A blog is personal, right? But like other forums (or is it fora?), the notion of boundaries applies. The reason I’m pondering this today is I’m sitting in Cleveland Hopkins Airport on the (delayed) start of my last business trip as a full-timer for Lodging Hospitality and have time to ponder some blog-related incidents of the past few months.

I often write about my family, which, sometimes to my regret, is more extended than I’d like it to be. If that sounds snarky, it’s because I’ve learned from a recent posting that when I write about someone other than myself—and the material might be sensitive—I should run it by that other first. Otherwise, who knows might take offense. If I went into detail, I’d aggravate the issue.

Otherwise, some random thoughts: My last day at LH is Aug. 1 and I haven’t lined up anything solid for beyond that. I’m looking for low-level part-time editing work; I’m confident I’ll be able to keep up the book reviews and the occasional music piece, but I’m eager to have some kind of platform. Lodging Hospitality has been very, very good to me these many years, and I’ll miss its security—and society. But I’m pretty sure I’ll find much new to do, and I’m looking forward to time with my family and pets. Also, I have a feeling my wife will be done with “Thick Through the Middle,” her graphic book about weight issues. It may be time for me to come up with another book; it’s been a few years.

I’m continuing this on Friday waiting in Atlanta’s airport to go home after a week of conferences. The one LH sponsored in Chicago ran like a clock and was a smash; the one I’m just ending, the black hotel owners’ and operators’ conference I’ve attended for so many years, was a blast of another sort. Telling people I’m leaving drew all sorts of responses, to congratulations to let’s continue working together to what are you going to do? It’ll be good to get home and feel kind of grounded in one of the most unsettled months of my life.

So I’m about to see “Don’t Mess With the Zohan” in Stone Harbor, New Jersey and the previews aren’t coming attractions—they come later—but commercials: for Verizon, for Samsung (know what a “BlackBerry prayer” is?) and for the National Guard. The last one’s the keeper: It’s a video of Three Doors Down singing “Citizen Soldier,” and you can download it, free, on the National Guard website (you look).

Rock ‘n’ roll used to be about peace and love and good vibes. When did it become an ad for war? Katy, my older kid, tells me she’s heard the song before and doesn’t know if any other rock group does that kind of thing. (Be right back; I’ll check out the National Guard website). Yep, Google National Guard and Three Doors Down and “Citizen Soldier” come up. You also learn that Kid Rock, that scruffy subversive who married Pamela Anderson, has just cut a commercial for the Guard.

I’m not against readiness but I am against war. Any musician who sides with the latter is lame in my book. Going to the movies used to be about entering a world of pure entertainment, a world you could get away to. No more. When did marketing become so mercenary, political and malevolent?

“Zohan” was fun, by the way. Getting there wasn’t half of it.

It’s my last paid vacation. We’re in Stone Harbor on the Jersey shore for the second year in a row. The beach is beautiful, though the Atlantic is too cold for swimming; the weather has been mainly good, with enough sun. I’ve been doing a lot of work here, some of my last as a full-time editor for Lodging Hospitality. The key task is compressing my 10-day China trip into about four magazine pages. Glad to be doing it in a place where I can take a break and get some sun.

I’m looking forward to my last day of work Aug. 1. But I’m also apprehensive. I’ve been employed for nearly 40 years, so lacking an anchor is scary. I’m putting out feelers for part-time work now, though I have a salary cap my first year of retirement (a strange word; tell people about it and the association is ending, dying. No such plans for me). I’m looking to edit, write corporate PR, put together brochures, do travel journalism. Maybe even some serious consumer reporting; now that I’ll have time, my ambitions are beginning to reawaken.

I also am looking forward to the presidential campaign and plan to volunteer for Obama. What form that will take I’m not sureyet, but his campaign is engaging me like none has since Clinton 1, in 1992. Back in February, I said it was Obama time. Still is. I’ll do what I can to guarantee that.

