Forever lost. There is a way out.
When I signed off in June with a pensive final entry, word traveled and people began asking friends and family about my mental well-being. In such moments you understand the annoyances and comforts of blogging for a small audience. Placing opinion in a public forum whose members lie in anonymity encourages “gossip” on a scale you may never know. Conversely, you identify individuals who have a genuine interest in your life and happiness. Rest assured all is OK; however, the tumultuous period of two months ago has now taken a different form.
I am in the midst of a move and a heightened sense of anxiety clouds my thoughts. The apartment I called home for the better part of three years has now been abandoned. In three days I move from Arlington, VA to Washington, DC. Right now, my belongings, my life, are in transition in the corner and on the couch of a friend’s apartment. Sleep and exercise have escaped me. In the absence of a refrigerator my diet has been sidelined by beer and peanut butter sandwiches. I am amused that the exhaustion I feel has taken me faster and more completely than weeks of driving and sleepless nights in tents, hostels, and cars. I am even more amused that this has all occurred in less than a week. My response? Relax? No. Start writing. And reflect upon the direction of this blog (as if it ever did follow a script).
On occasion I read my earlier work. I want to know if the writing has improved, if a style is beginning to take form, if I can feel emotion in the words as though I was writing them for the first time. In some instances, and this is especially true for my published work, I am disgusted by the simplicity, the Dan Brown-like vagaries, and the egregious and completely unnecessary overuse of flowery adjectives and space-filling adverbs found in Stephenie Meyer’s work.*
Aside from my travelogue, the posts on Rizzology were meaningless. The thought-pieces on the economy, politics, and outdoorsy subjects bored me. They were trite. So I deleted them. Well, not really. I do not condone the destruction of any written material. Instead, I banished it to my first blog, Zealously Moderate, which is now behind a wall that only an adept hacker can penetrate (go ahead, click the link for futility's sake). To compensate, I brought my favorite work from ZM under the Rizzology banner.
Another administrative change you may notice is the addition of the bolded Roadtrip Archive link on the sidebar. For those wishing to re-live my roadtrip, sans the painstaking process of tracking backward through the blog, the archive links every entry in chronological order and provides a gateway to the pictures.
Going forward, this space will take the form of my early work on ZM: infrequent, but more meaningful posts; obscurities and symbolism; less focus on current events, and more notes and thoughts on, well, who knows for sure.
Comments and criticism are welcome. And, as always, Twitter and Facebook will be there to provide updates on the madness that is my world.
*Get it?
When I signed off in June with a pensive final entry, word traveled and people began asking friends and family about my mental well-being. In such moments you understand the annoyances and comforts of blogging for a small audience. Placing opinion in a public forum whose members lie in anonymity encourages “gossip” on a scale you may never know. Conversely, you identify individuals who have a genuine interest in your life and happiness. Rest assured all is OK; however, the tumultuous period of two months ago has now taken a different form.
I am in the midst of a move and a heightened sense of anxiety clouds my thoughts. The apartment I called home for the better part of three years has now been abandoned. In three days I move from Arlington, VA to Washington, DC. Right now, my belongings, my life, are in transition in the corner and on the couch of a friend’s apartment. Sleep and exercise have escaped me. In the absence of a refrigerator my diet has been sidelined by beer and peanut butter sandwiches. I am amused that the exhaustion I feel has taken me faster and more completely than weeks of driving and sleepless nights in tents, hostels, and cars. I am even more amused that this has all occurred in less than a week. My response? Relax? No. Start writing. And reflect upon the direction of this blog (as if it ever did follow a script).
On occasion I read my earlier work. I want to know if the writing has improved, if a style is beginning to take form, if I can feel emotion in the words as though I was writing them for the first time. In some instances, and this is especially true for my published work, I am disgusted by the simplicity, the Dan Brown-like vagaries, and the egregious and completely unnecessary overuse of flowery adjectives and space-filling adverbs found in Stephenie Meyer’s work.*
Aside from my travelogue, the posts on Rizzology were meaningless. The thought-pieces on the economy, politics, and outdoorsy subjects bored me. They were trite. So I deleted them. Well, not really. I do not condone the destruction of any written material. Instead, I banished it to my first blog, Zealously Moderate, which is now behind a wall that only an adept hacker can penetrate (go ahead, click the link for futility's sake). To compensate, I brought my favorite work from ZM under the Rizzology banner.
Another administrative change you may notice is the addition of the bolded Roadtrip Archive link on the sidebar. For those wishing to re-live my roadtrip, sans the painstaking process of tracking backward through the blog, the archive links every entry in chronological order and provides a gateway to the pictures.
Going forward, this space will take the form of my early work on ZM: infrequent, but more meaningful posts; obscurities and symbolism; less focus on current events, and more notes and thoughts on, well, who knows for sure.
Comments and criticism are welcome. And, as always, Twitter and Facebook will be there to provide updates on the madness that is my world.
*Get it?
Posts
I started my blog to document my ridiculous experiences as Miss Michigan. Once I gave up that title I struggled to figure out what it should be about. In fact, you can actually witness this taking place as a theme in some of the posts after June 2008. It took me a while to realize that it didn't need any particular direction. Life provides enough interesting material on a regular basis that it becomes its own theme. As long as you're honest in your writing it will have value and meaning. If it's any reassurance, I'm a complete stranger and find your stuff interesting.
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