The answer is d.
Tonight I was hunched over my laptop when John walked into the bedroom, an intently focused, serious look on my squinting face, my hand poised over the mouse buttons and the pg dn key as my eyes darted back and forth across the screen. Was I...
a.) Catching up on all the work I have to finish at my current job before starting my new one next week?
b.) Reading an electronic version of a literary classic and thus expanding my mind?
c.) Updating myself on current world events?
d.) Being blogged*?
I am and always have been a "high achieving" individual. I wouldn't have identified myself as such in my childhood or early adulthood. But the more experiences I have, the more I am able to admit this about myself, and appreciate the good and bad qualities and results of this fact. When I set out to do something, I accomplish it with a flourish. I graduated from a prestigious university in three years (and I wasn't one of those who took a bunch of college credits with her from high school classes, either), simply because I figured out that I could, and then decided to do it. I married someone 17 years my senior and took on his kids, who were essentially abandoned by their mother and have multiple resulting major emotional problems, and while I don't take full credit for the survival and strength of our relationship, I recognize that I am an integral part of that success (at least half, right??). I knew the company I wanted to work for after I graduated from college and moved back here, and persisted until they hired me, then lived through the emotional beating that is a layoff after three years of employment there. I gave birth to fire and a gibbon swallower and have lived to tell the tales. I persisted for three and a half years to get back to the company that laid me off, and succeeded against all odds (they'll never get rid of me now, bwahahahaha). I baffled doctors by gaining 65 pounds during pregnancy, then lost it all by quite literally working my ass off. I am woman, hear me roar! I accomplish anything I set my mind to!
But here's the thing. I think my undoing is going to be blogging. OH MY GOD, people. How do you do it? How do you so faithfully find the time to comment on all these clever sites, hundreds and thousands and millions of them, and still write coherently on your own sites? I am going to hire an assistant because I clearly can't manage to live my life responsibly AND simultaneously meet all of my blogging requirements. Those of you who blog regularly while working a full time job outside the house, and those of you who have, say, SEVEN homeschooled kids, or who have time to read AND blog (and blog about reading and other intelligent things) and always take the time to include graphics or music on every post...I just want to know this: do you not like sleep? Because I'm thinking maybe that's my problem. I am a big lazy sleep-lover.
A few nights ago, John walked in on me in a harried, hunched-over-the-laptop position similar to what I described earlier, and he said, "what's wrong?!" My exasperated, fist-shaking reply was, "I can't keep up with all these blogs!" He started laughing, and he told me the image in his mind was of me in a big open field with a tiny tennis-racket sized defense instrument, swinging my arms like I'm swatting at flies while dodging huge, bouncing globs (coincidence that "glob" is merely an anagram of "blog"? I think not.) of amorphous material. When he told me this, I pictured myself in a lightning storm with the small tennis racket, and the globs were about the size of houses. This is just the first thought that popped into my head, so clearly my subconscious view of this situation is a tiny bit fraught with angst at this point.
On the days I manage to write something of my own, I don't seem to have any leftover time to comment on other blogs. On the days I comment and read the growing list of blogs I want to keep up with, I am rudely reminded that there are only 24 hours in a day, and I'm lazy enough that I really want at least 7 of them for sleep, which means no time for post-writing. Because the remaining 17 hours are taken up with commenting, eating, and, what else? - oh yeah, living the life I'm trying to write about. But I'm determined not to be blogged* to death, even if that means I end up on the fringe of the blogging community the way we are on the fringe of American Suburbia. I wish I could pay the bills and raise my kids and still tap away on my laptop 8-9 hours a day just maintaining my blogging requirements. Some people are talented enough to have accomplished this. However, until that unlikely day comes for me, go ahead and take this down for the record: I can't keep up. I've tried and failed, and so now I'm just going to do my best to write and comment when I can and not because I picture a glob-blog gun held to my head. So...I guess what I'm saying is, bear with me while I teach myself to under-achieve. It's for my health; that and all the alcohol are for my long-term health.
*This will be my new method of discussing any activity relating to posting on my own or someone else's blog (no matter how much I may enjoy and respect said blog). While it is very close to the accepted phrase "blogging," I want to emphasize that in MY experience, there are aspects to blogging that begin to feel more, oh, let's see... inflicted than a basic old gerund can really properly connote. "Blogging" sounds so pleasant and controlled, like "going shopping" or "picking out a new book." But with MY method, you can "be blogged" the way you can "be tarred and feathered", you know? It's grossly overexaggerated and unnecessary, but kind of fun for observers in a sick, twisted way, too.
a.) Catching up on all the work I have to finish at my current job before starting my new one next week?
b.) Reading an electronic version of a literary classic and thus expanding my mind?
c.) Updating myself on current world events?
d.) Being blogged*?
