I stuck a post-it on my bedside lamp recently. It was another of my middle of the night thoughts. You know, besides the usuals. "I'm thirsty." "It's 4 am, why am I awake?" And "Neat. An erection."

This morning I decided to take a look at it. (The post-it, not the erection.)

It says, "You know that you are getting older when even your fantasies are making concessions."

I have no idea what lead to me jotting this down.

Maybe I had a dream that involved only four, instead of the regular six stewardesses plane monkeys flight attendants.

Now that I've read it again, it almost sounds wise, right? Right??

I never liked you.

So, I stuck that same post-it on my PC monitor and expected it to magically open my mindhole and pull out a fantastic blog post that would blow you away and cause you to write my name with hearts around it in your notebooks.

That goes for you ladies too.

I opened blogger. I looked at the post-it. I scratched my elbow. I wondered what Shakira has been up to lately. I remembered the night when I wrote on another post-it, "I wanna know what love is and I want you to shooooow me... with crude hand-drawn birds, bees and Eva Mendes."

Still, inspiration remained as elusive as a notch on a Jonas Brothers' head board. As rare as a Dinah Lohan grounding. As vexing as a -- Shit. Forgot where I was going with that one.

Point is, I still had no good ideas for a blog post.

And if you are anything like me -- Yooou WISH! -- you sometimes struggle to come up with a blog post idea.

So, since I am delightful and helpful, I decided to give you some ideas to get you started. This could be a meme, just much, much less gay. You take one of these ideas and write a post with it. Then you can link back to this post. Or not. I really don't give much of a shit either way.

And here are the ideas...

*****
#1

She fought against waking up for as long as she could.

The morning light causing an explosion of pain in her head, reminded her about what she did last night.

Roughly.

Even if there wasn't screeching head pain, the dry mouth and overwhelming urge to vomit may have been a bit of a clue.

As she tried to piece together the previous nights activities, she became aware that the breathing she was hearing wasn't her own.

She hesitantly looked to her left. After a moment of panic at seeing a male form there, she recognized a tattoo on the right shoulder.

"Not too bad then," she thought.

She then noticed an empty tequila bottle in the bed between them. She thought that fully explained why she ended up in bed with tattoo boy.

What it did not explain, however, was the bedraggled rodeo clown sprawled over the foot of their bed

"HooooowDEE!"

*****

#2

He had seen just about everything, he supposed, in his career as a doctor.

And anything he hadn't seen, he was fairly certain that his father had told him about from his own days in the white coat.

That was until today.

He walked into the examination room and saw Earl.

"Good morning, Earl. How is -- Wow. Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep."

"Really?"

"It's a jar of peanut butter, doc."

"Indeed."

"And my penis is stuck right in there."

"That is what I thought was going on here, Earl. Oh god... You don't have a dog, do you?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"What do you think, doc?"

"Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that it isn't 'Crunchy'..."

Labels: blogging

Do you ever feel like the whole thing has been co-opted into some
distasteful competition for comments and higher traffic numbers?

Like blogrolling is done for status as opposed to fandom or true friendship?

Like some bloggers would put out for a higher technorati rating?

Like the whole 'verse is about to implode due to it's own (undeserved)
self-satisfaction?

Like the blog world reeks of the exact wrong way to try to bolster self-esteem?

Like people care too much, while not caring nearly enough?

Like it isn't what it once was?

(Or maybe it's just that you're not?)

Like even the occasional brilliants post, or amazing acts, are being
lost in the cacophony of "I NEVER have sex on the first date, but I
was drunk"ness?

Do you ever feel like nobody fucking writes anymore?

I mean really writes.

Or at least makes an effort.

Do you ever feel like the post you are about to publish is going to
burn bridges and lose you some traffic?

Do you give a shit?

Labels: blogging, venting

Discussions about being single seem to come up more often around than holidays than any other time of the year. (Although, I suspect with women, it comes up any time a wedding invitation lands in the mail.)

"Don't you miss having a girlfriend at Christmas?"

Well, sure.

I actually discussed my feelings on this recently. However, my counsel (aka Clink) recommended that I don't post what I told her. And not because she wants to hide my lovability. Because, really, is that even possible? It was because I've been bothered by some of the grief I've taken lately about the number of female commenters I get here.

And I don't mean the good natured ribbing from friends about the skewed demographics. I understand good natured ribbing. That's how I makes my livings.

I've actually been accused of posting stuff JUST to appeal to the female commenters. The insinuation being that I use blog posts to get female attention to feed my ego.

