Honest to goodness, people. How hard can it be to sit down and write? The avoidance I engage in to skirt this is really something, a mental gymnastics of sorts. Coupled with a clubbing of self that is neither healthy for the baby seal nor the Kris. They need to make Just Do It commercials for writers, maybe little Nike wristbands with inspirational sayings on them. “You can do it!” “Write well. Write now.” “Write something lest you die unpublished and hobos start pulling your spleen through your belly button.”
I save post ideas in my Blackberry because it makes me feel like I’m writing something. Recently I typed something about how awful it is to camp with me, what with my obsession with showering daily and hating the outdoors. Annnnnd scene. That was pretty much it. Sad given that even Andy Rooney – a man with eyebrow hair longer than any of my posts – could have made six minutes out of that one. I also made a bulleted list about the stuff I’d been up to since I last wrote, and it ended up being chock full of odd Bear Grylls references and Weight Watchers meals bought on sale. I’m twirling my index finger and rolling my eyes as we speak. Thrilling, isn’t it?
Mama needs some fodder.
What’s simply lovely for the neurotic is the fact that the world is a splendid, ginormous place, that there are millions of sources of content. I haven’t tried a million things, of course, but I’ve done quite a few. Tennis, softball, pottery and cooking classes, snorkeling in Cozumel, cave tubing in Belize, packing the perfect cigarette, going to dozens of movies by myself, geeking out over fossils at the Museum of Natural History, eating one of those visually repulsive oysters, finally riding a Metrobus despite profuse sweating and negative self-talk. This is a rich, rich life. I just don’t feel like writing about any of it.
So I tweet. Because that’s kinda like writing, but without the work.
I write kick ass greeting cards, but I love most of the people I give them to, so that’s not entirely fair.
I make up stories about people in my head. My most recent victims were a few unsuspecting people on the mall escalator. I study their mannerisms, their clothing, gait. Is that the walk of an advertising exec in Sunday Dockers or a man who just conquered the smell of human decomposition in his storage unit? I like to think of that exercise as a nutty professor’s cognitive regimen. That or the kind of thing that gets you on one of those “registries.”
So I’ve decided to have kids. Yep. Birthing and breast feeding and attempting not to be turned on by the latter. It’s the perfect solution, n’est-ce pas? Inherent purpose, built-in fodder, an outlet for the caring I can’t bear to give to a deformed cat. I won’t have to stuff envelopes for a cause, hand-out flyers at a DC metro station that even the homeless won’t use for shelter (which I have done since we last spoke), or pound nails into 4×4s for a displaced family in the Midwest. It will make me interesting (again?) and will fulfill the greater purpose that God and Oprah laid out for me in that yet unpublished screenplay. Can you feel it people? See the men lining up to impregnate me? Maybe even TWICE like that woman in Arkansas?
Maybe I’ll just post the list.
24 Comments
See? How hard was that? ;-)
Insert insightful and witty comment here.
Whew! So gald you got that out. Feel better?
Well, it works fairly well for the mommybloggers out there to use their newfound status as a parent to write copious amounts of blog entries, and even I as a father have found a few excuses to use my son as readily-available fodder for an easy post. But he IS cute, I think.
And, I have no doubt that the line of men willing to buck up and impregnate you would be long and prestigious, but advertising it as, “the next best thing to a White Castle coma on a Friday night” is probably not the best tactic.
Thinking of content to write and fleshing it out into an actual, fruitful entry must be the plague of all blogwriters. I find myself thinking all day about potential topics and then being unable to take a single one of them and create the masterpiece that originally shined in my head. What sounded good in the shower ends up fairly flat on the desk later that day, more’s the pity.
Perhaps you are destined to author a “one-line quips by Kris” book that folks can use when attending wedding receptions and class reunions and needing to sport that, “I’m sarcastic enough to fend off your probes about why I look like I’m bent on getting completely sauced at this event” look.
Can you promise to name all your kids something starting with the letter J? I’d start with Jebus just to see if people are paying attention.
Don’t do it!
