Long Gone

Darn blog thing.

It's a tough row to hoe. Like almost everything in my life, I'm torn when considering the blog. I want to be better about posting. I enjoy typing. Words are nice. But somehow getting on here and actually keeping up with this just doesn't happen. I have a long list of excuses: the start of a new semester and the continuation of the Winter quarter at CCC; the bad weather early in the month which meant more time on the road and frequent power outages; the boys really coming into their "three-ness" and being weasels in the weaseliest of ways. But as I so often point out to my students, "excuses" are not the same as "reasons."

I think there's something living in me that doesn't want to see me write. I don't know what it is or why it's there or why it won't leave me alone. I loathe it with a passion unequaled by much else in my life. It feels like my whole being is yearning out to write and this little hobgoblin beats it out of me every time. I can't tell you how much time I waste on insignifica--reading the 1,000th bad movie review on any of a dozen websites, reading magazine articles I'm not particularly interested in, playing solitaire on the computer (solitaire, of all things! What the heck? A la Comic Book Guy, could there be any greater waste of time and consciousness?). Every day I start out with a fervent desire to write, and every night I go to bed frustrated and bitter that another day has passed without me penning a single word. Surely, I have a cartload of important things to do during the day (teach, grade, interact with Joanna and the boys, keep up the house), but I also just waste so much time. I seem desperate to find anything to do other than write, even as I know that's what I most want to do. Grrr!

Is it possible to be built for one thing and be utterly unable to do that one thing? That's like taking the time and effort to build a windmill and then tying one blade to the ground so it can't spin. What's the point? Sometimes I get motivated and read books about writing, and make plans about writing, and even write in here as a kind of substitute for the kind of writing I really want to be doing. The one thing I never actually do is write. Sad, really.

The possible scenarios:

(1) I was never meant to write. My own hubris or Satanic influence has convinced me I need to do it. My struggles are my conscience and the Holy Spirit trying to get me to cut out this foolishness while my own pride wants desperately to hang on to the image of myself as a writer.

(2) I was meant to write, and the forces of laziness and fear (and that ol' Satanic influence again) that keep me back from my God-given mandate to use those talents I have in writing. My struggles arise from me fighting against what I know in my soul I ought to be doing.

(3) I'm kind of a messed-up guy with no motivation or work ethic. I have talent and desire but I can't figure out how to put them to good use.

(4) I'm more in love with the idea of being a writer than I am with writing. James Michener summed this up nicely: "Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print." Is this me? Yikes.

I know (3) and (4) are definitely a part of my problem. The question is if (1) or (2) resemble the truth in any sense and if so, which one? I've given my writing over to God because it's just too painful for me to deal with these days. I've prayed that if I'm not meant to write that He'll take away my desire to do so, and if I am meant to that He'll show me to be dedicated and motivated and devoted to the task. And I sit still in the same limbo I've been inhabiting for... oh, let's say ten years, to be charitable.

Imagine that every day you have the chance to spend time with the person you love most. Every morning you wake up and look over at that person, and smile, and promise them you'll do something that day. And every day, you fritter away your time on petty amusements and frivolous monkeyshine, while your beloved stands there, waiting. And every night when you go to bed, you curse yourself for having missed out on another day with him or her, and vow to make tomorrow different.

Imagine that every day.

Not a bad metaphor for how I treat God, actually. Now I feel doubly guilty.

This is a long, self-pitying rant, I realize. The scary thing is it might not change a thing about how I live my life, even though I can see the problem and know of the solution. How would we feel about someone who has a disease and can see the treatment and knows what to do to get rid of the sickness and could avail themselves of the cure but simply doesn't? I would find myself lacking sympathy for that person, which suggests that I deserve none myself. Most likely true.

Grrrrr.

"You can't want to be a writer, you have to be one."
--Paul Theroux

Snow and I

I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about snow at the moment.

We're buried right now. A good three feet of snow lies all around, higher where it's mounded up on our stairs. The berms are up to my chin on the road. We've got a couple of days of respite, and then there's more snow for half a week (if the meteorologists are on target, which is always a gamble).

I've been shoveling snow for four days. Yesterday and today, I was shoveling ice, hurling 20-pound chunks of the stuff across the road because there's no more room on our side unless I want to toss it onto our roof. I'm kind of tired of it, and generally just tired (which probably speaks more to my being out of shape than my hard work, but still). Part of me, at these moments, thinks that it's crazy to live in a place where this is necessary.

But I can't imagine living in a place where there wasn't snow. We get it relatively rarely up here (say, a couple of times a month during the winter), and whenever we don't have snow, I find myself gazing enviously at the parts of the country on the weather map that are being deluged. I love the white stuff despite what a pain it is. I don't know if it's some holdover from my childhood (when it was just fun and didn't require a lot of effort on my part to deal with), or some odd masochistic part of my personality, but even at its worst I can't wish for less snow.

I even like it despite the difficulties it causes here in the mountains--in fact, I like it far more. In Toronto and Spokane, I still got the snow, but the flatness was depressing.

Friends of ours have been trying to lure us up to the northwest, which is an area I am seriously in love with, especially the west coast of Oregon and Washington (which is where they are, actually). Everything about it--the 230 cloudy days a year, the fantastic amount of rainfall, the average high temperature of 65 degrees--makes my hair tingle. But the lack of (1) steepness (no mountains or even high hills to speak of) and (2) snow, or the possibility of snow, are serious hinderances. Not insurmountable ones if I could find a good job, but hinderances all the same.

