Midwinter Daydream

So I think it's now safe to call myself a lazy bum, at least in some ways. I'm really slow with the blogigng. It was right around this time last year that I quit, cold turkey and for no apparent reason, not to return to the blogosphere until I caught a spark of inspiration in August when I found out that at least one person was reading it. That spark kindled a little fire that lasted for a few months but slowly faded, and now I'm trying to resurrect the embers. Kind of like when you see just the last few glowing embers in the fireplace and then you shove a piece of newspaper in there to try to get the thing going again. It might start to flare up, and a piece of charred wood might momentarily catch on fire, but the key is in the placement of the newspaper and the flammable materials above them that you hope will catch and restart the whole fire. Not that I know much about this since I don't have a fireplace and was only a cub scout for two years.. but still, if that metaphor is at all applicable to what I'm trying to do with this blog, well, then that's at least a little bit satisfying.

Something else that's bugging me. I'm trying to write a play. I got started on it a week ago Thursday, but I haven't touched it since then, and I haven't really felt the inspiration. Audre Lorde, of course, wouldn't like that. Whenever I feel a lack of writing spark, aside from writer's block, I always hear Audre Lorde scolding me for not just going forward with it and letting the inspiration develop itself. I have a feeling that would happen. I'm just trying to explain it without getting tied up in what someone once called "analysis paralysis." Is it that I think I don't have enough time? Am I too worried about what's going on later in the day or the evening, or even the next day or the next week, to concentrate on just churning out a few more blog entries? I think that's the most likely candidate - time anxiety. I just wish there were more time, or that I could do things faster, or more efficiently, or that I could do more, or sometimes even that I could do less and not feel bad about cutting back.

The good thing, though, is that on here I can ramble however much I want. Strangely enough, I feel my readership declining from almost-nil to just a smidgen above nil as I ramble more and more.

So maybe it's a good thing I haven't been on here all that often? I mean, I can't even take too much of my own rambling! I have to give it a rest sometimes...

Yeah, so anyway, Spring semester just started. I'm pretty interested in my courses this time around. I'm also nervous about the future. What will it be like this upcoming summer? Will I move in the right direction? Of course I have the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes, and (most of all) the fear of repeating mistakes, all hanging over my head. For those who talk about the "even bigger fear of success," I have no idea what they're talking about - I have choice words for it that also describe bovine waste. And you know something? I think I finally realize where this comes from..

I don't consider myself all that competitive, except with myself (those who know me know that I am relentlessly self-critical), but I understand now that I hate to lose.

There. I said it.

Now, of course, in life you're going to win some, and then you're going to lose some. So my fears could be chalked up to the fear of losing, and the even greater fear of going on a losing streak.

I'm amazed how personal this can get when I take extended hiatuses, but there you have it. It's almost like I'm using the blog to bring out some of my deepest secrets and release them into the public domain so that they're not really secrets any longer. Kind of like aged cheese.

Aged cheese? Where did THAT come from, I ask you?

I ask who?

OK, maybe it's time for me to give it a rest again? Not for so long, but for enough time so that I can recover from what looks like another rambling spree, which I am really going to try to avoid. But the blog must go on! The blog must go on!