I found a little pocket of time, so I thought I would catch up on my mini book reviews. Then I looked to see how far back I have to go, and oh my god I just can’t right now. But I will (soon!) because the longer I wait, the worse it gets. Same for my monthly round of pictures of Jack. The last one of those was February 2021. Whoops.
The only words in my head are Dr. Seuss rhymes, along with the occasional Queen or Elton John lyric (we watched Bohemian Rhapsody last week and we’re watching Rocketman tonight), so I think I’ll take last night’s waste of time as a lesson and spend this time reading. (I’m waiting for John to come in from the studio so we can finish the movie.) Only two and a half weeks before Hugo voting closes!
Do you know what I did today? I mean, really, do you know? Because I don’t. What day is it?
This long weekend really threw me. I was happy to have it, don’t get me wrong. It’s really nice to have a day off, even working half time. Figuring out how to fit four hours of work into every day is more stressful than I imagined it would be. I’m not losing any sleep over it or anything, except that’s not true. I AM losing sleep over it because I get up extra early to get a couple of hours done before John has to get to work.
I don’t think that’s what I meant to write about because what I DID mean to write about is that I don’t have anything to write about. Which is a really boring thing to write about because if I really don’t have anything to write about, I shouldn’t write at all. EXCEPT that I’ve been on a roll these last couple of months, only missing two or three days, and I’m feeling the pressure.
Also, I TOTALLY had something else to write about, but I forgot what it was sometime in the last paragraph.
I am going to bed before this gets any worse.
I never meant for this blog to become mini book reviews only. I’m at least a little bit grateful that I’m able to keep up with those (or at least catch up every month or two), and a lot of that has to do with how SLOW my reading pace is lately. I used to be able to read while nursing Jack, but he got faster, and then we started weaning, and now we’re done. Now I only get to read before bed, or on the rare evening I don’t have to work (like tonight! Except I’m doing this instead!).
Speaking of work, I’m still working part-time (20 hours a week). My company is still letting me do it, and I have no intention of changing it. I get a couple of hours in early in the morning (like 5:30 to 7:30), the occasional meeting during the day, and IF Jack naps in the crib, I work then. If I don’t hit four hours, I do the rest after Jack goes to bed. During the day, Jack is still pretty…needy? Clingy? Insistent that I be physically attached to him while he plays? Point: I can’t get any work or reading done while he’s awake.
Jack is still perfect and wonderful, of course. He’ll be 18 months old in 2 days, which is CRAZY, like completely bonkers. Not that he survived, or that we kept him alive, but DUDE. I have an 18-month-old. Wut.
My brain is mush. It’s worse than pregnancy brain, I think – it’s exhausted brain. I’ll think of something to write about, start writing it in my head, and then it’s completely lost by the time I get in front of my laptop (usually days later). I used to send myself emails with notes in them. Why don’t I do that now? Because mushbrain. So John has the baby right now, I have two hands free, and I’ve got nothing. Nothing interesting, nothing amusing, nothing more than an account of the day.
I also probably won’t have my hands free for much longer. John has the baby, yes, but he’s starting to cry (Jack, not John), and it sounds like it’ll turn into the hungry cry any minute now.
I might not have my hands free, but I’ll have a cuddly baby in my arms (when he’s not wailing, he’s SUPER cuddly), John made us a cozy fire in the wood stove, and he’s going to grill us salmon (once HIS hands are free).
This is our exciting Saturday night.
This has been one of my worst years, if not the worst, for blogging. I don’t really have a reason for it. I mean, I’ve been pregnant the entire year so far, and I’m sure that has plenty to do with it, but I’m not sure exactly in what way. It’s not like I don’t sit in front of a computer all day, every day (still), and it’s not like there aren’t things to talk about. I suppose I’ve been trying not to be all-pregnancy, all-the-time around here, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.
I have no intention of stopping (the blog – I have every intention of not being pregnant anymore REAL SOON NOW), but it seems kind of sad that I’ve been so absent THIS year of all years. In a couple of months, we’ll be looking at the 10th anniversary of my blog, and I feel like this year shouldn’t count. Especially since I can’t imagine I’ll be writing all that much while the baby is tiny. Maybe I’ll surprise myself (and everyone else).
My plan, that I will not stress myself into sticking to, is to not worry about whether I’m all-pregnancy or all-baby or all-books or whatever and just write something. For nearly 10 years, my only theme has been that there is no theme (and no standards – thank goodness I set that expectation up from the start!), so why worry about it now?
