Here's The Thing

Yup, the bionic arm brace is off but I'm still typing with my left index finger, which has become the The Super Digit I always knew it could be. Nevertheless, I'm going to blame the infrequency of my blog postings on my recently crippled state. Trouble is, blogs being a narcissistic excercise, I'd be lying to the only person who knows the real truth, myself.

Clearly, I have not gotten the hang of this new medium, otherwise I would not censor myself at every turn. Turns out, my own brain houses the cruelest editor with very little regard for the talent of her host. No matter what topic I approach, it gets shot down by that that evil inner bitch that I shall now name, "Edna." Nothing ever seems to have "legs" and there's always her recurring question that never fails to plant a seed of doubt, "Who cares?"

I can see and hear her quite clearly. Anyone that gets within ten feet of Edna knows she smokes too much and since her husband ran off in the mid-70s, she lives at her desk, marinating in her own dour juices. Supposedly she's working on a book about North American herbal poisons but no one has seen a word of it.

So the other day, I'd been looking forward to seeing one my favorite artists perform (Jem at Bimbo's) when it is announced that the show is cancelled. After the initial disappointment, I began to worry about her. Did she fall ill? Was there a death in the family? I started to think about the strange one-sided relationship we have with famous artists - how we come to care about them because of the joy they have given. Anyway, I proposed the idea to Edna who shot it down so fast it made my head spin. "That's ridiculous," she spat, "there's just not enough there to work with. Try again."

And so it went, me avoiding my own blog - my self-proclaimed Writing Gym - out of some asinine fear that none of my ideas were good enough and I really had nothing to say.

Then, a beautiful thing happened, one of my favorite women (and an avid blog reader) started her own blog ClutterMusuem just after giving birth to son, Lucas. In her words: "Hey, my life is as insignificant as all these other blog writers', but they have a public forum, so why shouldn't I?" It was a refreshing wake-up call.

Fuck Edna.