There’s no guilt quite like the kind inflicted by an un-updated blog.

It simmers, at first smaller than the smallest dust speck, until it eventually metastasizes into outright self-loathing.

When this happens, I do what any writer would do when faced with a problem created by blank documents. I ignore it. I pretend it doesn’t exist. I even go so far as to not bother visiting it, for fear of mindlessly clicking on the counter to see just how many people have NOT visited in the last century.

I was doing so well, too. Updating at least once a week – sometimes, gasp, multiple times. People high-fived me. You, there, they said as I passed them by in my too-cool frock reserved for proper bloggers. You updated again. I want to be you.

But that’s the trouble with earning approval from the blog masses. The pressure to keep up the momentum mounts. Will she or won’t she? the blog masses wonder. Post more! they say. Then: You’re slacking. Weeks later, confusion. Where are you, Karen, the blogger of blog-unworthy things?! And then, nothing.

Life goes on. People forget. The blog languishes.

Usually this happens when work picks up or New York approaches visitor season, which for me and most people are the months between March and December, or something earth-shatteringly depressing happens that I can’t bring myself to write. In public.

Nonetheless. I am here. I can’t promise I won’t disappear again, but that’s the beauty of blogville. As in life, nothing is certain. Except for this post.

ONE. While you’re here, I figured I might as well update you on 10 things that happened since I’ve been gone. Fresh from research, I took a few days off work to write an epic novel. Is that redundant? Is that like saying a general consensus or an epic epic? Whatever. Five frenzied days of little sleep, marathon writing sessions and lack of sunlight later, it was complete. It’s about a wizard who takes under his wing a young lad who becomes king after pulling out a sword from a stone. I’ve heard grumblings that this story has been “done before” and it’s “even become a popular Disney movie complete with an adorable owl named after a Greek mathematician.” They’re just jealous. I’m already working on my next epic epic: a love story about a high school girl and a dashing, glittery vampire.

TWO. “The Artist” won the Oscar. I absolutely enjoyed this movie. Partly because Jean Dujardin reminded me of how Coach Taylor said so much with his eyes. It further reminded me how stories can be told with little dialogue. In the silent movie, the face, the body, the music say it all.

THREE. I covered a judges dinner that featured a speech of funny patent jokes. Sometimes, I get obsessed with a line or word or phrase that I’ll work an entire article around it. This was one of those times. So was this one.

FOUR. I went to a gymnastics meet for the first time ever (The picture above was taken that afternoon at the ever so awesome High Line). Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a gym fanatic. This is often met with: “Oh?” (Code: Weirdo) and then, perhaps to salvage what’s left of my seemingly normal image, “Were you a gymnast?” No, I wasn’t, I tell them, because my parents thought it was too dangerous. When I was 12, I did fracture my left elbow mid-gymnast reenactment because the stool I was jumping on collapsed under my weight and sent me hurtling to the floor with nothing but my arm to break my fall. From that, I learned one thing. My daughters will be gymnasts. And they will like it.

FIVE. I learned everyone needs a break sometimes.

SIX. Whitney Houston died. Surprisingly, I learned the news the old-fashioned way. I was at a bar, where the news spread from bartender to barback to bartendee to person to person to the bartender for the 50th time. People shared stories. People shared theories. Phil and I went to karaoke.

SEVEN. There’s nothing that captures the New York experience quite like dressing up in your best and singing “Proud Mary” to a bunch of strangers ready for a night out. Not that I’ve done it. Yet.

EIGHT. Spring came. It’s something that happens without much fanfare but with noticeable changes. Everyone smiles a little more, wears a little less black, holds a little more doors and walks a little slower. OK, that last one was a stretch.

NINE. I went to Egypt and all I got was this stinkin’ picture.

TEN. With warm weather come the demonstrations. Union Square is always poppin’ with these.

BONUS. I took the train. Over and over and over again. There’s really nothing notable about this one, but I didn’t say there had to be.

So, what about you? What’s going on in your neck of the woods, concrete jungle, worn but fantastically comfortable sofa?