Here I am again about to dive into a bit of consternating. As Chuck pointed out in a pointed mail yesterday, I seem to have dropped off the map. Even my mother noticed; this was after she admitted enjoying my photos much more than my writing, and proclaiming that as long as I kept the photos coming (of which I’ll upload this past weekend’s NYC adventures soon), she wouldn’t miss these words that much. But here I am again, ready to wield the mighty keyboard and consternate about nothing.

I will bore you (after originally writing that I won’t bore you) with why I haven’t written in a while. I’ll even go back and post a few entries I’ve kept in my armpits, afraid that their quality and quantity did not sufficiently warrant me posting on this most spectacular of websites (yes, I’m talking about sewcrates.com, and, yes, you can stop laughing because I meant it as a facetious or sarcastic or downright self-deprecating comment on the brilliance of said website).

This is where I would normally write a paragraph about my flying misadventures to NYC. First: I overslept for my 6am Friday flight; and second: after a four-hour thunderstorm hovered over LaGuardia on Sunday night, I was stuck (with Doolies!) in Houston after we sat unmoving on the runway until all chance of making our connecting flights dissipated with the lightning. But I won’t go into details. I’m finding details in all forms inane lately, especially as they pertain to my life.

In responding to Chuck’s mail yesterday, I provided him with a litany of causes for my output failure. What all the excuses have in common, however, is me not finding interest in this writing thing. I don’t know why I’m doing it or what I hope to achieve. I don’t want to be a “blogger.” I want to write, and I want to post those writings to receive feedback (i.e., positive feedback to feed my ego, not necessarily my back’s ego, but you get the picture). I would love to tell stories, and while I’ve had some admirable tries, I still haven’t found the right formula for me. I’m not sure there is even a formula out there for me.

And assuming I one day wake up and find my voice—and let me take a moment to define “voice” before I finish this sentence. There are two aspects I’ve used this in: the first is a more superficial sense, in which the voice is the narrator’s voice I use to tell a story (or write a musing—the voice of these musings, by the way, was developed during an illustrious career of writing e-mail during college, mostly to my younger sister, to report on my unhappiness, honed to a dangerous point in my exchanges with Chuck after college). While that voice is important, it is not as important as the second aspect of voice, the story voice, or what the hell I want to tell and why the hell I want to tell it. This has been the most difficult aspect of writing for me. Many of my feeble attempts at storytelling have been the recounting of events (or combination of events) in my life. While most authors draw on experience, I’m finding that I don’t have much outside of those experiences to draw on, and, more disconcerting, I find that I end up filling my stories up with these life events to pad words as opposed to push forward with whatever plot or theme I had hoped to get across in the words.

Getting back to my assumption, if I did wake up one day to find my voice (not to throw in yet another aside, but all this talk of voices reminds me that after all these travels, I’m feeling on the verge of sickness—a huge risk with me after subjecting my body to major changes in its strict sleep and eating schedule. As I sit here, I feel phlegm gathering its forces in the back of my throat, coating it to cover the slowly encroaching red mounds that form every time I swallow), if my voice revealed itself to me, I keep thinking my life would change in some drastic way. I’m not saying I would become the Great American Best-Selling Author of High Quality Literature (or GABSAQL, pronounced gab-sackle). What I am saying is that if it happened, even though I know it wouldn’t reduce the pain of putting down words, it would make the words I put down more useful toward my goal. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I love typing words and writing. This crap I’m pouring out today, I’m enjoying every button I press, every word and paragraph that I form on the screen. What I miss, however, in not having the voice is a purpose behind these words. I can write many words today (even not counting the ridiculous asides like this one) because I have a purpose: to analyze why I’m having trouble in writing. I won’t fulfill my purpose, I won’t organize my entry, as I see so many other well-thought-out and proper writers do. I think I gave that up when I gave up writing academically. I realized the amount of effort in both writing and editing this would require, and I left myself wide open to the possibility (and probability, as it turned out) that I would not be able to bring enough energy to bear to both write and edit quality works in the short time I have to write.

Do I have a point? No, not really. I might have a point if I finish throwing down the words and edit them together to form something coherent (unlike this first draft, which, if you had to read it—and there is a small possibility you will, depending how strong the siren’s video game call is tonight), or David-coherent, which is much different from the normal, skilled writer’s version of coherency.

I’m back now. My throat is hurting a bit less, and I’ve exhausted most avenues of internet-related procrastination. Getting here, 1,000 words into this—whatever this is, has been an exercise. The last couple of weeks, I’ve lowered the priority time on my writing significantly. As I was saying before, I’ve been going through a bit of a challenge as to why I’m writing and what I hope to get out of it. I compounded that identity crises by deciding (arguably rightly) that I should stop posting consternations and complaints, and focus on real content. I realize the irony in saying that and posting this entry. I don’t think I can meet my own standards for blogging excellence.

The drought is almost over in Seattle. It’s been cloudy the last couple of days, and any day now the rain will open up and the dust will turn to mud. My car is covered by dry, microscopic dust. I washed it two weekends ago, but it helped only for two days. The back trunk is particularly bad, with my fingerprints covering the handle that opens my trunk. How’s that for senseless ramblings?