There's something about the mountains, about the landscape and climate itself that I seem dependent on. I always miss it when I'm away and I rarely feel the urge to be anywhere else. There are many things I would modify about our mountains were I given the power: much higher rainfall, more dense foliage, more animals, fewer people, more geographical distance from major cities. The Rockies and the Cascades strongly appeal to me for the abundance of these things. But I feel blessed to live where I do, and to have lived here most of my life.

Now I really am rambling. The upshot is that, despite a desire to complain about a lot of shoveling, I wouldn't trade it. Next time, maybe I'll enthrall you with the internal ethical debate I go through evey time I rev up the snowblower. I know you'll be waiting for that one. I hope tonight finds you wherever you like it most.

In Reference to Resolutions

I found the following PvP comic far too apropos to the last topic to pass up:

PvP for 1/1/05

PvP--a comic revolving around the staff of a gaming magazine ("PvP" stands for "player vs. player," which I didn't know, either, until I read the comic)--is the only online comic I check out regularly. I'm certain there are many more deserving comics out there, but I don't really need more sites into which to get sucked. It's usually fun and sometimes great. Scott Kurtz, the artist, has some odd opinions and seems to be the focus of more than a few debates. Currently, he's offering his online comic free to traditional press papers in exchange for retaining the licensing rights--a very different system than the comics syndicates currently follow and one that has a lot of comic strippers up in arms. No, really.

In any case, take his views with a grain of salt, but the comic is worth checking out, especially if you're a roleplaying or computer game geek.

Auld Lang Syne

I just wanted some title other than Happy New Year!!!!!! :)

Here it is: January 1, 2005. I shall be writing the wrong date on checks for two months. We can now easily divide the date by 5 again--a feat not to be repeated for half a decade. The icy hand of death draws one year nearer (though I'm watching a Twilight Zone marathon as I type this, so the pure nostalgia is making that threat seem less onerous--besides, Death will probably offer me some strange deal and I'll end up saving myself, but only at the cost of someone dear to me).

That last sentence, by the way, is an example of the sort of thing I'm not editing in this blog. You have my condolences.

I've been mulling over the idea of resolutions this week. I don't know what to think about them these days. The concept of New Year's resolutions seems dull and staid, more of a joke than an actual event, and yet the idea of taking vows at the change of a calendar year has a strong draw for me. I've always been a sucker for ceremony and tradition, and I really want such oaths to mean something. I have, in the past, made very solemn vows upon a New Year's Eve.

And not one resolution have I kept in these many years. It's almost become an exercise in self-doubt and defeat, a chance for me to feel bad about myself rather than providing goals for which to strive. Not, as is probably clear by now, I need any such excuse.

I am therefore putting up this list of... let's call them ideals for 2005. That sounds more flimsy, I realize, than "resolutions," and provides thereby more chance for weasling out of them (like my "near-daily" vow), but what the heck. Perhaps having some degree of accountability to you folks will help me out.

Here, then, in something of an order of importance:

1. Spend more time with God--This seems to be the universal resolution of every Christian I know. Somehow I seem to lose sight of Christ in my daily life, even as I most make an effort to keep Him foremost. I know I need a daily prayer time. In the past I've sought closeness with God for my own ends--as if, were I to spend some requisite time near Him, the things I really want would happen as a result. I realize at this late stage that the closeness with God is the thing I really want. The other stuff is ephemera, I know, but it seems to loom so large in the moment. So some spiritual consistency is my greatest need this year (and beyond, of course).



2. Write!--My wife has more than once suggested that I'm going through my midlife crisis somewhat early. That may well be true. I have felt more strongly in the past months that I am meant to be doing something more, and I am much convinced that that thing is writing. Yet there are few things I avoid more assidiously. I wrote three pages last week--it's the first I've done for non-roleplaying purposes in longer than I can recall. I know Senor Devin has struggled with this in the past regarding his artwork: how can the one thing I most want to do be the one thing I most avoid? Got to get past that. The good news: I've been more inclined this direction in the last few weeks. The bad news: I've yet to do anything about it. Again.



3. Lose Some Weight--Great ooka-mooka, but I'm a large man. These past few years I know I've not been in the shape I should be (really, for most of my life, but it's in the last few years that I've begun to feel it). I feel lifeless and slow, physical exertion is far too taxing, and I'm becoming more self-conscious about it rather than less. I really don't want it to take something drastic (like diabetes or a heart attack) to get me to change my ways. Joanna and I had some luck a few years back (before the boys) with Weight Watchers, so I'm starting that up tomorrow. Well, later today, actually. It's hard to find time to get an exercise routine going, what with the boys to look after and Joanna seeing so little of me anyway, but that's needful, too.



4. Use My Time More Wisely--I do waste so much time. Not just staying-up-until-2am-playing-Halo time, but each actual moment. I spend far too much of my day reading pointless things on the web (I have now read more movie reviews than I have seen actual movies), playing goofy little computer games, staring at the television, or staring off into space, lamenting my inability to get things done. I don't know how one achieves self-discipline without first having self-discipline, but I need to know the secret. Now!

There are gallons more--keeping up the house more, being a better father and husband, working harder on my voiceover training, becoming a more competent and organized teacher--but I'll be surprised if you folk made it this far. I'll end by wishing you all a blessed year full of the things you most need, and that we all become more of the creatures we are intended to be.