return

I had the great fortune of meeting a few of my favorite bloggers this past Friday on a combined work/vacation trip to D.C. Lemon Gloria and Grad School Reject (and Mrs. Grad School Reject - a special treat!) joined me at Cafe Saint-Ex in D.C. for a couple rounds. It was so neat to verify in person that these people whose thoughts and ponderings have so entertained me in the past year are even more charming in real life than on the computer screen. Even as I recognized the only reason we were meeting in the first place was due to our mutual love of blogging, I had to bashfully admit that lately my blogging habit has been mostly replaced by watching ABC online because it better accommodates the lack of mental capacity I find required to make cold calls all day.

The truth is, these days I do most of my blogging in my head. I carefully meditate with words and thoughts about all that is going on, promise to commit it all to memory so as to post it later, then fail to remember the substance I'd stumbled upon and face a blank screen. For awhile I was really upset with myself - I felt like I was letting myself and the people (few, but treasured!) who read this site down. I was telling GSR and LG about this - how even though I know I could post more frequently if I really set out to do so, posting for the sake of posting just doesn't appeal to me. I know there is little congruency to this site - sometimes It's an outlet for dark thoughts - sometimes for silly flirting stories, sometimes for pics or random observances. But any time I post something it's because it's something I genuinely want to share - sometimes not even want to, but need to. Need a place to vet something and know the experience isn't happening in a vacuum.

All this aside, I have also come to realize that whereas much of my processing and growth in the past few years has found its best outlet in the blog world (both in my own posts and in the opportunity to read and comment on others), right now I feel pressed by some bigger force to take such things into the world in different ways. I'm making a really concerted effort to get music back into my life - to put myself in a position to use it as an outlet and not just background noise. I'm trying to give myself artistic outlets - I bought a sewing machine and have been holding almost weekly "craft" nights with friends to CREATE whatever tickles our fancy. And I'm starting to cook again, and to read more - to move past writing infinite lists and to simply DO more.

It is nice to know that this space is here to process such things when I need to, that it will welcome me at any time, accept my lack of schedule and structure and still collect my wanderings. It is also nice to know that I owe myself more than I owe my blog - and right now that's what I'm trying to focus on. Thank you to those reading for sticking with me, and to GSR and LG (and James who I met last month here in Berkeley) for meeting up and expanding my blog reality just that much more by taking it off the page.