Return of the Blog (Again)
Tuesday, April 25, 2006 by Mel
Fear not, brave bloggers. Unlike many a video game bad guy, I have not perished just yet. I have taken what felt like a necessary hiatus. The last week has been giving me the blog itch again. (Don't worry, there's no cream required for blogger's itch.) There were a few weeks when I didn't want to think about blogging anymore, and I almost retired the blog. There would have been a big ceremony, too. It was going to be great.
I may have lost all former readers with my terribly long absence. Solution: one well-timed email. "Hey, my blog is back! Thanks for missing me." Or something like that.
I'll try to catch you up by answering the most frequent questions I am asked in real life:
1. What's going on? (AKA What are you up to, what's new, etc.)
Answer: Work. Lots of work.
For example, we had three bids today, which means that the next day I will have three sets of proposals to review and tabulate, three recommendation letters to write, and three times as many contractors calling to ask what the results were. If this is not your life, you probably don't get why this is such a stressful thing.
I have recently been able to add "Gateway shopping" to this answer. I get to decorate for the Gateway class this summer, and eBay has become my favorite place to shop.
2. How is the writing coming/going? (I don't know if one is better than the other. Apparently they mean the same thing to us.)
Answer: Not so good right now. (See answer #1.)
It may be hard to believe that writing reports every day about water treatment plants, sewer lines, sidewalk projects, and the like will suck out all my creative writing energy. My friends, it happens more often than I would like. That is not to say that I've stopped all work on the book. It is to say that the second draft is not quite finished, and a third draft looms over me.
3. Have you caught the snake yet?
Answer: No. At least, we don't think so.
The truth is that neither I nor my roommate is willing to crawl through the opening in my closet to find out if the snake is still coiled up in the attic. We are hoping one of these things is true: a) the last raccoon convinced the snake that he was not welcome in our attic, either by verbal or physical means; b) the warm weather drew the snake out of the attic for good; or c) the pest control elves carried him away in the middle of the night.
The problem is simple. When we caught the raccoons in the trap, they scratched all night. You see where I'm going, because you're pretty smart. Snakes don't scratch, so how am I supposed to know when we catch one? I know the pest control guy doesn't want to keep crawling up in our attic just to tell us that nothing's there. Or maybe he does, but we are not willing to pay him to do so.
4. What movies do you want to see?
Answer: X3, Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean, I'm on the fence about Superman Returns, The Breakup, and Friends with Money.
There you have it. To recap:
Work: Busy
Book: Slow, but not dead
Snake: MIA
Movies: I should start saving money now.
Enjoy your day.
I may have lost all former readers with my terribly long absence. Solution: one well-timed email. "Hey, my blog is back! Thanks for missing me." Or something like that.
I'll try to catch you up by answering the most frequent questions I am asked in real life:
1. What's going on? (AKA What are you up to, what's new, etc.)
Answer: Work. Lots of work.
For example, we had three bids today, which means that the next day I will have three sets of proposals to review and tabulate, three recommendation letters to write, and three times as many contractors calling to ask what the results were. If this is not your life, you probably don't get why this is such a stressful thing.
I have recently been able to add "Gateway shopping" to this answer. I get to decorate for the Gateway class this summer, and eBay has become my favorite place to shop.
2. How is the writing coming/going? (I don't know if one is better than the other. Apparently they mean the same thing to us.)
Answer: Not so good right now. (See answer #1.)
It may be hard to believe that writing reports every day about water treatment plants, sewer lines, sidewalk projects, and the like will suck out all my creative writing energy. My friends, it happens more often than I would like. That is not to say that I've stopped all work on the book. It is to say that the second draft is not quite finished, and a third draft looms over me.
3. Have you caught the snake yet?
Answer: No. At least, we don't think so.
The truth is that neither I nor my roommate is willing to crawl through the opening in my closet to find out if the snake is still coiled up in the attic. We are hoping one of these things is true: a) the last raccoon convinced the snake that he was not welcome in our attic, either by verbal or physical means; b) the warm weather drew the snake out of the attic for good; or c) the pest control elves carried him away in the middle of the night.
The problem is simple. When we caught the raccoons in the trap, they scratched all night. You see where I'm going, because you're pretty smart. Snakes don't scratch, so how am I supposed to know when we catch one? I know the pest control guy doesn't want to keep crawling up in our attic just to tell us that nothing's there. Or maybe he does, but we are not willing to pay him to do so.
4. What movies do you want to see?
Answer: X3, Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean, I'm on the fence about Superman Returns, The Breakup, and Friends with Money.
There you have it. To recap:
Work: Busy
Book: Slow, but not dead
Snake: MIA
Movies: I should start saving money now.
Enjoy your day.
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