Insomnia with a Purpose

I'm taking a workshop this week for teachers of writing. It got me thinking about when I actually used to write a bit. So of course I had to get up at 5 a.m. or so and dig through a file drawer in a file cabinet in the attic in my robe and slippers to look at stuff I had written 15 years ago. Some is missing..maybe on an old computer in the basement..maybe not. Don't know if there are hard copies of everything. This stuff was from 15 years ago..I was in my...er..depressed, bohemian writers stage...reading about Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, Anais Nin, Henry Miller..yuck, nope, not going back there, but probably did some of my best writing when in a state of narcissism..but not really narcissism, because I sure didn't love myself! Maybe it is time to take it up again, a different and better person..between grad school classes that is.

Returning

I'm going to make an attempt to return to my writing. I'm a teacher on summer break, but it hasn't felt much like summer break. My husband and I continue to care for his mother. We've adjusted. That doesn't mean I haven't had, and won't continue to have on occasion, a melt down. No more whining about that, however.

Actually I'm back because a friend who is much more tech saavy than I hooked me up with google reader so I could attempt to organize the blogs and other websites I frequent (which actually I haven't frequented much at all lately). So it prompted me to actually look to see when I last wrote. When I first saw March, I was thinking it had been a whole year. It hasn't. Only around three months; that isn't as bad as I thought. It "feels" like a year though.

I'll see what I can do here again.

Following the Rules

Having begun as someone completely unfamiliar with blogging, and really just wanting to make myself write a little, I am realizing that I have consistently broken the rules of blogging. My name is too complicated and difficult to remember and spell. I can't do anything about that now unless it is possible to close this one out and direct followers (few though they are) to another.

Second, my posts are way too long, so I'm stopping this one....now.

Copycat

Ok, I'm going to be a copycat...or try. I just read my daughter's blog, which is much more interesting and hip and young than mine; also a friend mentioned to me yesterday that she noticed I hadn't posted much lately. It's twoooo. Not only haven't I posted, I haven't read those I follow either. I'm going to try to change that.

As I mentioned, I just read my daughter's blog, Morgendorf, and she mentions it is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). Well she didn't call it DaNaBloPoMo (Daily National Blog Posting Month), so I don't know if I'll post daily (which is her goal), but I'll try to get going more regularly again. I might even do more than one a day to catch up.

(One note of frustration: Recently I accidentally put Windows Vista on my computer....well, it wasn't actually me but that is or could be another post. Since that happened, I'm having a little trouble getting blogspot to do what I want. I can't just click in the body of the post and move about. If I get off track I have to click myself back to the title, tab into the body of the post, and use the arrow to move where I want to be...very frustrating and enough to make one stop posting!)

Maybe my life is just too boring to post more regularly...but you know, I'm finding it isn't such a bad place to be.

Tiny Bubbles

Why is it that I come up with great things to write about in my blog, the first line of a great American novel, or the forward for a successful professional book when I am steeped in steaming water and covered in bubbles in the bath tub?

Stress<----->Computer

This is where I have been spending a lot of time lately. When people first started having PC's in the home they sort of became addictive. It was just such an awesome thing. The kids who have been born in the past ten years won't understand what a novelty it was for some of us.

I was an addictee when we first got one in the home, then I got away from that thankfully. Now a bit of me has become like that again. I've started this blog and another, I'm typing instead of writing out my lesson plans, I'm on Facebook, and there are always emails to check and websites to investigate (usually teacher websites I like exploring).

Lately my computer has been really slow...I mean sssllllloooooooowww. I'm a patient person. Unlike my husband, who will walk away if it doesn't do what he wants it to immediately, I stick it out. I wait...and wait...and wait...for something I need to load. It's funny, but lately I've sensed a lot more tension in my body than usual. The back of my neck has been aching and burning, and I've had a number of headaches.

Just yesterday the man who helps me with computer issues came over and installed some memory on my computer, updated our virus software, and removed some of the things that come with computers that you never use.

After he left (I didn't have much time because we had evening plans) I came in and clicked explorer only to have my home page almost instantly appear. I felt this huge weight lift from me. I'm starting to wonder if my stress, the tension I felt and headaches I've had are somehow related to the amount of time I've spent sitting here waiting and waiting and waiting, bound and determined to get that picture loaded, that blog written, and those lesson plans done.

I hope so. I am trying to simplify my life in a lot of ways. One is that I really do not want to live on the computer. Life is too short. Technology is a tool, not a way to spend hours and hours of my life. I hope this means the end of the extra tension and headaches.

Poop!

I don't think there is a picture I can attach to this one.

When I got going on this blog and gave it a name, my oldest asked me what Seshat was. I explained. She then told me it sounded sort of like the tongue twister about selling seashells by the shore. It sort of came out as Sheshat instead of Seshat. She told me it sounded like a sentence...She shat...which in turn sounded like the past tense of She shit.

When she told me that I thought maybe I should change it. But then....isn't that really what I'm doing...sh-i-t-t-i-n-g? After all, I'm "emptying" my thoughts, getting it all out of my system...you know what I mean.

What is coming out is another issue. Whether it has any value, I really can't say. It might simply be crap, but it makes me feel better.

The Importance and Power of Punctuation

Someone forwarded this to my husband today, and he forwarded it to me.

An English professor wrote the words:

"A woman without her man is nothing."

...on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All the males in the class wrote:

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class wrote:

"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Writing and Teaching

One of the reasons I started this blog was because of my love for teaching writing. Since I am an avid fan of a writer's workshop approach, it means I should be writing. The teacher must experience the process of writing in order to understand the student. My writing has been scattered.

Should I unexpectedly die, none of the writing I've done would make much sense to anyone. When my children were small I tried to write to keep a record of my experiences as a mother. I have four children. Need I say more? I didn't have time to be consistent. I have various journals likely buried in drawers, the attic, and who knows where (I don't). No doubt many entries were left without dates.

I've written a bit of poetry, but not for ten years or so. I need to pull it back out. Now that there is some distance from it (ten years should be enough) maybe I'll decide if it is any good. Most people I know who write poetry say their poetry is dark, that the best poetry produced is from the deep, dark self.

Hopefully whoever outlives me won't think I was a narcissistic depressed individual, just based on the snippets I've written. Aren't we all unhappy sometimes? Doesn't some of the best writing come from depressed people....Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner, to name only a few. Maybe they shouldn't have ever been labeled as depressed, unhappy people. Maybe they should have been labeled as normal people who were brave enough to write.

So as I enter a new school year, I'm keeping up with my writer's notebook where I'll plant images, snippets of conversations, and observations to use for ideas. I hope also to keep this blog going, but I hope to write more than daily musings and experiences from my personal and teaching life. Maybe I'll plant a little poetry, a little fiction, and a little memoir right here.

I don't know what the rules of blogging are, if there are any. I don't know if mine are too long or too short, I haven't quite figured out how to label my posts into proper categories, but I'll keep reading and writing and try not to worry about exposing myself or offending someone, because I really really....I really must write.