We blog because we can't not blog

Ever have that itch? Call it compulsion, obsession … whatever.

Whether it’s checking your e-mail every two seconds or making a habit out of rounding up the latest gossip on your favorite celeb, we all have something we feel we just simply must do.

I started thinking about the subject after I started blogging again and I read a good friend’s writings (in her blog) on the subject. With all the junk out there, it’s true – do we need more? Does anyone care what anyone else has to say when it comes to the minutia of our lives?

I think not.

And furthermore, I think – if we did care, would we even have the time to keep up?

Definitely not.

But here I am, with the itch that must be scratched. I must write. And I must share what I write, despite the fact that no one (not even my mother, Heidi) will read it. It is entirely possible this is my way of making up for not having newspaper deadlines anymore as a writer, with my feelings of loss coming out in gobs of far-too-wordy exposés on nothing. On topics possibly not even Seinfeld could make a show out of. And if that was the show about nothing, this is the blog about nothing.

I think, furthermore, that this is the common denominator of blogs. Although some (like this one), start off with a theme, a purpose, the actual driveling of entries are so purposeless that it’s impossible for them to truly be about something.

Blogs about sports end up feeding the monster (content-needy readers) with things like the Navy football team visiting the White House, just as does like, every year since it had a team.

Blogs about celebrities devolve into who likes what kind of frappacino, and what ridiculously expensive shoes she wears to get it at Starbucks.

Or blogs expounding people’s training habits for their sports end up turning into either mindless recording of their miles or anecdotes about their shoes, watches and heart rates with personal triumphs and epiphanies sprinkled throughout their massively long pages of daily entries. Their discipline, it seems, follows through not only in their commitment to jog daily, but to keep everyone informed about those jogs by their commitment to blog daily, as well.

So why do we do it? Because we have to. Just as the title of this no-follower, no-friends blog suggests, Because It’s There.

I realize that mine comes from a writing obsession, as my friend admitted in her blog as well. I think she’s like me in that I find pleasure in noticing the oddities of life, and they are best told in writing, not speaking.

And I don’t think it’s out of self-indulgent self-interest, because then we would care if people were hanging on our last word. I couldn’t care less.

And, as itches go, I made myself feel better earlier today by finding ones far worse to scratch.

For example, on the bathroom wall inside Ernest Hemingway’s house in Cuba, you’ll find his weight and blood pressure etched in pencil for every day he lived in the house. I’m not sure I have ever known what my blood pressure is, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what my weight is on a daily basis.

Two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling obsessively took large doses of vitamin C, which he was sure would ward off not only the common cold, but cancer as well. As far as I know, he didn’t die of either, though – so maybe he’s right.

And that brings me to the master of obsession, Mr. Howard Hughes, who spent his free time creating orders for his assistants to use no fewer than six tissues when touching a door knob to open a door, and no fewer than 12 when opening a cabinet. And that’s just the tip of the crazy iceberg.

So if we must write, and we must post these obsession-laden writings to blogs, then it simply must be done.

And does a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it make a sound? But I do know that a blog without a single reader still makes its impact: Because the satisfaction is in the writing.

 

Choose your obsessions

By Siddharth Anand

 

Choose your obsessions

For they are unworthy possessions

Trojan horses

They bind you

Without you realizing

They hinder your natural design

And make you completely blind

 

Choose your obsessions

For they are unworthy possessions;

They are the weeds,

You; yourself choose to grow.

Some seeds are rotten..

Still you keep them, them, you don’t throw.

 

And after the tsunami

You wonder why you were destroyed

By; your own army…

 

Choose your obsessions

For they are unworthy possessions;

They determine; the extent of your regression…

Although we must All have some,

Eggs turn into chickens

Choose your obsessions

For they are impressions

Which can determine your future

& Tomorrow’s positions

The journey; and the final decision.

 

Choose your obsessions

For they are unworthy possessions

What do you get the man who has everything?

Every year, exactly three times per year, I face the most dreaded of tasks: buying my father a gift. 

Whether it's for his birthday, which I complete forgot to even call last year (good daughter, huh?), Christmas, which at least brings with it some seasonal gift options, or the worst one, Father's Day, it's always something I begin as an epic adventure and end by realizing disappointment for myself and my poor father. 

