I haven't posted in nearly two months. (If you can read, you're thinking, "No shit, dumb-ass.") I know why I haven't posted. But I don't know why I can't bring myself to officially bid y'all "adieu" and retire my blog to the great blogosphere rest-home in the sky.
Some reasons for my lack of posting:
I now look at a computer screen for at least 40 hours a week. I sit in a windowless cube. When I come home, the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking at a computer screen. I want to sit outside (weather permitting, of course) and read a book. Not that I don't love and miss many, many wonderful blogs, but I want paper pages. I'm so giddy and greedy with the concept of reading only for pleasure (it's been a year, and I still can't get over it - like a lottery winner who can't believe her good fortune), I'm inhaling several books at once. Wait - that sounds insane.
I don't know why, but when I eat a meal, I always start one thing and finish it before I move onto the next. I never thought this was weird until college and then people started pointing it out left and right. People (okay, servers, mostly in restaurants) will ask me, "Do you not like your sandwich?" when 15 minutes after my plate has been delivered, I'm still playing with the mashed potatoes or chips or fries or whatever. I'll get to my sandwich eventually. Just not until I've finished the "whatever."
That's how I used to read books. I might bring home a pile of 10 from the library, pick one and start it. And no matter how painful or tedious or boring the book, I couldn't start a new one. I had to finish the one I was currently reading. The first time I started another book without finishing my current book, I felt like I was cheating on someone. "Listen," I wanted to say to my new book, "Don't tell Eat, Pray, Love that we're doing this, okay? She thinks she's the only one in my life right now."
I eventually got over it, although the guilt lingered for years. But not this year. This year I am a reckless slut with my books, starting one and then another and then another and being SO crazy that sometimes I've even been reading four books at once! (Can you believe the promiscuity? And the craziness? So crazy with the craziness around here!)
So. Me and books have gotten back together - probably since last May - and I really feel like I need to devote all my attention to that particular relationship, since we'd broken up way back in 2004 when I started grad school.
I am also no longer filled with rage. Oh - don't get me wrong - I still have my rage. Just not enough to fill a blog post a week even - let alone a day.
But the other thing is that I am going through something right now that has got me feeling very sad and helpless. I do believe that we can manage our feelings if not "choose" them, but not this. And in between being sad and feeling helpless, I'm obsessing to anyone who will listen IRL. In fact, I'm basically out of other conversational topics once I've exhausted what books I'm reading and "The Issue" as it shall be known henceforth. Or is it "whereto"? I should have paid more attention in my Shakespeare Tragedies class in undergrad. I should have paid more attention in ALL of my classes, but that's for another blog.
Where was I? Oh, yes. The Issue. I'm pretty much surprised that anyone still picks up the phone when they see me calling because I'm sure they know there's only one subject about which I will be in the mood to discuss and that is - of course - The Issue.
Things are so bad I've started scrapbooking. This is bad because I don't take pictures, really - except for home improvement ones. And I'm not doing a home improvement scrapbook. I'm creating beautiful (well, at least I think they are) scrapbook pages with NO PICTURES. I'm experimenting with things I once openly scoffed, like "fibers" and "found objects" and "metal charms" and colored staples. If Michael's stock has soared in the past two months, I am personally responsible for it. On one particularly bad day, I became convinced I needed a "Crop-o-diler" and ran out and bought it without even looking at the price tag or considering the fact that people
need air, water, food, shelter and that's about it. I'm sure people who have lost loved ones in the recent tragedies in China and Myanmar would gladly have me killed for thinking I "need" anything other than those things I already mentioned and oh, I don't know, family and friends.
I think my blog would be the perfect place to work out all my angst with The Issue, except the person about whom I am most worried - around who The Issue revolves - reads this blog. Or, at least he read it. He probably stopped reading when I stopped posting, just like everybody else. So I continue to blather on to bored friends and spend money on crap for scrapbooking that was probably made by poor exploited child laborers somewhere and I am spending my way to hell with every purchase.
Which brings me to my point. I can't remember what it was, exactly, but I do know I had one or I wouldn't have started this post. Something to do with, "Am I going to shut this sucker down for once and for all or just keep lying to myself that some day, some day very
soon I will pick it up again and start blogging religiously?"
And the answer is, I don't know. But if you're reading this, thanks for checking in even when I've given you absolutely no reason to do so. I guess time will tell. Or I will be voted off the blogosphere in which case I will pack my things and leave immediately.
