Blogging (As Not A Teenager)

I have, more or less, had a blog since middle school and I would argue that it was somewhere between my early high school years and early college years that I thrived most as a blogger because there was so much less pressure about what and how often I had to write. Sometimes I wrote really interesting posts about religion or my feelings on my father having cancer, but more common were the posts where I actually talked about what was happening in my life, what music I liked, and simply told silly stories about car accidents, my run-ins with the communion at Catholic churches or being late.

Example: (early 2006)

"I like the person who drives my bus. But I'm out of shape. (And yes both of those sentences make sense together). So today I wore the shoes that I own that aren't possible to just slip into, and you can't do that little "my shoes aren't on, but I can technically still walk" thing. So I get upstairs, on schedule, spend about five minutes trying to tie my shoes until I realize that I should probably start running unless I want to be missing the bus. So I go out my door...walk for about ten seconds realize that if I don't run I have no chance of making the bus and then break into a sprint. Then my neighbor's dog starts chasing me and barking it's head off (that dog scares me) so I stop running (bus...going to miss it because of a dog!) until he walks away at which point I start running like a mad(wo)man towards the end of my street. I slow to a fast walk, but then I see everyone lining up in a little line, (ha! lining up in a line!) so I know that the bus is right around the corner so this time I really sprint and luckily the bus driver noticed me running like a penguin (because that's how I run) and waited. And I get on the bus and just sit there...bus not moving...gasping for air...and then I realize that some guy was running towards the bus too. So technically I didn't have to run, because bus driver lady would have waited for him too. So yeah. Holly=horrifically out of shape. But somehow I really love the whole sprinting thing. Feels good."

Now I find that blogging is more difficult because, although things of the exact same magnitude are happening I have a harder time writing about them...

Example (yesterday)

Yesterday at work, after spending two hours sifting through pallets of boxes of scantron tests all of my coworkers and I were told to go home because there was no more work to do. This was frustrating for all of us, but I felt especially bad for the people who had driven for an hour to get there that morning, because I know of at least two people who do drive that far. They probably didn't even get paid enough to cover their gas money for the day. On my way home I noticed two cop cars (no lights or sirens running) turning into a public park and, suddenly overcome by an overwhelming feeling of curiosity, I casually switched lanes and followed them to the park. The second car paused and the driver shouted out of her window to talk to what looked like a high school student who worked for the city parks and was weed whacking on the side of the road. I turned off my radio but still couldn't hear anything. They pulled into the parking lot on the left and I pulled into the parking lot on the right, striving for sneakiness. I watched them for a little while and pretended to check my messages on my phone and got out of my car. Even outside of my car I couldn't hear anything so I decided to go home and watched them open the kid's backpack as I drove out of the parking lot. SOMEONE GOT BUSTED FOR DRUGS.
(The best part of this story is when I got home, told my family this story and got yelled at by my sister for following a cop car. She thought it was illegal and could not see the humor in the story because she was so busy being upset that I had dared break a law that, to my knowledge, does not even exist. What the shmuck?)

See, I have a harder time devoting a blog entry to that story because for some reason I now operate under the assumption that I need to have a point, or at least write enough paragraphs and sentences that no one will notice that I don't have a point because I said so much. Of course this makes no sense whatsoever.

In the movie "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story" several characters have a conversation about what they want their movie to do for its viewers. One of them, rather simply, says that it should be funny. Another asks, "Is that all?" He responds, "Is that not enough?" That was one of my favorite quotes for the longest time because it's a stellar reminder that not everything has to be packed with meaning. Sometimes things just are and that is precisely what makes them so wonderful. They are inherently themselves and there are no pretenses or injected, phony frills on them feigning importance where there is none. Oscar Wilde claimed that it is the most elect man who can look at something beautiful and see only beauty. He says there is hope for people who see beautiful meanings in beautiful things, clearly implying that they are still lacking because of their inability to simply appreciate something for what it is.

This is me trying to become one of the elect, not in my perspectives but in my motives. Rather than looking to stuff my words and stories with morals or lessons learned I am going to try to present everything as it was or is. Of course that is what the dude in Nausea tried to do - complete removal of self in presentation of facts - and he was crazy. Y'know maybe I'll go for a happy medium. Maybe this blog will be a throwback to those days when I could write a post without thinking too hard about it. It's great when a post is long and meaningful, but it is just as great when it is silly or confused and short.

This post was me lowering that metaphorical bar I love so much. Consider it lowered and read respectively

Heya!

(Anyone notice the "it's" error in my first story? Ugh. Shudder.)