First of all, I had a fairly substantial crush on myself looooong before I ever had a blog. And I suspect that will continue after I stop blogging.

Also, I like to think that I wrote like this first and some of you ladies hang out here because of that.

Regardless, it kind of sucks to second guess blog posts before hitting publish. It sucks to wonder if it is going to come across as a cry for attention or some such.

It sucks that I am probably going to shut comments off on this post because of it.

It sucks.

But, I am working on getting back to not giving a fuck.

Now, the lack of a significant other thing...

There are times.

There are times when it does hit you.

You know?

The other night I called The ACN. She was hanging out with her grandmother (her dad's mom.) And her grandmother (aka Nana) told me that they were reading a book about a little boy who also has CP.

That started to hit me a little, but I powered through.

"Are you liking the book?"

She replied with the cutest little "Yeeeeah" ever.

And then she wanted to get off the phone immediately because the book was more interesting than Unc. As most books are.

I sat there.

For a while.

My thoughts were jumbled.

I felt heart broken wondering about how much she understood. How much does she understand about why she is in a wheelchair like the little boy in the story.

I felt frustrated that she couldn't just tell me how much she understood.

I felt guilty for being frustrated, because I know how hard it is for her when we don't understand her.

I felt VERY proud of her for being such a tough and sweet little trooper. She's been through a LOT.

And all these feelings hit at once.

And I sat there.

At some point I realized that this... this was one of those times when I missed having a girlfriend.

Someone with whom there is no need for an introduction or explanation before you say something. Someone with whom there is no need for a disclaimer afterwards.

Someone who will let you just express "it" and get it out.

No judging.

If you sound like a prick, it's fine.

If you sound like a 12 year old girl, it's fine.

It's just fine.

So, yeah, I miss thinking and researching and shopping for months to find that present that makes a girlfriend's face light up.

But, I miss that safe to be yourself feeling so much more.

Labels: ACN, blogging

I learned something a long time ago.

Being tried as an adult sucks.

I also learned that...

Blogging is weird.

Over the past few days, I've been discussing blogging and the blogworld in general with two of my bestest blog friends. We've talked about how it seems to have changed. We've talked about jerkface, pussy-assed anonymous commenters.

Even the way in which I "met" these two awesome blog chicas is kind of odd. I discovered one through the blogroll of a NY musician. The second one discovered me through Indie Bloggers. And they were already friends. Weirder still is that the first one has been reading the blog of an ex of mine for years, so she already knew far too much about me.

Blogging is weird.

Take a look at your own blogroll. As in real life, you'll see some that are friends of friends. But, then there'll be some that you noticed leaving a nice/funny/sexy comment on another blog and you followed them home. You commented on them. They commented on you. You know how it goes. You may even be reading this because I saw your user pic someplace and thought that you were just so impossibly hot. We all have at least one of those on our blogroll.

Blogging is weird.

The blogworld sometimes has a high school vibe. Lots of cliques. Even in high school, I never felt like I fit in one. I always thought that the cool kids saw me as a smart kid. And the smart kids saw me as a class clown/slacker. And since I played basketball around the clock, I assumed that I got some votes as a "jock." (Of course, as long as I could date the girls I was interested in, I really didn't care.) Even on the day I graduated, a group of us were awarded "Certificates of Merit" for keeping a certain average in a specific group of classes. As we were being called up on stage for the certificates, the guy behind me in line leaned in and said, "Wow. I had no idea that you were smart."

I also don't feel like I fit into a blog clique. I am private and don't like sharing personal information. (Except for ACN stories -- she is too cute for me NOT to gush about.) And I don't like recapping my days for my readers, because, well, I've already lived through it. I am already bored with it and want to move on to something creative. So, I'm an almost daily blogger that doesn't like to share personal information or talk about his day to day activities.

Blogging is weird.

If you blog for long enough, at some point somebody is going to e-mail you to tell you that they have a raging crush on you. It is going to seem very odd to you that somebody can get to this point without even having exchanged e-mails or IM messages with you. It is going to seem very odd to you until you find yourself reading the post of a woman, becoming smitten with her words, and wanting to know her thoughts on, well, everything.

Blogging is weird.

It is hard, for me anyway, to gauge what kind of post might connect with readers. Today I could have churned out a half-assed post on relationships, while asking a few questions, and received thirty comments. Or I could have spent hours pouring everything I have into writing the (somewhat) heart-breaking short story that is bouncing around in my head and received three comments.

Blogging IS weird.

Yet here we all are.

Labels: blogging, NaBloPoMo