Here’s what I think: Despite the very attractive and addictive qualities of sites like facebook and twitter I like blogging better. I think it was more fun before, when people took more time to read and to visit and to comment. Nowadays it feels as if everyone is beginning to be stretched thin and burning out on the whole internet togetherness thing. 140 character soundbites do not allow me to feel close to anyone, even if that is about how much time I really have available for online interaction.
That doesn’t mean I will quit any of the other sites where I have a presence, but it does mean that I am planning to try and be present HERE more than I have been, because this is where I feel most at home. If that means I am somewhat LESS present at those other sites, so be it. My own personal “write more” crusade is coinciding with Nablopomo or whatever it’s called but I’m not officially on that bandwagon (though I’m always glad for anything that makes the people I love to read write more)
Aside/ I just stopped over to the new Nablopomo blog and there are 3841 people signed up! Good lord! You all are insane /end aside, begin boggling
I just had a mild panic attack at the fact that it is (already) November and that means time has suddenly shunted into a vortex wherein it speeds up and suddenly it’s Christmas and OMG I have shopping to do! presents to buy! cards to write! aaagh! *wheeze wheeze* Why does it seem that everything happens in the last 3 months of the year??
We had an appointment at the bank today to move some mutual funds and the woman kept asking us what we’d like to do with the money and made several suggestions about different funds and insurance thingies and stock obligation doohickeys and the whole time I felt like I was staring at her as if she had two heads and they were both speaking Greek. Because that’s how money/stock/fund/interest talk comes out. As if she was Miss Othmar and I was Charlie Brown: mwamp mwah mwham mwhamp
It makes me feel stupid that I am so clueless when it comes to stocks and bonds and funds and my potential pension and I just want to bury my head in the sand like a spastic ostrich. It’s depressing to have such a handicap when it comes to these things: I feel I have no clue what the future holds or how to turn it to my advantage (our advantage, really) when it comes to how we could be earning/using/saving money in a better way. Do you feel like that? Or do you know what you’re doing when you re-finance a loan or look at the stock market figures? DO you look at the stock market figures? Do you know what you’re seeing if you do? And if so, did you have to take a class or did you figure it out yourself?
I wish it weren’t so dark out now that we’ve switched to winter time. It’s just barely getting light when I leave the house in the mornings and it’s getting dark when I leave the office at FOUR in the afternoon! Already! And it’s 2 months to the solstice! The leaves have all exploded onto the ground in fiery showers of gold and molten leaves but because it’s so wet out they’re dark, too. The ground is soggy and the leaves are piled up in big sodden piles. The tilled fields look like dark chocolate. My mouth actually waters as I drive through the gloaming. I think I shall go furtively gobble a leftover Halloween Tootsie Roll.
In the car on the way home today, I listened to a radio announcer giving a history lesson on Halloween for the benefit of his Swedish audience. He (and his sidekick both) expressed amazement at the realization that Halloween is NOT of American origin. I wanted to yell DUH! at the radio. I can’t count how many times I’ve been handed dismissive comments by Swedes about how Americans thought up Halloween and are spreading it all over the world in the interest of making money off of innocent children, etc. etc. when all the time they should have been blaming their fellow Europeans! We just refined the holiday, we didn’t think it up! 😛