Anyway, hi.
My blogging muscle appears to have atrophied. I don’t know if I just don’t have anything to say, or if I’m avoiding it because I’m a little single-minded lately and I don’t want to be repetitive, or if I just haven’t felt like it and when I think about it, I decide I’d rather be reading.
It’s a little of all three and a lot of the last one, which is kind of funny because I’ve also fallen into a book funk. AND my book list broke because it got too big and I’m going to have to change the format of it, and I need a test version of my site so I can poke around and try things, and I haven’t gotten around to doing that, and maybe that’s also a little bit of why I’ve stayed away?
Anyway, the book funk. The last book I read that I LOVED was 13 books ago. Of the 12 since then, including the one I’m reading now, I liked six okay, really liked only one (The Trespasser by Tana French), thought two were meh but finished them anyway, and I gave up on three.
The books I gave up on:
Thankfully, the book I picked up after giving up on those last two IN A ROW was one of the Hugo nominees, and while it had a slow start, I ended up liking it just fine. Now I’m reading one that I’m enjoying, but I don’t love – I don’t have that need to drop everything else so I can have more time to read.
I am confident that I can climb out of my book funk, though. There’s a Tanya Huff trilogy I haven’t read yet staring at me from the shelf, and the Hugo Voter Packet should arrive soonish, which is SUPER exciting and which I’ll tell you all about when it gets here.
Hi. I’m back (as you may have noticed after the last few days of semi-consistent posting). I’m sorry I went mostly dark, but I was trying really really hard not to talk about something, and when I’m bursting to talk about something, I can’t think of anything else to say. I’m fine in person (although I went almost full hermit, so I didn’t have to test that very often), but for blogging purposes, it basically elbowed everything else out of my head.
But hey, the secret is out (THANK GOODNESS), and my head feels clearer.
I’m not being deliberately enigmatic. I mean, I am, but not with the intention of leaving anyone in the dark. It’s just that I don’t tend to get too personal here, so it feels kind of weird. On the other hand, I plan to talk about it (or at least not NOT talk about it), so for the maybe ONE person who reads me who isn’t an immediate family member or high school/college friend: I’m pregnant. Yay, happy dance, and all that stuff.
You know what? I am going to talk about it. Because it STILL doesn’t feel quite real, and it’s kinda freaking me out. That it doesn’t feel real, I mean. Despite the fact that less than a week ago I was at the doctor’s office and I heard the baby’s heartbeat, it appears that I need further proof. (I mean, maybe that tiny fast heartbeat was just a clever ruse because the doctor is in on this charade or maybe it’s a tiny mechanical device, like a pacemaker, that somehow got implanted or hey, maybe it’s a tiny ticking bomb (and you know what? it kind of is). I’m not showing yet, and my first trimester symptoms have been pretty mild, with the exception of OH MY GOD THE WORST TASTE IN MY MOUTH ALL THE TIME except when I’m eating which means I want to eat ALL THE TIME but eating for two isn’t really a thing and gaining too much weight too fast is a BAD thing and also I’m supposed to drink a TON of water and water TASTES BAD because of this awful taste and please please please make it go away as this trimester ends….
It is getting slightly less unbearable, so I have hope. Also, I have noticed actual feelings of lightheadedness and weakness when I need to eat something, which is new and unusual and super not fun.
So I’m looking forward to LOOKING pregnant. I think.
Oh, also, we’re calling unborn child Hugo (Hugo Nebula when we’re being formal) until he or she is born because due to the timing, we will not be able to go to WorldCon for the Hugo Awards. Turns out they don’t let women on planes when they’re THAT pregnant. Color me disappointed, but there will be other years. Our little baby nerd will go to LOTS of conventions with us.
It’s possible that cleaning up the house, uncluttering the house, also uncluttered my mind, and when it comes to deciding what to write about, I don’t think it’s a good thing. An uncluttered mind, tonight anyway, means a surface free of extraneous thoughts, extraneous stuff. I have a goal – sleep – and the path to my goal is unimaginative. Remove contacts, brush teeth, take shower, read book, sleep. Done. I can’t quite start down that path because John is in the shower, and I have to wait. Time to write, right? Sure. About what? Usually there are things everywhere. Papers on my desk, books stacked on the shelf, my riding boots in the corner. Today, those things are missing, stashed away, put where they belong. Not available for inspiration. Instead, this room is clear, and my mind is clear, and MAN, clear can be boring.
