Since 10/29, the day of my successful surgery, I have noted three things:

1) I haven't taken any antibiotics against an infection, something I managed for about 10 days last May and before that, you have to go all the way to about this time last year;

2) I haven't had to pop my inner ears by holding my nose and blowing as hard as possible to force air up my eustachian tubes into my inner ear (painful, when you have reconstructed eardrums [from muscle tissue lining] like I do in both ears); and

3) I haven't been able to sustain a single lengthy bout of anger at home or full-blown tirade on the blog (my last good one being against Krauthammer on 10/19 in the final pre-surgical nightmare period).

I do now look back on the mid-Dec '08-through-late-Oct-'09 period like a drunken haze: I was constantly f--ked up with infections, either ramping up or peaking or coming down or hung over for the rare few days before it began all over again.

It was not a good year for me, and while I managed to perform as required across all venues, I was rarely a happy camper and often so much in discomfort that I was out of control anger-wise. Looking back over the blog today, as I research an upcoming piece, I was dismayed to find bursts of flagrant flaming in my work, or times when I just should have admitted I was way under the weather and not bothered to respond or critique or pick the fight. During these moments I simply denied my problems and pushed on, a bad choice I managed to put aside on the columns and other writings--thankfully. Sean did a decent job of catching some of these incidents, but the fault for the ones that slipped through is entirely mine.

I have always struggled WRT treating the blog "seriously." I've done it just long enough (since early 2005) to still consider it a web diary versus a media platform, and I've remained true to my notion that this is a personal but public workspace, meaning I don't try that hard to cover up incomplete thinking or first drafts or--quite frankly--my emotion on subjects.

But, again, looking over the last year (since mid-Dec), I feel like I must do better now that I feel more on an even keel. I think it'll be easy enough, because I don't feel so physically persecuted, but it has been a good reminder that you're nowhere without your health.

So when you have it, retaining a certain amount of graciousness in your interactions with everybody is crucial--a bare minimum, in fact.

And so I post-datedly apologize to anybody I've offended this year via the blog. I have plenty to be thankful for (Turkey Day looms . . .) and tremendous things to look forward to, so I want to take advantage of this moment of clarity (not many of those since last December) and make this declaration.

And now I'd like my Nobel, please.