What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them — so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development — I will not attempt to describe. To those who can conceive it, there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream of an enthusiast.
-John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women

From y’all’s perspective, this just means I’ll probably be putting out more copy, since I’ll actually be going into an office with a regular schedule, and you’ll probably be seeing my stuff crop up in more places. When I’m doing journalism, in the event anyone’s concerned, I’ll consider myself just as strongly bound by journalistic norms as I would be writing for a newspaper or magazine. And of course, to coincide with the change, I’ll be changing my ringtone from Soul Coughing’s “Freelancer” to this highly appropriate ditty.

I don’t expect I’ll do a very active search there, since it seems like something of a longshot. But I figure there’s no reason not to send up a flare. So on the off chance I’ve got a NY-based reader who’s been dying to hire a political journalist/blogger with my weird mix of interests—and it’s the sort of position that would justify packing up my life and hauling all my earthly possessions up I-95—drop a line.

Addendum: A commenter objects that the Internet is not displacing more “worthy” activities (reading Proust, socializing) but merely providing a new way to do these things. Lest there be any unclarity, my agreement is not some paper-fetishism about the superiority of hardbacks to ebooks. What I do think is true is that the very vastness of options the Internet brings together can make it hard—makes it harder for someone like me, anyway—to sustain focus on any one thing. I find it a lot harder these days to just sit for an hour with a book—pixel or pulp—and just focus on it for a hour straight. And I think part of that is attributable to the Net.

No hard feelings there; a lot of publications are having to ask “what’s the absolute core stuff we need to do to stay afloat right now?” For a site like Ars, “political reporting” wasn’t going to be at the top of the list—and they still have razor sharp folks like Nate Anderson who can make sure they stay on top of the most important policy stories. So they made precisely the same call I would’ve had I been running the show. And no regrets either: I’d never expected to stay a tech journalist indefinitely, but seven months wearing that hat has given me a chance to get to know a ton of clever people, drill deeper into some specific issues of interest to me, and get the sort of healthy writing discipline that you can probably only learn from either daily reporting or a paid dominatrix. It’s been a pleasure to get to meet folks like Clint, Ben, & the Jons, and inshallah one of these days I’ll have a chance to grab a beer with Ken & Jacqui & Eric, who I’ve managed to work with these past months without actually ever meeting in the flesh.  That said, I got what  came for from the experience, and I’m perfectly happy to try something new now

Which brings us to what I at least hope folks bothering to cast an eyeball here will regard as good news: Once I’ve wrapped up at Ars, I can take a few weeks to catch up on my reading and unload the growing backlog of blog posts about things-not-tech that I just didn’t have time to write while there.  Cybersecurity is fascinating in its own way, but I won’t pretend I haven’t missed the odd philosophical thumbsucker—of which I have a few in reserve. I think of it as an involuntary but not unwelcome vacation while I figure out what I’d like to do next. In the meantime, my occupation is reader/blogger/flaneur. Stay tuned.

Since I’ve been skimming various anti-smoking sites to get a sense of the withdrawal timeline, however, let me add a corollary: If I ever become one of those chirpy, preening ex-smokers  who can’t stop nattering about the million ways they’re better, happier, healthier people since they came to Jesus and abandoned the foul weed (And started running! Oh my God, do you run? It’s the best thing I ever did!) do us both a favor and bludgeon me with a rusty pipe.  I’m stopping because the stuff does tend to kill you eventually, and as best I can determine, quitting by 30 leaves your body with a pretty good chance of repairing itself without serious long-term consequences. Assuming that happens, I’ll be delighted I got away with smoking for a decade and change, because (like so many other things in life) it’s really quite nice except for the killing-you part.