Summer Lent

I have decided that I care too much about comments. I crave them, I check obsessively for them, and I choose topics that I hope will generate more of them.

Enough.

I am going to try an experiment to break my comment craze: I’m turning off that feature on the blog for the rest of the summer. I will continue to write, and I hope you will continue to read. If you really want to talk to me about something I’ve said, you can talk to me in person, send me an e-mail, or message me on Facebook.

What do you think of my bold move? Well…I guess I’ll never know.

 

Blog in Review

Next week will be my one-year blogging anniversary. In the spirit of remembrance, I looked back at my first post, in which I listed ten reasons why I started the blog in the first place. A year later, here’s how well CGS has fulfilled my expectations:

Top 10 Reasons Why I Wanted a Watson Blog

10. I have failed to keep my “journaling” New Year’s Resolution for the past 8 years. Maybe this will be the mode of journaling that sticks!
Here I am, one year later! It’s a Lindsey Record! Although the blog has become less of a journal than I pictured. I’ve tried to write posts that are slightly more universally appealing than mere facts about my day, for reasons of privacy (of others) and also because extremely personal blogs don’t get any comments.

9. This is easier than mass e-mailing friends and family with latest updates.
This might be true, depending on who is still reading. Based on my comments lately, it seems that I might just be talking to myself around here…which does not accomplish this. But if my lurkers are still lurking, then we can check this off! The down side is that I’ve already told my great stories here, so I end up with very little to say at family get-togethers.

8. A bunch of people I know have one.
This is true. Three cheers for jumping on the bandwagon!

7. I need something to put as my website on Facebook.
Check.

6. I need another hobby.
Check.

5. Writing is therapeutic.
This is generally true, except whenever my obsession with comments leads me and those around me to think that maybe blogging makes me need therapy rather than blogging being my therapy.

4. Sometimes people get rich from blogging. I’ll get on the bandwagon just in case.
We can go ahead and call this one a failed objective.

3. I’m a teacher. I need somewhere to keep up with all my hilarious and/or inspirational experiences so that I can write my book someday.
I did this some, when the story was irresistible. But concerns for privacy made me more cautious about this than I first thought. Even with my very arcane nicknames, I still worried about parents stumbling into my storytime and getting offended.

2. Stephen is a preacher, and we’re just starting out at a new church. I need somewhere to keep up with all of those hilarious and/or inspirational stories so that I can write a book about that, too.
Well, as the stories related to the church tended to be less hilarious/inspirational and more annoyed/frustrated, I did not feel at liberty to post those here. You know what your moms always say: “If you can’t say something nice…” It’s especially true in a public, online forum that keeps archives.

1. I just spilled coffee on my white t-shirt. (Not actually a reason, but it did just happen.)
Blogging has done so much to help me become more aware of the people and situations around me, I do feel that incidents like this happen much less than they ever did before. As I have honed my skills of observation and intuition, I have developed a oneness with the universe in the manner of a Jedi, like my friend Josh. The coffee no longer has a chance of landing anywhere but on my appreciative taste buds.

 

Writer’s Block

I’m embarrassed at how long it has been since my last post, but I’ve been hit with a severe case of writer’s block. I’ve had ideas float in and out of my mind for the last week or so, but when I sit down and stare at the blank screen, all profundity escapes me. It was an act of supreme willpower to type up summaries of my past nine weeks of lesson plans for my third quarter assessments, which are due next week.

The timing of this block is quite inconvenient, as I had planned to use my gobs of free time over spring break for completing many writing projects I’ve had simmering for a while but haven’t had any time to really think them through.

Lots of these projects are personal, including some brilliant blogs, personal reflections, and a written account of our experience at the establishment formerly known as the HOP. Also, as I have mentioned, my job requires a lot of writing. Very little of it is of any interest to people other than my students and my curriculum director; these projects include worksheets galore, lesson plans, parent letters, and curriculum planning documents.

Occasionally, a work-related project comes with very high stakes, and I’ve recently gotten myself into one that is a little overwhelming. We’re down to the wire and out of options for the fourth and fifth grade end-of-year production. Since I did some very small script writing projects last year, I was nominated to come up with something golden, on a topic of my choosing.

So now, after four freezing hours, three Starbucks drinks, six breaks to watch Hugh Grant on YouTube, and forty million relevant Google searches, I’m still staring at a blank page. If you happen to notice any Muses floating around with nothing to do, please send them my way!

 

The Ghost of Valentines Past

I am grateful that my dad didn’t stop sending me Valentine packages just because I got married. They’re always a great combination of gifts both sophisticated (this year, a nice Starbucks mug and gift card) and whimsical (a red pen with a topper of troll hair and giant plastic lips). This year, however, the gift medley also included a blast from my past which Mom must have discovered and printed out when she was cleaning out the document files on her computer. I cringe a little bit when I imagine the laughs that she and Dad must have gotten at my expense.

It was basically a blog…a slightly humorous attempt at pithy, insightful nonfiction. I had written it on Valentine’s Day of 1998, which meant that I was 15. I observed that Taylor Hanson (made famous by “Mmm-bop”), who was my same age, had made a lot more money than I had that year. The writing was not very clever, my arguments were cliche, and other than a nice closing line, the overall effect was unremarkable.

