I’m sure it’s part of the “refresh,” and it will be ironed out. Your patience is appreciated.

Oddly enough, when I left a comment this morning, my paragraph breaks didn’t show up for me . . . but your paragraph breaks are showing up for me, as, evidently, they are not for you. In any case, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Also, I may be wrong, but I believe vineyarddawg’s comment referred to Brian Cook and me, not to you and me. I was confused at first, too, because his comment followed yours, but I don’t think it was in reply to yours, since it wasn’t indented underneath yours. I may be misreading him, but, since you’re obviously right that your comment contained no invective, I think vineyarddawg was referencing Brian’s post-Illinois posting and my post-Florida posting.

As for your initial question, you’re basically right. It’s not straight stream-of-consciousness, and there often is some planning to it, but it’s never as meticulously orchestrated as my legal writing. (It wouldn’t be much of an outlet if it was no different from what I do for a living!)

A lot of it depends upon timing. If I’m sitting down in the evening to write a post for that evening, it largely develops as it goes, and any patterns that emerge are as likely to be accidental as planned. I proofread everything before posting it, but my edits usually are to correct grammatical or spelling errors rather than to change fundamentally the point being made.

Saturday night’s posting, though, was more the product of reflection, largely out of necessity. It was a 3:30 game that ended while Halloween was in full swing. There was candy to be given out, and, shortly after the game was over, my wife brought our kids home from trick-or-treating. The usual bath-and-bedtime routine was uppermost on the agenda before I could begin writing about the game, but, of course, the game was fresh on my mind, so I wound up carrying a pen and a piece of paper in my pocket to jot down thoughts as they occurred to me. What ended up on the web later that evening largely had been written in my head before I ever sat down at my computer.

Thanks for the question, kidbourbon . . . I appreciate both your interest and the excuse you gave me to think through something I’d never really considered in detail. By the way . . . I also regret our earlier run-ins over your team’s head coach, whom I still dislike, but who obviously at least knows enough to recruit the right players and hire the right assistant coaches to have his team headed in a much better direction than my team now is. I continue to reserve the right to rip on Lane Kiffin for his ill-considered comments, but, like Les Miles before him, he is showing me more than I expected. (Please point out to Holly, however, that the foregoing did not constitute a 4,000-word apology.)

All right, lunch break’s over . . . back to the legal work!