Hello

Two posts in 2019.  Yikes.

I always used to say that when my online friends went AWOL it was usually one of two reasons...
Things were going really well, or things were going really badly. 

I don't know if there's a way to track time spent on social media, but sometime over the course of 2016 - present, I started dreading social media in general and facebook in particular.  The vast majority of the dread stemmed from constant divisive political discourse.  I decided twitter was easier for my psyche, but I still post sporadically on Facebook. 

Often I have almost this posting paralysis.  I think...I should post this, and then my brain starts analyzing it and I end up not posting.  Lots of stuff going on in my head, some of which I really need to work out...guilt-type stuff, but mostly just not as engaged on social media as I once was.

And...things are going really well (see above).  So *pats self on back* I was right all along!

2019 had a proposal, a wedding, a honeymoon, a pregnancy (this is a developing story), college visits, nursery planning, and much much more.  But I suppose I could have taken the time to write at least SOME of it. 

And the more I don't write the more I feel weird writing again.  Like I somehow have to make up for all the stuff I didn't cover.  Like the longer I don't write the more stuff builds up that I NEED to write about, and the more pressure I feel to either write it all...or write none of it.  And so I write none of it.

I was telling Angie a week or so ago that I want to write again. 

There are a lot of things I want to do.  There always have been.  And nobody ever has all the time they need to do all the things they want to do.  But recently I started reading books again.  I've never stopped..."consuming" them.  I listen to audio books every day on my commute, or during walks.  But I just started picking up paper books and reading those around the time we flew to Athens in June/July on our honeymoon.  It felt good.  It felt nostalgic.  And it felt...productive(?) to choose a book over apps on my phone. 

I want to draw again too.  I've been watching TikToks (speaking of unproductive phone apps) of artists drawing/painting/carving...and it's so satisfying to WATCH, and I really enjoy doing it...who knows, maybe that's next. 

Creative stuff in general, I guess.  That's what I've been missing in general.  I think somewhere in these 'pages' I once wrote about things that make me happy...I think one of those things was 'creating'...writing/drawing/etc.  I have to go find that now. 

But I digress.  I won't say I'M BACK!  But it's likely I'll try to make more time to write.

I have stuff that needs saying...heavy stuff, sad stuff, happy stuff, silly stuff.  The usual.

Plus also, I'll be the father of a baby boy sometime in the late March timeframe, so I basically will have a whole shitload of new material about raising a baby at 50, etc.  So...enjoy THAT shitshow.