Since we last chatted, Not Much has happened or Lots has happened, depending upon your Perspective. Here's a Quickie Rundown:
1. The Nativity Wreck finally disappeared from view about two weeks ago. Finally, NO Xmas decorations sully my neighborhood!
2. I caught a misspelling on The Dr. Phil Show. (A graphic spelled the word provocative as provacative.)
3. The winery party we attended was lovely. We won the drawing, a lovely crate of six select single-vintage reds.
4. Lake season has started, and I caught the first fish.
5. An ongoing gasline project in our neighborhood is noisily disrupting my life and my daily walks; our sidewalks are in ruins.
6. We met new friends at the party in Niagara-on-the-Lake and plan to keep in touch.
7. I have participated in my last garage sale at my brother's lakehouse. Too much work for not enough enjoyment.
8. I completed two more knitting projects, and continue a square a day on my mitred square blanket.
9. Knitting is really my therapy, but it aggravates my neck-shoulder condition. Looks like I have to restart PT.
10. I've been thinking of shutting down the Dept. of Nance.
That last one is the big one. And believe me, I've been thinking awfully hard about it.
My original mission behind this blog was to Practice What I Preached to my Creative Writing students, that writers write. And I wanted to keep my skills limber in order to keep up with them, a truly gifted group year after year. I also wanted to maintain my own strong voice so that I didn't unintentionally adopt any of theirs or anyone I was reading as I taught the American Masters to my literature students. As time went on, I also enjoyed having a platform to discuss issues with my lively and engaging commenters and to bring small cultural ironies into focus in an almost Seinfeldian way. Politics--an important part of my life and one of my main interests--was also a big part of this blog. There was a great deal of energy here during the Bush 43 years and...well, now Politics is beating me up. I work as a political activist every morning--on the phone to Congress, online sending emails, clicking to sign petitions, reading to stay informed--and so much of it is soul-crushing. That is the hardest thing for me right now: if I don't write about Politics here, I feel like a traitor; if I do, I feel overwhelmed.
Honestly, I don't know what the hell to write about at this point. Many of my Original Commenters have drifted away. Maybe I bored them? Maybe they've moved along to other venues, (perhaps facebook!) or simply traded online time for realtime activities, like going to the gym or running 5Ks or any other death-cheating pursuits (can you imagine?). I miss them. I like the back-and-forth with Commenters. Blogging is a Community; responding to comments and having a regular conversation in Comments is what I like the most. I can't imagine not doing it. For me, it works.
I value all of my Commenters, and I respond to them all in Comments. I love it when conversation occurs among them. It's important to me to acknowledge that they bothered to respond to my writing. (Unfortunately, Blogger is wreaking havoc on this platform at present, and is no longer allowing "Open ID" sign-ins. A workaround may be to use Anonymous as your sign-in, then sign your name at the end of Blogger blog comments.)
So, I have some Thinking to do, and I will continue to do it. I have to think about what Purpose this blog has for me, if any, and whether or not it will be A Good Thing In My Life. I've been writing here for thirteen years! It's hard to suddenly say That's It. But if it doesn't provide a positive Purpose, then I have to let it go.
I know I'm not the only blogger who has thought about this. Perhaps some of you can offer some wisdom to help me with this decision as I sort it all out.
