No, not how long I’ve been an IHE blogger (see below); our wedding anniversary. Mrs. Churm and I had already been together most of a decade when, six months after our engagement on Herrin Massacre Day—call me a romantic—we were married by a judge in the basement of the Cook County Courthouse and emerged blinking onto Daley Plaza in tight new shoes. This morning my wife helped me wake by shouting the Jeremy Piven improvisation about ten years’ passing from Grosse Pointe Blank; later we’ll regretfully leave the children with grandma to go out and have a good time. Happy anniversary, darling.

Marriage is my marriage but blogging is my mistress, to paraphrase Anton Chekhov. Coincidentally it’s also the anniversary of my relationship with the beautiful and intelligent Inside Higher Ed. For those bloggers who don’t feel qualified and empowered to comment on almost any imaginable topic or feel they certainly don’t have the right because the expertise isn’t there or they have limited technical expertise and therefore the comfort level isn’t there but nonetheless wish they could write at will because of their strong feelings about things, I’m here to say: None of that ever stopped me, so chin up. I’ve been "empowered" the last four years—four years, man! four! years!—by the best editors a sometime-essayist-disguised-as-a-blogger could ever want. My public and enthusiastic thanks to IHE and to you for reading.

The warmest of happy holidays!