While posting on my Twitter page today (last time, I swear - and this time I mean it) I discovered a cold, black part of my soul. And that is that I really don't like writing when there's no comments section for people to tell me that they liked what I wrote afterwards. I've become addicted to feedback. I've become like those children who stand on chairs in the middle of weddings and funerals and start singing for everyone. Which is not to say that I'm going to stop using Twitter, because I've become too addicted to it to turn back now. So addicted, in fact, that I've noticed that I post more comments (I know it's called Tweets, but I hate that expression) than all of the people I'm following put together. That probably should be a light bulb moment that forces me to reassess my need to share every thought that pops into my head with people, particularly when I realized earlier today that I post more than the White House twitter page. For just a brief second it made me think, What the hell is wrong with me that I feel the need to share more with the American public than the people who are actually running the country? But that moment of self-awareness quickly dissipated, and now my observation about my Twitter activity has fueled me onward to see if I can somehow find a way to post twice as many comments as all of the people I follow put together. I like a challenge.
Today is the end of week 28, and I think you all know what time it is -
For the week:
CHAPTERS - 151
PAGES - 1,873
For the year so far:
CHAPTERS - 4,103
PAGES - 53,393
And while I'm recapping the week, I want to welcome all of the new followers who have shown up in the last week (including two more of my relatives, Aunt Rita and Cousin Jennie.) Thank you so much for following - I'm so excited to see how close I'm getting to 200 followers. And for those who haven't become followers yet: Come on, you know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it. You'd be so popular if you did. Plus, if I hit 200 I may have to write another thank you speech (although the thought of that might actually deter you.)
Today's book, "Like a treasure from the sea, this memoir is polished, luminous and elemental. Poet Huntington and her artist husband, Bert Yarborough, spent three seasons in a single-room "dune shack" on a remote Provincetown beach she describes as "a place of such wild austere beauty that at first I had no word for its spaces, its dusty heat, the thrilling clarity of its air."
I have no idea why I keep reading books about people who go and live by the sea. I think I read a second one as well, but I can't remember what it was. I wonder if my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Maybe I'm meant to go live by the sea. I do have a really good beach hat that looks like it's straight out of the 1940s, but that hardly seems like enough to build a whole life around, although if anyone could build a life around a hat it would be me.
Today's book was a very slow moving book - which was quite possibly the worst kind of book I could have chosen on a day when I'm tired. The book moved at an incredibly slow pace - oh, why dance around the obvious, nothing happened in this book. And unlike the last book I read where nothing happened, this kind of nothing did not hold my interest. (Please excuse all the links I'm putting up dear readers, I'm just reveling in the excitement of actually knowing the correct way of making a link. It took 6 1/2 months of blogging for me to actually figure it out, and now I'm in a linking frenzy.)
The book also lacked a plot - it was kind of like a cross between a journal and a book of essays - which may have been the point, but I don't really care to read about other people doing nothing. It's just overkill. Although perhaps it's preferable to those people who feel the need to convince everyone that their lives are a crazy, non-stop whirlwind of activity. Why can't people just tell the truth about their lives? Why can't they just respond to people's questions of So what have you been up to lately? with the gritty truth about their lives, Well we don't really do anything, so nothing is new. Actually, I already know the answer to that question. People don't respond that way because they don't want to get blank stares in return, the very blank stares I've received the few times I've attempted that response. It's actually kind of amusing to respond to people that way - it throws them off their we're-friendly-acquaintances-enjoying-some-small-talk script and they have no idea what to say next. I can practically see the thought bubble over their heads that says, But wait a minute, she didn't respond the way it says she's supposed to on page three. Now how am I going to respond with "Sounds like you're staying busy" - and then the whole exchange starts to feel like that scene in Pleasantville where Bud's boss at the Diner doesn't know how to finish making the cheeseburgers because Bud wasn't there to put the cheese on top.