I have been blanking on things to write about lately. I feel like I keep talking about the same things: the weather, riding, running. There’s been a lot of music stuff recently, too. I’m happy to talk about any of those things when something interesting happens, but it’s all status quo around here. My riding is progressing nicely (I LOVE IT SO MUCH), but what’s new to say about riding in circles in the arena and jumping? I mean, until I start jumping higher or unless I fall off again or something, there’s a lot of repetition. I rode in the rain and wind today, but see? I just combined riding and weather. Not cool, bro.
I guess I’m in a writing lull. A writing gully. A culvert. A ditch. I don’t think I’m down a well or in a deep hole or anything. I’m just having a standard, somewhat boring week. Happy Wednesday to me.
Some days something happens, and I can sit down and write about it. Other days, maybe nothing happens, but I’m thinking about something, and I can sit down and write about it. Today, I started writing about something, decided it was stupid or boring, and deleted it. Then I did it again, but about something else. And then I did it again, but about a third thing. Considering what I do decide to post most days, that should tell you just how stupid or boring those three different things were.
So what have I got for you? Well, I finished The Sympathizer, finally. It only took a week, but it felt like an eternity. That’s not to say it wasn’t good… Tonight was book club night, and everyone had pretty much the same reaction except for a few people who LOVED it and one person who put it down after 30 pages and refused to finish it.
So far I don’t love my current book, but at least it has a plot.
That might be all I have for you.
Some days I have ideas, some days I don’t. Today I had something half-baked about feeling inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson to read The Martian and Saturn Run, both realistic science in space stories, and something even less than half-baked about not caring much about Spiderman because I couldn’t think of the name of the editor who’s always demanding pictures of Spiderman.
None of that is really anything, and that probably means I should just keep quiet for a day, but hey – I have to live inside my head. I might as well share some of it with you, even if it is less than thrilling. Heh. As if anything I write is thrilling.
John liked The Martian, I’m enjoying it right now, and Saturn Run was really good (thanks, Erik!). And….that’s all I got.
Shoot, I missed a day. For those of you keeping track at home, yesterday is the first day I have missed since November 22nd. And….now I’ll just have to give up. Missing one day is the same as screwing up whole lives, right? I’d better lock my doors. The scary witch who lives in the woods at the top of the hill might be after me now.
This is about two blocks from our house. Maybe three. And sadly for the scary witch, her view out the front door (and down the hill) is of railroad tracks. Not so scenic. I should stop giving her reasons to come after me, since she’s obviously a dedicated reader (because who isn’t?), and I have let her down by skipping yesterday.
(Really, I am annoyed. I could keep it up during a cross-country move but I can’t remember to blog on a normal Sunday? I am disappoint.)
When I sat down in front of my computer, not five minutes ago, I knew what I was going to write about. In those last five minutes, I have ordered Chinese food (because I have no willpower) and watched John fly his flying Batman around the room (Batman is wearing a harness with two horizontal propellers over his head). John is trying to get Batman to land on my head, and I am threatening bodily harm to him (John) if Batman’s proprellers get stuck in my hair. This is all happening RIGHT now, AS I’m typing, and I have NO idea what I planned to write about five minutes ago.
I hope it wasn’t something brilliant.
The other day I was talking to John about how I try to post something every day, and that while I like posting every day, I’m not crazy about the pressure I feel to do it (self-imposed though it is). On the other hand, I’ve been pretty successful at it lately, and I’m not losing any hair over it. I posted 28 days out of 30 last month – that’s not bad. So then I checked my history. In seven years, my lowest number of posts per month is 2 (happened twice – May 2014 and July 2013). At the other end, in seven years, I’ve posted more than 30 times per month 11 times. I posted the most times in a month in May and March 2010 (36 times each), but I think I have to give the win to February 2010 (35 posts) since it only had 28 days.
The most mind-boggling part of this exercise is the realization that I used to post more than once a day! That hardly seems necessary. I just don’t know when to shut up.
In case you’re wondering, I have managed to finish my work things. Yay for me. But time for blogging I have not had.
Well.
Let’s be frank. All of us. We should all be frank. Frank won’t mind. He’s a generous guy. While we’re all being frank, I’ll say this. I probably have time to blog. But if I blog, I won’t be reading. And I want to read. I would rather blog than work, but that’s not the greatest idea, not if I want work to continue to pay me, so I can’t blog while I’m at work. Most days, I’ve been working a little later than I would prefer, so when I get home, I want to eat dinner and watch TV, and then I want to read and go to bed. Somewhere in there, I talk to John (because, you know, I still like him).
