It's Alive!

I haven't written anything here for months. It's gotten to the point where I think about deleting this blog altogether, because it vexes me that it sits idle. It's my Frankenstein's monster, a being I created, then abandoned. The reason I don't delete it is because I fear it will chase me around the globe and wreak revenge on me.  (Sorry. Lit nerd joke.)  In actuality, I don't delete it for the same reason people keep their dust-and-laundry-covered StairMaster in the living room. If it sits there long enough, surely I'll use it eventually out of shame, if for no other reason. But I wonder why I haven't been compelled to write for so long, and I've come up with a few theories.

Reason #1 - I have nothing to say.  I really don't. I don't have an angle, or voice, or obsession to draw on as a starting point. I'm not a mom or a wife or even a militant single. I have opinions about society and politics, but not well-developed enough to build a pundit platform. I don't stand out particularly as a teacher, and I refuse to devote a blog to the foibles and follies of my students (a petty thing to do, plus EXTREMELY detrimental to one's career.) I don't have any interests that burn within me so fiercely that I must, or can, write about them. I'm a self-centered, quirkyalone slacker/dilettante, but I'm not SO self-centered that I think people would be interested in reading my thoughts about me. So I stare at the blinking cursor, then give up.

Reason #2 - My job. As a teacher, I feel like if I have any downtime, I should be grading papers, and if I don't have any papers to grade, I need to think up some assignments to give out, so I'll have some papers to grade.  When I do have a window of legitimate free time, I devote it to reading or watching TV.  I have stacks of books I want to read and a DVR full of shows and specials to watch.  And then there's evil Netflix, which offers me even more time-wasting opportunities, right here on my laptop. It's a delicious luxury to be able to sit and turn off the teacher brain. Writing is active, and I need my passive time.

Reason #3 - Social media. Facebook has taken away my urge to write.  BFB (Before Facebook), if I had an observation or insight, I'd write about it and post it on my blog.  Now, I can jot it onto my status update and forget about it, rather than expanding on it. This is unfortunate, because there are some things I post on Facebook that have a story behind them, but there's not enough time or space to explain.
But I do often feel a burning need to be creative, and as I'm not artistic or crafty, writing is the most enjoyable option for me. So maybe Facebook can be my idea notebook.  The thought process that makes me want to share my garbled view of a fellow shopper or a cheesy story about my dogs may be parlayed into a spurt of creative writing beyond a few sentences, and will feed the blog beast and scratch my creative itch. I need to not worry about boring any readers I might have, and think of this as more of an intellectual exercise for myself.  I'll try to make a habit out of it, and set aside some time each week to string some sentences together in a cohesive form and post them here with more regularity.
But only after I watch eleven archived episodes of Doctor Who and read my September Harpers Magazine.