Three Days Before Christmas

Don't think I'm romanticizing SBX. Plenty has already been written about why people come here. Most of us have perfectly good living room chairs or desks where we could work. But still we come. We come alone and with people. There is something simple and anonymous and inviting about a coffee shop. If I come here i have something to do: chat, visit, eat a cup of oatmeal, or like today: design a PowerPoint for a course I'm about to teach. If I'm at home, I will spring from the recliner to do anything to keep from working on a task. And that includes cleaning out sock drawers or toilets. Or just looking up and becoming entranced at the television; something profound, like Tabitha's Salon Takeover. And in the event there is a marathon, I'm done for the day. Of course, creating a blog about the ordinary is definitely not the same as designing a PowerPoint. But, in the world of an academic, nothing is not related...


On Saturday the cable guy came to hook up my digital, hd box (just in time for the Tabitha marathon!). Sometimes I"m in the mood to talk; sometimes I'm not, but that night I was. The cable guy was a talker, so it didn't take much. I mentioned that after 30 years, I have found my career path: I want to write. So, Paul (the cable guy) started sharing his expertise on blogging and tweeting and getting one's work out there but more important--getting down to work writing! Now, I am a master at making excuses for not writing: too much school work I'm behind on, too tired, meetings, toilets to clean...My excuse for not blogging--for I had tried it before--was that it seemed such a waste of time when there was so much other writing to do (for which there was also an excuse; notice the cycle). But in this case, Paul the cable guy was right. Blogging isn't academic. It doesn't even have to be cutting edge about politics or celebrities or music or anything in particular. It doesn't even have to be read. 


So, this is my small, ordinary start. Whatever else I can say about today, I can say that I have been writing. And that feels doggone good. My posts are not intended to be as profound as Huffington's. In fact, if they are profound at all, it will be in the ordinariness, daily life-ness of them. I am really, really good with that. 
And I have just enough battery left to make a dent in a PowerPoint. 
RUW

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