Long Time, No Blog

On the eve of the two-week-iversary of my last post, let me ask, where was I?

I can’t remember, really. There was something going on before our German exchange student (Gregor) arrived (from Darmstadt); and before Kate and I spent a week painting our dining room and hallway and bathroom; but I forget what.

Two observations, though: It’s no wonder that so many people start these damned things and then quit them after just a few months (that’s the conclusion of a widely quoted software company study. If you care to write something that might please your nonexistent
audience, this takes time. And life is sure to intervene with its niggling little demands. I’m in a state of constant minor, irritated awe at people who appear to lead lives and accomplish something more than the usual breathing/eating/working/sleeping that most of us struggle to get through — and still post about 12 times a day on their blawwwwgs.

On the other hand: As far as starting blogs and quitting them, is there really anything at all unexpected about that? There’s a pretty good trade in paper diaries and journals; plain ones, fancy ones, lined ones and unlined ones. But how many of them are ever opened more than once or twice for the painful self-conscious scrawl before the would-be diarist remembers that watching “Green Acres” reruns is less demanding or maybe even more fulfilling? I don’t have the abandoned journal stats at my fingertips, but I’ll bet you could fill several world-class libraries, or landfills, with the barely begun daily musings of John and Jane Q. Doe, deeply reflective citizens of the world.

Which means there’s nothing about blogs that makes them tough to keep up, and lots about the press of daily life and the awkward reality of running into your own thoughts while you’re staring at an empty space just waiting to receive your musings, tales, insights, prose mastery — heck, your all-around brilliance.

And with that, I have now filled my empty space for the day, and the “Seinfeld” rerun about the loaf of rye bread is on. Good night.

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