I generally don't have any idea what to get a guy who is not a good consumer to begin with (my dad has been known to wear dress socks until so many toes are sticking out a bum wouldn't even wear them) and has enough money to get basically anything he wants. Or, at least he can buy anything that I could ge

t him, which isn't saying much.

The problem is, I've picked the low-hanging fruit. I've already given ties with cartoon characters on them, books, and the easy standby bailout gift: Anything with his favorite sports teams' logos on it, from embroidered checkbook covers to flasks with a set matching shot glasses (He doesn't even really drink, by the way). Alas, most of these items were either thankfully disposed of years ago or are collecting dusts as relics from a different age down in his home office, which has shelves upon shelves packed with sports memorabilia shit.

I've also done all the sentimental gifts, which are always good for getting better mileage with less cash. I've given framed photos of daddy and his little girl, picture collages, poems, and even spent a month carefully crafting a scrapbook for him chronicling me and my brother's lives in pictures from birth. It was the first and last I'll ever do. Spending hours hunched over a book covered in glue trying to get little handprints to stick to a page is not my idea of fun. A year ago for Christmas, it was the picture above in a frame. A picture he dislikes, by the way.

So this year, I planned a get-together with us kids, and we're taking him to a Rockies game. I thought I had it in the bag. I bought tickets for everyone, worked with my brother to arrange a post-game bbq at his house - I was on top of it. Until my brother asked, "So, any ideas on what to get dad?"

Uhhh ... "This is what I'm getting dad?"Apparently, I overestimated that my presence was present enough. 

So, I'm back to square one ... he's going to Paris, a beret as a joke? A book on French? (So many people have had so much success learning languages this way) A ... money belt? (I want to up the dork level a little for his vacation - why not just get a fanny pack?)

Another wine opener for his burgeoning wine-drinking hobby? (Because those are rare and hard to find) A gift certificate for a restaurant? (A nice, impersonal gift for the man who raised you and answered your crying phone calls twice a week during your freshman year in college).

Movies? A CD? (Actually, that was last year's present, as I recall. I thought he was getting more than just a CD by me introducing him to Jack Johnson. Your welcome, dad.)

OK, I'm stumped. So plan B is to go to the mall and see what I find that reeks of "dadness" and I determine he absolutely cannot live without.

Because football season is almost beginning — and who can't use another Broncos car flag with matching license plate frame?

Get out!

Get out! That's the point of this blog - that, and my hope to finally fulfill my New Year's resolution to write on a regimented and regular basis. As you can see, with this being Feb. 8, I haven't been real strict with myself this year. 

It's also my attempt to ensure I will get out of my house and explore the world around me no matter how cold it is, how unpleasant it might be or how lazy I feel and to share what I hope will be increasingly cool pictures. It's not a grandiose goal, and I'm sure it will go down as the least read blog on the Internet today. That's OK.

So we begin ... 

Misty May (my trusty golden retriever and sidekick) and I went out to explore our what's beyond the pink survey flags that mark the edge of our backyard a little more thoroughly on Superbowl Sunday. It was one of those thawing days where you'll still need a coat but, given enough sunshine, ice in some places is being coaxed into melting into the soil, creating a nice clay mud mix here in Mid-Missouri. 

Behind our house is a large slope that leads up to a road that's currently seeing some of its first development. But that steep slope is the reason my husband and I bought this house - the topography essentially limits it from having neighbors behind us other than the deer, fox, squirrels, raccoons and other wild things that live there now.

So, with a leash clipped to Misty for safety and to slow her down, we began our venture into the great wild (seeing as trespassing is more of an idea than an actual offense, in my mind). Our house was built in a valley of hills and is actually located in a modified floodplain of the Hinkson Creek. Go down the small slope of what is no doubt fill dirt toward the small intermittent creek that runs behind our property and you'll see instantly that this land is nature's way of dealing with excess water. 

Tough, spindly trees jut out of ground that, in places, can be muddy clay soil that can swallow your shoes whole to sandy spots that you simply sink into. I try to avoid both.

There is a great spot I'm fond of where water pools along limestone cliffs that form that slope I spoke of earlier. Misty, bounding on the sandy shore, was a bit perplexed to see the water covered with ice — this is a place she'd usually bound right into and take a swim. I was surprised myself to see something moving in the water: a small school of fish glinting as they swam along under the ice. This pool is no more than 3 feet deep (see pic above) and is secluded from any other streams or outlets for this water. If it dries up, they're done for. But on this sunny morning, each 2-inch fish is swimming along, trying to escape our presence.

