wait, i’m not ready.

i’m not ready for it to be over, or to look ahead to whatever might be next.

this has been too much fun, and too much work, and too much to assimilate, and too much to let go.

i’m not ready to say goodbye to the 2009 seattle mariners.

what? you thought i was talking about something else?

the mariners just left the field after beating the texas rangers in the last game of the regular season. felix hernandez earned his 19th win of the year, and may have locked up a cy young award as well.

ken griffey jr., in his last at-bat of the game, singled up the middle. if retirement speculation is accurate, it was also the last at-bat of a wondrous career. after the game, as the players lined up for high-fives and hugs, junior was wearing sunglasses. they didn’t hide the fact that he was crying, as if he, too, wasn’t ready for it to be over.

after losing 101 games in 2008, the mariners finished 2009 at 85-77. those numbers, however, don’t do justice to their turnaround. the ‘08 mariners were a smorgasbord of suck. start to finish, their effort was awful, and the games were often unwatchable.

this year, in addition to the 24-game improvement, the team was consistently fun to watch. they didn’t hit much, but the defense was often spectacular. the pitching, from the starters through mark lowe in the 8th and david aardsma in the 9th, was tough as nails.

they lost some games they shouldn’t have, but also rallied to win some they had no business winning. and you knew, day in and day out, that the team was working its ass off.

the mariners will have to make changes in 2010, but that can wait–a little while. for now, i’m satisfied with how far they came, how much they improved.

on a parallel track, the five-year run of transcendental floss also is coming to an end. i’ve said many times that i’ve gotten far more out of this endeavor than i gave to it–i don’t know how, but it’s true. that kind of thing doesn’t happen very often in this life, and i’m profoundly thankful for it.

since i never really expected anybody to show up and read, i thank those of you who did. every comment was a pleasant surprise, because you showed up and took time to respond. i appreciate that, as well.

i’m not ready for it to be over–or for the next thing to begin–but it’s time.

With seriously mixed emotions, I’m sorry to report that, after five years of publication, spaceneedl and I are pulling the plug on Transcendental Floss. spaceneedl will be posting his own farewell soon.

Five years ago, along with millions of people all over the world, I was attracted to the idea of starting a blog, after many years of solitary writing, filling up paper journal after paper journal. The immediacy of the blog format, married with the ease of integrating multimedia content, was a revelation to me, and doing it all publicly awakened my inner extroverted exhibitionist to an extent that even I was surprised by.

When I say I have mixed feelings about this announcement, I mean that in some ways it is very hard to let go of my online home of so many years and the body of work that I completed here. I have many fond memories, not the least of which was having been through a period when Transcendental Floss was getting quite a bit of traffic. And through it all, it’s been an honor and pleasure to work with all of the contributors we’ve had over the years, particularly co-blogger spaceneedl, and web designer/occasional-blogger Jekyl. We came a long way together, from our humble beginnings as just another Blogger blog, our move to our own domain and web host, and through the wonderful transformation that was Jekyl’s last design of the site, an incredible format that allowed for broad creativity in a fun environment.

That said, slowly, over the past few years, my writing became way too narrowly focused on politics, betraying my original aspirations for my writing and for the blog in general. I’d always wanted to write on a wide variety of topics, but other topics fell by the wayside, the cost of my passionate disdain for a particular administration and its political party, eventually replaced by the passion of a resurrected hope, and then quickly dashed by the sobering realities of the other Washington. I’ve tried many times to simply write about other things, but the ghosts here are too distracting.

So, I’ll be making a fresh start soon, with a new blog, getting back to basics, and hopefully reclaiming the simple pleasure of sharing my thoughts as they come in as creative a way as I can manage.

A million thanks to any of our readers, past or present, who come across this farewell. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but I was challenged knowing that you were out there - whether you commented or not - to provide the optimal in cerebral hygiene.

Cheers!

“we don’t understand” obama-as-hitler comparisons.

it’s simple: lots of americans are really, really dumb.

Speaking about health care reform at the Congressional Black Caucus gala Saturday night, President Obama relayed an anecdote from the G-20 Summit, in which an anonymous world leader said he was dumbfounded over the health care debate — especially the comparisons to Hitler.

“One of the leaders, I won’t mention who it was, he comes up to me and … he says, ‘Barack, explain to me this health care debate.’ He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everyone has health care and they’re putting a Hitler moustache on you. That doesn’t make sense to me, explain that to me,’” Obama said.