Naturally, time is on my mind, with a big shift in how I spend it coming up. So is continuity; last week, I got a note and some writings from Jack Behar, former husband of Barbara Behar, a former student of my father’s. In the ‘90s, I recall coming across writings of my father’s—dirty writings, sexual fantasies , if not (I hope) factual accounts—involving Barbara, who died of cancer in 1993. Jack sent me a packet of his writings about that “affair,” apparently a matter of phone sex-plus. It made me squeamish; not only does it tarnish my father to me, it shines a light on my own secrets, obsessions, sexual fantasies. Tantalizing? Scary, too. I don’t know how I’ll respond to Jack yet, but I will. Business, it seems, is never finished.

We’re starting a week’s vacation June 21, returning to Stone Harbor, New Jersey for a sophomore sojourn. The place will be great; time for sand and sun and seafood—and tightening up. We’re driving; bought a luggage rack/box for Karen’s Scion xB, and expect to spend a few hundred on gas to and from. But it’s cheaper than flying. It’ll be my last paid vacation.

There’s some finality to what I’ll do in August: quit my full-time job. That’s known as deciding to retire, but “retire” has a false finality, because I’m not ending, just shifting. Because Lylah and Katy are less than 18  years old, I can collect Social Security for them for a few years; combined with my Social Security income, the household should do OK. If prices begin to level off.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to more time for myself. I still hope to travel, and to write. Though there’ll be an income cap in my first year, I’ll be able to make as much as I want after that, and I hope to do a lot more freelance work in corporate communications and hotel public relations.

On three other fronts: A 2004 BMW rammed into my own month-old Scion xB 10 days ago, wrecking the bumper and jamming the rear of the frame a bit, for $3,200 and change in repairs. The Beemer was totaled. We’ve been having some major auto issues, obviously, and the repair shop is doing well by us. The accident showed me how tough a little car my Scion is. The other front: Susan Green, whom I haven’t seen in at least 25 years, sent me a collection of essays/stories she and Susan Connell-Mettauer wrote. It’s way personal; it includes a few pieces about my relationship with the latter Susan, who died in late March. Weird reading my Susan’s writing about us 45 years ago. The narratives show me how I became such a flaming liberal; happens when punitive relatives frame you for fornication, a Massachusetts blue law of medieval, toxic cast.

Finally, the Obama-McCain campaign is on.  I’m writing this the day Hillary finally conceded and rediscovered her grace. About time; now it’s time for Obama, for the country to regain its balance—at least. Who knows? If he’s elected, the U.S. may even stumble upon a colorblind, positive groove. Here’s hoping.

I’m beginning to grasp a new kind of music, what I call heart music. It doesn’t fall into any particular category or niche; rather, it encompasses many. Two shows I saw recently stirred me so, all I could come up with was that description.

The first was on April 25 in New Orleans. I was there on a press trip, checking out a gang of Marriott hotels. Part of the PR effort involved Marriott giving the participating journalists a ticket to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, an extravaganza that must have drawn over 50,000 to one great whoopdedoo on fairgrounds somewhere in that city. Marriott gave each of us $40, too. My job has its perks.

What knocked me out was a show by Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett’s band; delivering material off their fine “Raising Sand” album, the former leader of Led Zeppelin and bluegrass (and then some) virtuoso Krauss served up an hour and a half of heart music, including remakes of various Zep songs. Damn, was I moved. The kicker came toward the end, when Plant delivered a “When the Levee Breaks” as a ballsy affirmation of a city where Katrina broke the levees nearly three years ago. I’d toured New Orleans’ Ninth Ward the day before and seen what Katrina had done. Hearing Plant revitalize that Zep tune (itself a cover of a 1929 Memphis Minnie blues) was fantastic. Not only did it rock with point and passion, it signified Plant’s respect for a city that has contributed so much to this country’s musical character. The show was so good it seemed to stave off the rain that threatened throughout the set, breaking only for a few drops (Billy Joel capped the following day’s show, when it rained and rained and rained. Not sorry I missed that one).

The other heart music show was on Mother’s Day at the Allen Theatre in Cleveland. The Swell Season, featuring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and members of the Frames, delivered great tunes of their own, classics-to-be from “Once,” the fine film they starred in, and, to bring down the house, a furious solo Hansard cover of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.” Hansard has been around a while; Irglova’s a kid, and, clearly, his lover (wonder if Krauss is Plant’s?). Each can separately command a stage, and together make gorgeous music.

This is the kind of sound I hanker for. It makes the planet seem less desperate.