June 26, 2007~~12:56 p.m.
Breaking the silence...

My daughter is missing. Not in the milk-carton sense, but in the oh-when-you-get-home-you-are-going-to-be-in-so-much-trouble-for-not-making-clear-to-me-what-your-plans-were-and-then-not-picking-up-your-cell-phone-when-I-called sense. I suppose that if it turned out that she had actually been kidnapped I'd feel pretty bad about the message I left on her voicemail. I wonder how often that happens - people leaving bent-nose voicemails for people who have been kidnapped or in accidents or something. Y'gotta figure it would happen because there is little that is more annoying in this age-of-accessibility than someone not picking up his or her cell phone. In fact, ironically, it seems like that would rank right up there with people picking up their cell phones when they absolutely shouldn't - like in a movie theater or a public restroom.

So apparently I haven't lost my keen eye for societies ills or my ability to complain or to draw broad-sweeping questions from random events in my day, so why haven't I been writing? The answer to that question is a great big fat I D O N ' T K N O W.

Except for the part where I sort of *do* know. It's been lots of things, not the least of which being that when I get out of the habit of doing something, even when it is something that I enjoy doing, I tend to lose interest. I never lose interest in the idea of doing things, just in the actual doing of the things.

Writing is a good example, but so is sex. I could have it everyday. I could have it almost never. It's all the same... well, other than the part where the idea comes in because, clearly, any fool can see in idea mode that having sex everyday is way better than never. On the other hand, in the execution mode there is also tiredness and grouchiness and hormones and a desire to stay up way to late messing around on the internet. And all of those things get in the way of the follow-through so that even if all day long the idea of having sex has been appealing, by bedtime things sometimes feel differently. (Yes, I realize, R, that this is perhaps the best arguement on the planet for having sex first thing in the morning.)

So yea, writing is like that for me. Unlike sex, however, which I rarely begin without finishing, I come here often and start things only to bail on them without posting. Sometimes the ideas don't roll off my brain the way I'd like them to. Sometimes my tendency to get distracted sucks me in another direction.

I wish I could get back to writing regularly; I know I feel better when I'm writing. But I neglect a lot of things that make me feel good... (this is where the husband would probably like me to insert the fact that "sex" is sometimes one of those things).

In the big picture, life is good. School is out for summer. Elle got her driver's permit and is learning to drive. (That, perhaps is worthy of its own entry. Holy crap. I had given no thought prior to the last week about how completely terrifying it would be to be in a car piloted by someone who, other than passing a pencil and paper test, has NO FREAKING IDEA how to drive a vehicle.) I owe email to about a zillion people, some of which I may actually eventually write. But right now, I'm going to the mall.

~Alice

[edited to add that Elle got home safe and sound]