I can dismiss this particular piece of writing (and the boxes of similiar material stashed in my garage) as being the product of a immature and inexperienced mind with illusions of greatness (the essay was written under the letterhead of “CrossWords Publishing,” of which I was president). But what is much more disturbing than my high-school fantasies or even my parents laughing at me is this nagging fear that not much has changed, except that now my pithy nonfictional thoughts are posted in a very public forum and archived in cyberspace.

Reading old things I’ve written is always a reality check. I actually remember writing the Hanson money piece, and I remember the satisfaction and awe I felt when I re-read my finished product. It’s the same sort of feeling I get when I skim over my favorite blogs on this website. It’s humbling to admit that the self-expression that I now find to be so witty and poignant represent a self that I will condescendingly pity ten years from now. It is also helpful to remember that the issues that seem so stressful and urgent to me now will only make me laugh in the not-so-distant future. It’s a little bit sobering to recognize the ways that I am still very much like the dorky girl writing essays to nobody on Valentine’s Day.

One of these days, when I am fifty and too big for my britches, I am sure that my parents or one of my siblings will be happy to pull up Cum Grano Salis and remind me of all the silly ways I used take myself so seriously. So…hello, middle-aged Lindsey. Laugh all you want, but at least be grateful that I’m doing Pilates for you.

 

What to Blog?

It’s been ticking me off lately that I have good ideas for blogs all day long when I am in the car and at school. I mentally compose in my mind, sometimes swerving off of the road because I am laughing so hard. I think about more ideas at school, usually inspired by student or co-worker interactions. The whole world is a blog all day long, until I get home and actually get in front of the computer. I sign into Blogger…open the “create” page…and then…blank.

What the heck was so funny this morning? I can’t remember. What did the kids do that was so funny? No idea. What observation on humanity popped into my mind during my off period? Uh….

There are some obvious solutions that you might try to post on my comment page, and believe me, I’ve thought of them. There’s the “write down your ideas” suggestion, which certainly seems like the simplest option. But that doesn’t work in the car, and I forget by the time I get upstairs to my classroom. I could write down options throughout the day, but that would require me to carry a little personal pad of paper around just for my blog, and I would feel a little lame. I could get a Talkboy a la Macaulay Culkin and speak my mental notes onto a tape. But if a blog post-it pad is lame, the Talkboy is out of the question. And don’t try to chic up the idea by telling me to get an expensive tape recorder. It’s the same thing for a different clientele.

I actually do have a post draft called “Ideas” where I keep up with some potential blogs. But honestly, when I read over my notes, they don’t seem that clever to me any more. The thought that maybe my ideas are not as hysterical as I sometimes imagine has too many horrific implications for this entire blog enterprise, so I’ve stopped the “Ideas” post all together.

I end up with little snippets floating around in my head, none of them developed enough to make even a short blog. I’ve almost done three posts called “Grab Bag” just to get them out. I’ll let you take a peek:
…commuting, 24, In Style magazine, 3D sonograms, books on tape, frigid air conditioning, the new fifth ocean I just learned about, music and book faves, more unreality moments, men/babies/motherhood, the fence project, pet goats.

Give me a minute, it will come to me.

 

FAQ’s

Okay. Well I have a few ideas for where my posts might go today…but first I thought I would address the questions that have come up as a result of the inagural post.

Does it freak me out that anyone in the world can read my posts?
Not really. I am planning on keeping my slanderous thoughts confined to old fashioned mass e-mails. Also, since everyone in the entire world seems to have a blog, I don’t really think that too many creeps have time to go around reading blogs of people who are complete strangers. The only people that I expect to read this are people that I notified and people who see the link on Facebook.

Did I ever get the coffee stain out of my white shirt?
Not yet. But I did go home and change pretty quickly, and I put SHOUT on the stain. So it should be okay.

Am I really considering taking up upholstering as a hobby?
No. But if my mom sticks with it, I have some projects in mind for her!

Does anyone care enough about my daily life to read this blog?
Apparently. Which is great with me. The way I see it is, this is yet another way that I can get some mail. Plus, even if no one does read this, it is my way of keeping up with stories, which is one of my objectives. It’s a win-win situation.

 

Inagural Address

Top 10 Reasons Why I Wanted a Watson Blog

10. I have failed to keep my “journaling” New Year’s Resolution for the past 8 years. Maybe this will be the mode of journaling that sticks!
9. This is easier than mass e-mailing friends and family with latest updates.
8. A bunch of people I know have one.
7. I need something to put as my website on Facebook.
6. I need another hobby.
5. Writing is theraputic.
4. Sometimes people get rich from blogging. I’ll get on the bandwagon just in case.
3. I’m a teacher. I need somewhere to keep up with all my hilarious and/or inspirational experiences so that I can write mybook someday.
2. Stephen is a preacher, and we’re just starting out at a new church. I need somewhere to keep up with all of those hilarious and/or inspirational stories so that I can write a book about that, too.
1. I just spilled coffee on my white t-shirt. (Not actually a reason, but it did just happen. This is just one of many hazards of having to go to Starbucks in order to use the internet. That and frostbitten toes, even in June.)