The Blog Suffers
Hi everyone! It’s June as I write this and I haven’t made substantive additions to this blog since September 2020. I “see” that now…
I knew that moving to a new place, with a new job and a new climate (and boy, is it different! -from California).
I knew that this blog would suffer and with it my chances to get published, when I moved to Washington. It’s all about “Latitude”…NOT giving or getting, but moving North to find somewhere cooler. California was hot and getting hotter and my body simply said: “Uhuh!- No can do!” I was supposed to be building up readership (with this and other blogs), but when I came home and collapsed, writing simply wasn’t an option.
Then, I discovered that I was also extremely “phototropic”. Like birds who tend to go to sleep when the sun goes down, I felt it was time for bed then too. However, “I” know better. Or do I?
And, since I love birds who, knowing me was surprised?
No one.
As I worked through September, October and November the days (“up” here) got progressively shorter. Shorter until, at around 8 pm in mid November, I’d swear that it was well after ten and go to bed, only to see the actual time before turning in.
Then I’d shrug and figure: “I’m tired anyway. I’ll just get some sleep and maybe I’ll have more energy tomorrow”.
BTW…”Nope”. The “new job” was kicking my ass.
By early December, the sun was setting at around 4:30 (for real!) and the phototropism just got stronger.
Now before you freak out and tell me that you couldn’t live that way, allow me to tell you of the flip side: The sun doesn’t set until 9:30 now. Pretty cool. I’m told that the 4th of July festivities suffer because the sky doesn’t darken enough for fireworks until well after 11.
Past my bedtime in the best of days unless I’m writing.
Though the sun (here) is up at around 5:15, bugging me to get up when I’d rather sleep in on my days off.
I also discovered something else. In Scandinavia they have an expression: “It isn’t a very, very cold day, so much as there is a person who doesn’t have the right clothing.”
Think about it.
Then, I realized that my entire time in California was “about” shedding heat, well over half my life…I was wildly uncomfortable. I was the reverse of that guy with insufficient clothing for a cold day. I needed to get to somewhere where it simply didn’t get that hot…And while my parents told me throughout all my formative years that “You’d better move to Alaska”, I kind of drew the line at going so far North. Cerebrally I knew that the winter nights would be even worse…So Washington just seemed logical, and if you can “lean” on logic for decisions, you usually won’t go too far wrong.
Getting back to posting, and, “in my defense”, I have been posting sporadically on Facebook, and I’ll go back and grab those posts and place them here soon.
This move, this divorce, this “complete reset” has been an adventure: New simply everything and I am (mostly) happy I did it, and I hope to begin making new additions to this blog back on a regular basis again in the coming weeks.
I already have a short series of “bits” involving (English) wordplay that are coming…
And as far as “an adventure” goes, if I’m not able to get my ducks in a row to my satisfaction by the end of this year, I may “double down” on that “adventure”.
More on that later.
The crux of what I wanted to say is that I’m sorry that I bailed, it had to happen but that, “I’m back”.
