort in their presence. They remind me that there is more wild in the world than order. The untamed. The unbound. The ones that fly free, high away from human contact. There is wisdom in that given what we as humans have been known to do.

And woe to the bunnies that let down their guard against such majesty.

All good things must come to an end.

This website has been in existence since January of 2003. It’s fourteen years old. That’s a lifetime in blog years, where the average age of a personal blog is said to be a whopping 100 days. When it turns fifteen next January, it will be time to consider its long-term fate. Before that, however, I’d like to to try out a couple of possible avenues before we move into the autumn and winter of this website’s journey.

Lately, and you’ve probably noticed as well, it feels like this place has been on auto-pilot. A morning post of (hopefully) some substance, a noonish post of filler and frivolity, and an evening post of some shirtless/naked/nude flotsam. Of late, I’ve been too busy (and yes, some days and nights, too lazy) to make it to all three posts, opting instead for two, and both rather lame at that.

I’ve also been pre-programming posts for when I go on vacation or leave town for the weekend, which takes away the timely import of the thing, and connecting in an approximately real-time manner is what makes me feel part of something.

But it’s tiring, and it’s a lot of work, and the last few months have revealed that I value my life off the internet far more than anything that goes on here. A few minutes basking in the glow of summer sun, or hanging out with friends, or simply watching my niece and nephew splash in the pool – are worth more than the last ten years of writing these posts.

I’m not ending this blog anytime in the immediate future, but I intend to take a break – a summer sabbatical – as suggested by my webmaster and friend Skip, whose wisdom far exceeds mine in such matters. He brought the idea up as we were traveling to Boston, and it’s something that I’ve given some thought to for a while. The idea of stepping away somehow, not just from this blog, but from the social media world which has occupied so much of my time is an appealing one. Maybe it’s the season of summer, when all I want to do is sit by the pool and read a book and not be bound to phone or laptop.

When faced with the quagmire of possibility involved in taking a break, it’s best to keep things simple, but also leave room for change and evolution. It also gives notice that this blog may not last forever, and I’m putting the idea of ending ALANILAGAN.com into the universe to discover what may manifest when I open myself up to new options. Maybe someone has a better idea of what can be done with this space – I’m open to any and all suggestions.

My initial thoughts are to leave for the last half of July, all of August, and return in September. A summer vacation, like when we were kids. And then, upon my return, a lessening of the three-posts-a-day schedule I’ve maintained for the past few years, and the ease of not feeling obligated to post something every single day. That’s a grueling schedule. I’ve been posting 364-days-a-year for over a decade – it’s time to re-enter the real world.

Does it mean I won’t come back if something noteworthy enough happens? No – I‘m open to doing a quick visit should there be a new Madonna song or President in the next two months, but I’m really looking forward to not being connected, not being on my phone, not having the continual pressure to post in the background of everything else that’s going on. That’s no way to live anymore.

I’ll keep you posted on the development, and I promise not to pull an Irish goodbye on anyone (much as I’d like to exit without fanfare or notice). There will be a proper farewell-for-now post. We deserve that. In the meantime, a few more lazy posts to come before I go… and a few you won’t want to miss.

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald