I had a dream...

More than a year has passed since I last wrote here. I ended things then at a properly melancholic note. It was a mournful time for me - a bad break-up, questionable career choices, culture shock at being back in the United States. I'd been content to let the blog sit - a sad time capsule of a tumultuous period. Oh yeah, there was also that episode where one of my blogs caused a stir at my company - further incentive to let it rest.

But I just had a dream about 10 minutes ago. In it, I was renting a room in a big estate somewhere in the forest and a drum troupe dressed in crescent-shaped Brazilian Lampiao hats were pounding away in a neighbor's patch of forest while my angry roommates threw spears at them (I watched part of "Spartacus" last night) - anyway, the important thing is that in this dream, I was also writing a blog. This blog, in fact. And I was excited about it. All kinds of people were contributing to it. Michael too.

Two days ago, I was rereading a blog I had written while covering the Beijing Olympics and was struck by how alive I sounded in it. I pulled off some good jokes, connected the dots, wrote about the Chinese security apparatus with a startling fearlessness. I'd like to find that guy again, I thought to myself. I miss him.

So the dream is telling me to recapture that spirit here. Keep the magic alive.

What will I write about? How to walk that thin line between privacy and too much disclosure? Will I even follow through?

Anyone out there at all reading this: Stay tuned.