Blog Aversion and How I Conquered It!

For several weeks, notions of writing in this blog have danced through my consciousness frequently. Watching TV - "I should blog this." Listening to the radio - "I should blog that." Reading a book - "I should really blog this." But there has been no blogging for a month.

"Whycom?" as one of my toddlers used to ask me.

Here is the truth. The world has been too depressing to blog about.

Yes, I know that there are pundits out there blogging about all sorts of important socially aware and policitically with-it topics, but I'm not interested in them. I don't know enough about most areas to pass myself off as an expert - which doesn't stop some people, I realize - and I don't want to take the time to become an expert in most of them. Politically, I figure I'm screwed - because I'm one of those scary liberals - so why bother. In most political arenas nobody is listening to anybody else anyway, so your either talking to yourself or talking to the choir. Or preaching at the enemy.

Ditto religion.

Hurricane Katrina is a topic that stirred profound thoughts and feelings in me. I sat on my couch watching TV and crying like I haven't done since 9/11. And wondered at the palpable stupidity of our public officials in the face of absolute misery, terror and degradation. I especially liked the interview with one of the Michaels (see, that's why I'm not pundit material, I can't remember these important details) who was adamantly denying the existence of stranded, desperate people at the convention center when I had been watching live footage from the convention center with exactly those people in it for several hours.

But this one has been hammered to death already. It was unexcusably callous, and stupid politics for sure, and he deserved to get hoisted on that petard. But everyone else is hoisting and I can't see where my petard makes much difference.

All of Katrina was like that for me. What words of mine were adequate?

I do have some personal involvement in the events. My son and his fiance lived in New Orleans. In fact, they moved there exactly one month before the storm hit, on July 29th. It was an ill-fated month from the start, with everything that could go wrong, going wrong. Just when the problems seemed straightened out and Nick was about to start classes at Tulane for his Junior year, comes Katrina.

At the time, I didn't feel much like talking about that either.

I have simply had an aversion to my blog for the past month because things have been too depressing to write about. (Oh, and I was out of town and incomputicado for a week in Montana.)

But I conquered the block! And how, you might ask? By having an absolutely exciting and thrilling moment in my life approaching which has raised me from my doldrums and started my fingers flying over the keyboard again.

My play is premiering on September 30. All the kinks have been worked out. All the little disappointments smoothed over. The cast seems terrific from the two rehearsals I've attended. The director is very competent and cares about the play. The posters are printed and absolutely beautiful. I would like to kiss their graphic designer whoever she or he may be. I'll see if I can post it here. My friends say they are going to attend. I probably don't have enough friend to sell out six shows, but I'm working every angle I can think off.

Tonight I sent about fifty e-mails and another 25 faxes to media contacts. And I did a good job, too, personalizing everyone that needed a special touch. It took all weekend and more if I count collecting and screening the names. I had guidance on the press release from my friend Maggie Hawkins, who is a super-professional PR person. Maybe I should post the press release, too. I'll think about that.

I have been eating sleeping and drinking the play for the last two weeks and it has finally lifted me far enough out ot the social-political morass to want to write in my blog again. How nice!

Actually, I can't go to bed so I may as well work on this post. I have a long list of faxes queued up and running through my computer. I can't go to bed until they're done.

But I think I'll go see if I can upload the poster and maybe some other stuff. My husband took a really nice publicity photo of me for the playbill. Michael takes better pictures of me than anyone else in the world. Do you think it's cuz' he loves me? I do.

"Smile and the whole world smiles with you," the old song says. Well there must be a lot of cheerful people out there lately, because I'm grinning most of the time. Hope it lasts a while.

Ciao!