can't focus on any one thing, so why not write?

I can't seem to focus my mind on any one thing right now. I keep hopping from site to site looking for something to occupy my mind, and nothing is really doing it for any length of time. I suppose that probably means I should just go to bed already, but there's this restlessness in me, too, which is keeping me up. So, yeah, can't focus--why not write? I don't know why that made any sense in my head, and furthermore why I'm writing it here in a blog instead of in some kind of journal. I guess there's that fine line between a blog and a journal these days. Well, some people seem to think it's a fine line, I don't so much. There's a big difference. I don't write in either as often as I think I should or as much as I aspire to do, but when I write in the journal, I'm not expecting anyone to ever read it; when I write a blog post, I feel like I'm talking to someone. Not necessarily anyone in particular. Not you, or the other guy who was just here, or his cousin; just talking to someone nondescript.

For some reason, this reminds me of a blog post a friend of mine from high school wrote the other day. She was talking about habits she's trying to get into and ended by asking for the readers aspirational habits. All I could think of was that I'm trying to get in the habit of brushing my teeth twice a day instead of only once. I swear, I don't think I've brushed my teeth more than once any day since I wrote that comment. What is that all about?

I also don't know how I managed to forget that I'm trying to get in the habit of writing. In a journal, a blog, on a project I'm noodling around with, in some way. That's why I started this blog.

So maybe that's why I'm here tonight with this stream of consciousness. Thanks for dropping by.

being outcasts

I heard something really captivating on the TV show This American Life (season 1 episode 3 "God's Close-Up"). Ben McPherson, a Mormon artist feature in the episode, does large scale, ambitious art works of the life of Jesus. He needs a lot of bearded men as models and it's not easy to find men with beards in Utah unless you look at people most would consider outcasts. When asked about this, the artist said "We Christians kind of tend to align ourself with Christ by the things that we do and our actions, but I don't think we ever think of aligning ourself with Christ in terms of being, being outcasts."

That reminds me of my days as a Christian. I was involved in the First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, MI in my mid-teens, a period of my life which corresponded with an age-appropriate dose of rebellion and aligning myself with outcasts. The high point of my respect for that particular church came when our youth group watched The Breakfast Club together and one of the leaders of our group compared John Bender to Jesus. (This is the same leader who organized a group trip to see U2 in concert, which was my first rock concert.)

myspace facebook.com coup?

Granted it's kind of the middle of the night, but it's still a little surprising that I can't find anything on the web about this. It sure seems from where I'm sitting that myspace has pulled off some kind of DNS coup on facebook. When I point my browser to any facebook page, I get directed to myspace. It's weird, very clever (assuming it's intentional) and starting to get annoying. 

Speaking of annoying, myspace has gotten a lot more annoying-looking since the last time I wandered by. I wonder if they're trying to annoy me out of my facebook habit.

on the other hand...

Of course, maybe my sleep issues aren't really issues after all, but just me getting in touch with a more natural rhythm:

http://www.livescience.com/12891-natural-sleep.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Interesting. A big thanks to my lovely wife for sharing the article with me.

general unrest

There seems to be a lot of general unrest in the world this month--from Egypt to Wisconsin, for Pete's sake. OK, file this blog post under d for duh, eh?

The thing that's strange to me is how that general unrest is manifesting in my own life. From unexplained (and seemingly unexplainable) sleepless nights to computers acting wonky, it all seems to be hitting the fan right now. I even ran out of gas the other day for the first time in about 10 years, then locked my keys in the car two days later. I know what my scientist dad would say about our inane need to assign order to chaos--to see patterns in random occurrences--and that's probably all there is to the computers, the cars, and other little things I'm noticing. The strange sense of unrest in my soul, though, that's the one that worries me. Like there are big things happening in the world, and I'm missing it.

In the meantime, I'm loosing focus on the world around me. I'm so worried about missing out on some big picture event that I'm not paying enough attention to the world around me... my son, my wife, people I work with and meet every day, my friends online, my parents on the phone, etc.

And, you know what? This computer is driving me nuts. I don't care what my dad says.

politicians on twitter

The whole John Boehner / Roseanne Cash asshat kerfuffle got me thinking about it today, but when I think back this dates back to at least the infamous "refudiate" tweet from Sarah Palin.

I love that you're on Twitter. Really, I do. I follow some politicians, too. The ones I read regularly, though, aren't using Twitter to convey their whole message. I haven't spent a lot of time looking at Boehner's feed, nor Sarah Palins, but the tweets I have seen are stand-alone barbs. The politicians I follow are tweeting links to articles and blogs and something with more meat. I guess if you speak only in sound bites, 140 characters is enough to get your message out, but don't we expect more from our politicians than sound bites? I do.

I suppose I could probably distill this whole posting down to a Tweet...

"asshat politicians should take the time to write something more detailed and supported than a tweet if they want to be taken seriously"

There. I feel better now.

one has to start somewhere

I'm actually writing something right now. I don't know what it'll be when it's done (or if I'll even finish it--I have a habit of starting writings), but I think it might become something of a novel. I'm not sure, but I think this is the first time I've started writing something which might become a novel. I guess that's an achievement in itself, and I guess I'd better get back to writing it. Whatever it is.