By Gale Kaufman

It's been great

It's finally happened. I've run around in circles so much that I've caught my own tail.

Unfortunately, due to an increasingly hectic, demanding and maddening work schedule, I must put "Taking Another Look" to rest, at least for a few months.

If you remember the last column, you'll recall that I have been feeling quite like the White Rabbit from "Alice in Wonderland"-always hurrying and fussing, but forever late.

It was sometime on Wednesday last, just before deadline, that I realized I had not even given this column a thought. On the weekends before deadline, I put a few notes down on paper. I usually start putting my thoughts together on my office computer on Monday, in between jobs, just a sentence here and a thought there, stringing them together little by little. By Wednesday night, I put it together and e-mail it off to the editor. But I had not been in my office for a few days and I lost my routine. That may not seem like a big deal to most, but I am a creature of habit and any change in routine throws me for a loop. To me, losing my routine is tantamount to mental meltdown. Trouble is, it's been happening a lot lately.

I realized also there was no way I would be able to turn in a column by deadline.

It didn't help that my calendar for a long time into the future-at least through the summer-was not going to accommodate extracurricular writing, or extracurricular anything for that matter.

Our city is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Guess whose department gets to do all the event planning and fundraising? The mayor didn't like the way the summer recreation program was being handled. Guess whose department gets to coordinate the summer recreation program? The local Little League organization became, how should I say it, disorganized. Guess who got the job of helping a new organization get started? The city wants to cut back on the money spent sending out publications to a printer. Guess who gets to do some in-house publishing? Get the picture. Sorry, I get cranky when I'm tired.

Regretfully, I have made the decision to stop writing "Taking Another Look," at least for a while. It is one more deadline I have to meet and, unfortunately, the only one I can let go of. It was a hard decision to make because I have really enjoyed writing this column for over a year and a half. I still feel the part-time resident needs a voice and perhaps, with the editor's approval, I can just call this a break-a hiatus.

To those of you who take a minute to read these words of mine every two weeks, thank you so much. It's been great.