So goodbye. I won't be seeing you in all the same places. I'll be around, I just won't be in those joints. I'll be sad, to be sure, to see it go. But I won't miss the aggravation and nonsense which, it seems from the position and perspective of success, come with the job. From here on, I'll be doing what most of you have proved incapable of: moving on. I plan to move on through this life as a righteous man. A man with moral guidance and a sense of consequence, yet still no sympathy for the usual roundup of fuck-ups, assholes, cocksucks and perpetually losing humps. Goodbye, lackwits. Good night.

To live the life of a righteous man. Not necessarily to live the straight-and-narrow, of course. Nor to live up to anyone else's moral expectations. But, rather, that of a righteous man.

You're only as mortal as your work is lackluster. To measure your worth by the kudos from critics or by the praise brought in with the day's other junk mail is to tempt futility to slap you down to size. The work is done. I'm tired. I'm dogged. And, please spare me for using such a word, I'm jaded. It's no better than any other business, in spite of the self-publishing. The people are the same; their faces are different, their products are exhaustingly homogeneous. Their motives are identical: my pedestal, my glory, my steadfast declaration of import. It's enough to make one cry at times.

Or, in this case, on this day, to get out.

The tears come at other moments. When I've been bled by this leech of life. Or, worse, when I can't bleed any longer because nothing will come. Then, the tears of frustration fight a tide of rage which will not be held back. I stand and throw something at the sealed-up fireplace in my bedroom.

And then, as now, I get out. Walk away. Fight the tears with action. Breath deeply. Walk quickly. Sit in the backyard and drink a cup of coffee with the dog running around with a stick in his maw. It's the way I remain calm, and thereby remain motivated to take on the next project.

This time, I won't be coming back. After I ship off these couple hundred hand-bound copies and re-launch the website, I'll burn all you know of me onto some CDs and bury them in the storage space in my laundry room.

Forget me. Forget this. Forget this body of work. Forget that I ever tried.

I'm off to pursue another life. That of a man you've never known. A different man. That of a simple man.