I’m not crazy about this trend, but blogging has not been my priority. Also, I don’t like using “blog” as a verb, so I’m going to stop doing that.
I want to want to write more. I have notes and drafts and pictures and things. They will all become posts. Soon. Really. Because I like you. And I like it here.
I’ve been hearing for years that blogging is dead. Maybe it is – it’s certainly changed over time. Maybe I’m a ghost. Well, I’m alive, but my blog is a ghost! Ghost-blog! Nananananananananana GHOST-BLOG! (That’s my theme song. It’s similar to Batman, but a little more melodic.) Back when I had more free time (less going on at work), I read a TON of blogs (seriously a lot). Maybe not daily, but certainly weekly. They’re all saved in GBookmarks (all 82 of them – I just counted), and over this long weekend, I decided to check them out after my long absence. My VERY long absence.
SO many of them have died! 56 out of 82 are gone. That’s actually not as many dead ones as I expected when I started checking and counting, but that’s still an awful lot of dead blogs. Some of them still exist but haven’t been updated in two years or longer. Others don’t exist at all. The next step (in cleaning out my bookmarks) will be to see if I actually go back and read the ones that are left. The bigger question is how long will it be before this happens to me. There’s nothing wrong with the people who have dead blogs (I hope). Life got too busy, they didn’t have anything they felt like saying so publicly, some made their blogs available to invited people only (and I was not invited)…I only know of one who actually died (Roger Ebert), but I guess I wouldn’t know if that happened to anyone who wasn’t famous or who I didn’t know personally.
Let’s hope I don’t get bored, too busy, or die so I can stay right here for a while yet. For all three of you who are still reading. Okay, maybe five. Love you guys!
What should one do when one can’t think of anything to write? One could stay far away from the blog, to avoid publishing the vapid contents of one’s brain, but I’m afraid that cat is out of the bag. One could surf the internet looking for inspiration, but that assumes one isn’t working and should not be on the internet at all. One could rifle through one’s memories of the past week, full of holiday cheer and conviviality and whatnot, searching for stories to tell one’s adoring readership, but then one might remember the last week was rather low-key and was already mined for interesting tidbits. One might consider regaling one’s public with details of the sinus issues one is currently experiencing, but one might reconsider, as that would be unseemly, impolite, and gross. One could try changing one’s writing style, but one might be worried about sounding stilted or snobbish. One wouldn’t want that. Best not to try it.
I just checked, and it turns out I didn’t actually publicly declare my intention to post something here every day in November (my version of NaNoWriMo, which, turns out, is an actual thing, as I discovered by reading Ms. Wombat’s blog). And it’s good that I didn’t publicly declare my intention because I’ve already failed, having skipped Sunday the 2nd. So let’s just say I didn’t even privately declare any such intention and move on. Nothing to see here. Except when I post something. Which will happen every once in a while. “Every once in a while” might look a bit like “every day”, but let’s not raise expectations. Expectations lead to obligation. I don’t want any more obligations.
We’re at the breakfast table this morning with Gaby, who is writing in her journal about what we did yesterday.
Gaby: Well, I want to write that we saw monuments, but…I don’t know how to spell “saw”.
John couldn’t hold the laughter in. She had no problem with monuments. And then I heard her spell Washington with very little hesitation. She’s a genius!
We’re all on our laptops (except Gaby, who’s using a cute little spiral-bound notebook) this morning, after a nice lie-in. Wolf Trap cancelled last night’s performance of The Pirates of Penzance, so we stayed in and had our picnic dinner in the family room with The Muppet Show. It’s just as well – we were all pretty worn out after the heat and the driving. We met up with Jess (Hi, Jess!) for a yummy lunch in Annapolis, blew some bubbles at the harbor (also thanks to Jess), ate some really good ice cream, and tried on lots of hats at Hats in the Belfry. Hey! That’s news for us – John found a hat. One that fits and looks pretty cool and will keep him from burning his head every time he goes out in the sun. It’s a miracle. I fell in love with a plum-colored cloche hat, but then I looked at the price tag. I just can’t spend $175 on a hat. Even when it’s this cool.
Today the plan is to stay inside and hide from the heat. No plans, no schedule, just whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it. And now that the internet is back (the storm late Friday night knocked it for most of yesterday)…you know, I really don’t know how to end that sentence. I don’t remember where I was going with it when I started it. Now that the internet is back, we can…play on the internet? But we’re not really going to do that today, so…yeah. No idea.