My missing blog

I feel bad when I see that I haven't written anything four or five days, especially because I know I have these readers who check on me regularly. I sometimes feel disappointed when a site I like stops updating, and I don't want to be one of them. Not yet, anyway.

This reminds me of a recurrent theme in the writing group to which I belonged for a few years after I first moved to Portland. Periodically, someone would suggest a writing exercise about "Why We're Not Writing." Yes, we had a writing group where most of the people -- all of them good writers (except one I'll call "Boston" for XGF's amusement) -- weren't writing. Except for the writing exercises we'd do in the group.

At the time, I had lost touch with my writing almost completely, save for what I did during our monthly meetings. For a couple years, I was creatively numb, having very little else move me to write so much as the topic of my brother in coma. And I didn't want to write about that for fear of what I might unleash. (Still don't, really.)

My travel journals were the beginning of my thaw. Then, I started this blog. And I have been faithfully writing on a daily or near-daily basis for a year and a half. Better than any private journal I've ever managed to keep. Apparently, having a bit of an audience moves me to write more frequently.

But what's going on with me now? If I took up the challenge of "Writing About Why I'm Not Writing," what would I find?

You know what's sad? I'm not even all that interested in finding out right this minute. I've had a long day at the Home for the Criminally Insane, and have been sitting at a desk for 9 hours reading textbooks and writing a paper. I do not feel like sitting here any longer.

In fact, a general adversion to my desk chair, thanks to an ailing tailbone, may be all that's wrong with me.

I feel like visiting with friends. I feel like watching an episode of "Man Versus Wild." I feel like doing yoga. I feel like just about *anything* than sitting at a fucking computer, staring at a fucking monitor.

I'm just saying.

(But a quick update: I played darts with YogaGirl and her BF on Saturday night and was trounced. The bristle dartboard I have here at home is apparently too nice a setup to practice on when it's plastic darts we end up playing with at the pub. ... The Asian's coming to town with her husband. We may go camping up on Mt. St. Helen's. ... I've got another swing shift at the Home for the Criminally Insane tomorrow, during which I hope to complete my paper on Clinical Considerations for GLB clients. Unfortunately, I'm a little afraid of the residents seeing the words "gay and lesbian" on the textbooks I'm referencing as I work on the paper. Several residents have, at times, expressed their anti-gay feelings toward me. Even though I am in the closet at work (remember the Criminally Insane part?), I don't want any flaring tempers. So I've removed the paper covers from the hardback, so the books look very plain. This is just one of those small things gay people have to worry about. ... And finally, I learned tonight that my sister has Multiple Sclerosis. I feel badly for her, but I don't know what to say to her or how to feel about this. I've suspected it for a while, but it is a disturbing thing to have concerned, mainly for my own self-absorbed reasons (fear of heritability). Either way, it sucks. That's all the news that's fit to print.)