My weblog is stuck!!
What's the deal with my posts from today, March 12, upstreaming with that February date? Maybe it was just a dream... or was it? (cue Gary Wright music, stream distortion video effect, and Dana Carvey saying "Whoa!") 1:56:10 PM    comment []trackback []  

Now, what was I saying?
Wow, is it musty in here (opens windows). And what's that smell? Did something go bad in the fridge? Nothing in the fridge... hm, well, I'm not sure I want to track down the source of that right now.

Anyone still here? I'm finally back... (checks messages). You have... one hundred... sixty... three... messages. Message... one. Four... minutes... twenty... seconds(beep)

I didn't expect to be gone so long, you know (blows dust off calendar while flipping the page to March). I was just heading down to Store 24 because I ran out of mustard, and I got sidetracked. Turns out they don't have spicy brown mustard at Store 24. Just that glow in the dark, bright yellow stuff. No thanks. I'd just as soon go without. I did manage to waste some money on Mass Millions tickets, though. Always happens to me when I don't find what I want at a convenience store. Never want to walk out of those places empty handed. Looks suspicious.

I really don't remember what happened after that. Oh, look, I left the iron plugged in, and all the stove burners are on. A miracle the place didn't burn down, y'know?

Message... thirty... seven. Five... seconds(beep)

Ah, another hangup. Looks like a few of you missed me, anyway. Mostly, though, I owe people money. Par for the course.

I had to give this weblogging thing a little bit of a rest, peoples. Lots of different reasons for that, and while enumerating them will simply add to the word-clutter on those Google searches that seem to be the bulk of my traffic, I feel a brief explanation is owed. Sometimes, Rock, when the team's up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, best intentions go to hell. I originally set out to write this thing freestyle, because I like putting words together in creative ways, and writing has always been a hobby from which I derive some self-satisfaction (and occasionally, money). The decision to put a slice of my rambly, wordy mind-tornado out on the wire for public consumption was motivated by two things. One, a desire to express myself in an unrestricted way after a long spell of intellectual, emotional and spiritual isolation. And B, the possibility that I would connect cybernetically with some like-minded folk and form some sort of mutually enriching alliance with them.

I didn't know anything about "weblog police" then; the self-appointed constabulary who insist you're either a weblogger, one of a million people providing a bit of opinion and a few relevant links to the same MSNBC news item, or a diarist, one of a million people writing about having scrambled eggs for breakfast and putting your pants on one leg at a time. Apparently, you can't be both and keep these web cops happy. I needed some time to think about which way I would go, especially after some attempts to "do topical" struck me (and some readers) as overreaching. I never intended to be a credible source for news or advice. I suppose I could do that, but that would make this hobby too much like work.

I've also had to think about the limitations imposed by writing under my real name. Dave Adsit's not a name found in most phone books, so people who know/have known me in the real world have found me here. For the most part, I don't mind that. It keeps me honest, not that I have much trouble there, but it's an unspoken assurance that I'm not writing anything fictitious or libelous. I deliberately don't want to embellish my situations to make myself sound larger than life, and I felt the temptation to do that under a pseudonym would be hard to ignore, because I do have a creative mind. Besides, if someone who already knows me has to resort to the Web in search of what makes me tick, then I'm not terribly close to them anyway. They might as well get it straight from the source.

But it does, inevitably, confine me in some key areas. I can't directly blast off on my employer, for instance, even though that's a third of my waking life and has (especially lately) been grinding me under the heel. What if I went looking for another job and the potential employer decided to give Yahoo a whirl for some background information? And I've been having trouble writing about certain closely held thoughts directly related to (and immediately recognizable by) people who read me here, thoughts that are overwhelming in my daily existence but not yet fully formed, or otherwise ready to share with those specific people. I'd hoped I could incubate some of those thoughts here on the blog, get some feedback and all that good stuff, but I can't. That sucks more than I'd reckoned it would.

Therefore, I find that at this particular moment, I can't freely write about the two main things that are coloring my world. What's left? Some random "channel surfing," I suppose, the sort of Larry King-like "I love oatmeal!" outbursts that confuse more than entertain. And since I've been emotionally knotted up, I couldn't even pull that off without coming across as surly. So I took this unplanned mental health break, pulled into pit road to see if the crew could patch this thing together enough to keep going. (And fans, please note it wasn't me that cut off Waltrip going into the box, okay?) I thought I'd be back out on the track sooner than this, but sometimes you lift the hood on these things and find an unholy mess.

Well, I am back, and I feel rested enough to keep going at this. Steady left turns and forward motion is all I hope to accomplish here, though. If that suits you, then I'm glad you're getting something out of it. If not, my sincere thanks for your attention.

You have... no... messages.

So I've been told, brother. 1:34:33 PM    comment []trackback []