Post HNT Cold Turkey

This is the first Thursday since retiring from HNT. (HNT is short for Half-Nekkid Thursday and from 2005 until the last Thursday of 2011, it was a weekly internet community celebration of exposure started by a blogger named Osbasso.)

Some folks took the "nekkid" literally and exposed skin while others merely offered up pictures of themselves (the basic theme was a picture taken of yourself in various settings, situations, etc), while still others exposed something about their inner selves. That's one thing I lvoed about HNT - it was varied and allowed for all kinds of translation.

I tended to do a strange combination of the three and, inspired by other bloggers, thought it would be neat to try to add some humour to my posts or use the theme to tell goofy serial stories like the Darth Tater series and the "Terror in Toyland" series (that I never actually finished - fellow blogger Susie, who guest starred with me and I are still trapped in that bizarre world and have yet to escape - the last episode of "Terror in Toyland" features me getting beat up by Farmer Jones and still not able to find Susie after we were separated flying off a train table on a train . . .)

So, I had been doing weekly HNT posts since October 27, 2005.

So imagine how strange it felt this morning to wake up and realize it was Thursday and I didn't have a themed blog post to do . . .

Well I can't just quit cold-turkey now, can I?

Of course not.

So here's my first Post-HNT (or PHNT) post - a pic taken of myself this past weekend having not shaved for a couple of days - a reflection of the beginning of the realization that this cold turkey was going to be a difficult thing (yes, ironic we're talking about cold turkey and we were still eating leftover turkey from the Christmas season yesterday -- oh, for those concerned about food poisoning, we had frozen turkey a few days after Christmas, so it's not like it had been sitting around since the 25th)

So, do I look sufficiently miserable & all cold-turkey like in this pic?

Alexander spotted me taking pics and wanted in on the action

Yeah, I know, with the exception of my son in the second shot, it's NOT a pretty picture now is it? Particularly when you can see that second chin appearing in the shot (yes, I put on an additional 10 pounds over the holidays -- there, THAT sentiment fulfills part of the personal exposure that HNT was all about.....)

To to any of my HNT friends who are suffering the same cold turkey, I wish a Happy Post-HNT to them.