I am and always have been a "high achieving" individual. I wouldn't have identified myself as such in my childhood or early adulthood. But the more experiences I have, the more I am able to admit this about myself, and appreciate the good and bad qualities and results of this fact. When I set out to do something, I accomplish it with a flourish. I graduated from a prestigious university in three years (and I wasn't one of those who took a bunch of college credits with her from high school classes, either), simply because I figured out that I could, and then decided to do it. I married someone 17 years my senior and took on his kids, who were essentially abandoned by their mother and have multiple resulting major emotional problems, and while I don't take full credit for the survival and strength of our relationship, I recognize that I am an integral part of that success (at least half, right??). I knew the company I wanted to work for after I graduated from college and moved back here, and persisted until they hired me, then lived through the emotional beating that is a layoff after three years of employment there. I gave birth to fire and a gibbon swallower and have lived to tell the tales. I persisted for three and a half years to get back to the company that laid me off, and succeeded against all odds (they'll never get rid of me now, bwahahahaha). I baffled doctors by gaining 65 pounds during pregnancy, then lost it all by quite literally working my ass off. I am woman, hear me roar! I accomplish anything I set my mind to!
But here's the thing. I think my undoing is going to be blogging. OH MY GOD, people. How do you do it? How do you so faithfully find the time to comment on all these clever sites, hundreds and thousands and millions of them, and still write coherently on your own sites? I am going to hire an assistant because I clearly can't manage to live my life responsibly AND simultaneously meet all of my blogging requirements. Those of you who blog regularly while working a full time job outside the house, and those of you who have, say, SEVEN homeschooled kids, or who have time to read AND blog (and blog about reading and other intelligent things) and always take the time to include graphics or music on every post...I just want to know this: do you not like sleep? Because I'm thinking maybe that's my problem. I am a big lazy sleep-lover.
A few nights ago, John walked in on me in a harried, hunched-over-the-laptop position similar to what I described earlier, and he said, "what's wrong?!" My exasperated, fist-shaking reply was, "I can't keep up with all these blogs!" He started laughing, and he told me the image in his mind was of me in a big open field with a tiny tennis-racket sized defense instrument, swinging my arms like I'm swatting at flies while dodging huge, bouncing globs (coincidence that "glob" is merely an anagram of "blog"? I think not.) of amorphous material. When he told me this, I pictured myself in a lightning storm with the small tennis racket, and the globs were about the size of houses. This is just the first thought that popped into my head, so clearly my subconscious view of this situation is a tiny bit fraught with angst at this point.
On the days I manage to write something of my own, I don't seem to have any leftover time to comment on other blogs. On the days I comment and read the growing list of blogs I want to keep up with, I am rudely reminded that there are only 24 hours in a day, and I'm lazy enough that I really want at least 7 of them for sleep, which means no time for post-writing. Because the remaining 17 hours are taken up with commenting, eating, and, what else? - oh yeah, living the life I'm trying to write about. But I'm determined not to be blogged* to death, even if that means I end up on the fringe of the blogging community the way we are on the fringe of American Suburbia. I wish I could pay the bills and raise my kids and still tap away on my laptop 8-9 hours a day just maintaining my blogging requirements. Some people are talented enough to have accomplished this. However, until that unlikely day comes for me, go ahead and take this down for the record: I can't keep up. I've tried and failed, and so now I'm just going to do my best to write and comment when I can and not because I picture a glob-blog gun held to my head. So...I guess what I'm saying is, bear with me while I teach myself to under-achieve. It's for my health; that and all the alcohol are for my long-term health.
*This will be my new method of discussing any activity relating to posting on my own or someone else's blog (no matter how much I may enjoy and respect said blog). While it is very close to the accepted phrase "blogging," I want to emphasize that in MY experience, there are aspects to blogging that begin to feel more, oh, let's see... inflicted than a basic old gerund can really properly connote. "Blogging" sounds so pleasant and controlled, like "going shopping" or "picking out a new book." But with MY method, you can "be blogged" the way you can "be tarred and feathered", you know? It's grossly overexaggerated and unnecessary, but kind of fun for observers in a sick, twisted way, too.
Labels: blogellany
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