Whenever I think about how long it’s been since my last blog post, the lyrics from America’s Sister Golden Hair run through my mind. I know I’m dating myself.
“I’ve been one poor correspondent
and I’ve been too too hard to find
but it doesn’t mean
you ain’t been on my mind”
I guess, in my mind, that makes all of you Sister Goldenhair. I can think of worse things. Green hair, for one. No one likes green hair.
I got a new job last summer. I’m happy to say that I now have a very short commute which affords more time for personal interests like staying in touch with all of you. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it. Like, last Sunday but I got so damned depressed. And then I set my site on Monday but….just kidding. I think, sometimes, when I’ve been away for a long time, that first blog post back is like a hump I have to get over. I run different ideas through my head…different takes on the same theme, which is where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, why I haven’t written. I start with apologies, move on to explanations, decide denial might be the way to go, and then decide to put it off altogether until I have something of importance to tell you.
Here’s the thing. My life, knock on wood, has been like that Monty Python skit where a man was walking down the road one day when, suddenly, nothing happened. And I like it that way. I consider myself lucky. And I hope things stay that way.
But it doesn’t really make for very interesting blogging material, does it? A few years back I had a run of blogging almost every day. I’m not sure how long it lasted. More than a month, less than a year, I’d say. When I go back and read old posts I enjoy the ones I wrote during that timeframe most. I think the practice of writing regularly helped with the generation of ideas. Do you find that? Is it harder to come up with something when the habit is sporadic than when it’s regular? Have I just been stuck in a three year cycle of writer’s block? Maybe I just need to get that first post over with and accept it won’t be that good or amusing or insightful. It will just be.
Maybe there will be another post tomorrow and maybe it will be better.
I sure hope so.
Chicken out
Chicken's Consigliere 
Chickie! I’m so glad to see a post from you, and to find out there will (hopefully) be more! And a big yes, I find sporadic writing makes it much harder to post. I mostly only do Poetry Monday now, not because I have any huge love for poetry (especially my own) but because it MAKES me write, gives me a topic and structure, and keeps me in the game. And I also know what you mean about “nothing happened” which is the way I like my life but it does make it hard to find a topic. On the other hand, there has been “everything” happening here lately, and most of it is not mine to write about so my head is bursting but I can’t write about it. Eeeee!
LikeLike
Hi Jenny, I like your poems. I think you do a great job. I tried to comment on your post last night but I’m not sure it went through. Did you get it? I had to laugh when I wrote my post and then wandered over to yours and saw that you were writing about some of the same sentiments. And yes, structure helps a great deal. I think when I did have that run of blogging most days, there was some structure to the routine. I would walk early in the morning and something would percolate and rise up and I’d come home and write about it, but I also had assigned themes to some days, so if it was weird science day, I was thinking about things or reading things to help generate ideas. But sometimes, I just sat down and started writing because nothing had risen and getting used to doing that one thing made a difference. For awhile. Now I’m dying to know what’s going on that isn’t yours to write about hehe.
LikeLike
P. S. Congratulations on the new job! A short commute is wonderful too.
LikeLike
Thank you:-) It has been a blessing!
LikeLike
Yay! The Chicken posted again! I wore the grooves off of that America album when I was fourteen, and I saw them open for the Beach Boys in the early nineties.
Megan at Fisticuffs and Shenanigans went missing for a year, came back for three posts, and went missing again for another year (so far) and Princess Sparkle Pony hasn’t posted to his blog in years, but can still be found on Twitter.
I don’t have a Twitter account (or a Facebook account, but that’s a different story) so I have to settle for reading his tweets without responding. That’s OK though, as I read a few Twitter feeds these days, mostly of musicians I listen to, and have no real desire to say anything to.
Not that I’m afraid that I’d say something embarrassing and moronic to my heroes or anything.
Then there are the bloggers who have died (Harry Hamid) or gotten cancer (Aussa and Susie) and it gets to where I kinda worry when I don’t hear from anyone for a long time.
I understand that certain things have to be right before you can blog, hell, I haven’t managed to get all of those things right at all yet, as demonstrated by my continuing lack of my own blog.
Then there are the bloggers who seem to struggle with it and do sporadic posting that’s better than they give themselves credit for, like the Hook.
…And all of those who are just gone, no real story or reason (not that they owe anyone one) who just fell out of the blogosphere and eventually get taken down by their hosts without a trace except for the Wayback Machine.
Anyway, it’s good to hear from you again, and I think about your writing sometimes, also. Like the bat in the shower, and the he said/she said thing. Those were good, and you should be proud of them.
Oh, and we named our black cat “Littlebeast” and only thought of you later…
LikeLike
HI Doug, LIttlebeast. I wish I had thought of that back in the day. These days he’s almost 13 and not so little-he’s as tall as me. Not that I’m very tall. I still think of him as littleb, though. This is one of many times I’ve left and returned. And, funnily enough, you are always the person I think about because I don’t have a way to reach you to say hi and check in. That’s why you need a blog lol. Or maybe you could give me your twitter handle and I could follow you there. I know I said Twitter and I were breaking up, and we separated for a good year or so but then the temptation got to be too much so I went back. I try like hell not to comment but it’s very hard in these days and times. I’m @meet2grands if you want to follow me and I’ll follow you back. The twitter handle is a reference to my granddaughter and me. She’s one grand and I’m the other. She loves those YouTube channels hosted by kids so I thought I’d start one about the things we do on the weekends. However, I haven’t quite figured it all out and we haven’t posted anything lol. Editing a video is hard. We’ve posted some instagram things. So I saw on Jenny’s blog that you moved north of Oakland. Where did you move? And why? Are you happy not being in Oakland or do you miss it? It’s great to chat again, Doug. I’ve missed you!
LikeLike
It’s great you’re back on board. I believe the consensus will be, We’ve missed you, too. However, since I really do not remember where we left off, the only truly new thing I can report is that I opened a WordPress account, so I don’t have to jump through the sign in hoops. Like Doug in Oakland, I’ll never have a blog on WordPress.
LikeLike
Hi Joanne-well, that was smart. Did you get the comment I left on your blog yesterday? I wasn’t sure if it went through. I’m doing something wrong and I need to figure it out. Or it could just be the whole IPad thing. I don’t seem to have the same issue on a regular laptop. It seems like you’ve been very busy making towels and visiting people. My comment was about thinking of you at the BigE fair in October when we visited an impressive display of quilting and weaving. I seem to remember you used to travel around to those kinds of events?
LikeLike