Hello -- are you reading?

OK, what happened to the Internet while I was in South Carolina? When did spam become the norm for blogs? This is disgusting and upsetting. I don't write my blog so my readers can get spammed in the comments sections. I'm deleting comments that are clearly nothing more than spam, and I'm afraid -- very, very much afraid -- I'll have to re-set the blog so that comments can't be left by strangers who aren't participating in the community. What a pointless exercise in blogging.

I apologize profusely to my regular readers and friends. The only other recourse I can imagine is to simply stop blogging -- and I'm not that irritated yet.

But... I'm close.