I've Forgotten How to Blog!

I recently sent work-related e-mails from home and forgot to erase the automatic signature, which says http://alice-in-blogland.blogspot.com/. The recipient noticed, and then several other work people turned out to have read it too, including my boss...

I’m sure I must have left the same signature at the bottom of something or other I’ve sent my mum at some point as well, although god knows whether she’ll have figured out what a “blogspot” is or what to do with it, especially since it doesn’t begin with “www…”

For some reason I mentioned this blog to my half-sister too, who I’ve never met but who I’ve been in contact with for the first time recently by e-mail, and on whom I’m very much still making first impressions…

And then, before xmas, I went to a big co-op party where, (at least as far as the more coherent parts of my memory of the evening suggest,) about three different people said they'd read something or other I'd written here. Although come to think of it those could all have been the same person wearing different wigs…

Now every time I sit down to punch random musings into my grubby keyboard, I keep imagining my boss, my mum, someone who’s going to be my sister and every Leeds activist I’ve ever met, all in different wigs, all gathered around the same computer screen waiting for me to do something worthwhile here to justify the publicity. It's been making it a bit difficult to write.

I feel quite a lot like a rabbit again, this time one caught in headlights.

What if I say something stupid?

I suppose that question implies that I don't think any of those people have ever heard me say anything stupid before, which is extremely unlikely given the rubbish I come out with in person when I don't even have to be able to spell any of it.

Anyway, deliberately pitching to specific audiences is for advertisers, I'd rather write about whatever I want and assume that only people who'll tend to like it will tend to read it. I guess really I just can't decide what to blog about, and the more I think about it the less I can prioritise.

Plenty of better-informed-than-I-am people are already writing about Gaza, on which subject it's as much as I can do to suppress a scream every time I hear words like "proportional" and "right to exist" - some things I get too pissed off to even rant coherently about.

The UK government has just given the go-ahead for a third runway at Heathrow, which I probably will rant about when I've caught up on reading everyone else's rants and worked out what actually needs doing next about it.

And of course capitalism continues to eat itself, with some amusing and some scary consequences which so far haven't included me losing my job, being repossessed or having to do a masters degree.

So how to get this blog habit going again?

My most productive days often start with a lot of aimless but active flitting around, just feeling the caffeine kick in and tidying things up entirely at random whether they need it or not. I then usually start seriously doing about three or four things at once, while making huge lists of other things like taking the bins out and finding out where that smell is coming from (those two things are "on my list" right now), which I may or may not do when I lose momentum on any of my supposedly primary tasks, or if I somehow manage to actually finish any of them.

Sometimes I'll then suddenly be seized with a very specific project that I'm absolutely compelled to completely immerse myself in right this minute, develop and expand into all available physical and mental space, and concentrate on to the exclusion of everything else until it occurs to me that I haven't eaten for hours, I haven't slept for days and I haven't returned anyone's calls since last Tuesday. That's how shelving gets put up.

I think I'll have a good flit around, aimlessly tidy up this blog a bit and see what happens. Making a nice cup of tea is usually a good start.

Rabbit photo © MzePhotos.com, Some Rights Reserved