And So On and So On and Scooby Dooby Dooby

The theme of today's post is blogging everyday.

I don't understand how people can blog everyday. My fellow (and everyday) blogger Justin from Schadenfreude blogs daily, and recently mused on the same topic. Then, of course, there's the gossip bloggers, those cyber virtuosos who (how?) post reams of text and celeb glossies daily. Oh, and are clever, too. Clever on command. Not when they are walking to get a Potbelly and then forget the so-damn-funny thing they wanted to say when back in front of the Dell flatscreen.

I imagine daily blogging requires the dexterity and determination of an athlete. Or, duh, a salary. Of course I have blabbed before (and will again) about how great it would be to write everyday, and for a living--yet when faced with the free, viable, no-brain, 24-7 opportunity to do so, and with a guaranteed audience of at least one free-porn spammer--I've managed a paltry couple-dozen posts in over a year. Factor in the reality that most of what I have written in general, outside of blogging, since the end of 2003 has been academic and typically involves an annotated bibliography and copious citations from Michel Foucault. You'd think I'd be slavering for an opportunity to say what I want, when I want, how I want--and not have to do it in 8 to 15 pages, double-spaced.

When I blog, I inevitably don't just write. I have to craft. And I am not saying "craft" to insinuate that I am toiling any harder than anyone else or aspire to or fancy myself as some Blogger Laureate. What I mean is, when I write, I am sighingly opening a new browser window, groaningly typing www.thesaurus.com into the address bar, and dizzying myself with the legion of potential replacements for "anger" or "deft" or "simulacre."

I have to make things harder than they have to be. But isn't that, in a way, a means of demanding (again, not aiming for loftiness) excellence? And I'll have you know I came thisclose to surfing Thesaurus.com for a better word than ""loftiness."

Perhaps my writing process mirrors how I shop. Unless I am struck by sudden inspiration and/or luck ($200 designer sandals for 35 bucks! Perfect words--like "choleric" that just pop into mind!), it's a long and winding road involving the investigation of every possible avenue until a decision is made. I mean, this is why both Ebay and thesauri are online, right, to provide the chance for all chances to be exhausted?

Maybe I should try to define my blog, then. Centrifuge it down to its essence. Well, folks, that would be the twin obsessions: music and words.

Wow, that's a wee bit sweeping--which is maybe why I don't touch this damn thing very often.

Or, maybe I need more persistent theme. A reportage. A project, like assigning myself a handful of terrible summer-season, prime-time network television programs to watch weekly and on which to comment, whilst monitoring the deadening of my motor and intellectual skills, and cagily making world-wise observations about culture-at-large.

But, no. I have a nice flower garden planted this year, and I'd like to enjoy it and good wine and friends, away from the t.v.

Yes, I think I'll blog as much as feels rigorous, and as little as feels seditious and exhilarating.

...And I wrote that without a thesaurus.