I snapped a few pictures, trying to capture the fish (unsuccessfully) and the beautiful pattern a leaf frozen into the water made (mission accomplished). 

Not seeing Misty around me, I then turned around to find her staring and sniffing at something. Knowing my dog's propensity for rolling in dead things, I quickly scampered up the bank to find her staring at the carcass of a deer — a doe.

Eyeing it warily, it explained the smell I had noticed when we walked up to the pool. It was fairly decayed at that point, which means it must have been dead for awhile given the sub-zero temperatures we had had for weeks. I took a picture, not sure why, and moved on.

Misty and I worked our way up now, tracing the path the water took to end up in the pool. Following the limestone formations, we started climbing up a mini-ravine that we quickly found was filled with feet of fluffy dried leaves. Scampering up the hill, I heard the characteristic snapping of branches that comes with a herd of deer running away. I looked up in time to see a half dozen white tails flash as they moved over the ridge. Then my eyes traced the hill before me for a white tail of my own - luckily, Misty had not seen the deer. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to stow the images of her chasing them onto the road where a car driving by would no doubt hit her. 

With that image subsiding, I nonetheless grabbed her leash, just to be sure. We started traversing the top of the hill when I saw something that made me stop in my tracks: a small village of what looked like makeshift bunkers for some no doubt homeless residents. 

It's not uncommon in our area to have homeless people turn from shelters to their own methods of subsistence and survival. There's a large camp of them on a hill by a very busy thoroughfare into town that my friends and I have affectionately dubbed "the tarp people" because of the white and blue tarps that mark the shelter they've made for themselves. At night, you can see their little lights coming from below those tarps. Often I have thoughts of admiration for the toughness it takes to survive in such an existence, although I realize that's probably a glorification of their lifestyle. 

Eyeing the one structure, which was quite well made with a stacking of sticks into a uniform triangle and the other, which was mostly reinforced with our city's extremely sturdy and durable blue bags it distributes for recycling, I edged away from them immediately, not wanting to disturb any possible tenants. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture, but I didn't think it a wise move at that point, especially with my camera's obnoxiously loud shutter.

Instead, we worked our way part way down the hill, over an old barbed wire fence that had long rotted into a sagging pile of rusty wires. I found what looked like nature's version of a diamond necklace in the quartz deposits of a rock, and ahead was impressed with a limestone cliff covered in soft, green moss. 

Misty scampered down the hill, sliding down on leaves and then running full speed down the hill. I took things more slowly, actually thankful for the mud stuck to my shoes that gave me some grip on the piles of leaves moving under me. 

We got down to the valley floor, back into the marshy land that will be mushy and filled with water when spring comes. After stopping Misty from getting too personal with a dead turkey, we traveled to the edge of a small cliff overlooking the Hinkson Creek, which was a mere thread of what can be a raging river in high water. We hopped over downed logs that were covered in some sort of cool fungi growing out of them. On the edge of the creek, what we were standing on was a bank of earth that had been eroded away by the creek in high water, which means the 10 feet or so from us to the water is how much the creek rises when we get a lot of rainfall. The large peak flows are due to the storm runoff that comes from the massive amounts of pavement upstream, a problem that has caused the waterway to be added to the federal list of impaired waterways. It is nice to see the creek in its milder forms — it's a muddy, scary sight when it's at peak flow, but the kayakers love it.

With the sun becoming more obscured by clouds and the wind kicking up, the temperature began to convince me it was time to go inside and give Misty a bath.

On our way back, I was fiddling with my camera and Misty was zigzagging in and out of a dry creek bed when I saw what I thought was the largest squirrel ever. Taking a closer look at the large red tail that bobbed up and down as it ran away from me, I realized it was a red fox. Throwing on my large lens, I took off, running as fast as I could to keep up with the fox and maybe get to a point where I could steady myself enough to snap a few photos. All it took was the fox leaping over a few logs and I was outdone, clearly no match for a nimble creature of the woods. Looking around, I did find some other, more static things of beauty, however.
Cool green and red moss on a log, raccoon prints that I always think look eerily like children's hands and a feather of a wild turkey placed so nicely, you'd think it was posing. 

Alas, Misty and I's adventure was over, but the clay we dragged home with us on our feet is still lingering on our shoes and the patio.