This is the End, beautiful friend...

After a seven-plus year run, I've decided to shut down this blog.

Why, is your question.

I guess the shortest way to say it is, I began this blog at a very different time of my life, and to try to hang on to it, as it is, would be like trying to hang on to a past that has, well, passed. It's done. This chapter of my life is done.

I'm on the brink of some pretty key personal changes. I'm starting to work through some things I've taken for granted as normal. This blog has been an outlet for feelings and emotions that should have been dealt with in the real world. In a sense, over the years, I used this blog as a hiding spot, to avoid dealing with my issues. The "emo" posts I'd spew every so often contained thoughts and ideas that should have been shared with people in my physical life, who could walk with me through them and help me learn how to cope and grow.

Instead, I've been hiding in a lot of ways. And the times when I just couldn't stand wearing the "happy" mask anymore, I'd come here, explode in a fury of emotion and depression, get it out of my system, and go back to hiding. I'd scare the people who loved me the most, because I never vented these feelings with them, so seeing my sadness in print seemed disturbing and out-of-character. All this time, I should have been talking to the people around me, instead of faceless printed voices on the internets.

And I love you guys, all of you who have read my blog over the years. Most of you have stopped reading my blog because you got more interesting lives. God bless you. I hope to follow in your footsteps now. The rest of you, who despite your interesting lives still read my oft-neglected page, I love you all the more for sticking around. I feel like I have built little relationships with each of you. But these relationships are thin and hollow. If you want to get to know me, send me an email, message me on Facebook, find me on AIM. Let's really talk. If you'd rather not, I take no offence whatsoever. Go with my blessing and peace.

I'm going to miss being a regular "blogger." It's been an identity thing, you know? But, as I've ruminated over often in these pages, it's also an ego thing, the idea that my words are important enough to be flung out into space like this. Some of you have fed this illusion with your generous praise. (I'm looking at you, Laura.) Thank you. But there's nothing of value in here that you can't get from me elsewhere. Like I said, Facebook me. IM me. Email me. Connect. I'd love to continue the conversation.

But this old house, these perfect blue buildings, they're full of ghosts. Not of old loves, but of old me. The person I used to be, and the person I'm trying to shake out of like a snake shedding its skin. There's something living inside, something fresh and new that needs to be freed, but to do that I need to leave something behind. This blog represents part of that something. The rest of it, I'm finding ways to scrape off and get rid of as well.

So it's time for a new neighborhood. Goodbye, Perfect Blue Buildings (formerly Anything To Disrupt the Tedium, and Anything to Dispel the Silence [i think]). It's been a good run. Seven years. Mazel tov.

(I feel like I'm reciting the last five pages of Our Town. Goodbye to clocks ticking, and my old butternut tree.)

I should clarify: I'm not disappearing from the internet entirely. Aside from FB, I'll still track my fitness and distance-running progress on the Waddling Bison blog. I'll still post poetry as The Man in the Brown Hat. If you want to see those pages, take a look around the interwebs, you'll find me. But *this* blog has run its course. The emo-confessional/pop-culture-commentary/political-gadfly business. It's done.

As to the fate of this website. I haven't decided. In the next week, I'll be combing the archives for anything worth salvaging, any creative bits i want to save and use elsewhere. Then...I don't know. Some of you asked me to keep the archives active so you can peruse them, relive the highlights and lowlights. Thing is, I think I'd be tempted to do it too. And that kinda defeats the purpose. I haven't decided yet, but I have to confess, i'm leaning toward torching the place. Send PBB off into internet Valhalla, Viking-style.

I'll let you know what I decide, one way or another.

But this is it, internet. Last PBB post. Feels like I should be dropping all sorts of inside jokes and references to past goofiness. (Save that for the PBB Dead Letter Office mailbag? Sure. Send it "Attn: Gerard.")

Actually, I should probably just end this before I change my mind about the whole thing.


Famous Last Words: Jesus loves you more than you'll ever know. He's the only thing worth living for. Find life in Him.

Love you guys. Be good. See ya around.