I like your tweets but this is much more satisfying.
And reproducing just to have something to write about (or have a TV show about) should be outlawed. Not that you were really going to do that or anything.
Why is it that those ideas that seem to write themselves in your head when you are on the bus/out for a run/anywhere that you don’t have easier access to a real keyboard seem so brilliant in your head, but, like Nathan says, fall flat on the desk? And when are they going to invent a USB port into my brain to download said brilliance before it evaporates?
I’ve also been pretty slack about blogging… but I can say the kid thing is not the first thing that came to mind as a source for new material.
You’ve been cave tubing? COOL.
It’s hard for me too, but I like when you write, so let’s try to gather our collective thoughts, shall we? Perhaps more wine is needed. (In public, even. Just a thought.)
I remember in my first writing class in college when my professor started talking about how hard it is for writers to actually write and the things (everything!) we will do to avoid writing. Which resulted in a woosh of air and “Oh thank god it’s not just me you all feel like this too?!” So yeah, I hear ya.
Also, what is this cave tubing you speak of? I’m intrigued.
I have been checking back to see if you were alive also. I found your blog and found your writing fantastic.
The cave tubing thing has also peeked my interest and others so may you can tell us about it. I am newer to the blogging world myself and alredy feel too tired or mentally drained at times to write even though I have a ton of ideas… they just fall shy of getting typed out all too often.
Anyway – liked the post!
You’re not alone in your non-blogginess, and I’m thinking maybe blogging is over. Tweeting and one-line facebook status messages take less time and create less angst. My blog got derailed in June by family issues, but I don’t seem to be able to get up the energy to go back to it full time when I can just toss out a sentence or two on Facebook or Twitter.
I’m glad you posted. As painful as it was, I’m sure.
Keep it up. I missed you.
Have kids? Christ, I hope you’re kidding. If you feel you have to have kids in order make your life seem worthwhile, that actually means you’ve given up on life. It’s taking the easy way out, and believe me, a lot of people (such as myself) are not going to find your sprog nearly as fascinating as you do. Oh, and do I even need to mention how you’ll be further contributing to the world’s overpopulation problem? Just DON’T do it.
You can borrow mine, he’s full of fodder. At least I think that’s what that green stuff was. . .
I have felt the same way- things happen and who cares? I can’t get the motivation, or keep any motivation to write for long. I just posted today after a serious hiatus. And mostly it’s just photos, so you’re not alone. If it helps, I love everything you write and would love to smoke a perfectly packed cigarette with you anytime.
I knew you weren’t dead, but I did think that maybe you’d forgotten your WordPress password (again).
Seems to me you’re never truly at a loss for fodder – viz. the above 500+ word exposition on having little to write about which somehow manages to be both funny, sad, and inspiring.
As ever, I look forward to more of the same and continue to wait, Sharpie in hand, for the hardcover to come out.
Also? I know you’re (mostly) joking about becoming a brood hen, but for the record, Jack is a really nice name for a boy.
Andy Rooney is still alive?
As a lurker to your blog, I haven’t posted before but felt compelled to. It’s kind of odd to feel like I know you, having peeked into your mind (at least the parts you let out) for 4 years now, but I know I really don’t. In any case I think you really are an interesting girl and I have always enjoyed reading your thoughts.
I guess what I mean to say is that there is a tremendous variety to the things you have written about so far, and it encompasses the many moods and situations of life pretty well. There’s a flow to it, even the long periods without any posts at all. Your readership is pretty mature and I’m sure we can appreciate you when you write of nothing, anything, or everything.
After all, what are weird blog-lurking non-friends for? :)
you said something about a baby. where the *f* is kris and what have you done with her you rotten bastards?
A few weeks of having to feed and care for a wee spawn would surely give you fodder. Of course it also could turn you off sex for the rest of your life, too.
I hear you. I need fodder, but I need sleep more, which is why I’m not having kids yet.
My mom is my Facebook friend and she follows me on Twitter, so she knows I’m not dead even when I have nothing to blog about. :)