Normally, most of you would be tuning in this Friday morning to hear another one of the Friday Ramblings columns, but not this week. It’s 1 am here on Thursday night/Friday morning and I’m fairly awake, due the rush of adrenaline one gets after tackling the Big Dig head on with your primary on and off ramps closed due to construction. (Shouldn't, like, the Big Dig be over? I mean, Bruce Springsteen played the Zakim Bridge. I saw people from Massport falling over themselves to cut ribbons opening the tunnels. And yet, the roads resemble no less than a police state, there’s only one lane of traffic for a lot of the underground portion, and really, will someone just freakin’ hold me already?)

I could of course just string 10-12 thoughts together, call it a night, get my content out, and keep the streak going, but I’m not going to, mostly due to the ramblings thoughts in my head, ironically enough. These aren’t witty/whimsical/out-of-left-field thoughts, though. Bigger, more important thoughts to be sure (if still fragmented). But not ramblings in the traditional Fridays-at-Ryan's sense. If you're itching for some, go fill out my "Miss Ryan-McGee Dot Com" Pageant Questionnaire. Lots of rambly goodness there. Plenty of time to enter; it's an ongoing project. Need inspiration? Check out what the first batch of contestants came up with. If you're not in the mood for that kind of non-sequitur loveliness, see a few more traditional ramblings.

I’m trying to work on this whole “knot-in-the-stomach” feel when I go too long without posting some form of content. Which is a long way of saying that I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to the writing. Don’t really like to go a long time without actually doing it. And that all being said, I’m working hard to remove a sense of “obligation” per say from the whole experience. As of December, I was pretty much posting 20-25 entries a month, usually around 1,000 words apiece. That’s some serious verbiage.

But a few things have happened in the past two months. And not just the cheery stuff like my parents’ divorce or that one time that girl took my heart, pulled it from my chest, threw it to the ground, and then lit it on fire. No, the biggest change in the past few months has been the introduction of a “life” to my life. This whole “going out a few nights a week” concept is fairly new to me. The idea of not feeling bad about choosing friends over the newest episode of “Angel” is fairly new to me. The sense of actually belonging to this town once again is fairly new to me.

So I’ve tried to make some choices informed by these new experiences, while still getting my writing fix in as well. Usually, though, real life people will win out. All those months of prolific writing (and I say prolific not to brag, but to…oh, I don’t actually care what you think, “prolific” is appropriate, and I’m running with it) were in a way filling in the gaps where a life should have been. I was more into talking about life more than actually living it. And I’m hardly completely past the severe introspection thing. Way I see it, that’ll be a rather permanent fixture in my life, varying only by degree, and that dependent upon the particular scenario.

But I can’t feel bad about not continuing that output. Or posting a Ramblings column today. Yes, I’d rather write more than less, but as such, right now, it’s what I do when I can do. When I truly feel like I want to. I can’t throw something out here for your consumption simply because of an arbitrary time limit between posts. Won’t work for me, won’t work for you.

I mean, sure I could ramble about a lot of things instead of the funny stuff. About how I’m working on figuring out why the female species’ attraction to me is inversely proportional to their physical proximity to me. About how for the life of me I can’t figure out where to start sending my writing samples to get published. About how I'm sick of consistently feeling like I have to defend or validate myself. About how the only way I can deal with a vast amount of my day is blocking out everything but the 10% I actually value in this world.

But those are all topics for another time. Topics I’ll write about. Sooner than later. I don’t feel I owe any of you content per say, but I do owe you a debt of thanks for each time you bother to see what’s in my head. You’re part of the 10%, I promise. You, my family, Eva Mendes, and a few others. I’ll get to all of these things soon enough.

But not tonite. Have a good weekend, everyone.