Why are you doing this again?

Yes, I know, I do this every few months. I spent six years or so writing five nights a week and while I can't say that I actually built up a readership I at least had people and more than a few robots who would glance at the words I wrote and occassionally write a comment on either my brilliant insight or how they wanted to kick my ass because I described their band as "a downgrade from the background music that they were playing before they took the stage." Then, a little over two years ago I simultaneously got married, switched jobs, moved and found myself living in one part of the country, working in another and spending much of my life in the fourth row, window seat of Southwest flights.

(Seriously, that is the seat I always take. Fourth row is the first row where the chairs are as wide as they get, I like the window because it is easier for me to sleep and the fact that I know all of this just shows I fly way too much.)

So basically I've spent the past two years doing everything possible to, as Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers elegantly put it, keep it in between the ditches. Everything in my life had a higher priority than my writing and given I was screwing up my non-writing priorities royally I just couldn't carve out the thrity minutes a night I needed to write. Sadly, those minutes were usually wasted online but that was just another of the many mistakes that I've made. Again, I'm just happy I kept it in between the ditches, barely.

But a few weeks ago I thought about the fact that I am turning forty in less than four months (start shopping today) and thinking about what I am doing about it and where my focus is. It is not a case of mid life crisis yet but I did some reflection on what it is that I want to focus my attention on. I also thought about what I have been doing in my life, how much I have grown over the past few years and about all the stories that I wanted to tell. Everything just came back to ideas that I wanted to write down and share and how just sitting at a keyboard and letting my thoughts out helps relieve my anxiety. Hence, back to blogging.

Don't know if this is going to be good or not. Not sure if anyone is going to bother to read it. I'll probably put some effort into promoting it and I might finally break down and get on the twitter machine though given that I am someone who still uses an AOL email account I don't think that I will ever be cool enough for Twitter. I just want to see if I can grab those thirty minutes a day, look at a blank screen and try to use that time to make some sense of the world. Explain what I want to do in the second half of my life. As scary as those words sound that is where I am. It is going to be quite the journey.

(Oh, and the reviews of Gatsby seem to have proven my fears right. Though they say Dicaprio gets the sliminess of Gatsby right. So that is a plus.)