Blogging About My Excuses for Not Blogging

I've had family in town for a week . . . I've been working on my online class for my recertification . . . and hubby and I took an anniversary trip to New Orleans last weekend . . . all to say that I've had very good reasons for taking a week off from my blog.

The week break has, however, reinforced for me why I need to be regular about this blogging business if I'm going to do it at all. After such a busy and eventful week, I'm sitting here drawing a blank about what to write about. Well, not exactly what to write about . . . but how to find an angle to any of the things I have to write about that would make them something anyone outside of my brain would care to read.

I could tell you the ins and outs of the various family members who stayed in our house at various points in the last eight or nine days. There were seven of them, none all here at the same time. They came and went. Some of them I didn't see at all while they were here. But, you know . . . does anyone outside the immediate family want to know all that?

I certainly could tell you about my lovely trip to New Orleans with my husband -- three days in the city where he proposed to me, to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary (which is actually not until the 29th) . . . doing an Urban Adventure Quest scavenger hunt in the rain . . . eating stuffed eggplant and etouffee at Galatoire's (where 26 years ago the waiter asked us, "How are you this evening?" and I responded breathlessly, "GreatI'mEngaged!!!" and shoved my ring in his face) . . . listening to a couple great jazz bands at Fritzel's for a couple hours sipping hurricanes . . . taking the street cars up to the cemeteries and through the garden district . . . stopping for Willie Mae's fried chicken, a Smoothie King smoothie, and a look through a public library branch in a very old building that was much more interesting on the outside than the inside . . . building a burger (with amazing chili bbq sauce) in a restaurant remodeled from a recording studio where Fats Domino, Little Richard and Lee Dorsey (among many others) recorded hit songs . . . sitting in Lafayette Park talking . . . eating candy bars in the St. James hotel courtyard outside our room . . . yeah, I suppose I could tell you about all that.

But do you really want to know about all that? Eh, maybe. But something in the retelling would diminish it in my mind, I think -- and this is one of those trips that I want housed in my mind more than I want it plastered on the internet.

I could tell you my thoughts about the Malaysian jetliner being shot down and the Israelis' firing on the Gaza strip . . . but I'm still too mellow from my New Orleans weekend to want to get all worked up about that.

I could write about all the things I have to do for the next month to get ready for school starting -- one month from today!!  But you couldn't possibly find that as exciting as I do.

I could write about the stuff I'm learning in the online class about helping students' reading comprehension . . . and some of you would be interested . . . but not many of you.

See, there's all sorts of things I could write about. I just suddenly don't know how to write them in a way that they will make any difference to anyone but me. I lost my mojo. This is what comes of taking a week off.

For a couple years now, I've committed to blogging every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This fall, I'll be teaching on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. I may have to let go of my Fridays. Maybe shift to Saturdays? I don't know, we'll see. But I'm determined to keep blogging regularly. I find that my brain needs to be forced to sift through its contents, determine what would be meaningful for mass consumption, and go through the exercise of actual, genuine writing. I'll be expecting my students to do a lot of this; it will give me some credibility if I can assure them I'm writing just as much as they are.