Rock

You guys know I am going to want The Beatles Trivial Pursuit for Christmas, right?  

Just making sure.  

Okay, so here's another Post That Wasn't Meant To Be, Being.  A little explanation first.  I don't know why I didn't publish this.  Perhaps I thought I was being too self-reflective, and perhaps I just didn't feel like going back and editing a stream of blahtity-blah-blech.  Maybe I just realized it was dumb to point out the picture in my header, since most people read my blog on their Reader, and those of you who do see the picture probably didn't need me to analyze it for you.   And maybe I didn't publish, because it was just too dang long.  I probably had a good reason for not publishing, but now I can't find it, since it basically embodies why I stopped posting altogether.  Whatever.  It's yours now.  I release you, Insanely Long, Unedited, and Possibly Annoying Post.

The picture in the Header of this blog is of my kid, holding a rock.  She's looking at the rock, as though the rock is something more than a rock.  The sun is casting a golden glow on the rock, as though the rock is somehow...special.  Interesting.  The rock is front and center in the frame, as though it has some right to be there, taking up space in the foreground, making its significance known, speaking volumes about its presence in this world. But here's the kicker:  It's Just A Rock.  

Isn't it?

Is it possible that the banal, typical, even ordinary things in this world are perhaps just a matter of perception?  Can rocks be made interesting?  I don't know.  Ask the kid.  She seems to know something about it.

This blog was supposed to be about that.  I thought I could make people say, "Huh.  Never quite saw things like that before...  but yeah.  Wow."  Just because I focused my attention on the typical, the typical would become Special.  I achieve that, sometimes.  Sometimes, not so much.  Sometimes, a lot of times, especially the times I didn't hit "publish post,"  it's just not anything worth reading about.

I think I become too self-conscious, and my blog becomes something that tries too hard to cast a golden glow where one doesn't naturally fall.  I have about sixty unpublished blog posts sitting in queue, and none of them will ever see the light of day.  I tried too hard to highlight something totally boring, and then all this boring stuff started filling my blog, and it can't ALL be interesting.   So I end up with a white-out mess of stuff that was supposed to just stay in the shadows in the first place.  It happens so, so much.  You don't even want to know.  I lose sight of what deserves a highlight, and what doesn't.  And that's just where the writing problems begin.

Raise your hand if you wanted to see Lennon's pet ladybug.  Now raise your hand if you needed me to make it funny or sentimental or somehow illicit an emotional response from you?   What's that?  Most of you just wanted to see the cute picture of Lennon holding a ladybug? That's all I really wanted, too.  I didn't deliver it, why?  Because I'm a mess.  A self-conscious mess.

So this blog got weird, and it made me weird.  And I'm not having fun anymore.  I'm thinking too hard about my audience.  That would be you guys.  I'm too aware of the camera.  Look at that picture of Lennon holding the rock.  She's "AWARE" of the camera, but the camera is there so she can show it her rock.  Her beautiful, wonderful, amazing, awesome, spectacular rock.  Roooooocccckkkk.  *drool*  So what if it's just a rock?  

I need to make my subject matter more about the subject, and less about how I'm presenting it.  I need to stop caring so much about whether or not you like what I wrote.  If you don't like it, you can stop reading.  That's how this works, isn't it?  I'm supposed to be able to hit publish, and not be like, "That was so dumb and trying too hard and stupid.  STUPID!" while I hit myself like Chris Farley on the The Chris Farley Show.  

I want to go back to just telling you about the really common, mundane things that happen to me and my family, and I want to tell you about them in the cornball way that I do it.  I want to stop being so aware of you guys, and just make this blog about what it was supposed to be about:  The way this world appears to me.  That's what You Do On Your Blog.  For the most part, that's what you guys see on MommyBlogYay.  It's what you DON'T see that is freaking me out.  

So why am I telling you all this?  Why am I making my blog THAT MUCH MORE SELF-AWARE HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO BLOG SUICIDE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RENEE STOPPPPP!!!  Because I've got writer's block like you wouldn't believe, and the only way I'm going to move past it is to punch it in the gut.  Hit it head on.  Throw it into the coliseum and watch the lions feast on its lifeless corpse.  THAT'S why I'm telling you.  

Not knowing what to write?  That is so typical.  So ordinary and boring.

Isn't it?