Day 9: this one is going up late, but it is done

Now that I'm nine days into NaBloPoMo, it occurs to me that the exact same thing happened the last two times I did this. Ahead of time, it sounds like a great idea. I come up with lists of topics to write about, I confidently suppose that other ideas will occur to me as the month goes on.

Then the damn thing actually starts, all my ideas evaporate, and I'm left with a dilemma: bail, or keep writing drivel. I think you know me well enough by now to know that drivel is about to ensue, so bear with me. Since we'll be out of town for four days this week, I need to write six posts in the next two days.

Oh you poor dears.


I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to get through the next 21 days (photo posts? more lists? more re-posts of old posts?), but I'm pretty sure I won't be posting much in December.

So my idea for today is that I will run through the list of ideas that sounded great before the month started, but now are boring me to death.

1. Food rant. Oh, this one was going to be good. I was going to go on and on about how homemade, organic, non-GMO, la la la la la has become just one more way to separate the haves from the have nots, the people who have enough time and energy to worry about that stuff, from the people who are just trying to stay afloat. But you know what? I think this one is taking care of itself. Most of the people I know who were obsessing about making their own mustard and baking pop-tarts from scratch a year ago have already moved on to something else. None of us wants to be chained to the kitchen. The ones who are still into it are there because they genuinely enjoy cooking, and that's as it should be. It absolutely astonishes me that things happen in the internet world without me expressing my opinion about them.

2. Issues of midlife: dealing with aging parents, becoming aware of our own mortality and that of the people around us, the joy of reconnecting with old friends.... there were probably some other ones in there, too. The problem with these posts is that acknowledging that they happen doesn't necessarily give me something to say about them (see the empty nest post). Sometimes it feels like the world is teetering on its edge when my mom says something or does something that she would never have done 10 years ago. She's my mom. She's supposed to be always and eternally the same. She's not supposed to need me to take care of her. But there. That's all I've got to say about it, and it was three (four?) sentences.

3. Mysteries. For some reason, I read mystery novels in the fall. They hold no interest for me the rest of the year. I think mainly because they seem like the perfect thing for wet, gray, cold weather. But our weather has been gorgeous this fall (until the past ten days or so). Thus, I have read only one mystery so far. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I thought that was going to be an entire blog post. Of course, in my defense, I did think the weather would be its usual cold gray self, and I would be able to talk about some of the mysteries I'd read.

4. In my ongoing intermittent series about marriage, I was going to say that the least useful possible reaction to your spouse is mute outrage. If you're pissed, say it. You might want to wait until the white-hot part of your anger is over, and we should all, married or not, learn about fair fighting techniques (google it if you've never been in marriage counseling, there are some great resources out there). But if you get to the point where you're fuming and not saying anything about it, that's more of a problem than whatever the original issue was. I couldn't possibly be saying this because it's one of my worst faults. Oh, no, not me.

OK, there you go. I managed to get a post done, to write a list that didn't have seven items, and to cross several not-worth-an-entire post ideas off my list. Have a great Monday.