Any Wednesday

It’s been so long since I’ve written anything other than emails that I’m not quite sure if I still can write.

Part of me misses writing the way a new vegetarian misses well-cooked meat dishes. I miss the flavour, the sense of fullness, the memory of the way my life was when I did that thing I no longer do.

It’s not that I’ve stopped writing or given it up to save the planet–although perhaps there is something to that. It’s more that I’ve not been able to carve the time out of my day. That is not a good thing–it’s a sign of giving in to that old lack of discipline. I know that and I’m writing here to remind myself aloud that I know that. I’m a craven thing.

One of the reasons, though, that I haven’t carved out that time is that when it comes to blogging I am not really sure what it is I want this blog to do. When I first started it all those years ago it was my bully pulpit. The one place where I got a chance to uninterruptedly get all my thoughts out into public and chew them over. And my thoughts were mostly about politics. Those that weren’t about politics were about other things I find equally irritating. Like that woman who came to the Koi Chinese Buffet in a bikini barely covered by a semi-transparent white swim coverup. Her under-five-year-daughter bounced behind her in the line grunting and pointing and foodstuffs she wanted, her naked baby feet slapping the tile floor of the restaurant in eagerness. I know I’m a libertarian, and at heart I don’t think it should matter what another person wears to a restaurant. But I also must admit that I neither want to see a slovenly woman semi-naked while I eat, nor do I want her child imitating monkeys three feet from my table.

But that’s the thing about me. I realise that this blog for a long time was the place I voiced my displeasure with this or that thing. And for those who only knew me from here I got a reputation–well-deserved–as contrary, crochety and grumpy. And I am those things for the space of the 500 words or so it takes me to vent about it. Then it’s over and I move on with being a generally okay person who isn’t all that bothered by the world. Most of the time. But that then leaves a blog that reads like a litany of tirades.

Not that such things don’t make fun reading. For example I am currently beyond in love with Flavia de Luce and her similar ways of seeing the world. I know many people hate cozy mysteries and the quirky British villages where they’re inevitably set. But me? I’m all about Bishop’s Lacey and the strange people there, as seen through the eyes of an 11 year old genius chemist girl who also happens to be quite a good detective. Seriously. Both The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie and The String That Ties The Hangman’s Bag are books I wish I’d written. They’re books I want to start reading over again as soon as I’ve finished them. And I didn’t mean to plug them, but while I’m here talking about why I haven’t written I have to admit in part that it’s because when I read books like these I think there’s really no point in bothering. Someone has already done what I wanted to do and done in better. Of course, this late in the human experience I suppose that can be said about just about anything. Except maybe murder. Perhaps that’s why some serial killers do what they do. They want to be the first nutbar to peel back the skin of someone’s belly and plant sunflowers in the duodenum. At the very least I doubt it’s ever been tried.

At this point I’m just content to pat myself on the back for generating more than 500 words when I had no idea what I’d say upon opening WordPress. (Hence the generic title. Were I titling it now I’d call it something better and more relevant, like “A Belly Full Of Sunshine, Naked At The Buffet.”) So I’m back off to my heating pad, bed and Kindle, with the repeated realisation that it really was sporting of That Divine Being to at least give me technology in exchange for my ruined health. God took my cow, but gave me magic beans. Rather nice beans, actually.