Saturday, January 3, 2015

Can't Get Back to Where I Started From

Back to my girl-genius blogger days, I mean.

So, as I recall, I used to be pretty good at blogging.  My entries were funny, observant, sometimes moving and always an honest reflection of who I was and what I was thinking.

So that the hell happened?

Beats me!
I think I might be too happy to write the way I used to.
Or too busy.
Or maybe I suck. Or at least my writing does, because the flame of my talent has sputtered and died; and is now lying, limp and gummy, in a cliche-pit, half buried by trite metaphors.

I shouldn't credit myself with all that drama.  More likely it's because we only have hot-spotting for Internet, and the slowness drives me ape-shit.

Or because my job is trying to eat me.

Or maybe it's because I sleep at night instead of blogging which cuts into my writing time and also means that  I'm well rested and view the world as a more normal and less noteworthy place.  Yes.  I'll blame sleep.

Or maybe it's because I don't have a secret life in my own mind anymore.  I used to write from a place that doesn't exist now, because I tell everything to Chuck and then it evaporates.  No kidding. As soon as it leaves my lips, I don't want to blog about it any more.  I need to remember:  when Chuck asks, "What are you blogging about?" I need to say, "Nothin' much..."

Or maybe it's because I've been enjoying reading so much that I don't want other things to interfere.  I quit my book club, which means I can finally read the things I want to read instead of the mindless crap my fellow club members were always picking.  And never finished anyway!  Each book club meeting would be a chorus of, "I didn't finish. Me neither."  Geeze.  And they aren't even very nice people.

Maybe I am so hung up on whether I can write well that I choose not to write at all.

But I want to have this.  I want to write about life, as I have been doing in one form or another since I was 13.  Like my grandpa did, creating fascinating journal entries for his descendants to read, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE SOOOOOOOOOO MUNDANE.

Why do I have to be so...performance based, anyway?  DO I have to be brilliant to have fun?

Today, for example.  Noting much happened today.  We got home from California last night, so I spent the day doing laundry, running errands, paying bills, and all the other stuff you have to catch up on when you have been out of town for a week.

The drive home was uneventful, except we listened to all twelve episodes of Season 1 of "Serial". Otherwise, the tedium was only punctuated by Chuck running out of gas between LA and Victorville.  This happens from time to time, as he pushes the envelope of his time / space / gas continuum.  The kids hardly seemed surprised.  We all just climbed out of the car and started walking.  This time, we were fortunate to make it as far as an off-ramp before the car rolled to a stop.  Unfortunately, the off-ramp was uphill, or we would've made it to the gas station / convenience store.  Which was called the "Extra Mile".

And I'm sitting here now in the recliner in front of the toasty wood stove, wishing I was not wearing workout clothes under my regular clothes.  I put them on like this in the morning, thinking it would make it that much easier to make it to the gym to work out.  Of course, it didn't and I didn't; and now I am sitting here roasting and blogging.

The recliner vibrates from some sort of chewing or pulling antic of Tobi the rabbit, who gets roaming privileges after supper.

Chuck is next to me in his matching recliner, browsing bicycle forks; Nathan is in his room playing video games; and Sara is out on a double date with her boyfriend, Ilan, at the climbing gym.  She sent me an "emoji"-filled text just now to tell me that she will be home at 10:30.

I am also texting with our friend / attorney,Chad.  I want him to come over tomorrow to eat spaghetti and watch "Sharknado".  He's the one who told me that there was such a movie and promised that he would watch it with me if I ordered it from Netflix.  Now he is resisting this plan, asking for a rain check.  I told him I would send "Sharknado" back, but return it straight to the queue; and when it comes up again, he had better be ready to watch it.

Is this mundane enough, Grandpa?  Grandpa would say it is only too mundane if I tell what I had to eat for supper or what the newspaper headline was for the day.

I would say that it's my New Year's Resolution to start blogging again.  But I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions.  And any time I try to commit to one, I always fuck it up.  Let's say the goal is to write in the blog two while days in a row.  Today and tomorrow.  That's a pretty low bar.

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