Well, I never

I miss expressions that don't use the word "fuck" — or that require a bit more thought than simply sneering:

Gone to pieces.

Give a hang.

All broke up on you.

I shouldn't wonder.

A: "We never go out any more."

B: "You're just a head in a rusty metal box."

A: "If you had been more careful, I wouldn't be just a head in a rusty metal box."*

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!

— except that I gave up dancing about five years ago.

It was a wide but brief window.

We're all wondering whether the blogging window also is on the list to be shuttered.

Unlike an old building, it won't deteriorate upon abandonment; however, like Miss Doxie, Diary of a Mad Brown Woman, BiblioBoy, etc., untended blogs may be retained as archives, but they won't be consulted.

I rarely even read anything old that I've written, much less all your words of wisdom or the hundreds of articles I've bookmarked or cut-and-pasted into text files … or downloaded as a student from JStor and other databases …

Reading old paper-based diaries proves consistently to be depressing and repulsive. I know now why my mother burned hers, why it upset me, and why I both wish to burn and probably will not … so much now is electronic; it will survive "all" but easy cyberwarfare.

Does the world really need more information from me? Granted, unlike manufacturing anything but recorded verbal ideas, writing doesn't tax the world much; it does not add to much pollution — one can use recycled paper and pencils, after all, instead of relying on available electricity (non-solar — you can read a Kindle in the sun, but you still need power; books use power to be produced … all the tree-moving and processing and inking and re-distribution, so many trucks; I so would like to know the environmental impact of our books … book-carbon-footprint). The weight of words in our information age is diminished by dilution. Even our static thoughts, thoughts recorded, are mere blowing puffs.

My point is that I don't have much to say.

To clarify, I have lots of experiences that I could indulge myself in recording, but I doubt their narrative value to others as well as their usefulness to me. And my greater desire is to be humorous, which is funny in itself — I can not translate life into funny stories. (I haven't given much time to trying that : )

Additionally, the things I want most to talk about are exceedingly private the more public my professional persona becomes. Already there are plenty of things I can't say on Facebook. Today I want to complain about being undercut. That's about as much detail I can provide. Tossing in this idiom may help elucidate: If you snooze, you lose.

Please note that it is only the appearance of sleep, and there is certainly no rest involved. I maintain that there is nothing wrong with refusing to be forced to volunteer. I am not one of those good people. I recall a few semi-voluntary giving-of-time sessions, and also one willing and rewarding one, and a number of repeated-event forced ones that seem to have turned me off from unrenumerative uses of my time that involve having to please others instead of just solely myself.

Asking more and providing less. Great recipe; would rather be at the zoo — it's Wild, Wacky and Wet Wednesday, and they are giving the animals ice and other frozen treats all day long! $2 admission, $2 hotdogs, $2 train rides!

*Saturday Night Live c. 1990.